Butter, Sugar, and Fruit Desserts

I love this time of year because there is so much good fruit that is in season, and usually on sale. This is a great time to make fruit cobblers, fruit crisp, or even pie (although I don’t personally make my own pies). I’ve decided to combine a few different topics in this post, so first we will talk about butter, then sugar, and end with a few great recipes for fruit desserts.

Now for butter. When I stopped eating milk products it took me a while to figure what to use instead of butter. Margarine is the easy and readily available substitute (although many margarines still have some milk in them, just much less than real butter). But I am super picky about the foods that I eat, particularly, I must know what the ingredients are and I’m pretty obsessed with avoiding artificially created ingredients. I do plan to eventually write a post all about what is and isn’t food, you will find that my definition of food does not include a lot of packaged items found at grocery stores.

Back to butter, after much searching I finally found a company that makes an excellent vegan “butter.” It has an ingredients list that makes me happy, meaning there are no weird additives that I don’t know what they are. So the company is called Earth Balance and I buy the vegan buttery sticks. I use this “butter” for everything that I would use real butter for. To find out where you can buy vegan buttery sticks, check www.earthbalancenatural.com

Now, another substitute for butter, and a less processed one, is applesauce. I haven’t experimented a ton with using applesauce instead of butter, but I have done one part vegan butter and 3 parts applesauce to replace butter or shortening (which is something that I do not consider food and do not knowingly eat).

Moving on to sugar. If you want to make a sweet dessert, sugar is just about a necessity. I have not experimented a lot with natural sugar substitutes, and here is why. Sugar, although usually refined, does come from a plant that grows in the ground, and that is something I’m totally ok with. What I am not ok with: artificial sweeteners. It may be tempting to get your cookies, soda, or anything else to be “calorie free,” but this is weirdly unnatural. Any food that you eat should have calories, the important thing is to eat all foods in moderation. In my food choices I try very hard to avoid high fructose corn syrup, sucralose, and other artificial sweeteners. If you want to know more about why you don’t want to eat artificially created sweeteners, you can do an simple google search and get tons of info on what these sweeteners do to your body. That being said, as far as I am concerned sugar or cane sugar is perfectly ok to eat, in moderation.

Now to get to the fun part, super tasty summer recipes!


Blueberry Crisp

Ingredients

6 cups blueberries (about two pints)
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
8 Tbsp butter (Or a butter substitute. Unfortunately for this recipe applesauce won’t work very well, because we want the butter to be chilled to make crumbs later.)

What to do

Wash the blueberries and pat dry. I usually put a towel out flat on the counter and spread the blueberries out. Pick over the berries to make sure there are no stems, moldy berries, or such that would not be yummy to eat.

Mix Blueberries, 1 Tbsp sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl. Pour into a 10 in pie plate or other baking dish.

If you have a food processor, pulse flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and walnuts until nuts are just chopped. Add cold butter (cut into pieces) and pulse chop until course crumbs form.

If you don’t have a food processor (I don’t), chop your walnuts the old fashioned way, with a knife on a cutting board. Gently mix chopped walnuts, flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and butter (cut into pieces) in a bowl. Use a pastry blender (or you can chop with a knife, but this is much more difficult) to chop your butter into the dry ingredients. Again you want to stop when you have course crumbs.

Pour walnut/butter mix over blueberries.

Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Enjoy warm or cold!


Easy Peach Cobbler

I got this recipe from a website so I will send you there to find it. I do use a butter substitute, as well as soy milk when I make this cobbler.
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/easy-peach-cobbler-10000000257827/

"Cheese" Sauce

This is a simple recipe that makes a raw vegan “cheese” sauce. It is so easy and I like the taste a lot better than most dairy free cheese substitutes you can find at the grocery store. It is also much healthier than most of those substitutes. Plus raw foods are really healthy, it’s important to eat at least some raw food regularly, even if you aren’t going to dive into a full raw diet.

If you make this sauce and the color doesn’t really look like cheese (should be yellow like cheddar) add more carrot.

What you need

3/4 cup water
1 cup raw cashews
1 carrot, cut into 1in chunks (I often use baby carrots because that’s what I’m more likely to have)
1 Tbs Braggs liquid aminos (this is considered a raw food, tastes like soy sauce, most grocery stores have it now, look near oils and vinegars)
1 tsp nutritional yeast (if you can’t find this at your grocery store, look at a health food store)
1/2 tsp onion powder (I usually use a slice of fresh onion)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs oil (I always cook with extra virgin olive oil)

What to do

If you have a high power blender (such as a vitamix or blentex) put everything in the blender and blend until smooth.

If you have a regular blender, I usually blend just the cashews and water first then add everything else and blend until smooth.

And now you have a great tasting sauce. I recommend eating it on pasta, rice, couscous, or another grain. Pour it over steamed veggies or use it to dip raw veggies.

Goodbye Food Pyramid

I had been planing to do a post about the food pyramid and vegetarian versions of the food pyramid (if you are still interested in this, you can find one by googling vegetarian food pyramid). But yesterday the US Department of Agriculture replaced the food pyramid with something called My Plate, which is very exciting and way better! The old food pyramid was lacking in many ways, the categories were not descriptive enough, the “servings” were confusing, and the whole idea was unmanageable for the average person. Who has time to look at their plate of food and figure out how many servings of each food group is on it? Much less try to remember that through out the day so that at the other meals they can add together their servings and hopefully end the day with the right amount of everything. No one I know does this kind of planning or thinking about food. We generally think about food one or two meals at a time, which is why the new guidelines are so exciting, they are specifically for one meal at a time.

The new image of a plate with different colored areas for different types of food is easy to understand. There are easy suggestions that go along with the picture as well, such as “avoid oversized portions.” Perhaps my favorite part is that the word “meat” is gone from the picture. Instead we see the word “protein” which is a much better description of what a person should eat. Protein could be meat but it could also be soy, eggs, beans, lentils, peas, nuts, grains such as couscous or brown rice, or seeds.

I love the other suggestions that are included in the new My Plate. “Drink water instead of sugary drinks.” And there are warnings about the amount of fat and sodium in foods. “Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals - and choose the foods with lower numbers.” Could they make it any more clear or easy to follow?

It gets better because there is a new website to go along with My Plate, choosemyplate.gov. On the site you can see the new plate, look for info about each food group and what is included in it, and find tips, resources, and interactive tools for eating and choosing foods. If you want more specific information about how much of each type of food you should be eating everyday, the website has a daily food plan that can be costume fit to you. You need to put in some information about yourself, such as height, weight, and activity level, and you can get very specific information about what and how much you should be eating. You can even specify if you are trying to loose weight, or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. They have not yet updated the sections for kids and preschoolers, but I’m sure these will be changed soon.

The printable material on the website includes something called “Ten Tips Nutrition Education Series,” which has ten tips for each of several different aspects of my plate, such as eating, shopping, and meal planning. One of the ten tips categories is “Healthy Eating for Vegetarians.” This is a great starting place for new vegetarians or those wanting ideas on how to eat less meat.


So basically you should forget everything you thought you knew about the food pyramid and go check out chooosemyplate.gov.

Cooking for Mixed Company: Feeding Vegetarians and Meat-eaters in the Same Meal

Spaghetti Dinner

This meal is a favorite at our house. Pretty simple to prepare, and great for me (vegetarian) and my husband (who eats meat). It is a simple, yet delicious spaghetti dinner, with homemade spaghetti sauce.

Menu
Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Balsamic Veggies
Baby Lima Beans

Lima beans were a last minute addition to this meal. I had some leftover from something else I made and decided to add them.

You will need to make the sauce in the morning (or night before) and let it cook all day, in the crock pot. This sauce is great because you can make it ahead, it will keep in the fridge and can be frozen. Everything else for the meal can be made right before you want to eat.

Spaghetti Sauce
This sauce is a family recipe, and mixes up quickly, but it needs to cook in the crock pot all day. You can try it on the stove (if you dare), but know that it will burn and stick to the bottom of the pan if it isn’t constantly stirred, and who really has time for that?
Also know that some of the ingredient amounts are totally up to you and what you like.

What you need
1/2 or 1 onion (I use the whole onion)
1 or more cloves garlic (I use 3-4)
2 cans tomatoes (or one large can) can be whole or diced
1 small can tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp basil (I used freeze dried basil, but any kind, dried or fresh, is fine.)

*A note on canned tomatoes. I buy them in bulk at Costco, both diced tomatoes and tomato paste. I do a lot of cooking with tomatoes, they store for a long time, and I have found this is the cheapest way to buy them.

What to do
Peel and cut the onion (doesn’t need to be cut too small, I cut it into about 4th) and garlic. Put both in the blender or food processor. Add the tomatoes. Blend until smooth.
Pour into the crock pot. Add tomato paste, salt, sugar, and basil. (You can also add some water at this point if you want your sauce to but a little thinner, but I like the thicker texture). Stir, put the lid on, and cook on low for at least 6-8 hours (crock pots are forgiving, so let it cook all day while you are at work or doing other things, it will be fine).

Everything else

What you need (amounts are up to you, how many people you are cooking for and how much left overs you want).

spaghetti
ground beef (I usually use about 1/2-3/4 lb)
onion
zucchini
baby lima beans
olive oil
balsamic vinegar

What to do
You will want to start cooking about 30 to 40 minutes before you plan to eat.

Put the lima beans in a pot and cover with water, bring to a boil. Once boiling, cover, turn heat to low and leave them to cook.

Pour olive oil into two skillets, enough to cover the bottom. Heat both skillets on medium heat.

Begin slicing your onion (big or small chunks, whatever you like). When the skillets are hot add the onion to one and the ground beef to the other (note, when cooking for a vegetarian you will want to be careful to use different utensils for the meat and the veggies).

Bring water to boil in a large pot for the spaghetti. Once it is boiling add the pasta and allow to cook for about 10 minutes, until soft. (You may want to salt your pasta water. I prefer not to, it’s up to you).

Add some balsamic vinegar to the onion, stir and allow to cook (you can put a lid on the skillet if you want, which will speed up the cooking and get the onion softer without browning it as much).

Let the meat cook, stirring occasionally.

Slice the zucchini. Once the onions start to get soft you can add the zucchini. Let them cook together, stirring occasionally, until they are as soft as you want. (I like my veggies to be a little firm.)

Once the meat is browned, scoop some sauce out of the crock pot and pour it over the meat. Turn the heat down to low (now you have some sauce with meat and some without).

Hopefully everything will start to be done at about the same time. Once the pasta and lima beans are done (I taste test both to make sure they are cooked to the softness I want). Drain the water from both, and you should be ready to dish up and eat.












Variety
Sometimes when I make spaghetti I add different sides to the meal. I might add garlic bread (made on whole wheat bread). Or a favorite at our house is butternut squash bread (which is a wonderful recipe I found on another blog, so I can’t take credit for it). It does take some time to make, mostly because it has to rise, so it doesn’t always make it onto the menu, but if you are interested you can find the recipe here.
http://younginthekitchen.blogspot.com/2011/01/baked-potato-soup-butternut-squash.html

Iron

It might be surprise you, but the most common nutrient missing in a vegetarian diet is not protein, it’s actually iron. (If you want to know more about protein, I am eventually planning to post about it.) The largest and most common dietary source of iron is meat. I know many people who have told me they tried a vegetarian diet but they had to start eating meat again because they were too anemic (iron deficiency anemia is the medical term for having too little iron in the blood). There are also other types and causes of anemia, but not having enough iron in your diet will be a major factor in anemia.

Symptoms of anemia include fatigue, pale skin, fast/irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, cognitive problems, cold hands and feet, moodiness and headache. Anemia can also cause a person to bruise very easily and can be made worse by extreme physically activity and unusually large amounts of blood loss (such as during a women’s menstrual cycle).

Of course the easiest way to supplement any nutrient in your diet is with a daily vitamin supplement. There is nothing wrong with taking one and it is a great idea, especially for children who are picky eaters or women who are pregnant or nursing. But the body is better able to absorb nutrients out of food then out of a pill. I’m a big believer that anything is better for you in it’s natural state then processed into another form. Iron is not that hard to get from food if you know where to look. Here is a pretty comprehensive list of types of foods (and a few examples) that are high in iron:

egg yolks (if you eat eggs, we will talk more about eggs in another post)

dark, leafy green vegetables (spinach, kale, collards)

dark green vegetables (broccoli, green pepper)

dried fruit (apricots, prunes, raisins)

legumes (beans, lentils, check peas, soybeans)

tofu (again soybeans)

nuts

seeds (pumpkin, sesame, squash)

wheat germ

sweet potato (one of my favorite foods)

Grains that are iron enriched such as cereals or bread (this would not be my first choice because it is kind of like taking an iron supplement, but better than not getting iron)

In order to be able to absorb iron your body needs vitamin C. A few great sources of vitamin C are oranges, broccoli, and strawberries.

One more note, if you think you are anemic or are worried about not having enough iron in your diet, go talk to your doctor. They can easily test you for anemia with a simple blood test. If you are a vegetarian or are wanting to make the change to a vegetarian diet, I recommend finding a doctor who is going to be willing to work with you. Some doctors will tell you first thing, you need or have to start eating meat again. But a different doctor might help you find more non-meat sources of iron or suggest an iron supplement.

For more information about dietary iron and anemia I recommend looking at websites such as webmd.com and mayoclinic.com.

Veggie Chili

This is a simple and great tasting recipe to get started with. Usually I make chili in the fall/winter, but the weather was a little cooler this week and it sounded good so we had it for dinner last night. There are two ways to make the chili, either cooked on the stove or in the crock pot. I prefer to make everything in the crock pot, it really is my favorite thing in the kitchen. I often work in the afternoons and it is great to get home at 5 or 5:30 with dinner already basically done. I will give directions for both methods though.

This chili will have a nice flavor, a little spicy, as chili should be, but not too spice for those who like more mild flavors. It’s also great because it can be frozen, it saves in the refrigerator for a few days and reheats well.

Ingredients

1 TBL oil (I use olive oil and you really just need enough to cover the bottom of a pan)
1 onion
1 green pepper
2-4 cloves of garlic
1 small can chopped green chilies
1 can tomatoes whole or diced 28 oz (or two 14 oz cans)
1 can pureed tomatoes 15 oz (I used a can of diced tomatoes that I put in the blender)
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp allspice
2 tsp oregano
2 TBLS brown sugar
2 TBLS cilli powder
2 TBLS ground cumin
1 can kidney or pinto beans 15 oz (I like kidney beans, sometimes I use two cans or I use beans that I have soaked and cooked myself)
salt and pepper (to taste)
rice (whatever kind of rice you like, I made brown rice)

What to do

First the onion, green pepper, and garlic need to be prepared to cook. Peal the onion and garlic, then chop everything as big or small as you like. I have a great tool that I use for cutting the garlic, a microplane grater, awesome!

Heat the oil in a pan, and sauté the veggies until the are tender (if you are putting it in the crock pot and you have all day to let it cook you can skip this step. The chili will need to cook a lot longer for the onions to get soft in the crock pot. I also like the flavor a little better when the veggies have be sautéed, but totally up to you).

Now is were the directions are different if you are doing the chili on the stove or in crock pot.

If you are using the crock pot, you are going to put everything in the crock pot at this point. Veggies, green chilies (drained), tomatoes with juice (if using whole tomatoes, cut them or crush them in your hand), pureed tomatoes, spices, brown sugar and beans (drained).

Cook on low for about 3-4 hours. The crock pot is very forgiving, it can cook for longer and will be fine. If you did not cook the veggies before you added them then the chili will have to cook about twice as long in the crock pot.

If you are cooking on the stove, add the green chilies (drained) to your veggies. Then add all the spices, stir and let cook for a minute.

Now add the tomatoes with juice (whole tomatoes should be chopped or crushed in your hand), pureed tomatoes, brown sugar, and beans. Stir well. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer.

Cover and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When the chili is done, no matter which method of cooking you used, taste it and add salt and pepper as you like.

This chili is meant to be served over rice. Rice and beans are a great combination for meatless protein. I recommend brown rice but any kind will do. Rice is easy to cook, just follow the directions on the package.

Optionally, if you eat dairy, you can also top with shredded cheese when you serve. As you can see we had one with cheese (for my husband) and one without cheese (for me).

What It's All About

I have been thinking about starting this blog for a while now. I was inspired by another cooking blog and by people’s reactions to what I do and don’t eat. This first post is just to introduce myself and explain what the blog is about.

I am a vegetarian and have been since I was about 10 or 11 years old. My wonderful mother was very supportive when I told her I didn’t want to eat meat any more. I had been inspired by a friend and had read quite a bit (at least for a kid) about meat and vegetarianism. I don’t think Mom thought I would actually keep up with the diet change, but I did and now, 15 years later, I still do not eat meat. There are many reasons for this type of diet (I use the word diet to describe regular eating habits, not the sort of eating that a person takes on for a limited time usually to loose weight), which I will talk more about later.

When I first stopped eating meat I was considered a lacto-ovo vegetarian, which means I didn’t eat anything that used to be alive, red meat, poultry, or fish, but I did eat dairy and eggs. But it turns out that as an adult I have a pretty bad milk allergy, so basically all dairy products are out of the picture. I do still eat eggs, although I do not know what to call my type of vegetarian, an ovo vegetarian?

When people discover that I do not eat meat or dairy, the first and most common reaction I get is “Well, what DO you eat?” This question is often very hard for me to answer. I eat food... grains, legumes (beans and bean like foods), nuts, eggs, fruit, vegetables. To me the list of what I do eat is so much longer than the list of what I do not eat, that it is hard to come up with an answer to that oh so often asked question. Also I have been doing the meatless thing for so long now, that the way I eat is totally normal and natural to me.

There is a more important underlying question that I think most people mean to ask me, how do you make meals without meat or dairy? This is a much more complex question. And part of the purpose of this blog.

My plan for this blog is to have information about food, vegetarian cooking, and vegetarian eating. I plan to post everything from recipes to how-to information to book reviews. I hope that the information on this blog will be interesting to a variety of people for a variety of reasons. Maybe you know me and just want to know what in the world I really do eat. Maybe you are a vegetarian or are cooking for one and want some ideas. Maybe you just want some new healthy meal ideas. Maybe you just want to be more informed about the food choices you make. Just because you eat meat doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn't eat a meat-less meal once or twice a week, your body will probably thank you for it.