Quasi-recipe: Aw, sugar, sugar.

For a reason that is of no business to you, yesterday, I had a major craving for a chocolate-layered hunk of chocolate sprinkled with chocolate-covered chocolate.  So, naturally, I plugged in my panini press and made this:

If you would like to make one of these, but don't have a panini press, you can use a pan/grill pan instead. Just make sure it's very hot and well-coated in oil or butter.  You only need to leave the sandwich on the pan for a few minutes (until everything melts and makes a disastrous, but oh-so-yummy mess), pressing down lightly on it with a large spatula, and turning it over once to crisp both sides.  When done, wait until the pan cools down before trying to lift it to your face to lick the mess off.

Here's how I made my "S'mores Panini," but, as always, you can use whatever ingredients work best for you:

I took 2 slices of whole wheat sourdough bread and brushed the "outside" of each slice lightly with grapeseed oil. Then, I smeared 1 Tbsp of my awesome, homemade almond butter on the "inside" of one slice, topped that with 1/2 of a Vivani dark chocolate bar broken into bits, then placed 4 marshmallows on top of the bar, then placed the second bread slice on top of the whole thing—oiled side up—and jammed it into my panini press (that's what she said) for about 6 minutes.

It's a very decadent dessert (or, in this case, lunch...who am I kidding?), topping out at about 600 calories and 30-plus grams of sugar.  I normally try to limit my daily intake of all sugars to 5% of my total calories, so this little treat definitely put me over, but it doesn't happen often and it's better than me punching a hole in a wall, which is what I was about to do before deciding to eat this instead.

Just writing about this is making me want to go make another one, but I'm too tired to burn off the calories, so enjoy yours without me and let me know how you liked it.

Nuts!

As some of you may know, I recently quit my job to go back to school, so I'm on a fixed budget now and trying to find ways of saving and doing as much as possible myself.

Case in point: almond butter.  I buy a brand that usually runs me about $14.00 for an 18-oz jar, so, instead, for $7.99/lb (NYC prices), I bought roasted almonds at Fresh Direct and decided to try my hand at churning nuts into butter.

If you have a food processor, this will probably take a fraction of the time for you.  I don't, but I do have one of these thingies, so I prepped the almonds in batches, mixing and moving and mixing some more. That is literally all it takes to make almond butter, folks: mash up the almonds until they look like almond butter.

Ta da!

Now, I don't have kids (that I know of...am I right, ladies?!), but the product I developed today made me feel as proud as I'd be if I did.  Also, I'm pretty sure the amount of time and calories I burned were exactly the same as if I had had a baby, so, in a nutshell (get it?), making almond butter from scratch is as easy as childbirth.

Recipe: Simply Seitan-ical

I ate my meal so quickly the other night that I didn't stop to photograph it, so you'll just have to use your imagination while you read (or look at it yourself when you make your own version).

When I got my first apartment back in 1994, one of my favorite meals to make for myself and when I invited friends over was honey-mustard chicken with two side dishes: (1) glazed onions and carrots and (2) egg noodles with butter.  It would take no time at all to cook up and it was super yummy served immediately or as leftovers.

I've moved into a more vegetarian way of eating these days and was craving that meal recently, so I thought I'd make a decent substitute with the ingredients below (serves about 2-3), replacing the chicken with seitan and the buttered noodles with vegan mac & cheese.  If you want to make the original, I've included that information here as well.  Either way, if you whip up this easy dish, please let me know how you like it.

Part 1 

1 pkg cubed seitan*
1 Tbsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/8 tsp ground kosher or sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper 

Part 2 

8 oz short/small pasta, like farfalle, penne, egg noodles or elbow macaroni
1 tsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp vegan shredded cheddar, like Daiya**
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast** 

Part 3 

1 12-16 oz pkg peeled baby carrots, washed
1/2 c yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 Tbsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1 Tbsp "buttery" spread, like Earth Balance or Smart Balance***
1 Tbsp maple syrup****

*if you're using chicken, go for 2 skinless breasts sliced into strips
**if you'd prefer to use dairy cheese, then substitute these ingredients with a flavorful cheese of your choice instead, like shredded cheddar and grated parmesan; or, skip the cheese entirely and just toss pasta with about 2 Tbsp of olive oil, butter, or margarine
***feel free to substitute regular butter or margarine here
****if you ever even think of using some kind of "pancake syrup" made of corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, I will find out and be very angry with you; invest in a bottle of locally tapped maple syrup and toss out that other crap immediately...I cannot stress this enough

Toss all "Part 1" ingredients together in a bowl. Cover and place bowl in refrigerator for about an hour, tossing mixture again every 15 minutes. After an hour, remove from fridge, and cook mixture in a medium-hot pan for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly. (No need to add extra oil in pan since seitan has already been coated with plenty of it.)

Cook up the pasta from "Part 2" according to directions on package.  Drain, reserving about 1/3 cup of cooking liquid. Toss pasta and liquid well with remaining "Part 2 ingredients.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Fill a medium pot with water (leave about one inch from top) and a sprinkling of salt; cover and bring to boil over high heat. Uncover, lower to medium-high heat and cook carrots ("Part 3") until soft, about 10 minutes. Simultaneously, cook the sliced onion from "Part 3" in a pan with the 1/2 Tbsp oil over extremely low heat, stirring often, until very soft and translucent. Add carrots to pan with onions when done cooking and mix in buttery spread and syrup until everything is coated nicely with the butter-syrup glaze. Salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, you could place all three parts separately on a plate or spoon the honey-mustard seitan over the mac & cheese.

Recipe Remix: Chili-stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Remember this chili recipe? Well, here's a super simple way to rejigger it: make it, but omit the sweet potato/carrot in the mix. Instead, while the chili's cooking, roast a sweet potato* in the oven, then stuff each half of the potato with the chili and sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese** when ready to serve.  Ta da!

Added bonus: sweet potatoes are an excellent source of Vitamin A, which gives us healthy skin, teeth, and bones.

*using one well-scrubbed sweet potato for every two servings, slice the potato lengthwise, pierce the outside of it well all over with a fork, wrap it in aluminum foil (halves together) and place in oven at 400 degrees for an hour or until the inside is soft and tender; I don't use a microwave, so you'll have to research the comparable nuking time yourself
**I used Daiya dairy-free in the pic here

Cold cuts

I'm sick.  I've been pretending like I wasn't, but, finally, this morning, I gave in and canceled all my plans for the day, lied down on the sofa, and spent the entire day sipping hot tea with honey, knocking back meds, and blowing my nose.

I thought I was taking such good care of myself—and maybe I was—but I could have been better.  I just read this and realized I was skipping quite a few of the preventative steps, especially the exercising.  I eat well enough, but it really is so important, for me, anyway, to get outside and get some exercise.  At the very least, I could have taken a 30-minute walk each night this week, but I opted to stay indoors instead.

How do you beat a cold?  How do you try to stay healthy?  Please share your helpful hints or articles with me.  It's never too late to start over.

<achoo>

Recipe: Open-faced BBQ Tempeh Sandwich & Sides

This photo does no justice to tonight's meal [note to self: learn how to take better photos of food] which was a vegan feast of barbecue-style tempeh, potato salad*, and the usual string bean side dish.  In the world of processed vegan protein foods, the bf and I prefer seitan over tempeh, but I like mixing it up and tempeh won the coin toss this time.

Everything here is pretty filling, so the recipe below can serve about 4.  I also try to be as efficient as possible in the kitchen, so you'll see that I'm using the same pans—and even the same boiled water—in this recipe's steps.

Part 1 

1 8 oz pkg tempeh, sliced lengthwise, then into quarters (so you get 8 flat rectangles)
4 Tbsp ketchup
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp soy or tamari sauce
Dash chipotle or Tabasco sauce
1/4 tsp garlic powder 

Part 2 

1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
1 Tbsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1/8 tsp Kosher or sea salt 

Part 3 

4 slices sourdough bread (this is my favorite) 

Part 4 

4 small purple or red potatoes, washed and cut into large slices**
2 Tbsp vegan mayo (like Vegenaise)
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp horseradish
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Part 5 

1 lb string beans
1/2 Tbsp olive, canola, or grapeseed oil
1/4 tsp Kosher or sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder

*the potato salad looks horrible in this picture, but, I swear, it was very tasty
**I always leave the skin on my potatoes, but feel free to peel them if you wish

From "Part 1," mix all the ingredients except the tempeh in a flat-bottomed bowl. Layer the tempeh slices in the bowl, spooning the mixture on top and around each layer so that all pieces are coated evenly. Cover and place bowl in refrigerator for about an hour.

In a frying pan over very low heat, sauté the onion over the oil ("Part 2"), stirring often, until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the salt and stir again, cooking another 4 minutes. Remove onions from pan and toast the bread ("Part 3") in the same pan, about 2 minutes each side. Remove bread. In same pan, cook marinated tempeh slices from "Part 1" over low heat (add a little more oil if pan is too dry at this point), about 4 minutes each side.

Fill a large pot with water (leave about one inch from top) and a sprinkling of salt; cover and bring to boil over high heat. Uncover, lower to medium-high heat and cook potatoes ("Part 4") until soft, about 7 minutes. Remove potatoes from pot and place in bowl; dress with remaining ingredients from Part 4.

In same pot with same water, bring back up to boil, then add "Part 5" string beans.  Cook until tender, about 7 minutes.  Drain and toss with remaining "Part 5" ingredients.

To serve, place one slice of bread on each plate; top with sautéed onions and 2 tempeh slices each (I used 3 slices in the photo above).  Add a scoop of potato salad and string beans to each dish.

Recipe: Leftovers Salad

The East Village is not exactly known for its spacious apartments. As a matter of fact, my building, much like many of the surrounding ones, is a renovated tenement, which once contained large, shared areas, often housing hundreds of residents at a time from the late 1860s through the early 1900s.

When the buildings were renovated, some of the new apartments inside couldn't hold "normal"-sized items like stoves, refrigerators, and bathtubs, so, in ours, for example, we have a slim stove, an under-cabinet refrigerator and a stall shower.

All of this to say that, when we make a meal at home or order dinner in, we'd better eat everything right quick; otherwise, there's not much room for us to store leftovers (our freezer is slightly larger than a shoebox). Unfortunately, sometimes we do end up with extras, but they don't stay in the fridge for very long. When this happens, I clean out whatever leftovers have accumulated and incorporate them in some way into a second meal, usually in a salad, so I've named this post's recipe "Leftovers Salad."

For today's salad (served 2), I had some leftover mujadara and string beans that I had made earlier in the week; you can use whatever dinner leftovers you have on hand, be it grilled chicken, shrimp, or even pasta salad.

Part 1 

2 c Romaine lettuce, washed* and chopped
2 c kale, washed and chopped 

Part 2 

Leftovers 

Part 3** 

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tomato (plum/Roma, beefsteak, or whatever's in season or your favorite), chopped
1/3 c pitted olives, any kind, drained, rinsed & chopped

Part 4***

juice of 1/2 lime (acid)
1 tsp Dijon mustard (emulsifier)
1 Tbsp olive oil (oil)
Salt & pepper to taste

Part 5 

2 thick slices sourdough bread, grilled or toasted (a whole wheat baguette would work well, too)
4 Tbsp plain hummus

*the best way to wash lettuce/leafy greens is to peel the leaves from the bunch and drop them into a large bowl of cold water, letting dirt fall to the bottom; then, lift out the leaves and place on a dry towel or paper towels
**the sprinkly part can be substituted by whatever goes best with your leftovers; for example, if you were using grilled chicken, you might want to use chopped walnuts and dried cranberries instead of the tomato and olives
***traditionally, a vinaigrette is made of one part acid, three parts oil, and an emulsifier like mustard, garlic, or egg yolk; so, if you'd rather use red wine vinegar instead of the lime juice or canola instead of olive oil, go right ahead

Toss together ingredients from Parts 1 and 2 in a large bowl; sprinkle with ingredients from Part 3.

For the dressing (Part 4), whisk the lime juice and mustard together in a small bowl, while you slowly drizzle in the oil until everything is emulsified (mixed well with no separation). Add salt & pepper to taste and whisk some more. Drizzle lightly over salad mixture.

Serve salad up with the grilled bread, each slice topped with 2 Tbsp hummus (Part 5).