Stuffed Roasted Red Peppers

There are a few different ways to make stuffed red peppers, you can pre-boil them, then stuff and bake, or you can pre-roast them, then stuff them. I think the roasting adds a really wonderful flavor, but it really depends on the stuffing. If you are going for a fresh mexican flavor, with black beans and cheese, then boiling might be better. For these, I made a savory Italian-inspired quinoa stuffing which complimented the roasted peppers beautifully.

Roasted Red Peppers with Italian Quinoa Stuffing

Serves 4

4 large or 8 small red peppers

Olive oil 

Slice peppers in half lengthwise and remove ribs and seeds. Place on a baking sheet and brush with oil. I used the convection roast feature on my oven, but you can just bake at 400F. (If using convection, 375F will do.) Roast until soft and just starting to brown at the edges. 

For the stuffing:

2 cups cooked quinoa (can be made day ahead)

1 lb bag frozen chopped spinach (or you could use other greens such as chard or kale)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil (or if using the dry kind, soak in hot water for 5 min)

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Saute onion in olive oil until soft and just golden, add garlic, stirring until aromatic. Add spinach and a splash of water, cover and cook until thawed. Meanwhile, toss your pine nuts in olive oil and place in the oven for a few minutes, watching closely, stirring once or twice. Nuts are so easy to burn. I burn them at least half the time. (Ideally, I like to put them in the oven when I turn it off, and let them sit for 5 minutes or so. I'm less likely to burn them that way.) When your spinach is ready, stir in your sun dried tomatoes and quinoa. Add pine nuts and stir well to combine. 

Your peppers should be ready now. Spoon stuffing into peppers and top with Basic Marinara. I must admit that the stuffing was so good I made another batch to eat by itself for lunch the next day. Yum!

Curried Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

We've been on a sweet potato bender! Costco has been stocking 10 lb bags of organic sweet potatoes for cheap, so I've been coming up with all sorts of things to do with them. This recipe turned out really tasty! One of my favorite dishes at our local Indian restaurant is Sweet Potato Masala. But now that I've cut out dairy, it's not an option for me. I tried making a vegan version with coconut milk. It was okay. This one is better. 

Curried Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

3 large sweet potatoes

1 lb bag frozen spinach

1 medium onion, diced

2-3 cloves of garlic (1-2 tbsp chopped)

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

Salt

1 tsp curry powder

2 Tbsp tomato paste

First chop up your potatoes into 1/2 or 1" pieces. Put them in a pot of water and boil until just tender. Meanwhile, saute your onion in olive or sunflower oil over medium low heat. When onion is ready, toss in the garlic, stirring until aromatic. Add your curry powder, coating the onion and garlic, and fry for about 30 seconds. Then, add your tomato paste and stir well to combine. Now add a little water (a couple tablespoons) and your spinach. Break up your spinach and cook, covered, until thawed. When your potatoes are done, add those to the pan and stir well to combine everything. Salt to taste. Cover and cook for another 10 or 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

I served this dish with brown rice and Mung Bean Dal.

Vegan Chocolate Truffles

I remember the first time I had a homemade truffle. I was so impressed with my friend for making them! But actually, they are super easy. Traditionally, they are made with cream and/or butter. These are vegan and with good quality chocolate, you don't miss the dairy at all. You can add whatever flavor you like. This year I made espresso and champagne. Champagne truffles are my favorite. Served with champagne, of course. But you could stir in raspberry preserves, other liquors, really whatever you want.

Vegan Chocolate Truffles

~makes about one dozen truffles

1 3.5 or 4 oz dark chocolate bar (72% or higher--the ones I like are 80-85% and have no additives, just chocolate and sugar) broken into pieces

1/3 c water

1 Tbsp sugar

In a large mixing bowl combine water and some ice cubes. Set a medium size bowl inside to chill. Make sure the water is only half way up the medium bowl. You don't want it to splash up into your chocolate later!

In a double boiler (or a small pan sitting over a larger pan of water) combine ingredients. Stir until melted and smooth. Pull off the heat. Pour out into the chilled medium bowl. With a whisk attachment on a hand mixer, whip the chocolate for about a minute. Or if using a hand whisk, for two minutes. It should start to look a little lighter. Chill in refrigerator for several hours until firm. 

Scoop out teaspoon sized chunks and roll between your palms to form balls. You can roll them in cocoa powder, powdered sugar, or sugar crystals. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. They are fine to sit out for awhile, but they will "sweat" and dissolve the sugar coating after a bit. 

To add flavor:

For Espresso: substitute a shot of freshly brewed espresso for half the water, following directions as above. I rolled these in cocoa.

For Champagne: add 1 tsp brandy and 1 Tbsp water to chocolate and sugar while melting. Once melted stir in 1/4 cup champagne. Then proceed with whipping and chilling as above. For these, I rolled in sugar crystals. So pretty!

Basic Marinara

An authentic Italian marinara sauce is much easier than you might think. To the eye, the sauce looks like nothing but tomatoes. But the flavor has a hint of garlic. This puzzled me for awhile when we lived in Italy. Finally, the chef at a local restaurant showed me how it was done.

You smash a couple cloves of garlic. Toss them in a pot with olive oil, heating on medium low until the garlic is golden. Remove the garlic. Let the oil cool a bit so it doesn't splatter. Add tomatoes of your choice. (I like tomato puree, but you can use whole cherry tomatoes, or chopped tomatoes.) Add a generous amount of salt. If your sauce tastes at all bitter, add more salt. Heat until warm throughout. Then, if you'd like you can add fresh or dried basil and oregano. Super easy! I like to add dried basil and oregano if I'm using it as pizza sauce. Otherwise, I leave it plain. There aren't really measurements, but if you must have them: 3 cups tomato puree, 2 cloves garlic, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp each dried basil and oregano (or 3 leaves fresh basil, chopped)

Delicious VEGAN and GLUTEN FREE Muffins. Oh Yeah!

First I made heavy, dense, gummy, gross muffins. Then I made gooey muffins. Then I made crumbly muffins, which were acceptable, but not excellent. These, however, are just right. Moist, yet light. Good texture without crumbling. And oh so tasty! I may have had two and a half today.

Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Muffins

Author: Brandi Fox

Makes: 12

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup potato starch

2/3 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life allergy free dark chocolate chips)

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Wet Ingredients:

1 banana

3 Tbsp flaxmeal + 1/2 cup boiling water

1 Tbsp molasses

4 Tbsp sunflower (or other mild flavored) oil

1 Tbsp vanilla (this is homemade, so not as strong, reduce to 1 tsp for store-bought)

1/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used coconut "beverage" that comes in a box, not the canned stuff)

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (or if you have convection, 350 degrees). Line a 12 cup muffin tin with parchment paper or cupcake liners. 

First combine your flax and boiling water in a small bowl, and set aside. It will gel up into a thick slurry as it sits. In another small dish, combine the non-dairy milk and vinegar, and set aside. 

Combine dry ingredients other than chocolate and walnuts in a large bowl and whisk until evenly combined. Then stir in chocolate and walnuts. 

In a medium bowl, mash up your banana. Add your flax slurry, molasses, oil, vanilla, and milk/vinegar. Whisk well to combine. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture. 

Fold and gently stir to combine, scraping sides. I like to use a flat silicone spatula for this. From what I've read, gluten free baking is actually more forgiving when it comes to handling. With wheat, you always want to be very gentle when stirring batter for muffins and cakes, mixing only until just combined. This is to avoid activating the gluten. No gluten, no worries. But there's no reason to over mix. So just stir until it's all wet. 

Spoon into lined muffin tin. I ran out of cupcake liners. Parchment paper cut into squares works in a pinch. At altitude EVERYTHING STICKS. It's ridiculous. 

Bake until golden brown on top (these browned beautifully, much better than my wheat ones ever did!) and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (assuming you don't hit a chocolate chip). Mine were done in exactly 20 minutes. 

 

Lookin' good!

Remove to a baking rack to cool so that your bottoms don't get soggy. No one wants a soggy bottom.

I honestly think these are better than my wheat recipe. They have a nice brown crust and a moist inside. You could easily switch out blueberries or other fruit for the chocolate chips. They have a very subtle banana flavor. You could add another banana if you wanted (I'd reduce the oil to 2 Tbsp, though). This is a very versatile recipe. 

Now, for food geeks like me, I'll share a little bit of what is working and why:

First, I'm at altitude. It's the Mile High City, after all. You may need to make adjustments if you are down at sea level. I have found that vegan baking at altitude turns out better (lighter) if you make "buttermilk" by adding a little vinegar or lemon juice to your non dairy milk. Things rise more easily up here, too. The danger is over-rising and then falling. So, generally you reduce the baking powder a bit. Therefore, if you are at sea level, you may want to go up to 2 1/2 tsp of baking powder. Altitude also affects temperature. Everything I've ever read says to increase temperature and reduce baking time. However, that has resulted in burnt food every time I've tried it. For me and my oven, reducing the temp works best. I'd say start at 375 for these, as that is pretty standard. 

One of the most interesting things I discovered with Gluten Free is that it is good friends with Vegan. At first I was afraid to leave out the eggs. I tried making the Joy of Cooking muffin recipe just substituting rice flour for the wheat and using the vegan "buttermilk" while keeping the egg. They were okay. But not exceptional. A little on the crumbly side, particularly after freezing. After reading about substituting flax for xanthan gum, I felt braver about ditching the eggs. I've always had success using 1 tbsp of flaxmeal plus 3 tbsp of water as an egg substitute for vegan baking. When I read that flax plus boiling water creates that gum-like binding property I wanted to give it a shot. So, for these I used 1 tbsp flaxmeal with 1/4 cup boiling water. It worked great! Yay!

For the flour/starch combo: You want a total of 2 cups. I've read that about 30-40% should be starch, and the rest a combination of flours. Rice flour is light and grainy. Almond flour is dense and moist. Together they are delightful! Almond flour (or meal) is high in fat, so the more of that you use, the less oil you will want. Keep that in mind if you want to tweak the ratios. For the starch, I used potato. It is flavorless. I like it. There are others you could try, too, though. 

This new baking adventure has been scary and frustrating. I really prefer cooking to baking because I like being able to taste and adjust as I go. With baking, I spend a half hour or more working on something, plus the expense of the ingredients, and have no idea how it is going to turn out. I am so very happy these turned out so well. And I'm really glad I took notes while baking them! Haha!

MIA

The holidays are upon us and I have been so busy! The week before Halloween was spent in a scramble to make costumes. Last week was a blur of craziness as I ran around after three kids every evening while my husband worked late. Let it be said that I never take for granted all that he contributes to our household...even though it may sound like I do, occasionally, maybe, haha. They say it takes a village, but no one really has that anymore. So, sometimes life is about just getting by. That's been the past few weeks for me.

In the midst of all the madness, I have realized that I need to eliminate wheat/gluten from my diet in addition to the dairy restriction. The littlest Fox was not faring well on second hand wheat. So, that has thrown a wrench in all my baking. I love baking bread. To bake a crusty loaf of no-knead bread (here's my favorite) is to be a magician for a day. Further, I love the convenience of a bag of homemade muffins waiting in the freezer for a quick breakfast. So now what? Well, I've been experimenting and will have some recipes to post. I had some epic fails to begin with. Realized that xanthan gum is grown on corn, so can't be used in anything for my middle child who is allergic to corn. Plus, it's kind of gross (it's a bacteria, ew!). Nearly every GF recipe calls for xanthan gum, so I've been trying to figure out substitutes. But today, oh bless it, today I made a delicious, never know it's gluten free, muffin. Really, it was perfect. 

I will have that recipe (and more) coming soon!

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A Quick Quinoa Salad

Say that five times fast! I can barely say it once. But cooking it up is far less difficult. This is a quick lunch I made this week. It keeps well in the fridge for a few days and packs well for lunches. You can eat it as one-bowl meals like this or use it to stuff winter squash. One night for dinner last week, I made stuffed acorn squash with the quinoa-pistachio-cranberry combo. It was really good!

Quinoa Salad

1 cup dry quinoa
olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 zucchini
1 red pepper
1 yellow squash
(any other veggies you like)
1 can pinto beans
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cumin
dash of cayenne or crushed red pepper
salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Cook your quinoa as per the package directions (or with slightly less water for a firmer bite). Chop your veggies into bite sized pieces. Then, in about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat, saute your onion until golden. Add garlic, stirring until aromatic (about 30 seconds). Stir in your spices and cook for another 30 seconds. Add your veggies and a splash of water or broth. Cover and cook until tender. In a large bowl, combine cooked quinoa, veggies, and beans. Serve with fresh cracked salt and pepper.

This is easily modified for a variety of flavors. Try these combinations:

Lemon juice, oregano, broccoli, and white beans
Orange zest, a dash of cayenne, pomegranate nibs, and chickpeas (I think that will be lunch tomorrow! yum!)
Curry powder, lentils (or mung), and butternut squash
Pistachios, cranberries, and thyme

Quinoa is a great source of protein and an incredibly versatile grain. It can take on a wide variety of flavors and even be used in gluten free baking. If you've never had it, give it a shot.