Cabbage steak

Hello everyone,

So I'm sitting here waiting for my little loves to fall asleep and I was thinking about what I could write about since I haven't written in a while. It dawned on me that I never shared one of my favorite snack/meal that I love to make. Cabbage steak.

This is something I normally make when I'm alone because I like it so much I don't want to share and because everyone in this house doesn't want to eat because well it's cabbage.

I know, I know, eww cabbage. That's what I used to think too, until I got some in my produce box. I got so much I didn't know what to do with it. So I looked on Pinterest and found a recipe. Now, I totally forgot to check where I got this from, I wasn't thinking of posting others recipes from Pinterest at the time like I do now. So I'll give you the recipe I have no picture of the cooking part but hopefully I'll add some later.

Oven roasted anything is good in fact I love oven roasted everything: tomatoes, radishes (that one surprised me because I hate raw radishes), beets, carrots you nave I've roasted it or would roast it. I find that roasting veggies in the oven takes out the natural sweetness in vegetables.

The number of people this recipe feeds really depends on how much people eat and how big the cabbage is.

Instruction

Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit.

Start by cutting the cabbage in half.

At the bottom of each halves you will see what is basically the cabbage stem. Now you can remove this now or leave it and cut around it later.

Cut each half in about 1 inch steaks ( 1 small to medium cabbage should give you about 4-6 slices)

Line a baking sheet with foil (saves on the mess)

Rub an oil of your choice ( I like using olive or avocado oil) on each side of the cabbage and season with herbs of your choosing. I normally just use garlic.

Put in oven for about 30 minutes flipping half way through. Cabbage should be starting to brown but not completely.

Pull out of oven and enjoy.

I eat mine with a bit of Dijon mustard yum.

I ended up quartering this one because it was falling apart.

Red pepper soup (vegan) and how to roast peppers

So a while back I had roasted a bunch of red peppers and they'd been sitting in my freezer long enough. I decided to use them and make more to replace the ones I used.

I wanted to make something that was just as good to eat cold or hot and that's how I came up with this recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family did.

Ingredients

1 onion (diced)

1tbsp olive oil

4 carrots

2 cups of oven roasted red peppers (about 6 peppers)

4cups (900ml) of vegetable broth

4 bay leaves

1tbsp dried thyme 

1/2 cup non dairy milk

Heat your onion and oil together in a pot for a few minutes until your onion becomes almost transparent.

Add all remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil then simmer until carrots are soft.

Take out the bay leaves.

Put in blender with non dairy milk and pulse or blend till no more chunks remain. 

You can then add a touch of style with basil leaves or oil on top.

Pour in a bowl (or a glass like my youngest) and enjoy.






How to roast peppers (of any kind I normally do 6 at a time)

Preheat oven to 450f

Line a sheet with aluminum foil ( I used a cookie sheet).

Wash peppers and rub oil all over them ( I used olive oil).

Put on sheet and then in oven.

Turn every 10-15 minutes until all sides are partly black.

Once they are done take them out of the oven place them in a bowl and cover them with Saran wrap for about 20 minutes.

Take the peel off and remove the stem and seeds.

Voilà, you are now done roasting your pepppers. You can freeze them or put them in the fridge with a bit of oil for a few days.

Buffalo Cauliflower "wings"

I love wings, I mean really who doesn't. This was one of my partner's and I favorite meal, so when I decided to go plant based I had to figure out how to substitute this delicious meal for a meat free version. 

I took to Pinterest and found the recipe that I used. Original recipe here from hot for food. They also have recipes for different flavors. 

I doubled the recipe and added Cayenne pepper to the batter mix to add a bit of zing I found that it also made flavoring the "wings" unnecessary.

This recipe can serve 4-8 people.

Ingredients

2 heads of cauliflower

Batter:

2 cups flour

4 tsp onion powder

4 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp Cayenne 

1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk (I use silk almond or cashew)

2 cups of water.

Sauce:

1 1/2 cups BBQ sauce

1 cup hot sauce

Preheat oven to 450f.

Cut cauliflower into pieces (about the size of actual wings).

In a bowl stir all the dry ingredients together. Then slowly mix in the milk and water. ( until batter is still thick enough to stick to the cauliflower)

Dip cauliflower in batter. Put on parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Put in oven for 25 minutes or until they start to brown. Flip half way through.

While waiting mix. BBQ sauce and hot sauce together.

Once out of the oven coat with sauce and our in the oven for another 25 minutes.

Take out of oven, let cool for 5 minutes and dig in.

Zuchinni fritters

As some of you know this year I joined an organic produce program delivered by Trussler's Pantry. Every week I receive a bin full of fresh, organic, locally grown produce. In the latest bins I've received a lot of zucchinis, and didn't know what to do with them all. 

I also went to the library and picked up "The Vegetarian Student Cookbook: great grub fit the hungry and broke" by Ryland, Peter and Small. It's in this book that I have found the zuchinni fritters recipe.  I looked at it for inspiration and made my own version. I also highly recommend the book, there is a lot of yummy recipes in this book.

Ingredients

2 zucchinis (I used 1 green and 1 yellow)

3 green onions

2 tsp garlic 

1/2 tsp vegetable seasoning and  dill

5 tbs of flour
Olive oil or coconut oil ( I prefer coconut oil but it's your choice)
1 cup cheese of your choice ( I used cheddar)

Grate zuchinni. Put in a strainer and let sit to remove excess water.

Put oven on broil.

In a skillet put a bit of oil, the garlic and green onions and cook until tender. Pull off heat let cool.

Finish staining excess water from zuchinni by pressing it in your hands put into a bowl ( you can add 2 eggs if you want this will help hold your zuchinni patties together and help them brown). Add seasoning and dill and onion mixture into the bowl as well as the flour. Mix together.

Put empty skillet back on the stove at medium heat ( I use the same one that oII cooked the onions in to save on dishes), add a bit of oil. Make patties with the zuchinni mixture and put in the skillet.

Cook until browned, take out of skillet and put on a baking sheet. Add cheese on top of the cooked patties. Put into oven until cheese is browned.

Take out and eat. Yum.

Potatoe chicken casserole

 I was browsing Pinterest the other night when I fell upon this recipe. I took a look at the ingredients and well I had them all. I also had ingredients that I thought would be awesome if I added then to the recipe.

I liked this recipe for two reasons:
1) It looked fairly simple to make.
2) My partner K isn't fond of chicken and I wanted a recipe that didn't just make the chicken a slab of meat but made integrate into to meal.

The ingredients listed are what I used but the quantities are approximations. Those that don't have quantities are because you can put as much or as little as you want.

Ingredients

1-2 lbs potatoes

1kohlrabi 

1 medium onion

Garlic

Olive oil

Greek or Italian seasoning

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast

3 cups of cheese ( cheddar, marble, mozzarella, wte you like)

Preheat oven at 425 f

If you use large potatoes cut them into pieces of you use gem potatoes just leave them as they are. Peel the kohlrabi and cut into pieces do the same with the onion.

Put in an oven safe baking dish. Sprinkle with as much seasoning as you would like ( I used about 1/4 cup) and add the garlic too ( I used about 2tsp).  Drizzle some olive oil over it all and mix ingredients to coat.

Put in oven for 20 minutes. 

Pull out the dish from the oven and add the chicken ( you can cube it before hand but I just left it whole). Put the dish back into the oven for approximately 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Once chicken is cooked take the dishes out of the oven ( if the chicken isn't cut up you can take the time to do it now and mix it into the potatoes and kohlrabi). Sprinkle cheese over it all place back into oven until cheese is melted.

Take out of the oven and serve.

This fed me, my partner ( why had to helpings), and my two boys ( 2-4 yrs). We also had plenty of left overs for the next day.

Crock pot Yogurt

I always wanted to make most of my food. Now that I have moved into my own place I now have the freedom to do and cook what I want. I've been browsing pinterest and I saw a post about making yogurt. it looked easy enough so I decided to give it a try.

I won't lie though I was afraid of trying to make yogurt leaving milk products in a hot crock pot over night was a little worrisome but I did it anyways. My yogurt came out pretty tangy and a bit runny but I know if I use a cheese cloth I can strain it and make it thicker.

I am going to use this yogurt for smoothies. I don't eat a lot of yogurt in general so I don't spend a lot of money on it but I'm glad to know that when I need some i can now makenit for cheaper.

I did a quick break down of what making this yogurt cost. The prices are in Canadian dollars and the cost is per 100ml. I don't have a huge super store here where I live so I bought the cheapest ingredients I found here. By all means though if you can find cheaper prices please do.  Also the prices I mark beside the ingredients are the cost based on the amount of the products I used and not the cost that I paid for the whole product.

ASTRO yogurt 2% Plain- 1$
Lactantia milk 2%- 5$

This recipe makes about two quarts. I did weigh how much yogurt this made and this time it made 1795 ml of yogurt.
The total cost of ,a king this yogurt for the first time is 33 cents per 100ml.
If you used your now made yogurt for the starter of your next batch it is 27 cents per 100ml. My savings for this recipe was 7 cents per 100ml for the first batch and will be 13 cents cheaper on my second batch.  The yogurt I bought in stores was 40 cents per 100ml.


The recipe I used was this one here by Live Simply.


Would you ever try to make your own yogurt? If you have what tips and tricks do you use?

Bell pepper spinach soup

Bell Pepper and Spinach soup

This is yet another recipe that was created because I had food that was about to spoil in the fridge. I like to buy the packs of mini bell peppers at the grocery but often I don't eat them all on time. We also tend to throw out a lot of spinach ( We try to eat healthy but a lot of time we don't eat enough of the produce on time). 

I decided to make soup because it was a chillier day and I though a good soup would make for a good warm-up. 

Ingredients

360g of Bell peppers( I used Red, Orange and Yellow peppers) 

( Once you weigh them, de-seed them)

1/2 of a large onion ( chopped)

3 tablespoons Olive oil 

1 1/2 Chopped Garlic ( I use already chopped jarred Garlic) 

1 teaspoon  Oregano( fresh or dry )  

1 teaspoon Thyme ( Fresh or dry) 

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

900 ml vegetable broth

1/2 cup of rice ( White or Brown)

4 cups of baby spinach 

In a pot cook the onions and peppers together with the garlic, oregano, thyme and cinnamon. Cook until the onions turn clear.

Add the broth and rice into the pot and let it simmer for 30 minutes. 

In a blender pour 2 cups of the contents of the pot with two cups of spinach ( the whole pot should yield about 4 cups) hit the liquefy button and voilà it is ready to eat.

Kiwi orange bread

Kiwi Orange Bread

Ingredients

3 Cups Flour

1 tablespoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 cup of butter ( I use salted butter and melt a bit)

1 cup white granulated sugar

5 kiwis ( Peeled and mashed yields approximately 2 cups)

The juices and skin of one orange ( grated yields about 1/2 cups)

1/3 cup of water

1 Tablespoon of chia seeds ( I used the ground up type)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix the chia seeds and the water together in a small bowl let set.

In a bowl mix the first three ingredients ( flour, baking soda and baking powder). Set aside. 

Mix the butter and the sugar together in a separate bowl until well blended. ( I do it by hand but by all means use an electric beater if you have one)

Once the sugar and butter are combined add the fruits and chia seed mix and  blend everything  together. 

Make a hole ( or a well) in the middle of the flour mix. Pout the fruit mixture in the middle and mix all the ingredients until well blended ( try not to mix it for to long as it will make your bread harder)

Grease some baking pans. I used a 4" by 8" pan and a multi-sectional pan ( 2" by 4" there is 8 section in the pan) Fill each pan about half way with batter. 

Cook for 15-30 minutes depending on the size of your pans or until a toothpick comes clean after poking it into the center of the bread.

Let cool take out of pans and enjoy.

I came up with this recipe when I had kiwis and an orange becoming a a little too ripe. I decided this year that I wanted to stop wasting food in the house. I used to throw out a lot of vegetables and fruits out every week which adds up to a lot of money. Now I buy flour and butter on sale so I can always bake cookies and breads and good knows what more recipes I can come up with. 

This bread is just a right amount of sweet and really moist. You will mostly taste the orange over the kiwi.