Apples Apples Everywhere!

Yesterday was Hannah's and my one year dating anniversary. Super exciting, and super crazy that it has already been a whole year since we officially became a couple. As Hannah has mentioned before, we feel like we know each other so well, but at the same time we still continue to surprise each other every day with new discoveries about each other.
For our one year anniversary we decided to go apple picking! We got some really good pictures and some really great apples! So many apples that we had to bunker down and cook as soon as we got home. We made two delicious dishes both so amazingly easy. Apple Sauce and Apple pie. And of course, like many of the dishes that have been on here lately, they are created by Hannah.

Apple Sauce

Four Apples, peeled and cut into quarters
1 Tbs of Brown sugar (can also use white sugar)
1 tps Cinnamon
1 cup water

Put all ingredients in a pot on the stove at medium high. Let boil so that the apples are soft. Turn down heat to medium an stir sauce and mash apples with spoon until at a desired consistency. If you want a finer consistency you can take mixture after cooked and mash with a potato masher or put through a food processor.
Super easy! And super tasty!



As for the apple pie, I will have to ask Hannah if I can post her pie crust recipe. According to her it is a family secret.

Quinoa Salad

Hannah has taken over on the experimental cooking front. I am now just around to document what she does, and of course enjoy the amazing food she is creating!
This last week Hannah spent all day cooking Friday for the weekend of our first year anniversary of dating! One thing she created was a quinoa salad that was just plain amazing, not to mention easy to make. So Here it is, Hannah's quinoa salad.

Quinoa Salad

1 medium onion
1 medium zucchini
1 can of garbanzo beans
4 cloves of garlic
1-2 stalks green onion
1 1/2 cup Quinoa
1 Tbs olive oil
a shake of dried basil
lemon juice to taste


Dice onion, garlic, green onion and Zucchini.
In a pot saute the onions in the olive oil, when the onion starts to give off the aroma of sauteed onion add the garlic and green onion, When the onion starts to clear add the zucchini.When zucchini is fully cooked add the rinsed garbanzo beans. In a separate pot cook quinoa in water 2 - 1 until water is fully absorbed. Add the cooked quinoa to the veggies. Add basil and lemon juice to taste. Also delicious with green olives and for non vegans would go well with feta cheese. Serve hot or cold. Enjoy!



Afterward:
When asking Hannah how she made this dish, the way she described her portions were as follows:
An onion
Garbanzo beans
Zucchini
Couple of pieces of garlic
Some green onion
Olive oil
Basil
A squirt of lemon juice 

It took some explanations and her to sit next to me making sure it was right to finally get this recipe to come out the way she cooked it. But here, it is in it's full glory, enjoy!

Odd and Easy part two

As you may recall a few months ago i posted an easy go to food for vegans, Asparagus Tofu. Well I come to you again with another easy vegan, go to food.
Rice and beans? Yes, that question mark is supposed to be there. This meal it just a little strange. Hannah came up with this one while she was moving from one place to another this summer, trying to use up some of the food on her shelves. What she had left was four items, rice pasta, pinto beans, ketchup and cumin. And so rice and beans? was born.
As a person who enjoys cooking or enjoys eating things that other people have cooked for you, you have run across the ratatouilles of the kitchen. This is one of them, a combination of items that are not normally found together finding harmony in a pot. I have to say, i was very suspicions of this when Hannah first brought it up to me. In fact I did not eat it until this last month when Hurricane Irene forced me out of my home and on the road with Hannah and having no other food to eat. I must say this combination of food really is a ratatouille. Delicious and filling.
So without further ado, Hannah's Rice and Beans?


Rice and Beans?
2 cups Tinkyada Rice pasta,
one can of pinto beans,
1 tbs cumin and
a couple squirts of ketchup (to your liking), sauteed onions are a valid addition to this dish.

Cook pasta as directed on packaging. Drain and rinse beans. Heat beans in a skillet on the stove. Drain pasta when finished cooking. Return drained pasta to original pan and combine all ingredients. Serve. Enjoy!

Black Bean Burgers

Hannah is a black bean burger fanatic.
I didn't know she was a fanatic until we were having a cookout in her backyard and were trying to figure out what she could eat. Soy meats were out of the question, they are just plain weird, and we really didn't want to go to the store and pick up boca burgers so we decided to make our our burgers. Now, I am not a vegan, as I have said before, so I was just thinking of the nice juicy burger I was going to eat. But being the great girlfriend I am, I was enthusiastic about helping Hannah find a burger recipe. I was all over the place looking at burgers with potato and flour, and so many other strange ingredients trying to make something fancy, but Hannah on the other hand already had the burger she wanted to make in mind.
I have to give all the credit to her for this recipe as she is the one who found it and made it her own. These burgers are delicious, and unlike many vegan burgers you make on your own are meaty, textured, stay together and do not come out like mush. Recipe altered from non-vegan black bean burgers found on allrecipes.com.


Vegan Black Bean Burgers

• 1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 bell pepper (any color, mix it up for really colorful burgers), cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1/2 onion, cut into wedges
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 Tbs flax seed meal
• 3 Tbs water 
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1/2 cup of rice flour or regular flour

1. If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), and lightly oil a baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty. Do not over mush it. Leave a few chunks.
3. In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. (If you don't have a food processor, a blender will work fine) Then stir into mashed beans. 
4. In a sauce pan combine the flax seed meal and the water, heat on high while continuously stirring  until the mixture is sticky and egg like
5. In a small bowl, stir together flax mix, chili powder, and cumin.
6. Stir the flax mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in flour until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties.
7. If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes on each side.  

Enjoy these burgers at a nice sunny BBQ or any day at home, but don't forget the corn free ketchup :)

Asparagus!

So over the last nine months Hannah and I have been cooking together, introducing new things, and creating absolutely delicious meals that both of us enjoy. One of our favorite meals to make and eat is perhaps one of the easiest meals to make: asparagus, tofu, pasta sauce, and nutritional yeast, (not sure exactly what to call it).
Whenever I thought about eating vegan or even vegetarian I always wondered what type of food could be made real quick and without much hassle. I could never think of anything, one of the many reasons I never much considered vegetarianism or veganism, that and that fact that I was brought up eating some sort of meat with every meal. Even now as an adult, when I am not with Hannah the food I make that it is easy and quick includes tuna.
I'm not sure when I learned about this dish. I was at Hannah's and we were at a loss for what to eat for dinner like we usually are, and Hannah suggested that we try one of her go to dishes, tofu asparagus and sauce. I like asparagus so was all for trying out this new dish. Not going to lie though, I was a little bit nervous about trying this out, it just looked different. for some reason I'm always a little nervous trying out Hannah's food ideas (love you Hannah). But I am glad I did. Not only is this dish delicious, but it is packed full of great nutritious needed for any vegan or vegetarian.
And so a go to, quick dish was discovered.

Tofu, Asparagus, and Sauce

One cluster of asparagus
Half a jar of corn free Tomato Sauce
One half package of firm Tofu drained
1/4 c nutritional yeast
1 Tbs Olive Oil

In a frying pan warm olive oil and cook asparagus. When asparagus is cooked add tomato sauce, tofu and nutritional yeast. When tofu is warm all the way through, serve. Add more nutritional yeast on top to taste. And grad a piece of bread to sop up the remaining tomato sauce when you are done with the asparagus and tofu.

Enjoy!

Hannah's Cookies

The other day Hannah made some cookies for a function at school. For some reason it’s hard for me to imagine a cookie that Hannah could eat, all the tasty cookies I grew up with had lots of eggs, nuts, or lots of butter. But ever after she made them she couldn’t stop raving about them. All I could say was bring me some. Luckily she was coming to see me the next day, otherwise I don’t think I would have been able to try the originals. But let me tell you, these were good! She had only brought me two of them, but they were good enough to get me hooked.

Of course, she knew I was going to get hooked and had already planned to make some more with me.

The recipe is so easy to make, I think it took us ten minutes to make, about as long as it took us to eat them. In fact after we finished the batter, we started a cribbage game and while waiting for the first batch to cook we ate about half the remaining batter then waiting for the second to cook we ate half of the first batch. It was a little crazy. But after two days of Hannah’s cookies I'm still not sick of them.

So here it is, Hannah’s infamous cookies!

Hannah's Cookies (or Banana Oatmeal Balls)

1 tsp Baking Soda
3 cups Oatmeal
2 cups Flour
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 brown sugar or 1 cup sugar
1 1/2 Banana
1/2 cup margarine (or 1/2 c. applesauce if you want to make them healthier)


Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet bowl making sure that it is mixed thoroughly.

Make the cookies into small sized balls and place on greased tray. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown on the top.

Makes about two dozen

Nutritional Yeast

I was first introduced to nutritional yeast two weeks after Hannah and I started dating by one of my friends who I was visiting for the weekend. She insisted on making for me her special Mac and Cheese which included no real cheese at all. What she used instead was the nutritional yeast and a few other ingredients. Unfortunately at the time I did not ask her what the other ingredients were and so have been experimenting to see how she made her concoction ever since. Some time in November I bought my very own first container of nutritional yeast at a natural market in Queens, and from that point on I have made many attempts to recreate this infamous Mac and Cheese.

Nutritional Yeast is a deactivated yeast, like brewers yeast, and is usually found in yellow flakes or powder. It is a complete protein and contains tons of other vitamins and minerals. The best of the vitamins it contains is vitamin B12 which is really important if you have problems with your digestive system or small intestines like Hannah does. Nutritional yeast is described as having a nutty, creamy or cheesy flavor so is often substituted for cheese and used by vegans.

My first few attempts were interesting to say the least. Firstly I was not using actual elbow pasta; instead I was using coos coos. Also my only ingredients were the coos coos and nutritional yeast. In my first few attempts I was wholly dissatisfied with my meal. After I had been at it for some time and added a few more ingredients, I finally come up with a satisfactory Mac and Cheese recipe. But this post is not really about Mac and Cheese. In fact my favorite Mac and Cheese to date doesn't even have any nutritional yeast in it at all. This post is wholly about nutritional yeast and my attempts to introduce it to Hannah.

 I have been talking to Hannah about nutritional yeast pretty much since I started dating her. I told her about it after I learned about it for the first time and then I told her about my attempts to make Mac and Cheese. Since then she has been asking me to make her something with it in it. Five months later and I have finally introduced nutritional yeast to her. It’s funny, for a little while I was carrying my container of nutritional yeast with me when I went to her place; I had it with me just in case there was an opportunity to introduce it to her. It actually worked one day. We had made pasta and sauce and instead of putting parmesan cheese on my pasta like I usually do I decided to put nutritional yeast and to my luck Hannah then wanted to try it for herself. But we don’t count that as the first time she had nutritional yeast.

My recipe which finally had Hannah trying the nutritional yeast was a recipe that I came up with myself. For a little while I have been making a potatoe, brockoli and nutritional yeast dish. I find it almost as good as scalloped potatoes.

Scalloped Potatoes and Broccoli


2 medium potatoes
1 1/2 cups of broccoli florets
1 small onion chopped
a sliver of margarine
2 Tbsp Nutritinal Yeast

Cut potatoes scalloped style, boil until tender. Place medium frying pan on medium heat. Place margarine in pan and let melt. Fry potatoes and onion until browned. In a separate pan steam or boil broccoli until cooked to desired consistency. Combine broccoli in pan with potatoes and onion add nutritional yeast add more margarine if needed, stir until yeast is combined and all vegetables are coved.
Serve hot with some ketchup for a delicious meal for any time of the day.