Stuffed Zucchini

This recipe is very roughly based on a stuffed eggplant recipe in my mum's old Joy of Cooking. I ended up with extra filling, but it's delicious and would go well in peppers or mushrooms. If my zucchinis look strange in this picture it's because I somehow grew teardrop shaped zucchinis. I am a gardening novice so please don't ask me how that happened! Corn is from my garden. It also turned out strange. Like gardener like garden?

Ingredients:
• 1-2 tsp canola oil
• 1 onion
• 2 zucchinis (or more, or less, depending on size of zucchinis)
• one tomato
• 5 brown mushrooms
• 1/4 yellow bell pepper
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/2 jalapeno (or more, if you like heat)
• 1 tsp vegetarian chicken broth powder
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 tsp veg Worcestershire sauce
• 5 strips tempeh bacon (store bought) or tofu bacon
to taste:
• Greek seasoning
• oregano
• cumin

• 2 tbsp+ bread crumbs
• a bit of shredded soy cheese (optional)

Prep:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Chop up the onion and fry on medium heat in the oil until it begins to brown. Make sure to stir onion periodically. Put the tempeh bacon on to fry in a separate pan, flipping to brown each side. If you are making tofu bacon, you will also need to add the bacon seasoning following browning. When the bacon is done, take it off heat, cut into bits and set aside. While onion and bacon is cooking, use an ice cream scoop or strong spoon to hollow out the inside of the zucchini, leaving about 1/2 inch wall thickness. Chop zucchini innards and set aside in a bowl. Chop the tomato, mushrooms, jalapeno, and garlic, and add to zucchini in bowl. When onion lightly browned, add all the other veggies from the bowl, the brown rice, the seasonings, and the tempeh bacon into the pan. Continue to stir until medium heat until veggies are just cooked (they will get some cooking time in the oven as well). Take the mixture off heat, and add in bread crumbs as needed to thicken. They should help the mixture stick together so it doesn't fall out of the zucchini. Stuff each zucchini. Filling can be overflowing out of the zucchini: pack it in there! Top with veg cheese if desired. Bake for 20 minutes in a casserole dish with a little bit of water in it.

Peppercorn Ranch Kale Chips

I made this up out of a bunch of ranch dressing and kale chip recipes. They're dehydrating in the oven right now, but I tried a few raw and they were delish. The herbs can be either fresh or dried. What's listed here reflects what I had! I did this to taste so measurements are approximate

8 very large fresh leaves of kale

1 cup raw cashews, soaked at least two hours in cold water (I did them overnight) and drained
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp whole black peppercorns
tops from 1 large spring onion, chopped (chives would also probably be good)
1/2 clove garlic
2 tsp dried thyme
2 sprigs chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp dried dill
4 leaves fresh basil

Wash kale and shake leaves dry (or use a salad spinner if you have one). Remove stems of kale and break into chip-sized pieces in a very large bowl.

Put all seasoning ingredients in a blender or food processor. Process on low, adding water or almond milk by tablespoonfuls as needed to help mix. The seasoning mix should be a fully-blended thick creamy paste, more like a nut butter consistency than a dip, when you are finished.

Use a spatula to scrape all the seasoning mix into the bowl with the kale. Massage the seasoning over the kale leaves, trying to cover all surfaces and avoid clumps of seasoning (which are delicious, but may deprive some kale leaves of having any seasoning!)

Spread leaves out onto parchment or silicone mat-covered baking sheets. If the leaves are too thickly layered, or clumped up, they will not dry as efficiently and you will end up with wet spots. A double layer works ok, but leaves should be spread out flat in layers.

You can do these in a dehydrator, but since I don't have one, I put the oven on its lowest setting (for my oven that's 175 F). You can also bake these at a higher temp, as I've seen in some recipes, but the risk of burning increases with the temp. Dry for 6-10 hours, or until chips are fully dry and crispy. They should crack when you touch them.

Green Tomato and Swiss Chard Sauté with Basic Tofu Scramble

Basic Tofu Scramble

• 2 tsp canola oil
• 1/2 block medium or firm tofu
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast (or to taste)
• 1/4 tsp Montreal steak spice (optional, alternately, add a pinch of salt)

Mash tofu in bowl. Mix in nutritional yeast and spice. Fry in canola oil on medium high heat until any liquid has boiled off.

Green Tomato and Swiss Chard Sauté

• 2 tsp canola oil
• 6 large washed leaves swiss chard
• one large green or partly green tomato
• 2 cloves garlic
• splash of balsamic vinegar
• pinch of salt


Cube the green tomato. Begin to fry in the canola oil, stirring periodically. While the tomato is frying, finely chop the garlic. When the garlic is chopped, add it to the tomato. Roughly cut up the swiss chard (including stems) and once the tomatoes are starting to crisp/brown on the outside, add in the chard and the splash of balsamic. Continue cooking until the chard is fully wilted/shrunken.

(Sugar Free) Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice "Cream"

This is my own recipe that I winged after reading a couple recipes for chocolate peanut butter ice cream (both vegan and non-vegan).

2 cups chocolate soy or almond milk*
3/4 cup natural peanut butter
1 cup pitted whole dates
heaping 1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup whole red skin peanuts

Put everything in blender. Blend, moving from low to high speed, until everything is smooth and creamy. Chill for at least 1 hour. Put into prepared ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. In my ice cream maker, it took about 15 minutes to be done because the mixture was quite thick. When it was done, it came out a perfect soft serve consistency, ready to eat. This is richly flavoured, deliciously fudgey in texture, and would go great with brownies. (Maybe add brownie chunks next time!?)


*I use commercially made, or a mix of commercially made and home made. I have discovered home made milks do not do as well in ice creams. Ice creams made with home made milks seem to form ice crystals so the texture is more like a sorbet than ice cream (not as creamy!) I think that ice cream benefits from the emulsifiers/thickeners they put in commercial vegan milks. I am going to try to get my hands on some xanthan gum to use as a thickener/emulsifier in my vegan ice creams.

This is NOT sugar free unless you use unsweetened soy/almond milk.