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!

Tutorial: Customize a Tiny Chair

I am making a custom desk so I have a place to study in January (going to Naturopathic med. school and I'm super excited). I will have more on the desk later but to go with the desk I have a pretty generic folding seat.

Before...

This is of course too boring so I felt the need to customize it. It is really easy to do.

Unscrew the screws that hold the cushion on. 

Select a pretty fabric and cut a round piece that is about 10 cm bigger than the cushion all the way around.  

Attach the fabric to the cushion any way you like. I just used scotch tape. 

Make sure that the holes corresponding to the screws are accessible either by taping around them or cutting some holes in the fabric.

Then you just have to re-screw the cushion back on and your done :).  

Small Storage Solution... Gotta Start Somewhere

From this...

To this.

I have a little problem with our new apartment, there is just not enough storage space. We have a small linen closet that houses my cleaning supplies, luggage, towels, bedding, garbage bags, paper products etc... It's not the most organized of spaces so if I can save some space by condensing three boxes of garbage bags into one more verticle box it is worth the time. I put three openings into a cereal box and layered in the bags. Fast and easy and a tiny bit more organized. The closet still has a long way to go.

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

My Super Health Week: Day 1

My Super Health Week was a success in many respects but a failure in the sense that I could not find the time to actually post anything I was doing. I'm still figuring out where to find time with my little one in constant need of attention. He doesn't sleep very much during the day anymore so I have taken to doing multiple tasks with him in a sling. It's perfect, I get to actually clean and set up the apartment and the running around actually tires him out so he'll have a nap in the afternoon. As I have been quite tired I have not been utilizing the night hours as well as I could have been. I am going to make an effort to have the apartment tidyish before I go to bed every night. We'll see how long that goes for.

Back to Super Health Week...
Day 1

I started the morning off with a smoothie called "The Charmer and the Kale" from The Raw Food Cleanse by Penni Shelton. I tend to use a lot of recipes from this book as they are very high in fruits and veggies and my husband seems to like them. This smoothie is made by blending the following...

a handful of kale
some pineapple
1 apple
Strawberries
ice and water

Her recipe is more specific but I really don't measure when it comes to smoothies. The morning is too early for measuring.

I'm not going to record what I ate for lunch every day because it is not interesting. Generally I ate leftovers from the night before or fixed a simple salad with some toasted, homemade bread.

For dinner on Day 1 we had a delicious carrot soup from beautiful vegan. The recipe is raw but I brought it to a quick boil to make the onion a little less strong. I added flax oil because I need to eat more flax oil. And that's day 1, now on to Day 2...

Super Health Week Continues

I am typing on a PlayBook and I am not great at it so hopefully I don't make a bunch of mistakes. Yesterday I began the day with a kale strawberry smoothie. It sounds weird but it tastes pretty good.  Unfortunately the recipe I used made 4 cups so I was drinking it all day. At lunch I had more hummus on some whole wheat bread with a few papadoms. Super had an unexpected addition. My husband had some dough rising in the oven which I  forgot about when I preheated the oven. So we had some bread to go along with our salad and stuffed mushrooms. The bread turned out surprisingly good so it was a happy mistake. I am making some more tonight. I'll post the recipes when I am not busy with baby. 

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

Apartment Tour: Bedroom

I'm kind of proud of our little apartment. This was the homiest place we've lived so far. This is the bedroom. I tried to keep the minimum in here in terms of furniture. The bassinet is fairly recent and also temporary as my little monster has grown out of it all ready.

I made the valence above the bed. It was pretty simple. I hung some bamboo ($0.80 each) with fishing line then draped fabric over them. I had to tie the fabric on with a bit of thread. I bought the fabric from the sale bin for $4.00.

The chair is second hand. There is a blanket draped over it so that it will match and has a reading lamp near by.

The comforter was $30. I got the throw pillows and bundled sticks on sale as well. Overall, this room was pretty cheap to put together.

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 :)

Custom Under the Bed Storage Boxes

I made these boxes a while ago. I am not going to include a tutorial because these are pretty basic to make. I just measured the space under the bed and cut out each side of the box separately. I double layered the cardboard for extra strength which made the job a lot bigger but it was worth it. I glued the two plys together with a hot glue gun then taped the sides onto a cardboard base. I coated them with white paper and cut out some patters to pretty 'em up. Hopefully this is not confusing but if anyone were up to copying these I'm sure they would be resourceful enough to figure it out or ask me in the comments. I made three boxes that fit all on one side. I could have made three more for the other side but I already have a purchased storage solution there.

If I had hardwood floors, I would have opted for putting drawers (from an old dresser) on wheels that could fit under the bed. I don't know where I saw the idea but it is awesome and probably less work. You would have to find the right sized drawers though which could be tricky.

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!

Roasting Red Pepper in the Oven

I must admit, I am a jarred roasted red pepper gal. Though way too expensive, it is just easier to buy roasted red peppers by the jar than to roast them myself. But then yesterday I finally had no choice. We had company coming over, I was serving a polenta dish with red pepper coulis. The polenta was made when my hubby came back from the grocery store with four plump red peppers instead of the two jars I requested. The store had run out. My poor husband had to make a call, get the pickled red peppers or get some fresh ones. He made the right choice, the pickled would have been useless.

So I was forced to roast the peppers myself. It was a bit of work but it was much cheaper, made a larger quantity and tasted great in the recipe. All I did was turn the oven to broil, put the clean whole peppers in a large casserole dish and broiled the peppers until the skin bubbled. I turned the peppers a few times to expose all of the skin. Once all the skin was bubbly I took the dish out of the oven, put on the lid and left the peppers to steam for 15 minutes before peeling off the skin. It was a bit of work but not overly difficult. Given the price of the jarred red peppers I suspect I will be roasting them myself going forward. 

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!