Weekend Tostadas

I was inspired to make tostadas this weekend after seeing a photo of "mexican pizzas" that someone had posted at the ppk message board. They used flour tortillas baked with refried beans and all kinds of wonderful toppings like tomatoes, olives, vegan cheddar cheese etc. But I didn't have flour tortillas! Or canned refried beans! One thing I wasn't going to do was go to the store. That was off limits. To save money, I was to use only what I have in my fridge and pantry. So with a little internet research on bean recipes (no I've never cooked my own before), I decided to make refried beans from scratch using dry salvadorean red beans that I bought on a whim one day. I also had in my fridge: corn tortillas, tomatoes, onions, olives, cilantro, cabbage, red peppers and corn.

I looked online and found a recipe here for Salvadorean Refried Beans. (It's the 4th recipe on the page.) I wanted to only make a half recipe so I soaked 1 cup of beans last night and proceeded with the recipe this morning. The only problem was, some of the beans doubled in size and some did not! That was really annoying. So I put them in a pot with cold water, brought it to a boil for a few minutes then turned the heat off, put the top on and let it soak for an hour. Then I proceeded with the recipe. It took quite a while; about an hour to cook the beans, then blend them and then slow cook again for another hour with some onions. They came out great. I wished I would have made more. 1 cup of beans is really not enough! I remedied my bean shortage with a pot of canned chickpeas that I cooked with some chili powder, onions and red peppers. I used the cabbage, red peppers and corn to make a slaw and the tomatoes, cilantro and onions to make pico de gallo.


Refried beans on top of a baked corn tortilla along with fresh pico de gallo, black olives and hot sauce. (Bake corn tortillas brushed with olive oil in a 400 degree F oven until crisp and browned.)


Cooked and mashed chickpeas with cabbage, corn and red pepper slaw, black olives and hot sauce.

Recipe for slaw:

1 bag shredded cabbage (about 6 cups)
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
1 14 oz. can sweet corn, drained
3 TB Vegenaise
1-2 tsp chili powder
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 tsp agave syrup or sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Combine Vegenaise, chili powder, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper. Toss with vegetables and let chill for a while to let flavors blend.

Cookbook Contest: And the Winner is...

BJ! You have won my cookbook contest for a lovely little book called "Pasta & Vegetables"!



Your comment was #10 and you have been randomly selected by random.org!

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10
Timestamp: 2009-04-10 14:51:10 UTC

This is BJ's favorite pasta and vegetable combination:

"My favorite pasta dish is one from a bread book, "No Need to Knead". It's so simple, but so good. It's simply fresh pasta topped with chopped tomatoes, garlic, basil, and splash of olive oil. Top with the ubiquitous Parmesan (vegan of course)and the secret ingredient: freshly browned bread crumbs. This is served at room temp. Even my pasta-hating hubby goes for this. However, don't try this unless you can get garden-grown tomatoes...it's just not the same."

Thank you BJ and everyone who participated in the contest. Your pasta/veggie ideas gave me much inspiration!

(BJ, I will send you an email shortly...)

White Bean and Kale Soup

I just had my last serving of Super Green Kale Soup that I made a few days ago. It was delicious and I went through it a lot quicker than I planned. So today I made another big pot of soup, this time a white bean, yam and kale soup. The recipe can be found online here. This soup is really flavorful with smoked paprika and curry powder and hearty from the beans and sweet yams. This should last me until the weekend, I hope!

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango

It feels like summer today. It's warm, there's a breeze (I live 3 miles from the ocean) and I can smell the jasmine flowers in my backyard from my open studio door. In this kind of weather, a salad is refreshing and delightful. I didn't want to make a regular lettuce based salad so I quickly went through my copy of Veganomicon and found this quinoa salad. I was lucky to have a ripe mango in my fruit bowl so I used that along with scallions and fresh tomato (to replace the red pepper). I punched up the flavor a bit by adding lime juice and chili powder to the dressing. It's yummy! It makes a lot so I'll be having this throughout the week along with my kale soup. I'm quite happy.

I just checked the weather forecast and it looks like we'll be getting rain this week. Great.

Back on Track...

The month of March was really stressful for me with business slowing down and job hunting that I didn't stick with the healthy eating that I wanted to continue from my diet in February. I know for a fact I ate way too many potato chips, packaged cookies, lots of bread and not enough fresh vegetables and salads. I felt it in my body too. I felt sluggish, heavy and just not good at all. I'd like to get back on track to feeling good again. So back to fresh green smoothies in the morning, maybe some oatmeal and fruit, soup and salads for lunch and healthy dinners. I made a big batch of "Super Green Kale Soup" from Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat cookbook. I absolutely loved the soup when I was on her diet that I was more than happy to make it again.


I floated a dehydrated cheesy kale chip on top for decoration. The kale chips were from a batch that I brought home from work because they were less than perfect for packaging. (I work part time as a kitchen assistant at Rawk n Roll Cuisine) And sorry, I can not give out any recipes for the products we make there!


This was my dinner. A giant salad of green leaf, romaine, cabbage, tomato, mandarins and unsalted walnuts drizzled with sesame miso dressing (You Are What You Eat cookbook). It was filling and delicious. I'm feeling better already!

Weekend Frittata

Yay, weekend! I figured I'd have more time to cook today so I made a tofu based frittata this morning. It has zucchini, red peppers, potatoes, spinach and onions in it. While it was in the oven I caught up on some television. After the frittata came out of the oven, I wanted it to rest for a while so it would set properly. If you cut into it too soon, it will be too soft and mushy. It does well to even let it set until completely cool or you can chill it for several hours in the fridge. You will have nice firm slices in that case. I will be eating this through the weekend with a nice salad. It can be served at room temp.


I cut into mine too soon so I turned the soft side away so you can see the crusty part on the sides. I served them with a sauce made from Vegenaise, dijon, ketchup and black pepper.

Taco Salad

So my crockpot disaster chili came back tonight as I revamped it into a taco salad! I wished so hard that I had cubed avocado on this but oh well... This was delicious. I don't know what happened but my less than perfect chili tasted awesome on top of crunchy greens, crisp red peppers, crushed tortilla chips with creamy vegan ranch (which is just Vegenaise, lemon juice, garlic powder, onion powder, all purpose seasoning and dried parsley by the way). I think the flavors of the chili improved overnight. Whatever happened, I'm glad it did because dinner was great. I also had the last of the perfect cornbread with this.