Cilantro Limeade

I had a mean hankering for a cherry limeade this afternoon after seeing half a lime staring at me, so I  came up with this. I don't have a juicer, just an antique blender so I can't remark on how this would taste if you did this with a juicer, but let me know if you try it that way! 
I always love Sonic's limeades, but I'm pretty sure they have soda and all kinds of awful stuff in them. I figured if I had that lime flavor hit the back of my mouth with something crisp, that might satisfy my craving. Cilantro + lime is just sooooooo...perfect. So I did that and I suspect if I had some seltzer to pour in at the end, this would have been superb!*

*Edit: I added a shot of seltzer after I wrote that, and it is indeed, superb! Try it! 

Cilantro Limeade

• 1 cup, or 1 handful baby spinach leaves
• 1 cup pineapple juice
• 1 cup water
• ⅔ oz. packaged* cilantro
• ½ lime, skin and pith removed
• optional: seltzer after blending

Put all ingredients except seltzer into a blender and blend until liquefied. Pour into a glass with ice, and top off with seltzer, if desired.

*It is sometimes hard for me to find bunched cilantro, and I wind up buying it in a plastic box. This is the typical size I find, but realistically it's about half a standard bunch- or a good handful.

Vegan Taco Meat

Being that yesterday was "Taco Tuesday" and all, I figured I should share with you how I made mine last night!

I made Pico de Gallo, guacamole, and my own taco filling, or "meat".

I had planned to make tacos anyway, but look at these tomatoes:

Tomatoes are pretty much my favorite food.

For a small batch of Pico de Gallo:

• 4 medium-small tomatoes
• ½ medium onion (preferably red or a shallot)
• ⅔ oz. cilantro leaves*
• zest of half a lime
• juice of one lime
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• salt & pepper, to taste

*if you can't find bunched cilantro, this is typically the size you would find boxed.

Chop tomatoes, onion, and cilantro leaves. Toss in a bowl with lime zest, lime juice, olive oil, salt & pepper. Allow to marinate at least 10 minutes.

For the Guacamole:

• 3 ripe avocados
• ¼ cup Pico de Gallo
• juice of one lime

Split the avocados, remove pits and scoop out the insides. Mash in a bowl with a fork or potato masher, add the Pico, lime juice, and optionally some salt & pepper, then mix together and allow to marinate for 10 minutes as well.

Now, for the star of the show! The taco meat!

I've fiddled with a number of taco meat recipes, involving lentils, nuts, mushrooms, pintos, roasted chickpeas, and even mock meats and TVP. I prefer to use whole foods rather than mock meats primarily because they are processed foods. Seitan I prefer to use on its own, or as sausages especially because I haven't found it anywhere and where I have it's expensive so I make it myself. That being said, tacos would turn into an afternoon rather than a half hour or so of simple, easy cooking when we have plans for the evening or just want to go outside and play!

Vegan Taco Meat

• 1 cup dry lentils (any variety, I used green)
• 10 "Baby Bella" mushroom caps (medium sized)
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• ¼ cup BBQ sauce
• 2 small bay leaves
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• pinch red pepper flakes
• salt & pepper, to taste
• olive oil, or more broth, for the pan
• *optional: taco seasoning of choice

To prepare the lentils, rinse well and place in a pot with bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and vegetable broth. Cover loosely, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, lower to medium-low, and allow to simmer about a half hour, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Turn off the heat, and cover with a lid and allow to sit for another half hour or so (I usually do this an hour or two before I need them so they are cooked, but not mushy). Remove bay leaves.

Chop the mushrooms into a small dice, and add to a warmed (preferably cast iron)skillet with the oil/broth on medium heat. Allow to saute until tender. Add the cooked lentils, chili powder, salt & pepper, and saute about five more minutes, until things are fragrant. Add BBQ sauce, and turn heat off. Stir until evenly coated and everything is hot, serve!

Marinated Portabello Gyros With Cashew Tzatziki

These gyros are something I came up with on the fly, but not really on the fly, know what I mean? 

We wind up going to our favorite diner every few weekends, and they have a really great menu with lots of options, and are really happy to make substitutions which is why I like them so much. I usually wind up ordering the gyro platter and they're happy to hold the feta and use portabellos instead of meat! I know they marinate them in balsamic vinegar, so I was trying to recreate that and try my hand at vegan tzatziki, which believe it or not was so tasty, I was actually impressed with myself!

Let's start with the tzatziki sauce because that takes a little forethought and time/prep

Cashew Tzatziki Sauce (adapted from Addicted to Veggies' recipe)

• 1 3/4 cup raw whole cashews
• 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. unfiltered apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 cup water
• juice of 1-2 lemons
• 1/2 tsp. dill
• 1/2 tsp. tarragon
• 1/2 cucumber
• pepper, to taste-optional

Cover the cashews with water and soak overnight (6-8 hours; I do this in a quart mason jar)

After soaking, add cashews, vinegar and salt to a food processor and whizz until it forms a thick, oily paste. Scrape this paste down the sides and off the bottom. Measure out 1&1/4 cup water, start whizzing again and add 1/4 cup of water at a time, letting it run 30 seconds to a minute between each addition of water. Taste test to see if this is how you would like it. For me, I wanted a tangy, yogurt-y, sour creamy sauce, so I wound up adding the juice of half a lemon and pureeing until I got the flavor I wanted, so I wound up adding the juice of 1&1/2 lemons, total.

Once you have finished pureeing, put into a container and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. It will thicken as it chills.

To make this into Tzaziki, chop up half a cucumber, and combine with about half the batch of sour cream, dill, and tarragon. Mix, and serve with gyros, or on salad.

Balsamic Marinated Portabellos (adapted fromVegan American Princess's recipe)

• 4 large portabello caps
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 small white or yellow onion, or 1 shallot
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. minced ginger
• 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp. dried tarragon
• salt & pepper, to taste

Measure out oil and vinegar in a 2-cup measure. 

Mince onion/shallot, garlic, and ginger, and add to the oil and vinegar. Add herbs, salt and pepper, and mix together with a fork to emulsify it as much as you can. I let that sit for a minute or two while I prepped the mushrooms, so everything would meld together.

Take out the stems of the mushrooms, and scrape out the gills. Slice into strips and throw into a bowl for marinating(just as a quick tip: you can keep the stems and gills in the freezer to make mushroom broth when you need it). 

Pour the marinade over the mushrooms and let stand for about a half hour, or honestly however long you want. Shorter/longer times won't really make a difference, this is just how long I left it while I was chopping up toppings.

Cook mushrooms in a skillet at medium-low heat, covered, with all the marinade for about 20 minutes or so- you want these to be soft but not mushy, and have some body, to take the place of what would normally be a strip of steak or shawarma or whatever.

Throw on a pita with lettuce, and top with green onion, red onion, cucumber, tomato, some tzatziki, or whatever other veggies your heart desires!

Kicking A Cold

Today I only have a small "recipe", if you want to call it that. I wanted to share a sandwich I made which turned out surprisingly well.

But first, I want to write about how I'm trying to kick my cold! Yesterday I woke up after an awful night's sleep with the dreaded pre-cold, knowing that the full blown thing was only 24 hours away if I was lucky. I think it was mostly due to the sudden temperature change from the 50s, to the 20s. We had the heat too high most of Sunday (since it was warmer and we burn wood for heat so the temperature is hard to control) and let it die down overnight. So we went to bed sweating, and woke up freezing and I feel this is most of why I woke up feeling like a cold was looming.

So I figured I'd try to combat it by drinking plenty of water, eating oranges and making some garlic ginger soup I found on plant-based on a budget for lunch. It helped, and I started to feel better yesterday, so I made some PPK chickpea cutlets with broccoli twice baked potatoes for dinner. Thinking back, I would probably steam the cutlets first and then brown them. I felt it was hard to cook the middle without burning them.

After dinner I started to crash a little and started drinking my green tea.

Today, I woke up much to my dismay feeling a full-on cold.  So I drank my liter of water, 3 cups of green tea and had some soup in my attempt to kick it out in half a day. No such luck, but I was less congested at least, and felt hungry mid-afternoon.

I was excited to see over the weekend that Freshtown started carrying Daiya, which I've heard quite a lot about but wanted to really get used to life without cheese before I tried it. You know, in case it was really awful and all the vegans were lying.

So I quickly heated up the leftover cutlet in a pan, threw some Vegenaise & roasted red pepper on pumpernickel, and "melted" the cheddar on the cutlet, topped with cilantro.

Truthfully, the cheese is ok on its own. It didn't really melt as I had hoped (which you can probably tell from the picture) but when it hits a hot surface it sort of...liquefies I suppose is what I would call it and it does taste better like that, and does give me the satisfaction of hot, melty cheese.

I also made these vegan cashew cheesecakes over the weekend for some friends and holy smokes they were gooooood. I still have leftovers I haven't gotten into because I'm trying to ration them and not eat the remaining 6 in one night!

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches, For Valentine's Day (Vegan)

So I guess I should begin by saying, happy Valentine's Day! 

Chances are you are feeling one of three things today:

1. You absolutely hate it because you're single, or because you're still pushing the anti-establishment attitude and spouting off about how this is a commercialized holiday created by card companies to make money and you shouldn't need one day a year to profess your undying love to someone. (These go hand in hand)
2. You absolutely love it because you're in a relationship, or just really like pink, red, cupids, roses, hearts...or just because you're a romantic sap.
3. You're somewhere in between thinking it's a bit silly, but secretly loving it and you think it's nice to designate some time to be a little sappy and cheesy.

So which is it?

Me? Well, I used to be #1 through and through. I used to be a pretty angsty (and angry) teenager that was perpetually single when everyone around me had paired up within three weeks of Valentine's, if not longer. I went to school with a lot of people who were in relationships or so it seemed because that's how I remember it. So I used to say stuff like "oh, good for you, buying into the consumerism and the lie that being single is miserable; way to go Hallmark!...No, thanks I'm good over here by myself" Yup. I thought I was pretty witty with my bad puns and "GFYourself" attitude. I also used to call it "VD" thinking I was pretty funny making the analogy to what was happening between 200 of my fellow jailbait classmates by 3:30 after school. Ah, youth. Suffice it to say I was probably one of about 5 people not partaking in the joy of the flesh by graduation and little did I know that by 18 I would be perpetually paired with someone and fall head over heels, making me into a #2 pretty quickly and making myself swallow my former words. 

Now, I'm a 3. I do think it's a little silly, and I do think you should express love for your partner throughout the year. But, after having a child together it is hard to have alone time and you do kind of need to designate time "us" time to recharge and rekindle otherwise you get really into your routine and forget to talk and remember how much you really love each other. The last few years have been a bit stressful for us and being able to have time just to ourselves even if only once a month has been pretty much what we needed to step back, stop worrying, and be together.

So anyway, I guess you guys are probably wanting that ice cream sandwich recipe, huh?

The best way to do this is make the ice cream the night before, and the cookies the next day.

Vegan Maple Ice Cream slightly modified/adapted from THE SIMPLE VEGANISTA's "Butter Maple Pecan Ice Cream"

• 4 large bananas, frozen
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Puree everything in a food processor until smooth, transfer to a container and freeze. I did mine around noon, and it still hadn't set up in the freezer by 3, so I would recommend making this the day before so it's frozen at least 12 hours.

 

Before I get to the cookie recipe, I would like to say that even though these are vegan, they are NOT good for you, and this is not health food. At all. But, it's Valentine's Day so while I would typically make a less junky cookie, today is a day I don't mind indulging.

Vegan Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 3/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• 1 tbsp. + 1tsp. flax seed
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• chocolate chips

Preheat your over to 350F. Grind your flax in a blender until it becomes a fine powder, add milk, and whizz again. Transfer to a small bowl and let it sit for a few minutes to set up. In a larger bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In another large bowl, cream the coconut oil and sugar together. (I recommend using a hand mixer for this) Add vanilla and flax eggs, and mix well. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. You may or may not need to add some milk to this, I wound up having to add about another 2 tablespoons. When fully combined, add desired amount of  chocolate chips to the dough (let's be real: none of us measure it, we all eyeball it). 

Spoon balls of dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly in the pans, then completely on a cooling rack.

When your ice cream is set up enough to be a "soft serve" consistency, use a tablespoon(like one you would eat with, not one for measuring) to plop a small amount in the middle of one cookie, take another and place on top, but don't smoosh too much or it will go everywhere. Wrap in plastic and put into the freezer for 2+ hours. 

This was enough for 14 sandwiches, plus leftover ice cream. 

I'm calling this ice cream maple but it's really peanut buttery maple greatness.
Sorry I didn't get very good pictures, but here it is!

Sweet Potato Falafel With Hummus

Hello, hello!

I'm trying to get better about posting more stuff on here, but I keep making the same stuff over and over, or we wind up going out and I don't cook. But the good news is I'm starting to get back into my groove again.
This is sort of in answer to the question I hear all the time: "But, what do you eat?" Oh boy, what DON'T I eat nowadays? I mean, aside from meat and dairy? This is the kind of stuff I eat now!

I found this recipe on the Earth Balance website, but I modified it a tiny bit. I also made hummus, which we ate all of, and I forgot to take a picture, but I can give you the recipe for that real quick:

Spicy Hummus

• 1 15oz. can chickpeas, thoroughly rinsed and drained
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, coarsely chopped
• juice of one lemon
• 1-2 tsp. tahini
• 1 tsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp. dill weed (dried dill)
• salt & pepper
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• water, if needed

Put all ingredients in a blender or food processor and whirl until smooth. You may or may not need to add a tiny bit of water, depending on how thick/smooth you like it. I had to add about 2 teaspoons to thin it out to a spreadable consistency. It mostly depends on your beans- what brand, how dry they are, etc.

Sweet Potato Falafel

• 1lb. sweet potato, cooked and skins removed
• 1 15oz. can chickpeas, thoroughly rinsed and drained
• 4 cloves fresh garlic
• 1/4-1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp. ground flaxseed
• 2 tsp. dried parsley
• 1 tbsp. margarine (like Earth Balance)
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. coriander
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

I started by boiling the sweet potato instead of roasting because I was short on time today, then drained them and allowed to cool slightly. Combine the chickpeas and potato with  margarine and garlic in a food processor, and whizz until smooth. Alternatively, you could just mash them with a potato masher and mince the garlic by hand,  but I wanted these to be really smooth and come together almost like a cookie dough. If whizzing in a blender or food processor, transfer to a bowl, and combine with all ingredients except bread crumbs. Depending on how you prepare your potatoes and their moisture content, you may or may not need to add bread crumbs. If you mashed everything by hand you probably won't need to add any, but I wound up adding 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. Next I used a cookie dough scoop(which is actually just a small ice cream scoop) to make my falafel balls, dropped them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, baked at 400F for 30 minutes, and they came out like this:

I whipped up a "salad" to throw on top of the hummus and flatbread and that consisted of romaine, cucumber, grape tomato, and red onion that I marinated in balsamic vinegar for about 15 minutes. In the end, this is how it all came together:

Typically I use pita for this, but all the pita I found was looking sad and stale at the store, so I grabbed these. It was great because these are whole grain with flax (!!) and all the pita I found was white.

Enjoy your night! Don't forget The Village Farmhouse is now on facebook! Click here to "like"!

Artisan Bread in 5

Today I would like to share with you something I have come to love, and also use on a weekly basis.

I love bread, I love fresh baked bread, and I've always loved making bread except for the fact that it can be very time consuming. 
Until now.
I know I'm a little behind on this trend, and you've all possibly heard about this by now. I had heard about the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day a few years ago and just never bought it even though it intrigued me for obvious reasons.
Well, my friends, Zoe and Jeff did the best thing that cookbook authors can do, and that is share their basic master recipe FOR FREE, on youtube. This is brilliant because when they share the master recipe for free, people like me see it and get really excited about it and tell everyone on Earth about it, and other people who aren't so cheap go out and buy all their books.
So one day here I am browsing Pinterest and a suggested pin for the youtube videos they did comes up, and now I've been baking it (almost)once a week because it is so delicious and easy.

The original white recipe I tried first, and let me tell you it was nice and crusty on the outside, soft and light on the inside

This is probably the more favorable one because it's just like good crusty Italian bread, since it's a traditional boule.
I also made the whole wheat version which probably would have come out better if I didn't do them as rolls. Next time, I do plan to make the whole wheat but to bake it as loaves. 

I didn't get a picture of the finished product on Thanksgiving, but they came out pretty well. I think more room on the pan would have made them crustier, and less doughy on the inside- that was my error. They rose quite a lot and became more like hamburger buns as left overs so it was nice to have them around for sandwiches!
I haven't made any in the last couple weeks, actually contrary to what I wrote at the beginning of this post, but only because I've still got so much in the house between Christmas, and parties, and having family over, and just have not had the need for bread with meals because there's so much in the house. 
I plan to make a batch of the whole wheat maybe next week, I will post on how that comes out!
As for now, I highly recommend making the traditional white recipe! It takes practically no time, and it's soooo good!

It's A New Year!

Today I come to you with nothing but words.

I've decided, for a multitude of reasons, I do not want to participate in social media anymore. This means, specifically, facebook.
And I'd like to use this as an outlet to explain why I no longer wish to use this service anymore.

1. Because it is a complete waste of time.
This is first, because it is most obvious. I feel that over the years, I've gotten to a point where every time I have a spare moment I'm on my phone scrolling through my news feed, or on my computer staring at the same things, that I'm not even really reading, I'm just perusing over and over and over again. I decided to no longer have the app on my phone, to force myself to only use it on the computer, actively knowing I am wasting my time.

2. Because it makes high school last longer.
For a long time, I resisted the notion of discontinuing my facebook use, because I do have family on my personal page that are hard to keep in touch with otherwise. That still holds true, but honestly they're not popping up on my feed nearly as much as people that I used to see every day, 10 years ago. There are people I really and genuinely would love to keep in touch with that without facebook I would have lost all contact with, but there's also so many that we don't particularly want to talk to regularly, and vice versa. Doesn't that sound just like 20 minutes before homeroom? Having to deal with/listen to people simply because they are there and you feel you can't avoid it?

3. Because I don't want to be "keeping up with" you anymore.
This goes hand-in-hand with #2, but I mean something slightly different by this. I feel facebook creates, and breeds totally unnecessary drama. I will not say I am innocent of this. I find that in my ripe old age of 27, people are starting to settle down, have babies, buy homes, etc. That's all well and good(and I truly am happy for most of these people on my feed), but when it's shoved in my face in a "LOOKATME!!!" way, I'm sorry to say I'm not all that happy for you. I don't want to be told your life is perfect, much as I don't want to listen to people whine about how awful their life is. And that is all I ever see any more. We see it all the time, either there's a couple fighting with each other for all the world to see, or there's the couple who have nothing bad happening in their life and just COULD NOT be happier by any stretch of the imagination; you have the person who just got that great, awesome, incredible, new job and is just swimming in money(look at me now!), and the next post is the person who needs to tell everyone how crappy everything is, woe is me, feel bad for me. It's exhausting. I feel this breeds self-centered, attention-getting, and narcissistic behavior because everyone feels they have an audience. That may sound ironic coming from someone who created a blog to share their thoughts and experiments in everyday life, but I've really tried very hard in the last year to distance myself from the notion that people actually care about what I say, or my opinion.

4. POLITICS.
This one is further down on the list because we ALL do it. Everyone. We've all gotten sucked in and faltered on this one. Everyone has posted something concerning their political standing, especially when there's a looming election(myself included, I admit to being horribly annoying). But, why do we all do this? All it does is annoy everyone else because no one agrees. We're turning ourselves into rage-balls because politics is so hot-button and no one ever agrees anymore. We all know everyone on our list is going to get aggravated and it's like we love knowing how ticked people will get, or how true it is...but where does it get you? What is the point? It's like being able to have your own press conference, I guess, and as I write this I realize a lot of what I wrote in #3 carries over to here.

5. Because I just don't need it.
I feel I have gotten so sucked in, and so dependent on facebook, that I've forgotten how useless it really is, and that it's not something I need to follow all the time. And when it comes down to it, I really just don't need it. I don't need to be reading all this stuff, wasting my time instead of being productive and actively trying to keep relationships I care about instead of scrolling through a bunch I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Furthermore, I just don't want it anymore.

I will admit I created a page specifically to post my blog stuff, so I'm not quitting entirely, but I won't be following my personal page anymore, and these are the reasons why. I feel that by only having a page for this blog, I will not be on there unless I have a purpose.