Tomato, Basil, and Mozzerella Bruschetta w/Balsamic Vinegar

Sounds fancy doesn't it? Well it's not. The most inept cook could make this and it's delicious. I snagged the recipe from the Galaxy Nutritional Foods website.

I made this and found no changes I wanted to make, so I'm just going to give you their recipe.

Ingredients: serves 2.

6 slices whole wheat or whole grain french bread

2 tomatoes diced

1/4 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves chopped

2 ounces of the mozzerella cheese of your choice

1 t. minced garlic

1 t. olive oil

2 T. balsamic vinegar

kosher salt and black pepper as needed

In a toaster oven or using your broiler, toast the slices of bread. Flip and toast the other side till browned evenly, set aside.

mix all other ingredients except for the cheese and let sit for 5-10 minutes to allow the flavors to "marry". Just before serving spoon tomatoe mixture on slices of bread and top with mozzerella, shredded or cubed. Slide back under the broiler just until cheese melts. *note, do not go off and leave these unattended. It only takes a couple of minutes. I like a little grated parmesan on top.

This simple dish is great with any green salad or some fancy olives. Or both!

Dinner in a minute.

Southwestern Tostada-Spinach Salad

Next up in my fast and easy favorites handbook is this salad. Spicy, warm beans and melted cheese over organic tortilla chips, topped with shredded baby spinach, fresh tomatoes and olives. Thats actually the basic recipe but I'll outline it a bit more for the non-cooks among us.

Because this is a fast and easy recipe I start with a can of beans and a bag of store bought tortilla chips. Both are available in organic versions.

Beans:

1 can of Ranch Style Beans.

Heat them in a skillet and smash them up with a fork over low heat till they are creamy and still slightly runny. Add a little water if necessary.

Assembling the salad

First a layer of tortilla chips, Then spoon about half the beans on top. Add some shredded cheese on top of that and microwave for about 30 seconds till the cheese is melted.

Take a handful of fresh baby spinach and roll it up tight on your cutting board. Then simply shred the roll. I put a LOT of it, that salad you see is mostly spinach. But I'm funny that way I love that stuff. You can use less if you want, or you can substitute lettuce. Then top the spinach with chopped tomatoes and sliced black olives. Other good toppings are diced onions, salsa, diced green peppers and even thinly sliced cucumbers.

There you go, dinner in a minute!

Fast and Easy, + Organic vs Regular.

As I mentioned in my last post, I"m not feeling the cooking thing right now. However, I still have to eat. I also have friends expressing an interest in being vegetarian. It's hard when you first start out, because without meat you basically have lost your "base" beginning point. So I'll be starting a series on fast easy things to make that don't require a lot of cooking.

I'd also like to say that all of my ingredients are organic. I don't know who decided that dousing plants with poison and then eating them was a good idea, but I disagree. I also don't know who thought that injecting fish dna into tomatoes was brilliant, but I couldn't disagree more. In case you didn't know, only certified organics are GMO free. (GMO meaning Genetically Modified Organism). There is a wealth of information out there about the risks of GMO's. For starters I'll tell you that 3rd generation mice fed GMO's had babies born with hair on their tongues. Also the genetically modified plants are spreading into the world as we speak and altering the landscape. They are virtually impossible to destroy and take over fields of regular plants.

The FDA is virtually useless. They do not require labeling in the U.S. So unless you are buying organic, you are eating GMO food.

If you want to educate yourself about what you are putting into your body 3 or more times a day, I highly recommend beginning with the film "Food Inc." It's a great jumping off place and you will know more about your food in two hours than I could tell you in weeks.

I sincerely believe that we could virtually erase cancer, diabetes, infertility, and many other conditions by paying attention to what we eat and insisting on GMO labeling and eating only organic. But where would that leave Big Pharma? Just a thought.

Simple Supper

Ok so lately I haven't really been in the mood to cook. Maybe it's the onset of spring. I want fresh raw veggies and fruit. I"m dreaming of cold watermelon and cherry tomatoes from my garden popping in my mouth. Well unfortunately we're not quite there yet so here is a simple idea for supper that won't have you slaving in the kitchen for hours while you could be outside soaking up the spring weather.

Hummus and Tomato Sandwich

Two slices of whole grain bread toasted,

Hummus, your favorite flavor

Sliced tomatoes

Baby spinach leaves

Red onion rings

Spread your two slices of whole grain bread with hummus, and layer with any or all of the toppings although the tomatoes are a must. I like to roll up the baby spinach leaves tightly and then shred finely, it makes for a better texture. You can add other things you like as lots of things are good on this: peppers, olives, whatever you have in the house!

Then to go with them,

Baked Potato Wedges with Rosemary

One large potato per person

Olive oil

Chopped garlic

Rosemary

Sea salt

Slice the potato into thick wedges and place into a deep bowl

drizzle with olive oil and add the garlic and rosemary (be generous with the rosemary). Toss around with your hands until the potatoes are coated with the olive oil and spices. Lay them out on an ungreased cookie sheet and place in the oven at about 400 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes and take out. They should be brown on the bottom, if not put back in for a few more minutes. Turn them individually with a spatula to put the unbrowned side down. Place back in the oven for 5-8 more minutes. Take out and sprinkle with sea salt and serve. Yum!

Vegan Mashed Potatoes

I searched for a vegan mashed potato recipe.......hoping to gain some insight into exactly which products were used for butter and milk substitutes. I never found a recipe, so I experimented on my own.
I've found two products to substitute for the milk and butter: Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread and Soy Dream Soy Milk. I buy the 3 pak of the soy milk (3 paks of 8 oz each) and when the potatoes are ready to mash, I just use the same amount of "butter" and "milk" that I used when using real dairy products. For the potatoes I use the Yukon Gold variety. To me, these taste more "potato-y" than Idaho bakers or even red potatoes. If you have any suggestions for alternate products, please post them here.

Red Beans and Rice

Traditional red beans and rice usually has a ham hock cooked within for a bit......and then of course, some sort of sausage. This recipe has neither.......I still managed a bit of the smoky flavor by using liquid smoke, but really, there's no substitute for the flavor the ham hock imparts. In my opinion, it's a tad spicy, but my husband doesn't think so. And again - the resident carnivore pronounced this dish "pretty good", so I take that as a raging endorsement.

This makes a pretty big batch......enough for 10 to 12 people easily. My husband and I will be eating this for dinner for the next week.

Here goes:

1 lb of pinto beans (or use whatever red-ish beans you prefer)
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
A few shakes of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon thyme (I used dried)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 Tablespoons of chopped chipotles in adobo sauce (this adds smoky flavor - try not to skip using it)
1 to 2 Tablespoons of fresh sage - minced (I use 2 Tablespoons)
1 green bell pepper (I blackened mine)
1 cup of finely chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, minced

I use my large crock pot and let the recipe cook for 4 to 5 hours, or until the beans are very soft.
You could cut down on the time by using canned beans instead of dried, but I think the long, slow simmer helps the flavors meld together.

Here are the steps in the order I did them. You could prep some of it ahead if need be:

1). Pick through the beans to remove and small pebbles that may have made their way in the bag. Wash them thoroughly and dump in the crock pot. Add water until the water is about an inch above the beans.
2). Add to the crock pot: the liquid smoke, worcestershire sauce, salt, red pepper flakes, thyme, black pepper, cayenne, chipotles, and sage. Turn it on high.
3). Rub some olive oil on the bell pepper, and blacken it in a pan. Just lay it on it's side, whole and with the stem intact. Check it every few minutes; when it's black on that side, turn it to another side.
4). While the bell pepper was cooking, I chopped my onion and garlic. Leave them seperate - don't combine the onion and garlic.
5). In other pan, heat up a bit of olive oil and saute the onions for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic, stir it around another minute or so. Dump the onion and garlic in the crock pot.
6). By now, the bell pepper should be ready. Let it cool, then chop it into very small pieces. Add it to the crock pot.
7). All you need to do is stir it every so often, and make sure the water level stays above the beans. You will need to add more water throughout the cooking process. I also added more salt and pepper after about 3 hours.
8). I leave my crock pot on high for about 3 hours, then turn it to low for another couple of hours. Cooking time will vary depending on your pot. Test the softness of the beans by taste.
9). When you think the beans are soft enough, mash up about half of them - or more than half, depending on the consistency you want your red beans and rice to have. I just mash them right in the crock pot.
10). Spoon over rice and enjoy!

Creamy Spinach-Mushroom Taquitos

Awhile back Laura posted her awesome spinach enchilada recipe. I made them, (loved them btw) but there are only two of us so I had a container of the filling leftover and I froze it. It freezes very well, and today I pulled it out and made some awesome taquitos with it.

These taquitos are vegan, but anyone who doesn't hate spinach will love them.

They would be awesome at any party or as a main dish, and if you have vegetarian friends you want to feed occasionally these are pretty much a guaranteed hit. The traditional accompaniment for taquitos is sour cream and guacamole. These don't really need sour cream as one of the fillings is a tofutti based cream cheese type thing. Guacamole would be awesome but honestly, just a simple hot sauce would do just fine. They are very flavorful and don't need much help.

The recipe calls for only 1 to 1+1/2 cups of enchilada filling. You can freeze any that is leftover, or make enchiladas the next night. Or if your making a lot of these for a party you can use the whole recipe.

Ingredients:

1-11/2 cups Lauras spinach enchilada filling

1 small tub of tofutti cream cheese (vegan) room temperature

1 t. chili powder

1/2 t. garlic salt

4T of chopped green chili

1/2 t. dehydrated onions

1 t dried parsley

1 doz corn tortillas

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients except tortillas , oil, and enchilada filling.

soften the corn tortillas in the microwave by stacking them on a plate and smearing a little olive oil on each one. Cook in the microwave for about 1 minute just to soften.

take a tortilla, put a spoonful of tofutti mixture in the middle and kind of smear it over half of the tortillas, and then a very large spoonful of spinach mixture down the middle of the tofutti.

Roll up beginning on the tofutti side. Place seam down into large frying pan with heated oil. Let brown and turn and brown the other side. Drain on paper towels. Repeat till you have done as many as you want. You can generally cook 3 at a time.

Serve immediately or place into pan to stay warm in the oven. These are great with traditional beans and rice as a meal, or with guacamole as party fare.