Cucumber Crunch Salad

Good morning! It's a luscious Wednesday morning, and I once again feel like a human being! I'm going to cop to having taken an Advil congestion relief tablet last night before bed, but I have been making steady progress ever since starting the tomato tea, grapefruit seed extract, and oil of oregano regimen. I took the day off completely from working out as well, and skipped yoga (since breathing through the nose is kind of essential.) I don't like the idea of skipping designated workout days is early into a new fitness routine, but it seems that my body responded positively to the extra rest.

In keeping with the idea of recuperation, my morning smoothie was packed with vitamin C; two pink flesh oranges (Whole Foods strikes again!) a Meyer lemon, a handful of spinach, the bulk of a romaine heart, one mango and a scoop of soy protein. Delicious.

For dinner, I made a raw Cucumber crunch salad with Macadamia Cream (both Recipes from "Raw Food".)

For the salad:

One cucumber, peeled and diced.
2 tbsp macadamia cream
1/2 white onion, chopped
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
1/2 tsp dill seeds

For the Macadamia Cream:
10 macadamia nuts
One orange, juiced
2 medjool dates, or 4 of any other kind

Stupify the ingredients for the cream in a food processor until it is thoroughly stupid. Confuse the salad with the cream, mix well. Voila.

Now a couple thoughts. I do not care for raw onion in almost any situation where it is even remotely discernible as such. I found it over powered the salad, and had to add an entire extra cucumber to pacify the dish. Next time I will leave it out altogether, toy with the idea of caramelizing first, or in all likelihood, substitute a more affable vegetable like green bell pepper.

The Macadamia cream was super-yummy. I probably would have made a little more proportionally to the amount of salad. Also, I did add Meyer lemon juice to combat the fumes of the raw onion. You've been warned. Make sure you wash your knives before chopping anything post onion, like a cantaloupe or honeydew melon. I didn't engage in any such foolishness yesterday but am always interested in sharing wisdom I have accumulated through trial and error over the years.

In other news, the Kimchi should be ready tonight, I did manage to squeeze a second chopped napa cabbage into the jar, and taste test will be this evening.
I'm in love with my new Pampered Cef cutting mats, which have a non skid surface on one side, take up very little space, and wash like a breeze. If you're not going to a pampered chef party anytime soon, I saw something similar at ocean state job lot, along with a giant bottle of raw blue agave syrup for about $6. PC also makes adjustable measuring spoons which are quite possibly smarter than I am.


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Location:Madison, CT

Raw Beet Salad!

Still on the mend, but definitely mending, thanks to tomato tea, grapefruit seed extract, and oil of oregano. Feeling like more raw foods might give me the boost I need to conquer this thing, so in that spirit I have raw dinners on the menu for Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Last night I whipped up a simple beet salad, (from the Boutenko's "Fresh" raw cookbook, and also started a raw live Kimchi from the same book.).

Delicious, but pungent, this recipe calls for the following:
3 diced fresh beets
5 (yes, five) cloves of fresh garlic
1 tsp of honey
1 tsp of lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Assault all ingredients in a food processor until you have a nice, nicely nice, relish consistency. Once again, this is probably not a job for the Vitamix, unless you want a raw beet and garlic smoothie. I served these in red wine glasses, with the suggested oregano garnish.

This salad was pungent but very tasty, definitely not for vampires, and if you prefer, you can adjust your orbit a bit and roast the garlic first. Also, you might tweak the amount of honey, lemon(I used Meyer lemon, which are lovely when you can get them) or both, you can significantly adjust the overall flavor of the dish. The purists among you will not use honey, so raw agave works just as well. I have no issue with honey, or homie, as my autocorrect suggests. Bizarre.



The live Kimchi is a process, but it's coming along. Kimchi is basically a Korean fermented cabbage, similar to a sauerkraut, but spiced much differently. The recipe will be forthcoming when I have the cookbook handy, it did require a few more unusual ingredients, but thankfully, nothing I couldn't find on the hallowed shelves of Whole Foods, ( I did have a moment of panic when I couldn't find Kefir starter, and thought for a second I might have to crawl back to the Asian market with cash in hand and tail between legs.) thankfully a knowledgable clerk showed me where it was. I am eternally grateful, you have no idea.

I only bring it up now because A. It requires time, and B. I'm already seeing the need to adapt the process. Boutenko calls for 3 entire napa cabbages stuffed into one gallon sized jar, but when I took a look at the size of the cabbages, I knew I could scarcely fit one into a jar at size. However, as it ferments it shrinks quite a bit, so my plan is to add more cabbage today, and let the mixture ferment another 12-24 hours.
Pics forthcoming.

If anyone is interested, I think I'm going to start post good local finds, talk about kitchen implements etc that I find useful (or not,) and anything else that seems appropriate.

See you in cyberspace!




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Thai Black Beans with Mango and Cilantro

What's better than a fresh, hot serving of your favorite dish? Often times, it's leftovers. Definitely the case with this dish, Thai Black Beans with Mango, and Cilantro (from Terry Walters, Clean Food) which I'm enjoying for lunch as we speak. Sometimes a certain recipe still has a little magic left to work in the fridge, and the extra the has stood this one very well.

Also, a shout out to my Mama, whose birthday was yesterday, and who consented to have this dish prepared as a birthday meal. Don't worry, even though it was amazingly delicious, she and my father pre-gamed the night before at The Guilford Bistro, just in case. As a person with a well-developed sweet tooth, she was also treated to a tart and tangy Cherry Mocktail.

A word to the wise, the Thai beans recipe assumes that you have A. Soaked your beans overnight and B. cooked them to desired softness before you begin. You can use a "quick soak" method, which of course I did, but it's still going to set back dinner time by an hour or two.

Here's the biz:
1/4 cup fermented black beans (just a note here, these are actually fermented black soy beans, and an Asian market or the interwebs are really your only hope. They are also known as Douchi. If like me, you don't happen to carry cash around with you much, be prepared to haggle with the clerk over a minimum credit card purchase amount. One more tangential note, of someone knows a good Asian market besides the one in east haven, let me know, since they don't like me very much now.)

2 garlic cloves peeled
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp roasted red chili paste
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp sucunat (an unrefined sugar with the molasses component still intact, whole foods has got you covered. Now if they'd just work on the Douchi.)
1 tbsp lime juice

4 cups of cooked black beans
2 mangoes peeled and chopped
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Soak the fermented beans in hot water for 2 minutes, then drain them, rinse them, and drain them again. Add The next 6 ingredients, blend to a pasty sauce, and set aside.

Heat your cooked black beans until they are heated through. Add the fermented bean mixture, stir until thoroughly combined.

Walters suggests you take this mixture, press it into a mold, flip it over onto a serving dish, and drizzled it with the mangoes and cilantro. Honestly, if I were entertaining guests or trying to be impressive, I would have given it a shot. In this case, we were all hungry, so I dispensed with aesthetic and spooned the beans over some basmati rice, the spooned the mango/cilantro over the beans. Still a pretty picture actually, and less one mold and one serving dish to wash. Win win, I say.



Let me also extol the virtues of a rice cooker. Although it is one more thing to clutter up your kitchen, it makes cooking rice or quinoa a breeze. You can spend a lot of money on one, but mine cost about $20, makes about 3 cups of rice at a shot, and works just fine. When in the midst of preparing the main course, it's nice to be able to "set it and forget it," as they say in the infomercials. If you need more than 3 cups of rice at a shot, we may need to have a serious talk, unless of course you're feeding a lot of people. For the most part, it me and Mama. One of these days I might cook something that appeals to my father, but it doesn't seem bloody likely. According to him, the four major food groups are represented thusly (in order of importance):
Diet Soda
Chocolate Ice Cream
Ground Beef
Ripple Potato Chips

I'm working on it, folks, but it's sort of like trying to teach an orange traffic cone to play the harp.

See you in orbit!
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Tomato Tea and Cookbooks

It's a sunshiny afternoon in New England, if not particularly pleasant, but mild enough. My sinuses have been at war with my head for about 48 hours, culminating with the loss of my voice due post-nasal drip yesterday. It's back now, so you can stop smirking. I had originally intended to make raw avocado burritos last night for supper, but as I had no appetite and have been feeling generally miserable due to the inability to breathe freely, I opted for something a bit more medicinal.
I found this "Tomato Tea" recipe on a website called "Earth Clinic," supposed to be good for sinus congestion. I have to say I'll be darned if I'd didn't seem to help clear up my head right away. In fact, I'm making a big batch this afternoon for consumption over the next few days. Definitely try this one out!
It calls for tomato juice, and since I happened to have the innards of several heirloom tomatoes sitting in a jar feeling without a purpose ( a by-product of Thursday's Double-Stuffed Tomatoes--is anyone else's inner 11-year-old giggling?) I made mine fresh in the vitamix by simply adding a cup or two of water. I'm sure it would work just fine out of a can as well, if not better, as I'm told recently that tomatoes cooked have different but equally beneficial nutritional value to raw.
Long story short, it seems to work quite well.


In other news, I thought I might share some of my favorite cookbooks, and uncookbooks, with you, since almost everything I've prepared this far has been a selection from the forthcoming list. In no particular order, here they are:
"Vitamix: Live Fresh Raw/Vegan/Vegetarian Recipes," Various Authors, 2011.
(I'm not sure if this is available for retail sale, but it comes with the Turboblend VS package, and may be available to purchase at Vitamix.com
"Raw Food," Julie Rodwell, Editor, Hatherleigh Press 2008
"Fresh: The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook," Sergei and Valya Boutenko, North Atlantic Books, 2008
"Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook," Isa Chandra Moscowitz and Terry Hope Romero, Da Capo Press, 2007
"Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source," Terry Walters, Sterling Publishing, 2009
"Serving Up the Harvest: Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables," Andrea Chesman, Storey Publishing, 2007
"Tomato: A Fresh-from-the-Vine Cookbook," Lawrence Davis Hollander, Stroey Publishing, 2010
"Power Juices Super Drinks," Steve Meyerowitz, Kensington Books, 2000
"The Juice Lady's Guide to Juicing for Health," Cherie Calbom, Penguin Group, 2008
I've also found several wonderful recipes on the web, and if/when I come across a gem I'll be sure to share it here as well.



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Maple, Mochi, Tomato Ice cream, and more!

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a couple of days but it dies not mean I haven't been busy! I am pleased to say that my cooking schedule has stayed right on track!

Thursday night was red cooked cabbage. Made with green cabbage, the red comes in from the colors of everything else it gets cooked in. Although, truth be told, they should call it brown cooked cabbage, but I can see where that might not sounds as appetizing, and it was very good. This one was a cinch! Here's the biz:

1 cabbage sliced thinly
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup vegetable broth(I've been opting for Rapunzel brand bouillon rather than keeping cans or cartons around what is quickly becoming a well-stocked kitchen.)
1/2 cup of soy sauce ( I used Bragg's Aminos, just as flavorful and much lower in sodium.)
2-3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
1 table spoon rice wine or dry sherry (I used sherry because I happened to have it in the pantry already.)
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns

Cook the cabbage in the oil until it is vice and tender, add everything else, and simmer 25 minutes covered. Check out "Serving Up the Harvest" for the full recipe.

The result was pungent and peppery, I had mine for dinner ladled over a healthy serving of quinoa for some protein.




The night before my experiment du jour was maple roasted carrots. And frankly it's as easy as it sounds. This one also comes from "Serving Up the Harvest."

1 pound of carrots, cut into bite sized spears
1 tablespoon butter (or vegan buttery alternative)
2-3 tablespoons of pure maple syrup (hint: Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth wouldn't know the real thing if it bit them.)
Parsley for garnish

Roast the carrots 10-15 minutes in a single layer in a greased baking sheet with sides. Melt butter and syrup together, drizzle over carrots, bake another 10 minutes.
Sweet but not too sweet, this would make a lovely, colorful addition to a holiday table in lieu of a more expected, nightmarish sweet potato marshmallow casserole.








Today ended up involving a bit more free time than I had originally anticipated, so I tried a couple of new things, to surprisingly pleasant results. First, raw "double-stuffed tomatoes," filled with a sunflower seed and sundried tomato filling. Second, tomato strawberry ice cream (made with, you guessed it, the vitamix) which I then used as a filling for mochi.

If you're not familiar with mochi, it's a Japanese dish, made from sweet rice flower and sugar essentially, which combines a sweet taste with a doughy,chewy texture. Almost but not quite gummy, mochi is often served as bite sized balls fille switch ice cream. There's a Mochi store on Crown St in New Haven, and all I have to say is whatever they charge, it's worth every penny. This stuff is a royal mess to make, from beginning to end. I should have taken a shot of the disaster area that was my kitchen during the mochi making process. Alas, as I was up to my elbows in gooey, sticky, hot mochi, I was unwilling to touch anything I couldn't easily wash. This of course includes the iPhone. I once heard someone compare an iPhone to Joan Rivers' face, something along the lines of they cost too much money, and if you get them wet you're fucked. I believe it on both counts.

Here's a shot of what mochi should look like:


Here's one of mine:


In all fairness, they taste the same. Mine are much darker because I used an unrefined sucunat sugar instead of white. And make sure you give these things a good dusting of cornstarch. Otherwise they will stick together, and, as you can see, this can lead to some mochi breakage when prying them apart.

The tomatoes by the way were just ok. Three out of five stars. The filling needs a little bit of zing factor, maybe some lemon juice, I'm not sure, maybe a higher ratio of sun-dried tomatoes and olives to seeds. They were tasty, but I had to spice mine up with a few spritzer of Bragg's Amino Acids. I will say, they look fantastic!



So at the end of the day taste and presentation were a wash, one dish succeeding where the other lacked. The tomato ice cream, by the way, spectacular!

I am working at becoming more diligent about sharing actual recipes with you rather than mere descriptions, and in the very near future will set out a list of all the wonderful cookbooks(and uncookbooks) I have been using.

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Ode to my Spiralizer

First let me begin by congratulating the person who decided to mince ginger and put it in a jar; will you marry me? Second, let me wax rhapsodic about one of e most useful kitchen gadgets one can own, the Spiralizer. Sounds like something you'd see on a late night infomercial, I know. And basically it only does one thing, which is to take a hunk of sweet potato, zucchini, carrot, or whatever else you might have handy, and slice it up into long thin spaghetti strips, or broader pappardelle type noodles if you have one with variable cutting options. Nothing to plug in, powered by elbow grease. At first the applications might seem limited, but trust me, I pull this contraption out more times than one would think,especially given my proclivity toward raw and vegan food preparation these days.

Last nights main course, for example, a zucchini "pasta" with a raw pomodoro sauce.
Start to finish in 10 minutes, and into the fridge to be consumed after my yoga class. I was running a little short on time, so it worked out nicely that I'd planned such an easy prep dish for Tuesday night, not to mention I don't like to do yoga on a full stomach. Once you've Spiralized a zucchini or two, perhaps about a cups worth per serving, it's a matter of throwing some veggies in the vitamix and pulsing a few times to get anime chunky, raw tomato sauce.

Raw Pomodoro Sauce ( from my Vitamix cookbook.)

3 Roma tomatoes
Fresh basil leaves to taste
Fresh oregano to taste ( be sure to get the leaves off the stems)
1 1/2 tbsp minced onion
Minced garlic to taste
Himalayan salt and fresh pepper to taste
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Of course, as with any tomato sauce if you ask me, you can feel free to add cilantro, or whatever other fresh herbs you might have on hand. Remember to give them a good chop before you put them in the blender, because you won't be setting the Vitamix to "liquefy" and forgetting about it. If you don't take some care here, you could end up with a sauce full of sticks and stems. I'm not saying it happened to me, but I'm not saying it didn't. I will say that last night was the last time I ignore instructions to chop or mince any ingredient before I put it into the vitamix.

If you have leftover sauce, why not serve it to guests as a nice bruschetta?

Of course I neglected to snap a pictures in my haste to run out the door, so I am including the first official photo of Orbiting Vegan's new official mascot, my cat Dusty Springfield. Isn't she adorable?


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Location:Madison, CT

I <3 lentils

Made a creamy lentil Dal soup last night using the vitamix. This one requires a little work but is well worth the effort! Of course I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but I did snap a shot of my stovetop in progress!






The first image is lentils,washed, soaking up some veggie broth at medium heat, the second began as sautéed onion and garlic, with tomato paste and spice added once tender. Combine all your ingredients into the vitamix with 2 baked potatoes and fresh cilantro and voila! I can't wait to make this one again!

Here's the ingredients just in case:

1/2 cup lentils, washed
2 cloves chopped garlic
One onion chopped
3 cups of water or broth for lentils
4 cups of water or broth for onions after sautéed
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup tomato paste
2 baked potatoes
Fresh cilantro
( the spices can be adjusted to taste, but it would seem, all spices beginning with the
letter "C" should not be taken lightly.)

Also, I'm looking for fermented black soybeans, I'm putting this out to the blogosphere just in case one among you knows where I can buy some around here without getting on the Internet. Mecca, aka Whole Foods, does not carry them. Strike one. In their defense, I've shopped with them periodically since 2005 and this is the first time they didn't have something I needed.

I've sort of gone off blogging about smoothies, but I've also sort of gone off using recipes. Something fruity, some protein, some leafy greens, ice, blend. It's kind of the default for every recipe I've come across lately, and the results are generally very tasty. Use your intuition, if it seems like a good combo, try it out. If it seems like a bad one, try it out and see whether or not you prove yourself wrong.

On a final note for the day I found myself staring at a very tasty looking birthday cake from the Delight Bakery in Yonkers, NY as it was sitting on my kitchen island last night. I can assure you I had no hand in its procurement nor it's arrival on said island. Cake in general does nothing for me, and even less for my sister, the spaniard, but it did put me in the mind for a treat of some sort. So I whipped up a vegan "ice cream"-cherry vanilla flavor- since I happened to have all the ingredients leftover from other recipes. Once again, the vitamix reigns supreme, one device that can produce hot soup and frozen treats right out of the container. Here's a tip though, if you don't freeze the fruit, you will end up with a "milk"shake. It's not really a tip, since the recipe spells it out in plain English, but I missed it, and I'm fairly astute, so I'm passing it along. Freeze the fruit. Important.


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Location:Madison, CT