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NUT LOAF: it's wutz fer dinna.

soooo, i took about 1,400 PCC cooking classes since, as an employee-pcc-shelf-soy-milk-stocker/cashier-beeper-of-items, i get to take them for free! i took this awesome class called vegetarian holiday feast (thxgvn) two or three years in a row. no recuerdo. anyways! the woman who teaches the class, birgitte antonsen, whips up some of the most delish food/recipes/my stomach smiles and agrees!

we have a huge bag o' walnuts in mi refrigerador. walnuts + loaf pans = lil ideas poppin in my head: NUT LOAF! NUT LOAF! NUT LOAF!! and nut loaf it 'twas.

from the PCC website:

Roasted Vegetable Nut Loaf

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole mixed nuts (hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds)
• 1 to 2 carrots, peeled and chopped coarsely
• 1/2 pound celery root and/or parsnips, peeled and chopped coarsely
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin coconut oil or olive oil
• 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth or filtered water
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 1/2 teaspoon mild curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried sage
• 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds
• 3 tablespoons arrowroot
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 250º F. Spread the nuts on a baking tray and place in the oven. Toast until lightly colored, 15 to 20 minutes, then cool slightly. Place in a food processor and process until the nuts are the consistency of bread crumbs.

Increase the oven temperature to 350º F. Place the carrots, celery root and/or parsnips in a mixing bowl and coat with a little of the oil. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes until lightly colored. Let cool.

Place the rinsed quinoa in a small saucepan with the broth or water, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit, covered, in the pan for another 15 to 20 minutes.

In a skillet, sauté the onions, curry powder and herbs in the remaining oil for about 10 minutes. Finely chop the oven-roasted vegetables in a food processor. Grind the flax seeds in a spice grinder and process into a meal; place the flax meal in a small bowl with 6 tablespoons filtered water; let sit for 5 minutes.

Place all ingredients, including the arrowroot, salt and pepper, in a mixing bowl and combine well. Line an 8x8-inch Pyrex pan with parchment paper. Spread the mixture evenly in the pan. Cover with foil. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for another 10 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Cut into 12 slices.

yum!! this nut loaf was drool worthy. we topped it with this gravy (tweeked a lil bit):

Sherried Leek and Wild Chanterelle Gravy

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 small leeks, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cups sliced Chanterelle mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons arrowroot
• 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
• 1/2 cup golden sherry wine
• 1 cup boiling water
• Freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

In a large, heavy pot, cook leeks and chanterelles in oil on medium-high heat for 10 to 20 minutes. Continue to stir as flour, nutritional yeast, soy sauce, sherry and water are added.

Reduce heat to low and simmer. After 30 minutes, season with pepper and serve.

my gramz claims to despise shroomiez, but i called her out on her BS! we used an immersion blender to puree the leeks and shroomz so that there were no visible chunks (sad porque i love chunky gravy, but anyways) , and she wouldn't stop commenting on how delish the gravy was-- she poured it on everything! hahaha. sorry, but i think that people who claim to hate mushrooms just had a bad experience where the shroomz weren't cooked right aka slime balls of shroom madness. SUCCESS! roasted up some brussels, steamed up some kale, aaaand we had a complete feast!

there MUST be a delish alternative to sugared slugs, no?

i went to REI today and bought these beauties:

such sexy lil thangz! i LOVE snowshoeing aaaand since borrowing my maw-ma's snowshoes aint such a hot idea when we want to go up together, i decided to invest in some for myself! these are more delicious than delicata squash on a winter evenin (no, not really.) aaand i'm goin up tomorrow to give them a test drive! fantastiiiic!

as far as food goes, i've been havin some pretty basic meals: roastin up roots and brussel sprouts with olive oil, salt, and peppa aaaand eatin them over...what else? BROWN RICE! and stickin in some garbanzo beans (yum.). i guess i'll take a pic next time i have them because they are beauuuutiful! my roots of choice: parsnips, rutabagas, carrots, yams, jerusalem artichokes aaaand of course i threw whole cloves of garlic in there because i am like a walking human garlic clove!!!!

we also went to PCC today to do a shop....and i ended up with my kasha bar stash for the month! that is right, ladz and ladeez, over $40 worth of kasha bars!! hahah. i don't think i have really discussed kasha bars on this blog yet. p.s. for future reference, kasha=buckwheat groats.

kasha bars are the MOST AMAZING (and i know i say this about a lot of things, but seriously this time) things evaaaaa. i eat one or two every day and my brain cells and eyeballs can testify to the wonder contained in these rectangular chunks of goodness.

ingredients: dates, tahini, almond butter, vanilla, oat bran, kasha, and maple syrup.

these are sooooo fucking amazing. i have yet to find one person who does not like them! i took them on the backpacking trip i took in october to the olympic peninsula, and one of our trip guides claimed that pro bars were the only "energy bars" he liked. welllll.... def not asfter tryin a kasha bar! kasha bar POWAAAAA! i let nearly everyone have a piece and the vote was 10-0. 10 omg.yum.hlyfck, 0 nastys. kasha bar=always victorious.

kasha bar > cookies, cakes, ice cream, eyelids, chocolate, pubic hairs

i do not understand why people buy "powerbars" and not kasha bars. power bars look like turdeez, but are wrapped in not-so-cute gold.... they look like flattened slugs and taste like sugared vitamins. kasha bars are WHOLESOME and DELICIOUS!!

the end!

more recipes to come, i promise. maybe.

excited tastebudz

so i know that in the post below i said that my fam fam wasn't too keen on the sweets, but the other night we put together quite the meal (future blog, i am lazybones tonight porque we went snowshoeing today!) aaand decided that some sort of dessert was necessary. this dessert was SO easy and soooooo deliciously perf! it def hit the spot and was harmoniously winter-y, spicy, and warm!!

Baked Pears with Ginger

3 comice pears, halved

1 chunker of ginger

4 cups apple cider

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Put pears in glass casserole dish.

3. Shred ginger and squeeze over pears. Disperse the ginger evenly throughout the dish.

4. Cook for an hour.

5. Serve alone or with some veegz vanilla bean ice cream!

P.S. i promise they are waaaay more delish than they look! aaand you will have extra sauce to pour over them/ make another batch with! yuuuuum :)

sunny day extra foam plz

tomorrow i was supposed to go snowboarding. instead, the sun decided to shine it's sweet, sweet rays into the day and crush my heart into 32,000 of those microscopic-annoying-as-hell jigsaw puzzle pieces. :(! i do not understand! why is it 55 degrees on a winter NIGHT?! it hasn't snowed in long time aaaaaand tomorrow the forecast calls for rain. snowboardin + rain = no thx!

instead, nigeria and i are planning to go snowshoeing! i am muy muy muy excited :)

today, we took advantage of the sun and went to check out brothaaaaa's uw life/campus/seattle and went to this awesome coffee/chai house called trabant. this place kicks ass, especially since they got me to really think deeply about fair trade and what it stands for/means/both impacts it potentially can make and fails to make. maybe i will make a semi-boring-but-serious post about this in the future! i got an americano to taste their coffee naked:

psst! seattle weekly advertising the muse concert i'm goin to in april! my mom bought us tickets for hanukkah :)

anyways, they pay double the fair trade price, which is awwww-sum. this place is the kind of coffee shop that makes a cute lil design in your coffee so that you throw a few more quart-az in the tip jar! hahah. their coffee is delish. and they have SPICY VEGAN CHAI! it inspired us to make homemade chai sans sugar (our family isn't soooo keen on thy sweets). the chai was delish, but i def think it was more sweet than spicy. ours will definitely have a kick! it was super foamy though, so it was more fun to drink than playing a carnival game and winning four JUMBO SIZE stuffed snakes! +8 pts!

veener schnitzel?

minus the veena minus the schnitzel, wuddup vegan germany!?

hahah. my uncle from germ-germ is in town for the next two months! for hanukkah, (insert spit here) he told my mother that he would cook meals for the rest of the week. what does this mean in a vegetarian/veegz household?! bavarian pretzels? blood sausage? rye bread (YES PLZ!)? wellll... he ended up making this a-maize-ing (without the corn) soup that basically simmered ALL day! want proof? this pot was practically bleeding it was workin so hard:

hahaha. k MAYBE it was the beets that created those fatal wounds that may or may not come off in about three months of soakin the damn thing to death!

we bought one of my fav breads in the wer-ild, tall grass bakery (local bakery in seattle) seeded rye. it is like heaven with some pumpkin-seed-studded-pearly-gates!! time for a picture to capture (some of) its DENSE glory!

it was SO delish with the soup i have had left overs 4 times by now. P.S. not an eggshell on the cutting board. sastuma peel!

Bloody Beet and Tomato (Not Sausage!) Lentil Stew + Cabbage and Tateroonis

3 potatoes, cubed

3 beets, cubed

2 onions, diced

1 head cabbage, cut into small chunkers

2 cups lentils

1 monster can of tomatoes

2 tbsp. extra virg olive oil

water

salt & peppa

1. Saute onions in oil for a few mins.

2. Add everything else. Try not to fill everything to the tippity-top-top porque your pot will end up bleeding like mine (and you don't ACTUALLY want any resemblance to a blood sausage nooo thx!)

3. Add water and stir it all up!

4. Bring to boil and let simmer all day (seriously).

5. Salt and pepper it up to your fancy!

6. Toast bread. Dip bread. Eat. Smile.

breakie broo broo bree broo

soooo i love me sum homemade granola + soy yogz + nuts + frootz in the mornin, buuuut i am one of those people who can eat dinner for breakfast, breakfast for dinner, brunch, linner, brinner, wtf ever you want to call it! this morn i randz (randomly) woke up inspired to cook me up sum indian-spiced goodness. it is AMAZING how cooking a meal from scratch can lift up your spirits!

jenna= ._.
jenna after eatin her indian meal masterpiece= :D!!!!!!!

i made mung bean dal and some indian spiced delicata squash. whoever said diamonds are a girl's bffl is WRONG. black mustard seeds are the answer to life!!! i wish i had some tuh-maw-toes, but i don't think tomatoes in the wintertime are the most delish and they come from a land far, far a-way.

granddaughter: "granddaddy, why are we alive?"
grandfather: "black mustard seeds, honey...black mustard seeds." HAHA i should be a playwright (no.)

Mung Bean Dal
1 1/2 cup mung beans
3 cups water (add more if it gets too dry while cookin, they absorb so much liquid!)
1/2 onion
1 tsp ginger, diced
3 large cloves garlic
2 T canola oil
1 T black mustard seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
salt

1. Temper cumin seeds and black mustard seeds in 1 T canola oil until seeds begin to pop (like pcorn but not!) I use a separate little thing for tempering spices which makes it easy to just pour them into the big pot once they begin poppin up a storm. It's also smaller, so the seeds really fry up to perfection (photo posted below).
2. While you are tempering the seeds, sautee the onion in remaining oil. Once translucent, add the ginger, garlic, and spiiiices. Add the seeds when they begin to pop!
3. Stir it up and wait a few mins, PACIENTE!
4. Add the mung beans and water. Increase to a boil, then let simmer for about 25-30 mins.
5. Add salt to taste (I add about 1 tsp-- I like my Indian food on the salty side!)
6. Yum. The longer you can refrain from eatin it, the betttaaaaa! aka use your common sense people, i dont mean 2 weeks when it is all blue and fuzzy, I mean maybe an hour or two or the next day!

Indian-Spiced Delicata

3 delicata squashes, cut into slices
1/2 onion
3 big hunker cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups water
2 T canola oil
1 tsp ginger, diced
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 T black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala
a couple grinds of pepper
salt

1. Temper seeds with oil like in above recipe and sautee onions/garlic/ging in the same way.
2. Add seeds when they get ta poppin!
3. Add delicata squash and water (add more water if it starts to dry out during cookin!)
3. Cook until delicata is sweet, delish, and soft (maybe 20 mins?) YUUUUUM!

4. Salt it uuuuuup!
5. Serve over BROWN BASMATI RICE!!

Kale-- ALWAYS!
1.Cut.
2. Steam.
3. Yum.

the photo does not convey this delish dish in an appealing way at all. lo siento for this, but a) i already warned ye' that my photos shall not be magnificent b) i use my cell phone camera c) indian food is NOT PHOTOGENIC d) that is all :)

senior proj 2009 madness

so i did running start at bcc, but i still had to do a stupid senior proj. i ended up makin a vegan cookbook called I Can't Believe There's No Butter! hahaha. now that i have a veegz/life/wutevz the hell i can call this masterpiece blog i thought i'd post some of the sheeeeeit (but it tastes golden!)

disclaimer: plz ignore the orange triangles. it means that shutterfly had a prob w/ what i wrote aka as you can tell by this blog i do not care (at this pt in time!) about grammar/punctuation/i frequently make up my own werdz.

here is the cover in its glory! original malatee TM artwork hahah.

not that this small ass font is very legible, buuuut let me just type out the diff dishes! i hope you like my semi-corny-(faux)cheezy recipe names.
in order, but the cookbook doesn't go in this order. i am too lazybones to fix it on the blog:

Kale and Sweet Potato-adilla con Cumin Frijoles

Mexican Black Bean Polenta Casserole

Savory Tempeh-Spinach Tart with Peanut Butter Crust

Spinach, Cashew Ricotta, and Butternut Squash Buckwheat Crêpes with White Sauce

Good Karma Curried Veggie Bowl

Basic Mung Bean Dal and Easy Yellow Split-Pea Dal

Brazilian Smokey Black Bean Feijoada with Garlicky Collards

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Herb-infused Tomato Marinara

Toasted Pecan & Date Pumpkin Pie Mousse

Spin-it Orange-Green Smoothie

Date-Almond Milk

Strawberry Kanten with Chunky Almond Cream

Yin and Yang Macrobiotic Bowl

Chunky Sweet Potato Miso Soup

it is possible that i will post these recipes/larger photos individually since this blog post is sort of like a cloudy day with a chance of showers---you can't really see anything AND your hair is turning into mophead-mania. watch out!

scandinavian tradish?

soooo. apparently it is a scandinavian tradition to bake up a shitload of sweet lil round disks (cookies) during christmas. being a non-relig jew, i am lucky enough to get a batch of vegan latkes goin (we almost forgot to light candles last night hahah.) and have NO idea about other people's traditions and what goes on for christmas. last year, nigerium invited me to her family's xmas cell-uh-bration. haha just kidding it wasn't like being in a cell! it was fun and we ate some field roast en KROOT and various delish pcc salads + homemade stuff + we watched rugrats!? idk if that is a fam tradish of hers, buuuuut it was quite lovely because we watched the story of hanukkah rugrats style. maybe it was a showing dedicated to the lone jew in the room, who knows!

anyways, in her fam it is a tradition to bake up hella cookies and pile them up on a platter for christmas! aaand this year, they are going to have like 12 people or somethin craaaazy invadin their house (k. maybe invading is harsh. they ARE family!!). so nigeria and i baked up like 4 batches or so of coOoOOoOoOokie monsters yesterday! i gave her the new vegan cookie cookbook Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskovitz (obv a fellow jew-dee-izm!!) little does she know she is helpin another jew help make christmas cookies! haha thx grl <3

we ended up makin the vegan chocolate crinkles and peanut butter cookies! nigeria made two batched of crinkles aaand i made a batch of peanut buddas. the crinkles crinkled even though the recipe says they rely on corn syrup for the crinklin, but we omitted it because we say: dats nastay! but the crinklin crinkled and crinkles it shall be! the peanut budda cookies were reel kyoot. and smelled reeeeel nice!

her mom also asked me to make buttermint cookies, sooooo that was really different and i think more traditional aaaand i haven't worked with butter in years. muy interesante! personally, i can't really imagine the combo meal of mint and butter soooo i'll have to wait to get some feedback on those cookies to see what's up, haha.

buttermints in the midsection of thy wallaby:

tonight we are goin to deck the hall ball! i am SOOO excited. tickets went on sale and right when i heard about MUSE being in town (and 30 secs to mars (never heard them)....phoenix (sorta heard them)...visqueen (local band nvr heard of them)...and vampire weekend (hardly heard them).. and metric! (like them a lot but hope they do not lip sync or i will forever abandon!) haha randz thought: lip sync is like the perf term for lip singing because a) lips are synchronized with the mu-sak b) sync sounds like sing so its a play on the werdz. gud job you deserve a waffle, jenna! i just had to get tix for nigeria my brothaaaa and i! (nigeria=bday prez, brotha= hanukkah prez) thx. anyways. muse=amazing. tonight=amazing :)

Doors: 4:30PM

Locals Only! VISQUEEN : 5:10p – 5:30p

VAMPIRE WEEKEND : 5:50PM – 6:20PM

PHOENIX: 6:40PM – 7:10PM

METRIC : 7:30PM – 8:00PM

30 SECONDS TO MARS : 8:30PM – 9:15PM

MUSE: 9:45PM – 10:45PM

soup is a glorified word for baby-food puree

lo siento (sorry) to anyone and everyone who was within a 5 foot radius of my bod yesterday. you would be so kind to grant me an apology if you knew why i reeked of garlic--- i blame the soup and its deliciousness! how can one stop chowin on freshly roasted garlic? i do not know! and that is the reason for my garlicky aroma. this soup was soooo scrumptious! i roasted a butternut squash, two jewel yams (PCC code 646 kill me now), and a whole head of garlic drizzled with olive oil for an hour. slow roasted veggies/garlic + jenna's taste buds= EXPLOSION!!

it was a little bit more dramatic than mt. st. helens exploding, but idk. probz like a 7 on the richter scale. sprinkled in some cinnamon and ginger, cooked it up, pureed it (hence the blog title), steamed up some kale for the side (ALWAYS!) aaaand topped it off with some chives. to complete this state of soop-ified-ecstasy we toasted up some nice slabs of essential pain du george (super crusty delish) whole wheat bread for dippin. YUM.

i forget where i stumbled upon this recipe, buuuuut here it is in all of its glory!

Roasted Garlic Butternut Squash Soup

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 head of garlic
1 jeweled yam
2 butternut squash (about 4 pounds total)

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 yellow onions, thinly sliced
4 cups vegetable stock
2 cups water
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1-2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 bunch chives, diced

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cut ¼ inch off the top of garlic head to expose cloves, loosely wrap in foil, drizzle with olive oil and close up foil. Scrub yam well and pierce with a fork. With a very sharp knife, cut butternut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Place butternut squash, flesh side down, garlic and yam on a lined baking sheet. Roast garlic, yam and squash until very tender, about 1 hour.

While vegetables are roasting, heat oil in a medium or large stockpot. Add onions and caramelize over low heat for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour. If the pan gets dry, add a few drops of water.

When vegetables are done roasting, peel and scoop flesh into stockpot with onions. Add stock, water, spices, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 hours – the longer it simmers, the better it will taste but you may need to add more water if it gets too thick).

Purée using an immersion blender, food processor or blender. Add more salt and pepper if necessary. Ladle into bowls. Sprinkle with chives and serve.

this morning i made the most nirvana-y (not in the mood to say heavenly! hahah) miso soup! miso soup= staple=not the office supply store=my intestine votes YES=10/10 ratin in the olympic games of digestion=YUM.

sauteed some onions, cute mini shroomiez (shiitake), and ginger with some sesame oil, added red and green kale (ALWAYS!), nash's carrots (the best in the WERLD), red pepper, aaaand ARAME! topped it with some green onion and sprouts. soooooo much better than dorm-microwave-style-miso-soup-with-instant-wakame-flakes. my stomach says :) it got the gold medal in the twenty-ten-oh-lympix! go US uv A. yeah team. k im done now.