Chinese No Chicken Salad

First I want to thank everyone who commented on my green smoothie post in the last two days. As any blogger will tell ya, it's the comments that make it all worthwhile! That, and getting shout outs on other people's blogs, which is why I was so excited when I woke up today to find out that Roni over at http://www.ronisweigh.com/ and http://www.greenlitebites.com/ had given Healthy Girl's Kitchen a major shout out! CHECK IT OUT HERE. Thanks Roni!

Roni's been blogging about weight loss and Weight Watchers for a long, long time, but she had never tried a green smoothie, not once. It's my major concern about Weight Watchers, that they are not impressing upon their members the importance of nutritional excellence when striving to attain a healthy weight. So I was really jazzed up that Roni, a very popular and public Weight Watcher, decided to try her first green smoothie, and blog about it to a very large audience, as a result of my encouragement. Go Roni!

I leave you with something near and dear to my heart. The Asian No Chicken Salad. As a longtime fan of Chinese Chicken Salads (having lived in Los Angeles for 9 years), I long for the yumminess (for lack of a better word) of them. So I frequently make a no chicken version and I don't miss the chicken at all!

Healthy Girl's Asian No Chicken Salad
serves a crowd

1 package of 3 hearts of romaine, sliced thin and washed and dried
3 cups shredded cabbage
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 5 oz. can water chestnuts, chopped
1 15 ounce can mandarin oranges, drained
1 15 ounce can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup raw sliced almonds
1/8 cup raw sesame seeds
2-3 peeled and shredded carrots
2 scallions, thinly sliced

Place all ingredients in large bowl and toss with dressing.
Healthy Girl's Asian Low Oil Dressing
adapted from a recipe from http://www.drfuhrman.com/

1 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Aminos
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon sesame oil, toasted
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard



Lastly, here's a fun article about how veganism is becoming mainstream. How awesome is that?

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Is It Just Me or is Everyone Becoming a No Added Fat Vegan?

It's probably just me, but does this vegan thing seem to be catching on? Joel Stein over at Business Week Magazine seems to think so, at least among rich, powerful men. Read all about it here. Folks like Alec Baldwin, Russell Simmons, Mike Tyson (really?) and many, many more are proclaiming themselves to be vegan.

Pretty cool, huh?

And if you are a vegan, or moving in that direction, I want to highly recommend the following cookbook, Clean Food by Terry Walters. The more I cook from it, the more I think that it will be my new bible. The recipes are not simple, but also are not overly time consuming or complicated either. The result is restaurant quality, interesting vegan food at home. I'm impressed.

This week I prepared a stuffed squash recipe that I would feel comfortable serving guests for a dinner party or even Thanksgiving. So it was a real treat for us just to have it on a Monday night! Both husband and 10 year old gave it the thumbs up.

Winter Squash Stuffed with Brown Rice and Chickpea Pilaf

serves 8

based on a recipe from Clean Food

4 softball sized winter squash (acorn, kabocha, etc), washed, sliced in half, seeds removed

2 cups brown rice

4 cups water

2 thumb sized pieces Kombu (what's Kombu?)

2/3 cup currants

2 tsp ground allspice

vegetable broth for sauteing

1 large onion, chopped

2 15 oz. cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

3/4 cup toasted pine nuts

1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped

juice of 2 lemons

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place rice, water, kombu, currants and allspice in a rice cooker and cook. Alternatively, place same ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat.

Line 2 cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Lightly spray the squash halves with cooking spray. Place squash, cut side down, onto cookie sheets. Roast 25 minutes or until soft (time will vary according to size of squash).

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, pour in enough vegetable broth to barely cover the bottom of the skillet. When broth is bubbling, add onion and saute until translucent.

When rice is done cooking, remove kombu and discard. Add rice mixture and chickpeas to onion and saute for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in with parsley, pine nuts and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon rice mixture into cooked squash halves and serve.

Clean Food is also packed with healthy, seasonal, vegan dessert recipes. Pictured above is a Vegan Pumpkin Pie that was incredibly easy to make and even better tasting. I used a prepared graham cracker pie crust that I got at Whole Foods, but you could make your own pie crust with Ms. Walter's recipe or use any pie crust recipe that you love.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

serves 8

based on a recipe from Clean Food

1 prepared pie crust
12 ounces silken tofu, firm or extra firm
1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wrap tofu in paper towels and press to remove excess water.

Place all ingredients (except pie crust) in a high powered blender or food processor and blend until smooth, scraping down sides of container as necessary. Pour into pie crust and bake for 50 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven, cool and serve.

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No Added Fat Vegan Eating: Chickpea Burgers and My First Engine 2 Salad Dressing

One of the fun new foods you will want to discover if you are experimenting with vegan eating is the bean/grain burger. They are fun on a bun, but also a great way to turn a salad into a meal. Just pop a few on top of a green salad or serve some up next to an alternative type of salad (like a tomato, corn and avocado salad).

There are probably hundreds of variations of this type of vegan burger if you do a search for them on the Internet. Here's my take on one that I found in Experience Life magazine. My big change to the original recipe is that I substituted 3 tablespoons of vegetable broth for 3 tablespoons of olive oil. And I have to say, the finished product didn't miss the olive oil or the added calories that would have come from it. Winning!

Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers

makes about 10-12 burgers

2 cups cooked or canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground coriander

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp minced fresh ginger

3 tbsp vegetable broth

2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 1/2 cups cooked brown rice

3 tbsp diced carrot or red bell pepper

1/4 cup loosely packed, minced, fresh flat leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

Combine the chickpeas and all ingredients down to the lemon juice in a food processor and process until smooth and well combined, scraping the sides occasionally. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and fold in the rice, carrot or bell pepper and parsley.

Moisten your hands to keep the mixture from sticking, then shape the mixture into 1/2 inch thick patties about 4 inches in diameter.  Place them on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, until the patties start to get dry and crisp on the outside.  They will firm up as they cool.

The following salad dressing recipe is from The Engine 2 Diet book by Rip Esselstyn. One of the principles of this way of eating is to eliminate added fat from your diet. But most people are so used to only eating salad dressings made primarily with some form of fat, like olive or canola oil. So what to do when you are following a no-added-fat vegan diet? Try making dressings like this one. It has a lot of ingredients, but at this point, like me, you may have them all in your pantry. And after eating it on my salad with dinner, I'm not missing the oil at all!

E2 Basics Dressing

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

1 Tbsp tamari

1 Tbsp mustard

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Juice of 1 lemon, lime or orange

1 Tbsp agave nectar, honey or maple syrup

1 tsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbsp wheat germ

Water to desired consistency (I didn't use any)

Whisk the ingredients together in a bowl.

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