Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Simple Spring Pea Soup

Greetings from Tuesday night. Before I say another word, those were some amazing responses to my last post. Blogging is so funny; one never knows which posts will strike a chord. I was really into the topic (which, if you weren’t reading, had to do with the assumptions drawn about peoples’ motives for being vegan), but I didn’t know whether or not you would be as intrigued. I love when the topics I love to write about are the ones you’re most interested in commenting on. Thank you!

A week or two ago, I mentioned that I’ve jumped on the spring vegetable train a little late this year. It’s face-meltingly hot outside, and summer has most certainly arrived. In my kitchen, though, I’m still experiencing the best of spring produce, including freshly shelled peas. I enjoyed them in my spring quinoa pilaf, and recently, I enjoyed them again in a simple, delicious pea soup.

Raw soups rank second only to salads in the category of “dishes Gena can’t eat enough of.” If you’ve only been reading my blog recently, though, you might not know the depth of my passion for raw soup. Last spring, I was the queen of soup, whipping up blended salads galore, carrot avocado bisque, raw borscht, coconut red pepper soup, and more. The problem with raw soups is that they, unlike cooked soups, don’t keep or freeze well. Raw soups are best enjoyed straight out of the blender, along with a big salad and maybe a hunk of sprouted grain bread. Since I’m rarely home right now, it’s hard for me to make fresh soups, and I’d rather not spoil them by transportation.

Last weekend, thankfully, soup fever struck on a Saturday afternoon at home, and the soup queen donned her apron again. The result was this glorious, bright green bowl of deliciousness:

Before I share the recipe, it’s worth mentioning that you can either blend the peas raw or blanch them first. I highly, highly, highly recommend blanching or lightly steaming, as raw green beans and peas are typically too starchy to be palatable. (There’s some debate, too, over whether they’re toxic: I fall into the “who cares, they taste weird” camp.) In any case, raw purists can certainly take chances with raw peas; I blanched mine for exactly a minute and then submerged them into an ice bath pre-blending.

Pea Soup (serves 1 or 2)

8 oz peas, raw or blanched
1/2 cup nut or seed milk, unsweetened (I used homemade almond milk)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c water
1 tbsp lemon juice

Blend all ingredients till smooth. Check for seasoning, and garnish with a sprig of dill, a drizzle of hemp oil, and cubed sprouted bread or raw crackers.

I like to serve my raw soups cool, obviously, but there’s no reason you couldn’t warm this if you liked to. However you serve it, the soup is dreamy: a perfectly minimalist exhibition of the finest flavors of spring.

Now, if only spring temperatures would follow spring tastes. Sigh. A sweaty girl can dream, right?

xo

Care For Some Egg Whites With Your Veganism?

Good evening! Hope your weekends were fab. Mine, though speckled with work, was also full of highlights. These included, but were not limited to:

• Red – totally terrific play, and it’s a shame today was the last performance.
• Spontaneous movie date with my Mama – can’t be beat.
• Coffee delivery from one of my besties as I was working on Saturday morning. (Thanks Nel!)
• The purchase of a new salad spinner, about which I am terribly excited (yes, it’s the little things that make me happy in life.)
• My first jog in over two long months. Hooray for the recession of tendonitis! I ran just under two miles in about thirty minutes, and I think a few octogenarians passed me along the way, but I could care less. It felt great. I won’t be making a frequent habit of it until my groin is totally pain free, but it was a happy start.
• An uproarious hydrate/dehydrate (i.e., coconut water+coffee) date with this sassy, smart, and vivacious young woman:

Kailey, you rock. Thanks for adding a spark to my morning.

• And if that wasn’t enough of a blogger treat, I ran into this lovely lady

…on my way from afternoon tea with the Momz. The hippie just happens to be visiting town for a weekend, and I just so happened to have crossed paths with her. Life is funny – and awesome.

And now, the usual Sunday night work scramble has begun. It hasn’t stopped me, though, from thinking back to a few comments I’ve heard recently about my veganism. The most notable took place last weekend. I was at a post-wedding brunch, and in spite of a cornucopia of food choices—fresh omelets and eggs, smoked salmon, muffins, yogurt—there was nary a vegan option in sight (with the exception of fruit, which wasn’t enough to satisfy my hunger). I’m accustomed to these situations, and always come prepared, so I had a Flying Vegan bar in my bag. I knew it would pair nicely with a banana for a hearty breakfast. Before I produced it, though, I wanted to double check with the hostess that there wasn’t any whole grain bread somewhere that I might eat instead. I don’t mind pulling out my own food at a brunch or dinner party, but I see it as a last resort: I’ll ask if there’s a vegan friendly option on hand before I do it.

Upon my friendly inquiry of, “I’m a vegan, and I was wondering if you have any whole wheat toast in the fridge that I might steal as an alternative to the baked goods?” the very gracious hostess replied that no, she didn’t. “But wait a minute! She chimed in hopefully. “We have egg whites! They can make you an omelet with just the whites?” This response, though truly well intentioned, echoed a question I’ve coincidentally gotten numerous times in the last few weeks when I’ve told people that I’m a vegan, “Do you eat fish?”

For the record, world: when I say I’m a vegan, it means that I don’t eat anything that used to be an animal. Or that comes from the body of an animal. It’s actually a stunningly easy position to explain.

The fish thing doesn’t shock me. I think people ask, in part, because so many people who identify as vegetarians eat fish on a regular basis (in other words, what’s really pescatarianism is defined as vegetarianism). Maybe this is a part of why some people’s notion of veganism includes fish eating.

But lately, I get more and more queries about whether or not I eat egg whites. And while many of those queries are due to simple confusion about what veganism means, I know that others–including the encounter described above–happen because someone has made an assumption about my motives for eating the way I do. What’s going on, I think, is that someone hears, “vegan” and assumes “healthy eater,” and immediately ascribes his or her own ideas about what “healthy” means to me. When my hostess heard “vegan,” she didn’t hear “I don’t eat animal foods.” She heard, “I’m healthy,” or “I’m body/weight/calorie conscious.” And the foods most associated with healthy eating, at least by conventional standards, include egg whites.

The purpose of this post isn’t to put down egg whites or salmon. My point is that veganism is often, and incorrectly, associated with weight-consciousness, and I find this unfortunate. It’s no secret that many people who are drawn to plant based diets are body conscious. But at bottom, veganism isn’t synonymous with the desire to be thin, or healthy. Most vegans I know are health-conscious, but I’ve also met plenty of vegans who aren’t: after all, vegans who eat meat analogs and carbohydrates at the exclusion of vegetables may indeed be eating a less nourishing diet than certain omnivores.

Yes, veganism can be a supremely healthy. But it’s not the only way of eating that is. Ultimately, veganism is a position that goes far beyond health concerns; for most of the people who find it fulfilling, I think, it has a sense of ideals at its heart. Anyone who misses this is missing the point.

It would be wrong for me to say that health or body are irrelevant to me. Health is extremely important to me, and body-consciousness is, for better or for worse, a significant part of my psychological disposition and history. My veganism is deeply tied to both of those things. But to be fair, I’ve had periods of time when I wasn’t a vegan and was nevertheless healthy. And conversely, the years of my life most characterized by body obsession were not vegan years. They were the years in which I counted every calorie, skipped most meals, and yes, nibbled on egg whites (along with plain yogurt and salads with no dressing). These foods kept me thin, but they didn’t make me healthy, and they didn’t make me happy. Veganism did–for reasons that went far beyond health or body.

The point, I guess, is that lumping veganism together with whatever our “healthy” diet of the moment is (low carb, omega-3 obsessed, high protein, whatever), is a huge oversimplification. Certainly there are and always will be people whose interest in veganism is exclusively health and/or body related. That’s fine, but given how many ways there are of eating healthily, veganism might not prove desirable for them in the long term. Veganism tends to be most worthwhile if one’s motives are myriad.

What do you all think? Is veganism the same as eating “healthy”? Does it bother you when people assume that veganism is driven only by vanity or by health?

Deep thoughts for a Sunday night. I’d better get back to work. Till soon!

xo

Dilly Carrot Avocado Spread

Yesterday, I offered some tips on making awesome homemade almond milk. I mentioned that the recipe works best with a Vita-Mix, but that there are various tricks (soaking almonds well beforehand, using lecithin) that will help you churn out perfect batches of nut milk without the fancy equipment.

This was aptly timed advice. One of my new CR goals is to make more and more of my recipes accessible to those who don’t have the means to invest in expensive kitchen appliances. I was inspired, in part, by this email from a loyal reader:

I am getting ready to go to college where I will be lucky enough to have a vegan/vegetarian dinning hall to eat at.  However, my boyfriend and I really like to make vegan and raw meals together.  I am looking to buy some equipment to bring with me to college so that we can make recipes on weekends.  However, I recently looked at the price of a Vitamix and was slightly horrified.  College is way to expensive as it is!

How can I purchase the equipment necessary to make the raw vegan food that I love, without investing obscene amounts of money that I cant afford to be spending?

I’m guessing these sentiments resemble those of many young readers, and I sympathize: I had very little money to invest in kitchen tools when I graduated, and it’s taken me years to build up a bastion of useful appliances. I wrote back:

You really only need a food processor, a salad spinner, a good knife, and a blender, in my opinion. Vitamixes are great, but definitely not mandatory. You can find a cheap blender, salad spinner, and knife set on eBay. And a processor will let you make nut pates, hummus, salad dressings, and some soups. It’s about 150$, but it’s the single most worthy piece of kitchen equipment you can own, whether you’re a vegan, omni, or whatever! I highly recommend seeing it as an investment in your career as a chef

In keeping with this email, I thought this weekend would be a good time to cut the frills from one of my more appliance-heavy recipes. As you know, I very often make guacamole with my juice pulp on weekends. It’s most fun to use green juice pulp (mostly for the color) but I also love using carrot pulp for the sweetness! Sometimes I add ginger, at which point the guac/spread begins to resemble my carrot miso dressing, which typically calls for a Vitamix. Naturally, anyone who hasn’t got a juicer will have a hard time making the former recipe, and anyone without a Vita will have a hard time with the latter (though grating the carrots beforehand will make it happen in a normal blender).

So the idea today was to come up with a carrot guac recipe that resembled my typical green guac, but didn’t call for a juicer. I decided to use the single appliance I think everyone, regardless of their eating habits, should have: a food processor. Cheaper than a high speed blender, food processors are instrumental to making perfect homemade hummus, nut pate, bread (if you have a dough hook attachment), and banana soft serve. They can be used in many of the same ways blenders can (ie, they’re great for salad dressing and soups), and they can also stand in for a mandolin, making grating a cinch. Bottom line? Though food processors, like any other appliance, aren’t necessary to enjoy raw and vegan food, they’ll make your life a lot easier. Take this five minute recipe, for instance:

Dilly Carrot Avocado Spread (serves 1)

1/2 avocado
1 small carrot
1/8 tsp sea salt
5-6 sprigs fresh dill
Juice of 1 lime

Using the grater attachment in a food processor, grate the small carrot. Switch attachments to the machine’s S blad, and add the avocado, salt, dill, and lime juice. Blend till smooth and even — you may need to stop a few times to scrape the bowl down. You’re done!

If you don’t have a processor, no problem! Just grate the carrot by hand, add the avocado, and mash. It’ll take a little more time, but you’ll have equally tasty results.

You see? Simple raw dips and spreads don’t demand too two or three horsepower contraptions. With basic kitchen tools and simple tastes, you have all you need to enjoy vegan and raw foods.

Here’s the dip in action:

Alongside a fresh vegetable, dill, and garbanzo salad:

Hope you’re all enjoying good weekends. I’m off to see Red tonight — very excited!

xo

Raw Rehab: Nut Milk Troubleshooting

Yesterday, when I posted my monkey smoothie, I mentioned that it’s always best to use your own homemade nut milk. This isn’t because store bought nut milk is terrible for you, but rather because the homemade stuff is even healthier, and it’s tastier, too!

But not everyone agrees with me on that last bit. Amy wrote:

I’ve had commercial almond milk and made my own on several occasions, and they taste nothing alike. Commercial milks are thick and sweet and appealing while the milk I make is thin and well, tastes like almonds. I’ve tried blending the nuts with dates and also with vanilla and agave. It also separates. I’ve tried almonds with skin and without, balancing, soaking in the fridge, on the counter, and no soak. It ends up tasting slightly…off: a little bitter, a little almond-like, but not very good overall. Please, please help if you can!

No problem, Amy. The problem might be two things: (1) the equipment you’re using, or (2) the procedure you’re using.

Let’s rule out (1) first. Are you using a good quality blender? As you know, I like to insist that eating a plant based and high raw diet need not mean investing in too many appliances. But the recipe for nut milk is one that benefits immeasurably from a high-speed blender. That said, I made nut milk for two years in my regular old Black and Decker blender — what made it work was the fact that that machine, though a far cry from Vita-Mix horsepower, was relatively high-quality (I think it cost me about $60.00). If you’re using a really cheap blender, you may find that the nutmilk ends up “grainy” no matter what you do, which means it will be pretty thin after straining.

Now, for problem (2). Let me ask you a few questions:

• Are you soaking your almonds for 8-12 hours before blending? This isn’t totally necessary if you have a Vita-Mix, but it becomes crucial if you’re using a regular blender
• Are you letting the mix blend for a good long time? Be patient — don’t stop blending till the mixture looks homogeneous.

If the answer to either question above was “no,” then see if those tips don’t make s difference. And if neither do, then you can try adding a tablespoon of soy or sunflower lecithin or coconut oil to the mix. Both act as emulsifiers, which means that they help keep the nut milk well dispersed. I’m guessing that xantham gum might also work — perhaps a 1/4 teaspoon?

And don’t forget that, if you like a sweet nut milk, dates, agave, or stevia are crucial add-ins! Use them to taste.

Hope this helps, Amy! Fear not: you’ll be on your way to perfect homemade nut milk soon.

And for those of you who face major time constraints, remember that organic, store-bought nut milks–like the Pacific brand, for example–are fine to use in a pinch. It’s just always nice when we can prepare our own food from raw materials.

Before I go, I want to point out that Ani Phyo’s ginger almond pate is stellar in a collard wrap:

And even better when served with a zucchini hummus dipping plate.

All hail simple summer suppers. (And alliteration.)

Happy Friday!!!!

xo

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