Five Spice Rice Pudding

Made myself some of this for breakfast this morning. It was quite tasty and also filling without feeling heavy. Three hours later I still have lots of energy and no feelings of hunger. So I think this one will be a keeper.

1. rinse rice
2. put rice, milk, and spices in a pot, bring to boil
3. simmer covered until milk is absorbed into the rice
4. top rice with fruit and nuts
5. enjoy

The rice takes a while to simmer. But once the heat is turned down it does not need to be watched. So I was able to get other things done while this was cooking.
Leftovers (just the rice part--I'll add fresh fruit and nuts each time) are in my refrigerator. I suspect they will keep okay for at least a week. We shall see.

Update: I've made this dish a second time, using coconut milk this time and double the amount of 5 spice. I like it with both milks, and definitely prefer the full teaspoon of spice. I've also increased the amount of liquid slightly. Still don't know if the leftovers will keep for a week because they all got eaten within a couple of days.

Imam Bayildi

I make it like this recipe only I use:

1 large or 2 medium yellow onions
1 garlic (the whole garlic--I don't cook with part bulbs)
1 tsp crushed chili pepper flakes
a bunch more parsley

Curried Salmon Patties

(based on: https://thebigmansworld.com/curried-...ontainer-20210 )

* The curry paste is very salty. One day I may switch to making my own. But for now, this is the recipe.

1. drain salmon. remove skin and bones
2. chop spinach
3. coarsely grate zucchini
4. flake salmon in large bowl
5. mix in spinach, zucchini, and curry paste
6. add egg and incorporate well
7. heat oil in frying pan
8. add large spoonfuls of salmon mixture to hot pan, shape into patties
9. cook patties over medium heat until browned on both sides

Oatmeal Banana Pancakes

I tried this DAREBEE recipe: https://darebee.com/recipes/oat-banana-pancakes.html using unsweetened vanilla cashew milk and quick oats and adding 1 teaspoon of nutmeg and 4 tablespoons desiccated coconut to the batter. (I think next time I will go with only 1/2 tsp nutmeg and also add 1/2 tsp cinnamon.) Topped the pancakes with wild black raspberries and a sprinkling of freshly-shelled chopped walnuts. Delicious and satisfying! Kept me going all morning.

Chia Pudding



Super simple:

1. put ingredients in mason jar
2. shake vigorously
3. refrigerate overnight

All the recipes I found online for chia pudding recommended sweetening the pudding. But I intended to serve mine with fresh fruit so did not add any sweetener. I tasted the pudding plain this morning, however, before adding anything to it, and I thought it was fine. (It wasn't sweet. If one is eating chia pudding in an attempt to satisfy a craving for sugar, the pudding would definitely need to be sweetened. But I aim to stop myself from having cravings for sweet or salty food in the first place, so unsweetened is definitely the way to go for me.)

I topped my pudding this morning with blueberries, goldenberries, half a banana and some chopped cashews. Very satisfying and tasty.

I also made some chocolate chia pudding by adding 1/4 cup of cocoa to the basic mixture. This resulted in quite an intense flavour. So I added just a small amount to some of the plain pudding as an additional "topping".

Wild Mushroom Soup

I have been craving mushroom soup lately, but am trying to cut back on my consumption of high fat dairy. What to do? Try to make a soup with nut milk, of course! All the recipes I found online for vegan mushroom soup called for coconut milk. I may try that one day. But cashew milk is what I had on hand, and I figured the nutty flavour would go well with wild mushrooms, so that is what I used.

1. stirfry onion and garlic in oil
2. add fresh mushrooms, continuing to cook while you:
3. boil the water and mix up the stock
4. add stock, wine, dried mushrooms, and spices to the pan, cook for 15 minutes or so to boil off some of the liquid and allow the flavours to blend
5. blend the soup (I used a food processor. One of these days I will get myself an immersion blender to make this step faster.)
6. add the cashew milk, stir to incorporate, and heat through

Cranberry Sauce

I suspect Yuletide feasting traditions made a lot of sense hundreds of years ago when people walked everywhere and did manual labour all day. Now that we mostly work desk jobs and drive around in automobiles, not so much. Yet the sugar content of our winter feasts has continued to increase throughout the generations. I've been looking at my own family's Christmas feast this year, trying to find ways to keep everyone happy while bringing the menu more in line with healthy eating habits. For my own part, I'm willing to simply skip the desserts. I don't dislike fruit cake or plum pudding or mince tarts, but neither do I like any of them enough to continue taking the damage points to my health that result from ingesting them. Cranberry sauce, on the other hand... I do love me some of that sweet-tart cranberry sauce. I spoon it generously onto my turkey. And my potatoes. And my roasted vegetables. By the time I'm done with that particular condiment, most of my plate is red. The cranberry craze doesn't stop with December 25 feasting either. As a child, my brother and I used to mix the leftovers into yogourt for a Boxing Day breakfast we delightfully named "Blood on Snow". Fun times.

But let's be honest here. We may call this particular condiment "sauce", but what it truly is is cranberry jam. Traditional cranberry sauce is fruit made gelatinous by boiling it up with a quite frightful amount of sugar. I've been putting jam on my meat. Jam on my vegetables. Jam on everything. It's not healthy. But the thought of eating turkey without it did not appeal. What to do? It was time for a science experiment! Here is what I tried:

That's it. The original jam recipe calls for one cup of sugar and one cup of water per bag of cranberries. I simply substituted an equal volume of juice in place of the water, omitted the cane sugar, and added the orange zest. Then I boiled everything up, just as I would to make the jam sauce. The result was nice and thick and full of flavour.

Of course, orange juice is high in sugar too. But volume for volume it contains less than 20% the sugar content of pure cane sugar. Plus the OJ includes vitamins and minerals and, because I included the pulp and the zest, a bit of fibre too. (The cranberries themselves are another source of sugar. But whole cranberries contain more dietary fibre by weight than they do sugar--that's pretty freaking great for fruit!) Also: this sauce has a stronger cranberry flavour than the jam sauce does, so I ended up using less of it per meal. Definitely a win!

Update: 'rin suggested making cranberry sauce with cranberries, pulpy OJ, apples or pears, and bay leaves for a savoury note. I must try this next time.

Tuna Salad



1. drain tuna
2. peel and dice onion
3. core and dice apple
4. mix everything together, adding just enough mayonnaise to make it stick

Zucchini, Corn, & Black Bean Enchiladas



I've added a can of black beans to my old Zucchini & Corn Enchiladas to up the protein and fibre content. I've also increased the salsa content as more sauce is needed to bind the filling together. (I used an entire 650 ml jar tonight, putting about 2 cups in the filling and reserving the rest to go on top.) This results in more filling than I can squeeze into the tortillas--so the salsa jar is now full of leftover filling mixture which will make a great base for a chili sometime in the next week.

Much as I love my cheese, I decided to try going at least a little bit lighter on the dairy content with this meal and halved the amount of cheese from my original recipe. The result still tasted great! (I used 3-year-old cheddar, so it packs a nice flavour punch even in small quantities.)

Super old (3-5 year) cheddar is a secret weapon of mine. Such a small amnt for so much taste!

'rin a vegan preaching the superiority of her diet once tried to convince me that giving up dairy was the easiest part of going vegan because "cheese is such a strong taste."

I replied, "Yes. That's what's good about it."

Tabbouleh

1. boil the water
2. pour boiling water over the bulgur
3. let bulgur stand for one hour
4. dice onion, cucumber, and tomatoes
5. tear or chop parsley and mint leaves into small pieces
6. toss all ingredients together
7. chill

Pizza Party Part 1: Pizza "Dough"

Since I love me some pizza, but am committed to eating strictly homemade crusts now as part of my quest to eat more healthfully, I have been experimenting with different pizza "dough" recipes. For ease of finding the different options again--and remembering which was which--I will update this post with information on each new science experiment.


A. Cauliflower, Almond, & Chia Seed

My first two experiments were this one and the besan and chia recipe below. I fed both to my parents (my mother actually agreed to try both pizzas!), and this one was the clear winner for them. My father said it was "delicious" and even my mother admitted to liking it. I personally thought it was nothing to write home about. I mean, it was okay. It didn't taste bad. And it produced a crisp crust which performed well the job of holding up a multitude of toppings--an important criterion in my home. I prefer the taste of a regular whole wheat pizza crust. But my father found this one easier to eat than any whole wheat bases we have tried.

1. mix chia seeds with water and set aside to allow chia to absorb the water
2. chop cauliflower into small pieces, then use food processor to finely chop cauliflower into a rice-like texture
3. measure out 3 packed cups of cauliflower rice (the remainder I put in the freezer for use at a later time)
4. cook the cauliflower rice for 5 minutes in the microwave
5. dump cooked cauliflower rice onto 4 layers of cheese cloth and tie the cloth around the rice to make a bag
6. squeeze out as much moisture from the cauliflower as possible
7. combine the cooked, pressed cauliflower with the almond flour and herbs in a large bowl
8. add the chia gel to the cauliflower mixture, mix everything together, and knead into a dough
9. line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper
10. press the pizza dough onto the parchment paper and flatten into thin disks of the desired shapes and sizes (I made 5 individual pizzas, ranging in size from ~ 4'' to 7" in diameter)
11. bake at 400°F for ~ 20 minutes, then flip pizzas over and bake for a further 5 minutes (This crust gets baked before the toppings are added!)
12. add desired toppings, then return pizzas to oven and continue baking for a further 5-10 minutes until the toppings are heated through and any cheese (if using) is melted


B. Chickpea and Chia

This crust was my favourite of the first two I tried making. I preferred both the flavour and the texture of this pizza to the cauliflower one, and it held up fine under a mound of toppings for me. My mother grudgingly admitted that it was "alright, but I preferred the first [cauliflower] one." (This is actually significant praise coming from her, considering that she had not wanted to try this pizza crust at all and had predetermined before even seeing it that she was not going to like it.) My father said it tasted fine but was difficult for him to eat. (This crust was initially a bit softer than the cauliflower crust. But when I ate one of the leftover pizzas a couple of days later, I reheated it in the toaster oven for 10 minutes, and it crisped up just as much as the cauliflower crust did. At this point, I still preferred the taste and texture of this pizza--so perhaps simply cooking it for longer will be a good option for my father in the future.)

1. mix chia seeds with 3/4 cup water and set aside to allow chia to absorb the water
2. add chickpea flour, turmeric and an additional 1.5 cups water to the chia gel, mix well
3. at this point, the "dough" will be very goopy, allow it to sit for 5-10 minutes until the chia seeds absorb some more of the water, the "dough" will still be goopy at this point, but will at least become spreadable (not runny)
4. line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper
5. scoop out portions of dough onto the parchment paper and spread into thin disks of the desired shapes and sizes (I made 5 individual pizzas, ranging in size from ~ 4'' to 7" in diameter)
6. bake at 400°F for ~ 20 minutes, then flip pizzas over and bake for a further 5 minutes (This crust gets baked before the toppings are added!) *NOTE*: I may try pre-baking this crust for longer next time to get it a little bit crisper and easier for my father to handle.
7. add desired toppings, then return pizzas to oven and continue baking for a further 5-10 minutes until the toppings are heated through and any cheese (if using) is melted

Pizza Party Part Two: Toppings

This is a just a collection of some fun pizza topping combinations I like.




A. Apple, Walnut, & Mushroom

1. core and thinly slice apples
2. stir fry apples in the olive oil until soft
3. thinly slice mushrooms
4. shell walnuts and crumble into small pieces
5. toss walnuts and apple slices in the vinaigrette to coat
6. grate the cheese
7. spread pizza base with cashew butter
8. layer apples, walnuts, and mushrooms on top
9. drizzle any extra vinaigrette over the pizza
10. top with grated cheese
11. bake until cheese is melted


B. Spinach, Onion, Sun-Dried Tomato, & Feta

1. slice onion, stir fry in olive oil until caramelized
2. slice sun-dried tomatoes into thin strips
3. crumble feta
4. spread tomato sauce on pizza base
5. make a layer of spinach leaves over the sauce
6. add sun-dried tomato strips, caramelized onion, and hot pepper rings
7. sprinkle feta cheese on top
8. bake