What I am Eating: Nut Granola

One thing that's interesting is a lot of times when a baby is allergic to a bunch of nuts, there are some they aren't allergic to as well. For James this is walnuts, pecans, and macadamia nuts (all the fattiest ones, what do you know? He likes Mommy squishy).

So I bought a pound each of walnuts and pecans.

First I preheated the oven at 400 degrees.

Then I put the nuts in a bowl and poured homemade maple syrup (maybe 1/4 cup?) over them, 2-3 tbs of melted Soy-Free Earth Balance and added cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe 1/4 cup oats, and maybe 1/8 cup of chia seeds, and salt to taste.

I mixed it all together, and then laid it out on 2 baking sheets covered with parchment paper.

Bake at 400 degrees for 7/10 mins, take out, let cool, and then store in freezer between snacks!

It's REALLY good and it packs a punch--protein--both from the nuts and chia seeds, sweet, rich, salty, it has everything. So this has been a great comforting snack recently.

Maple Syrup

I'm making maple syrup right now. It's one of the things I've been doing in my internet hiatus.

We have 5 large maple trees on our property. One is too sick to tap. One is HUGE and makes a TON of syrup. And then there are three average ones. What I do is I tap the three middle sized trees one year, then the next year I tap the big tree. I like to do the trees every other year because if you do them every year they get dependent on it and then if you weren't to do it for some reason, they might explode or crack, which could hurt or kill the tree.

So this year is the third year I have done it and it's the big trees turn again. We are having a great productive year. It's hard to estimate how much syrup we've made.

Here's some of the syrup. We've gotten all of this, plus another 2 hourglass containers, plus another 2 or 3 quarts. Maybe . . . 6 quarts so far?

It's really easy to make the syrup. I used this guide to help me know how to tap them correctly.

After you collect it you just boil it for a long time. It probably takes 2 days of continual boiling to make about a quart. We pretty much make it non-stop during the whole month of March. And sometimes some of February and April, too! This was a late year because it was so cold.

You have to tap the trees when it is starting to get above freezing during the day, but it still dips below freezing most nights. The freezing causes the sap to swell--creating pressure that pushes it out of the tree as it melts.

We boil in a large stock pot (probably holds about 3/4 gallons) on a hot plate outside on our porch. We did it in the kitchen the first year and it destroyed our ceiling because it was so much steam for so long.

Anyway, after it gets thick enough, turn the heat off and let it cool. When it's still warm, pour it into quart jars and let it cool outside or in the fridge. As it cools it will settle.

All the wood sediment and imperfections will settle to the bottom. You can see in the quart jar below the sediment at the bottom.

So you pour off the syrup on the top and it is perfectly clear and amazingly delicious (like in the other containers above)!

Our Healthy Dinner

This is what we had for dinner tonight. Gluten Free, Vegan, with veggies, fruit, nuts, and beans! Super healthy and very delicious!

Pumpkin Muffins

So James and I made pumpkin muffins tonight with this recipe.

Here's the picture I stole off of the recipe page (so much easier than taking a picture of the ones we made, teehee):



They were pretty darn good! We substituted "ENER-G Egg Substitute" for the two eggs, and we used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour (which I highly recommend as a gluten-free flour substitute in general).

I would recommend changing the ratios on the topping to use less shortening. Maybe 3 tbs of shortening instead of four--or if you like a lot of topping, use 1/3 of a cup of flour, white sugar, and brown sugar instead of a 1/4 of a cup. As it's written, it is too wet and doesn't quite "crumble".

Anyway, yes we liked them. I might make them again for Thanksgiving (or have James do it, hehe).

Labor Lasagna needs it's own post

So I'm on my second bowl of labor lasagna today. Honestly not because I am horribly uncomfortable and need to be in labor immediately, but because IT IS SO GOOD.

I made it with the intention to make it super spicy, but it turned out to be just a normal amount of spicy, which I ended up being grateful for, in the end.

Anyway, I guess I'll write up a ghetto recipe about it, since it is amazing.

First, prepare the ingredients:

-Prepare the sauce. I use my own homemade sauce but you can also just get any jarred sauce of your preference. You would need about 2 quarts (jars) of it though. Heat it up in a saucepan and set aside.
-Prepare the peppers--I used 2/3's of four different kinds of hot pepper cut up into small pieces. You gotta go with the fresh pepper, just using "pepper" or bell peppers is not going to cut it.
After cutting up the peppers, I also cut up a clove of garlic, and put the peppers and garlic in a small amount of sauce (one cup) to heat up and stew.
After a few minutes, turn off the heat and set the sauce aside.
-Prepare the eggplant--slice the eggplant in thin (1/4-1/8 inch) slices. Dip each slice in salt on both sides, and stack the slices up on a plate. Leave them for 15 minutes or longer while you do other things.
Then, when you are ready to use them, wash the slices off and pat them dry with a paper towel or cloth towel. You may notice (hopefully) that they have spewed forth tons of brown liquid--supposedly this is all the bitterness coming out of them. Once they are dried, set them aside for layering.
-Prepare the "protein"--I used tofu but you could also used ground meat or tempeh:
I crumbled up the tofu and fried it in the wok in olive oil with salt for a LONG time, until the water was all evaporated and the tofu was getting nice and browned.
Then I added about 1/3 of the cut up hot peppers and let them cook with the tofu for a few more minutes, as it got even more brown, fried, and yummy. Finally, take out of the wok and set aside for layering.
-Prepare the other veggies. Honestly this could be anything, because the important things are the peppers and eggplant. I used one onion, one red bell pepper, and a grated carrot. Grate or cut into small pieces all of the other veggies you want to use and set aside in individual containers for layering.
-Prepare the cheese. I used vegan cheese (I highly recommend that brand), a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella flavors. If you are not vegan, use regular cheddar or mozzerella ;-). Anyway, grate the cheese up and put it aside.
-Finally, make sure you have a pound of lasagna noodles on hand. I used rice noodles because I'm gluten free and it worked out great, I didn't notice the difference with all the other flavors.

Now you are ready to make the lasagna!

Put a layer of sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish.
Then a layer of lasagna noodles.
Then one or more of the ingredients.
Repeat over and over until you are done, making sure to alternate the noodles in each layer in different directions.
Also make sure to use plenty of sauce--the noodles will soak it right up. After each layer of ingredients put a good layer of sauce before putting in your next layer of noodles.

In terms of what I did for layers: I think I put the carrot and onion in one layer, the tofu in one layer, the peppery sauce and cheese in one layer, the eggplant in one layer, the red peppers in one layer. (Did I forget anyone?)

Finally top the lasagna with a layer of cheese (and Parmesan cheese if you are not vegan), and bake at 400 degrees for a half hour to forty minutes. If you use the vegan cheese, you'll need to crank it up to 475 for the last 10 minutes because the cheese needs to be at a high temperature to melt.

Take it out of the oven, let it cool for at least 10 mins, and then enjoy with some of the sauce that you have leftover from putting it together. If you are lucky, it might look like this at the end:



I can't really get over how good it is, but lasagna IS my favorite food and I probably haven't had it in almost a year, so that might be part of it. I plan on eating it non-stop until it is gone, regardless of the status of labor or baby.

Much Promised Vegan Mac and Cheese Recipe

Alright, so I have been vegan and missing Mac and Cheese for like . . . 6 years now. During this time I often tried Mac and Cheese recipes and I never liked them. They typically used like 1/4 or 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast . . . and don't get me wrong, I love nutritional yeast, but it just didn't cut it for me as a main ingredient of a cheesy dish.

So here we go! I have promised this to so many people recently and failed to ever write it down. Most of the amounts are pretty variable so just experiment and see what you like.

First prepare your pasta according to the package directions. I like to use the traditional "macaroni" shaped pasta because I find with vegan cooking, perception affects taste, so the closer you can stick to your mental schema of "Mac and Cheese", the more it will taste like Mac and Cheese.

Next prepare the cheese sauce.

Heat a small pot over medium/high heat. Melt in Earth Balance Non-Hydrogenated Vegan Margarine. NO, ANOTHER MARGARINE WILL NOT DO. This is the best! (Well, you could also use Soy Garden but it's the same thing under different packaging). But no other kinds. How much Earth Balance? Wellllll, for a whole pound of pasta I'm thinking at least 1/2 cup of Earth Balance. But pretty much use what you want and it'll be fine.

So yes, melt 1/2 cup of Earth Balance per pound of pasta into your sauce pan.

Next, add about 1/2 a tub (or more) of Tofutti "Better than Cream Cheese", and 1/2 tub (or more) of Tofutti "Better than Sour Cream".

Whisk this thickening mixture together and then add some oat/almond/soy/whatever vegan milk to it. Like, not that much, a few splashes. Maybe 1/4 cup or so.

When this is hot and bubbling, add some grated "cheddar flavor", Vegan Gourmet Cheese Alternative. Again, this "cheese" can't really be substituted with anything else I have ever found.

**A note on dealing with the cheese substitute: Generally what we do is grate the entire block of "cheese" the first time we use it, and then freeze whatever we don't use on the first time through. Then you have it in your freezer, pre-grated and ready to go, whenever you need to use it for anything. Just an idea!**

So add maybe 1/2 cup of grated cheddar "cheese" to your bubbling sauce, and whisk until it is all melted. Then turn the heat down to low (or off) and add the final flavor/color enhancers. I generally add:

-A couple of squirts of ketchup (1/2 tablespoon or so?). I honestly haven't decided if this is purely to make the cheese sauce more "orange" or if I like the added flavor, but I do it every time now.
-A few sprinkles of corn starch (maybe 1 tablespoon?)--helps to thicken the sauce a bit more.
-Some nutritional yeast. Didn't mean to hate on it before--I love it. But more like 1/2 tablespoon of it. Not 1/2 cup.
-Some extra salt
-(optionally) some hot sauce--like only a little bit--I like the Texas Pete's or the Sriracha Sauce (the kind you find in those authentic awesome "these people are FROM China/Taiwan/Thailand/etc" sort of restaurants). Anyway, I do tend to add a squirt or so of hot sauce--it doesn't really make it hot--more for flavor (and again, color).


Finally, squirt some Bragg's Liquid Amino's (totally worth buying but if you don't have it, you can use soy sauce) over your pasta, stir, and then pour your cheese sauce over your pasta and stir, and you are ready to go!!

We really like eating this Mac and Cheese with a green side like steamed kale, spinach, broccoli, etc. These vegan substitute things can be a bit intense on their own, so having that green side right there just makes it all taste even better!



So there, finally, the much enhanced vegan Mac and Cheese recipe! If anyone tries it, let me know if you approve! Hehe.

Banana Split

Yum Yum!


So Delicious Coconut Milk Ice Cream (Chocolate, Vanilla, and Chocolate Almond)
Banana
Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Sauce (Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, Peanut Butter, Earth Balance--warmed up in the microwave and whipped together)
And topped with Soy Whipped Cream

Yay for vegan banana splits! :-D

Tomato Basil Tofu

Okay, time for another recipe post.

The rain caused a bunch of our tomatoes to burst into ripeness, so since we are going to our friend Erik's 30th Birthday today I was inspired to use them in a recipe. But what recipe? I decided I didn't want to cook them since they are so fresh and so clean clean . . . I thought of making salsa--but I think it's too blasé for my fresh tomatoes. Then I thought of bruschetta--but people (like me) like to eat that with bread and since I'm mostly a bread-free gal nowadays I wanted to come up with something else.

So I decided to make tomato basil tofu! The vegan version of tomato basil mozzeralla, where these three ingredients are stacked together for a simple and fabulous taste-sation.

Anyway, right now I am marinating the tofu.

Marinade ingredients:
a few tablespoons of soy sauce (wheat free)
splash of apple cider vinegar
nice squirt of raw agave nectar
two shakes of Texas Pete hot sauce
a tablespoon or so of nutritional yeast
and last but most importantly: a liberal amount (several tablespoons) of olive oil

We still have to shop for the basil--mine is rather water deprived at the moment (whoops), but then I will put a slice of just-picked-off-of-the-vine tomato, then on top of that, a fresh basil leaf, and finally a thin slice of marinated tofu.

And I'm pretty sure it will be amazingly delicious and so perfect for a hot summer day like today. Whooop.

P.S. It was BANGING!! Here's a pic.

Dinner

So, last night we had dinner with the in-laws and also brother-in-law and sister-in-law. (I'm going to be annoying and not use their names for this whole post because we got into this huge discussion/argument about facebook, privacy, etc, and I just feel like in the wake of that, I should not use any of their names. Even though BIL is a writer, goddamnit, he should stop censoring me! Okay, sorry, pregnant lady hormones. Anyway...)

My MIL has been vegan and gluten-free (for the most part) for several months now, and has found that this diet very effectively manages her blood sugar. She has even been able to stop taking meds, has lost a bunch of weight, etc.

Now (meat and gluten eating) BIL and SIL are staying with them for a few weeks before they head off to Russia (SIL's homeland) for the summer. So the last few times we ate over there, MIL and SIL made dishes--which were really good but I could tell they are out of their element.

So we are scheduled to go over their house for a co-birthday dinner (MIL's is in a few days and SIL's is in a few weeks, but they leave for Russia on Monday), so I offered to make the whole dinner--both because it was their birthdays and because they both cooked the last few times we ate together and I made nothing.

Now, I love cooking! But my stupor that I mentioned in my last post seemed to stretch on and on into "I am fighting off a virus" sort of tired/nausea/phelgmy throat . . . so on Thursday, in the wake of a huge headache, I made James come with me to the co-op to get all the things I would need to cook, and on Friday I found myself laying on my couch UNABLE to motivate myself.

Finally I managed to clean up my kitchen, and I brought the cutting board and veggies into the living room so I could sit on my couch, cut up veggies, and watch X-Files reruns all at the same time. I figured the X-Files would distract me from my stupor. I started this cutting at 2:30, and I wanted to leave for MIL's house by 4:30, get there at five, and finish the cooking there.

Around 4, I had almost finished the first (main) dish--Moroccan Tagine. It is a red lentil and spring vegetables stew. I have made it before so I knew it was DELICIOUS. But there are a TON of veggies in it, and despite nearly an hour of dedicated cutting, and then another hour of cooking while cutting, I was done with this one dish, and had started the rice (a mix of brown and wild) but had like three more to go.

Finally I broke down and called James. The original plan was for me to show up at MIL's house with the food--some cooked, some to cook at her house, and he would meet us. Around 4, I realized it was not going to happen, hence the phone call.

James: "Hi Honey! How is everything going?"
Me: "Well, I finished the Tagine."
James: "Well, that's good!"
Me: "Yeah but we still don't have cupcake papers."
James: "Oh damn, well, do you want me to get some?"
Me: "Yeah actually, that's why I was calling. I don't think I'm going to be able to get all this food to your Mom's house by myself. I just started the rice and it's going to take an hour to cook."
James: "Oh."
Me: "Can you come home and help me?"
James: "Um, yeah okay let me just finish up here."

We hang up, and I reaffirm my love for my husband, and I start on this sauce. This is a made-up recipe by me that is supposed to go over steamed bok choy. As part of my previous cutting frenzy, I cut up a TON of shiitake mushrooms (this was what took the longest).

So then I simmered ginger in olive oil for a minute, then added the mushrooms, which immediately soaked up all the olive oil. So I added more, and vegan butter (earth balance) and eventually got them stirfrying as well. Then I added cornstarch to create a gluten-free version of roue, then added homemade soup stock. While that simmered/thickened, I food-processed a can of black beans into paste, and added to the sauce. And that was the shiitake mushroom/black bean sauce.

At this point I searched for the tofu that I planned to baste with the sauce, to go with the bok choy, only to find that we ate it already. :-/ Oh well.

Then James gets home. Yay!! He makes gluten-free cupcakes. From a mix. I'm not a big fan of mixes but I am new to the gluten-free baking world and I'm not quite clear on the chemistry of different flours and ingredients yet.

So I'm onto making the last dish. This one is "Braised 3-Seed Cauliflower".

As an aside, when I speak of cooking, you can usually tell whether it is a real recipe or an "Adrienne Recipe" by the name. Compare "Moroccan Tagine" and "Braised 3-Seed Cauliflower" with "Shiitake Mushroom/Black Bean Sauce". If I was naming the other recipes, the Tagine would be called: Red Lentil and Veggie Stew; and the Braised Cauliflower would be called: Cauliflower and Tomato Stirfry.

Anyway, back to the recipe. Both of these actual recipes are from this book: Vegan with a Vengence. It, along with it's fellows: Veganomican, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and others, are hands down the BEST vegan cookbooks anywhere, any time.

So I made the cauliflower and tomato, and it was ready just as the cupcakes came out the oven. But, if you recall before I got distracted by cooking, I'm still in a stupor. I am sitting on a stool in the kitchen--unshowered, wearing dirty sweat-pants and a glazed expression. I pick out suitable transport dishes for the food, go upstairs, change, and report back down as James is loading all the food into bags and we are off to the inlaws.

We eat pretty much right away (well, after I steam the bok choy--that was the last thing to be done), and everyone is in agreement that all the food is incredible. People even like the recipe I made up myself (which honestly, I wasn't crazy about)--but the cauliflower is BANGING and so is the Tagine, of course.

Then we open presents and cards, eat cake (MIL also bought an amazing gluten-free vegan cake from this specialty store. At first I was mad that she was buying her own cake but OMG it was incredible), and argue about Facebook.

See my next post for the conclusion of this exciting tale.

OMG

I just made this "Egg McMuffin with Cheese", which is in quotes because every aspect of it was fake, considering it was vegan and gluten-free.

The egg was made of tofu baked (fried) with a baste of coconut oil, gluten-free soy sauce, maple syrup, salt, hot sauce (just a little), and nutritional yeast.

The "muffin" was these awesome (gluten free, vegan) "English Muffins" made by Ener-G.

The "cheese" was fake vegan cheese--but this kind that actually melts.

So after I baked (fried) the tofu in the oven for like an hour, flipping it every 15 mins or so and applying more baste, I eventually took slices of fresh tomato and laid them over the slices of tofu and baked it for like 5-10 more mins.

Meanwhile, I toasted the "muffin", and then sprinkled it with the vegan cheese, and then also put it in the oven for the cheese to melt.

And then I just put the tofu/tomato on the cheesy muffin, sprinkled a little more nutritional yeast, and walah, a vegan Egg-McMuffin.

OMG it was SO SO SO good. I can't even express HOW GOOD it was. If I had another English Muffin-y thing I would have eaten another one, and normally I try not to have too much of that fake gluten-free bread stuff.

I just want to make sure any readers understand that this is NOT a healthy recipe. Coconut oil is full of saturated fats--and while in its raw, uncooked form, it does have some benefits (raising good cholesterol which then fights bad cholesterol), once you heat it, these benefits are lost.

And since pretty much every other ingredient (besides the tomato) was 100% fake and super processed, there is ZERO argument for this being a healthy recipe. Trust me, it doesn't matter that it is vegan and gluten free. I think health wise, it is probably on the same level as a sausage egg mcmuffin (from McDonalds). I wouldn't even compare it to a regular egg-and-cheese muffin because I'm pretty sure those are healthier.

But I can say with pretty much complete abandon: I DON'T CARE. It was DELICIOUS, and I will definitely be making this recipe again.

We'll see what "after effects" I have to endure from eating all this fat and fake $hit, though . . . but oh man was it good.

Soup Stock

Time for another blog about cooking. I mentioned in my pasta sauce blog that I used homemade soup stock.

Well, I can’t really say enough about the benefits of homemade soup stock. It can be used instead of water in a variety of recipes: to make rice, quinoa, lentils, stuffing, gravy, and, obviously, soup. It adds WAY more flavor to these things than using just plain water (and buying soup stock can be expensive when you compare it to homemade soup stock being COMPLETELY free).

See, one thing I love about soup stock is that it puts to use all of the things we would normally throw away. Here is how I make my stock.

In my freezer I have a plastic container, and I take this container out whenever I cut up veggies. I throw into it: the ends of carrots, celery, squashes, the stringy middles of pumpkin or other squashes, the tips of mushroom stems, the stems from spinach, the peels from carrots, potatoes, and onions, the stems from fresh spices—pretty much anything vegetably. Even the ends/stems of lettuce, cucumber, and other veggies you might not think of cooking normally. I experimented with throwing lemon or orange peels in there—don’t do it.

Other things you do NOT want to put into the stock (I learned this the hard way after making ratatouille) the bits and stems of tomatoes and peppers. This will make your stock too acidic. I have never had heartburn in my life EXCEPT for after I used the stock from ratatouille odds and ends to make rice or something and ate that rice. It was horrible—I mean, it tasted fine but I had SEVERE and INTENSE heartburn for like three days. I was eating baking soda at its maximum suggested usage. Yeah. So don’t put those things in your stock.

Other things you CAN put in your stock: oil left in the pan after cooking something else, the rest of a beer that someone didn’t finish (are you thinking “eww?” It’s normally just James, so whatevs), the liquid that is around tofu in its container, or the liquid around other vegetables in their cans—you might NOT want to use canned liquid if you are anti a lot of preservatives, though.

(Oh yeah and for you non-vegetarians: scraps and fats from chicken/beef/lamb/fish/etc, the bones and carcasses, all this can go in your stock too. Though from watching my Mom do this, if you have a whole chicken carcass that you are planning on making stock from, I think THEN would be the time to pull out your container of veggies and make the stock, instead of trying somehow to freeze the carcass. Ugh, just thinking about making food from an animal’s carcass reminds me why I’m a vegetarian. But whatevs, meat-eaters, you deserve delicious stock, too!)

So basically over a period of a week or two, you would collect all these odds and ends in this plastic container that you keep in your freezer. Sometimes you might need more than one, depending on how often you want to make stock! And just think, all these things COULD be going to waste, getting thrown away, but instead you will be extracting tons of flavor and nutrients from them!

So you put this frozen chunk of stuff into a deep pot with a bunch of water, and then you boil it until has reduced by half, and then you fill it up again with water, boil it again until it has reduced by half, etc etc. Depending on how many veggies and stuff you start out with, you could use more water, boil down more times, and eventually end up with more stock, or less.

When you get toward the end, you have the choice to spice the stock or not. Generally if I spiced it, I would add oil (there might already be some depending on your ingredients), salt, and pepper. But I sort of stopped spicing it because depending on what you use it for, you might want it to be less or more salty/spicy. So now I generally don’t spice it anymore, and just spice the food in the end to taste.

Then you let it cool off to room temperature, and pour it into plastic containers to freeze. I generally freeze it in 1-2 cup containers, since often when you make rice you will only need 1-2 cups of liquid.

I think you could definitely can the stock as well, if you are into canning, which would eliminate the need to de-thaw the stock before you used it, but I have yet to do that. I was making a big pot of stock before my power went out today, so maybe I will try canning it to see how I like that. We have a low freezer capacity so canning things is definitely attractive.

When you pour it into the containers/cans, you will want to strain it through a wire wesh. I use the thing that you are supposed to use for sifting flour. When you have a bunch of the veggies piled up on the mesh, press them hard to extract all the juice. This is where a lot of the flavor is. When you’ve extracted all the juice, you can throw that stuff in your compost and continue straining.

After that, pile all your containers into the freezer (or cans into the canner), rinse out your plastic freezer bucket, and walah, you have a bunch of delicious stock, and you are all set to start collecting “ingredients” for your next batch!

Anyway, either way, like I said, this is an awesome way to “use up” your scraps and get delicious and very nutritious food out of the deal. Happy soup stock making!!

She got Sauce!

As much as you might not be able to tell this by reading this blog, I do think about things other than pregnancy.

One thing I enjoy is cooking. And one thing I enjoy cooking is pasta sauce.

Me and James are pretty picky eaters. Not only are we vegan, and not only am I fairly newly gluten-free, but we also have other things like: We don't really eat onions or garlic. That's not to say that I don't eat onions and garlic when you, friend or family member, make a delicious vegan dish for us that happens to include these ingredients, but I rarely use them for myself, and we aren't typically very tempted to buy something like pasta sauce that often has a lot of onions and garlic.

Why, you may ask, don't I eat onions and garlic? Don't I know that they are delicious? Why yes, yes I do. In fact, they are so delicious that a few years ago I was probably eating almost an entire onion a day. Until my dear, brutally honest family told me that I had horrible BO that smelled, in fact, like onions. Since then I have come to realize that for some reason, my body expels onion and garlic like the plague. If I eat it once, I smell bad for days.

Additionally, strict Buddhist vegetarians do not eat onions and garlic. Something about the fact that they are bulbs, or something? I don't know.

Long story short, pasta sauce is something that I like to make myself. I always have, thanks to my dear Mother, who also makes her own sauce, but my recipe has evolved from hers--losing the onions and garlic and adding . . . oh, a vast variety of things.

Since we got a canner, this pasta sauce making has gotten even more interesting--I see just how big of a batch I can make, because the bigger the batch, the more cans, and the longer until I need to make it again.

We ran out of the last batch about 4 months ago, but I was in the middle of tired-ness from hell, jobless angst, and bedrest, and so, James has been running to the store for store-made jars of sauce for the past few months.

But lately I've been feeling better, and getting that itch to have my own WAY BETTER THAN FROM THE STORE pasta sauce. So when we went to BJ's last weekend I stocked up on tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes . . . and at the co-op I got red and yellow and orange peppers, and kale, and shitake mushrooms, etc.

So here is what James and I did yesterday--we made sauce.

First, we went out to the garden and I cut snips from our oregano plant and our sage bush (the poor thyme had had a rough winter so I didn't take any from it), and from the green onion grass that grows wild in our yard (yes, technically onions, but I can't turn down the free spices). I washed the herbs, cut them and sorted them into two batches.

Then I heated oil in the wok, and added one batch of fresh spices. I also added salt, pepper, a ton of dried basil, dried thyme, tarragon, and probably other things that I am forgetting, like cumin. I slow simmered the spices in the oils while I did other prep.

Then I heated the oven to 400 degrees, and put the peppers (yellow and red) in a baking dish--slathered oil on them, and roasted them in the oven while I did still more prep.

I melted soup stock (another thing I like to make) in a pan while we cut everything up.

James set up our food processor, and he grated carrots, and sliced celery and broccoli stalks. I cut up the heads of the broccoli, thin-sliced shittake mushrooms, and cut up the kale--one note here is that the veggies you choose to use are not that important. I typically always use carrots because they add sweetness and we always have them. I also typically use some kind of leafy green, but I could have used frozen or fresh spinach instead of the kale, or collard greens or swiss chard. But we had kale. I also would normally use a green and yellow squash, but we didn't have them, so oh well!

And then we were ready!

I got the oil hotter, added the broccoli first, then the celery, carrots, mushrooms, and finally a can of asparagus and the kale. I stir-fried all these veggies until they were aromatic and browning.

Meanwhile, we got out a big HUGE pot, James washed it well and I put more oil (and Earth Balance--veggie butter) in the bottom to heat, and I pulled the peppers out of the oven, and covered them to let them steam a bit. When they were done (and cooled a little), I cut them open, making sure to save the juices they were releasing along with the oil they were cooking in. I cut out the core and the seeds and chopped up the rest of the peppers. They, along with their juices and oils, got added to the big pot with melting oil and butter--I tossed them around a bit, and then quickly added the rest of the stirfried veggies.

Now James started opening cans of diced tomatoes (3 or 4). The liquid in the tomatoes got squeezed into a bowl, the tomatoes themselves went into the wok with more oil and basil to stir-fry. While they stirfried, we also opened cans of crushed tomatoes (4 BIG BIG cans), and added those to the pot with the veggies. The cans were rinsed to get all the extra tomato out, and this liquid was also reserved in the bowl. Into this liquid bowl I threw some: quick-cook oatmeal (you heard me), green powder (like whole-food health powder), textured vegetable protein, chia seeds, and soup stock. This is our health-packed ingredient bowl. All of these ingredients need to absorb the water and soup stock, and so they chilled like that for awhile before eventually getting added to the big pot. By then, the tomatoes had finished their stir-frying and also got added to the big pot.

Now we were in the home stretch. I basically decided that we could stretch this further (it was tasty enough for more tomato stuff), and opened cans of tomato paste (maybe 4 8-ounce cans?) into a small bowl, rinsed them out well with water, and more water, which got added to the small bowl, whisked the paste and water together until it was a smooth consistency, and added this, too, to the big pot.

Now for final spicing. If you recall back to the beginning of this adventure, I cut the fresh spices up and separated them into two batches? Now the second batch of spices goes into the pot--and a cinnamon stick--and maple syrup (also homemade) for sweetness, and extra butter for deliciousness. And cumin, freshly ground--more pepper . . . and then we were basically done.

But since I worry about it sticking, I covered it with foil, and put it in the oven to simmer instead.

And while we sterilized our jars and lids, it simmered and became delicious.

Then finally we canned it--this is sort of a process as well, but James and I are a pretty good team now, and we are pretty efficient. It took two batches, while we ate quinoa pasta with fresh sauce and watched "The Wrath of Khan" on Netflix, but we eventually got 10 quarts of canned, fresh, homemade pasta sauce out of the deal.



You can even see all the chunks of delicious veggies! The thing I most love about this pasta sauce--it is never refrigerated or frozen. When I open those jars up, the most vital amazing smell comes out--I can tell those nutrients are as alive and special as they've ever been, and you can taste it, in the eating, and it makes it seem like something out of Italy.

So that was our adventure yesterday.