Beet and Rutabaga Borscht

Borscht is a traditional Ukrainian soup with a gorgeous purple-red hue.  It’s a delicious way to use beets and can be served hot or chilled.

Ingredients

• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound (about 3 medium) red beets, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 1 medium rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 6 cups vegetable stock (see our recipe)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Parsley or dill for garnish
• Sour cream for garnish (optional for vegan preparation)

Preparation

1. In a large soup pot, saute onion and carrots in olive oil over medium-high heat until onions become translucent.
2. Add beets and rutabaga, continuing to saute for about 2 minutes more.
3. Add stock, cover, and bring to boil over high heat.  Reduce heat and continue boiling until beets and rutabaga pieces are soft. Season to taste.
4. Using an immersion blender or upright blender, process soup until smooth.
5. Serve warm immediately or chill and serve cool.  Garnish each bowl of soup with fresh parsley or dill and a dollop of sour cream (optional).

It took me a long time to get around to appreciating smoked spices. My reluctance is the same thing that make so many people love them: smoky flavors remind me of meat. But, I am growing up and trying new things and after enough coxing I have learned to appreciate smoked spices. I am even considering making my own using the same grill method described in Culture Magazine to smoke cheese. Look for an update on this experiment on our News page in the weeks to come.

For now I am using trader Joe’s South African Smoke Seasoning Blend, but any smoked seasoning will do. Just remember, a little will go a long way.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of cooked black beans, drained
• 1/4 cup vegetable stock
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked spice
• salt to taste

Preparation

1. Combine ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Season with salt to taste.

Crostini are wonderful little appetizers. These use slices of baked tomatoes which are extremely flavorful.

Tomato and Feta Crostini

Ingredients

• 1 baguette, cut into quarter-inch thick rounds
• 2 pounds roma tomatoes, cut into quarter-inch thick slices
• Salt
• Few fresh sprigs rosemary
• 4 ounces feta cheese, cut or crumbled into small pieces
• Olive oil
• Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place roma tomatoes into a deep baking dish or two.  Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil and lightly salt. Bake for one hour.  Ideally the tomatoes will have some slight carbonizing on their bottoms.  Use a stiff spatula to scrape the tomatoes from the pan(s), being careful to keep them relatively intact.
2. Heat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place baguette rounds on a baking sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes.  Remove from oven, keeping the toasted baguette pieces on the baking sheet, then drizzle (or spray) lightly with olive oil.
3. After the tomatoes and baguettes have finished, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a small pan on high heat.  Quickly fry the rosemary in the hot oil, about 30 seconds.  Remove rosemary and place on a paper towel to soak up excess oil.  You can save the excess oil, now flavored with rosemary, for another dish.
4. Place baked tomato slices on toasted baguette rounds.  Add a few of the fried rosemary leaves to each crostini.  Top each with a small amount of feta and season with ground black pepper.
5. Set oven to high broil.  Broil the crostini on the top rack of the oven for three minutes.

Black Bean Taquitos

Taquitos are a Tex-Mex snack in that typically consist of corn tortillas rolled around small portions of ground beef then deep fried. These little flavor bombs will fulfill anyone’s quotient for junk food particularly when dipped in to a sour cream or cheese sauce. These healthier taquitos are baked and also vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredients

• 2 cups refried black beans
• 2 poblano peppers, roasted and sliced
• 2 dozen corn tortillas, softened*
• Vegetable or olive oil cooking spray

Preparation

1. Roll the taquitos by placing a tablespoon of black beans and a slice of pepper in the center of a corn tortilla, fold in half, then roll tightly.
2. Place the rolled taquitos in a large baking dish coated in cooking spray.
3. Once the dish is full with a single layer of taquitos, liberally spray the taquitos with some additional cooking spray.
4. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until crispy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Serve warm with your favorite salsa or aji.

*Corn tortillas are notorious for crumbling. If they are fresh (still warm) this will not be a problem, but it is reasonable to expect that this may not be possible. Here are some instructions for softening corn tortillas to make them more pliable.

These quick radish and cipollini onion pickles can be served with a variety of dishes to add a touch of acidity and sweetness.

Quick Radish and Cipollini Pickles

Ingredients

• 16 cipollini onions, tops and bottoms removed, skinned
• 12 red radishes, stems and tails removed, cut in half
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into large matchsticks
• 2 cups water, salted slightly
• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 15 black peppercorns, crushed slightly
• 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Preparation

1. Bring the salted water to boil. Add the onions, radishes, and carrot, and let boil for 4 minutes. Drain and place vegetables into a shallow non-reactive bowl.
2. In a small non-reactive saucepan, heat the vinegar, peppercorns, sugar, salt, and cayenne over medium heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved.
3. Pour the vinegar mixture over the boiled vegetables.  Let cool, then chill slightly before serving.

Store in a sealed glass container in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Mango Avocado Salsa

Ingredients

• 2 small avocados, diced
• 1 medium mango, diced
• 1 large jalapeno, minced
• 1 spring onion, minced
• 1/4 cup cilantro, minced
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• Salt to taste

Preparation

1. Combine ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. Season with salt to taste and serve.

Almost every Sunday I make a giant crock pot full of beans and throughout the week James and I eat some for lunch, add them to dinner, and otherwise transform and include them in our food. They are cheap, nutritious, and delicious. Most of the time our beans don’t make it to the end of the week because at some point I get a hankering for refried beans. Refriend beans are a Tex-Mex staple and also a flavorful way to get a whole heaping of plant-based protein and plenty of fiber.

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked black beans, drained
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 large onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• Salt to taste

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large soup pot and saute onions until translucent over high heat. Lower heat to medium and add garlic and cumin. Continue to saute for 2 minutes stirring frequently to prevent burning.
2. Add beans and mash thoroughly with a potato masher, pastry cutter, or a sturdy fork.
3. Once the beans are a more or less uniform texture, add the broth, stirring to incorporate.
4. Season with salt to taste and serve or use as directed.

Beets give these oatmeal cookies a marvelous purple-red hue!

Oatmeal Beet Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup raw or turbinado sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup grated red beets

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream the butter with the sugar until smooth in consistency.
3. Mix in cinnamon, vanilla extract, and egg until incorporated.
4. Add flour, baking soda, and salt.  Mix until the flour is fully incorporated, but don’t work the dough more than that.
5. Slowly mix in the oats, raisins, walnuts, and grated beets.  Once fully incorporated the dough should be a nice purple-red in color.
6. On a non-stick or parchment-lined cookie sheet, drop tablespoons of dough separated by about 1 inch.  Flatten each ball slightly.
7. Bake for 12-13 minutes.  Transfer to a baking rack from the baking sheet after letting cool for about 2 minutes. Makes about 18 cookies.

A causa is a Peruvian dish that involves sandwiching some kind of salad (typically tuna and tomato) between two layers of mashed and seasoned yellow potatoes.  Causas are great for bringing to parties or potlucks, as they are like a de/re-constructed potato salad.  In this vegan version of causa, we made the filling from seasonal spring vegetables from our favorite Austin farm, Johnson’s Backyard Garden.

Ingredients

• 4 pounds yellow potatoes, peeled and chunked
• 3 tablespoons ají amarillo paste
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 4 medium sweet radishes, diced
• 2 cups curly kale, stems removed and leaves diced
• 1/2 cup parsley, diced
• 1/4 cup spring onions, diced
• Juice of 3 key limes
• 1/2 cup vegan mayonnaise
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Paprika for garnish

Preparation

1. Boil potato chunks until soft throughout.   Mash the cooked potato chunks with the ají amarillo paste until smooth.  Season to taste and set aside to cool.
2. In a large bowl, combine the diced carrots, radishes, kale, vegan mayonnaise, parsley, spring onions, and key lime juice.  Toss the mixture until vegetables are evenly coated with the vegan mayonnaise.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. In a deep (about 3-inch) rectangular dish, make an even layer using 1/2 of the mashed potatoes.
4. Spread the vegetable mixture on top of the bottom layer of mashed potatoes.
5. Use the remaining mashed potatoes to make an even layer on top of the vegetable mixture.  Dust with paprika and chill slightly before serving.  Serve by cutting approximately 3-inch-by-3-inch squares with a flat spatula.

Megamega Hummus with carrots and Dr. Krackers

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet is likely to gain popularity in the near future. The diet, which emphasizes consuming whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats to reduce chronic inflammation and promote health, is, for the most part, easily adapted to a vegetarian diet. However, the diet recommends a high-level of Omega-3 fatty acid consumption including 2-6 servings of fish and seafood a week. For most vegetarians this is untenable as is the recommendation to take a 2-3 gram fish oil supplement. The reason that fish and fish oil are preferred to plant-based Omega-3 sources is that the fish contains two important Omega-3s, EPA and DHA, while plant-based Omega-3 sources only contain ALA fatty acids. The human body can, rather inefficiently, convert ALA to the necessary EPA and DHA. So, in order to consume all of the necessary ALA for this conversion a vegetarian requires about 5 times the Omega-3 consumption that someone else will obtain from fish or fish oil – at least 6 grams of ALA a day.

Even with all of this information I still can not bring myself to eat a fish oil capsule knowing as I do that the undesirable fishy taste will be in my mouth for at least three hours. The only remaining solution is to eat all the plant-based sources of ALA Omega-3 fatty acids I can get my hands on. This includes most nuts, seeds, and the remarkable herb purslane (more on that later this spring).

While we have not had this recipe tested for nutritional content, based on the ingredients we estimate that one 1/2 cup serving of this hummus has 246 calories, 4.30 grams of protein, 6.18 g Omega-6 fatty acids, and 3.35 g Omega-3 fatty acids. With that nutritional profile you may want to put this one in your regular snack rotation like we do.

Ingredients

Procedure