Cheezy Dorito Sauce

Source: wired.com

Yeah you heard it. This sauce taste exactly like Spicy Doritos. It is SO bizarre. It has been quite a while since I have eaten a Dorito so I wouldn't have completely thought my opinion to be valid however Marcy was there to confirm it. Dorito.

When I ran across it on Averie's blog I had to try it ASAP and I'm so glad of that. Also, Marcy is brilliant for suggesting that we actually attempt to make Doritos. Well we attempted alright but we failed.

The failure sure is tasty though! Not crispy like a Dorito and has less of a punch but I would guess that rolling the dough thinner and adding more cheesy coating and we'd have one hell of an all natural, gluten free, vegan Dorito! (The picture above is particularly appropriate since we created the S&M Doritos instead of going out on a Saturday night. We party hard.)

“Spicy Doritos” Spread
Raw vegan and based off of this recipe.

Ingredients:

1/3 c sunflower seeds, soaked
1/2 c nut/seed of choice, soaked (I used more sunflower but cashews, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, etc. would work just as well)
1/4 c nutritional yeast
1/2 of a red pepper
3 T apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
1/2 t salt (or to taste)
1 t cayenne

Directions:

Blend it up!

Sam and Marcy's (S&M) Doritos Attempt 1.

Based off this recipe to make homemade gluten-free cinnamon toast crunch (yeah the sound of that blew me away too...). These measurements ended up with a Doritos-flavored, pita bread-textured treat! If you play around with it and make something more Doritos-like, please let me know.

Ingredients:

1/2 c garbanzo bean flour
1/2 c millet flour (or dried millet ground in a spice/coffee grinder or food processor)
2 T coconut oil, melted
3/4 c water
1 T nutritional yeast
1 t cayenne
1/4 t salt

"Spicy Doritos" Spread (recipe above)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Mix together flours, oil, nutritional yeast, cayenne and salt.

Whisk in water until smooth.

Pour batter into a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (Looking back on it, this was our fail. The batter we made was not of a pourable consistency. Add more water!)

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until starting to brown.

Remove from parchment paper and spread with a decent amount of "Spicy Doritos" Spread.

Score into triangle and return to oven for another 5 minutes.

Snack away!

Two Minute Peanut Sauce

Chomp.

One of my favorite "oh, duh!" moments was when I found out large leaf veggies like swiss chard, cabbage, and lettuce, can be used to make sandwiched and wraps. Leafy greens are way more nutrient dense than tortillas or pita bread, you can buy them without packaging, and let's not forget that they are way easier to make (wash and cut off stem v. make dough and bake)!

Now that the weather is getting nicer (65 degrees outside yesterday?!), I am moving from my I-want-soup-all-day-everyday phase into one involving oodles of fresh, raw veggies.

Enter: Rainbow Chard Wraps

 Rainbow chard.

Microgreens. 

Sliced red cabbage. 

Soaked and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. 

But here's my mantra: the sauce is always the best part. Averie from Love Veggies and Yoga has become my new sauce guru. I made 3 different sauce recipes of hers last weekend and there have been times this week that I have just stuck a spoon in the sauces and ate it straight up.

Averie’s 2 Minute Peanut Sauce
[Original recipe here]

1/3 c nut butter
1/4 c raw honey (or other liquid sweetener of choice)
1/4 c sesame oil (for that asian flavor)
1/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 t powdered ginger

Just whisk it together!

Guest Recipe: Veggie Socca with Savory Almond Sauce

Martha Johnston, also known as my mom, made a socca of her own! Different veggies but same basic socca recipe. Here's her experience:

Mine was a comedy of errors. I did not have a non-stick pan and should have used more oil. I did it on the stove, could not flip it so I popped it in the oven. I ended up scraping it out and reforming it into 2 small pan cakes and re frying it. It still tasted great. 

The veggies in it I used was portabello mushrooms, red peppers, onions and dried basil.

Lookin' good garnished with sprouts, chopped scallions,

and raw almond spread (recipe below)

And here is the recipe for the dollop of goodness on top. Based off Yuri's cleanse recipes.

Almond Sauce (raw vegan)

Ingredients:
1 c almonds, soaked overnight
2 T sesame oil
3 T Bragg's Liquid Aminos (or tamari or soy sauce)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 dried dates, soaked for 2-3+ hours
½ lemon, juiced
¼ t cayenne, or to taste (or pinch red pepper flakes)
Coconut water (or water)

Directions:
Pulse all ingredients, except water, in a food processor.

Add water until desired consistency is reached, smooth and creamy.

Kale-Almond Pesto

Traditional pesto is made with basil and pine nuts but boy, is that expensive! The day that I learned that just about any leafy green and just about any nut can be combined to make a stellar pesto was a pretty life changing one indeed.

Ingredients:
1 bunch kale (or other leafy green)
1/3 c almonds (or other nut)
3 cloves roasted garlic (directions below!)*
1/2 t salt
2 T lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon)
1 T olive oil
1 pinch red pepper flakes

Directions:

Steam kale for a few minutes until bright green.

Toast almonds in a dry skillet until fragrant BUT NOT BURNT, about 10 minutes.

Pulse kale in a food processor until finely chopped.

Add in almonds and roasted garlic and do the same.

Add in the rest of the ingredients and process until desired consistency is reached.

*How to quickly roast garlic:

Roasted garlic is the best. You can roast whole heads in the oven (shown here) but if you are faced with a time crunch, a skillet works just as well!

Directions:

Separate cloves from head and remove papery skin, leaving the immediate layer of skin as a protective barrier between the clove and the skillet.

Drop garlic into skillet over medium heat and allow to roast for about 10-15 minutes.

Move the cloves around every so often as to prevent burning.

Remove from heat when the innards feel mushy inside their skins.

Squish out the garlicky goodness and use to your heart's content!

<3

This is in preparation for a cooking demonstration that the Michigan Sustainable Foods Initiative is having on Wednesday! I was asked to be the "demonstrator" and, needless to say, I am more than excited.

The menu I have concocted is as follows:
Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Garlic and Fresh Thyme
Spicy Roasted Tomato Pizza with Kale-Almond Pesto
Cinnamon Apple Dessert Pizza

I have never made any of these before so Wednesday will be quite the experimentation. Wish me luck!

Mexican Fiesta (with Sunflower Seed Cheeze)

Before holiday break last month, Matt allowed me to express my culinary creativity in making dinner for the two of us. I chose Mexican as the theme and going along with my inability to make a decision, this resulted in me making 6 different kinds of salsa...

 Mexican Sweet Potato Risotto

 Pumpkin Seed Mole

 Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Sunflower Seed Cheeze

 Peach Salsa = Absolutely fantastic.

 Bosc Pear Salsa

 Roasted Corn and Zucchini Salsa

 Butternut Squash Salsa

Sunflower Seed Cheeze

Not eating dairy did not pose a problem due to the wonderful world of seed cheeses. Salty and delicious, this is a perfect spread for... anything, and it worked great in our quesadillas!

Ingredients:
1 c sunflower seeds, soaked for 6-8 hours
1/2 c water
1 T unpasteurized apple cider vinegar
juice of 1 lemon (I just added in 2 more T apple cider vinegar...)
1 clove garlic
1/2 t salt
Additional water to blend

Directions:

Put all ingredients in the food processor and blend!

Add more water for the desired consistency.

Recipes for the salsas:

Pear Salsa

Pumpkin Seed Mole

Peach Salsa (this one was the best.)

Roaster Tomatillo Salsa

Roasted Corn and Zucchini Salsa

Butternut Squash Salsa

I obviously adapted the recipes for what I had (no pomegranate seeds for me, surprise surprise) but I have to give a special thanks to Locavorious for providing me with so many frozen Michigan fruits and veggies! Pear, peaches, zucchini, corn, red peppers all from them. <3

I also made Mexican Sweet Potato Risotto

Hummus and Crackers

Hummus

Everybody loves hummus. Everybody.

Ingredients:

2 c cooked garbanzo beans (2)

1/2 c water

3-5 T apple cider vinegar (traditionally lemon juice) (2)

2 T tahini (3)

2 cloves garlic, minced (4)

1/2 t salt (2)

2 T olive oil (2)

1/4 t cumin (2)

1/4 t paprika (2)

Directions:

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.

Add more water to achieve desired consistency.

Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, paprika, and olives.

Basic Whole Wheat Cracker
These where not the best. I ended up just reverting to my tried and true pickles-dipped-in-hummus habit. So good. (Plus McClure's Pickles are made in Michigan and delicious!)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour (1)
1/4 t sea salt (2)
2 T oil (2)
6 T of water
sesame seeds (2)
garlic powder (2)
dried thyme (2)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325F

Mix together first 4 ingredients.

Knead for about 5 minutes.
Roll out onto oiled cookie sheet.

Sprinkle on herbs of your choice (sesame seeds, garlic powder, and thyme for me)

Score crackers the size you want for easy breakage post baking.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden brown.

1. Earnst Farm

2. Bulk section of the People's Food Co-op

3. Pre-challenge stash

4. Tantre Farm

California Christmas: Chopped

I am not sure if anyone else watches Chopped but it's a show on the Food Network where people have to make an appetizer, main course, and dessert using specific ingredients. The challenge is that the ingredients are not always "normal". I have to use candy canes in my appetizer? Or bacon in my dessert?

Needless to say, watching it is a guilty pleasure of mine. And my aunt and uncle are fans of the show as well. As entertainment on a blustery evening in Northern California, we created a chopped challenge of our own!

The Rules:

My aunt and I had to make appetizers using cucumbers, my foraged chanterelles, and persimmons; a entree using salmon, asparagus, and (I can't remember what else); a dessert using pomegranates, quinoa, and chocolate.

Appetizer: Cucumber Disks with a Roasted Red Pepper-Walnut Spread, Wild Chanterelle Crostinis, Spicy Lime Tortilla Chips with Persimmon Chips and an Orange-Persimmon

Roasted Red Pepper-Walnut Spread

Also known as muhammara (I LOVE this word). Recipe from the NY Times.

Ingredients:
3/4 c walnuts, toasted and chopped

3 red bell peppers, roasted
3/4 c fresh bread crumbs*

1 jalapeño or other small hot chili pepper, stemmed and seeded
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T pomegranate molasses
1 T lemon juice
1 t ground cumin
salt and pepper
2 T olive oil.

Directions:

Put all ingredients (except oil) in food processor and pulse until smooth.

Slowly pour in olive oil into running food processor.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Eat with anything and everything: cucumbers, pita bread, your hands...

Entree: Asparagus and Red Onion Salad, Miso-glazed Wild Alaskan Salmon, Sweet Potato Latkes with Cranberry Relish, garnished with mixed salad greens.

Sweet Potato Latkes

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes, peeled

1 green onion, finely chopped

1/4 c whole wheat flour

1 T ground flax seeds, whisked into 3 T water

salt, pepper, smoked paprika

oil

Directions:

Grate the sweet potatoes (my aunt had a fancy grater feature on her food processor which made this process VERY easy)

Mix together all the ingredients, except the oil.

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

Take a handful of sweet potato mixture and form a patty.

Fry in oil until dark brown, about 5 minutes.

Flip to fry the other side.

Allow to cool on a rag (to wick away excess oil)

Serve with cranberry chutney!

Dessert: Spicy Chocolate-Dipped Date-Walnut Truffles, Pomegranate Quinoa Patties

My first pomegranate! Too pretty.

Spiced Pumpkin Butter

Like the ornamental touches? It's all for you baby, alllll for you.

Spiced Pumpkin Butter
This spread will make anything sweet and winter-y! Enjoy on a sweet breakfast bread or, like me, in a spiced black tea (Winter Magic from TeaHaus).

Ingredients:
2 c pumpkin puree
1 c sweetener (I used 1/2 c MI maple syrup and 1/2 c MI beet sugar)
2 t ground ginger
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/2 t ground cloves

Directions:
Bring pumpkin and sweetener to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.*
Add spices and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.

*Stirring constantly is important because you don't want the mixture to burn!

Homemade Nut Butter

This is the easiest and cheapest way to make nut butters. And any nut will do, go traditional with peanuts or get creative by all the variations that you can have!

The only things that are mandatory are nuts and a food processor.

Ingredients:
Nut of choice (almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pistachios...)

Directions:
Put as many nuts as you want (I did 2 cups) in a food processor.
Process for about 15 minutes.

I typically let it go for 2-5 minute intervals because I'm afraid that my food processor will overheat.

It's a pretty cool process, for the first like 10 minutes it is pretty dry and grainy (if you are trying to make nut flour or meal, this is where you stop). The first time that I made almond butter I was convinced I had to add olive oil or something because it was still not butter-y after such a long time. But I promise that added oil is not necessary. Just keep grinding, eventually a ball will form and then it gets super smooth.

Variations:

• Add in sugar or another form of sweetener (maple syrup, honey...) to make it sweet.
• Roast the nuts in the oven before processing them.
• Add in salt for a more traditional (commercial) flavor
• Add in cocoa powder (oh hey you may or may not be able to recreate a certain 'chocolate hazelnut spread' in your own kitchen...)
• Have fun with spices! They're great.