Category Archives: Vegan

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Scrumptious Seed Crackers (NF, GF, DF, vegan, grain-free)

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A couple of months ago, my friend Michele shared with me a jar of the ingredients for this recipe. This is just the most recent recipe she’s shared with me — there have been quite a few over the years, and all of them have been fantastic.

Since receiving this most recent gift, I’ve gathered together my own little permanent collection of seeds and I’ve made the recipe probably half a dozen times already. Now that I have everything I need, I can throw together the recipe and get it into the oven in a very short time. As Michele emphasized to me, it is an extremely forgiving recipe. I’ve tried it with the addition of an herb mixture in place of black pepper, without the sesame seeds once (guest’s allergen issue), with flax seeds sometimes and flax meal other times. It always comes out great no matter what. If you decide to share a jar of ingredients with a friend, do what Michele did: Add the flax and chia to a cupcake liner, and lay it on top of the other dry ingredients. Then print out this recipe and tape it to the jar.

These crackers are delicious plain, but I’ve also eaten them along with hummus, cheese, soup, scrambled eggs, a bowl of salad, and any other way you can think of to enjoy crackers. Believe it or not, each batch makes approximately one hundred one-inch-by-one-inch crackers. But that doesn’t mean they will last long. They won’t.

#1
1/4 cup flaxseeds (optional: blended into meal)
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. black pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup hot water

#2
1/4 cup hemp seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Cover a cookie sheet in parchment paper and set aside.

2) Blend together the flax meal, chia seeds, and spices with the hot water and olive oil in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Allow to rest 10 minutes.

3) Add hemp, sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin seeds to the mixing bowl. Stir well. The mixture will stick together, slightly more solid than liquid.

4) Pour the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheet, and use a spatula to spread it all the way out toward the edges while keeping the batter continuous (without holes). Sprinkle the tops of the crackers with a little more coarse salt at this point if you like.

5) Bake 25-30 minutes until beginning to turn golden, remove from oven and score into squares. Return to oven, turn off heat, and allow to cool in the oven. They will become crisp as they cool.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lentil Soup with a Splash

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I’ve come across a really good and relatively simple recipe for lentil soup, and thought I’d share it right away before I misplace it! I wish I knew where I got it from, but that information will sadly have to wait until I figure it out and can add it to this post. I made this recipe for the first time on a rainy day in early spring a few weeks back, and was so pleased with the results that I decided to write a post about it. Lentils are a special food, a special type of legume, with all kinds of important benefits for your health. And they taste good. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Orange Soup

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One of our family’s favorites, Orange Soup (mah-RAHK kah-TOME), is a recipe that I have shared in the past. I have found that no matter how large a pot you make, it is always gone within a couple of days. In other words, this recipe makes a lot of soup, but it still won’t last very long. It’s quintessential comfort food. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Yellow Eye Heirloom Bean Soup

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Today was a lovely day, temperatures notwithstanding. School was cancelled, of course, because no one in their right mind could require children to stand outside in these temperatures waiting for school busses. This is why, having received the text from my daughter late yesterday, family camp was in session today. 

The children unrolled our many yoga mats end-to-end all over the living room, and then raided the pantry to build a long winding row of mostly dry and canned beans that they subsequently climbed over and among for close to an hour. In the meanwhile, I put up a pot of soup in my beloved 5.5-quart Staub Dutch oven (cocotte). Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Butternut-Peanut Soup

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Make this one cold evening with a couple of friends, light some candles, and sit back with a glass of wine while you wait for the soup to cook. Then ladle the soup into mugs and pass them around. This soup will warm you from the inside out. Remember that peanuts are a legume, so that makes it nourishing and a good source of protein. Also, be forewarned: the peanut butter and coconut milk make it quite rich, so one cup goes a long way. If you’re up for it, you can add a simple green salad, and call it a meal. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lovage Soup

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Many years ago I brought home some lovage from a neighbor’s garden, and I planted it on the eastern side of our house, alongside a screened-in porch. For a long time now it has grown there in abundance every spring, and there is always more than enough to share. This year I’ve been feeding some of it to the chickens, who love greens, especially the lemon balm that grows all over our property. Lovage tastes something like celery, but it grows up to five feet high on thick multi-branched stalks. It’s impossible to use it up. It’s quite beautiful, and would make a great addition to any herb or flower garden. It self-seeds every year, and my patch is easily 20 years old, if not more.

Here’s a lovely soup you can make with lovage. If you don’t happen to have access to any, you can make this soup with celery instead. Continue reading →

Just Pure Tahini

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This past February I attended a presentation about tahini by Dana Harary, a founder of SoCo Artisanal Tahini, and Doug Katz, a local celebrity chef. We learned about Dana’s longstanding search for the most flavorful tahini on the planet, about the nutritional profile of tahini, and about SoCo’s commitment to positive change and collaboration. SoCo, short for Seeds of Collaboration, is a supporter of Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow (MEET), a nonprofit that connects young Israeli and Palestinian students.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Tomato Soup

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Do you know that feeling when you have a dozen gorgeous tomatoes on the counter and you go grocery shopping, and you forget, and you come home with another eight gorgeous tomatoes? Yes, of course you do. 

This week, I decided to make fresh tomato soup, which I had never made before. I have loved tomato soup since I was a kid. I especially loved my friend Mendy’s tomato soup when we were in graduate school, which was half a lifetime ago. I added white beans to this recipe, but no one will know unless you tell them. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Tofu & Peas on Quinoa

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I created this recipe for one of our family celebrations this past December. Of course I used frozen peas. The vegans ate it as their main course, and everyone else was happy to see another dish to try. Enough said.

1/2 large Vidalia onion, diced small
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and minced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. chili pepper
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. garam masala
2 tsp. tamari
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup quinoa
1/2 cake tofu, diced approx. 1/2-inch
1 cup frozen (or fresh) sweet peas

1. Prepare 1 cup quinoa per directions on the package to yield approximately 2 cups of cooked quinoa. Set aside to cool for 10-15 minutes and make sure all the water has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork.

2. Heat olive oil on med-high heat, and add diced onion, stirring occasionally until the edges are barely beginning to brown. Stir in the diced ginger and garlic. Add diced tofu, continuing to mix occasionally, until the edges are becoming golden. 

3. Add salt and pepper, serrano pepper, and cardamom, and stir for 30 seconds until well mixed. Immediately add the sweet peas, turn down the heat to low, and add tamari plus 2 Tbsp. boiling water. Stir to mix well, and cook for a minute or two just until the peas turn bright green.

4. Thickly cover the bottom of a shallow serving bowl with the cooked quinoa. Cover the quinoa with the tofu-pea mixture. Squeeze lemon over dish, and serve with a thin slice of lemon on top. Serves 3-4.

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Wintertime Oatmeal with Apples & Walnuts

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In view of the fact that I’ve been asked once again to repost this recipe, and since it’s autumn (the most glorious autumn I can remember in years), I am reposting this recipe for Apple-Walnut Oatmeal. I’ve adjusted the proportions to make enough for two. 

Looking out the dining room window as I write this, all I can see are dozens of cool, grey-brown branches against a pale blue, sun-lit sky. It’s beautifully stark, and riveting, calling me to the outdoors while the sun is still low in the eastern sky. But before I venture out into this beautiful day, I’m going to make this oatmeal recipe to warm me from the inside out. This recipe has a lot of flavor, with all the right kinds of yummy. You will probably smile while you’re eating it. I know I do. Continue reading →