My Life in a Pyramid

Curried Cauliflower Coconut Soup Recipe (Vegan) & Fats to Include if Eating Vegan

March 14, 2012 in Homemade, Let's Make it Quick!, Lunch, Nutrients, Soup/Stew, Vegan

Vegan_Curried_Coconut_Cauliflower_Soup4

I feel like I mention this in every blog post with a vegan recipe, but I just want to be very clear: I’m not a vegan. In fact, I really love raw dairy, grass-fed meat and wild seafood – I just haven’t blogged about them as much as I blog about vegan meals. Why? Simple answer: as an Orthodox Christian, I try to fast from animal products a few times per year, most notably during Lent (i.e. now). I find vegan eating to be quite challenging, because I love natural fats. They keep me satiated, help me stay in shape, and allow me to absorb fat-soluble vitamins in the salads I love to eat everyday. So in order to stay satiated and keep myself from gaining weight during these fasts, I have to get creative with my recipes, and find other sources of natural plant-based fats that can satisfy my cravings. Naturally, when I victoriously produce a satisfying vegan recipe, I am quite eager to blog about it!

Some plant-based fats I enjoy during Lent include:

Coconut – I love all things coconut, and include it in my diet even when I’m not fasting. I use virgin coconut oil to lightly saute veggies and in smoothies, and in vegan baking. I also use unsweeted, unsulfured shredded coconut in smoothies and baking, and coconut manna (dried whole, unsweetened coconut) in smoothies and all kinds of recipes, including this one for curried cauliflower soup. I do avoid store-bought coconut milk though, because a) it has added synthetic vitamins and is watered down b) the creamier ones are sold in cans, and I have a bias towards any kind of plastic lining, even “BPA-free”. I did make coconut milk at home, and I’m planning to blog about it, but it’s kind of a laborious process, so I’d stick with the coconut manna (dried coconut) dissolved in filtered water to make coconut “milk” – similar end result anyway. I also use coconut flour from time to time to make easy grain-free pancakes and crusts – yum! Anyway, all this to say: I really don’t think I can do a vegan fast without coconut!

Avocado – I make it no secret that I have an ongoing love-affair with guacamole, but I actually got really excited when I found that I could make a vegan creamy chocolate pudding using avocados a couple of weeks ago. Also, it’s worthwhile to note that avocados are super healthy (and ideal for glowing skin!) This article does a good job discussing some of the health benefits.

Ripe_Organic_Avocado

Nuts – There’s really no way to go without nuts if you’re a vegan for any period of time. My favorites are almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, pistachios and cashews. I eat them as is (as snacks), or I soak them and make nut milks, or use them in vegan (homemade) spreads, or even in desserts like this grain-free apple pie or this grain-free pumpkin pie.
High-quality extra virgin olive oil – It’s no secret that high-quality olive oil is good for health, and I use it liberally on raw salads and in dips. I also sometimes cook with it during vegan fasts, but I try not to do that very often because the jury is still out on how much olive oil oxidizes (releasing free radicals) when heated. I definitely don’t deep fry in olive oil (or any other vegetable oil for that matter). In case you’re curious, I use Nabali Organic Olive Oil from Canaan Fair Trade – one of the purest olive oils on the planet!

Nabali_Olive_Oil

How to make a vegan soup super creamy and filling …

If you’re making a vegan soup, but you still want it to have a creamy taste and consistency, you can’t use awesome homemade chicken broth/stock or bone broth, because … well, then it’s not vegan anymore. You also can’t use any dairy products like cream or milk to achieve the creamy effect you so crave. Another thickener used in soups is gluten (in the form of various flours), but if you’re avoiding gluten or grains for health reasons, you won’t be able to use those either. But don’t despair! There’s a great solution, my friends, and it’s called coconut! With coconut oil, manna (dried coconut), and homemade coconut milk, you can achieve the creamiest soup you’ve ever had, and it would still be vegan!

Vegan_Curried_Coconut_Cauliflower_Soup3

Now, for today’s recipe … if you’re new to cooking, you may be a little confused by the choice of flavors in this soup. Cauliflower + coconut + Indian spices … really? I can imagine some of you thinking, “will this be any good …?” Well, to assuage your fears, I don’t share things that I don’t drool over and crave, so yes, it’s delicious! This recipe was actually inspired by a recipe for creamy (but dairy-free) cauliflower soup made with homemade chicken stock, which I shared on MidEATS several weeks ago. And that recipe was inspired by this really simple vegan cauliflower soup recipe on Food52. Both were lovely, but I wanted to get a little creative and find an excuse to use a lot of organic ground turmeric … you know, the spice that has been shown to slow cancer growth and inhibit inflammation? Yeah, turmeric is pretty darn awesome. So this is basically “Take 3″ of the cauliflower soup extravaganza, and it introduces coconut and Indian spices to a really simple base of water with sauteed onions, cauliflower and garlic. This is so easy; it can be made by someone who really don’t consider himself or herself a cook by any stretch of the imagination. Try it and let me know what you think!

Curried Cauliflower Coconut Soup (Vegan)

by Heba

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients (serves 6)

1 head large fresh organic cauliflower, roughly chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons organic virgin coconut oil
1 medium red or yellow onion, chopped
2-3 fresh garlic cloves, peeled and minced
6-7 cups hot water (use filtered)
3-4 tablespoons organic coconut manna (whole dried coconut)
2 tablespoons organic ground turmeric
1 teaspoon organic garam masala
1/2 teaspoon organic ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon organic ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon organic ground coriander
2 green cardamom pods, seeds crushed (you may use already ground cardamom instead)
4-5 fenugreek seeds (optional)
2 teaspoons Himalayan sea salt or other unrefined salt, to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Fresh lemon juice, to taste (add to individual plates when serving)

Instructions

(1) Chop and saute onion and garlic: Chop 1 yellow or red onion and saute it on medium heat in a large pot with 2 tablespoons of virgin coconut oil. When the onion becomes translucent, add 2-3 cloves of minced garlic and saute for a few more minutes.

(2) Chop cauliflower and add to pot: Once the onions have very lightly browned and become fragrant, add the chopped cauliflower and saute for another few minutes.

(3) Heat water: In a teapot or other pot, add 6-7 cups of filtered water and heat. Pour into pot with cauliflower, onions and garlic, and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes or so until cauliflower has cooked.

(4) Blend and add seasoning: Using an immersion blender (it’s easier than transferring to blender), blend the cauliflower, onions, garlic and water into a creamy puree. Add 3-4 tablespoons coconut manna (dried coconut), and blend again to melt and incorporate the flavors. Spice it up by adding the turmeric, garam masala, allspice, cumin, coriander, and crushed cardamom pods. Add salt and pepper to taste, blend to mix in spices, and serve while hot, with a few drops of fresh lemon juice if you wish.

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*Post shared on Butter Believer’s Sunday School Blog Carnival, Easy Natural Food’s Soup Night, The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania, and Real Food Wednesday.

Tags: allspice, almonds, avocado, black pepper, cardamom, cauliflower, Coconut, coconut flour, coconut manna, Coconut Oil, coriander, creamy vegan soup, cumin, curried soup, extra virgin olive oil, fats, fenugreek, garam masala, garlic, grain-free, healthy fats, immersion blender, Indian spices, Lenten fast, nut milks, nuts, onion, Orthodox Christian fast, shredded coconut, turmeric, unrefined salt, vegan, vegan baking, vegan eating
18 Comments »

Scalloped Potatoes Au Gratin: A Creamy Winter Favorite

January 11, 2012 in Dinner, Homemade, Lunch

Delicious and creamy scalloped potatoes au gratin

It’s almost mid-January, and there’s nothing better than a hearty dish on a cold winter’s day. When you’re super duper hungry (try to think back of such a time if it’s been a while), what do you immediately crave? A juicy carrot? An apple? I think not!

You most likely crave something with fat that is hearty and satisfying, like your mother’s chicken soup, or a juicy leg of pastured lamb, a hearty bowl of vegetarian chili, or some potatoes layered with cream and cheese … mmm. A delicious memory of that last one – the potatoes with cream and cheese – somehow nudged me in my dreams the other night, and I was inspired to replicate it at home. I couldn’t quite remember where I’ve had it, but it had registered in my brain as something I should definitely making. When the Advent fast was over, and we celebrated Christmas in my household, I made this dish for a potluck at my uncle’s and it was a hit!

There is some ‘controversy’ in the foodie community about the “correct” name for this dish – is it scalloped potatoes or is it potatoes au gratin? I did a little bit of Googling, and found that many people use the terms interchangeably, though technically ‘au gratin’ has grated cheese on top and is lightly browned, whereas the scalloped potatoes do not have any cheese. Technicalities! In this case, I decided to name the dish Scalloped Potatoes au Gratin because the potatoes are cut into thin slices, made with cream and milk, and topped with cheese. So it’s a fusion of the two recipes, and I found that they get along very well together. It’s a pretty rich dish, but it’s bowl-lickin’ good!

Since this isn’t a recipe I grew up making, nor is it one that is traditional in Egyptian households, I had to read a few others’ versions of it before I could come up with my own ingredient list and method. This version, from Real Simple was pretty much what I had in mind, but it lacked a little bit of ‘character’ so I added the fresh thyme and ground nutmeg for a little extra flavor. I was going to go with just the sauteed onions, until I came across this recipe from The Brown-Eyed Baker, which also includes some minced garlic. And because I genuinely feel that garlic and potatoes are meant to be together, I added that in as well.

I’ve made this recipe twice so far, and the results come out almost identical both times – a good sign! The creaminess in every bite will fill you up and warm you up on a cold day in a way that almost no other dish can (other than soups, which are awesome at this time of year!)

The thyme and nutmeg impart a really beautiful taste in this dish.

A note about potatoes: It’s wise to opt for organic potatoes, because conventional potatoes have some of the highest pesticide residues among all crops. Check out this site, “What’s on my Food?” to get an idea of the pesticide content of different foods. Here’s the one for potatoes.

Opt for organic potatoes whenever possible.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe below, courtesy of Recipage, which now allows embedding of the printable recipe right within the post. That’s right: you can simply click “Print” below to get an awesome print-out of this recipe to bring to the kitchen. (I know from experience that bringing the laptop/phone to the kitchen to follow a recipe ain’t the best idea… trust me on that one!)

Scalloped Potatoes au Gratin

by Heba Saleh

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Keywords: bake simmer entree side gluten-free nut-free soy-free sugar-free vegetarian potato French winter

Ingredients (Serves 8-10)

8 medium organic Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped and sauteed in ghee
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced and added to the onion saute
2 tablespoons grass-fed ghee, plus more for the baking dish
2 cups whole grass-fed milk
1 cup grass-fed heavy cream (or if you don’t have cream on hand, just add an extra cup of whole milk)
1 bay leaf, crushed
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon organic ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons unrefined mineral salt (like Himalayan, which I buy online here)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
about 1 cup of grated grass-fed Gruyère or Dubliner Irish cheese, shredded on top

Instructions

(1) Wash, peel and chop potatoes: Wash the potatoes under running water, peel them and slice them into 1/8 inch pieces.

I don't have a mandoline, but chopping them into fairly equal slices wasn't difficult to do manually.

(2) Chop and saute onion and garlic: In a large pot, chop 1 yellow onion and mince 2-3 cloves of garlic and saute them in 2 tablespoons of grass-fed ghee until they have released their aroma and have turned a golden color.

(3) Add other ingredients to the pot: Add all chopped potatoes, and the rest of the ingredients with the exception of the grated cheese (2 cups milk, 2 cups cream, teaspoon of fresh thyme, 1 crushed bay leaf, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 2 teaspoons unrefined mineral salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper).

(4) Bring to a boil and simmer: Stir well and bring to a boil. Quickly lower the heat before it spills over, and continue simmering until potatoes have cooked – about 30 minutes.

(5) Add to a baking dish and bake: Grease 9×13 inch baking dish with a bit of ghee, then pour the potatoes into the dish. Grate about a cup’s worth of cheese (I used the Irish Dubliner) on top, and bake in a 350F oven for 15 minutes. You may wish to brown the top a little by broiling for an additional 3-5 minutes.

Grate some cheese on top - make sure the cheese is grass-fed for it to be healthy.

Serve warm and savor the creaminess.

Tags: baked, bay leaf, Dubliner Irish cheese, grass-fed ghee, grass-fed heavy cream, Gruyère, nutmeg, potatoes au gratin, scalloped potatoes, thyme, whole milk
3 Comments »

Creamy Chicken Soup for the Sustainable Soul

May 11, 2011 in Dinner, Food Movement, Lunch

I love chicken soup. It has cured me of many a cold growing up, and it continues to give me that fuzzy warm feeling. Growing up, mama always made me chicken soup with semolina (what we call in Arabic lesaan ‘asfour, translated quite literally as bird’s tongue). Before you start crinkling your nose in disgust, we did not actually eat bird’s tongue or anything – that was just our household nickname for semolina because it’s shaped like a mini bird’s tongue. What? You don’t see a resemblance? Oh well, haha.

My favorite soup as a kid was alphabet soup …I could never get enough of that.

The day mama made alphabet soup was a celebratory day for me, and I’d sit there and try to separate the letters – always using my spoon to fish for letters to spell out my name H – E – B – A. There were never enough H’s and always too many B’s. Weird.

My mom’s recipe was simple enough – I’d watch as she boiled a whole chicken for 45-50 minutes along with one cut up yellow onion, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and a couple of crushed cardamom pods. She’d carefully take out the chicken from the pot, careful not to break it apart, and strain the soup to take out the bay leaves, onions, and chicken liver, etc. Then came the pouring of the alphabets … which I sometimes helped with (I’d literally pour in the alphabets – major contribution, I know haha)

Now many years later, I often remember fondly the times that my sweet mom made me chicken soup whenever I was feeling sick, or if it was cold (or cloudy) outside, or simply because I asked for it! I love you Mama!

Even though I loved the soup as she traditionally made it (except I don’t think of the alphabets so highly now because they’re made of a refined grain – I prefer sprouted, organic grains), a few weeks ago - on an especially cloudy and dreary day in Chicago – I decided to be a bit creative with my chicken soup recipe. I was craving a creamy soup with thick juicy orzo and veggies.

So like mom, I decided to do it the old-fashioned way – by boiling a whole chicken and using that broth, instead of using some preserved broth in a can or carton (I don’t even advocate the organic broths – why buy it packaged when you can make it yourself!)

Basic Homemade Chicken Broth

by Heba

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 1-2 hours

Keywords: boil soup/stew low-carb nut-free soy-free sugar-free chicken

Ingredients (9 cups of broth)

1 whole organic, pastured chicken (preferably from a local farmer)
9-10 cups of filtered water
1 yellow onion, sliced into fourths
3-4 cloves of garlic, each chopped into halves
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
3-4 crushed bay leaves
3-4 cardamom pods, crushed a bit to expose seeds
unrefined mineral salt (to coat then rinse the chicken before cooking) and to add to broth
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

(1) Rinse and salt chicken: First rinse chicken thoroughly under running water, and apply salt generously to skin and rub in. Leave for 10 minutes and then rinse off the salt.

(2) Add to pot with ingredients: I use my stainless steal strainer pot because it it deep, but you can use any pot that would fit the chicken and water without splashing everywhere when it’s boiling. Add filtered water, chicken, onion, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, bay leaves, cardamom, salt and pepper.

(3) Cook the chicken: Bring to a boil, then lower heat to medium and simmer for 45 minutes or so (you may need to cook on low heat for an additional hour or so if the chicken is a pastured one, since the meat tends to be naturally tougher)

*This is where the broth is complete and ready to make into soup. I eat the chicken on the same day but I like to broil it for a bit to get crisp.* Broil: Turn oven on broil to 375F. In a pyrex pan, add cooked chicken and add a tablespoon of grass-fed ghee to rub and cover the top of the chicken. Add any spices you have on hand (I like fresh thyme, rosemary and savory with black pepper). Broil for 10 minutes or until skin has turned a golden brown.

Now for the mouthwatering, heartwarming soup recipe I promised above …

Here’s what I came up with – I think you’ll like it:

Creamy Chicken Soup for the Sustainable Soul

by Heba

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Keywords: boil soup/stew nut-free soy-free sugar-free chicken winter fall

Ingredients (6-7 cups)

2 cups cooked organic chicken, diced (I used chicken breast from the whole chicken I had cooked the day before)
3 cups of homemade chicken broth (I’d advise making your own a la the recipe here – much more fresh than any store-bought kinds, even if organic)
1 tablespoon pastured butter or grass-fed ghee
1 cup organic baby carrots, chopped
1/2 cup organic celery, diced
1/4 cup organic green onion, chopped (you can also just use yellow or red onions instead if that’s what you have on hand)
1 cup organic sprouted orzo (with no additives of any kind) – for a gluten-free option, use quinoa or brown-rice orzo
1/2 teaspoon organic fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 teaspoon organic fresh basil, chopped
1/8 teaspoon organic fresh sage, chopped
1/4 teaspoon fresh savory, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon unrefined mineral salt (or to taste)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 and 1/2 cups organic whole milk (preferably non-homogenized and raw)
2 tablespoons sprouted organic flour (use brown rice flour for a gluten-free option)
fresh lime juice, to taste (after cooking)

Instructions

(1) Chop veggies: Chop carrots, celery and onions and add to a large pot with 1 tablespoon of melted pastured butter or grass-fed ghee. Saute over medium high heat for 5-7 minutes, stirring constantly.

(2) Add orzo, broth, and spices: Stir in a cup of orzo, 3 or so cups of organic chicken broth (hopefully made from scratch at home), and the spices mentioned above (oregano, basil, sage, savory, salt, pepper). Bring to a boil then reduce to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes.

(3) Now for the creaminess: In a blender (I used my dinky bullet blender), combine 1 and 1/2 cups organic whole milk with 2 tablespoons of sprouted flour and blend for 10 seconds to mix evenly. Pour into soup slowly, stirring constantly until mixture starts to boil and get thicker – usually about 2-3 minutes.

(4) Dice chicken and add to soup: You should use cooked chicken, so you can easily use some leftover from the day before (as I did). Cook for a couple of minutes until chicken is hot. If you find that the soup has become too thick, add more broth (from the stock you have left) until you reach a desired consistency.

(5) Enjoy a bowl (or two): Add a few drops of fresh lime juice and enjoy! (I usually end up adding a bit more salt too ’cause it’s tastier that way!)

Next time you’re craving chicken soup, try this recipe and let me know what you think. If you’re sick, and have heard that homemade chicken soup cures colds, it has actually been scientifically proven … well, sort of.

Now back to my research of local and organic farms and grocery stores … I’ve been doing this for the passed two days and I can’t wait ( understatement) to become a sustainable locavore! Next time, I’ll (hopefully) be using a pasture-raised chicken from a local farm!