From the article:

“…the average adult man needs about 65 grams of protein a day and the average adult female needs about 55 grams” - Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at NYU

“Eating large amounts of red and processed meats is associated with higher rates of heart disease and cancer”

“The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) recently published Meat Eater’s Guide points out that if you ate once less burger a week it would be the environmentally-positive equivalent of taking your car off the road for 320 miles.”

Make sure to check out the comparisons of a single serving of meat to a single serving of lentils. In this economy are you going to spend $4 for your meat or $0.20 for some beans. Remember Jack & the Beanstalk? He traded his cow for some beans and made out pretty well in the end.

Then I went vegan, and as a vegan I read everything. I was astounded to find out how often honey made it into anything granola. Worse yet, were the the ones that had ingredients like casein. Why was casein in a granola bar? So I started playing and this was my first granola hit.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 cup walnuts lightly crushed
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup puffed rice cereal
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp margarine
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Cooking:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the nuts, oats, seeds, and puffed rice out on a cookie sheet in as thin a layer as possible. Once preheated, place the cookie sheet in the oven for about 15 minute to toast the dry goods. When the oats have a nice golden color to them, pull the tray out and dump them into a big bowl.

Over medium heat dissolve the sugar, salt and margarine into the syrup. Once you have a nice smooth and liquid concoction pour over the dry goods and add the raisins. Mix the combination until everything is wet.

Granola Bars:

If you are trying to make granola bars, pour the mixture into a 13×9 pan lined with parchment or wax paper. Make certain to push it into all the corners and as even a thickness as possible. Cover with more parchment paper and then with as many heavy books or pots as possible. Let this sit for a couple hours to cool and solidify.  Once it is cool, cut them into bars and wrap in cellophane to keep them fresh.

Granola Cereal:

Spread the mixture out onto a parchment covered cookie tray to dry and cool. Once dry, break up any large chunks to bite sized portions. Put into an air tight container and you are ready to go. This makes a great topping for vanilla rice cream or soy ice cream.

Digging around I didn’t really find any, but I did come across a few DIY slaw sauces using mayo, so I subbed in some vegan mayo from the store (the only ingredient I didn’t already have – we don’t really do mayo in my house). Since I split my CSA share, the recipe is based on this, but believe me, this is a lot of slaw!

Slaw Sauce:

• 1/3 cup vegan mayo
• 3 Tbsp white wine vingar
• 2 Tbsp soy or rice milk
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Veggies:

• 1/2 head of cabbage chopped/shredded to slaw size (do what you like here)
• 2 medium carrots shredded (we went superfine and this became mush, so go matchstick size)
• 1/2 kohlrabi – peel off the skin if woody and julienne to match stick size pieces
• 1 beet (yes, raw) – peel and julienne to match stick size pieces

Mix the veggies with the sauce and chill a bit before eating. You can eat at room temperature, but I like mine cold.

• 3 cups whole milk (works well with soy or nut milk for a vegan version)
• 1 vanilla bean (split, or 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup quinoa

Rinse quinoa. Mix milk, vanilla, maple syrup and salt in a saucepan and set on simmer. Add quinoa and cook for 30 minutes, stirring frequently (but not constantly).Once thickened, remove from heat and allow to cool. Serve warm, or refrigerate. Top with all kinds of delicious tidbits; berries, dried fruit, nuts, nutmeg, brown sugar, etc.

Ingredients

• 3 cups Whole Wheat flour
• 2/3 cup Dark Rye flour (you can sub Rye flour if you desire a lighter pretzel)
• 2 tsp light brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp yeast
• 2 cups water

Mix the flour up in a large bowl with the salt, sugar and yeast. Once it looks like the yeast, salt and sugar are evenly dispersed, slowly mix in one cup of water. At this point I found the best way to mix is with my hands. The dough is really clumpy at first and we will never be adding enough water to make it into a liquid, so hand needing worked best. Once the first cup of water is worked in, slowly add more water until you have one solid piece of dough. It should look a little wet and feel a little sticky at this point.

On a clean surface, sprinkle a little all purpose flour (about 1 tbsp) and spread it around. Need the dough for about 5 minutes, making sure to add a little flour if it becomes too sticky to work with. It should work itself into a nice even ball. Place in a bowl and cover the bowl with cling wrap. I like to spray a little canola oil on the cling wrap in case the dough rises enough to touch it. Let the dough rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

After the dough has doubled in size, we are going to form our pretzel shapes. Get a cookie sheet and spray it with your canola oil. Break up your dough. The number of pieces depends on how big you want the pretzels. You can make 8 pretzels in the Bavarian size (about 4 inches across), 4 large street corner pretzels, or 16 snack sized. Roll each piece of dough out into an even snake. If doing 4 or 8 pretzels, the dough will be about 1/2 inch thick. A little thinner for 16. Next, loop the dough twisting the ends together ad folding them back into the dough for your shape. Have fun here, you don’t nee to be stodgy on design especially if working with kids.

Once all your pretzels are formed, cover them again for 30 minutes with oiled cling wrap.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake for 10 minutes. While this is going on, you need to decide if you are going to coat them with salt or eat them low sodium. If salting, take 3 Tbsp water, 3 tsp salt and dissolve them over medium heat. When the pretzels are pulled from the oven, shut the oven off, paint this mixture over your pretzels and sprinkle on some course seas salt to taste. I like to put the pretzels back into the oven for 5 minutes with the heat off to dry the salt in place. After that, let them cool on a wire rack.

• 1 2/3 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tsp salt (I always use organic sea salt)
• 2 Tbsp margarine (I prefer Smart Balance Vegan blend or Earth Balance Olive Oil spread)
• 4 2/3 cup whole wheat flour (try to go organic if you can)
• 3 tsp bread maker yeast
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp basil
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp marjoram
• 1/4 tsp dill weed

Suggested herb alternates: rosemary, thyme, caraway seed

In your bread maker add the ingredients except the oil and herbs in the given order, making sure your yeast doesn’t touch the wet ingredients or sugar. Set your machine to whole wheat and let it run. At the “raisin” beep (after the rising), mix the herbs in the oil and pour over the top of your dough. If you are setting this up to be done when you come home, add the oil and herbs before the flour.

I like a light crust, so I set the timer to be 10 minutes longer than when I want it done and pull it out early.

• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• 1 can (15oz) or two cups cooked black beans
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 medium sized head garlic (FYI: the whole garlic you buy at the store is a head, the indiviual pieces are the cloves)
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 small yellow onion finely diced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Peel the garlic and put them into a glass cooking dish that has a lid. Mix the garlic with the olive oil making sure that each clove is well covered. Slice the top off the red pepper and place the rest of it over the garlic. Cover with the li and cook for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Warm the black beans while this is cooking. Remove the beans after 15 minutes and mix with the rice. We want the mixture to be cool to the touch remember.

Once the garlic and pepper are roasted, mix them together in the food processor until you have a nice buttery mix. Stir this into you rice and bean mix with your finely diced onion. Start a fry pan on medium heat with some canola oil, enough to cover the bottom. When the oil is brought up to heat, make your patties. Try to make them about 1/4 inch thick and about 4 inches across. Much bigger than this and they will be hard to flip and will fall apart when eating.

Carefully place each patty into the fry pan and cook for about 5 minute per side. Place on your burger buns, garnish with your favorite condiments (relish is delish here) and enjoy. If you do have left overs and don’t want to cook up the patties with the oil, you can microwave the rice and bean mixture and put it into a tortilla for a great burrito.

• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 ribs of celery
• 1 green pepper
• 1 package of Tofurkey Italian sausage ( sausages) – Feel free to use your favorite vegan sausage
• 1 can (15oz) or two cups red kidney beans
• 1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes or 4 large tomatoes diced
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1tsp paprika
• 1tsp cayenne powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups brown rice

First, if you are doing this on the spot, realize you will need 45 minutes to cook the rice as this is done separate. If you are doing the crock pot, start the rice 45 minutes before serving. To make the rice, use 4 cups water, all the rice and bring to a boil, then simmer 45 minutes.

On the spot:

Take your holy trinity (onion, carrot and celery) and saute with 1tsp olive oil and the garlic until soft. Add in the green pepper, sausage, broth, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper to the other veggies. Add in the tomatoes. Before adding in the beans, make sure to drain and rinse them. Let this cook on medium heat for 30-45 minutes or until the sausage is cooked and the sauce is thick. If the sauces is running too much, add some of the partially cooked in rice to absorb the water. Plate some of the rice and add the jambalaya on top and you are good to go.

In the crock pot:

Dump it all in the crock pot but the rice. Set to high and let it run for 3-4 hours. If you can, check and stir it periodically. Serve over the cooked rice and enjoy.

Don’t forget to leave comments with any revisions you add to the dish!

Upon removing the squash from the oven, cut it in half carefully (it is hot) and scrape out the contents into a bowl, add the pesto, mix and serve. It works great with some sliced cucumbers or tomatoes on the side.

• 1-2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 4-5 cloves fresh garlic
• 1 cup halved grape tomatoes
• 1/2 avacado diced
• Pasta

In a small processor combine the basil, garlic, oil and pine nuts and grind/blend until you have a consistency you like. I prefer the nuts a little chunky (not sure why, I like creamy nut butter) so I add them last. Modify the oil amount for a consistancy you like as well.

Cook the pasta per directions. Once cooked, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking and cool the pasta. Mix the pasta with the pesto and tomatoes and set aside. Tonight I made a lite salad to go along with it at this point while I let the pasta cool to room temperature.

Plate the pasta and any sides you are serving, then sprinkle the avacado on top to taste. If you have no aversion to salt, a little sea salt will go well with the avacado and pesto. Serve and enjoy!