Ani Phyo: Raw Sundried Tomato Cheeze & Mylks

Last night in between testing recipes for Jae Steele's upcoming book, I whipped up a few raw specialties from Ani Phyo's "un-cookbook."

First I made some pumpkin mylk, which is said to get the skin glowing! I used the pumpkin milk in an un-raw gravy recipe and it worked just fine. Here's a recipe for Ani's vanilla mylk and a chocolate mylk shake. Check out the cookbook for all the great variations.

Vanilla Mylk

Blend:
1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup pitted dates

1 vanilla bean (or 1 t vanilla)

pinch sea salt

5 cups filtered water

Chocolate Mylk Shake

(pic from Ani Phyo's website)

1cup almonds
1/2 cup pitted dates
1/2 vanilla bean, or 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract, alcohol free
2 tablespoons cacao powder
2 tablespoons coconut oil, liquid
3 cups water

Place all ingredients in your high speed blender, and blend until smooth.

Then I made a batch of Sundried Tomato Cheeze. With the cheezes and pates, a food processor is really ideal. I don't have one (I'm appliance phobic) and just use my Oster blender. I usually adjust recipes a little in terms of adding more liquid so that my blender can handle it, but they still come out great.

The raw cheeze is brazil nut-based and pretty tasty. I think it could handle a little more of something zingy...I will have to work on that. I might stir in a little nutritional yeast, because I am not hardcore raw and therefore can breeze through the issue of whether its raw or not. Love the nooch!

Here's a link to one of Ani's recipes involving a "cheeze." Yum!

Have a great day!

Vegan Baklava

Exercise update: I hula hooped 30 minutes last night! My muscles are sore today, but I did learn how to spin around and keep my hoop going at the same time. That whole walking and hooping thing is gonna take some work...

Here's what I made my dad for Father's Day last weekend! Vegan Baklava!

I finally got my hands on some vegan phyllo dough sheets at a local HFS. I used these and a recipe from Recipezaar to make the baklava. I've never had baklava before, so I can't compare vegan and un-vegan, but this definitely tasted good! Phyllo dough is quite a challenge, but I'd like to try making more desserts with it- so pretty and delicate!

Happy Place, Sour Face, Shoes

Today my honey took me to lunch at a new place, and oh, I am a happy lady! We went to this catering company/fancy grocery/lunch spot and I really stumbled into a little piece of personal paradise. I usually complain that I can't find a lot of ingredients and things because our city is lacking in speciality shops. The Vieux Carre' has sorted that out for me on many fronts!

I found my holy grail of alcohol...the Sofia Coppola champagne minis! I loved Sofia when she appeared in Sassy Magazine oh so many years ago. There aren't that many celebrities I love, but she is just impossibly cool. I saw her champagne minis in some magazine years ago and have been keeping an eye out ever since. I dunno exactly what it says about me, but a teensy pink portable champagne with its own bendy straw is pretty much the be-all end-all of drinks for me. Heaven! I can't wait to try one!

There was also a nice olive bar, lots of good wine, and dry goods to squeal about. I bought some produce and sushi supplies. I can't wait to go back and peruse the spices and sauces. For the cheese eaters, there is quite a selection of fancy stuff. I'm gonna ignore the big meaty presence (Brad said, "Don't look in the freezer. One of our marsupial friends is in there") and be really glad that we have a locally owned shop with this much to offer. I think it's a great place to get hard-to-find ingredients. Our lunch there was nice as well. I had a vegetarian panini and Brad had pesto chicken. All in all a lovely spot!

Here are more fancy Sofia drinks I can't wait to sip...yay!!!

While I am talking about frivolous stuff, I must say that I was so excited to see a MAC counter arrive here, and was subsequently way underwhelmed at the sour-faces working there. Yuck! If I'm gonna plunk out out hard earned dollars on makeup, no matter how sparkly and beautiful the makeup is, I at least don't want to be treated like this huuuuuge, sighhhhh, pain to wait on. Lame.

And finally, I want these shoes. Bad.

Testing, and Pixiepine returns to the land of raw!

What a big weekend of cooking! I had some free time this weekend and spent most of it in the kitchen. It is so crazily hot here already that indoor activities seem to be the best plan. I was so weary and wilted when I ran out to do errands that it was tiring to smile at people! Ack! I fought the urge to guzzle soda and iced coffee, and spent time making some healthy refreshing food!

I am working on testing recipes for Jae Steele's new cookbook, but as testing goes, no blogging on that! Suffice it to say I was cranking out some healthy and delicious stuff all weekend, which we enjoyed at a little impromptu dinner party last night.

Other than my testers, I made a few delicious raw dishes to ease up my summer exhaustion. First was a raw faux tuna salad. I found the recipe on the Raw Freedom Community site. I have made it before, and it is sooo good. The man likes it on crackers, and I like it in scoops on top of a salad. It is great in hollowed out tomatoes too.

Oh My this is a Tuna! (with my adjustments)

1 Cup Sunflower Seeds (soaked)

1 Cup Raw Walnuts (soaked)

1/8 Cup fresh squeezed Lemon juice
1/2 Tsp. Garlic (minced)

1/2 Tsp. Kelp flakes ( I used dulse)

2 Tbs. Nama Shoyu

In FP/blender, blend seeds, nuts, lemon juice, garlic, kelp & Nama Shoyu.

Transfer to bowl and add:

3-4 T organic pickle relish

1 Tsp. apple cider vinegar

1 Tsp. seasoning ( The recipe calls for Herbamare, which I don't have. I used a fun New Orleans mix called Kitchen Witch- you could play with seasoning mixes to change the taste)

1 t dried dill weed

1/4 Cup Onion (chopped)

1/4 Cup chopped Celery

1/8 Cup Parsley (chopped)

Stir until mixed!

I also made a DELICIOUS raw marinara on top of kelp noodles. Kelp noodles were really odd to me at first, but I read a tip to let them soak in a little lemon juice and water, which takes away the crunch. This trick has totally changed kelp noodles for me! This marinara was so good, and I also love kelp noodles in raw pad thai or with an avocado pesto mixed in. This recipe was also a fun opportunity to get to use herbs I am growing. I gathered parsley and basil from my container garden, and the taste was amazing.

The marinara recipe from Ani Phyo:

1 1/4 pounds tomatoes, diced
2 dry-packed or oil-packed sun-dried tomato halves
1/2 cup basil leaves
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 soft Medjool date, pitted and minced
1 small garlic clove
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 teaspoon coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Lastly, I made a great pesto from How It All Vegan. I used fresh basil from my yard, but forgot to take pictures. I heart pesto!!! I'm thinking a big veggie and pesto sandwich on sprouted grain bread sounds terrific for lunch!!

Cheers, ya'll! Whatcha been eating this summer?

Kale & Kat In A Sink!

For dinner after a nice bike ride and swim, I whipped up a delightful kale and tofu dish from La Dolce Vegan. It was a pretty basic recipe, not too wild on flavor, so I decided to defile the whole thing with a bunch of noochy gravy from super dooper cookzine Hot Damn & Hell Yeah. Good choice! This meal rocked.

Before:

Elegant and healthy, topped with pinenuts

After:

Deviant and delish with noochy goodness. I did use spelt flour, so that's a little healthier, right?

Bonus:

My cat in the sink. Yay!

The return from mayhem...

Do you guys get totally off track when things change? In the last 3 or 4 months we have:

*planned a wedding

*had a wedding

*planned a honeymoon (can't wait!)

*house hunted

*bought a house

*moved

*repaired every blasted thing on aforementioned new house

My husband says I get like this sometimes:

I love eating out, soda, snack foods, etc. and I indulge any chance I get, especially with such awesome excuses as moving, being busy, and so on. I am not feeling so hot with all this though. Less exercise, more treat-style food and drink= a tired and sluggish me. My new house is making me want to garden and decorate and such, so I need some more energy, hopefully without resorting to too much coffee/soda/sugar/etc!!

Anybody got suggestions for healthy foods that pep you up? I am thinking a return to more raw stuff is probably a good idea too :)

And now...what I've been up to the last few days:

We had some good friends over for drinks and dinner the other night. We started with some EXCELLENT salsa. A double batch of this stuff was gone in no time!

Everybody threw stuff on the grill ranging from the m-word (them) to potatoes, onions, and corn (me)!

We finished with a Kittee Kake! I made this cake and this icing. Mmmmmm. It went great with way too much white wine and tons of good talking!

The next day I needed something verrry easy and pretty basic due to my over-consumption of said wine. I made black bean soup from the recipe on the back of the box of Fantastic Foods black beans. I topped it with a little Vegenaise because I was out of Tofutti sour cream. It was surprisingly good and really hit the spot along with my giant recovery Sprite.

In other news, I love craft stores. I got all this fun stationary type stuff with little woodland creatures all over it on the cheap! Red flocked deer stickers I tell you!!! Can't wait to sit down and write some letters.

I'll leave you all with a special treat. I found a hydrangea bush on the side of the new house. Yay!!! So pretty!

Till next time!

Sarah Kramer Recipe Appreciation Continues!

Oh my gosh! Punk-in Pasta! Try this recipe if you haven't. I can't believe it's been lurking in my cookbooks this long untasted! I am loving La Dolce Vegan more and more.

Here's my creepy little montage.

I used a mix of sprouted grain fettuccine and whole grain spinach pasta. I used vegan sausage crumbles rather than the links the recipe calls for, cuz that's what I had on hand.

In honor of the cookbook's kitschy theme, we ate on vintage teevee trays!

Deeeelicious!!

Pictures...

that make me happy I'm vegan!

Rise & Shine!

Nothing like a nice early morning! Hahahahahah! But really, waking up early can be fun sometimes...

Here's my recipe for a recent great morning start:

1. Pre-set coffee maker perking at 6:10 a.m.


2. Jug of organic OJ in fridge


3. Batch of homemade spelt blueberry pancake mix chilling in fridge from the night before


4. Nouvelle Vague Pandora station playing on my beautiful new pink notebook computer


5. Happy!!





Check out this lovely blog for the recipe. (I threw in some blueberries!)

Eek aack oohhh!

Those are happy noises, by the way!

One of my favorite new blogs to read, The Diary of an Indy Grrrl, inspired me to go try Polyvore.com. FUN!!!!!

Fun today! by LeslieR featuring Passport accessories

Big Ole Update...and food!

As promised, the Pixiepine kitchen got warmed up this weekend. I had my fair share of soda, Soy Dream, and a big Chick-O-Stick during the move, so it felt really good to get back in the kitchen and make some good healthy food. I am so excited to be breaking in my new kitchen. The prep areas are a little smaller than in the old one, but really nice to maneuver in. We will prolly remodel the kitchen somewhere down the line, but for now we are enjoying it in all it's ranch style glory. There is even one of those openings under the cabinets between kitchen and eating area to serve food.

Here's a recap of the last several days:

Comical moving scene: I got lots of looks making this trip. I think a mannequin (minus her hair in this shot), a coffee maker, and a hula hoop are a pretty good starting to knowing what I'm all about. Teehehehe!! Sadly my Sigg bottle is still MIA, but this may be just the chance I needed to get one of those personalized ones from Cafe Press. Hmmm...

Secondly, here are some shots of the first meal from the new house. The recipe was Ultimate Shepherd's Pie, from Vegan Planet. I chose it because it's meant to be sort of a convenience recipe. It involves a quite saute, some crumbled veggie burgers, and mashed potatoes. It wasn't a culinary masterpiece, but it was perfect for some tired people who wanted a home cooked meal. I think I still prefer a version with faux meat crumbles and lots of vegan cheese, but this was tasty enough.

I planned recipes for the rest of the week out of La Dolce Vegan. I am so excited about our upcoming honeymoon, during which we will be getting tattoos at the shop owned by Sarah Kramer and her husband, Gerry Kramer. I guess my latest dishes are in an homage to my favorite vegan role model! I even got Sarah's 2010 calender for the new house, but it's a little early to hang it up yet...

I also wanted to pick recipes that would make use of my tomatoes and herbs growing. I got to use my new tomatoes, parsley, and basil.

I started with a homemade salad dressing recipe. I dunno why I haven't thought to make my own dressing before. I hate throwing away all those glass dressing bottles, and I especially hate how much they cost. I made a Dijon Vinaigrette from LDV and it was delicious!!

For our entree I made a delicious Roasted Red Pepper Pesto on pasta from LDV. Yum! I used whole grain spaghetti.

I am really proud of my little tomatoes!

Finally, this morning I got my Dr. Ben Kim email. I love these emails. They are always full of good recipes and interesting info. I was excited about the following recipe and hope to try it out soon.

Healthy Jambalaya Recipe
By Dr. Ben Kim

Though authentic jambalaya typically calls for sausage and/or seafood, this meat-free version is still big on flavor and is likely to be appreciated by vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike.

Ingredients:
1 cup long grain rice

14 ounces cooked kidney beans (rinse well if canned)

1 yellow onion, finely diced

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 rib of celery, finely chopped

Kernels from 1 corn cob (about 1 cup)

2 cloves of

/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 to 2 1/4 cups vegetable broth

Extra virgin olive oil

Handful of fresh parsley or cilantro, roughly chopped

Sea salt

Directions:
1. Drizzle enough olive oil into a large pan to lightly cover the bottom and set heat to between low and medium.
2. Add rice and saute for about 5 minutes, then add onion and cook for another 2 minutes - be sure to stir from time to time.
3. Add the rest of the vegetables plus garlic, black pepper, oregano, and cayenne, and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. Now the relaxing part: add between 1.5 to 2 cups of broth. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil. As soon as it reaches a boil, lower heat and allow to simmer for about 35 to 40 minutes. You don't want the ingredients to get dry and burned out, so check on it at the 15 to 20 minute mark and add a little extra broth if you don't see any liquid.
5. Once it's finished cooking, add kidney beans and give everything a good toss to allow the kidney beans to heat through. Season with sea salt, to taste.
6. Just before serving, sprinkle a handful of chopped parsley or cilantro on top.

Yum! Have fun!

Dance Party USA

OMG who wants to start a dance posse? Awesome!

I wanna...

Today's Wants:

MOMA

Etsy

Voodoo Doughnuts

She-Bible

Some vegan cheese toast! (Check out Vegan Crunk's post here).

Gorsh!!! We are all up in the middle of moving! I can't wait to settle in to the new place. I will post some pictures when the kitchen is all set up. Black and white checkered floor...yay!!!!!!!! Vegan kitchen extravaganza...coming up!!

Today in history, courtesy of my handy dandy Slingshot:

1968- Robert F. Kennedy shot, died the next day

1993- Thousands march in Germany to protest neo-Nazi violence

1995- 2500 peasants shut down Mexico City stock exchange

Guest Blog: Vegan Music by Brad!

Superstar Husband Guest Blog! Enjoy!!!

Hi Pixiepiners! I’ve been slowly educating Leslie on the most important subjects known to mankind and that is the history of punk/metal/hardcore. Sure she already had a fantastic taste in music and who would want to marry a woman that DIDN’T know every word and nuance of Bikini Kill’s “Suck My Left One?” Not me buddy, I ain’t no fool! Although she had some blank gaps in her musical knowledge when it came to “wind milling” and “breakdowns”, it’s just because she, unlike myself, has a more mature and intelligent taste in music. Well, except for Peaches, haha.

Leslie was unawares of the vegan movement in punk and hardcore and so I was showing her stuff on the Interbot one night and how even some metal dudes were all up in it. I offered to do a blog post for her and here it is. Now this is in no way Jose a definitive history or even factual, haha, so take it for it is. Come climb into the time machine as I set the dial to 1986…

Youth of Today

As far as I know, they were the first band to put vegetarianism into hardcore punk. I still love this video!! It’s so corny and hilarious and I still dig the music! Check out the T-shirts in it: Insted, Judge, SSD, Bold. Haha, I love it. NO MOOOOOOOOORE! BMX Youth Crew!! When I was a kid I had to tape a copy of this album off my friends record player and his record player always played everything too fast and I listened to that tape a million times and I still can’t get used to how it really sounds. So just in case you’re not old and getting crusty, like me, or have decent musical sensibilities and never listened to this junk, the singers name is Ray of Today and he went on to start Hare Krishna-core with a band called Shelter. It was a huge deal back in the day with religion getting involved in punk and MaximumRocknRoll had a 1,000 page article and everyone was arguing “scene politics” and crap. We went to go see Shelter play when they came to town and Ray told us about his stance against violence and told us he was now against slam dancing and stage diving. Then he tried to make all of us testosterone fueled teenagers take off our combat boots and sit cross-legged throughout the performance. My memory is a little fuzzy but of course he got heckled relentlessly by the crowd and my sister pegged him with a bottle or something, she had pegged an onstage Ian McKay with Chap Stick around that same time as well, I might be getting it mixed up. My friend Nigel told me that we ran into Ray of Today in London years later when I was living over there and I must’ve had too many pints as I can’t remember that at all, but he said I was nice to him though. I wish I still had my Youth of Today shirt…

No More
Meat eating flesh eating think about it
so callous to this crime we commit
always stuffing our face with no sympathy
what a selfish, hardened society so
No More
just looking out for myself
when the price paid is the life of something else
No More
i won't participate
we've got the power we've got the might
to take whatever is in sight
not even worried, it's an unfair fight
well we've got a heart to tell us what's right
our numbers are doubling in 88
cause the people are starting to educate
themselves their friends and their families
and we'll have a more conscious society



Another more popular vegan underground band in the 90’s that sang about veganism and influenced thousands of kids to kick the meat were Earth Crisis. I had heard their song Gomorrah's Season Ends and knew I had to go see them when I lived in San Francisco as I had been hearing about the East Coast militant straight edgers and plus they were playing with Madball who the singer is the brother of the singer in Agnostic Front who I saw sing one song when Agnostic played with Suicidal Tendencies and he brought down the house. Ok, I am rambling.. so anywho.. Madball were great and then Earth Crisis does their slow brooding thing and the pit is warming up when someone gets in the pit and unloads a bottle of mace on everyone and fights break out and the show is officially screwed up. If I remember right I think they battled through it all and got through a whole set. I didn’t really think San Francisco would be ready for NYHC in the 90s anyways. Econochrist was about as hardcore as the scene got back then.




Seitan Worship!

Carcass and Napalm Death

Both British metal bands are legendary in metal and they are vegan! Actually I think only a couple dudes in Napalm are vegan and the others are vegetarians.




These were the first two metal bands that I had heard about being vegan. There’s a lot more now as you can imagine, and there is actually a list here: http://music.vegan.fr/

Cattle Decapitation are one of the more outspoken metal vegan activist bands around these days.



I even saw that Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy is up for Peta’s “World’s Sexiest Celeb Vegetarian 2009”



Well thanks for taking the time to read my post, I hope that some of you were like Leslie and never heard of this stuff and maybe found it interesting or entertaining. My blog is http://whoaskedya.blogspot.com/ if you want to come over and visit.

Pixiepine P.S.
Today in history: Beat poet Alan Ginsberg born, 1926

Choco-Vanilla Cupcakes!

We had a little tween birthday celebration last weekend and I made cupcakes!

I started with the agave nectar vanilla recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I used whole wheat flour, and threw in some cocoa and chocolate chips. These turned out really yummy! (They sort of remind me of that "Nipples of Venus" scene in Amadeus...teehee!)

Viva la cupcake!!

Other news: I finally got a new Slingshot calender for this year. Better late than never!

Today's important dates:

1863: Harriett Tubman led a raid with Black Union troops, freed 750 slaves

1989: 10,000 Chinese soldiers blocked by 100,000 protecting pro-democracy students

Crafty Giveaway

Look how cute!

Plastic Bat Blog