Creamy Red Pepper Vinaigrette - Vegan!

Just a quick post today with a new recipe for Creamy Red Pepper Vinaigrette that is VEGAN!  This can actually be a dip or a dressing!  It's super yummy!  I was going to make something completely different and already put a large amount of Apple Cider Vinegar into my blender and realized I didn't have 2 main ingredients I needed for the recipe I was looking at so instead of wasting what was already in there I shifted gears and came up with a Creamy Red Pepper Vinegar Diddy!

I had some leftover cauliflower and multi-colored mini peppers for dipping.  This was a snack last night and RAW too!

Below you can check out the recipe!  I had a few other things I was going to try and blog about this week but will hold off until next week instead!  Happy Weekend!


Creamy Red Pepper Vinaigrette Recipe

1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 C Cashews
3 T Hemp Seeds
5 Mini Sweet Red Peppers
1/2 T Minced Garlic
1/2 C (or more to thin) Water
3 T Nutritional Yeast
1 tea Smoked Paprika

For a more savory flavor feel free to add a squirt or two of Bragg's Liquid Amino's!

Eating Vegan On A Budget: Stretching Your Vegan Cheese Recipes

If not all of my vegan cheese sauces - MOST of my vegan cheese sauces seem to be a 'one and done'.  Meaning I throw everything into my blender - wet and dry - make the cheese sauce - and throw it on whatever I am wanting to CHEESE UP.  Especially if I am using cashews or another kind of nut for the creamy base this will be a pretty expensive vegan cheese sauce...considering a pound of cashews are anywhere between $11 and $16.  When I have made Vegan Cheese Sauces in the past I usually use 1 cup of cashews on the average.  So that means 1 cup of cashews for 1 dish.  After Googling this I have noticed that you usually get about 4 cups of cashews in a pound.  So that means that I'm spending between $2.75 and $4 per dish just on the cashews (if they are between 11 and 16 bucks).  WHAT?  OMG!  So...there is a method for all of this MADNESS here, REALLY!  PROMISE!  Keep reading...

I recently came across a recipe on Veg Kitchen and it was a recipe from Miyoko Schinner.  Yes...THAT Miyoko Schinner!  Miyoko...the Vegan Cheese Goddess!  You can see her recipe at the link above.  You know me - I use what I have on hand - so I tried a few tweaks - and they seemed to work nicely!  The first photo above is the aftermath of this recipe my first day.  The second photo is from ALMOST the beginning.  I used my Vitamix.  I can't believe I'm going to say this but I don't think a Vitamix is the way to go with this.  Unless you are REALLY patient and do it 'low and slow'.  If you KNOW ME - you know I'm NOT the most patient person.  It WORKED tho!  This was my first attempt.  There were some clumps but I put individual portion sizes of the dry mix in the refrigerator and then when I took one of them out I put it in a coffee grinder to loosen and 'all was well.'

Here you can see the coffee grinder attempt to 'fluffen' the dry powdery mix.  I have a small coffee grinder that I use for spices and such.  I don't use it as an actual coffee grinder.  When making the actual SAUCE I take 1/3 C of this mixture and whisk it into 1 C of Almond Milk and about 1/3 C Water.  And then you have your sauce.  I was able to get at least 4 batches of sauce with this dry mix.  It's described my many as a vegan equivalent to the dry mix in boxed Mac & Cheese!

So if I was able to get at least 4 uses out of this dry mix - the serving sauce on the cashew part - is between 69 cents and $1 - if the 1 pound of cashews cost $11 to $16.  I know this has been one HUGE blab fest about the cost of cashews and serving sizes but I thought it was interesting.  This will NOT make me stop trying other Vegan Cheese Sauces, flavors, mixtures, etc. but it's certainly something to keep in mind when the bank account it lower than usual.

I will say that it tasted quite good.  It's not a sharper cheese sauce like some of mine are but it more than gets the job done.

In this photo you can see what it looks like as I whisked!  Yes, I know, I'm a messy cook!

What do you think so far?  I have more photos!

In this attempt - the same one as above - I used a tomato based penne pasta.  It was pretty fabulous!  In the photo below I added some Turmeric to the dry mix or even while on the stove top heating and thickening.  It made it more orange/yellow.  I used organic pasta.  The elbow variety of course.  I topped with Wildtree Dill.  It was YUMMY.  At first I thought that there was a lot of sea salt in this but it worked.  And if you think about salt/sodium in those boxed powders it probably levels up!

Here's the recipe I used - including my own alterations...

1 C Cashews
3/4 C Nutritional Yeast
1/2 C Garbanzo Bean Flour
1 T Smoked Paprika
1 T Organic Cane Sugar
3 tea Black Himalayan Sea Salt
2 tea Wildtree Absolutely Onion
2 squirts Yellow Mustard

I put all of these ingredients into a blender/grinder until powdery.

1/3 C Dry Mix
1 C Almond Milk
1/3 Water

Whisked on low to medium heat until desired consistency is reached.

Things Have Been Pretty 'Cheesy' Lately

Over the past couple of weeks things have been pretty cheesy!  Of course there are no actual dairy products in the cheesy recipes I show you here today and I apologize in advance but these are lacking actual recipes, too!  I literally threw them together and only wrote partial recipes or didn't write up a recipe at all! 

I will tell you this about the first photo you see - as a thickener I used a bit of NuNaturals Oat Fiber.  It worked quite well.  I also used nutritional yeast, garlic, onion, Bragg's Liquid Amino's, Turmeric, Coconut Milk, and a few other ingredients.

As for this 2nd photo - I used Corn Pasta.  I used about 1/2 package of Daiya Mozzarella, 3 T Earth Balance, 1/4 C Nutritional Yeast, 1 t Paprika, 1 t Garlic Powder, 1 t Onion Powder, 1 t Mustard Powder, 1 or more cups of Almond Milk, 1 t Turmeric, and Black Sea Salt to taste.

This turned out pretty wonderful, too!  Incredibly creamy and cheesy!

As you can see I have been using more more Turmeric in my recipes.  This is the Turmeric I use from The Raw Food World.  I LOVE it! 

For this last photo - I made some Cashew Cheese and topped it with Cajun Seasoning.  I used 2 C Cashews, 2 C Water, 1/4 C Lemon Juice, 1/2 C Nutritional Yeast, 1 Small Onion, 1 t Avocado Oil, 1 t Dried Garlic, 1 t Bragg's Liquid Amino's, 1/2 t Turmeric, Pinch of Cayenne...and topped with Cajun Seasoning to taste.

I had LOTS of this Cashew Cheese Left over and used it for Nachos, as a dip, some in other sauces, and MISC recipes that needed a little more creaminess!  Which one looks/sounds more up your alley!?

Vegan Sandwich Spread, Cheesy Tahini Kale Chips, Jalapeno Cajun Cashews, Sprouting Again, and Cleaning!

Yesterday was a CRAZY Blogging Day...I think I had 4 posts!  Today I will probably have more than one but this first one will cover multiple things!  First up is this Vegan Sandwich Spread I made over the weekend!  It has...
1 Can of Kidney Beans, Mashed
1/2 C Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus
1 tea Onion Powder
1 tea Garlic Powder
1 tea GoL Wheat Grass Perfect Food

I ended up putting this in my Ninja for a smoother consistency, tho, but you could mash it by hand if you want.  This was tasty!  I ended up putting it on Whole Grain Bread and put a few Sun Dried Tomatoes on top that had been in oil.  It was yummy!  You can also use this as a hearty dip, too!  But it's really great on sandwiches.

I ended up making a few different kinds of Kale and Spinach Chips last week as well but these were the best ones of the batch.  So I thought I would share the recipe with you!

4 C Kale
1 T Tahini
1 tea Balsamic
1 tea Garlic Powder
1/4 C Cashews
1 tea Crushed Red Peppers
1 tea GoL Wheat Grass Perfect Food

They turned out pretty good, too!  They didn't last long...so that's a good sign!  I FINALLY restocked my Nutritional Yeast at the end of last week, too, so I will be doing some more soon...I also found a great deal on a HUGE bag of Kale so I need to use that fairly quickly!

 As for these Cashews...YUMMMMM!  I will be making various flavors of these soon!  This was the first of many!  And it was a success!  Here's what I did by putting it in a zip lock bag and massaging everything together...

1 C Cashews
1 tea Cajun Spice
1 tea Red Jalapeno Powder
1 tea Wildtree Basil Pesto Grapeseed Oil
Sprinkle of Garlic Sea Salt
Sprinkle of Paprika

Another seasoned snack I would like to try is a Green Holiday Cracker Snacker...yet another mini goal of mine, I guess!  I'm having a lot of FUN making homemade snacks!  I must say!

And - speaking of mini goals - one that I blogged about was jumping back into sprouting again!  Well, I started in with that again Sunday Night!  First up is Marrowfat Peas and Broccoli Sprouts.

It was easy and FUN to start in with sprouting again once I cleaned up my Cabinets and Kitchen yet again!  Let's just say I was a little over ambitious Saturday thru Monday.  I took Monday off.  I need to use vacation before the end of the year so I have a couple of full and half days!

Here I am soaking the sprouting seeds the first night.  I'm using my old tops as well as the Sustainable Santa Cruz Kit I blogged about in the past, too!  I really LOVE that system!  It's wonderful!

I was going to show pictures of my cabinets and cupboards but I think I will save that for another post.  When I purchased nearly 200 Mason Jars I never thought I would use them all - but - you know what?  I think I have to purchase some more - because NOW I am using them for almost EVERYTHING!

Participating: What I Ate Wednesday, 

Raw Food Wednesday - Audrey's Got My Back on Snacks!

It's Raw Food Wednesday here on my blog and I thought I would feature a new(er) find - and by that I mean - a "New-To-Me" find!

Audrey's Pleasure Food & Raw Vegan Food Bites!

I found them a while back on VeganEssentials.com and I placed an order!

I ended up buying the "pizza" flavored ones as well as the "chik'n" ones.  I think I may have clicked on the wrong one because I'm not much for 'chicken' flavored anything even if it's vegan!  That flavored wasn't bad but it wasn't my favorite either.  The Pizza Ones - kicked BUTT tho!  I'm pasting the info below on the product for those of you interested in learning more!

I do really like this product and I do want to try the other two flavors!

Product Descriptions & Nutritional Info:
Amazingly unique, you've never tried anything like these delicious raw food bites before – trust us on this one! We've tried many products that claim to taste like cheese, pizza, etc. that have been flat on flavor, but these are so incredible they must be tried to be believed. Flavors include Four Season (pizza flavor), Vegan Chik (spicy chicken flavor), Indian Summer (a rich coconut curry flavor), and Royal Cheez (possibly the closest thing to a real cheese taste we've ever tried!). Each 3 oz. package is $6.39.

Royal Cheez ingredients - Macadamia nuts, cashews, bell peppers, lime, sea salt

Vegan Chick ingredients - Cashews, coconut, tomatoes, onion, garlic, spices, sea salt

Four Season ingredients - Cashews, tomato, raw organic agave nectar, garlic, spices, sea salt

Indian Summer ingredients - Cashews, coconut, onions, garlic, curry, spices, sea salt

Nutritional information:
Serving size - 1.5 oz. (43g)
Servings per container - 2
Calories per serving - 160 for Indian Summer and Four Season / 220 for Royal Cheez / 250 for Vegan Chick
Total fat - 11g (2g saturated) for Four Season and Royal Cheez / 12g (6g saturated) for Indian Summer / 25g (7g saturated) for Vegan Chick
Sodium - 220 for Royal Cheez / 250 for Vegan Chick / 300 for Indian Summer / 330 for Four Season
Total carbohydrate - 8g (6g fiber, 1g sugar) for Royal Cheez / 10g (5g fiber, 3g sugars) for Indian Summer and Four Season / 12g (7g fiber, 3g sugars) for Vegan Chick
Protein - 3g for Indian Summer / 4g for Four Season and Royal Cheez / 7g for Vegan Chick

I do really love their products and I want to point this lil gem out, too!

California Sushi Chips!  RAW and VEGAN.  They were strangely addictive but in a good way!

A unique raw treat that's unlike anything you've tried before! These tasty chips blend nori and Audrey's incredible raw "cheese" to make a snack chip that's full of nutrition and cheesy flavor. A perfect treat for those wanting try the delicious flavor of sea veggies! Resealable 2 oz. snack container is $5.79.

Ingredients: Organic raw nori, macadamia nuts, cashews, red pepper, lime, sea salt

Let me know if you participate in Raw Food Wednesdays!

Also linking to:
Tuesday Friend Connect

Top 20 Ingredients I Can't Live Without!

Alicia Silverstone over at The Kind Life posted about the 20 ingredients she can’t live without. As did Cadry at Cadry's Kitchen.  So I decided to follow suit!  Here are my TOP 20 Ingredients in random order.

TEA - As many of you know I drink A LOT of tea.  All day...all night...I have even started using it in dishes!  All sorts of tea...Black, Green, White, Yellow, fruit and herbal tisane's, Oolongs, Pu-erh, Blends, Purple, Guayusa, Rooibos, Honeybush...the list goes on and on!

CHICK PEAS & BLACK BEANS - I was going to list these separate but came up with too many items I MUST HAVE in my kitchen, apparently!  The older I get the more I LOVE Chickpeas.  They are so versatile!  I would have also put HUMMUS on the list but it's not just ONE Ingredient it's a FOOD, a dish, a delicacy, really.  Okay, okay...you can tell I LOVE hummus!  Well, Chickpeas are one of the ingredients so it works, right?

GRAPESEED OIL - Why GSO?  I think this sums it up nicely!  I LOVE IT!  If you want to order some let me know!!  I can have it shipped directly to you!

LEAFY GREENS - I know this is more than ONE but I couldn't resist!  There are so many Leafy Greens to choose from and they ALL have their benefits!

CASHEWS - And other nuts, really.  I'm very fortunate to NOT have allergies to Nuts!  I don't think I would be able to deal with that intolerance, to be honest!  I'm finding Cashews are very versatile as well and now that I'm NOT doing dairy there are many things I can do with them as a substitute. 

NUTRITIONAL YEAST - I have used it for YEARS - but have been using it on a weekly - sometimes daily basis these days!  Along the same lines would be HEMP HEARTS and CHIA SEEDS, I guess, too!  For Digestion Issues/Benefits as well as a protein option.

VARIETY of RICES - Again, I am a REBEL, here, and noting more than one but I really can't help it!  Just when I think I know which RICE is my favorite I discover new ones...like Medleys from Bob's Red Mills as well as FORBIDDEN RICE, lately, too!

QUINOA - Quinoa is in a category all of it's own for me!  I have been eating it for years but continue to be amazed by it!  I LOVE the nutritional benefits as well as digestion support but also the texture and flavor and the ability to make it MORPH!

TOMATOES - Any kind, really.  I could go on and on about THE TOMATO but I will let it speak for itself!  YUM!

BALSAMIC VINEGAR - Yes!  BALSAMIC VINEGAR...Wildtree Brand, specifically.  And I'm not just saying that because I sell it!  The flavor CANNOT BE BEAT!  Plus it has the Grapeseed Oil Base, too!

TAHINI - I thought it was just for HUMMUS but it's good for SO MUCH MORE!!!  I'm using lately in Cheese and Cream Alternatives, too!

GARLIC - Need I say more?  I just LOVE it!  I can't get enough of it!  I'd put it on cereal if it were allowed.  Okay...that might be a stretch...but...you know what I mean, right!?

ONIONS - They give flavor to EVERYTHING and they make the perfect base for many things!

LEMONS & LEMON JUICE - I almost over looked this one.  It's one of those things I really use a lot of but just USE it and tend to forget about it BUT if I run out...there is HELL TO PAY, Mister!

CORN - It's so sweet, It's so cute, It's SO GOOD!  I have been using it more and more to kick certain recipes up a notch as well as add to leftovers, wraps, salads, etc.  So simple - yet - SO effective!

COLORFUL BELL PEPPERS - LOVE them!  In every way!  I find myself adding them to EVERYTHING and then some!  The sweeter the better!

SPROUTS - When I was a toddler they used to be one of my 3 favorite foods (next to Dried Apricots and Lima Beans - which SHOULD also play a part in this list somewhere...there...they just did!) and I lost touch with Sprouts for a while but have been having FUN Sprouting my own Sprouts at home on and off again for a couple of years!

CARROTS & CELERY - Mostly because I can't have one without the other - and because they are right up the same alley as Onions and Garlic and Corn!

ALMOND MILK - I prefer Almond Milk to any of the other Milk Alternatives.  It's my default, really.

AVOCADOS - I wish I could have one everyday but they are really expensive here but when they are on sale!  I'm ALL OVER THAT!  Nom.Nom.Nom.

Hope you enjoyed my list!  If you do one let me know!

Artichoke Burgers by Five Star Foodies

About a month ago I placed an order with VeganEssentials and I came across these lil discs of awesomeness!  Visit the Product Page from Five Star Foodies!  

I have to say this is my new FAVORITE Veggie Burger!  By a LARGE Margin!  I LOVE these Artichoke Burgers from Five Star Foodies!  They are wonderful!

They are SO flavorful!  They are made up of Artichokes, Cashews, Cashews, Brown Rice, Potato/Corn Starch, Oil, Cane Sugar, Spices!

These come out pretty good in the microwave but my favorite method is to do them in a frying pan with a little bit of Grapeseed Oil!

This is FOR SURE a re-order in the NEAR future!

Get Your Greens On - Kale Chips & Spinach Butternut Salad

 Yes...I swiped that phrase from Dara Dubinet!

See!  I DO make my own Kale Chips!  Here is one of my attempts!  It wasn't one of my better attempts but they were still yummy!  There is a Cashew Type of Concoction on them, here.  I also added some of Wildtree's Hot Chili Pepper & Garlic Blend to this!

And this is the Spinach & Butternut Salad we did for Thanksgiving, too!  So...we have Baby Spinach, Red Onions & Butternut Squash, Grapeseed Oil, Wildtree's Lemon Rosemary to taste, and Craisins.  It was DARN TASTY!