Merry Christmas and Soup Mix

VEGAN BISCOTTI (plain anise flavored) with awesome dark chocolate brushed on top and sprinkled with ground up english walnuts. My base recipe came from Bryanna Clark Grogan's Nonna's Italian Kitchen Cookbook, Only I made mine a plain anise flavored variation.
Here's a free recipe that I found though:
Fat Free Vegan's Cinnamon Biscotti Recipe

Now that I have your attention with my tantilizing favorite holiday treat -

Merry Christmas!

I've been trying to post for a couple of days, but I guess NOW is my lucky moment to accomplish the task. After the ice storms came a wonderful Christmas day with highs in the 50's, and sunshine. It was awesome. We had a great Christmas day brunch before opening presents, which we already knew all that there was because we shop together and get what we want .... we just don't get it until after the Bible reading by DH followed by the brunch. Without further ado, I'm going right to the food pictures. Here is my first round Christmas day. The pizza is BREAKFAST PIZZA by Bryanna Clark Grogan Oct/Nov/Dec Vegan Feast Newsletter. Every holiday season since I started subscribing we have had a new awesome main course brunch dish to feast upon. I have been subscribing since the beginning and will not stop. The ideas and personal connection is worth every penny. Bryanna is a kitchen goddess, NO... wait! I take that back, because of Bryanna I AM A kitchen goddess! :) I served the pizza with a sliced pear and a soymilk (made in my soyajoy) cappuchino.

Next trip to the kitchen allowed me to get some of this TENDER BANANA BREAD from Bryanna Clark Grogan's cookbook, FIBER FOR LIFE. I love this because the fat is replaced with a silken tofu mixture which is also great protein and it is made 100% whole wheat pastry flour, yet is still wonderfully tender. The cookbook offers the option to use dates in this, but I use vegan chocolate chips which my family adores, I like that if I am going to add a little fat it comes from chocolate. Mmmm-my kinda fat.
More cheers for Bryanna and the VEGAN FEAST Newsletter again. Here is a picture of her seitan "salami/ pepperoni", I did the pepperoni version. My meat eating sister ate 10 slices of this with crackers and said, I love this stuff! I wasn't a big fan of the seitan o'greatness awhile back due to the fact it was so dry, but this salami / pepperoni is not. The crackers you see on this plate are actually pretzel flats with an everything seasoning, new find at the grocery store and they are not to bad. Back to the seitan, every issue of the newsletter usually has one new way with seitan that I get the pleasure of trying.
I need to back track just a bit. Here is my counter setup for the breakfast pizza. The crust dough, vegan "sausage" crumbles (Bryanna's kielbasa seitan recipe from my freezer that I crumbled up), the tofu frittata mix in the food processor, red peppers, shredded sweet potato, and shreds of Bryanna's sharp chedda' cheez. The crust is interesting, it is like a thick batter that can sit in the frig for up to two weeks until you are ready to use it. The recipe calls for enough to make two pizza crusts. I am going to try a mushroom onion style pizza with the other half, I found a recipe for this that I really want to veganize in a weight watchers magazine.
Okay, I am sure that you are probably thinking Bryanna again? .... yes, I say again. There are so many recipes I still have to try from all of her cookbooks and other vegan feast newsletters that I could sing her praises for a long time. This is my version of CHRISTMAS STOLLEN, the dough has no fat but is not dry. I used the sweet bread dough from her Al-most No Fat Holiday Cookbook. To make it stollen I added cardamom, coriander, orange peel, pecans, english walnuts, rum soaked raisins, cranberries, chopped dates and dried prunes. More backtracking. Here is the seitan salami after it finished cooking in my clay pot, it is wrapped with cheesecloth. It cookes in a small amount of very flavorful broth, which does not get completely soaked up as you can see a small amount is left over.

Last idea to share. I like to make a batch of a recipe I found many years ago called Be Prepared Soup Mix, I call it Five Bean Soup Mix. When I want to make some I take 1 1/2 cups of the beans, 1/4 cup of the seasoning mix and a can of diced tomates. Sometimes I make it in the crockpot, somtimes on the stove top, but all the time when I make it do I enjoy it.

BEAN MIX:

1 1/2 cup pinto beans

1 1/2 cup white benas

1 cup kidney beans

1 cup baby lima beans

1 cup chickpeas

SPICE MIX:

1/2 cup dried minced onion

1 Tbsp paprika

2 tsp salt

1 tsp mustard powder

1/2 tsp garnulated garlic

1 Tbsp Frontier chicken flavor bouillon powder
3 Tbsp Frontier beef flavor bouillon powder

1 Tbsp parsley

1/4 cup vegan bac'un bits

1/4 cup dried Frontier mixed vegetable soup flakes

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the beans and place in a large jar with enough room to add the baggie of spice mix.

1 "batch" = 6 generous servings of soup

To make a batch soak 1 1/2 cup of beans overnight, drain and place them in a 3 quart saucepan (or crockpot). Add 5 cups of water and 1/4 cup seasoning mix, you can add the tomatoes now or at the end of simmering time. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer 2 - 2 1/2 hours until beans are tender or crockpot cook them on low all day.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:

Per serving: 187 calories, 12 g protein, >1 gram fat, 465 mg sod, 33 g complex carbs, and 9 grams fiber.

Individual batches can also be prepared separately, add a nice label with instructions, and give as a gift.

What's for lunch?

I have now been working at my new job for one week - woohoo! :) I love what I am doing but I don't love the once a month paycheck - mostly the fact that I must wait a month for it. So far I have carried a bag of popcorn and a piece of fruit for lunch until I find the right routine for me. One day I attended a meeting that took up all of my lunch time which I did not know it would do and then had to go right onto doing something else, I was starved at the end of the day. That evening when I got home I went online shopping (oh no!) and guess what I bought. GUESS and then click HERE for a link to it. I've been wanting one for some time and now feel that it is the right time to splurge as a new job "congrats", I am sure I will get a good many years of use from it.



My teens were still on a holiday break on Tuesday (but DH and I had to be gone), so I had my daughter make supper. She chose Dreena's Three- bean curry tomato soup which happens to look similar to the recipe curried tomato three bean stew link I found in a general search. I also found a Taste of Home internet article about Dreena's food, this article is an interesting read as the writer discusses "slimming" after holiday comfort foods. The soup DD made yielded a big pot, I was a little disappointed that evening though because it lacked favor. The next day I had it again and a little sitting time helped because I could taste the curry then, but added a touch of lemon juice and little salt. I made a note in my cookbook that the next time I make this to use all vegetable bouillon instead of a partial broth / water combination. I use the bouillon cubes anyway so it would be just a matter of adding more.

I have been eating this soup with Stacy's Pesto and Sundried Tomato flavored pita chips which also happened to be on sale this month. I ended up with 6 bags of those and the simply naked kind. I wish they could be whole grain, but I knew I was getting a good deal of fiber and nutrients in the soup I paired them with.

At my monthly buying club Tofurky slices were on sale and up for auction so I ordered some to try for the first time. They are a bit higher in fat than I would prefer, but I am positive that the rest of the family will devour these and right now the little extra convenience is nice. My first use with these were in a sandwich which I unfortunately drowned with strong flavored garlicy hummous and lettuce on a bun, the sandwich was overall good but this was because I liked the strong flavored hummous. I know I could have made my own seitan roast, sliced it and been well fed for at least eight abundant portions for half the cost of a package that had three smallish servings.

In DH and my insane plan to ensure that our children have the skills to survive "in the real world" cooking requirements are back in force in this New Year. Both of our teens are required to choose two recipes a week to share and one must be for supper. DD chose Dreena's squirrely scones from VLV. I searched for other information about these on the Internet and found one picture and reference to them on Squirrel's blog (isn't that funny!). The picture to the right has been copied from her site.

DD's scones were very tasty, but did not spread at all. This is not a bad thing, these will be made again for sure sometimes because the four of us scarfed down a whole batch in one breakfast sitting. In comparison with the picture above our were "lumpy" in that the the batter did not smooth out and with all of the nuts and fruits packed into them. I think that the flour in my area has a tendency to be "drier" because I notice in general that if I follow recipes from cookbook authors in Canada I get a drier result. My results may be affected by the fact that I purchase oat flour, I do not make it with quick oats therefore I may be getting more grain than the fluffier chopped oatmeal version.

I hope the first week of the New Year has been as good as you have resolution-ed it to be ... or better now that the resolutions have been broken and you can get on with "normal" life. I have made a connection with a friend who has a weight loss goal. We will be joining our town's new wellness center and signing up for water aerobics classes to take together. I never imagined how bored I would feel so quickly now that I do not have a ton of writing or school work to do when I come home. I am already concocting various other "big" projects in my mind.