Strawberry Chocolate Chip Shortcake

For the past few weeks we've finally been able to enjoy some strawberries. I buy almost everything organic, but I do compromise from time to time (check out the 2010 Dirty Dozen). However, strawberries are one thing I WILL NOT compromise on (and now there's even better reason to stick to organic). Because organic strawberries are only around for a limited time it makes them such a special treat for us.

Whole Foods has had their organic strawberries in for a few weeks now, and they've been pretty good. At least I thought they were good. That was before I tasted the beautiful, fresh, ripe organic strawberries that came in my CSA share this week. Wow! Tender, sweet, and bursting with flavor these berries were just calling out to be paired with a shortcake.

Ms. M's been on me to make some chocolate dipped strawberries, but these were just too tender and too delicious to drowned in chocolate. Shortcake was all that would do. Taking Ms. M's request into consideration, I thought "why not put chocolate in the shortcake", and make us all happy. The result was a deliciously moist shortcake, speckled with melty chocolate chips.

Here's my recipe for Chocolate Chip Shortcake. Enjoy!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Shortcake

1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3 Tbs raw sugar

1/2 Tbs baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips

1/4 cup vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)

1/2 cup plain So-Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage (or other non-dairy milk of your choice)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly spray a rectangular cake pan or a small loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine first 5 ingredients. Cut in margarine using a pastry cutter or knives. Stir in coconut milk and combine well. Pour into prepared cake dish and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool completely and serve topped with fresh organic strawberries.

Refreshing Fresh Mint Pesto Pasta

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that I had my first CSA pick-up of the season today, and among many other great things, I was inundated with mint. More mint than I could ever begin to imagine what to do with. I could make Mojitos, but aside from drinking myself silly, what else could I use all of this for? I put the question out there on Twitter and within minutes received so many fantastic ideas I was feeling sure I would get through all of the mint before next week. I plan on making most, if not all of the ideas that were sent my way, but the one that really intrigued me, and became tonight's dinner was Mint Pesto, suggested by Megan E.

The recipe Megan shared had an ungodly amount of oil in it (a half cup), so I knew immediately this was going to take some tweaking......I've never used a half a cup of oil for anything in my life, and I didn't plan to start tonight. Below you'll find my mildly tweaked, and outrageously delicious adaptation. This dish is so refreshing. We ate it as our meal with a side of mixed greens salad, but it would be a perfect accompaniment to grilled or blackened tofu.

Fresh Mint Pesto

1 cup fresh parsley leaves

1 cup fresh mint leaves

1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

3 Tbs Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil

8 oz. Whole Wheat Pasta

1 pint sugar snap peas, cut in half

Salt and Pepper to taste


Cook pasta according to package directions. Rinse in cold water and set aside. In a food processor place parsley, mint, sunflower seeds, and olive oil. Process until well blended into a paste. Toss sugar snap peas with pasta, mix in pesto. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature, or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Almost Raw Hummus

Like traditional hummus this version is make with garbanzo beans (chickpeas), tahini, garlic, and lemon. Unlike traditional hummus, my version uses raw, sprouted garbanzo beans. Sprouted beans offer many nutritional benefits and are also easier to digest without the *ahem* side effects that often come with eating beans. Sprouted beans, seeds, and nuts are full of life giving energy. I was unable to find raw tahini at the market I shop at, so I had to use my regular tahini, but if you can find raw tahini, by all means, use it in this recipe to create and entirely raw hummus.

Almost Raw Hummus

1 cup sprouted garbanzo beans

2 cloves garlic

2 Tbs. Tahini

1/4 cup water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground coriander.

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

In a food processor combine all ingredients through coriander. Process until desired consistency. Add cilantro and pulse a few times to distribute cilantro. Serve immediately, or chill until ready to serve.

Meatless Monday: Black Bean-Quinoa Fiesta Patties

Need a meal for your Meatless Monday dinner tonight? Try this quick and easy Fiesta Patty. Made from pantry staples, you won't even need to run to the store to throw this delicious meal together.

Black Bean-Quinoa Fiesta Patties
Makes 10 patties

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 C. cooked quinoa
1/2 C. frozen organic corn
1/2 onion, diced small
1 roasted red pepper, diced small
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried cilantro
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
2 T. whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, smash beans with a fork until no whole beans are left. Add all remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Mash all ingredients together using hands until gluten becomes active and is beginning to hold patties together. Shape measure out 1/4 cup of mixture and shape into a small patty. Continue forming patties until all mixture is used (I got 10 patties from this). Spray a skillet with cooking spray and heat to medium heat. Lightly fry each patty until browning, flip and brown other side.

I served the patties on top of a whole wheat tortilla then topped each with a dollop of Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream and a drizzle of salsa. You could also wrap the patties in a tortilla and eat like a taco. Enjoy!

Meatless Monday: Just do it already.

Today is Meatless Monday, a campaign to reduce meat consumption to improve our nations health, and the health of our planet. By eliminating animal products from your diet you begin to reduce your amount of saturated fat intake, eliminate cholesterol intake, and reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and many cancers. Nixing the animal products from your diet will also have a huge impact on the health of our planet; conserving water and improving it's quality, reducing the amount of harmful greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere, and reducing your dependence on fossil fuels. Not only is eliminating animal products best for your health and the health of our ailing planet, but it's best for the health and lives of the countless beings you will save by not contributing the industry of animal agriculture.

While I obviously think that we should be meat free EVERYDAY, I think Meatless Monday is a good place to start, and we all have to start somewhere, right? It's easier than ever to eat a plant based diet. Not only are there countless blogs, recipe sites and cookbooks that can help you get started, there's more and more pre-made vegan convenience foods popping up every day.....even in your regular, local grocery store. With a little planning, eating meat free is easy. Give it a try, pick a Monday, plan an entire day of meals free of animal products, see how good you feel and how easy it was. Maybe next week it will carry over into Tuesday!!

Tried Meatless Monday already and found out that it's really not that hard? Considering the switch to a more healthful, more green, and more compassionate way of life? Not sure how? Click here to read more about making veganism a lasting change in your life.

Clean up your diet, clean up the Earth.

April 22, 2010 we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. Now more than ever it's important for people to recognize our Mother Earth and the damage we are doing to her. Climate Change is quite possibly one of the most critical issues facing us today. Climate change is responsible for hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme heat and cold, and many other extreme weather events. It's undeniable that human actions are directly responsible for a vast majority of climate change, and it's becoming more and more evident that we hold the key to healing the planet and that key is our dinner plate. As Danielle Nierenberg from Worldwatch Institute stated in the newly released book Gristle, "When it comes to our food, reducing or eliminating animal products is one of the most effective ways individuals can fight climate change."

So, what exactly is it about meat that's contributing to climate change? In a word, shit. That's right all of that shit that piles up from intensive factory farming. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 500 million tons of shit each year. That's THREE TIMES the amount of waste produced by humans. As a matter of fact, one CAFO (factory farm) can produce more waste in a year than an entire city full of people. All of that shit isn't only polluting the air with methane and nitrous oxide (which has 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide!!), but it's also polluting the surface and ground water. As a matter of fact, the EPA states that the agriculture sector is "the leading contributor to identified water quality impairments in the nations rivers and streams, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs."

Animal agriculture is actually the leader in green house gas emissions. First, even before the transportation sector including all cars, trucks, buses, planes and trains. Forty-one MILLION tons of carbon dioxide is contributed annually by fertilizer production for feed crops. This isn't including the CO2 emissions from the transportation of these crops, and the operation of these intensive agriculture operations.

In addition to water pollution and air pollution, intensive animal agriculture also contributes to the destruction of the rain forests, particularly in Brazil. In the year 200o 58.7 million hectacres of the Brazilian rain forest were lost to graze cattle and grow feed crops. To make matters worse, the Brazilian rain forest isn't being depleted to feed hungry Brazilians, it's being depleted to feed overweight, gluttonous Americans. Destruction of the rain forests has resulted in irreversible loss of plant and animal species and loss of biodiversity of this delicate ecosystem.

These are only a few of the environmental concerns when it comes to our intensive consumption of animals and animal products. If we are really going to make a difference in climate change we MUST change the way we eat. Adopting a "green" lifestyle is significant, but we will not be able to sustain our meat consumption much longer, the time to act is now! For the sake of future generations, we have NO CHOICE but to change the way we feed ourselves.

This Earth Day, make a commitment to begin eliminating animal products from your diet. Do what REALLY counts to heal our planet, and then celebrate the many joys of being vegan on Earth Day 2011!!!!

Sweet and Sour Tempeh

It's taken me a long time as a vegetarian to warm up to tempeh. I've wanted to like it for so long, and for some reason I just couldn't. I tried everything, including steaming before I cooked it and I just.never.liked.it (other than Fakin' Bacon crumbled into guacamole......). I had long ago decided I'd stop trying to like tempeh and just give up on it.

Last week when I was doing my shopping the tempeh just seemed to be calling out to me, so I decided I'd give it another shot. I created this sweet and sour version, and lo and behold, tempeh love! You could of course sub in some tofu if you too are tempeh-phobic. This makes a ton of food, enough to feed 6 easily, so scale it back to feed less, or invite a few friends, grab a bottle of sparkling wine (Gruet is vegan) and call it a dinner party.

Sweet and Sour Tempeh

3 cups fresh squeezed pineapple juice (bottled will work too, but it's not as tasty)

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 Tbs. tamari, shoyo, or liquid aminos

2 pkg. plain tempeh (steamed for 15 minutes, then cubed)

1 red bell pepper, large dice

1/2 large yellow onion, large dice

1 bunch baby bok choy, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a 9x11 baking dish combine juice, sugar, and tamari. Whisk to combine. Add in temepeh, pepper and onion, stir to combine and ensure everything is covered with pineapple juice mixture. Cover tightly and bake for 45 minutes. Remove cover, add chopped bok choy, stir to combine and continue to cook uncovered for about 15 minutes. Serve hot over basmati rice.

I served this over pineapple coconut rice. 2 cups of brown basmati cooked in one can coconut milk plus 1 cup of water. After liquid is absorbed stir in 1/2 cup diced pineapple and heat through.