Cauliflower Mushroom Pasta with Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I have been mega into Brussels sprouts lately, which is a novel thing for me because I have never been able to claim being "really into" Brussels sprouts before. But they are super simple and SO CUTE! Right?

This pasta hit the spot for a carb-loading long run day for me. It was the product of me needing to get rid of some cauliflower (which is a GREAT problem to have - cauliflower is so versatile and fabulous!), but it turned out great so I think I'll keep it around.

For starters, here's a short tutorial on roasting Brussels sprouts. I guess everyone does it differently, but here's how I prepared them for this dish (and also, how I normally prepare them unless I'm really trying to avoid oil and fat but WHY would I ever do that????).

First, preheat your oven to 400, and go ahead and stick a cast iron skillet in there to warm up with your oven. It's always best to heat your skillet with your oven when roasting, to better balance your temperature dynamics. Next, slice your sweet little sprouts in half, lengthwise, so you can see all those crazy layers that just look so darling and aesthetically satisfying. Once your oven is heated, lay those sprouts face down in your skillet, along with a teeny bit of olive oil -- just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

Let these roast for 20 minutes, then remove them from the oven -- MAKE SURE to use an oven mitt, even if someone comes into the kitchen and distracts you with lovely conversation of poetry and beer and good things. Even if this person is good looking, they will not change the fact that this pan is HOT, and you will have a burn mark on your palm for weeks at least. Be careful.

So remove the pan and drop a dollop of Earth Balance onto the side of the pan. It will melt and run around the base of the pan, and make your sprouts hella good. Then season with salt and pepper, and return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

So let's get to the sauce. This sauce is hella easy and relatively simple. Here's what you'll need:

1 cup chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped cauliflower
1 T coconut oil
2 T Braggs
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cumin

So throw those mushrooms and cauliflowerz into a hot skillet, and cook with the coconut oil over medium for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add the Braggs and spices and cook another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Once your shrooms and etc aren't so steamy, throw it all into a food processor and puree until creamy. Return to a pot for a quick heat-up once you have pasta ready. By this time, your sprouts should be nice and toasty and VOILA, you have an awesome post-workout [or mid-hangover] lunch!

Strawberry Glazed Cashews

MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

By that I of course mean, "Oh look, it's Valentine's Day, so that means I have an excuse to make sweet treats for my friends. I mean my co-workers. Oh hell they're all the same people."

There are currently 23 other baristas employed at my sweet little Starbucks, and because each one of them is a precious soul who I never ever gossip about or get frustrated with, I wanted to make each person feel special and loved on this day of days. This glorious holiday that we look forward to each year. So I bought some Power Rangers valentines and decided to seal the deal with these goodie bags filled with dark chocolate and strawberry glazed cashews.

These are relatively simple, provided you have the patience for them to dry. Here's what you'll need for a smaller serving of about a dozen:

3 cups cashews (these can be raw/unsalted if you're feeling rather healthy. I think they may come out better if they are. I only could afford the salted kind)

1 cup chopped strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

First, toast the cashews at 250 for about 20 minutes, then give them a good toss and stick them back in for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, throw your strawberries in a food processor, and process until pureed. Heat your strawberries in a large pot on medium low, mixing in the sugar and vanilla and stirring every few minutes. Once you're sure the cashews are well toasted, stir them into the strawberry mix. 

Heat these juts a few minutes. More competent cooks will take this opportunity to rant about candy thermometers and the importance of maintaining a controlled temperature, but as you might guess, I have no clue as to these sorts of things. Just eyeball it, you know? Until everything is heated and sticky and goopy and delicious-looking.

Then remove these from heat and stick them back in the oven at 350 for about a half hour. Remove and let cool, for like, a while. I threw mine on parchment paper, and spread them out evenly so that each cashew has a little space to chill. If there are spaces and clumps that are too gloopy, get rid of some of that strawberry gloop. This will make them really hard to cool.

I let mine cool for a day, but I'm sure there's a better way to do this. Dehydrator? Living in Tempe, Arizona? Hair dryer? Different recipe? No clue. 

So happy Valentine's Day to all! I leave you with a love poem from one of my favorite writers:

What Love Does

Billy Collins

A fine thing, or so it sounds

on the radio in the summer

with all the windows rolled down.

Yet it pierces not only the heart

but the eyeball and the scrotum

and the little target of the nipple with arrows.

It turns everything into a symbol

like a storm that breaks loose

in the final chapter of a long novel.

And it may add sparkle to a morning,

or deepen a night

when the bed is ringed with fire.

It teaches you new joys 

and new maneuvers --

the takedown, the reversal, the escape.

But mostly it comes and goes,

a bee visiting the center

of one flower, then another.

Even as the ink is drying

on her name, it is off

to visit someone in another city,

a city with two steeples,

rows of brick chimney pots,

and a school with a tree-lined entrance.

It will travel through the night to get there,

and it will arrive like an archangel

through an iron gate no one ever seemed to notice before.

<3

Avotatchos!

When I lived in the Northwest, I quickly learned that tatchos were the standard Portland bar food when you're 4 drinks in, despite them never appearing on any real  menu ever. I had never heard of putting tater tots in your nachos before, because why fix something that ain't broken? But listen. This is the best idea you will make the entire year of the snake (happy holidays, by the by).

So I've had a hankering for some tatchos ever since I've moved back to Kentucky - where literally no one has ever had the thought to cover tater tots in cheese. Also every time I drink more than 2 beers, I think it might be a good idea to fry up some tots and slather them with fixins. I was going to throw some together for the Super Duper Bowl, but I took a nap instead and also my friends are too hip to own TVs. So I finally said ENOUGH and made some tonight.

These are made with blue corn tortilla chips, diced avocado, sauteed mushrooms, mango salsa, tempeh crumbles, Isa's cheese sauce from Veganomicon, sriracha, Tofutti sour cream and ---- wait.... AVOTOTS.

What's an avotot? It's a tater tot made with potatoes AND avocado. Inspired by my compulsion to throw avocado into whatever I damn well please. Here's how you make them:

3 russet potatoes
2 tsp seasoned salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 avocado
3 T flour
1/2 T chili garlic sauce

Boil the potatoes until easily pierced with a fork. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mash up an avocado with the seasonings and chili garlic sauce. When the taters are done cooking, drain them, then grate them into the avocado bowl while they're still hot. Mix well, then add the flour.

In a small skillet, heat about 1/4 an inch of vegetable oil on medium heat. When you can start to see the current in the oil, ball up your avotater mixture into precious little tot-balls. Toss them into the skillet and turn once golden on one side. I shouldn't have to explain how to fry stuff, right? We're adults, right?

That said, let those drain on a paper towel when they're finished.

Not pictured: amaretto rum cocktail that will surely help me pass this food baby.

Green Breakfast Balls with Sweet Banana Sauce

I literally just burned the roof of my mouth because I ate one of these, decided it was worth it, and ate two more before they cooled. I think there's an AA for that, yes?

You may have heard me whine about never getting to make breakfast (yes, you, the one person who reads my blog), because I work at 5am. WELL GUYS today I had the morning off so I made a little somethin somethin. These balls are magic and I ate nearly all of them (using the old oh-it's-fine-I'm-going-on-a-run-later excuse). They take little preparation, and the long baking time is good for reading poems or walking to your local coffee shop for some spro.

This is how we do it: (#MontellJordan)

1 C chopped spinach
1/2 C chopped walnuts
1/2 C dried apricots, chopped
3/4 C (or just literally a handful) pitted dates
1 T dried coconut shreds
1 T natural creamy peanut butter
1/2 C flax meal (or ground flax seeds)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Toss the spinach and walnuts in your food processor and pulse a dozen times until crumbly. Then toss in the apricots, dates and coconut and pulse again until well mixed. Next add the peanut butter and pulse a few more times until it's all one cohesive good mess of green and brown.

Now it's time to roll! Throw some flax meal into a small bowl for coating. Scoop out a small handful of your spinach/nut/fruit mixture, roll into a ball, and toss in the flax meal until fully coated. Do this until your're out of spinach/nut/fruit mixture, then bake at 350 for 35 minutes (remember to let these cool!!!). This might make about 8 bigger balls or 12 small ones.

So many innuendos available here. You're welcome for avoiding them.

While my balls were baking (seriously), I threw together a sauce. Easy peasy:

1/2 banana
1/2 T honey
1 tsp pure maple syrup

Mash the banana with a fork, then whisk in the sweeteners until runny and relatively smooth. This is a delicious addition to the balls, but they are sweet in and of themselves so it's not totally necessary.

Sweet Rosemary Turnip Chips

And for my weekly plebeian confession to you, I've never really cooked with turnips. But my dear friends at the Bowling Green Community Farmer's Market supplied me with these and here we are. Like any good root vegetable, they are quite versatile - they're good roasted, mashed, fried, baked, boiled, thrown at moving vehicles. So today I made chips out of these suckers, on account of that's what we do with new vegetables.

Honest, these would truly be more "chip-like" fried, but it's 2013 and we need to be good to our bodies, yes? So preheat your oven to 400 and start slicing. Here's what you'll need:

A bundle of turnips - how many did I use here? Unsure. Maybe 6. Again, new to this.

a tablespoon or two of olive oil

2 tsp dried rosemary

1 T honey (or agave if you're not down with honey. One of these days I might post a rant about why I vehemently support local honey, why I'm vegan, and why I think it is important to be good to our earth and our bodies. One day!)

So this is simple. Now that your oven is heating, search the house for the best slicing knife you have. It's good to slice these as thinly as you can. Hell, use of them fancy burshz-wah slicing attachments to your food processor, I don't care. Of course, first you need to rinse and peel your turnips, then get to slicing. (Balmorhea is good slicing music, if you were wondering.)

Toss these slices with remaining ingredients - olive oil, honey and rosemary. Then spread them on a baking sheet with as few slices piled on top of each other as possible. Stick those shits in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and flip each slice with a fork. Because these are hot. Duh.Stick back in the oven for another 20 minutes. 

Voila! I served mine with sauteed broccoli and grape tomatoes. Yum dawg.

Holler if you're down with turnips - really, I could use some root vegetable inspiration. Rootspiration?

Breakfast Pizza

I have been dreaming of making a breakfast pizza for FOREVER, and today I finally had the day off work to do it.

There are four basic elements (read: four different stages of prep work [read: four different rounds of dishes]) of this pizza: homemade pizza dough (obvi), sweet avocado sauce for the base, tofu scramble with peppers mushrooms carrots spinach, topped with maple tempeh bacon. Geeeeeee.

As always, I recommend Isa Chandra's pizza dough recipe, which is straightforward and thorough. Also, I've covered the basics of tofu scramble somewhere on here before, so we'll skip that tutorial.

The maple tempeh bacon, however, requires some forethought. Make this one day ahead. Here's what you'll need:

1/2 package of tempeh
1/2 C soy sauce
2 T apple cider vinegar
1/2 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp chile powder
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 T pure maple syrup

Slice the tempeh into thin strips, and place in a shallow dish big enough to lay each strip flat. In a small sauce pot, heat the soy sauce and apple cider over medium-low heat. Once heated, add the sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Add the remaining spices and stir on low heat for another 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Once cooled, stir in the liquid smoke and maple syrup.

Pour the marinade over the tempeh strips, making sure that each one is completely inundated. Cover with plastic wrap and chill (bro) in the fridge overnight.

Now it's PIZZZZZZA TIME. Let's talk about the sauce.

No literally, let's have a conversation about pizza sauce.

Well no one has called or texted or g-chatted me yet so I'll continue with my MONOlogue about this pizza sauce. Now would be a good time to mention that I have a "thing" for avocado, and this sauce is not for the faint of heart. It's a little sweet, but definitely avocado-y and therefore definitely earthy and... avocado-y. Get these stuffs:

1/2 an avocado
1/2 C raw, unsalted cashews
1/4 C water
1 T honey (or your preferred sweetener if you don't "believe in" honey)

In a food processor, pulse the cashews until crumbly, then slowly add the water until it's all creamy and what have you. Add the avocado and honey (or your preferred sweetener if you don't "believe in" honey), and puree until it's all smooth and what have you. Look down into that little food processor hole and see if the sauce is all "loosey goosey" or all "stiff and boring." If it's all "stiff and boring" and might not hack it as a pizza sauce, continue to process and slowly add more water, one tablespoon at a time. I confess I was not diligent in writing down all of these measurements. Just pretend you didn't hear that.

Wait! Before we get any further, go ahead and preheat your oven to FIVE THOUSAND -- I'm sorry -- FIVE HUNDRED degrees.

So! Prepare the crust, spread the sauce, and cover the pie with your tofu scramble. Top with the maple tempeh bacon strips and, when your oven has done its "thang" (read: preheated), throw that pie in for 20 minutes.

Serve with coffee and good poems!

Simple Green Curry Soup

GRACIOUS ME do I love anything curry. Green curry, what will we do with you? I am in love. For life, green curry. I am yours for life.

So this post is less of a recipe and more of a love letter to green curry. I do love making my own curry paste from time to time, but this wasn't a cooking-intensive day so we shall save that recipe for another time.

Here's how I made this soup-for-one. It is literally easy. Literally.

Stuffs:

1 clove minced garlic
2 small yukon gold potatoes, washed and chopped
1/2 carrot, sliced
a couple stalks cauliflower, chopped
1/3 package tofu, drained and pressed
1 T green curry paste
1 tsp yellow curry powder
1/2 C spinach, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 C coconut milk
1/2 C almond milk
1/2 C water

Bring oil to a current over medium-low heat, then saute garlic. Add potatoes and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Add carrots, cauliflower and tofu, followed by curry paste and other spices, and stir to coat veggies evenly. Cook veggies another 5 minutes, stirring frequently, then add the spinach and cook another 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add coconut milk and simmer for 5 minutes. Finally, add almond milk and water, and simmer until evenly heated throughout.

Green curry, I'm not sure I could love you more. One of the most delicious meals I have ever had in my life (this is a very serious matter) was the green curry soup at Roots, on Bardstown Rd. in Louisville. I spared no emotion in relating my feelings to my server, Guy, who seemed to appreciate my appreciation. I feel silly just simply saying "it was a spiritual moment" -- I wanted to go buy Guy a Christmas present. I felt like we were friends. I almost got him hot pink socks from Urban Outfitters.

I confess, I was simply trying to replicate this soup tonight. Of course, it couldn't hold a candle, but I offer you this poem, green curry soup, as a token of my love for you.

He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven

W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams, green curry soup.