I am not a fan of sweets. Offer me a donut or a slice of buttered toast – I’ll take the toast.  No joke.  I don’t know how…but one day I started experimenting with scones.  I love scones because they are delicately sweet and tasty.  My specialty is Cranberry Walnut scones.  I decided to experiment with the Almond Flour I got in the mail from Oh! Nuts.  

The texture of the almond flour is nowhere as smooth and fine as regular four.  The first batch I made was with 100% almond flour and the dough was falling apart everywhere.  The next batch was equal amount of almond flour and unbleached flour.  They turned out AMAZING.

I don’t know if you remember my taste testing video for Oh! Nuts, where I tried their dried blueberries and pecans.  Anyways, I used their blueberries in the scones and I was impressed.  Because the blueberries are moist and plump they didn’t completely dry out in the oven.  I want to try their dried cranberries next!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cups almond flour
• 2/3 cups unbleached flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3 tbsps unsalted butter, softened 
• 1/2 cup dried blueberries
• 1/3 cup vegan buttermilk = 1/3 cup soy milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions!

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit and sprinkle some flour onto a baking sheet.  In a bowl, combine the two flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  If you have a pastry blender use it!!! But I don’t so I use a fork and cut the butter into the powder until everything looks relatively combined.  Add the blueberries!

In a measuring cup, mix together the vegan buttermilk and vanilla.  Add to the dry ingredients.  Mix together until dough starts to form.  You may have to use your hands to get the mixture to form a ball.

Take the dough and place it on a floured surface. Gently roll the dough out to resemble the how the dough looks in the picture.  The dough was about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut the dough into 8 even pieces and shape into circles.  Place the circles on the floured cookie sheet and bake for 12 – 14 minutes.  They should be a pale golden brown.  Cool before you serve or you’ll burn your tongue! I’ve done it several times.

Ohmygoodness!!! These beans are so amazing!!! I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner and I came across these crazy-fresh green beans!  I figured I would lightly sauté the beans but I had no idea what kind of sauce.  It’s really all about the basics.  These were sauteed with some onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil.

Ingredients:

• Fresh green beans
• 1/4 cup onion, chopped
• 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper 

I started a cast iron pan with olive oil, 1/4 cup chopped onion, and 3 large cloves of garlic.  Sauté the onions & garlic until the onions start to look translucent. Add the beans, salt and pepper (to taste). Sauté until piping hot and crunchy. Serve hot!

So, this is the dish that I served with the lovely Balsamic Asparagus.  It’s easy.  I’m not going to lie – I cheated on this dish a lot.  The store had a sale on pre-sliced mushrooms & the sauce was on sale.  It didn’t have High Fructose Corn Syrup, MSG, or any other nasty ingredients, plus it tasted pretty darn good. So let’s cut to the chase.

You will need:

• One block of (extra firm!!) tofu, sliced
• One onion, sliced
• Approx. 8 ounces of mushrooms sliced
• About 1/2 cup of Susie’s Teri-Miso Gourmet Sauce or your favorite Teri-miso sauce

Basically what I did was line the bottom of an over sized bread pan with several slices of tofu.  Layer with some mushrooms and onions; pour some sauce over tofu & co.  Keep layering the tofu, mushrooms, onions, and sauce until everything is in the pan.  Stick in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes or until everything is heated through.  I highly suggest serving this with the Balsamic  Asparagus and Garlic mashes potatoes.

I love asparagus; especially baby asparagus.  This is a brain-dead easy recipe and it tastes sooooo good!  You need:

• Asparagus
• 1 lemon
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper

You can either broil the asparagus or stick it on the grill!  Stick the asparagus in a shallow bake dish pour Extra Virgin Olive Oil, balsamic vinegar, and some freshly squeezed lemon juice over the asparagus.  Add some salt and pepper.  Mix everything together.  Stick it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Next, flip on the broiler and broil for 5-10 minutes turning over so as not to burn!  

I served this with Garlic Parsley Mashed Potatoes and Teri-Miso Tofu with Braised Onions and Mushrooms.  Everything was superb.  The recipes will be posed this week!  The picture doesn’t look too fantastic but everything was amazing.

I love pizza. Not all pizza but my mom’s homemade pizza is one of the best things ever.  My mom and I actually came up with this concept YEARS ago because our oven wasn’t working and we wanted pizza.  Originally we made the French bread pizza on the grill.  We dressed up both sides like they were pizza crust, stuck them together like a sandwich, wrapped them in foil, & stuck them on the grill.  It worked beautifully actually.  When the oven came back, we were able to leave the faces open, so instead of a pizza sandwich, we had French Bread Pizza!

It’s really simple get your favorite pizza toppings together, tomato sauce, cheese, and a loaf or two of French bread.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Cut the loaf of French bread in half lengthwise.  Place on a cookie sheet.  Coat both sides of the bread with tomato sauce, toppings and cheese.  I personally love to add fresh herbs on top of the cheese.  They’re so full of flavor!  Once you’re done dressing up the French bread, place the tray in the oven and cook the pizza for 15-20 minutes or until heated through and crunchy.  That’s it!  Slice and serve.  You can also make little pizzas on mini bagels to serve as fun appetizers.  Let your imagination run wild.

Applesauce is one of my favorite breakfasts with a side of toast and a cup of tea.  Yes, that is one of my heavens.  Anyways about 2 weeks back I started making apple sauce from scratch this is my current recipe.  It will probably evolve.

Applesauce:

• 6-8 lbs of apples
•  3 pieces of lemon peel
• 2 cups of water
• Ground cinnamon
  

Wash, peel, core, and slice all the apples.  Place them in a fairly large pot and add the two cups of water, lemon peel, & cinnamon.  Turn the stove on med-high heat and wait for the water to gently boil.  Mix the apples as they cook so they won’t stick or burn.  Once the everything is boiling, turn the heat down to medium and let the apples simmer for approximately 30 minutes.  

Once the apples look pretty tender, you can either a) mash them with a potato masher to desired consistency, or b) get out your Bamix mixer and mash up the apples with the mashing blade.  I love my Bamix.  Moving on!  I like my applesauce a little chunky.  You can make your applesauce as smooth or chunky as you wish.  Good luck & enjoy!

I was bored & starving! I really wanted an avocado sandwich but I didn’t have any bread. I ended up with cabbage, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, onions & spices on the counter.  I then continued to make avocado dip.  After, I was finished making it I realized I didn’t have any tortilla chips in the house.  So I made mini beds of cabbage with 1/2 slices of tomato, avocado dip and I garnished with some fresh grated carrot!

Avocado Dip:

1 avocado, mashed
Cumin, to taste
Salt, to taste
Black Pepper, to taste
Chipotle, to taste
Spike seasoning, to taste  
3 tbsps fresh onion, finely chopped

Mix all ingredients together. Make the cabbage into little beds and place a slice on tomato on the cabbage.  Add a little avocado dip & garnish with grated carrot. Serve chilled & enjoy! 

Oh! Nuts sent me the best dried fruit and nuts I have ever tasted!  I buy bulk all the time and they are my favorite by far!  Recipes to follow soon! Look forward to Almond Blueberry Scones.  As for the pecans…I’m going to let my imagination run wild!

http://ohnuts.com

I love saimin, I believe people on the mainland call it ramen.  Correct me if I’m wrong.  Moving on, I really love to cook simple things that are loaded with flavor and they have to be pretty healthy.  Now saimin flavor packets are loaded with MSG (monosodium glutamate).  I’m just gonna say it’s not the best you can do for your body in the long run.  This my version of healthy, flavorful saimin.

For one person you need:

• 1 Saimin package (throw out the flavor packet they give you) 
• 1 Rapunzel Vegan Vegetable Bouillon with Sea Salt and Herbs
• 2 cups of water
• Green onions
• Cilantro
• Largely chopped green cabbage

Photobooth makes everything backwards!  (I was too lazy to upload pictures from my Nikon.) Anyways, pictured are the saimin noodles and bouillon I use.  It’s basically mind-numbingly easy from here on out.

Boil the two cups of water on the stove with the bouillon cube.  Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down to medium, place the noodles in the water and cook for 3 minutes.  When the timer beeps, turn off the burner, pour the saimin in a large bowl and top with cabbage, green onions, cilantro.  The vegetables are optional of course, but I think they make the dish.  Sometimes I also add sesame seeds and shoyu (soy sauce).  My version of shoyu is Braggs Liquid Aminos.  I should make a video about all my favorite products.  I think from now on I’ll have Lazy-day Wednesday’s where I show you how to take a simple “fast food” and kick the health and flavor up several notches.

When there’s a hodge-podge of vegetables left in the house and a can of coconut milk, I usually make curry.  You really only need the coconut milk, bouillon, curry paste, lime, salt, & honey.  You can play with the vegetable and herb combination.  This is what my last pot of curry consisted of:

Ingredients:

• 2 small eggplants, sliced into bite sized pieces
• 1 block of tofu, cubed
• 1 onion, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 small carrot, sliced
• 1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 2 tbsps fresh, grated ginger
• 1 14 oz can of coconut milk
• 1 cup of water
• 4 tablespoons of Chickenless bouillon
• 1/4 tsp-1 tsp green curry paste
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp honey or agave
• around 1 tsp salt (add to taste the salt and the honey need to balance out)
• olive oil

Start a wok with the olive oil, curry paste, ginger and lime.  Once everything is heated, add the tofu.  Let the tofu brown a little and then add the water, coconut milk, & bouillon.  Add the remaining vegetables, basil and green onion.  Cook until eggplant is tender add the honey and salt to taste.  The honey and salt should be evenly balanced.  Serve hot with thai sticky rice.  Enjoy!