Look what the UPS guy brought me today!

I'm so excited to get my new Blentec blender! That's right, I finally broke down and bought something powerful enough to actually blend smoothies, salad dressings, and all that good stuff. After almost a year of striving for a raw food diet and struggling with my old food processor - really asking waaaayyy too much of it (just look at that poor sad thing in the background!), I wanted to get just the right one, but the pros and cons of Vita-Mix vs. Blendtec had me in decision paralysis for the past few months.

But then I saw this. Ignore the creepy people and skip forward to 3 minutes and 30 seconds into the video and just watch for 30 seconds. My jaw dropped. This is the new Blendtec WildSide Total blender and it not only beats the pants off the older Blendtec model, but the Vita-Mix as well. Plus, it's easier to clean, lighter and shorter so it fits under my cabinets which means I can keep it on the counter and use it every day.

So what am I going to make first? I guess I'll try my super-duper deluxe breakfast smoothie first thing in the morning and hopefully I'll save some time by a) blending faster and b) not making a mess I have to clean up!

Super Duper Banana Smoothie

1 medium banana (peeled and frozen)
1-2 tsp. greens powder (I like the cocoa flavored stuff, of course!)
1-2 tsp. mesquite powder
1-2 tsp. protein powder
1-2 tsp. raw carob powder
2 c. cold water (I like mine a little more fluid than most smoothies)


Optional - one of the following:
1 Tbsp. peanut or almond butter
4 or 5 frozen cherries

Blend until smooth and enjoy!

More than just marinara - the spaghetti squash dilemma

Someone asked my this week about what to do with spaghetti squash, specifically what to do other than put spaghetti sauce on it. Hmmmm.... good question! It's winter squash season and we got our first spaghetti squash of the year at the CSA last week. I was checking out their website and found this great recipe for spaghetti squash salad flavored with orange juice and parsley. Sounds pretty good. I might substitute cilantro for the parsley seeing as I love cilantro.

You can also toss the cooked squash with half a cup of orange juice, the same amount of chopped parsley and a little salt or pepper for a warm salad or side dish. Any leftovers can be eaten cold the next day or reheated in the microwave. (Listed on the Spaghetti Squash Ideas page)

 So the other recipe on the CSA webpage is a spaghetti squash lasagna which got me to thinking about the Greek "lasagna" dish pastistio. I first had this dish while married to my first ex-husband. His mother (Ya-ya) made an excellent, if meaty, pastistio. For years, I've substituted veggie burgers for the traditional ground lamb or beef with pretty tasty results, but this weekend I set out to find whether I could recreate this dish using spaghetti squash instead of noodles. It worked! In fact, I think I prefer it with the tiny strands of squash instead of macaroni.

This recipe does take some work, but it's well worth it. We had enough for leftovers and it was even better re-heated! Here's the recipe:

Pastistio

The "noodle" part:
1 medium sized spaghetti squash, halved, seeded, cooked and cooled. Set aside.

The "hambuger" part:
2 cups of ground veggie meat (I used a mixture of Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage and Morningstar Farms Grillers) OR 2 cups cooked lentils OR 1/2 lb. ground meat (traditional is lamb or beef)
1 onion, chopped
2 T. olive oil
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (yes, cinnamon - you'd better put that in!)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt to taste
3 T tomato paste
3 T water

Saute the onion and "meaty stuff" in the olive oil. when it's almost finished, add the oregano, garlic and spices. Cook for 1-2 minutes  more until the spices become aromatic. Then add the tomato paste and water. Mix well. Put aside.

The white sauce part:

1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1 T white flour
3 cups milk
1-1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese

Melt the butter and oil together in a heavy sauce pan. Add the flour and stir until the mixture becomes somewhat lighter in color. Add the milk all at once and stir with a wire whisk until it's creamy and hot. Add 1-1/4 c. of the Parmesan cheese and stir until it's once again creamy. Set aside.

To build it:
Pull the strands out of half the squash and put it i the bottom of a greased 9 x 9 casserole dish. press it down a little so it's flat against the bottom of the dish.

Add the meat mixture over the squash. Spread it evenly.

Pull out the strands from the second half of the squash and put those on top of the "meat" part. gently press everything down a bit with the back of a spoon.

Pour half the white sauce on top. use a table knife to make sure the sauce gets down into the dish. You should be able to add the rest of the white to the top. Sprinkle the top with the remaining Parmesan cheese, a little ground cinnamon, and some ground oregano.

Bake at 400 degrees for 35-45 minutes or utl the top is bubbly and browned. Cool after a half an hour before digging in!

Raw for Lunch

Some of you may know that I've started to incorporate more raw foods into my diet in an effort to a) lose some weight and b) control my blood sugar readings. This started with the Tree of Life website and led to various cookbooks, websites and videos that have brought not only a loss of 6 pounds in the last 6 weeks, but also a whole new menu of tasty food possibilities! I am so enjoying this so much more than I thought I would.

Today's lunch featured a new recipe that I thought I'd share with you. It's slightly adapted from the Creme Tomat recipe in Alive in 5: Raw Gourmet Meals in Five Minutes. It's especially nice right now since there were so many nice tomatoes at the Farmer's market last weekend. I used the basil we've been growing from the CSA seedling we got earlier this year and I made the almond milk by whirling 1 c. soaked raw almonds in 1 c. water and then straining it through cheese cloth. It took about 5 minutes total to make this lovely fresh, thick "milk."

Creamy Tomato Soup
1 c. fresh tomatoes
10 nice-sized leaves of fresh basil
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. sea salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 c. fresh almond milk

Blend all the ingredients in the food processor until smooth and creamy. So easy to make!

At lunch I had the soup with the Everybody's Favorite Crackers I made this past weekend. Those are little work and are more hmmmm... shall we say "delicate" than the crackers I usually make, but they are nutty and satisfying to eat.

Simple Fare

After a hard or stressful day at work, it's nice to come home, put on your pj's and cook something simple and hearty, especially now that the weather is getting cooler. Beans and rice are one of those dishes we look to for peace, comfort and satisfaction. I have the good fortune of being able to go home for lunch and yesterday I threw a few pinto beans into the slow cooker with some water. This also works if you put them on in the morning - no soaking necessary. They cook beautifully!

Our bean dinners turn out slightly different every time depending on what type of beans, vegetables, and/or herbs/spices we use. Some things never change: a little oil, onions, some kind of peppers (sweet, hot or a mixture), garlic, sofrito*, and a few pieces of tomatoes.

Most times we use Annatto oil which is made by boiling annatto seeds in olive oil until it turns a beautiful red color, but last night we used olive oil (about a tablespoon) to saute the onions, peppers, sofrito, and garlic. Into this mixture, we add the spices. This is where it gets fun. David dives into our spice cabinet and starts sniffing everything. How he feels determines the spice for the evening. Last night there was Spanish (smoked) paprika, oregano, some Goya Sazon, a little ginger, fresh ground black pepper, and a bay leaf. After the spices began to heat up, we also added some Morningstar Farms organic breakfast sausage patties and a little bit of water to steam them apart. When the vegetables were tender and the soy patties were all broken up, we added the cooked beans, tomatoes, and some kalamata olives. We let the whole thing simmer while the rice cooked.

One word of advice about rice...brown rice and jasmine rice don't mix well in a rice cooker! We've been very successful combining long grain brown and white rice together though. Anyway, after 2 cooking cycles on the rice cooker, we had our rice and pinto beans with a very nice Beringer pinot noir while we watched Monday night's  episode of The Daily Show.


So, I did a lot of "we" talking above, but really David made those beans while I worked on another simple dish for today. It's based on a dish I had last weekend at Chef Alisha's European and Bosnian Cafe (Oracle and Rudasill-ish). They called it simply "Cabbage Salad" and I can't think of a better name for it. It was shredded cabbage, olive oil, a splash of vinegar, salt, pepper and dried parsley. My first version of this was just slightly improved by using fresh parsley instead of the dried stuff. Last night, I got a bit more creative and added some color to it.

I shredded a half head of green cabbage thinly with my Cutco carving knife (and yes, I was extra careful after last week's fiasco with the smaller, but similar slicer!) and I mean as very thin as I could get it. This is important for having a tender salad as compared to one you have to chew like a cow. Then I sprinkled the shreds liberally with salt and crushed the shreds up with my (impeccably clean) hands until the cabbage turned moist and bright green in color. Then I added a small red pepper, chopped, 1 stalk of celery, chopped, and about 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley. For the dressing I drizzled 1 tablespoon of olive oil, some fresh ground black pepper, and a few splashes of rice vinegar (or you could use apple cider vinegar) over the whole thing. Mix it up and yum!

*Sofrito is a blended mixture of onions, red sweet pepper, hot peppers (to taste), garlic, some salt and lots of cilantro. You can make it in large batches in the food processor and then split it up in smaller bags in the freezer. It lasts a long time!