Winter Veggie Stir-Fry

Here's a simple but delicious stir-fry using the bounty from Winter.  Feel free to sub any of your favorites in that you find in the farmer's market.  This combination was just perfect.

Winter Veggie Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, halved and sliced (both halves)
3 carrots, sliced in diagonal
3 celery sticks, sliced
1 green bell pepper, quartered and sliced
2 small turnips or 1 large, thinly sliced
2 King oyster mushrooms, halved width wise and thinly sliced into long strips
2 cups of baby dino kale, chopped
Soy sauce to taste
Cooked brown rice

Directions:

In a large pan, heat the oil over medium high heat.  When hot add the onion, carrots, celery, bell pepper and turnips.  Stir frequently for five to seven minutes, until they just become fork-tender.  Add the mushrooms and cook for an additional two minutes.  Add the kale and soy sauce and cook until the kale just starts to wilt and turns a bright green, about two or three minutes.  Serve over brown rice.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

Salad Bar Night!

As most of you probably do, we eat plenty of salads with and for dinner.  With children, I like to keep it as fun as possible, for even though they're vegan, they're still kids and don't always want to eat a salad every day.  So, Ill make a variety of salads from different regions, or have big individual salads loaded with their favorite toppings, or like this version: I'll have a salad bar with familiar and unfamiliar things to top whatever greens are the base that night.

My dear mother, bless her heart, gave me three heads of iceberg lettuce.  Just like home, ah, the memories.  The only time we usually eat iceberg now is when we're over at my parents or when she drives over to bring me three heads of it.  So, there it is, the star of our show, and it's thumbing its nose at Romaine, red leaf, butter, endive, and radicchio.  Let it have its crunchy glory, I say, surrounded by all sorts of goodness!  Below, I'll list the toppings left to right, just to give you an idea of what you can have.  Add or take away at your taste bud's pleasure. 

The Salad Bar

What my plate looked like loaded up.

Salad Bar Night

Ingredients:

Nice big bowl of lettuce, chopped
A variety of ingredients with proper handling tools provided.  We had:
  Pear tomatoes
  Finely grated Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet cheese, Monterey Jack style
  Green onions, sliced
  Carrots, grated
  Celery, chopped
  Raw turnip, grated
  Radish, grated
  Green bell pepper, diced
  Parsley greens, chopped small
  Sliced almonds
  Marinated artichoke hearts

A variety of dressings, olive and sesame oils, red wine and balsamic vinegars and lemon juice

Directions:

Top lettuce to your heart's content with the goodies.  Add the dressings to season lightly.  Eat!  Feeds five hungry vegans.

Creamy White and Green Soup

Well, first off, there is no cream in this soup. However, the beans are so creamy and add such a creamy feel to it, that it deserves this name. This was a soup that I made out of stuff I currently had in my fridge and pantry and had no prior intention of posting the recipe, but it came out so tasty, that I thought it deserved to be passed along. It's warm and comforting, simple and healthy. I hope you like it, too.


Creamy White and Green Soup

Ingredients:

1 pound of dried great white northern beans
Water
1 turnip, peeled and diced small
2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
1 large stalk of broccoli, trimmed and diced
1 bunch of collard greens, removed from stems and chopped small
2 cans of vegetable broth
2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of pepper
1 Tbs. garlic powder

Directions:

Sort the beans and put in a large pot with water to cover them about two inches. Bring to a boil, and continue boiling for five minutes. Drain and rinse well. Put back in pot with same amount of water, and cook over medium heat for an hour. Reduce heat to medium low and continue to cook for another hour, adding water as necessary to keep it at about one inch above the beans. Add the remaining ingredients, and cook for another half-hour, until the turnip is tender. This is surprisingly tasty, and even all the children liked it! So, that's saying something. Feeds five hungry vegans.