vegan feast

a few weeks ago one of my best friends, amanda, asked if i would be willing to cook a vegan dinner for her and her family. duh! so last night i did.

we made pad thai with mushrooms and red onion; a quinoa salad with baked rosemary eggplant, tomatoes, cucumber and roasted peppers; pan-fried tofu with a peanut sauce; and a blueberry vanilla cheesecake for dessert.

i brought strawberries, raspberries and cherries from the farmers market. they were so juicy and delicious. we put some on the cheesecake but i ate most of them for my dinner. amanda's family was a little confused as to why i had spent hours cooking an amazing vegan feast but then didn't eat any of it... being raw can be like that. anyway i did have some quinoa salad and it was SO GOOD. amanda and i are great team-mates.

as usual, every recipe was improvised BUT i will try to recall what we did, so i can share the deliciousness with you. amanda's family said it was super amazing, and her grandpa told me the cheesecake may be the best dessert he's ever had!

quinoa salad with tomatoes, cucumber, baked rosemary eggplant and roasted red peppers: serves 6-8

salad:
2 cups uncooked quinoa
1 eggplant
1 cucumber
4 tomatoes
3 roasted red peppers
handful fresh mint leaves
 
peanut sauce: 
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup water
4 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
3 cloves garlic, minced and crushed
4 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon each chili and cayenne powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar/agave syrup or other sweetener

follow the quinoa's cooking instructions, then leave it somewhere to cool down.
for the eggplant, slice into circles and put on a baking sheet. rub with olive oil, some salt and lots of chopped rosemary. bake it for about 20-30 minutes until the slices are  "mushy" and have soaked up the oil. chop the cucumber, tomatoes, red pepper, mint and eggplant slices and add to the quinoa.

for the peanut sauce, blend all ingredients until smooth. done! serve with peanut sauce.

blueberry cheesecake: makes 1 pie

crust:
1 cup walnuts
1 cup almonds
1 cup dates
1/2 teaspoon each of salt, cinnamon and vanilla extract

filling:
2 packages silken tofu
3 bananas
2 tablespoon melted coconut oil
2 cups raw cashews (preferably soaked for a few hours)
1/4 cup agave/maple syrup/honey
1/2 cup dates
3/4 cup blueberries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice

topping:
2 cups berries
3 tablespoons maple syrup/honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

for the crust: put all the nuts into your food processor and pule until they're crumb-sized. add all other ingredients and pulse until it sticks together. press into the bottom of a pie pan and refrigerate.
to make the filling, blend all ingredients until smooth. taste it and see if you want to change anything. when it's the way you like spoon it into the pie pan and refrigerate for 3 hours or until it's set. for the topping, mix all ingredients together gently and let sit in the sun or somewhere warm for an hour to let the juices out. you might have some filling left over by the way, but this is not a bad thing.

we used the same peanut sauce recipe (with a bit of added spice and soy sauce) to pan fry the tofu with and that turned out awesome, if not a little messy.

for the pad thai, you can just google vegan pad thai and use any of those recipes - there's some good lookin' ones out there. we added chives, carrots and mushrooms and onions sauteed with basil, salt and pepper. not exactly traditional but apparently it was well-received!

everybody wanted seconds of every thing, and her aunt and grandparents took leftovers home. it was a ton of fun and i want to do it again soon! making food for people is so rewarding and enjoyable for me.

raw pad thai - oh yes

*Strictly speaking, the sauce isn't totally raw. But c'mon. What're ya gonna do. If you really want a 100% raw sauce, make a blend of tahini (or other nut butter), chili, tamari, garlic and ginger.

The pasta of course, is just zucchini, sliced on le mandoline. Good news! Soon I will be purchasing one of these puppies from Organic Lives. Yippie! However, if you can only afford a mandoline - no worries! As you can see, they work just as well.

The sauce is a lot like authentic Pad Thai sauce, just healthier and vegan. I had my mom to guide me; she and my dad lived in Thailand for years before they had kids. That's probably a reason I love Thai food so much. It may be my favourite kind of cuisine.

Real Pad Thai is made with rice noodles, a tamarind-, chili- and fish sauce-based sauce, and topped with cilantro, chili paste, peanuts, bean sprouts and perhaps other veggies. Not a lot of meat in Thai food.

That's why they live so long =)

(Plus the daily manual labour, low calorie intake and unprocessed diet of local plants. They have no choice! The healthiest people in developing countries tend to be the middle class and lower-middle class; they can't afford meat, or the ability to sit around all day like us. 

It makes sense. For our ancestors (and still in most developing nations), calories were/are scarce so the fittest got the most. We simply apply that to modern day - the wealthiest get the fanciest (most calorie-dense) food. The only difference now is, in developed countries, calories are the OPPOSITE of scarce. They're in excess. Yet we still hold the ideal that more calories are better. Unfortunately, our brains agree, since they haven't had time to adapt to environmental changes.

Isn't it funny? Once you are rich (i.e. developed regions), you can afford unhealthy processed, animal-based foods, and you can afford to be lazy. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, celiac disease and even diabetes are seen virtually only in Western society. They are diseases of the wealthy. For more info on all this - read The China Study.

I'd rather use our fortune and wealth to my body's advantage. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to be the HEALTHIEST generation of all time. We have every nutritionally excellent food (i.e. raw plants and super foods) at our finger tips, and at very affordable prices. 

I love grocery shopping.  I go to the produce section and pick out my greens and fruit. Kale? A couple dollars a bunch; even cheaper for spinach and lettuce. Fruit? Depending on what it is, about a few dollars a pound. Vegetables? Even cheaper. 

The cheapest foods in the market are the ones that will give you a long, healthy life. 

Then you go past the meat and dairy section, and packaged food; they are all substantially more expensive. Why do we pay MORE for foods that will plague us with pain, discomfort, disease and eventually premature death?

The answer is complicated and simple at the same time. Basically: politics and tradition. I suggest you research this for yourself. It's fascinating, albeit mind-boggling.

My point in all this writing is this - we have been given the special chance to be the healthiest we can possibly be - for cheap. Being healthy costs far less than being sick, and it's way yummier. 

So let's eat to long life, not early death.

Let's eat RAW PAD THAI! (and Dilly Bars for dessert, anyone?) Nom. 

Radical Raw Pad Thai: serves 2, more or less

Sauce: 

1 Tb tamarind paste

1 Tb chopped ginger

1-2 cloves chopped garlic

1-2 Tb agave (or 1-2 dates)

6 Tb tamari

2 Tb chili sauce

3 Tb tomato puree

1 t chili flakes

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 t coriander

1/2 t paprika

Pinch of cayenne and chili, if you want it hotter =) 

Raw oil, if desired

Water, as needed 

Pasta:

1 large zucchini 

Garnish:

Cilantro

Raw jungle peanuts!

Bean sprouts

Hot sauce

Scallions

Marinated mushrooms and broccoli (put some tamari on and warm for an hour in the dehydrator) 

To makes the sauce, put all ingredients in blender and add enough water to just cover them. Blend until smooth, see if you want more heat, or anything else.

To make the pasta, slice the zuc on a mandoline or spiral slicer. Add enough sauce to evenly coat the noodles. Garnish. Eat! The heat of the chili makes this dish perfectly warming on its own - no heating necessary.

In other news: while I enjoyed my Pad Thai, the fam had a sandwich night. We used the best bread in the world, baked yesterday with love at The Common Loaf Bakery in Tofino. My mom also baked some eggplant (which I could not resist, and added to my pasta), tofu, and laid out a bunch of different toppings.

You know it was a successful dinner when my little brother, Daniel, was fighting for the last tomato, sprouts and lettuce!