Make Your Own Aloe Juice

I had not planned on making aloe juice when I saw this giant aloe leaf for sale at No Frills. I just saw it and thought it looked neat and maybe I could eat it. I failed to find any good recipes for it so it sat in my fridge for a while until I saw how to make aloe juice on TV. I think it was on Steven & Chris but I don't remember. Though there are a few steps involved none are difficult and aloe juice is good for you. One leaf makes a lot of "juice" so it is pretty economical and there are no stabilizers in it liked the bottled aloe juice. Aloe helps keep your digestive system healthy so be warned, if you have never had aloe juice before it may effect you in some way. I did not notice any affect so my guess is the juice is not too strong.
 

Step 1: Cut off the base and top of the leaf. Trim off the sides as well. Place in a pitcher and let the bitter juice drain out for at least 30 minutes. Discard the bitter juice.

Step 2: Carefully cut off (or fillet) the straighter green bit.

Step 3: Once off, scrape out the innards with a spoon. 

Step 4: Add the jelly to a pitcher and fill with water.

Step 5: Let it sit for 6 hours, I put mine in the fridge for this. 

Step 6: Strain the infused water into another pitcher and it is ready to drink! Keep any excess jelly as you can add more water to that jelly to make more juice. You can reuse the jelly over and over again until it all dissolves away. 

Super Creamy Vegan Beer and Mozzarella Mac and Cheese

I have made this recipe twice now and it keeps getting better. The amounts are estimates because I am still working on it and when I am developing my own recipes I don't usually measure. I will next time I make it. This is a recipe that doesn't need exactness so I am going to post it now anyway.

Ingredients

• pasta (enough for 4 people)
• 4 Tb oil
• 5 Tb flour
• 3/4 cup strong beer 
• Water
• 1/2 package mozzarella Daiya
• Pinch red pepper flakes 
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1Tb nutritional yeast 

Directions 

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile heat oil in separate pot.
2. Gradually stir in flour. Gradually stir in beer. 
3. Add a bit of water and stir. Continue to add water and stir until you have a creamy white sauce.
4. Stir in cheese, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and nutritional yeast.
5. Mix finished pasta into the sauce and serve with a sprinkle of paprika. 
6. Eat some awesome mac n' cheese.

*****UPDATE*****

A sprinkle of paprika adds a lot of flavour to the dish. You can substitute cheddar Daiya for the mozzarella for a beer and cheddar version. 

Really Easy Tahini Pasta

This is my go to recipe when I want to eat a whole lot of pasta with out going to the trouble to make a tomato or cream sauce. It is a great weeknight meal because it is fast. I usually make a lot of it and have a huge serving.

Ingredients
Pasta (enough for 2-4 people)
1/4 cup tahini
1 T lemon juice
1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup margarine
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile mix the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. When pasta is cooked mix it in with the rest and your done. Super easy :)

Super Tasty Roasted Red Pepper Soup

This recipe involves minimal work and is pretty quick to make. Most importantly though, it tastes really good. This is one of the more flavourful recipes in my repertoire.

Ingredients
1 jar of roasted red peppers
3 cups veggie broth
1 cup orzo (or any pasta you like, or even rice)
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes

Directions
1. Dump the jar of peppers into a blender, liquid and all, and blend. Set aside.
2. Bring 3 cups of broth to a boil and add orzo (or pasta or rice). Cook until tender while stirring frequently. To save time you can add all the seasonings to the boiling broth as the orzo cooks.
3. Once orzo is tender add the red pepper puree. Cook until heated through and serve. Enjoy!

Improve your Dairy Free Baking with Lemon Juice

I am a bit of a chemistry nerd so lately I have been trying to learn as much about food chemistry as I can find. One little tip that has made a massive difference to my cooking is to add a bit of lemon juice to recipes that contain milk alternatives. It is not enough to replace dairy milk with soy or almond or other milks in any recipe that you want to rise up or get fluffy. Baking soda and baking powder are basic and need a bit of acid to react to so you get some bubble action. Dairy milk is acidic so if you are substituting it for another milk you must also add some acid like a citrus juice or vinegar. I started adding a touch of lemon juice to my pancakes and the results have been fabulous. They are nice and light and fluffy. This trick should work for any recipe that doesn't already contain an acid.

How to Make a Simple Vegetable Stock

I have never been  to culinary school so there is probably a proper way to make stock that I don`t know about but I find this method easy and cheap. I can`t bare the thought of chopping up a bunch of good, edible veggies, boiling them all day then throwing the veggies out. It`s too wasteful. I don`t have the cash to justify that kind of action.

Instead, I keep a big ice cream container (not my ice cream, my husband would eat it a while ago so I saved the containers) in my freezer. When I chop up veggies through the week, I take the best trimmings and add them to the container. Ideal trimmings can be anything really but mine include pepper middles, herb stems, tops of leeks, mushroom stems, celery leaves etc. Be sure to wash well and don`t add anything spoiled, rotten or moldy.

When you have a good pile of veggies, add them to a stock pot with ample water and 2-3 bay leaves. I use the broken up bay leaves because you will not have to fish these out anyway so it is a good time to use them up. Bring the whole thing to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Simmer until half the water has evaporated and your done. You can salt as desired or maybe use some lemon pepper instead if you are avoiding salt.

The stock works well as a soup base. Just add some veggies, water if needed, maybe a handful of sunflower seeds and a few cubes of tofu then boil a bit and your done :)

Quick and easy Breakfast Smoothie

One of my favorite and super easy recipes to make for breakfast is a Banana-Strawberry Smoothie. I like to have some protein in it so I throw in a spoonful or two of hemp seed. Hemp seed is full of high quality protein. It's one of the best sources you can get. I also add ground flax seed which has fiber and omega 3 fatty acids. I choose ground over whole seed because it is easier to absorb nutrients from the ground seed. Also, it is important to choose brown flax seed. The golden flax does not have as high a concentration of omega 3 fatty acids. For a more filling smoothie, you could add half a cup of raw, soaked cashews which will also make the smoothie seem creamier.

To make the smoothie, blend...
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 banana
2 tbsp hemp seed
1 tbsp ground brown flax seed
a few ice cubes

Healthy Reset Week

Fourth Floor Homestead has recently moved onto the eighth floor of a high rise building in a brand new, more urban neighborhood. As a result of this, all of my time has been devoted to moving and cleaning as well as taking care of baby. Healthy eating has not been the priority it should be for the last month. For this reason I have decided to pour some energy into developing an extra healthy meal plan for the week ahead.

The recipes I am including are all high in vegetables and low in processed goods and sugars. Though this is not a detox I will still try to drink lots of water as I have been finding it difficult to stay hydrated. Breast feeding takes a lot of liquid out of you and I don't like the taste of the water here. I am back to buying water unfortunately but I try to buy as big of a container as possible so as to not add water bottles to landfills.

I have been relying on fried foods and sugars to keep my calories up but this reset will force me to find a healthier way of doing that. Perhaps increasing the serving size will suffice, I'll have to experiment a bit. I made a large batch of hummus to snack on through out the day and intend to make lots of snacks. I hope to post the recipes here as I go. Hopefully I'll have the time to do it :)

The hummus recipe I used will be in it's own post. For supper tonight we had this Spicy Raw Vegan Carrot Soup from Beautiful Vegan and toast with hummus. I made the recipe with a few changes, most notably I cooked it. I was hoping to eat it raw but I am an onion wimp and the soup was too spicy for my so I mellowed it with a couple minutes on the stove. The consistency remained the same so the soup didn't cook too much. I sprinkled on some flax oil, paprika, sunflower seeds and cilantro to garnish. I quite enjoyed the soup and would make it again.

Easy Hummus

Hummus is such a blank slate. It's easy to make and there is so much you can do with it. Chickpeas are healthy and a great source of protein so it's a good idea to add them to your diet when you can. This week I experimented with herbs and garlic. I'm going to try to make up a new hummus every week for a while. I am happy with the result so here is the recipe.


1 cup dried chickpeas
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic
paprika
1/2 tsp dry oregano
pinch of tarragon
salt and pepper


a few basil leaves
a small bunch of cilantro


1. Cook the chickpeas in a slow cooker until tender in about 4 cups of water. This takes a few hours. Drain the peas and add them to a food processor with all the other ingredients except the fresh herbs.
2. Blend until creamy. Add herbs and blend until well mixed. Enjoy!

Asia meets Italy: Pizza Dumplings!

 Most of the time when I try making a new recipe off the cuff, it needs a lot of tweaking. Recipes normally evolve for me slowly over time. Not the case with pizza dumplings. They were a hit right away. This is not the most "from scratch" recipe but it tasted good so I'm posting it anyway.

Ingredients
Dumpling wrappers
Vegan pepperoni
Daiya Mozzarella 'cheese'
Pizza Sauce

Directions
1. Lay out a dumpling wrapper. Add a teaspoon of pizza sauce, a slice of pepperoni and a sprinkle of 'cheese'.
2. Wet the rim of the dumpling with a little water.
3. Fold and squish the outer edges together to form a half circle as shown below.
4. When you have a good sized batch of dumplings ready, boil some water then add your dumplings. They will float to the top when ready.
5. Lay out the finished dumplings to dry a little while you heat a frying pan then fry dumplings in a bit of oil. I drained the finished dumplings on some paper towel. Enjoy :)

Goji Berry Freezer Fudge

I love fudge. It's not something I get to have very often anymore but I needed to use up my goji berries so I tried out this recipe. Unfortunately I could tell that this fudge was not going to set after it was done. It was just too runny. So I made a few modifications and as long as it is stored in the freezer, this fudge remains fudge.

1 cup tahini
4 TB cocoa powder
2 TB honey
2 TB coconut oil
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup goji berries
1/2 cup icing sugar
graham cracker crumbs

Directions
1. Blend all ingredients but the graham cracker crumbs in a high speed blender.
2. Place a thin layer of crumbs in a square brownie pan. Pour in the fudge and carefully spread out.
3. Freeze until set. Cut into squares, dust with icing sugar and eat while chilled. Store leftovers in the freezer.

Original recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-nut-fudge-180256#ixzz1jCr5KqPw

Fajitas

Before swearing off meat I used to enjoy fajitas rather regularly. Since then I tried making them with just the fried pepper and onion but I found them a little plain. Marinated mushrooms were the solution to that problem. I found the marinade recipe in the cookbook Vegan Fire & Spice that I got from the library. I since returned the book so I might be missing a few minor ingredients but I committed the main ones to memory and I didn't follow the recipe exactly anyway. We really liked how this turned out and are planning to have it again.

Marinade Ingredients
1/2 cup lime juice
1 jalapeno, seeded and sliced
1 tsp salt
1 clove minced garlic

Other Ingredients
2 portabello mushrooms, sliced
red pepper, sliced
onion, sliced
zucchini, sliced
1 tbsp oil

tortillas
salsa
vegan sour cream

Directions
1. Mix marinade ingredients together and mix in mushrooms. Let sit in the fridge for a few hours.
2. Fry onions in a skillet in the oil until they start to brown. Add pepper, zucchini and mushrooms. Fry until mushrooms are cooked.
3. Load up your tortillas with the salsa, sour cream and veggie mix. Roll or fold and enjoy :)

Super Healthy, Almost Instant Asian Soup

I threw this soup together today for dinner. I tend not to want to put a lot of effort into a meal if I am the only one eating it. This was really easy and really quick. The miso and the wakame make it quite healthy. I added toast because it is not the most filling soup. The wakame is extra awesome if your thyroid is sluggish as it contains a healthy dose of iodine. Most people get their iodine from seafood or table salt. I don`t eat fish so seaweed is a healthy way to get iodine in my diet. Miso, a fermented soy product, is a tasty way to get your B vitamins. I did not expect to like miso soup because it is so touted as a health food but it is surprisingly good.

Ingredients
1 pk miso soup mix
wakame seaweed
longxu noodles (any quick cooking noodle will do)
1-2 cups water

Directions
1. Add water to a small pot and set to max. Sprinkle in some wakame and add some noodles. Once boiling, boil until noodles are cooked.
2. Mix in miso soup mix. Enjoy!

A Great Recipe for Stuffed Tomatoes

I tried out this stuffed tomato recipe tonight and am very happy with the results. It's not my own recipe, it can be found here. There are a few steps involved in this dish but it was still pretty easy to make and it didn't take very long. What I like most about it is the potential to make the dish look pretty. Also, it tasted pretty good. The recipe made a lot more lentil stuffing than I had tomatoes to stuff but I suspect I can fry up the leftovers and it will make a good breakfast tomorrow. I added some dried parsley as a garnish though I would have used fresh if I had some as that would have been prettier. 

Raw Cookie Dough that Won`t Make You Sick

Cookie Dough!

I love cookie dough. When I was a kid I always wanted to eat it but I was not allowed to because of the raw egg. One year my mom bought a tub of white chocolate macadamia nut cookie dough and left most of it in the freezer. Little did she know that I was sneaking it little by little until the tub was empty. It was good dough, it had to be done.

Now that I`m an adult and can eat whatever I want I make cookie dough for the purpose of eating it raw. There is no egg in any recipe I make now but I purposely leave out baking ingredients because they are just not necessary. I also don`t measure the ingredients so these are approximations.

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup of margarine
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
water
chocolate chips

Directions
Cream together first three ingredients. Mix in flour and chocolate chips. If too dry, add water to desired consistency  Enjoy!

Awesome Slow Cooker Chili

I got a slow cooker yesterday and had to make some chili to try it out. It worked great despite costing around $20. This chili tasted great. I've made it before without the slow cooker by using canned beans but I like the slow cooker version because dried beans are so much cheaper. I always use fresh tomatoes as they are much healthier than canned tomatoes and taste so much better. Tomatoes, being rather acidic, leach BPA out of the plastic lining inside the can. Fresh tastes better anyway so th BPA gives me an excuse to use them. I served this chili in big mugs with a home made bread.

Ingredients

1 cup of dried beans (I used half kidney, half black eyed peas)

5 cups of water

1 tbsp oil

1 large chopped onion

2 cloves minced garlic

4 chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp chili powder

1/2 tsp curry powder

2 tsp cumin, ground

1/4 tsp ground cayenne

salt to taste

Directions

place beans and water in slow cooker on high until beans are cooked. This took my slow cooker about 5 hours. If there is a lot of water remaining after cooking time, ladle some out (there should not be a full layer of water covering the beans). Heat oil in frying pan then add onion. Fry for about five minutes then add garlic and continue to fry until garlic is golden but not browned. Add to the slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients to cooker. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve.

Quick and Easy Potato Soup with Dumplings

I made this soup tonight and remembered just how simple it is so I thought I would post it. It's the perfect recipe for a weeknight because it is so quick, requires little prep and is nice and filling. My husband is a fan.

Servers 2-4

Ingredients for Soup

4 potatoes, peeled and chopped

4 cups of vegetable broth

1-2 cups water

1/2 cup soy milk (or other kind of milk)

Ingredients for Dumplings

1/4 cup soy milk (or other kind of milk)

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup of Flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Directions

For the soup, add broth, water and potatoes to a pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat if needed and boil until potatoes are tender. Mash potatoes with a masher while in pot. Its fine if the potatoes are a bit lumpy as that is just added texture. Add soy milk.

For dumplings, mix soy milk, oil and lemon juice in a small mixing bowl. Add flour, salt and baking powder to the bowl and mix. Cut dough into 4 and drop into soup. Cover and let steam for 5-10 minutes and serve.