Vegan Ambrosia

I first had "chuna" salad last summer at O2 Vegan Cafe in Cambridge and found that it filled an old craving. It's an easy, quick, and filling vegan alternative that works in sandwiches, on salads, or just on its own. I developed this recipe on my own from trial and error, but you can easily include your favorite additions. Ingredients: 1 can chick peas (garbanzo beans) 3 tbsp vegan mayo 1 tbsp miso paste 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1-1/2 tbsp capers Instructions: Mix first five ingredients in large bowl, mashing the chick peas with a fork until it forms a coarse mixture, leaving small bean chunks. (It requires a little effort to do it by hand, but I've found the results much more satisfying than the paste produced by a food processor.) Then lightly mix in the capers. I made this for lunch with my friend Anna, who said that her school-age children wouldn't be thrilled by the capers. The nice thing about this dish is that...

One of my greatest joys of summer in New England is eating fresh, local produce. After a long winter, I feel lucky receive such a great bounty of fruits and vegetables from farms in towns I recognize - including my own dense city - and even from our own backyards and balconies. Even though I keep learning, I don't always stagger my planting well enough to have a constant harvest all season. Right now, my own garden is in a transitional moment. My first planting of salad greens is starting to flower, and everything else is not quite ready - green tomatoes, white pea blossoms, purple eggplant flowers. Urban agriculture means growing in raised beds and containers. (Zucchini plants are center right.) A zucchini plant with several green buds at the base. Fortunately, zucchini (or courgette, a dark green summer squash) has something to offer, even before it's time to harvest the fruits. Mine have great big leaves and produce several male flowers a day, but I hav...

I love green leafy vegetables, and we all know that they are healthy.   My current favorite is baby kale; I buy a pound of baby greens in a clamshell from Earthbound Farm or Olivia's Organics for $5, and that lasts me the week.  Most greens are best just simply sauteed with olive oil and fresh garlic.  But sometimes it's nice to mix it up a bit - literally.  Here's a quick and easy way to sneak greens into everyday, delicious food - for yourself or your kids! 1 can (or equivalent) chick peas, drained 2 big handfuls mixed baby greens (about 3-4 cups) 1/4 cup water 2 T tahini (sesame paste) 2-5 cloves garlic (according to your taste) 2-3 T olive oil 1-2 T lemon juice1/4 tsp smoked paprika + a dash for the top 1/4 tsp cumin 1/4-1/2 tsp salt (to taste) Combine all ingredients in a food processor and mix until smooth.  I recommend using minimum amounts of garlic, spices, salt and lemon juice at first and adding more to taste.  Add a dash of...

You know when you have a lot left over from your farm share, you're due to pick up the next one, and you have a chocolate craving? What?  It happens to me all the time. This is what came out of that last combination of circumstances night.  I was not intending to turn this into a blog post, and so I apologize for the paltry poor quality photos.  With modifications, the recipe for the cake recipe was drawn from one on   Yummly , the frosting from a recipe on  Nouveau Raw . Cake: 3-5 small  beets (enough to make about 1-1/2 cups when cooked down) water to cover beets for boiling unsweetened applesauce (if necessary, to fill in for the beets) 1/2 cup soy milk (or other nondairy milk), unsweetened 1 tsp apple cider vinegar 1/4-1/2 cup agave syrup (or other liquid sugar) to taste (I used only 1/4 in my first try, but I'd add a bit more next time) 1 tsp  vanilla extract ...

For a vegan potluck the other day, I made a Raw Beet Ravioli with Nut Cheese from an Epicurious recipe: It was delicious, but I used up all my nice big beet slices and had a cup each of the "cheese" and cream sauce leftover.  Soliciting help from my Facebook friends, I came up with this recipe, using the leftover nut cheese, some bits of beet (which had come from my wonderful CSA ), and scallions from my garden.  Thanks especially to my childhood friend E, who has grown up to be a chef, and who came up with the idea and suggested using beets as a sweet substitute for the crab.  The wrappers are homemade - a rare attempt on my part to make dough from scratch - drawing from  another vegan crab Rangoon recipe on the Purple Carrot blog . Filling: Pine Nut "Goat Cheese" 1/2 cup raw pine nuts 1/2 cup raw cashews 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 small shallot, peeled and diced 1/4 teaspoon lemon 2 Tablespoons fresh...

I spent a few days camping at Savoy Mountain State Forest this week, and on the way out there, I picked up my CSA share.  I found myself with the following haul: two quarts of strawberries, two tomatoes (which could use a couple more days of ripening, imho), a bag of spinach, a bunch of rainbow chard, and a head of green leaf lettuce.  The strawberries were too good for anything but eating straight, as many as I could in three days.  I saved the spinach and tomatoes in the cooler, and they survived quite well the return home.  But I had to use some of the greens, no?  How does one cook greens on a campfire?  I could have cheated and used my camp stove, but instead I had great success steaming them in foil. Soaking the greens in fresh water in the wash basin, just as I would do at home, removed all the grit and such.  I saved the water for the first rinse of the dirty dishes. Break up the chard and the lettuce separately by hand. Mix toge...

I recently decided that, even as I cut back on calories overall, I need more chocolate in my life. More and more research is coming out about the health benefits of chocolate, with the only caveat I see is that it comes with unhealthy fats and refined sugars we don't want. So let's eat chocolate in forms that are healthier and still enjoy the benefits (including deliciousness)! This recipe gets its sweetness from agave syrup and dates, and the fats come from nuts and legumes. I adapted this recipe from a few others, and really, you can adjust ingredients and amounts to make this your own. Brownies: 1 cup raw walnuts 1 cup raw pecans 2 cups pitted dates 1 cup raw cacao powder 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut shreds 1/2 cup agave syrup dash of salt In food processor, chop walnuts and pecans coarsely.   Add dates and cacao powder and chop together until a fine crumble; then add coconut, salt, and agave syrup.   Run food processor unt...