Welcome to The Self-Love Diet...

Recipe: VEGAN Easy Pumpkin Curry Soup

I have been having a BLAST experimenting with different types of squash as they are in season and so delicious and nutritious!  My favorite for the following recipe so far are called "Golden Nugget Squash" they look like little pumpkins - sort of... but I have also done it with pumpkin, butternut squash and acorn squash - I am about to attempt spaghetti squash too!

Anyhoo - here it is, ENJOY!

VEGAN Pumpkin Curry Soup

• 4 small-medium sized squash (each about the size of a large grapefruit)
• ...or...
• 2 large butternut squash
• ...or...
• 1 large pumpkin (about the size of a basketball)
• 1 large green apple (or whatever tart apple you happen to have around)
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 heaping teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 heaping teaspoon of Frontier Organics Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 1/2 teaspoon Frontier Organics Muchi Curry (or your favorite curry powder to taste)
• 3-6 cups of water (to your desired consistency)
• fresh garlic to taste

Bake the squash until soft and easy to scoop out of the shell.  What I do is bake it before bed and then when it is done I just turn the oven off and leave it in the oven to cool overnight, easy to scoop out in the morning.

Blend the skinless squash with the rest of the ingredients - you may need to do it in 2-3 batches depending on how big and powerful your blender is (I burned up my blender with this recipe already this season...).  Add water as needed and to achieve your desired consistency. 

Can be served hot or cold.  Garnish with a drizzle of pure coconut water from the can (looks like sour cream) and the coconut milk can also be cooling if your curry is on the spicy side!

DEE-LISH!  Cincinnatus loves it as baby food too - he's my little hot n' spicy curry baby!!

Recipe: RAW Baby Food, Creamy Apple Sauce

With a two year old in the house there tend to be "unexplained mysteries" that occur from time to time - like just today I found a partially eaten apple in the ficus tree.  I didn't know that ficuses ate apples - but I am sure Percival was just being a good host and making sure that the tree had enough to eat...  Anyhoo - I added this apple to another apple that was in the fridge, also partially eaten and remembered that there was a partially eaten apple in the stroller that a friend had given Percival while we were out on a walk yesterday.  This collection of apples with two year old teeth marks in them was just too cute - it was like Alvin and the chipmunks came to visit!

While Percival is not the pickiest eater, he is not a fan of finishing apples that are brown and nibbled upon, so what I decided to do with them is blend them up for the baby to make apple sauce.  I had a good handful of sprouted groat ready to eat as well, so I threw everything in the blender together and it made a creamy sweet nutritious baby food delight that Percival and I found ourselves enjoying along with Cincinnatus!

I do recommend eating what you make right away.  By dinner time (I made the mix at lunch) it had begun to smell a bit off..

ENJOY!

Creamy Apple Sauce

• 3 apples
• 1 cup of sprouted buckwheat groat

Blend until smooth.  Enjoy immediately.

Recipe: VEGAN Sheperd's Pie

We purchased a bunch of potatoes and celery at the farmer's market this morning and I was craving pot pie so this seemed like a nice wheat free compromise.  The photo is NOT an original - but it sure looks good!

Shepherd's Pie

About 4 pounds of potatoes (if you use yellow skin potatoes - like the buttery and delicious yukon golds - they have a more "even" look when mashed) 1 tablespoon salt 1/2 cup olive oil 1 cup vegetable stock (I use "Superior Touch Better Than Boullion Vegetable Base") 1 big sweet onion, chopped 1 cup frozen corn kernels 2 carrots, sliced 1 celery stalk, sliced 1/2 pound (about 2 cups) mushrooms, sliced 1 15-ounce can chopped tomatoes 1/2 teaspoon Frontier Organics Fiesta Chili Powder

Boil the potatoes in water with the salt until tender.  Drain.  Mash, adding enough olive oil to make them smooth and spreadable.  Set aside.

In a large pot, heat the vegetable stock and cook the onions briefly. Add the carrots, corn and celery and cook while you slice the mushrooms. Turn the heat off and add the tomatoes and mushrooms, then cover the pan and let the flavors meld while you clean up the kitchen.

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Put the vegetables into a 9” x 13” baking dish and spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the top. Sprinkle with the Fiesta Chili Powder. Bake for 25 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Recipe: RAW Vegan Chili ...for Brad

As we enter into the colder months in the northern lattitudes this recipe will come in handy.  Hearty, warming, filling and convincing!  We've been mixing a scoop of RAW chili with some heated vegan chili for a 50% RAW meal on cold days - it's been great!

I've adapted this recipe from Alissa Cohen's Living On Live Food.

ENJOY!

• 4 cups sprouted barley
• 1 teaspoon curry (or to taste)
• 2 tablespoons liquid aminos
• 1 medium green bell pepper, diced
• 1/4 cup small red onion, diced
• 2 cups corn
• 1/2 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 cloves garlic (or to taste) minced
• 1-2 cups of water
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 oranges, juiced
• 10 medium to large tomatoes, diced small
• 1 medium onion
• 1 cup dates, pitted and soaked
• 1 cup of sundried tomatoes, soaked

In a very large bowl mix together the barley, curry, liquid aminos, green bell pepper, red onion and corn.  Then add in chili powder, Italian seasoning, cayenne, garlic, water, olive oil, orange juice and fresh tomatoes.  In a food processor, blend the dates, onion and sundried tomatoes into a thick paste.  Add this paste to the bowl and mix with the rest of the ingredients.

The flavors meld beautifully if given a chance to sit for a while.  This dish also freezes well in small containers.

Recipe: RAW Vegan Easy Chocolate Pudding

This is a recipe that is fun and easy to improvise with.  Try adding fresh coconut meat, more or less carob or coco powder.  It also tends to be great in all types of weather!  The other day we spread pudding over a sprouted grain tortilla with almond butter for a fabulous "nutella" type treat.  Great snack or sweet meal - lots of iron in the dried fruit, calcium in the carob, essential fatty acids in the avocado.  Dip strawberries into it!!

• 3 avocados
• 15-25 pitted medjool dates
• 1 cup raw carob powder
• vanilla
  

Blend the ingredients until smooth.

Trevor Enjoying Apple Crisp with Chocolate Pudding!

Recipe: VEGAN Mashed Potatoes & Mushroom Gravy

VEGAN Mashed Potatoes (makes 5 lbs, serves 8 ish):

• 5 pound bag of organic yukon gold or yellow potatoes (Central Market has had them on sale for a few weeks now)
• 1 can of organic coconut milk
• 1/2 - 1 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Cover the potatoes with water in a large pot, add a tablespoon of sea salt, turn up the heat and let them boil.  Once a fork slides easily through the biggest potato turn off the heat, drain the water, return the potatoes to the pot, add the coconut milk & olive oil and mash with a potato masher or big fork.  Add the salt and pepper to taste.  I usually forget that I have them cooking on the stove, so by the time I get to mashing them it's really easy.  I am all about keeping it quick and easy!  These keep for about a week in the fridge and are easy to heat up in a fry pan, you shouldn't need to add anything to reheat.

VEGAN Almond Shitake Gravy (makes enough for 5 1lbs of potatoes):

• 1 cup almonds
• 6 big shitake (and/or chantrelle mushrooms)*
• 3 cups vegan milk or vegetarian broth or hot water
• 4 tablespoons oil (I save my good olive oil for things that are raw, because of the high heat in this recipe I usually use organic canola oil)
• 3 tablespoons flour (we don't use any wheat products, so I've used organic soy flour just because it was the only flour I had in the cupboard!!)

Broil the almonds in the oven on high until they are well toasted, but not unpleasantly burnt.  Blend them to a powder in the blender.  Heat the oil in a sauce pan, when the oil is hot add the flour.  Continue to wisk until they are well blended.  Remove from heat.  Add your two cups of milk, broth or water, heat to boiling.  Add the powdered almonds.  For chunky gravy chop the mushrooms to your desired consistency and add them to the sauce pan, blend them in a food processor for a smoother consistency.  Let everything simmer together for a while to meld flavors and ENJOY!  THis is also easy to reheat and keeps for about a week in the fridge.  Reheat only the portion you intend to use per meal.

*I added the shitakes at Bret's request, so if you're not a big fungi fan the gravy is just as fabulous without them.  Shitakes are an "adaptogenic" mushroom, meaning that they help the cells in your body/mind be more receptive to change and growth.  Many herbs have these properties as well, we like to use our food for "medicine" as much as possible.  Who knew?