Lentil and Chickpea Coconut Milk Curry

Lentil and Chick Pea Curry with Coconut Milk adapted from source

• 3 tbsp oil (I used olive)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 1 thai chili, minced with seeds intact
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• lots of ground cumin
• lots of ground coriander
• lots of garam masala
• dash of salt
• 1 796mL can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 400mL can of coconut milk *
• 2 cups whole green lentils, rinsed and picked through
• 1 540mL can of cooked chickpeas, rinsed 
• a bunch of chopped cauliflower
• 1 floret of broccoli, chopped
• some fresh green beans, chopped
• 1 cup frozen peas
• plain yogurt (optional)

1. In a frying pan, heat oil over medium high heat.  
2. Add the onion and cook until soft, a minute or two.  Add the garlic and ginger, carrots, chili, spices and salt.  Stir well and cook for a couple of minutes.  
3. Transfer to slow cooker and stir in the crushed tomatoes, coconut milk, lentils, chickpeas.  Set on high.
4. Cook for about two hours, thereabouts, wandering into the kitchen periodically to stir things up a bit.
5. Add broccoli, cauliflower, peas, and green beans.  Stir some more.  
6. If curry is too thick, thin it with some water (I had to).
7. Scoop into bowls and top with plain yogurt (optional).  
8. Can be served with rice, or roti, or naan.  I choose to eat mine with mashed sweet potato and a tablespoon of yogurt, only because I was denied this opportunity in India, as they like their yogurt full-fat, and that's got too much lactose in it for my poor, lactose-intolerant stomach.  My liberal tablespoon of yogurt is 90% lactose free!

*Note: I was dumb when I was reading the original recipe, and I added TWO cans of coconut milk.  The original recipe does indeed call for that, but I think perhaps the poster was referring to two small cans of coconut milk.  She recommends 2 cans (540mL) of coconut milk.  I added 800mL of coconut milk, and that's waaaay too coconutty.  To compensate, I added a can of tomato paste, and reseasoned it with a veritable ton of garam masala and coriander.  It helped.  The original recipe also calls for indian curry paste (the Patak's stuff), but it contains sugar as one of its ingredients, so I couldn't use it.  I relied instead on the skills I learned cooking in India.  Instead of curry paste, I added a thai chili, more ginger, garam masala, and just upped the quantities of the other spices.  It seems to have worked.  

Lesson learned: don't be as dumb as me.  It's still tasty.  I just would have done it differently (ie: the recipe I've posted for you) a second time around.  

Salt and Vinegar Roasted Chickpeas

I might possibly live off of chickpeas.  I eat them in salads, as snacks, in curries, in hummus, and I've even puréed them and put them in pasta sauce.  Seriously, chickpeas are the shit.

Salt and Vinegar Roasted Chickpeas adapted from source

• 2 cups canned chickpeas
• 3-4 cups white vinegar
• 1 tsp Coarse sea salt
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Line a baking sheet with tin foil or parchment paper. 
2. Take chickpeas and vinegar and place in a medium sized pot. Add a dash of sea salt. 
3. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat. Let sit in pot for 30 minutes. 
4. Preheat oven to 425F. 
5. Carefully drain chickpeas. 
6. Place on lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt. Massage with fingers until fully coated. 
7. Roast for 45 minutes, flipping once half way through. 
8. Keep a careful eye on them after 35 minutes of cooking to ensure they don’t burn. The goal here is crispy and golden chickpeas, not black!

They're pretty tasty.  Though, next time, I'm going to use more salt.  A lifetime of being stingy with salt means that mine are more vinegary-tasting and less salty-tasting.  They're still delicious though!

Endurance Crackers - a homemade, gluten-free cracker!

Right.  Next recipe.

A little while ago, when I was still getting cravings, and frantically trying to figure out what I could snack on post-gym that wasn't my typical granola bar (yes, even the healthy ones have sugar in them!) ...I stumbled (quite literally, I StumbleUpon'd it) across this recipe for healthy, gluten-free crackers.  Crackers?  From scratch?  What an odd concept, I thought.
So naturally, I had to make them.

They are vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, and oil-free...and freaking delicious. 

Endurance Crackers adapted from source

Yield: 22 large crackers

• 1/2 cup chia seeds
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• a rather large handful of flax seeds
• a smattering of poppy seeds
• 1 cup water
• 1 large garlic clove, finely grated
• 1 tsp grated sweet onion
• some sea salt
• approx 1 tsp. of rosemary and cracked pepper, ground in the mortar/pestle 

1. Preheat the oven to 325F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2.  In a large bowl, mix the seeds together. In a small bowl, mix the water, grated garlic, and grated onion. Whisk well. Pour the water mixture onto the seeds and stir until thick and combined. Season with salt and herbs. 
3. Spread the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet with the back of a spoon until it’s less than 1/4 inch thick. Not to worry if a couple parts become too thin, you can just patch them up.
4. Bake at 325F for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, slice into crackers, carefully flip onto other side with a spatula. Bake for another 30 minutes, watching closely after about 25 minutes. The bottoms will be lightly golden in colour. Allow to cool completely on the pan. Store in a container or plastic baggy.

Nutritional Info: (per cracker, makes 22 large crackers): 77 kcals, 6 grams fat, 4 grams carbs, 0 grams sugar, 3 grams fibre, 3 gram protein.

Raw Vegan Brownies

Okay, well...

Blog#2.  I've been tossing this idea around for a while now, and a few friends have been hounding me to start one, so hey...I'm unemployed, I might as well start a food blog, right?  I make very little in the way of promises that I'll keep this up, or that you'll even want to eat the kinds of foods I like to cook, but I like cooking, and I like photography, and I like taking photos of my cooking.  

It just means I'm going to start using my dSLR instead of my iPhone.  

I really do love cooking.  I cook all the time.  When you're lactose intolerant, vegetarian, a bit of a health freak, and currently not consuming sugar and wheat, you kinda have to like cooking.  

Or frozen vegetables.  Take your pick. 

Anyhow, here's the first of a few recipes I'm going to streamline right off the bat.  I'll be making each recipe a post in its own, as that makes looking recipes up later in the recipe index far easier.  I recently started listening to this podcast called 'The Rawitarian', and the episode I listened to was about how to cook raw vegan brownies.  And I'll have you know, I listened to this podcast at the gym!

It's sugar-free, gluten-free, oil-free, no-bake, and vegan (duh!).  

Raw Vegan Brownies adapted from source

• 1 cup pecans 
• 1 cup medjool dates
• 5 tablespoons dark cocoa powder
• 4 tablespoons shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1. Place pecans alone in your food processor and process until the pecans become small and crumbly.
2. Pit dates, and then add them to the raw brownie recipe and process again until the mixture sticks together and the dates are well processed.
3. Add the remaining ingredients to this raw brownie recipe and process again until the mixture turns a lovely dark chocolatey brown. Stop processing before it gets too buttery. (There should still be air between the small bits so that you will be able to press them down into your brownie pan.)
4. Dump the mixture into a brownie dish or small cake pan and press down firmly using your clean hands.
5. Refrigerate this raw brownie recipe for a couple of hours. You do not have to refrigerate it, but it is much easier to slice when chilled. 
6. Store this raw brownie recipe in the refrigerator. (I actually keep mine cut into tiny one-inch squares in a bag in the freezer)

*Note: If you're a die-hard vegan, you'll notice there's honey in this recipe, and that's not strict vegan.  You're probably enraged.  It was in the original recipe, posted by a raw vegan site, and I happen to like honey.  I also happen to not be vegan.  That's how life works sometimes, non?