Smoky Black Bean and Sweet Potato Salad (& Winner!)

This is a new recipe that I quite love - Smoky Black Bean and Sweet Potato Salad.  It brings black beans together with tender, oven-roasted sweet potatoes, crunchy fresh red peppers and cukes, along with smoky seasonings, lime juice, and fresh herbs (chives, oregano, and parsley).  I just love how the soft sweet potatoes partially break down in the salad to help act as a binder to hold the other components together.  I make this and eat up the leftovers with a big bowl of leafy greens for lunches during the week.  Makes for such a satisfying lunch that has vibrant flavors and packs dy-no-mite nutrition!
 
Now to the winner of the Canada Day giveaway... Carla (comment #9: Happy Canada Day to one and all!).  Congratulations, Carla!!  Please e-mail me at dreenaburton@gmail.com and we'll arrange the cookbook mailing!

From The Food Revolution (John Robbins):
Average cholesterol level in the United States: 210
Average cholesterol level of U.S. vegetarians: 161
Average cholesterol level of U.S. vegans: 133

Sweet Potato Basil Quiche

Well, folks, today it's actually something savory! Yes, it's true. I do eat real food! And, I am working on savory recipes... as much as I'd be happy to make sweets and baked goods most of the day.

This is Sweet Potato Basil Quiche. I use yellow-flesh sweet potatoes in the base, along with white beans or tofu (I'm testing both versions). Our family prefers the white bean version, even though its consistency tends to be softer and a little less set as a quiche. For cooking ease and speedy preparation (this is key with two kidlets!) I use Wholly Wholesome's whole-wheat pie crust (I'd love to try the spelt crusts, but I haven't seen them in our store yet... anyone try the spelt yet?). Since the filling requires sauteeing some veggies and then pureeing the entire mix in a food processor, the prepared crust truly helps with clean-up and overall preparation time.

As with many of my recent posts, yes, this is a new recipe. I fully realize that it's not much fun for you all to see my new recipe posts and not be able to make the dishes yourself, simply because my new cookbook is not near being released. So, I mentioned in the comments of a previous post that I will soon post a new recipe - AND, here's the best part - I'm going to let YOU all vote to choose the one to post! So, stay tuned for the choices soon!

Sweet Curry Chickpea Casserole (with some changes!)

Before the holidays, I made a version of my Sweet Curry Chickpea Casserole from Vive, so I thought I'd show you how I changed it up!
This is a one-pot dish, and you basically chuck all the needed ingredients into a large baking dish, stir through... cover up, and bake until done (okay, you stire once or twice during baking, but that's all the additional work from you)! You can then relax, sip champagne and sample decadent truffles while having a pedicure. Wait, that's what I like to pretend I'm doing after prepping... really, I'm tidying/doing laundry/cleaning dishes/vacuuming, etc... you know the score, you're doing it too! :)

So, when I made this dish, I had some black beans in the pantry as well as chickpeas, so I did a combination of both types of beans. Instead of yellow-flesh sweet potato, I used orange-fleshed sweet potato, since I didn't have the yellow tubers on hand. I decided to reduce the onions to make the dish a touch more kid-friendly, and also increased the amount of diced apple. I had a handful of fresh green beans in the fridge needing attention, so I trimmed and chopped those cuties and mixed them in as well. The other change I made were using curry powder instead of curry paste (um, my curry paste had been sitting in the fridge a little tooooo long, and I didn't want to chance using it)! Here you see the mix of ingredients, and I really liked how the black beans and orange taters gave such vibrant color!...

While it cooked, I put on a pot of brown basmati rice and let that do it's thing. Don't you love the smell of brown basmati rice??... gives a sweet, nutty, popcorn aroma through the house! To serve, simply scoop up a serving of that delicious rice on one side of a bowl, and then a hefty ladling of the casserole on the other side of the bowl (sprinkled with some fresh parsley - or cilantro, if you're a fan!), and dig in! Oh, I should mention that a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice on each serving sort of livens up all the flavors and makes it that much more delicious!

My Early Cooking Days... and more foodtv.ca photos

My early days in the kitchen weren't always so pretty:

yep, not one of my brightest moments... placing a cookbook face down on a still hot element. So, before I launch into more photos of my foodtv.ca recipes, this pic is for all you young cooks and new vegans: cooking is a journey of learning and experimentation, successes and well, muck-ups! I'm still learning about food and cooking every day. Every day. And, as for kitchen troubles... just ask my kids how often our smoke alarm going off! (seriously, though, it IS a bit sensitive, yeah, that's it) ;)

And one of you 'new' and young vegans is Liz, or as we know her: veggiegirl. As I mentioned before, I have 'adopted' her in an adopt-a-blogger event. So, she will cook one of my recipes and post about it, and I will make one of hers (Liz, I have chosen her "S'mores' Muffins" unless you have another suggestion).

Since Liz has already baked quite a few things from my books, I thought I'd "challenge" her with a new savory recipe from my foodtv.ca set. So, Liz, what do you think about either the Walnut-Pecan Balls from my last post, OR... one of these recipes:

Peanut Thai Vegetable Stew. I posted briefly about this stew before, though I don't think my photo does the flavor of this soup any justice. It is creamy, lightly spicy, aromatic, and chock full of veggies... and tofu too. The big thing to note about this recipe is to add the spinach *just* before serving. Keep those greens green! If overcooked, they get gray and the flavor changes and isn't that pleasant. So, add the greens and stir through before serving until just wilted. If you have leftovers, try to scoop out any remaining spinach and eat it before storing the leftovers. Then, when reheating the leftover soup, you can add more fresh spinach again before serving. Really, this bit of effort is worth it!

Next up, Mexican Bean Soup with Chipotle Avocado Cream. This I also posted about before, and again, I just love this soup. It is spicy and flavorful, but without the spicy heaviness that chili sometimes has. It is lighter and fresher, and the dose of lime really livens the mix. Definitely make the Chipotle Avocado Cream (the chipotle flavor is very faint, and not spicy) to serve on top... and have some tortilla chips on the side for dipping too!

And, get your spoons ready! Or veggies. Or chips.... or yes, your fingers. 'Cause this Raw Aioli is that good, you'll be using whatever you can to scoop it up! Here, I've simply baked a yellow-flesh sweet potato whole, then split it down the middle and put on a dollop of the aioli. The sweetness of the potato against the rich, salty aioli is wicked good - good enough for a meal on its own!

Though, I was on a cooking streak and served these potatoes and aioli with a new spiced lentil 'n kidney beans recipe (I don't really have an official name for this dish yet) over brown rice and a hefty salad alongside....

Okay, skedaddle... go cook!... and eat, drink & be vegan!

(and Liz, have you decided yet?) :)

Sweet Potato Lentil Chili

This recipe I first started playing around with over a year ago, before deciding to work on this new book. I had some scribbled notes hanging around and remembered how much I liked the addition of lentils and sweet potatoes (aka yams in Canada) in a modified chili recipe.

It was SO freaking cold last week (for Vancouver, folks) that I finished off this Sweet Potato Lentil Chili recipe. It's even better than the first few times I made it last year. The seasonings are a little different than a traditional chili, and it is a favorite new stew for me.

See in the pic, that kidney bean sitting sort of in the middle-right of the photo (show-off!), well there's a nice chunk of sweet potato underneath propping up that showy bean, and to bite into that sweet potato along with the spice of the chili is - well, incredible. Delicious. Soul-soothing on a cold winter day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cold for Vancouver.

Things That Make You Go... Mmmm!

I'm finally getting to this post to share some recent vegan nummy finds! I haven't featured one of these segments for a while, so here's a double dose...

First up - chocolate! As vegans, some of us miss milk chocolate. Personally, I love dark chocolate, and have come to appreciate even the darkest, more bitter chocolate for its pure cocoa liquor essence. However, once in a while I long for milk chocolate, mostly around holidays and occasions when it is so festive, such as with Christmas and Halloween.

Now, I can indulge my craving with Terra Nostra Rice Milk Chocolate Bars. There are three varieties of bars available, Ricemilk Choco, Ricemilk Choco with Almonds, and Ricemilk Chocolate with Dark Truffle Center. While they all have a similar taste, I think the Dark Truffle Center bar is my favorite. While these bars are not exactly like the milk chocolate bars you remember (which is a good thing in my opinion since most of those are gritty sugary and full of junk), they will give you a milder, more mellow and soft tasting chocolate, reminiscent of a cross between milk chocolate and... for me... icy squares (anyone remember these?). Now, I'm not saying they are *that* close to icy squares, there is just something about these bars that oh so slighty reminds me of that icy chocolate confection.

Next up, Alexia Sweet Potato Fries. Ho-ly! How have I overlooked these until now??? These are like tempura sweet potato fries. Amazing! They have just the slightest amount of a batter-type coating that is perfect.

Now, there are two types of sweet potato fries by Alexia, as you will see in the link. The ones I have tried are the bag pictured here (the other variety I have not seen here). I have contacted the company to ask the difference between the two types, and all I can guess is that the other (Hanna Gold) variety does not have this same type of batter, but I'm unsure. Regardless, pick up these Alexia Sweet Potato Fries pictured - you won't be disappointed!!