recipe: quick spanish rice with sun dried tomato polenta

I was in the mood for a paella-esque dish the other day but really didn't feel like taking the time to make it. My go-to recipe (from my favorite cookbook, The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen) is very time consuming and it uses arborio rice which dilly dallies and takes all day to soak up broth. I also wanted to add something with a little bit of crunch and flavor for a vegan chorizo substitute and I'm so glad I decided to try sun dried tomato polenta! All in all this dish was done in about 20 minutes but it tasted like I had spent hours slaving over a hot stove.

Ingredients for the rice:

1 bag frozen brown rice
1 c. vegetable broth
1/4 tsp. saffron threads
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, grated
4 tsp. minced garlic
1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
2 c. frozen baby lima beans
1 c. frozen green peas
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. smoked paprika
scallions
1 lemon

Start out by microwaving your frozen rice according to the directions on the bag. Meanwhile, combine the saffron and vegetable stock in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile still, heat up the olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until it's making your house smell AMAZING.

After the onion and garlic have softened, add the peppers (I specify a yellow pepper and a red pepper just for the sake of making the dish pretty - if you can only get one color it'll still taste the same!) and sauté until they're soft. Then add the cooked rice, the soy sauce, the paprika, and a little salt and pepper. Stir it all together to combine and then add the frozen lima beans and the saffron-infused broth. Let everything cook, stirring occasionally, until the broth is all gone. While it's cooking, you can whip up your sun dried tomato polenta:



Ingredients for the polenta:

1 package of sun dried tomato polenta
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. smoked paprika

In a small bowl, combine extra virgin olive oil with smoked paprika. Cut the polenta into round slices, as thin as you can get them, and then brush each side with the paprika olive oil marinade. Heat in a skillet over medium heat until they start to get crispy. Make sure to flip them over and cook both sides!

When everything is done, just squeeze a bit of lemon juice on top of the rice, top with polenta and some chopped up scallions, and enjoy! I love that this was still super flavorful and packed with so many good veggies, too! It's one of those meals where it feels like you're being indulgent but it's actually incredibly healthy :)

recipe: dark chocolate maple truffles

I promised you guys this recipe a couple weeks ago and here it is! These are sugar free, nut free, and gluten free plus the dark chocolate has anti-inflammatory properties. But maybe the most important thing is that they are absolutely delicious!! I made this batch last night and then experienced the most excruciating test of willpower when I had to leave them untouched in the refrigerator overnight so that I could take photos of them this morning. Needless to say, as soon as these pictures were in the can the candy was not long for this world. lol!



You'll need:
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
4 tbsp. unrefined coconut oil, melted
3 1/2 tbsp. maple syrup (start with 2 tbsp and then add more to taste)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)
pink Himalayan sea salt (optional)

Stir to combine the melted coconut oil, dark cocoa powder, and maple syrup. I started with a couple tablespoons and then added more until it was the perfect amount of sweetness for me. Keep stirring vigorously until it starts to thicken, and then refrigerate the mixture for 10 minutes.

Once it's hardened a bit, take the mixture out of the fridge and use a melon baller to scoop small bite-sized balls of chocolate. Roll with your hands to form a circle. Now here is where it varies based on what type of chocolate you want to make. I made salted chocolates and coconut chocolates.

- For plain chocolates, just place the balls on a dish and refrigerate.
- For salted chocolates, place balls on a dish and then sprinkle with salt.
- For coconut chocolates, roll the balls in coconut flakes first.

You can also roll the chocolates in sprinkles or chopped nuts instead. Or if you're not going sugar-free they'd be scrumptious rolled in powdered sugar. I personally want to try a batch rolled in chopped walnuts (and maybe sub the maple syrup for honey? hmm..)

This batch should yield approximately 2 dozen chocolates, and they're best kept in the refrigerator so that the coconut oil doesn't melt. When I served them at my Halloween party they held up just fine on the buffet table after being refrigerated for 24 hours straight.

Enjoy!! :)

recipe: eggs verde

Whenever I go to Hollywood, there is one thing that I look forward to the most. It's not the Hollywood sign, the movies, the chance celebrity sighting, the proximity to Disneyland, no. It's the Eggs Verde that I get at Mel's Drive In. I was going out there for the TCM Film Festival every spring, but since I'm not planning on returning I figured I better try to make my own version of this dish at home. It's either that or pay for a plane ticket to LA *just* for this restaurant (which I would 100% do if I could afford it, lol!!) or cook at home.

And this was so simple to whip up! I just fried a couple of eggs and put them on a bed of kale, then topped it with chopped tomatoes, corn, and fresh parsley. Add some roasted asparagus (400' for 20 minutes) and voila! This tasted so fresh and healthy and it's so filling. At Mel's they poach the eggs, use arugula instead of kale, and the corn mixture is more like salsa than just fresh vegetables. But this was so easy to whip up, and I made so much corn and asparagus that I had enough for leftovers the next day. I just had to make the eggs, and chop up some tomatoes!



This is sort of unrelated, but I was meeting with a career counselor this summer and for this one exercise she showed me a couple of recipes and asked me to choose the one that stood out to me. They were all for the same dish, but one was spelled out with very precise instructions in a numbered list, one was more casual but it still included specific measurements and times, and the last one (the one that I went for) was more like a conversation about a recipe. It reminded me of the recipes I grew up with, the kind that my mom and grandmom have written down. Stuff like "combine salt, flour, water. Bake." lol! Recipes that require eyeballing it, and just trusting your own instincts. Obviously those recipes don't really work for more science-y foods like cookies or cakes, but when you're throwing together an egg dish or biscuits or pasta sauce it can be fun to wing it!

Anyway, my whole point is that after I got home and was looking over the paperwork she gave me, I realized that the recipe reminded me a lot of the ones I've written here. I don't know if I've ever actually typed out a numbered list of steps. It's usually casual and leaves room for tweaking. Sometimes I still get messages from people telling me that they have tried my chickpea and tomato dish (still one of my favorites!) or my cranberry walnut pasta and it makes me so happy! Not just that I've helped you find a meal that you like, but because it meant my instructions were somewhat follow-able! ha!

black sesame ice cream

Last year I tried black sesame frozen yogurt at Yogurtland and it was one of the best flavors EVER. It might seem kind of insane if you're used to chocolate and vanilla (or in my case, strawberry and coconut) but the only crazy thing about it is how good it tastes. It was unexpectedly amazing, and (hooray!) my at-home version came out just as fantastic! :D

I found a few recipes online, but they were all either too fatty or required equipment I didn't have (like a coffee grinder) so I made some adaptions, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best. Luckily the ice cream gods were in my favor and it's pretty perfect.

I used this recipe, with the following alterations:

- 2% milk instead of whole milk
- 3 egg yolks instead of 6 egg yolks
- add 1 tsp. vanilla in step 2

I also used a food processor to grind the seeds, since I don't have a coffee grinder. I'm not sure how fine the sesame powder gets with the grinder but mine still had little bits of sesame seed that ended up making some pretty speckles in the finished ice cream. The ice cream was still incredibly rich and creamy without the added fat from the eggs and whole milk. I'd love to keep testing different ingredients to find the perfect low-fat base for all of my ice cream experiments! :)