Tag Archives: recipes

Warming Soup Recipes

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This is the time of year when it’s often cold and dreary outside, and there’s nothing better than a delicious bowl of soup to warm you up.  Did you know that making a pot of soup from scratch is actually very simple to do, and it’s oh, so healthy?  Try some of our recipes below and get cooking!

Pumpkin-SoupPumpkin Soup

Makes about 8 1-cup servings.

This sweet and creamy soup has just a hint of spiciness. It can also be made with puréed winter squash, yams, or sweet potatoes in place of the pumpkin. Read more

Nutritious Bok Choy Recipes

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Bok Choy is a member of the cabbage family, although it doesn’t look much like the cabbages we’re used to.  Its texture is more like celery at the bottom and a leafy green such as spinach at the top.

Bok Choy is common in Chinese food, but rarely used in other cuisines.  It is extremely nutritious. It has a particularly high level of calcium, with 870mg per 100 calorie serving, and an absorption rate of 53%.  When you compare that to cow’s milk, which has only 188mg per 100 calorie serving, and an absorption rate of 32%, you can see that it makes a good addition to any diet.

To prepare bok choy, you can wash the leaves and stem, then simply steam or stir fry it.  Sprinkly a little soy sauce on if you like.  Alternatively you can chop it up and use it as you would any other vegetable, in soups, stews, curries or pies. Add this to as many of your recipes as possible, for a real nutritional boost!

For lots of great vegetarian recipes, see The Veg-Feasting Cookbook.

Recipes

  • Broccoli and Bok Choy with Baked Tofu
  • Spicy Thai Soup
  • Zippy Yams and Bok Choy
  • Macaroni with Creamy Tofu Sauce
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Mouthwatering Melon Recipes

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melons

Melons are large, edible fruits with a thick yellow or green skin, and juicy, fragrant flesh. Since the flesh has such high water content, melons are low in calories even though they are so sweet to taste. They provide potassium, sulphur, Vitamins A and C and Folic Acid.

Watermelon is particularly high in lycopene, an antioxidant, and has iron as well, which makes it the star of the melon family nutritionally speaking.

All melons are particularly delicious in the summer months, at the peak of their ripeness. They can be eaten by the slice, cut into cubes or scooped into balls. They are delicious eaten alone or as part of a fruit or vegetable salad. Pureed melon can be served chilled to make an attractive summer soup.

Recipes:

Watermelon, Scallion and Mint Salad

Chilled Melon and Grapefruit in a Mint and Ginger Sauce 

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Perfect Peanut Recipes

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PeanutsAlso called groundnut, goober, or monkey nut, the peanut is the seed of a small leguminous plant, so it is strictly a legume and not a nut. Peanuts are rich in protein and monounsaturated fats, and provide reasonable amounts of dietary fiber. They also contain potassium, calcium, magnesium, and many other valuable nutrients.

While most common as a snack food in this country, they are used as major cooking ingredient in many Asian and African dishes, either whole or as a tasty peanut sauce.

Always try to find dry roasted, unsalted peanuts, either whole or as peanut butter, as many popular sources of peanuts are very high in salt and added fats.

The recipe below is from our own cookbook – The Veg-Feasting Cookbook.

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Six things you can do while stuck at home!

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Stuck at home

During this coronavirus outbreak, many of us are either forced or choosing to stay home to keep the virus from spreading.  This can be frustrating, but I urge you to look on it as an opportunity to take some time to move toward a more plant-based diet, or if you’re already following a plant-based diet, to try some new recipes.  This will enable you to use your time constructively, improve your overall health, and have fun trying some new recipes!

Here are some options for steps you can take, depending on your starting point, while you’re stuck at home! Read more

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes

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Here’s a special selection of Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes for the holidays:

Bryanna’s Squash with Wild Rice and Chanterelle Stuffing

almost-no-fat-holiday-cookbookfrom “The Almost No-Fat Holiday Cookbook” by Bryanna Clark Grogan, reprinted with permission.  Serves 6

If you’d like to make a colorful stuffed winter squash the centerpiece and main dish of your vegetarian Thanksgiving, choose a large, meaty pumpkin; Boston marrow squash; turban squash; hubbard squash; banana squash; or the pale blue-grey New Zealand squash, which is my favorite. Read more

Creamy & crunchy cashew recipes

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cashewsCashews are native to South America, specifically Brazil, and were introduced by colonists to Africa and India. These regions are the largest producers of cashews today. Cashews are sold both raw or roasted, and salted or unsalted.  Choose raw unsalted

They are a soft and somewhat sweet nut, so can be used to make various dairy alternatives, such as cashew milk, cashew cream and non-dairy cheeses.

A 1-ounce serving of cashews is about 18 whole cashews. Cashews are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and a good source of protein. They’re also a good source of magnesium, which is important in over 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a health claim for food labels that “eating 1.5 oz per day of most nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.”

Recipes

  • Cashew Cream – basic recipe
  • Vegan Mac n Cheese
  • Cashew Tacos
  • Broccoli and Cashews over Millet
  • Cashew Coconut Date Cookies

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Vegan Backpacking Recipes

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Vegan Backpacking Recipes:

Lentil stew for backpackingLentil Stew (per person – multiply up as needed)

Put the following ingredients in a ziplock bag, (multiplying for team members as needed)

  • 1/3 cup green lentils (per person)
  • 1 stock cube
  • 1 tsp onion flakes
  • 1 tsp garlic flakes
  • ½ tsp thyme
  • ¼ tsp rosemary
  • ¼ tsp oregano
  • ¼ tsp Black pepper
  • ½ tsp Cumin
  • Chili flakes (to taste)

Optional –

  • Pre-chopped fresh carrot, broccoli, cauliflower as desired
  • 1/4 cup dried potato flakes to thicken and add calories as needed
  • 1 pita bread pocket per person

At camp, bring 2-3 cups water (depending on how many servings) to boil.  Add lentil mixture and boil until lentils are soft (20 mins), adding any extra veg after 10 mins.  Pour into bowls or eat from the pot, with pita bread on side.

Cashew Curry recipe

Makes enough for 4 meals – 2 people evening meal and lunch the next day!

Put the following ingredients into a ziplock bag:

  • 1½ cups quinoa (or couscous)
  • 2 Tablespoons curry powder
  • ¼ cup dried onion flakes
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar (optional)
  • 1 vegetable low sodium bouillon cube
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

Put 1 cup raw cashew halves into a separate ziplock bag.

At camp, bring 3 cups water to the boil in a pot.  Add the quinoa mixture.  Let it simmer until quinoa is cooked.  Boil off any excess water, stirring to prevent burning.  Stir in cashews.  Enjoy!

This can be eaten cold for lunch the next day, so bring a suitable container to store it in.

 

20190808_104954Warming Breakfast recipe

Put the following ingredients in a ziplock bag:

  • 1 cup quinoa (rinsed, dry toasted)
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ cup dried blueberries, cranberries, raspberries and/or raisins
  • 2 tablespoons dried soymilk or coconut milk powder
  • ¼ cup hazelnuts or pecans (dry toasted)

At camp, bring 2 cups water to boil.  Add quinoa mixture.  Simmer until quinoa is cooked.  Serve quinoa in a bowl, topped with nuts.  Milk powder can be included with quinoa mixture, or rehydrated separately and poured over the cooked quinoa.

This recipe would also work with oats, but oatmeal might make it a little harder to clean the pot afterwards!

Chef Ramses Bravo at Vegfest

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We are delighted to have Chef Ramses Bravo back with us at Vegfest this year.  Chef Ramses is the chef at the TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, CA.  He will be giving a cooking demonstration at Vegfest on both Saturday March 30th and Sunday March 31st.

Bravo Express_COVERAs a special treat for us, he shared a couple of recipes from his new book Bravo Express  where he demonstrates how a healthy, whole-foods diet can be not only delicious but also quick and easy:

  1. Yellow Curry Lentils
  2. Quinoa and Arugula Salad

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Nutritious Collard Greens – recipes

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collard greensAs a green leafy vegetable, collard greens are among the best available for your health. They’re actually a member of the cruciferous family, along with broccoli and cabbage, and as such they’re packed with vitamin C, soluble fiber, and numerous cancer-fighting phytonutrients.

Collards are available year round, but they are actually tastier and more nutritious in the cold months, after the first frost. For the best texture, they should be picked before they reach their full maturity.

Popular in southern cooking, they are usually stewed with meat for a long period of time, losing much of the nutritional benefit, but there’s many healthier ways to incorporate them into your diet.  They hold up to cooking much better than other greens, so they can be added toward the end of preparing soups and stews and still keep their texture. Sliced thinly, they can be lightly steamed and tossed with a vinegar dressing.  Steamed whole, they are strong enough to be used as wraps for a burrito alternative.

Recipes

Portobellos with Collards and Cannellini Beans

Collard Greens with Almonds

Tempeh Collard Wraps Read more

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