Roasted Corn, Black Bean, and Mango Salad

How ours turned out! delicious!

On hot summer days when you’re appetite isn’t quite so heavy, a light fruit and vegetable salad is a great option. Simple, easy to make, and healthy are all the positives of this favorite dish. For a few weeks here in the midwest, we’ve had some cooler days, staying in the low-70s. But… today was a bit different. Jumping up to the 90s, today was definitely a day for a light meal! In one of my dad’s favorite cookbooks, Cooking Light, we found a great recipe for a vegan salad, rich with a great combination of textures and colors. Reds, yellows, greens, and jet black will fill your plate, promising a great meal for a hot summer’s day.

This recipe is revised to my taste. To get to the original, you can click the link above, titled ‘Cooking Light’

Ingredients…

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• about 6 ears of corn, with the kernels cut off and put into a bowl.
• 2 cups diced peeled ripe mango (about 2 pounds)
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 3-4 limes)
• fresh cilantro, chopped (about 1-2 tablespoons per plate)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 chipotle chile, chopped (canned in adobo sauce, with about 1 teaspoon of the sauce)
• 2 (15 oz.) cans of black beans, rinsed and drained.
• red leaf lettuce leaves, about 5 for each plate

Directions…

  

• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium to high heat.
• Stir in corn kernels and garlic (at the same time), cook about 6 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.

  

• Then add in red onion, red bell, salt, cumin, and chipotle. Cook for 2 more minutes.
• Empty the skillet into a large bowl, then add in the mangos, lime juice, and black beans.

To Serve!

Can be served hot or cold, or over rice.

  

• Arrange about 5 lettuce leaves on each plate.
• Scoop about 1 or 2 cups of the corn mixture onto the lettuce.
• Sprinkle about 1 or 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro over each plate.

ENJOY!

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Vegan Sushi with Sweet and Spicy Chili Veganaise Sauce

The finished product! Yummy!

     This recipe stems from Giada at Home’s recipe for Vegetable Rolls with Chili Mayonnaise. But, of course, I couldn’t find the rice paper/cellophane noodle wraps at my local grocery. So, already having the know-how to make sushi, I just used the recipe for the chili mayonnaise sauce with some vegetables and rolled that. But, obviously, mayonnaise isn’t vegan and there was also fish sauce in the origional recipe, so I substituted some things and changed a few ingredients around to make it vegan. Hope you try it!

Ingredients for the Sauce

• 1/2 cup veganaise
• 1/3 cup sweet thai chili sauce
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Ingredients for the Rolls

• 1/3 red bell pepper
• 1/3 yellow bell pepper
• 1/3 green bell pepper
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1 large carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 pack nori, which are seaweed wraps for sushi (about 10 sheets, you’ll only need 3-4)
• about 4 cups cold, cooked sticky rice (short grain), I made mine the day before.

Directions

For the chili mayonnaise:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the veganaise, chili sauce, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, brown sugar, mint, and basil.
2. Cut up the vegetables into shoots about 1/4 inch wide and 3 inches long.
3. Mix in the vegetables and let sit.

For Rolling:

• Place a nori sheet on your cutting board.
• Spoon about 3 small piles of sticky rice onto it.
• Before you spread it, DIP YOUR FINGERS IN WATER! This will make it easier and the rice won’t stick to your hands. Then spread the rice evenly on the sheet, and remember to leave about a 1 inch margin at the top.

               

• Onto the lower half of the sheet, place a few pieces of vegetables from the sauce bowl.
• Start slowly wrapping from the lower half up.
• Once you get to the 1 inch of nori left at the top, dip your finger in water and slide it across the margin. (This will keep it sealed.) Finish rolling.

               

• With a VERY SHARP knife, carefully slice the log into rolls. (You might want to junk the ends, they usually turn out uneven and loose, but the rest of the log is great!)
• Finish rolling all of your ingredients into rolls.

To Serve!

To serve these rolls, arrange them on a large plate or seving dish. On the side, have a small bowl for soy sauce at each setting. As an extra, you could have wasabi and pickled ginger on the serving dish with the sushi. Chopsticks are great, too!

 

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Tasty and Traditional Vegan Curry

This curry is absolutely AMAZING. It is an easy recipe to make, and you can throw in most of the vegetables that are just sitting in your fridge or freezer. The ingredients are all very cheap, and I would think most people would have them already in their houses, but there are various spices. The curry freezes well, I usually make more than I would eat normally so I can freeze it. This is a superb recipe, especially with naan or pita bread on the side. This curry is the best served over yellow or white rice.

Ingredients:

1 large onion, diced

3 toes garlic, minced

2 cans garbanzo beans

3-4 handfuls spinach

1 can hominy

3 cans diced tomatos

5 small potatoes, peeled and diced (if you use red jacket potatoes, they do not need to be peeled)

4 cups vegetable broth or water

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp cumin (I used 1/2 tsp whole cumin and 1/2 tsp ground cumin)

2 tbsp curry powder (A good quality curry powder makes a very big difference!)

1 bay leaf

1/4 tsp basil

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp tumeric

1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:

Heat 2-3 tbsp in a VERY LARGE skillet or pot (I used a pot, just make sure you have a lid that fits on whatever you use), and throw in the onion. Cook 2-3 minutes and add the garlic garbanzo. Cook a few more minutes.

Add in the garbanzo beans, hominy, spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, water/broth, spices and herbs, and reduce the heat to medium-low and cover.

 Cook until the potatoes are soft and most of the liquid has cooked off. Remove from heat, then mash some of the solids to thicken the sauce.

Serve over yellow or white rice. (I have a recipe for yellow rice on this blog named “Authentic Yellow Rice”) With naan or pita bread on the side.

Enjoy!

Note: You can add in almost any kind of vegetables to recipe, I have used corns, okra, and many others. Just experiment!

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Savory Dark Chocolate and Fruit Granola Bars

Today, I was surfing the web for a decent granola bar recipe to test, when I stumbled upon a blogspot.com blog, ‘The Savory Notebook’. Being a blogger myself, I was immediately interested. The picture was exquisite, and I knew right then, that it was the right recipe for me. I substituted some of the ingredients and changed around some things, so here is the html to the original page; http://savorynotebook.blogspot.com/2005/08/chewy-peanut-butter-granola-bars.html, and here is my version, enjoy!

Ingredients

1/2 cup roasted salted peanuts

1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds

1 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup dried cherries

2 cups toasted rolled oats

2 cups puffed brown rice cereal

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup chilled Ghirardhelli dark chocolate chips

Cut up the dried cherries into smaller pieces in a large bowl if needed, then add the golden raisins and dried blueberries. Mix in the cinnamon and vanilla extract. Stir well.

Combine peanuts, sunflower seeds, toasted oats, and puffed rice with the fruit, stir, and set aside.

Combine the peanut butter, brown sugar, light corn syrup and honey in a microwavable bowl and heat on high for about 1 to 2 minutes. Stir, then fold it, along with the Ghirardhelli dark chocolate chips, into the dry mixture for a few minutes, or until fully incorporated.

Scoop the mixture into a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with a sheet of wax paper on the bottom with enough slack to use the sides to lift the granola bars out when they are fully cooled. Press down the granola mixture on the top with another sheet of wax paper, until even and your ideal thickness and density is reached.

Let bars cool for 1 to 2 hours, before cutting into bars.

http://savorynotebook.blogspot.com/2005/08/chewy-peanut-butter-granola-bars.html

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