Sauteed brussel sprouts and cabbage

It's been awhile since I wrote a post, forgive me? Things have been crazy in my kitchen lately. What do you mean, you may ask? Ohhh, just this thing of me baking my gluten-free and vegan baked goods at a new coffee shop!

Last week, I prepared: gluten-free and vegan banana flax-seed muffins, gluten-free and vegan snickerdoodles, gluten-free and vegan pumpkin bread, and cranberry bran muffins. So, I have been busy baking, chatting with the general manager, and then working my full-time job, cooking all the time. It's been very busy. I have been very busy, so I needed a quick meal that wasn't going to take me long.

I have never had brussel sprouts, and I was walking through the grocery store just staring at all the vegetables and so I grabbed ten of them. I also grabbed two small heads of cabbage because they looked kind of good. The problem with me going grocery shopping, and being bored while I am grocery shopping means I grab random food I don't really know what to do with it. And then I realized you can pretty much cook anything and make it taste good if you saute it. 

The first think I learned when I started cooking so much, is that you always need to fry your onions and garlic first, because it just adds a totally different flavour. I have to say, it's kind of annoying to cook ALL the time. I am sure I would probably get annoyed with baking all the time, but this new adventure is something that will show me if I am cut out for baking a lot. I will still be working my real job, and then when I come home, I will be making gf and vegan banana flax muffins and gf and vegan snickerdoodles every day. It could be extremely tiring, but I am going to try. If it ends up being too much, I will try and work something else out so that I can still provide baked goods for them, but maybe not every single day. 

Anyway, getting back to this meal, it really turned out so much better than I thought it would be. I am sure it would taste even better if things were sauteed in butter, because honestly, butter! Like Paula Dean always talks about... butter, butter, butter. 

Roasting some sunflower seeds is what I did to add a little crunch to all the softness of the cabbage and brussel sprouts. I actually ended up loving the brussel sprouts just on their own--I don't know why so many people hate them! I think I enjoyed them so much. 

I had all these things sitting in the fridge for over a week, including asparagus, so I needed to cook them all. This last minute idea was pretty quick and delicious. And it was really filling. It's so nice to eat good food that makes you feel good. Even when you have a crappy day. It tends to lift you up.

Sauteed Brussel Sprouts and Cabbage
10 brussel sprouts
2 small heads of cabbage
1.5 c. roasted sunflower seeds
1 onion
6 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil to coat pan

Wash all the brussel sprouts and the cabbage. Cut the brussel sprouts in half and shred the cabbage like would cole-slaw. Cut the onions in half and slice the six cloves of garlic.

Heat the oil in a skillet. Once heated, toss in onions and garlic. saute for 10 minutes until things get a little crisp. Add the brussel sprouts and cabbage. Cover with a lid and let cook for 15 minutes.

Once the cabbage has shrunk in size, toss the ingredients in the pan, and cover for a another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, take the sunflower seeds and put them on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 350 degrees until they start to brown, about 10 minutes.

Once the sunflower seeds are done, toss them into the brussel sprouts and cabbage.

Toss them altogether in the pan.

Put in a bowl, grab some chopsticks, and enjoy!

White bean and Kale stew

I do a lot more baking than I do cooking. Or rather, I am more excited to bake than to cook. As you can tell from most of my posts, I am a baker at heart, and it's what I do for comfort and enjoyment. I am in the process of figuring out, or rather, trying to get the courage, to make a bakery happen here in Flagstaff. An all organic bakery that specializes in gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan baked goods. As well as baking up some treats that have all those things in them. Although, I am 100% positive that most people who would try my stuff would not even be able to tell that the desserts/baked treats they are consuming are gluten-free and vegan. I really am THAT good. You may think I am just being overly confident, but I don't know many people who have a strict diet like I do, and I tend to always bring baked goods to get togethers, and no one ever notices that the baked good they are eating, is free from all the things I am allergic too. It's pretty funny to see people's reactions when they ask me what's in it and the first thing I tell them are the things that ARE NOT in it. It makes me very happy and proud that I can create items that people enjoy.

I also believe in the importance of buying things local and organic. With the new Monsanto Act just signed (Why, America? Why?), it is even more important to pay attention to what we are consuming. There are a lot of studies out there that shows GMO's to be extremely harmful to all animals (they do testing on mice and rats, and it's just so sad to see what happens to them). We don't buy any GMO foods (how do you do this, you ask? You do the most obvious thing... you look on the package of an item for "no-gmo"). It really is quite easy. It's better for the environment, and it is better for us. There is much literature about the importance of an organic based diet, as well as supporting your local farmers. The produce is so much better when you get it local. And if you're lucky enough like me and my partner, you can plant a huge garden right in your back yard with all organic seed. If you don't have a huge yard, you can always plant lettuce in planters (you can fit a good 4-6 head of lettuce in a pot). There are ways to incorporate healthy food in your diet without pay a fortune. And growing your own foods is one of the best feelings in the world. It's nice to be working out in the backyard and picking a tomato or a pepper off the vine and biting into it while you're working.

Enough on that rant. I didn't take any pictures of this dish because it was so ridiculously easy and I needed to hurry out the door, but it is delicious. It's done in a crock pot, left to cook all day long, so when you come home after a long day at work, your house smells like someone has been cooking all day. There is something about crock pot cooking that makes me happy. I know I am using good ingredients, and only doing a little bit of work to make something so delicious. And there's left overs. :)

White bean and kale stew
6 servings

1 tsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-4 garlic cloves, minced (I like things super garlic-y. if you don't, stick with 2)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs. balsamic vinegar
4 c. washed and chopped kale
1 tsp. dried oregano
5 c. water
2 15 oz. cans of white beans, unless you're patient like me and have some soaked overnight
2 tsp corriander

Either the night before, or the morning of, heat oil in a skillet and saute the onions until translucent. Add garlic, salt, and pepper, and cook for about another minute or two. Add the balsamic vinegar and stir to combine. If cooking the night before, store in a container in the fridge. If preparing the morning off, add to crock pot.

Add rest of ingredients except kale to the crock pot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. About 30 minutes before you're going to serve, add the chopped kale. Cook for another 30 minutes, taste, and adjust seasonings to your liking before you're ready to serve. 

Romaine Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

I love experimenting with different foods. I tend to find a recipe and change it about 50% to make it my own. I think that's the way you learn to cook, you find a base, and you change it all if you can. You add what you want, take out things you don't and just find what works for you. The one thing that was interesting about this meal is that it involved tomatoes. I don't really like store bought tomatoes. I refuse to eat them most of the year, until we can grow and harvest are own. The ones from our backyard are just way too good and I miss them. But, I decided to give this recipe a chance and take the plunge and buy tomatoes. 

I am growing some romaine lettuce now, but they are still in the dirt, growing and waiting to make their appearance, so I had to buy a head of romaine, even though I only used about 6 leaves. I will make a salad with the rest of it this week for lunch. We grew a ton of different greens last year: three types of lettuce (each with three plants per type), collards, kale, chard. Our garden was flourishing and so delicious. The basil to the right of the lettuce in the picture above is still growing in our sun room, and it smells so good!

I don't really like pesto all that much. I think it's just too much basil. So I decided to try a romain pesto. It's essentially the same thing, but so much better. I added a little bit of cheese to it to add a little punch, and boy howdy, did it make a difference. With 5 cloves of garlic, I am sure that helped too. But honestly, I will never make normal pesto again. This will be used in pastas from now on!

We were doing spring cleaning Saturday, since my partner was suffering from an allergy attack from the juniper pollen. Because we were spring cleaning, I wanted to eat spring based foods! Tomatoes are finally looking some-what appealing, the chickens are laying eggs (or at least, my boss's chickens are laying eggs, which he is graciously giving us some), and pesto just reminds me of spring. I don't really remember what type of tomatoes I bought, but they needed to be bigger and rounder than romas. These were the only ones I could find at our health food store, and they did the trick. Although, I would recommend buying bigger ones, since the egg did spill over. 

 

This was a great, easy, and healthy meal to make. I ended up making six last minute, but I still have left over pesto. I am sure if you only want to make 4, you could use 4 pieces of lettuce and it will do you just fine.

Romaine Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large rounded tomatoes (3-4 inches in diameter)

6 leaves of romaine lettuce

5 cloves of garlic

4-5 leaves of fresh basil

1/4 c. cheese, if using

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil

6 eggs at room temperature

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Clean tomatoes, lettuce, and basil well, and pat dry. Rip romaine lettuce in 2-3 inch pieces. 

In a food processor, finely chop the garlic. Add romaine lettuce and basil to food processor. Once everything is evenly cut, add cheese. Give it a quick pulse until it's mixed in, and with the motor still running, slowing add the oil. Do a little taste test and add some salt and pepper. Set aside.

Cut the tomato tops about 1/8 inch from top, and cut a little bit from the bottom so the tomato stands up straight without slipping around. Carefully scrape out the pulp and seeds with a spoon and discard them. Put the tomatoes in an oiled 8x8 backing dish, cut side up. 

Take about 1 tablespoon of the romaine pesto and place inside the tomatoes. Once all tomatoes are filled, crack an egg into each tomato and season with salt and pepper. Bake eggs in tomatoes until the whites are set and yolks are still runny*. About 20 minutes.

*I over cooked some of the eggs yolks, and some not so much. I think the bigger tomatoes will help evenly distribute the egg whites a bit more. Since these were quite small, it took awhile for the eggs whites to set, which in turn, over cooked the yolk. The wider the tomatoes, the better!

Spinach bake and fried eggs

Sheesh. This past week has been hectic! After last Tuesday, I woke up at about 1.30 in the morning with the most excruciating pain in my stomach. It felt like I was getting stabbed in my stomach. I woke up at 5 in the morning Wednesday and was sick. Not just the sniffles sick, but SIIIIIICK. And it wouldn’t stop. I asked myself many times, “how the hell is all this in my body? Why hasn’t it stopped?!” Needless to say, I didn’t eat or do any cooking on Wednesday. I stayed on the couch half the day, and when I wasn’t on the couch, I was in the bathroom.

The verdict? Norovirus. It’s awful. AWFUL! I was only sick Wednesday, and went back to work Thursday, although I didn’t really eat anything because I was to traumatized at the event of Wednesday, I didn’t dare touch a piece of food. So that was Wednesday and Thursday. The rest of the week? Well, let’s just say life got the best of me. Between the giant blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow in 24 hours, to driving down to Phoenix for my partner’s fencing tournament, it’s been crazy. And now it’s Friday and I am ready for the weekend

But I am back! Sorry I was gone for so long. It’s Friday (YAY!) and it’s going to be about 70 degrees here in Flagstaff (BIGGER YAY!). I wore shorts today to embrace the warm weather and by doing so, hopefully telling the Universe that this is the weather that I want for the rest of the spring and summer.  

Tonight I decided to try something new! I grabbed three bunches of spinach from the store and cleaned the hell out of the spinach. Spinach is AWFULLY dirty, and it takes forever to clean. You can't really tell, but that water, is FILLED with sediment and dirt. 

I haven't been consistent with eating since I got so sick last week, and we've been so busy, that I made it a REQUIREMENT for me to cook tonight, because I needed to cook. One of my bosses has six chickens, and him and his lovely wife, who I consider very good friends, gave me some eggs. These eggs are so beautiful! There's white, brown, and even green! They taste so good... When you crack them open, the yolk is all orange and large. So. Good.

I am pretty sure that when you add butter (or something similar to butter) with onions, spinach, and garlic in a pan cooking, it just smells so good. We left work after three hours and decided to go fly fishing! I actually didn't fly fish, but I helped put together a fishing rod!

We didn't make this a vegan meal, because I REALLY wanted cheese. Aged cheese, of course, so I don't end up getting sick all over again, and let me tell you, this was a good idea. The sharp cheese from England was perfect with this dish. It added a great taste to it. 

I think you could eat anything with fried eggs. I have been on a roll with fried eggs. I want them on everything that I can have them on. I like them more than scrambled, probably because with fried, they don't have a weird texture like scrambled eggs have.

I also make the best freaking asparagus in the world. I don't really know the measurements. I cut them, I put olive oil on them, added a couple shakes of garlic salt, and pepper. You bake them till they get crunchy like french fries. They really are so good. My partner hates asparagus, but he loves mine! So that means I have something good up my sleeve!

 This was a great and different dinner. We both liked it. I think the eggs helped! :)

Spinach Bake and Fried Eggs:

3 bunches of spinach
1/2 red onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced,
3 tablespoons of vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)
1/2 cup of cheese (vegan cheese, normal cheese, whatever your heart desires)
1 cup of vegetable stock
1 1/2 tsp of flour
4 eggs (two per person)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Clean the spinach. Clean it REALLY, REALLY, REALLY well. Spinach is tricky and holds a lot of sediment, so I cleaned mine about four times. Once it's cleaned, you're going to de-stem it. I did this by simply pulling and twisting the bottom part of the spinach bunch. I am sure if you were to use baby spinach, you wouldn't have to do this.

Place the clean and de-stemmed spinach in a pot on medium heat and just cook it until it shrinks. This will take about 2-3 minutes. Once it's shrunk, place the spinach in cold water to shock it (stop it from cooking) and then drain it again.

Heat the "butter" in the pot until it melts. Start dicing up the onions and garlic. Once you're done, add all the ingredients into the pot and let it cook. Once the water from all the ingredients starts to leave (things will start to stick to the pot), add the flour and stir. Once incorporated, add half the stock and stir. Let it simmer, and if it is still really dry, add the rest of your stock. While things are simmering  you can grate some cheese if it isn't already grated.

Once all your ingredients have come together nicely, add the cheese, stir, and then place in an oiled 8x8 pan. Place in the over for about 30 minutes and cook until the top is a little bit golden brown.

In order to keep the bake warm, turn off the oven while you start frying the eggs. We ate two eggs each, and it was delicious. The yolk mixed perfectly with the spinach bake. Although, my "bake" doesn't mean that it's stiff. This was a little runny and I think it was perfect. I don't think it would be good if it was like a cake consistency.

Sorry the pictures are crappy. I couldn't find my camera, so I used my phone, and the light in our kitchen is pretty dim once the sun sets a little. But, it's still tasty!

Enjoy!