Thursday, July 06, 2006

Picnicing Food

This is what we have been up to during our hot weather season ... besides garden work and mowing, swimming, and sitting in the air conditioned living room reading Diet for a New America by John Robbins. I have been moved by the book, I am halfway through it.

MY FOURTH OF JULY PICNIC
APPETIZER:
Cuke rounds. I made these for a snack one day and the thought came to my mind that this reminds me of a of food fat free vegan might do... cute, good for fingers, and tastey. I simply topped an ordinary slice of cucumber with Persian Hummous, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and topped with an organic raisin.

I also made my favorite broccoli salad, but used chunked pineapple in place of apple. The pineapple in it brought lits of compliments.

Matthew chopped a canteloupe to share.

Melissa made Dreena's Chocolate Hemp Squares, which didn't make it to the supper meal... everyone LOVED them and devoured them quite quickly I must add. Melissa was very pleased with the recipe. The only problem we had was our chocolate didn't set up right, so I think she added a bit to much liquid. But then HEY! Chocolate is chocolate, right!

CURRIED QUINOA PASTA SALAD
I got this recipe off the side of a quinoa pasta box. I have made it twice now and I have to say... a real indian curry powder is important. Mix all ingrdients well. Serves 4.
1 pkg cooked quinoa pasta 8 oz
2 Tbsp virgin olive oil
1/2 C each sour cream and mayo *sub info below
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
2 cloves minces garlic
1 green pepper chopped or add some red pepper, chopped for color
1/2 C chopped celery NOTE: 1 1/2 small diced ZUCCHINI works well also!
3 scallions chopped (or 1/4 C finely minced purple onion)
1/4 C parsley or other shredded fresh green
1/2 C currants
1/4 C sunflower seeds
*I used 1 cup of Bryanna's veggienaise made with lemon juice.... to me this to an excellent sub for sourcream and mayo. There is a free recipe on her website for this great homemade soy based mayo, go there vea my side bar and so a search. Making your own mayo allows it to be flavored and used the way you want and it is also an exceptional bargain!

GINGER GARLIC BURGERS
The recipe came from one of Bryanna's newsletters last summer. She is coming out with a seitan/ veggie meats e-book so I can't post it, but I have used this recipe successfully several times. It makes a great george grill burger in a hurry, freezes well, and the taste is strong so even on a big bun you don't need to add a bunch of sauce for flavor. A long time ago she came out with a garlic sausage buger style recipe... my favorite. In this picture you can see that I begin by placing a veg burger patty in a baking dish and pouring a broth over it. In the second picture you see the burgers after baking, they have soaked up the liquid. I always make 12 burgers at once and keep them when I need a fast something to eat. These calculate to a cost of $.23 cents a burgerfor me and a little effort to make/ bake them.

The burger below is on a great organic bun and is served with island BBQ sauce, red peppers, and lettuce. This is what I ate at the fourth picnic we had at my aunts. I typically grill my burgers in the george grill at home with a slice of onion, but these burgers do well on the ouside grill as you can see here and they stay together very well. The burgers are made from TVP, wheat gluten, besan chickpea flour, and various great tasting flavors.

12 comments:

Eat Peace Please said...

Dori, all this food looks incredible. I just finished May We All Be Fed and (working backwards) I am now just starting the same book, Diet for a New America.

MeloMeals said...

Looks AWESOME! Can you point me to which Newsletter archive those burgers are in? I keep meaning to get print her archives out, but I'm out of ink!

urban vegan said...

it all looks delish, as usual. you're a whiz, dori.

Dori said...

Melody, I have the archives saved in special folders on my computor and then search them using something called Copernic Desktop. This search tool is pretty cool. When I want to find something all I have to do is type in an ingredient or part of the name, tell it to search in the files that I have the newsletters or archives saved in and it takes me right there. Beats a bunch of paper to sort through. In recipes I hve tried I'll make notes and then save them under my own personal recipes folders. Here's where the ginger burgers are:
Vol. #1, Issue #6 June/July2004
EARLY SUMMER EDITION

Leslie- May all be fed, I'm sure will be next. I attended a speaking engagement help by Francis Lappe' last fall. She spoke of her book... Hope something. Her daughter was there. I would say all the customers I had from the college she spoke at were thre also. It was neat to see that the people who buy from also were concerned with the same kinds of issues as me.

Tanya Kristine said...

dang. those burgers looks delicious. i'm hungry now. i love sour cream too so i'll try that vegan version...

Harmonia said...

I'm soooo going to try that Quinoa Pasta Recipe!!! Thanks!

Lovely post...always looking for picnic foods!

MeloMeals said...

Thanks for the recipe pointer.. Your little tool sounds great...

I have a Soymilk maker too, and I make all of our own soymilk for cooking/baking.. unfortunately, I haven't found a recipe that my family will drink. My husband LOVES commercial soymilk, but he'd go through a quart a day if I let him... do you have a special recipe for your homemade soymilk? I've been thinking of adding a tiny bit of irish moss powder for the creamy mouth feel... along with maple syrup and vanilla and a pinch of salt.. I think if I could pour my homemade soymilk into the commercial container no one would be able to tell!

karen said...

Dori, Thank you for visiting my blog. Everything you make sounds fantastic! I love the idea of cuke rounds and am dying to make dreena's hemp squares, and the burgers- yum!

One question- how do you get your rosemary plants to thrive? I am on my third. I was told they don't like too much water, but I keep killing them...

Anonymous said...

I agree...chocolate is chocolate! solid, liquid...it doesn't matter.
It all looks wonderful!

Dori said...

Melody,
I will post something soon about soymilk. I do have a favorite recipe!

Kuntal Joisher said...

those garlic burgers look so yuummmmm!!! I liked your keenwa burger recipe too.. very nice!

tofufreak said...

hey! i have a soy milk maker also! i love the fresh, bean-y taste i get from it. anyhow. your picnicking food looks delicious, but i must point out that "picnicing" is spelled wrong! (i'm a stickler on such things, i know. but hey, cant help it, what with being a spelling bee champ and such) lol

must go try out your ginger garlic burgers!