I need a sous chef!

With work & other obligations, it's taken me a lot longer to put together this list of culinary delights than I expected:

MONDAY:

• zest & juice 9# of Bearess limes - freeze most of the juice & dehydrate the zest

This took the better part of 90 minutes just to zest & juice the limes - a lot of them were tiny!  I ended up with 6 cups of juice and nearly 2 cups dried zest.  Plus an hour for clean up (lime pulp got everywhere!)

TUESDAY:

• kale & spigariello chips (dehydrator)
• shredded brussels sprouts salad - little enoki mushrooms, lemon, nama shoyu, olive oil, black pepper, garlic, marinated in dehydrator at 105 for a couple hours
• savoy cabbage slaw w/lime, ginger, olive oil, nama shoyu, red onion, cilantro, garlic, mango & topped with sprouted pumpkin & sunflower seeds
• grated turnip & carrot salad dressed with agave/nama shoyu/lemon/white wine vinegar, liberal amounts of finely minced parsley & cilantro, red onion & garlic
• fennel & grapefruit salad with jalapeno & cilantro
• sprouted sunflower seed, cilantro & chile pate
• sprouted pumpkin seed, sundried tomato & chipotle pepper pate
• soaked cashew red pepper pate
• buckwheat, sprouted almond & carrot pulp crackers
• romesco sauce w/sprouted hazelnuts, cherry tomatoes & red bell pepper

This all took the better part of 5 hours, plus an hour for clean-up and a half hour to put together two plates with collard leaves stuffed with pate & brussels sprouts salad, and pate, romesco, sunflower sprouts & cucumber, and a quarter cup of three of the salads.  I'm very happy to have this all wrapped up - I'm going out of town this weekend for a mushroom foray/taxonomy trip in Mendocino and will have all my own foods ready to pack up and bring along!

The spigariello greens turned out great as chips - and I'm really more and more happy with my new Cuisinart - it can be a bit tricky to get the nesting bowls to lock properly, and I have noticed some food bits do get up into the part of the locking lid where I can't easily clean (long bristles from a bottle cleaning brush and running water seemed to do the trick, except for one tiny carrot bit).  Also - don't expect that you'll be able to use the slicing or grating disc and can get away without washing all the bowls as bits travel down the stem and get into the other bowls.

WEDNESDAY:

• shelling Louisana pecans that I brought home in November to store in fridge
• key lime pie (lime, young coconut meat & water, avocado) with pecan/mac crust

This is my "to-do" - after doing 4 hours of work, a couple loads of laundry, vacuuming, sweeping & mopping the floor.  I'm trying to think about how to make small "to go" sizes of the key lime pie so I can bring some with me on my weekend trip.

Raw Vegan Challenge - On the Menu This Week

Thursday's "mystery box" from Mariquita was full of wintery goodness.  A stalk of brussels sprouts, two gorgeous turnips, a bag full of multi colored carrots, spigariello greens, chard, three gorgeous red onions, a giant squash, savoy cabbage (bringing me up to 3 heads of savoy in the fridge!), cilantro, fennel and collards.  Ialso got 9# of  Bearess limes.

Yesterday, I decanted the current batch of kim chee to make room for a batch of savoy cabbage sauerkraut.  The newest batch of kim chee is fuschia in color from the red cabbage, purple carrots, daikon, ginger, hijiki, green onion and habanero peppers.  I ended up with 1.25 gal of kimchee, and it is delicious.  I expect it will get hotter and more gingery the longer it sits in the fridge like the first batch has done.

An awful lot of greens all at once!  I still have a bunch of kale in the fridge, so decided to make up a new batch of kale chips with both the kale and the spigariello greens.

On the list of "to do" items for this afternoon and tomorrow morning, making up my menu for the week:

• zest & juice 9# of Bearess limes - freeze most of the juice & dehydrate the zest
• kale & spigariello chips (dehydrator)
• shredded brussels sprouts salad - little enoki mushrooms, lemon, nama shoyu, olive oil, black pepper, garlic, marinated in dehydrator at 105 for a couple hours
• savoy cabbage salad w/lime, ginger, sesame oil, nama shoyu, red onion, cilantro, garlic, mango & topped with sprouted pumpkin & sunflower seeds
• grated turnip & carrot salad dressed with agave/nama shoyu/lemon/white wine vinegar, liberal amounts of finely minced parsley & cilantro, red onion & garlic
• sprouted pumpkin seed & sundried tomato pate
• fennel & grapefruit salad with jalapeno & cilantro
• soaked cashew red pepper pate
• buckwheat & carrot pulp crackers
• romesco sauce w/sprouted hazelnuts, cherry tomatoes & red bell pepper
• shelling Louisana pecans that I brought home in November to store in fridge
• key lime pie (lime, young coconut meat & water, avocado) with pecan/mac crust

I'll be using the collards to roll up pates with sprouts, shredded carrot, cucumber & zucchini sticks, kim chee and other good combos.  The best thing about all the salads is that they last quite well in the fridge and the longer they  marinate, the tastier they become.

Backcountry Vegan - Prep for 4 Week Road Trip

In just 4 weeks, I hop on my motorcycle to begin a four week road trip that has three legs - going from Oakland to Southern California by motorcycle, then by moving van to NE Ohio and then return to California on motorcycle via Memphis, New Orleans, Austin, West Texas, the Grand Canyon, the Eastern Sierras and Tioga Pass.

Since this isn't quite the same as a backpacking or camping trip - I'll have plenty of opportunity to seek out local natural grocery stores & farm stands, plus I'll be staying with family and friends at least half of the nights on the road.

Clearly, bringing everything for 4 weeks would be impractical and unnecessary.  So, then what do I need to bring? Here are the limitations & opportunities I identified:

• Space Limitations:  while I can carry more stuff in my bicycle panniers, and in the stuff sacks that I will attach to the luggage rack.  I'd rather bring tools & a spare tube than a gallon bag of bulky dried apples.
• Weight Limitations: are not the same as backpacking but still a consideration.  I can pack liquids in stainless steel bottles that will be safer from crushing & heat than plastic that I took on the trail in April.
•  Spoilage: same sort of issues as backpacking, but I will be traveling in much greater heat than Kauai in April.  Temperatures across the Midwest & South are pretty insane right now (yes, I will be doing some parts of Texas in the dark/pre-dawn). That means no matter how tempting those farmstand peaches - just buy enough to eat by the end of the next rest stop or that evening because they will not travel.

Preliminary Preparations:

• Coffee cone & filters, assam tea, mesh strainer & chai spices - it's always nicer to make your own hot beverages at camp in the moring.
• Pasta, couscous & quinoa - enough for several meals, easily replenished at the bulk section of a natural grocery store.
• Oatmeal, dried fruit (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, raisins, cantaloupe, persimmons) & granulated maple sugar -  yes, it will be much easier to make oatmeal than to wait around for quinoa for breakfast.
• Dried veggies (squash, onions, peppers, tomatoes, porcini & shitake mushrooms, carrots, turnip, beet) - about 1 gallon bag of the dried veggies & fruit in their own wax paper bags.
• Road's End Organics gravy packets
• Fresh garlic
• Olive oil & Meyer lemon zest

Meals that I anticipate making for myself will include pretty easy stuff like:

• pasta & marinara: a small can of sauce along with my dried veggies & pasta makes a pretty good meal!
• mushroom & veggie gravy on mashed potatoes - maybe with seitan sausage or chunks from the store means I can have seitan for breakfast the next morning, too!
• veggie soup with udon noodles or pasta & bread
• roasted or veggies from local farm stand, cooked with my spices & olive oil - great sandwich fixings for lunch the next day
• "Special of the Day" - you never know what you'll find in local groceries and it is summer - I might end up with the sweetest corn, or giant peaches that I can grill over the fire at the campsite. 

Recommendations? If you know of any good recipes, restaurants or natural grocery stores along my route - leave me a comment here.  I'm especially interested in veg-friendly restaurant recommendations for the east side of Cleveland, Ohio; Nashville & Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; Austin & Lubbock, TX. 

Backcountry Vegan: 5 Truths About Eating on the Trail

1. No matter how good the  intentions, complicated recipes or advanced prep mean carrying around ingredients that the traveler may not feel like using because of time, light, energy, fuel or space restrictions. Good planning results in not just good nutrition but also satisfaction and a light or nonexistent store of provisions upon the return home.
2. Regardless of how enticing a recipe for chocolate cherry almond bark sounds - chocolate always melts if traveling anywhere warm.  Is it worth it?  Life is too short to eat broken chocolate - bring calorie rich treats that are appropriate to the environmental conditions of the trip.
3. Making homemade trail mix and granola always sounds like a good idea - but buying it is so convenient and such a good excuse to investigate local organic groceries along the way to the start of the trail or on the rod.
4. Despite best intentions - who doesn't end up picking up packaged snacks & treats to take along? It just happens - whether it's Lara bars, Nutter Butters, Primal seitan strips, or Sharkies - there are certain convenience foods that are easier bought than made.
5. Camping often means meeting people & sharing meals or using locally available or foraged ingredients -- provisions should allow for flexibility and scalability (up/down).

Backcountry Vegan - Backcountry & Camping Cookbook Reading List

My pre-trip reading list included these books, in no particular order:

• A Fork in the Trail
• Backpack Gourmet
• Freezer Bag Cooking
• Lightweight Backpacking and Camping
• Lip Smackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'
• Lip Smackin' Backpackin'
• Trail Food: Drying And Cooking Food for Backpackers And Paddlers
• Simple Foods for the Pack
• The Well Fed Backpacker 

Reviews coming soon!

Vegan Camping: Planning & Provisioning

I love camping and have to confess to being a major camp chef - if I'm car camping, I figure, there's no reason not to bring a cast iron skillet and to plan out delicious meals. I tend to err on the side of "why did we buy this much food" but have been improving my planning and provisioning.

Nearly all camping cookbooks I have read focus on incorporating highly processed foods (ramen, instant pudding, powdered milk, Minute rice, canned beans, instant powdered soups). There are no vegan/whole foods camping cookbooks, much less backpacking cookbooks. It's like they are going out of the way to find things like powdered eggs and individual packets of butter.

Packaged meals are ridiculously popular - and not all that tasty. I've even tried out some Mary Jane's Farm vegan meals and the meals that worked best were the premixed pancake and brownie mix. Just not worth the extra packaging.

The great thing about cooking vegan is that you're not really worried about your food going bad and poisoning you. And - why go out of your way to prepare things that you wouldn't normally eat?


Among my considerations are:

• Ingredients which cook relatively quickly - though I have been known to make up Thai sticky rice with delicious nutty black rice, it uses a lot of camp fuel and rice doesn't go on most trips. Couscous and quinoa are both a "win."
• Reducing packaging - why bring individual size packets of anything?
• Reducing use of disposables - cooking in foil packets is easy but why use foil when car camping?
  
• Meals that have no or small amounts of leftovers.
• Menu plans that have flexibility in types of cooking.
• Menu plans that use up fresh ingredients earlier in the trip.

Car camping usually ends up filling 2 boxes of food, pots, plates & utensils. You can check out my packing list for my week long trip to Death Valley. My favorite item - for any size camping trip - is my Spice Wheel. That thing has gone with me car camping, motorcycle camping and backpacking.

Typical meals are pasta with sauce (my own - if I'm packing in/packing out, my own mason jars are just fine), veggies with curry sauce in small glass jars, tofu scramble & homefried potatoes for breakfast, olives, dolmas (the kind in a tin or jar) and hummus with bread for a lunch.

On the Death Valley trip, I put beets in foil into the fire and used them for sandwiches and made a jar of beet salad with the rest of the fresh mushrooms, red onions, balsamic, olive oil & herbs de provence.

What are your favorite car camping or backpacking/motorcycle camping meals? Do you end up eating PB&J or meals from packets?

Chocolate Treats & Menu Planning

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER CUPS: I promised chocolate peanut butter cups for this weekend's brunch - so I threw a bunch of confectioner's sugar in the Kitchen Aid and then realized I should have measured -- I ended up adding nearly 2 cups (a whole jar!) of peanut butter and then scooped out 105 centers. Yikes. I ran out of chocolate (yes - really! I know! Isn't it shocking!).

This time, however, I modified my Peanut Butter Cup recipe a bit - instead of crushed graham crackers, I used ground raw flax seeds. It works quite well - it gives a little nutty crunch, blends in with the peanut butter and the chunks of pink Hawaiian salt and makes the candy gluten free and wheat free.

CHOCOLATE DIPPED CANDIED APRICOTS: I pulled out the candied apricot halves from the fridge. They rattled in the container. I let them warm up but they were still quite firm - a bit over candied but I thought they would soften up after being dipped in chocolate. The result were delicious, very chewy and possibly dangerous treats. Tonight I sliced up the chocolate dipped halves into strips and am redipping and melting the chocolate from them -- they are much more manageable as small strips and will definitely go farther for brunch on Saturday.

BRUNCH & RUMBA-POTLUCK: Yes. Food. I have planned some treats including:

• Chocolate dipped candied apricot spears
• Chocolate peanut butter cups
• Rhurbarb crisp
• Fig tart with semolina-lavender crust
• Breakfast potatoes
• Tomatoes "a la Provencale" (because it's easy and I have all the ingredients in my garden!)
  
• DIY waffles with "Joy of Vegan Baking" recipe
  
• Roederer champagne mimosas (if I can find fresh fruit at a farmer's market for juice)

If that isn't enough, I have also planned to host a rumba jam starting after 4pm. The foods for that will include several fillo based dishes because I am lazy:

• Onion-olive pie (with fillo instead of bread dough because it will be easier)
• Spanakopita with Spinach & Dill (sheet this time instead of hand pies)
• Zucchini & mushroom tart (more fillo!)
  
• Sliced fresh tomatoes
• Pasta salad with fresh tomatoes, arugula & basil pesto
  

RECIPES:
Onion-olive pie: I found some darling small yellow onions about the size of my Moscovich Extra Early tomatoes -- those will be sliced up into rings for the onion pie (all 5#) and caramelized in a dutch oven on the stove with olive oil, then tossed with fresh thyme, oregano and black olives and sealed up in fillo and baked until the fillo is crispy.

Spanakopita: basically the same recipe as "Vegan With A Vengeance"

Zucchini & Mushroom tart: I think tofu is going to be involved here, but haven't decided quite on the recipe yet.

POTLUCK: Everything is a potluck at my house. Bring food. Bring drinks. Bring napkins, plates, cups. Pitch in, eat up, enjoy. I have several RSVPs and some promises of delicious contributions. James' conga friends Sam and Richard are coming - Sam always brings two armfuls of pain d'epi from Acme Bakery - it's fresh, delicious and the epi style makes it easy to tear off a single serving piece without a knife. I imagine Richard will bring his popular Chinese Chicken Salad. Chef Eric tantalized me with the idea of some kind of tempeh enchilada, "but you never know what will happen."

I promise photos! Really!