Vegetables ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 400 F. I used organic beets, carrots, parsnips, red potatoes, and Brussels sprouts, cleaned and cut in larger-than-bite-sized pieces, arranged on parchment paper that was lightly painted with organic virgin coconut oil (after being placed on a cookie sheet.) Next I brushed the vegetables with more coconut oil, and then placed branches of fresh rosemary around them. In my oven, the baking time was 25 minutes, but yours may cook faster. I tested the vegetables from time to time with a long cooking fork. When tender, they are done! Served them hot, drizzled with organic extra virgin olive oil and a tiny bit of sea salt.

                                 Vegetables after baking.

Thanksgiving recipe:

I invented a new twist on cranberry relish.

I mix 8 ounces of thawed whole (organically grown) cranberries and all of the seeds of a fresh (organically grown) pomegranate in a bowl, and pour over them a steaming cup of unsweetened (organicallly grown) pomegranate juice (sweetened with a couple of droppers full of organically grown stevia glycerite) inwhich a heaping tablespoon of agar flakes has been completely dissolved by simmering 3 to 5 minutes over a medium flame (longer if needed – stir often).

One hour in the fridge and it becomes cranberries and pomegranate in aspic.

I have evolved this recipe over many holiday seasons.

Prepare one of these crusts:

BAKED CRUST Enough for one pie; multiply as needed

Two cups of gluten-free baking flour (usually a combo of rice, garbanzo, oat, and millet flours – any or all of these).

¾ cup coconut oil

Measure and then chill the coconut oil. Place it in a food processor with the flour and an ice cube. Blend until it forms a soft ball of dough. If it doesn’t form a dough ball while blending, very gradually add a tiny bit more cold water. As soon as it gets the right amount of water, it will form a soft ball of dough.

Flatten the ball into a disk and press into a 9 inch glass or ceramic pie pan so that it is of even ¼ inch thickness all over, and form a scalloped edge with your thumbprints. Make fork holes every ½ inch all over the bottom and sides of the pie shell. Bake at 375 Fº until golden, but not brown.

If you have extra dough, form it into a cookie shape (star, heart, tree, etc.) in another pan, make fork holes every ½ inch on it, and bake it along with the piecrust. After the filling has chilled and become firm in the crust, place the cookie shaped piece of piecrust on top of the filling. For ease of handling, I suggest forming and baking the cookie shaped piece on top of a piece of baking parchment, so that you can easily slide it onto the top of the pie without it crumbling in the process.

RAW CRUST

In a (clean) coffee grinder, powder one cup each of walnut meats and raw cashews. Remove pits from 6 dates, chop them well and place them in a food processor with the nut flours. Blend until it forms a soft dough. Press the dough into a 9 inch glass or ceramic pie pan. Keep the edge small and simple, since an extended, scalloped edge will crumble off when the pie is cut and served. Chill in the refrigerator.

If you’d like to make a decorative raw cookie for the top of the pie, take some of the nut/date dough, form into the shape of choice, and dehydrate at 105 Fº until almost crisp.

FILLING

Cut a medium sized butternut squash or small kabocha (green) pumpkin into pieces about 1 to 2 inches on a side.

Spoon out the seeds, and either roast, plant or discard them. (If you compost them, who knows, you might get volunteer squash plants growing out of your compost..)

Peel two thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger and chop into small pieces.

Steam the squash and ginger until soft and let them cool until you can easily pick up one of the squash pieces with your (clean) hand, at which point you can spoon the flesh out from the shells into the food processor bowl, and compost the shells. Then dump the steamed bits of ginger from the steaming basket into the food processer with the squash, and blend until smooth. If the mixture is so thick that it bogs down the food processor, slowly add a tiny bit of the cooking water, until the blades are moving easily.

After blending, just to be sure there are no annoying bits of ginger in the pie filling, pour the mixture through a sieve into a large bowl, and stir with a wooden spoon to complete the separation.

If you’d rather not bother with peeling, chopping, steaming, blending and sieving fresh ginger, you can always skip it, instead adding ½ tsp. powdered ginger along with the other spices below. (Personally, I think it’s worth the extra work.)

Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly: one cup of unsweetened, non-flavored vegan milk (hemp, almond, rice, soy, or, if you’d like a very rich pie, coconut cream) with 2 teaspoons of agar flakes, 1 tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. nutmeg, ¼ tsp. cloves, ½ tsp allspice) and 3 droppers of non-flavored stevia glycerite, stirring until the agar is completely dissolved and the spices are well blended into the milk.

Place in the food processor: the butternut squash and the agar/milk mixture. Blend until completely smooth.

Pour the filling into the pie shell and chill until the agar is set (at least one hour, although you can make this pie the day before serving it and keep it in the refrigerator until then).

If you have more filling than pie shells, pour it into custard cups and chill.

A nine-inch pie will serve 8 people.

Topping (optional):

Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream (coconut flavor) would be my choice, but there are also excellent choices available from Daiya, Tofutti, So Delicious, and other vegan ice cream brands.

The hot weather is coming back, and it’s time for another cool vegan protein recipe.

Kim cheese was inspired by a spread I tasted at the Maui Four Seasons Hotel’s restaurant about 20 years ago. Theirs was a spread served with thin slices of a dense, dark bread with walnuts in it, and it was made from cream cheese, mayonnaise and kim chee, Korea’s fiery pickled Napa cabbage. Pacific fusion cuisine, I guess. I liked it.

I already knew I could make a vegan sour cream or cottage cheese by blending tofu, Vegenaise and ume vinegar in the food processor. So I added kim chee to this, and liked the result.

I realized, though, with the sour and salty ume vinegar and the pungent kim chee, I didn’t need the extra flavor of the Vegenaise, so I substituted olive oil, and liked it even better.

I use this spread on baked potatoes, steamed cauliflower, puffed brown rice cakes, cucumber slices, or whole grain pasta.

I vary the consistency from dense to runny by the type of tofu I use. Extra firm tofu makes a thick spread, better for crackers or crudites. Silken tofu makes a runny sauce to pour over pasta or vegetables.

Here are the ingredients:

One 8 ounce block of tofu (from organic, non-GMO soybeans. SprouTofu’s my fave.)
One 8 ounce jar of spicy kim chee (preferably home made and organic, certainly without MSG)
2 tablespoons of organic extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons of ume vinegar (Japanese plum vinegar, made from the pickling of unripe plums. It is salty. You can skip it if you are avoiding salt. You can certainly add more if you prefer a saltier taste to your kim cheese.)

Place them all in a food processor and blend until smooth. Chill until serving.

Cool vegan protein for hot days.

Place together in a food processor:

10 oz extra firm organic tofu, cubed
4 T nutritional yeast flakes
4 T organic extra virgin olive oil
1 T dulse flakes
1 tsp. dried or fresh dill weed
2 tsp. ume vinegar or half of a pitted, pickled ume (plum), minced

Blend well and turn out into a festive dish. Serve with whole grain crackers and/or bite-sized raw vegetables.

I’M LOOKING FOR AN AFFORDABLE ORGANIC WEDDING CAKE; CAN YOU HELP ME??

NEED HELP ALETA

What makes a wedding cake a wedding cake is the icing. You could make or buy a simple cake made from organically grown ingredients and then pay a professional to ice and decorate it for you. OR you could ice it very simply with white icing yourself, and garnish with fresh flowers (make sure they are not from poisonous plants like plumeria or oleander). Dendrobium orchids, pansies, hydrangea, rosebuds, and leatherleaf fern are favorites of mine for this. They should match the colors in your bouquet, so you can put the bouquet on the table near the cake when you do your wedding photo of the cake cutting. Or, you could decorate the cake with sugared fruit, as my permaculture teacher friends Ryan and Tara Holt did for their eco-wedding (see photo above).

My mother taught me the secret to icing a cake on the serving plate, without getting icing on the plate:  tear waxed paper into long triangular pieces, and lay them on the plate before you place the bottom layer of the cake on it.  The long narrow points go under the cake.  You want to have all parts of the circumference of the cake layer resting on pieces of waxed paper, and all of the plate protected by the widest parts of the triangles of waxed paper.  Apply the icing with a flat spatula.  When you have iced the entire lower layer, place the next layer on top of it, and ice that.  Continue until you have coated all of the layers with a smooth, flat layer of icing.  When you are done icing, carefully remove the triangles of waxed paper, one by one.   Then you can add the sugared fruit or edible fresh flowers.

One way to save money on a wedding cake if you are having a big reception is to have the person baking the cake make a small tiered wedding cake (a 6” tier on top, a 10” tier underneath) to pose with in the cake-cutting photos, and make sheet cakes of the same batter and icing to feed the guests. You’ll get less than 30 servings from the two tiered cakes, depending on how the server cuts it. On 10” or bigger cakes, make a circular cut 3” in from the outer rim of the cake, and cut pieces from this outer section before you cut up the inner 4” diameter piece into 3 sections. Your tiered cake will look more elegant if it is presented on an elevated cake stand. You can buy the pillars to separate the layers at a floral supply store.

My very favorite organic wedding cake during the 11 years I had the wedding business was baked from an original recipe by organic pastry chef Diane Burr on Maui. It was a special order from a couple who wanted everything natural and organic (most of my clients didn’t care what was in the cake as long as the icing was perfect). The cream cheese, honey and vanilla icing didn’t look that great, but she dressed it up by garnishing it with fresh dendrobium orchids and leatherleaf fern. Inside, the cake was divine. Diane calls it her Jungle Cake. She added chopped fresh ripe mango, chopped dried pineapple, fine coconut shreds, chopped macadamia nuts, thinly sliced banana, chocolate drops, chopped candied ginger and ground cinnamon to some kind of rich cake batter and baked it in three pans of different sizes. I wish I had the recipe!

Congratulations on your engagement, Aleta, and thank you for going organic!

Love and Blessings,

Alicia

Quinoa (pronounced “KEEN-wah”) is a good-tasting high-protein grain of the same family as amaranth.

Here’s how to make a simple vegan dish I like:

Steam a variety of vegetables together until fork tender. Tonight my mixture is: three broccoli crowns cut into branches, three broccoli stems, peeled and cut into half inch sections, one big carrot, scrubbed and cut into half inch sections, one big parsnip, scrubbed and cut into half inch sections, one big yellow onion, peeled and cut into one inch sections, and two yellow patty-pan squash, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces.

Some other possibilities are brussels sprouts (stemmed and cut in half), zucchini (washed and cut into half inch sections), string beans, washed, ends trimmed off and cut in half, crookneck squash, washed and cut into half inch slices, red or white cabbage cut into bite-sized pieces, or cauliflower, broken into flowerlets.

Set aside the steamed vegetables and save the cooking water separately.

Quinoa is cooked at a proportion of one part grain to two parts water. One cup of dry quinoa makes enough for two generous servings. For three people, for example, use one and one half cups of quinoa and three cups of water.

Measure the dry quinoa into a large strainer and let cold water run over it until it stops bubbling. Place the quinoa into a pot (use a 2 quart sized pot for 2 to 4 servings) and measure the vegetable cooking water into the pot. Place the cover on the pot, bring it to a boil, and turn the heat down very low and let the quinoa cook until all of the liquid is absorbed (10 to 15 minutes).

Turn the quinoa out into a large festive serving bowl, pour the steamed vegetables on top of it and toss gently. At this point you can season it according to your preference, or let each person season his or her own portion. I like a little organic extra virgin olive oil and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos on mine, but others might prefer tamari, gomasio, toasted sesame oil, sea salt, or parmesan.

A lovely vegan soup for a cold January day.

One pound green lentils, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed well
One large yellow onion, peeled and cut into large pieces
Two large carrots, scrubbed well and cut into thick slices
Five cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
A bouquet garni cotton cloth bag containing one bay leaf and sprigs of parsley, oregano, and basil leaves
One pound whole grain pasta (brown rice or quinoa pasta for gluten-free eaters) cooked and drained according to the directions on the package.
Four heads of broccoli (about 5 or 6 inches across the heads), rinsed, cut into bite sized pieces, and steamed until fork tender. (Peel the stems before you cut them into cubes)
1 1/2 cups good quality marinara sauce
3 tablespoons of organic extra virgin olive oil

Place the lentils, onion, carrots, garlic and bouquet garni in a slow cooker (Rival Crock Pot, for example). Cover with pure water plus one inch. Turn the cooker on high until the soup boils, stirring occasionally so the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pot, then turn it to low and leave it on for eight hours (overnight) or until the lentils and vegetables are very tender. Remove the bouquet garni bag. In a large soup cauldron, gently blend all of the other ingredients with the lentils and vegetables.

What I like about this soup is that the broccoli is freshly steamed and the pasta is cooked al dente, rather than either being boiled to mushiness in the soup, and the olive oil has not been heated, other than by adding it to the soup at the end. The other thing I like about this recipe is that the lentils, having been soaked and rinsed, are much less likely to give you gas, even when combined with broccoli.

Each bowl of soup can be optionally enhanced according to the tastes of the person to whom it is served, with seasonings such as ground black pepper, hot sauce, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, Himalayan pink salt, sea salt, flake-type nutritional yeast, or grated parmesan cheese.

I like to make extra and freeze it for a quick meal later in the month.

This soup could be lovely served with hot bread, a green salad, and/or an entrée, but, personally, I find one bowl is a whole meal for me.

Here’s an eggnog so healthful you can drink it all year long!

For each serving add:

1 cup unsweetened coconut, almond, hemp, or cashew milk, chilled
1 peeled ripe banana, fresh or frozen, cut into 1 inch sections
1 tablespoon agave syrup (or less if you like)
A pinch of nutmeg (or more if you like)

Place in a blender jar and whir until creamy and smooth.  Serve in festive glasses.

Salud!

Note: David Little, the holistic healer who taught me this recipe, liked to add a squirt of Renshenfengwangjiang, a ginseng and royal jelly syrup (“as the booze”).

My writer friend, Pamela Beth Raffalow Grossman, from New York City, just posted this today (December 23, 2018):

Just want everyone to know that Alicia Bay Laurel’s wonderful vegan eggnog has been a big hit I’ve brought to 2 holiday parties this year, and counting (and in past years too). Per one serving: One banana; one cup almond or some such kind of milk (oat, soy); some agave syrup; and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Basically, combine these ingredients in a blender in proportions that look good, and blend; it’s hard to screw it up, though one time I added a smidge too much nutmeg. Delicious; not too unhealthy; does not make you feel like you might puke, like regular eggnog can. Spike as desired. Thank you, Alicia!!!!!!!

I’m telling you. It’s eggnog without the “What the fuck did I just do to myself??”

Replies author Kristy Eldredge:

It is fabulous! As addictive as real eggnog but no horrible repercussions, like Pam says.

If you are just getting over a respiratory illness, you want to get warm and clean inside and out. You need protein to fire up your immune system, but nothing sticky (like eggs or milk) that will inspire the body to make more mucus. And you don’t want to be standing around the kitchen for hours, fussing at the stove. So, get your Crock Pot from the back shelf, fill it with the following healing ingredients, turn it on, and go back to bed. Five hours later, you can get up and have a bowl or two of this rich-tasting soup, and every part of you will be happy. Of course, you can always share it with your friends and family who aren’t sick. It’s perfect winter food.

One carton of organic vegan butternut squash or carrot-ginger soup
One strip of kombu (dried sea vegetable)
One cup of lentils
One can of organic split pea soup (optional)
Five or six large cloves of garlic, chopped fine
A peeled ginger root the size of your thumb and forefinger, chopped fine
One large yellow onion, chopped coarsely
One large carrot, washed and cut into thin horizontal slices
One eighth of a cabbage (red or white) chopped fairly small
The greens of three or four beets, washed (and any imperfect parts removed), and chopped fine
A tablespoonful of soaked hiziki sea vegetable and the soaking water (optional)
A quart of pure water