Vegan Chopped: Mojito Risotto with Peas and Mole

One of my favorite summer-time dishes to make back in the day (before veganism) was beer-can chicken.  Part of the fun was the first step of the recipe - you had to drink half a can of beer.  I was imagining how I could incorporate this step into the Vegan Chopped contest (sponsored by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Jess Sconed, and Katie "donteatoffthesidewalk").  My suggestion is to just take a shot of Bacardi rum before cooking - Not very clever but certainly fun.  Now let's move forward with the recipe challenge, "chopped vegan!"  The challenge is to make a main dish in under 40 minutes containing the following ingredients: blackberries, mint, black eyed peas, and bittersweet chocolate. Below I have posted my attempt.  It really can be done in 40 minutes if you have a good blender and can multi-task: first get your mojito sauce made (and set aside) and start the risotto.  You can prepare the black-eyed-peas in another pan while the risotto is going.  Once the blender is rinsed the mole can be blended up in no time!  Let's do this!

Mojito Risotto with Peas and Mole 

Mojito Sauce: 
30 mint leaves (if you buy a pack of mint from the supermarket, this is just enough to leave a couple mint leaves over for garnishing)
Fresh Cilantro (about a handful)
2 TBSP Bacardi Rum
Juice from one Line
1/2 Tsp Lime Zest (~1 lime)
1/4c extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp salt
***Mix all of the above in a high-power blender to create the sauce.  You may want to decrease the salt content if using a commercial broth for the risotto - I used a homemade, unsalted broth which is why this sauce is so salty.

Risotto: 
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 huge shallots, chopped
1cup Arborio Rice
1 shot Bacardi Rum
3 cups vegetable broth (kept warm)
Mojito sauce (recipe above)

Throw your oil and shallots in the pan - cook over about medium until shallots are translucent.  Add the rice plus the shot of rum and then cook until the alcohol is absorbed.  Then add a cup of broth and mix until absorbed (at this point you can get the black-eyed-peas started, see below).  Once the initial cup is absorbed, add the Mojito sauce (above).  Once this is absorbed, add another cup of broth.  Once this is absorbed add the final cup of broth.  The Risotto takes about 25 minutes to prepare.

Black Eyed Peas:
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 onion, chopped (save the other half for the mole)
1 15oz can black eyed peas
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp oregano

Heat the olive oil and add onion - cook until translucent over medium heat.  After onions are translucent, add garlic and pepper flakes - cook for less than a minute and add the peas.  Season with oregano and turn heat to low while you finish your risotto.

Mole Sauce: 
Let me begin by saying this makes WAY more mole sauce then is required to accommodate the above noted components of the dish (what can I say? I was working within a deadline here).  You may want to cut this part of the recipe in half - still you will need to have a freezer bag or two ready to save Mole for another dish in the future.
6oz Blackberries
2 Poblano peppers (core and stem removed)
5 squares of bittersweet chocolate (about half of a 3.5oz Trader Joe's bar)
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
2 Tbsp almond butter
4 Dried Red Chili Peppers (no stems)
4 garlic cloves
1/2 an onion
1 Tsp oregano
1 Tsp cinnamon
1 Tsp coriander
1 Tbsp Cumin
3 Tbsp Chili powder
2 Tbsp Paprika
~a handful of cilantro
3 fresh tomatoes
2 Tbsp Agave nectar
4oz vegetable broth (or more if consistency requires)
salt and pepper to taste, if needed
***Mix all of the above in a high-power blender to create the sauce.

To assemble: 
Portion out one cup of risotto in your bowl.  Top with a quarter of the black-eyed-pea mixture.  Drizzle with mole sauce as desired.  Garnish with mint leaves and sesame seeds. 

Attempting the low salt thing...

So yesterday I told my boss I wanted to build a collection of renal-friendly, vegan recipes. I was excited that the domain name VeganDialysisRecipes wasn't taken - she laughed at me and I knew she was thinking I was crazy. A - vegans, in theory, should have excellent control of their blood pressure or blood sugar and thus, would be less likely to develop kidney disease. B - how many of my own patients are actually interested in following a vegan diet?

These are good questions to consider. Starting with question "A," as the Gen X-ers move closer to middle-age, it is possible that there could be a slight rise in the number of renal patients who are already following a plant-based diet, whether that be as a strict vegan or as a lacto-ovo vegetarian (there is already evidence that interest in these kind of recipes exist if you look at the Davita website). Also, who's to say that an individual, upon receiving a diagnosis of kidney disease, wouldn't want to embrace a plant-based diet to better manage their health? This leads me into answering question "B" - how many of my own patients are actually interested in a vegan diet? You'd be surprised. I am periodically asked about "juicing," "going raw," or "eating clean" depending on what has recently been featured on Dr. Oz, The Chew, Ellen, etc. And my patients are always asking me about my own diet - the idea of eating soy-based ice cream seems to intrigue. And I can't forget to mention the fact that a lovely article on plant-based eating in dialysis patients came out just this past September (Joan Brookhyser Hogan, 2011). Call me crazy, but I'm thinking there might be an interest in these kinds of recipes

So I have tried to begin my work on recipes and I'll be posting my notes here rather than waiting to see if I've got the perfect recipe - waiting for perfection means I won't get any work done. So over the past week I've created a gumbo recipe that rocked my world (I still need to work on that a bit though) and this asparagus-basil soup, pictured above. Having a well-established "salt-tooth" it should come across as no surprise that I found this soup to be mild at best. That doesn't mean it wasn't tasty, it just means it didn't rock my world and perhaps that is just what I'll need to accept if I'm going to be working on low sodium recipes. I'm not sure.

Speaking of my salt-tooth, I must digress a moment and briefly acknowledge that I recently had a session with a hypnotherapist about my binge eating episodes. It was an interesting experience and she tried to work with me on decreasing my intake of pita chips and other salty snacks, which tend to be a problem area for me. She did a lot of guided visualization about me turning down the "salt gauge" and finding foods in bags much less appetizing than previously. She also talked a lot about my desire to carry water with me and my thirst increasing. That was a week and a half ago and I haven't touched a pita chip since Mardi Gras.

So if I am going to turn down the salt gauge, I suppose I had better start acquiring the taste for low sodium foods. That certainly is what we're dealing with here in this attempt at a springtime soup.

Ingredients:
1 tsp canola oil
1.25c chopped onion
6 scallions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of garbanzo flour
4 cups water
1 lb asparagus (minus the tough ends)
3 sprigs of thyme
1 cup loosely-packed basil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp low sodium vegan Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4c coconut milk
2 tsp garlic powder
a pinch of powdered ginger

Heat a dutch oven (medium heat) and saute the onions and scallions in oil until soft. Add garlic and stir for about a minute. Add the garbanzo flour and cook for an additional minute or two. Add the water, asparagus, thyme and allow to simmer until the asparagus becomes tender (easily pierced with a fork). Reduce the heat to low and add remaining ingredients. Remove the thyme springs and blend with an immersion blender (optional: remove some asparagus pieces before blending to use as a garnish).

Like a fool, I failed to measure the yield of the entire recipe but let's say the recipe can be divided up to make six servings (I'm thinking this would be six cups total but it might be more - I'll have to measure this out next time). One sixth of the recipe (whatever that measure ends up being) would provide the following:

Calories: 75.5
Fat: 1.4g
Carbohydrates: 12.3g
Protein: 3.4g
Sodium: 11mg
Potassium: 324mg
Phosphorus: 79mg


Unfortunately the recipe wasn't very high in protein - I was hoping the garbanzo flour might help but that wasn't the case. Perhaps actually adding garbanzo beans and blending down would help with this as well as add some texture to the soup. Not all recipes can be high protein though, so maybe this would pair nicely with some grilled tofu wedges or something...or maybe the low protein level of this soup would prove valuable to someone in the early stages of kidney disease (a time when some say reducing protein intake can be of value).

The good news is the recipe is wicked low in sodium - you could actually add a pinch of table salt to the soup without sending the sodium content over the edge.

So next time around I'm thinking these are the changes I'll be making:
Replace the garbanzo flour with actual chickpeas
Replace the garlic and the garlic powder with a few roasted garlic cloves
Skip the thyme
Add half a teaspoon of salt - there's definitely room for it
Decrease the onions to 1 cup
Substitute leeks for the scallions
Try lemon zest instead of lemon juice

Confessions of a binge eater

When I first made the transition to the vegan diet I discovered something about myself that I wasn’t aware of. I had turned into a “Philadelphian.”

As I write this, we are approaching the three-year anniversary of my move down to Pennsylvania. Up until that point, I had never lived anywhere except Connecticut and certainly had never tried a cheese steak. It took me a few months to try one upon moving down here – it was finally my boyfriend who exposed me to the wonders of a cheese steak on my first trip to the Old Town Tavern in Perkasie, PA. Amazingly, you could buy a cheese steak, a side of old bay French fries, and a Yuengling for five dollars. Of course, the quality of the cheese steak left something to be desired, but at that price, we definitely went back for more on numerous occasions (it was the chicken cheese steak that got me hooked). If “you are what you eat,” then this is what turned me into a Philadelphian.

When I made the transition to a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, my boyfriend was very scared that we wouldn’t be able to eat together anymore. One of the solutions he came up with to address this was the seitan cheese steak. This became a Friday night ritual; garlicky seitan with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and peppers drowned in melted Havarti on a baguette. Say what? This was bliss. Bliss, I tell you. And these weren’t small, lady-like cheese steaks either. This was the kind of cheese steak that required napping afterwards.

When I made my next dietary transition, this time to veganism, I knew I would miss this cheese steak ritual but I didn’t realize how much. It became my mission to re-create (or at least discover) a vegan version of this Philadelphian delight. It didn’t go well initially. I found several recipes for vegan cheeze sauce and went to work. My first attempt was unpleasantly memorable. Seriously, that cheese steak was the worst I had ever tasted. But the experience taught me a lot about myself. I didn’t eat just one serving of cheese steak – let’s just say I ate until I was in pain. As I was chomping in misery (both from the taste and the pain I was putting myself in) I wondered why I was engaging in this behavior. Was I waiting for the next bite to taste better? Was I in denial that all my efforts and research yielded such a sorry excuse for a meal? Or was I just a binge eater?

I thought that if I removed my “problem” foods (specifically, buffalo wings and just about anything with cheese or sour cream), my binge eating would stop. The issue should have been the trigger foods right? If I eliminated these, my drive to mindlessly overindulge should be a thing of the past – or so I thought. This pivotal evening with those embarrassing cheese steaks made it clear that it wasn’t the specific foods that were a problem – unfortunately, it didn’t clear up exactly what the problem was.

Fortunately, I did finally discover a way to eat vegan cheese steaks enjoyably. I learned, from The Vegan Zombie, how to make my own seitan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qURmF-7O9-k). Since I’m not really a fan of Daiya or any other processed vegan cheese, I eventually found a cheeze sauce from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook that worked well (used in the cookbook for Mac & Cheeze, but works great on a steak instead - http://veganyumyum.com/2009/01/mac-cheeze-take-2/). Combine these with sautéed onions, Poblano peppers, and mushrooms, on a Trader Joe’s Ciabatta (the kind you bake yourself) with a slather of Vegannaise and you’ve got yourself a real masterpiece. The kind of food you can rationalize binging on.

Pumpkin Cheddar Biscuits

You can ask anyone who has ever lived with me before - I am notorious for keeping several large piles of paper around various locations in my home. These piles of paper have absolutely come between me and my various roommates over the years, yet I find that every time I remove the piles, they find a way to come creeping back into my life. I thought buying a filing cabinet would help me organize these piles and keep them off of the coffee table. Now I have an empty filing cabinet and a coffee table filled with piles of paper.
My boyfriend finally asked me last night, on New Year's eve, if we could start 2012 off with a clean coffee table, so he would have somewhere to put his dinner and his feet (that's right, food and feet apparently belong in the same area). So I'm looking at five leaning towers of paper and one huge stack of DVDs (plus two boxes of papers that the boyfriend put under the coffee table so he could clear off room for me to make more piles). Maybe my New Year's resolution should be to keep my paperwork and mail a bit more organized. Maybe...
Anyway, I thought I would get started on this coffee-table-cleaning-project but found a way to get distracted immediately! Sticking out of one of the piles is my copy of VegNews from September/October. This is the first issue I ever purchased and it contains a recipe that totally rocked my world. I keep looking to see if anyone else has posted it in their blog but I haven't seen any posts with the recipe yet (just photos and references made to the magazine). I'm going to post it here, because if I don't lose it during my re-organization efforts, I'll probably lose it over the course of moving into our new home over the next month....and I can't live without my pumpkin cheddar biscuits (thank you Bianca Phillips, author of Vegan Crunk blog).

Pumpkin Cheddar Biscuits:
Makes 8 large or 16 small biscuits
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup soy milk
1 cup flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded vegan cheddar cheese
5 tablespoons of vegan margarine
3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, combine apple cider vinegar and soymilk. Set aside and allow mixture to curdle.
2. In a large, stir together flour, pastry flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in cheese, coating shreds with flour so that they don't clump together. Add margarine, and use a pastry cutter to break up the margarine and cheese shreds until course crumbs form.
3. To soymilk mixture, add pumpkin and whisk until well combined. Pour mixture into dry ingredients. Use a spoon to mix until a dough forms, and then continue mixing with clean hands until just combined. Do not overmix.
4. The magazine article includes a number of steps on how to cut the dough into biscuit form. I just spoon the mix into muffin tins and call it a day.
5. Bake 12-14 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly golden.

Here is a photograph taken by my girl Sarah - she came to visit me in September and we loved breakfast so much we had to take a picture! We loaded up our pumpkin biscuits with Gimme Lean sausage and served it alongside of some sliced avocado and watermelon chunks. You can see some piles just beginning to develop on the coffee table in the background. I suppose I should start addressing the significantly larger piles at this point. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year - and if you are looking for something yummy to make yourself (or for me, next time I visit you) try this recipe out!