Vegan MoFo! Post #4: Raw Vegan Ice Cream at Home for PENNIES!

That's right. Forget about that $6.99 raw vegan grocery store-bought stuff. You can make it at home for WAAAY cheaper! 

About a year ago, I wrote about making raw vegan ice cream out of frozen bananas using the idea I'd read about on Choosing Raw. This stuff is amazing. Seriously, if you've never tried this before, YOU MUST TRY IT RIGHT NOW. It's everything you could want in a homemade ice cream recipe - fast, easy, cheap, healthy, versatile, and delicious. Oh, and kind of magical.

Anyway, this recipe is a staple of my own personal Barebones Vegan Kitchen, and yet I'd never paused to snap a photo of the finished product - until now.

The frozen banana chunks being whipped into ice cream by the food processor.

The final product. Kinda looks like ice cream, right?

And now you have photographic evidence.

Here's what I do:

Ingredients:
-A bunch of bananas

(yeah, that's it.)

Chop each banana into quarters (or whatever) and freeze them. You'll probably want to keep them in the freezer for at least 8 hours, if not longer. I like to keep mine in a re-usable plastic container to keep them from freezer burn.

When the bananas are frozen solid, put them in a food processor and process them until they form a custard-y, creamy texture. You may be tempted to add water at first, but trust me, just let them do their magic. :-)

Eat plain or top with melted vegan chocolate, melted peanut butter, chopped mango, coconut shreds...whatever you love!

Vegan MoFo! Post #3: Capellini with Vodka Sauce

Foods of Various Cultures...

Hands down, my favorite pasta variety is capellini. I love the delicate texture, and how the thinness provides more surface area to pick up even the lightest of sauces and flavors.

That said, vodka sauce is not, by any means, a light sauce. It's okay. It's still a great pairing, trust me.

It is common in Italian cuisine to use alcohol to bring out the flavor in tomatoes and other vegetables. This is often accomplished with wine, but vodka sauce uses, well, vodka. This was my first time making vodka sauce and I totally winged it. I didn't even know I was going to be making vodka sauce until mid-way through the process of making it. If you tend to shy away from free-style cooking, I encourage you to experiment with whatever's in your kitchen. No recipe, no plan, just go with it and feel liberated! When it comes to cooking, I'm a firm believer in not having firm beliefs. This is why there is jalapeno in my vodka sauce.

So, in the spirit of experimentation, take this recipe as a guideline rather than a formula!

C a p e l l i n i  w i t h  V o d k a  S a u c e

Ingredients:
1/2 red onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced 
3 large-ish roma tomatoes, diced
2 cups of mushrooms, diced - I used white button
1 1/2 cups basil, cut into fine shreds
1/3 cup French Onion style Tofutti cream cheese 
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup tomato paste 
2 ounces of vodka (or, one and a half shots)
sea salt to taste 

Saute the onions until softened. Add the jalapeno and garlic, then the tomatoes, then the mushrooms and 1 cup of the basil.

Heat some olive oil in a separate, large pot. Add the tomato paste and cook until almost boiling. Add the ingredients from above, along with the vodka, olive oil and water. Stir. Add the cream cheese and stir until evenly distributed (the sauce should lighten). Bring to a boil and then immediately turn down to simmer. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Salt to your taste.

When serving, garnish with the remainder of the finely shredded basil.

What I'd Do Differently Next Time:
Incorporate the vodka earlier. I think this would enhance the flavors of the vegetables even more than adding the vodka when I did. Use more roma tomatoes.

I served this with a side of broccoli and Tofurkey Italian sausage.

Vegan MoFo! Post #2: Sinus-Zap Tea

Foods That Heal... 

I've been sick for the past week, and I'm at the point where my voice, my sense of smell, and my ability to taste are all compromised. Yep, with a busted tailbone and the flu, I'm in pretty bad shape right now. So I'm in on this lovely Saturday night when I would otherwise be at my friend's birthday party/housewarming bash. I don't want to miss out on more than I already am, so I'm ready for this flu thing to be over! (I want the tailbone issue to be resolved, too, but I realize that takes time and it is healing quite nicely, albeit slowly.) At the helpful suggestion of my roommate, and because of my fascination with Prometheus Springs, tonight I decided to concoct a special get-well-now drink. Not soon. Now.

My favorite Prometheus Springs drink, and really, a favorite juice combo of mine in general, is Lemon Ginger. All of their drinks contain capsaicin, the compound that makes chili peppers spicy. Capsaicin will create a burning sensation in any tissue that it touches, including skin (anyone who's ever chopped jalapenos will tell you this!).

Chili peppers have been used since 5000 BC in South America and China for both cuisine and medicine. Today, the capsaicin in chili peppers is still believed to have a wide range of medicinal properties, including but not limited to improving digestion, helping with stomach ulcers by stimulating the production of mucus, and strengthening heart function [3]. It apparently increases blood circulation, [1] and can prevent or even stop a heart attack [2]. It's also supposed to help with pain relief when applied topically, including mouth sore pain from chemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as sore throat pain [3] [2]! These are just some of the things capsaicin can do for your health. 

Cayenne pepper, one of the many types of chili peppers, is what I decided to use in creating my own lemon-ginger-capsaicin drink. I used the powdered form. It's such an easy way to incorporate capsaicin into a drink because you can get it relatively cheaply, it's non-perishable (well, within reason), and a little bit goes a long way. Not only that, but cayenne, specifically, is said to be full of vitamin A and vitamin C, as well as some of vitamin B6, vitamin E, riboflavin, potassium, and manganese [1] [2].

It cures what ails ya.

There you have it. And does this miracle food work, you ask? Well, I can tell you that it certainly did temporarily clear my nasal passageways so that I regained my sense of smell and was better able to breath. It also helped temporarily relieve my sore throat pain. See below for what I did!

S i n u s - Z a p  T e a

Ingredients:
100% pure ginger tea leaves (bagged or loose, whichever you prefer)
2 lemon wedges
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder 

Steep the tea in boiling water. Add the cayenne, then squeeze lemon juice into the cup. Let the lemon wedges remain in the cup.

Let me know if you try this and tell me how it goes for you!

Vegan MoFo! Post #1: Let the MoFo COMMENCE!

Oh, I'm so excited about this year's MoFo! Oh, the delicious and fun experiments I have planned! Oh, don piano!

This is how it's gonna break down:

Foods That Heal  I'm really into alternative medicine and healing, and I've been wanting to have a better understanding of the healing properties of different foods. I'll explore this from various perspectives: Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism, and others. Of course, all remedies I post will be vegan.

photo cred.

Foods of Various Cultural Cuisines  I'm gonna discover what I never would've discovered before. I'm also gonna re-visit some all-time favorites. This will be all over the place, geographically. Hey, wanna be included? If you have an old favorite that your Burmese/Malian/Swedish/Bulgarian/Brazilian/Mayan/Lebanese (you get the picture) Grandma used to make, send it to me and I'll make a veganized version to post! You and your heritage will go down in vegan infamy.

photo cred.

How to eat vegan on a shoestring budget  Broke? Me too. Let's figure this out. I started The Barebones Vegan Kitchen during last year's MoFo and plan to continue throughout this year's. Follow me as I explore how to subsist - no, flourish - as a vegan with no cash in the bank! This is also useful for helping your broke friends become vegan, promoting the notion that veganism can be accessible to more than just the middle-upper class, removing the financial barriers....veganism for everyone!!!!

Mice forage for food as a primary means of survival. photo cred.

I will rotate among the themes throughout each week of MoFo, so that within every week, you will have the opportunity to see what I've got cookin' in all three of these categories. Sometimes the themes will naturally overlap, as well.

So there you have it. My triple-threat theme for Vegan MoFo 2011. Mangia, my pretties!


Stay tuned for another post later today...

Updates and Forecasts!

It's been a few months since I last posted, and a lot has happened.

First, I successfully defended my dissertation in July.

Naturally following from this, in August, I graduated! I am now Doctor Foodchain. Or, Foodchain, Ph.D., if you like.

I 

AM 

DONE. 

!!!!!!!!!!

After finishing, I traveled around the east coast a bit. I re-visited some of my favorite vegan cafes and sampled other vegan hot spots for the first time. Reviews to follow in the coming weeks.

Once I returned to LA, I threw a celebratory pool party. 

A rare piece of French impressionism, likely from the splash pool collection.

Next up was a road trip to the deserts of Nevada. A camping trip happened. I learned how to survive without running water - in the desert - for a week. I fractured my tail bone. I saw lots of cool art and practiced radical self-reliance. 

A scene from Black Rock City, NV

Yeah, ouch.

photo cred: http://tailboneinjury.com/

As I slowly heal and seek employment, I will also be participating in Vegan MoFo. This is my second year in a row. You can find my 2010 MoFo posts here.

I have some pretty amazing sh*t planned for this year's MoFo. 

photocred: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Acrobats

'til then,
dr. foodchain

me & nico. she's not big on still shots.

The Barebones Vegan: Another Quick Dish for Less

Orzo-Steamed Spinach

I'm going to tell you about a recent dish that my boyfriend and I invented, called "Orzo-Steamed Spinach." Well, technically, it was mostly me that invented it, but I'll give him credit for getting me to love orzo. :-)

There are a lot of ways in which this dish is awesome. Allow me to elaborate...

• It can be made in less than 10 minutes.
• Its ingredients are either very cheap or, if they're expensive, they are the kind that last a long time. I have listed the prices after each item on the "shopping list" for this dish, below. Although the Earth Balance is pricey, it will last you a while, provided you use it as a condiment and not for baking. Same goes for the sea salt and pepper, which you may even already have. As for the organic baby spinach, it's much more economical to buy the huge container, as the price per ounce is significantly less than that of the smaller containers (trust me, I checked!). Plus, it's a hearty vegetable, so you won't have to worry about it rapidly going bad, so long as you keep it refrigerated.
• It's a great way to consume a large portion of green vegetables without having to go the salad or green smoothie route (which you may be sick of!)
• You only have to dirty one pot, yet you get two hot foods.
• Cheap and/or long-lasting ingredients, plus quickness (seriously under 10 minutes to make!!!), means that it's the perfect "eating for several days in a row" meal when you're mega-busy and don't have time or feel like meal-planning - like during finals week! or a week when you have to work late every night! or while you're writing your dissertation, like me!
• It's really delicious, despite its simplicity! 
 

So here's your ingredients shopping list:

1. a box of "orzo" which is a type of pasta shaped like little, flat footballs (1 store-brand box costs about $0.99 or less here in LA)
2. Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread (usually about $5.99)
3. the huge, 16 oz plastic container of organic baby spinach (I think this cost me something like $5.39)
4. sea salt (prices vary depending on container size)
5. black pepper (prices vary depending on container size)


And here's the recipe:

I'm not going to list the ingredients because they're just the 5 grocery-list items above. So, what you do is cook at least a couple "servings" (say, 1/3 of the box) according to the package instructions. When the orzo is done, stir in a teaspoon or more of the Earth Balance and mix it up real good. Hey, you could even use olive oil if you wanted. Put a mound (really, go nuts) of the fresh spinach on a plate. Cover the spinach some of/all of the hot orzo. Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper. Wait a few minutes for the hot orzo to "cook" the spinach a bit. Makes more than enough for one person.

This is meant to be a light meal or an accompaniment to something else, say, a heap of white beans (which are also cheap and easy to prepare!).

My camera phone doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea. In this particular photo, you'll see I added some yellow peppers. This was only because we had some from our CSA and I wanted to try them out.

For other cheap, easy ways to be vegan, see my other Barebones Vegan posts.

Deathrow Mac 'n Cheese

It's about time I post about this recipe. If I were famous for a recipe, or famous at all, really, it would be because of Deathrow Mac 'n Cheese.

A brief history is in order. The recipe itself was inspired by a google search long ago, when I came across this recipe. 

I decided to alter it a bit to suit my own personal tastes, which ultimately evolved into my signature recipe below. 

The name, "Deathrow" comes from my friends, AJ and R, who declared it the meal they'd want for their last, should they ever find themselves on death row. Yes, people think it's that good. AJ liked it so much that she even adapted the recipe a bit and posted her version of it on her blog, here. I've also been told, by an omnivore who does not like the dairy version of mac 'n cheese, that this tastes amazing. Like I said, lots of credibility for this dish.

Here's the recipe:

D e a t h r o w  M a c  ' n  C h e e s e 

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plain soymilk (unsweetened kind)
1 cup water
1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 cup nutritional yeast
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 block of firm tofu
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon of German-style mustard (I have mad love for inglehoffer's stone ground mustard)
2/3 a bag of mozzarella Daiya cheese shreds 
1.5 pounds/1.5 boxes of brown rice pasta, either the mini shells or the elbow macaroni variety


Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients except for the Daiya and pasta into a blender, and blend until smooth. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box/bag. Once the pasta is done, drain and spread evenly into a casserole pan. Pour the blender mixture over the pasta, and stir around until it is fully integrated throughout the pasta. Do the same for the mozzarella Daiya, and save some to sprinkle over the top.

Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes (or slightly more or less, depending on your oven). The cheesy mix should be bubbling and the pasta should look slightly goldened/browned.

Highly recomended: Serve with kale salad.

Note 1: You may be skeptical about the brown rice pasta, but one time I didn't have any other kind on hand, so I used that, and the results were amazing. The other party guests even said that it was particularly good compared to how it usually tastes! So I now make it exclusively with brown rice pasta.

Note 2: This makes a lot and keeps well in the fridge. To reheat, just put it back in the oven or microwave. 

Hope you enjoy! Let me know if you come up with your own variation that you love!