Make food inspired by a book or movie? This post was a bit of a pain as I work. A lot. I usually fall asleep during most movies, and I have a stack of books I WANT to read, but haven't gotten to in ages. If it's not a tabloid magazine, I don't have time to read it. When I find a movie I love, I can watch it dozens of times and be happy. My favorite genre of movies are either comedies or children's movies (well, ok, I love Ironman but food isn't really integral there...) Children's movies are interesting to me, as they so very often are geared towards adults with lines built in exclusively for us grownups. Also, so often children's movies are about animals, my favorite topic! When exactly is it in our lives where the innocence we are born with is smashed out of us so much so that we think it's normal to torture and eat animals? I find it almost astonishing how so many children's movies actually are pro-animal, and pro-compassion.... yet so many people cannot see that compassion IS the way.
My inspiration for today's food comes from the children's movie "Finding Nemo." Seriously, this is one of the best movies ever. I live by the words "just keep swimming," and even better the movie reminds us all that "fish are friends, not food!"
Here's my video for today, I hope you enjoy it, see you tomorrow!
Today I'm supposed to recreate a restaurant meal for you. Scroll down and you'll find my short video. Today I'm showing you my interpretation of a vegan raw meal at Present Moment Cafe in St. Augustine. We found Present Moment on the last night of a quick stop through St. Augustine last year. It's a lovely mostly raw vegan restaurant. Back in the day I never would have even considered a raw food restaurant, yet for the last several years I now seek them out. I could possibly see how someone on the typical standard American diet (it's called "SAD" for a HUGE reason!) might be more than a little surprised by a meal in a raw food restaurant, but thankfully more and more people are waking up to not only the benefits of eating raw, but how it can be elegant as well. The presentation at Present Moment was gorgeous (admittedly I didn't put as much pizazz into my presentation, I'm on a limited time frame), the food was delicious, and the people in there were so friendly. Almost a year later and we still talk about our meal there, and how we cannot wait to go back (it's quite a hike for us up to St. Augustine, but we'll get there again!) While we were there, I was so impressed by the food that I bought a copy of their cookbook (uncookbook?) on site. Although many of the recipes do contain nuts, I've been able to alter them for my own purposes with success anytime needed. For purposes of this video, I stuck with the recipes even though I'm still nut and oil free. The other happy vegan absolutely devoured the food the minute the video was finished, and pronounced it "deeeeeelicious" in his best Pop voice.
Here's my video, I've recreated a raw vegan pesto "pasta" using spiralized zucchini with nut "parm," and a raw brownie banana split. Instead of using the ice cream recipe from Present Moment, I did use the 4 ingredient ice cream recipe from the Vegan 8 blog. It's not raw, but has no added sugar, no nuts, and is absolutely decadent.
Recipes in this video were mostly from the book "Handmade in the Present Moment," but also include one from "The Vegan 8" blog. The vegan "Magic Shell" was one I pulled off the internet, you can use any recipe as long as it's vegan. Chocolate and coconut oil ARE magic when combined and drizzled over ice cream. I highly recommend Present Moment Cafe in St. Augustine, but until you can get there, pick up their book. I love it!
Today's prompt is for the best sandwich ever, which is also probably the easiest prompt for me all month as I just LOVE sandwiches. While I enjoy creativity, I must admit I also love simplicity. My favorite is a tempeh reuben. This recipe for a beer baked tempeh reuben is delicious. A very simple tempeh reuben, with just rye, baked tempeh, sauerkraut and dressing. I don't typically pollute my reuben with pickles, nor do I typically use cheese. In this video, I'm using Daiya, but I prefer Chao (I love Daiya too, just not on sandwiches). I don't put onions on a reuben (can you even IMAGINE????? but, yeah, I've seen that....), or anything else. That's like putting peppers and onions in hash browns.... you hear me, right? When we travel, if a reuben is on a menu it's what I will order. I've had them in many ways.... fancy restaurants like to do silly things like serve them "deconstructed" or whatever it's called, while some diners pile them high like a Jewish deli. I've had good, bad and ugly, but this home made version is divine.
I don't mention the onion rings in the video because it's about the sandwich, but I did a modification of the recipe from Betty Goes Vegan, which also included me baking them not frying. As you'll see in the video, you will have half a bottle of your vegan IPA left after you make your reubens. You can drink it, OR make beer battered onion rings! If alcohol isn't your thing, use apple juice for the reubens, I've done it and works just fine. Here's the video. Scroll past the video if you'd like the recipe.
Recipe (credit: so sorry, I have NO idea.... I do know I took this off VegWeb LONG ago)
BEER BAKED TEMPEH REUBENS
1/2 a 12-oz bottle beer (go for an IPA, it's more flavorful) make sure it's vegan
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire (I use Wizard)
1/2 tsp caraway seeds, optional (I omit)
a few dashes of liquid smoke (make sure it's vegan--I use Colgin, so far still vegan)
1 8 oz pack tempeh, cut into quarters, then halve the quarters
1/2 cup vegan mayo (I use Just Mayo or Vegenaise)
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons chopped pickles or relish (I prefer sweet, you can use dill)
hot sauce, to taste
8 slices vegan rye bread (use a multigrain if you cannot find rye)
vegan margarine as needed
1/3 cup sauerkraut per sandwich (I like more.....!)
Vegan Cheese - optional (I use it in the video, but I do not like it on my own, do as you please)
Mix your IPA in a shallow pan with the Worcestershire, seeds (if using) and smoke. Cut your tempeh, place in pan, cover with foil and marinate about 1/2 hour (I usually leave it overnight, but this is not required).
Preheat your oven to 350 (325 if convection), bake the tempeh, covered, 25 minutes.
Mix up your mayo, ketchup & pickles to make your dressing.
When tempeh is ready, heat a skillet or griddle, spread bread with margarine, place on the griddle a minute or so to start to brown, then add tempeh, kraut and some dressing, assemble sandwiches on griddle, press down with spatula, flip, give a few more minutes till both sides are equally brown.
Today I'm supposed to tell you about something weird that I eat, or a weird food combination. True confessions, nothing I eat is weird. Nothing anyone eats, as long as it's vegan, is weird. I did the best I could with this topic, the other happy vegan says this snack is weird, but it's just SO not.
By the way, aside from mangoes, bananas, vinegar and chocolate, ketchup is Nature's next perfect food.
Today's topic is one I can really get on board with... "quick, easy and delicious!" When it comes to food, that statement is my mantra.
Mango mango mango! Everywhere I look in my kitchen, it's about the mango, so is today's video. My true confession about mangoes: I never liked them before I moved here. Well, I THOUGHT I didn't like them. Turns out, I never had a mango off a tree before moving here, only little mango-like rocks sold in supermarkets up north where I am from (those are just not what I'm talking about here). Shortly after moving here, a friend gave me a whole basket of mangoes straight off her tree for my birthday. I thought "what the heck, I'll give one a go..." The rest is history.
This summer brought a bounty of hundreds and hundreds of mangoes into my kitchen, 99.9% of them have come straight from the trees at the Grimal Grove on Big Pine Key (what's that 0.01% you ask? Gifts from friends gardens, yay!) I've dehydrated the large majority of them for a special coconut mango biscotti I created as an on-going fundraiser for the Grimal Grove on Big Pine Key. It's wonderfully tropical in flavor, and chock full of Grimal Grove dried mango. This past December I bought a 10 tray dehydrator (similar to an Excalibur, without the price tag). I absolutely love it. I got it at Food for Thought in Marathon, it was a floor model and wonderfully discounted to an affordable price. My decision to go high raw was much easier because it's summertime and also was in the middle of our local mango season. There's still a few Grimal Grove mangoes trickling into my kitchen, but season is mostly over for them. I'm very lucky to have any at all coming in right now, thus my frozen and dried stocks are like gold to me.
Everyone all over is getting ready for pumpkin, but here in the tropics we're in the thick of triple digit heat indexes and and frozen mango drinks.
In my best Howard Cosell.... "let's go to the videotape...."
Here we are, day two of VeganMoFo 2015 and I'm supposed to recreate a favorite childhood meal. My preference would be to completely skip/ignore this topic. I'm not really big on promoting poor eating habits, and I think what I'm revealing is pretty awful. As a child, my mother taught me pretty well regarding nutrition, but kids being kids, I liked what I liked and given the opportunity on my own to choose things, I made some very poor choices at times. This "meal" completely reflects that situation.
As you might recall, currently I'm healing from an ankle injury that I didn't properly take care of. By the time I sought medical care, they too completely failed me... casting, boot, brace, medication ... they even wanted to inject me with some horrid type of poison to mask the pain (I declined). I had an epiphany, and decided to move into high raw/raw anti-inflammatory choices of eating for healing. It's been a fantastic process for healing my very wounded ankle. Despite this situation, I'm keeping in line with 2015 "suggestions" of daily topics, and revealing a veganized version of something I used to eat as a child/young adult.
Haters gonna hate on this one, with just cause. What can I say, I'm just the writer and didn't choose this topic. My disclaimer is at least I saw the light, I'm vegan now (and have been for a long time), I advocate the best I can, and I love me my veggies!
Happy MoFo, here's your video. Can you tell by the look on my face I was NOT happy about this video....?
For the last few months, I've been a high raw vegan. I've also eliminated grains, wheat, gluten, oil, nuts, sugar (sugar that occurs in food is ok), alcohol, and of course almost all cooked food. I incurred an ankle injury that happened much longer ago than I'm willing to admit, but didn't take care of things as I should have. Eventually I found myself barely able to walk, with a constant altered gait, in such severe pain that every aspect of my life was being impacted. Although I eventually sought medical care, conventional medicine completely failed me. I took matters into my own hands, or rather my own kitchen. With this temporary lifestyle adjustment along with a regimen of herbs, supplements and enzymes, I'm on the road to healing. Although I haven't yet taken back with running, I'm out of all braces, boots, and casts, have tossed all medication to the curb, and am cycling every day, sometimes 20 miles. This isn't about perfection (I'm high raw, not all raw), if there's something I really want I'll go for it, but that's very rare, as quite simply nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.
