Last Licks . . . Mama Pea's Mmmm Sauce and Roasted Sweet Potato Rings

The day is dangerously close when life as I know it will come to an end. Tomorrow my contractor is setting up a makeshift kitchen in my living room where I will be attempting to "cook" for the next 12 weeks (I'm NOT complaining!). If I make it through I will be blessed with the kitchen of my dreams (big smile and nervous laughter). It's either the best decision I have ever made or the stupidest financial risk. Time will tell. And I don't want to live a life that ends in regret.

You'd think that I would be spending my last few days with a full kitchen preparing elaborate vegan soups and casseroles that I could freeze and that would help get us through the duration. But if you guessed I was doing that, you'd be way wrong. It's more like I'm paralyzed with fear. I'm avoiding life like the plague--hardly blogging, e-mails piling up, watching far too much reality TV. Hey, even I get (mildly!) depressed.

I first saw today's recipe this morning when I was going through a few days worth of old e-mails. That's generally how I decide what's for dinner--some interesting recipe magically lands in my in box and today this was it. I noticed that Mama Peas' Mmmm Sauce called for 1/4 cup of canola oil so I asked Mama Pea what I should do if I didn't want to use any oil. Nice girl that she is, she almost immediately suggested avocado. I happened to have one that I needed to use up, so I substituted 1/2 of an avocado for the oil.

I whipped up the batch of Mmmm Sauce when I got home from work and tossed it into a big salad . . . it was just okay. Then I dipped a roasted sweet potato ring (my new go to side dish for weeknights) and it was magic! The sauce actually reminded me of one of my all time favorite recipes. It was Gena at Choosing Raw's Raw Curried Cashew Spread that made me sure I could go vegan and never look back.

If you haven't made Roasted Sweet Potato rings, here's how to do it: Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheets with aluminum foil and spray lightly with cooking spray. Carefully cut sweet potatoes into 1/4" slices and lay on baking sheet in a single layer. Place tray in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and flip rings. Place trays back in oven, but rotate oven placement of trays top to bottom. Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before serving as is or with your favorite dipping sauce.

For another extraordinary use of Roasted Sweet Potato Rings, don't forget to give Chef A.j.'s Sweet Potato Nachos a try. Yum!

What risks have you taken lately? Is there anything that you want to do but are on the fence about?

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Chef A.j.'s Sweet Potato Nachos

Sorry about this photograph! My camera's battery died and my husband took this photo with his phone (thanks R!). What a buzz kill!

This is the third of three recipes that Chef A.j. mentioned I should give a try. For the toppings, I used whatever I happened to have in the kitchen (heavy on the romaine lettuce) and I was extremely pleased with the results. I could easily see this dish becoming a staple in my everyday kitchen because of it's ease and the response I got from my daughter and husband. I highly recommend giving Chef A.j.'s Sweet Potato Nachos recipe a try.

Now I can't wait for Chef A.j. to give me another assignment and tell me the next 3 recipes to make from her cookbook Unprocessed. Everything I have made from this book so far has been superb. What a way to go!

Chef A.j.'s Sweet Potato Nachos

Printable Recipe
1 sweet potato per person (If you use organic sweet potatoes there is no need to peel.)
plus any or all of the following:
Non-fat refried beans
shredded lettuce
corn
chopped tomato
cilantro
chopped onion
olives
jalapeno peppers
or anything you would normally enjoy on your nachos

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut sweet potato in uniform slices, approximately 1/4" thick. Place slices on Silpat or nonstick baking sheet (I lined cookie sheets with aluminum foil and lightly sprayed it with PAM). Sprinkle with smoked paprika. Bake for 20 minutes, flip over and bake for another 10-15 minutes until done. These are the "chip" part of your nachos.

Place several sweet potato chips on a plate and fully load them with the remainder of the ingredients. Chef A.j. recommends creating a nacho bar and letting your family or your guests build their own nachos.

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Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup



I have officially become my mother.

But don't get mad, Mom. That's not an insult.

I saw a totally healthy recipe here on Mama Pea's blog and I made it EVEN healthier. Mom would be so proud. And thank you to Mama Pea, as this is a pretty genius recipe! My husband said, "This is the best soup you have ever made, it's incredible, it's perfect, it's so delicious. Holy cow. This is sick. This is so good. This is the best soup ever. Holy Shit. How could you ever make anything this good again?"

Nuf said.

Coconut Curry Kale, Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Stoup
adapted from a recipe by Mama Pea over at Peas and Thank You

Printable Recipe
2 cups chopped onion
2 large stalks celery, rough chopped
1 medium head bok choy, rough chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp sweet curry powder
1 tsp hot curry powder (optional if you like heat)
4 cups vegetable broth (1 standard box)
1 14 oz. can light coconut milk
1 14 oz. can diced organic fire-roasted tomatoes (i.e. Muir Glen, Trader Joe's, Hunts all now have this)
2 14 oz. cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 Tbsp arrowroot powder
1 large sweet potato, diced medium
1 head organic kale, de-stemmed and chopped into pieces
1/4 tsp salt and pepper to taste (or to taste)

Place all ingredients, onion through chick peas, into a crock pot set to 6 hours. At the 4 1/2 hour, add the sweet potato. At 5 hours, remove a ladle full of the broth and pour into a small bowl. Dissolve the 1 Tbsp of arrowroot powder into the broth and return broth to crock pot. Then add the kale. After 6 hours, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

P.S. It seems that more and more doctors are catching on to the plant-strong way of eating as a method of disease prevention. Read about two of them here.

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Curried Sweet Potato Soup

I received a great question from a reader yesterday in the comments section, "Where are the recipes for these beautiful dishes? Tried to click on the names but goes nowhere! Help me please....."

I thought that my answer might be something that all of the HGK reader's should know: I am not (usually) an original writer of plant-strong nutritarian recipes. I am an avid home cook that tests and often tweaks other author's recipes. That means that I do not have the rights to publish the recipes on my blog unless I get permission from the author.

However, if I change the recipe enough and rewrite the instructions in my own voice, I can provide a recipe. It's a fine line that we bloggers walk and I try hard to maintain my integrity here and the intellectual property of others.

What does that mean for my readers? Well, we have to break it into the following two categories:

(1) RECIPES FROM COOKBOOKS

If I change the recipe enough or get the permission of the author, I can reprint the recipe. That was the case with yesterday's posting. The recipes were all from Terry Walter's Clean Start cookbook and I didn't change anything, so I cannot reprint the recipes. I did not ask Ms. Walter's for permission to reprint her recipes. In the cases where the recipes are from The Engine 2 Diet and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, both Rip Esselstyn and Anne Esselstyn were incredibly generous to grant me permission to republish their recipes, and you will find many of them here on HGK.

I photograph and write about dishes that are successful for me and that I am enthusiastic about. I don't bash recipes or cookbook authors here. If it's a flop for me, you'll never hear about it! With no recipe what I hope I am providing is honest recipe reviews and hopefully, inspiration. Not just inspiration to make a particular recipe but inspiration to surround yourself with delicious, nutritious, beautiful plant-strong food. And maybe that cookbook that I keep talking about starts to call your name and you purchase a copy!

(2) RECIPES FROM BLOGS

This category is a lot less complicated because I will always provide a link back to the original recipe along with my photos and review. If I tweak a recipe enough, I will also publish the recipe for my tweaked version right here on the blog.

Here's a perfect example of this. Yesterday, I made a Curried Sweet Potato Soup from Melody over at http://melomeals.blogspot.com/. I really like Melody's blog because she is a very creative chef. But, many of her recipes do not fit into my eating choice box, so I can either tweak them to fit the no-added oil vegan style or just move on. I happened to be particularly intrigued by her Curried Sweet Potato Soup (remember I said I was Indian in a past life . . .) and I was not disappointed by this vegan cup of heaven!

Melody's Curried Sweet Potato Soup. Get the recipe here.

I did tweak this recipe a little. I eliminated one of the two tbsp of coconut oil, the cilantro (just because I didn't have any), the 1-3 tbsp of Sriracha and the additional salt and pepper (it was already spicy and so flavorful I didn't think it needed it) and the sour cream or yogurt (for obvious reasons).

Both my husband and I loved it. I would be proud to serve this to guests who like spicy food, but certainly not anyone and everyone. It was thick and rich and the flavors were so very complex. I could see it served as an appetizer at a posh party in shot glasses. I pulled out a Saki cup from my pottery days for the photo above and I totally enjoyed sipping it that way. It's an incredibly satisfying soup. Thanks Melody!

Thoughts? How do you feel about my nutritarian recipe review style of blogging?

If you yourself are a food blogger, what are you personal views on this subject?

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What To Do When You've Gone on a Food Bender and a New Recipe

I received a question from a reader a few days ago and I thought that it was such a great topic to share with you. "hey there food guru. i am looking for some motivation/inspiration/support/someone to yell at me. the past 2 weeks or so have been less than ideal moving quickly towards, and now arriving at, very very bad. having a hard time staying on track at the moment. any words you can share? maybe a song and dance number??? thanks so much."

Here's what I have learned:

1. Let it go. Becoming a healthy eater/achieving a healthy weight is not a perfect race to the finish line. In fact, there is no finish line. You may get to a healthy weight, but maintaining it takes more work than getting there did. Beating yourself up about not eating perfectly is perfectionism coming out and that is not going to work over the long haul. Slip ups happen, how you handle them is what counts.

2. Do not use a slip up, no matter how big or small it was, to convince yourself that you should just give up on this whole eating healthy thing. That mentality is quite common amongst food addicts, myself included. But I don't think like that anymore and you don't have to either. Again, the past is the past and you can't change it. And oftentimes what we think was such a horrific food bender really wasn't that bad. We make it worse by beating ourselves up about it. What are you going to do right now? That is what matters.

3. Speaking of the past being the past, you should not skip the next meal in order to try to make up for a past slip up. That is setting yourself up for more disaster. Make a commitment that the next meal will be a healthy one. If you try to skip a meal, chances are extremely high that when you finally do eat, you will be like a crazed lunatic and all of the calories that you skipped will be more than made up for when you do eat again.

4. What about the future? Make a commitment to have one good day. That's it right now. Just one. I suggest having a solid plan for this one good day, i.e. write down exactly what you are going to eat for the whole day and make the commitment to not waiver from this plan. If other food magically shows up, just say to yourself, that is not on my plan so it's out. No mental debate about it. Not on your plan. One good day can change your whole attitude and set you on a better course.

5. Speaking of plans, all of the great intentions in the world are meaningless without a plan, so make sure you have one that is comfortable for you. For me, this started out with Weight Watchers, progressed to a combination of Weight Watchers and Eat to Live, and short dabble with Raw Food and now a comfortable, mostly vegan, mostly no-added-fat diet. What is your plan?

6. Clean house. Get rid of all of your trigger foods. I'm not joking. Get a big black garbage bag and fill it up with anything that might give you a problem and throw it in the trash. Let go of any guilt about this. It's either trash in your body or trash in a landfill, so where would you rather put the trash? It's amazing how much easier and simpler it is to stay on your plan if you are not surrounded by your trigger foods. When these foods make their way back into your home, as they inevitably do, get rid of them as soon as you can. Never have them hanging around. You know what happens when they are there!

7. Breathe. It's amazing what a few deep breaths can do for your well being. Breathe deeply, slowly, in and out through your nose for 30 seconds. If you can remember to do this under times of stress or aggravation, you will be far less likely to turn to food in these situations.

So there it us, my advice for slip-ups. I hope it helps! And if anyone out there has thoughts to add to this list, please leave a comment following this post.

Here's a new recipe that I tried last night. I thought it was incredible. My husband wanted more heat, so that part optional depending on your taste buds.

Sweet Potato, Black Bean and Corn Enchilada Casserole
Based on a recipe from Clean Food by Terry Walters
serves 8

Cashew Cheese
1/2 cup cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tbsp canola oil

Casserole
3 large sweet potatoes (more is better than less), washed and poked with a fork
juice of 2 limes
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 bunch of scallions-sliced thin and separated white bottom part from green top part
1 large tomato, diced
1 cup corn kernels, defrosted if frozen
2 tsp sea salt
14 soft corn tortillas
1 1/2 cups prepared salsa
optional: 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place sweet potatoes on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet and bake for one hour or until soft. Remove from oven and carefully slice in half to let heat escape. Let stand until cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, as sweet potatoes are in the oven, prepare cashew cheese. In a food processor (a mini one works fine for this), grind cashews to a fine meal. Add nutritional yeast and process briefly to combine. Add oil and process until you have a moist meal. Do not over process or meal will become dough like. Set aside.

In a large bowl, place the black beans, white part of scallions (sliced), diced tomato, and corn.

Peel sweet potatoes and mash with lime juice and salt. Combine sweet potato mixture and bean mixture. Optional: if you like heat, now is the time to add a dash of Cayenne pepper to this mix.

Turn your oven up to broil.

To assemble, spray a 9"x13" casserole dish with cooking spray. Line the bottom of the dish with 3 whole tortillas and 3 tortilla halves. Place 1/2 of the sweet potato mixture onto the tortillas and gently spread to cover. Repeat tortillas, sweet potato mixture, and tortillas. Spoon salsa over the top and spread with the back of a spoon. Place in oven a broil for 3 minutes.

Remove from oven and place cashew cheese in clumps evenly on top. Broil for 2 more minutes, watching closely to keep from burning.  Remove from oven and top with the green part of the scallions (as much as you want--you need not use the whole bunch) and, optionally, chopped fresh parsley. 

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