Tag Archives: coconut oil

Virtual Vegan Potluck: Homemade Schnickers Bars (and Paleo!)

10 May
Yep, it's food porn.

Yep, it’s food porn.

Ding ding! Round three! The Virtual Vegan Potluck is such a wonderful highlight in my blogging world. It’s amazing that so many bloggers get together and make this whole thing happen! There’s 169 bloggers from around the world this time. Of course, there’s a few superheroes at the helm that keep us all in check: Annie at An Unrefined Vegan; Somer at Vedged Out; and Jason at Jason and the Veganauts. Hurrah and huzzah to these lovely folks! It must be like dealing with a huge class of kindergarteners.

vvpLOGOAnd this time I’m doing a dessert—homemade Schnickers Bars—after two rounds of main courses. If you want to check those out, they are here and here. I’m happy to say that you can make this a raw vegan dish, but I used roasted salted peanuts and roasted peanut butter, so it’s not technically raw. You could make this paleo by subbing the peanuts for almonds, but I didn’t have time to do that. But at the rate these treats are going to get eaten, I’ll have a chance to try that out very soon. Continue reading

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My Own Chana Dhal Recipe

29 Apr

I have a lot to catch up on with my blog—I know I owe everyone the Tiny Kitchen Remodel unveiling, and I have a few awards and a “tag” to respond to (thank you so much!), but between work, the remodel and my teaching, I’ve had little free time. Oh, and this weekend I’ve been breaking in the new kitchen!

Wednesday I made this dhal. I’d been dreaming of yellow split peas for weeks, and I don’t know if it was the storm that hit SoCal last week or all the other lentil recipes my blogger friends had posted that got me in the mood, but I was so happy to make these! Continue reading

Once-a-Year Treat: Multi-Grain Blueberry Pancakes

19 Feb

It’s a little painful to type today. My new juicer and I got into a small altercation yesterday morning. There was a beet and a piece of apple jammed in it, and although I had turned the machine off, I didn’t wait for it to completely stop before—you know what I’m going to say here, don’t you—I stuck my hand in.

Yes, dear reader, the juicer won. Luckily I didn’t stick my hand in too far, so the situation didn’t turn into a scene from one of those Hostel films (I’m only assuming, I’d never watch one of those films. Okay, maybe if you paid me a million dollars. Maybe.). But one of my fingers got slightly mangled, and I now have a healthy respect for the juicer. It does, indeed, have the upper hand. Well, only when it’s plugged into the wall, and I have control over that. (Cue evil laugh.)

But the wound is not the reason I decided to treat The Husband and I to blueberry pancakes this morning. It’s all Food & Wine magazine‘s fault—this month’s cover has a stack of pancakes smack on the front, dripping with berries and syrup. It’s had me craving pancakes all week. And, I felt since we had eaten raw food all week and I ran five miles this morning, we deserved it. Continue reading

I Missed National Popcorn Day…Only By a Few Days.

29 Jan

Doesn't it just make you want some?

But it was worth the wait. I decided to make a recipe in honor of Elote Café, the wonderful star of restaurants in Sedona, Arizona that my bestie Heather and I visited in early December. They don’t take reservations, so they pass out unlimited amounts of this seasoned popcorn for guests while they wait. We didn’t have a long wait, so I only got to try a little bit before we were seated with the best jalapeño margarita I’ve ever tasted— Continue reading

Burger Queen

3 Sep

This is a special occasion for me, as it turns out that the cow and I don’t get along. I haven’t been able to eat beef since I moved back from London. Dairy either. And now I think I know what’s at the root of the problem: the beef in this country is fed some weird hormones that really twist my stomach into knots.

Now that's what I call a proper burger.

Not that I need to eat beef often, for sure, but cheese? Are you kidding me? That’s just cruel. I love cheese, and sorry–none of the vegan stuff comes close. Except the stuff with casein in it, which is a) technically not vegan and b) milk protein, so it still does my stomach in.

But I made a discovery, finally. Cheese made with goat or sheep’s milk does not hurt my stomach! And neither does bison! Oh, happy days! Here’s the super delicious burger I made to test this theory out, and I’m happy to report that it was not just tasty, it was also painless.

There’s quite a bit going on in this recipe, and we used the same fries as before. This time I finally shallow-fried them in a little coconut and grapeseed oil mix, because last time I had to actually stick them under the broiler to get them to brown, and even after that, they still weren’t very crispy. And we’re still loving those Japanese yams for fries. Continue reading

Ahh…Curry!

27 Aug

So, when I lived in London, I missed Mexican food so much. When I first moved over there, you couldn’t even buy tortillas, and the only salsa you could buy was El Paso in a jar. Which, let’s face it, is NOT salsa.

Mmmm...curry. It just makes life worth living.

Now that I’m back in California, I miss what London does so well: Indian curry. I had the best place near me in Battersea that I used to order from all the time. All the time. How often? Let’s just say I received a Christmas card from them…

There’s an Indian restaurant a half a block from my house. I never go there because it is not authentic. The weird thing is that the owners also own Nina’s Anglo-Indian Grocery in El Toro, where the food is quite good. Weird. I think this one is trying to appeal to the American palate too much. But never mind.

The Husband loves it when I start toasting up the spices and making curry. He loves anything with a ton of garlic in it, like me, so curry always works for us. It can be a little labor intensive with all the prep and chopping, but once you’ve done that, it goes pretty quick.

You can use plain rice with this, but I’ll also include a recipe for a simple rice and a pilau rice. If you need any of the spices listed here, head to Nina’s or another ethnic grocery, where they’ll be much cheaper than buying the little jars at the store.

I’m starting you all off with a mild curry—for those of you who like it hot, throw more chili in there. And for those who don’t like spice, don’t omit the chilis I have here. Really, there will be no burning of the mouth. I promise.

For the vegetarians/vegans out there, just omit the chicken and add more mushrooms and maybe throw in some chickpeas. Some eggplant would be nice too. Continue reading

Pancakes for Dinner

19 Jul
Thai Pancakes

You're jealous of my child-sized stove. Go on, admit it.

I personally wasn’t convinced last night that I should blog about these Thai pancakes, as I didn’t think they were that hot, but The Husband must have been in some sort of psychedelic coconut love-drug haze last night. He loved them. Had seconds, even.

He did admit that the sauce on the stir fry was a little on the salty side—I blame myself for not tasting the oyster sauce before I put it in. It would have been perfect with just a splash of soy sauce, but I got a little twirled up because I remembered we had the oyster sauce in the fridge. To make this fully vegetarian, don’t use the oyster sauce. There’s tricks to replace the egg in the pancakes to make it vegan, but you can comment and ask if you want more info and I’ll happily give it.

So, here’s the recipes with a few notes on what I’ll do next time—because according to TH, there WILL be a next time. Continue reading