Cashew Crunch Enchiladas

As Sarah and I have a lot of time on our hands these winter days, we decided to get together this afternoon and make some yummy home made enchiladas. I got my inspiration from two different dishes I've had at Bandidas and The Naam. If you have a good kitchen helper, it might be best to recruit them for this meal! Thanks so much to Sarah, the lovely hostess of Karma Kitchen Headquarters and our dear friend/photographer Marilyne Beauchemin.

There are three parts to this dish.
1. Corn Tortillas - you can buy these, but they are healthier if you make them like we did
2. Enchilada Sauce - you can also buy this, but we went out on a limb and tried this recipe
3. Enchilada Filling - feel free to make up your own creation (for ours we used butternut squash which you need to cook for about 45 minutes, so get that bad boy in the oven right now)

Corn Tortilla 
2 1/2 cups Masa Mix (We got this at Dollar Grocer on Commercial Dr.)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup brown rice flour

Mix together Masa Mix and salt, add water 1/2 cup at a time. Mix until ready to roll. Sprinkle flour over counter and rolling pin. Form dough into 12 balls and roll each one flat. Make sure to re-flour your rolling pin and surface between each tortilla. Fry in a dry pan on medium heat for about 4 minutes on each side.
Keep warm so they will be pliable to roll later on.


Enchilada Sauce
We used this recipe here.

Enchilada Filling
1 small - medium size butternut squash (roasted and cut into cubes)
2 cups of cooked black beans
3/4 cup raw crushed cashews

Mash black beans and squash pieces in a large bowl. Add cashews and stir.

Now we are ready to put them all together!

Lay a tortilla flat and spoon out some filling on it as shown in the first photo. Roll and place into a casserole dish. Repeat until dish is full. You may need two dishes, as we did. Cover the rolled up tortillas with enchilada sauce. Top with cheese, soy cheese or cashew cheese if desired.

Cook for 8-10 minutes at 350. Serve with guacamole, pickled cabbage or any other mexican toppings of your choice!

Enjoy my friends! 

<3 Melanie

Very Easy Vegan Carrot Ginger Orange Soup

Sarah is definitely right about the weather. All this snow we've been getting in Vancouver makes me want to eat stews and soups! Here is a quick easy soup I whipped up today. I am usually on the go, so I always love the quick, easy, healthy meals.

6 medium carrots, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves of galic, minced
1 small piece of ginger, grated
2 cups vegan soup stock
1 orange, juiced
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, sauté onions in the olive oil. Once the onions are translucent, add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the cubed carrots and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add the soup stock and grated ginger to the pot. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Bring to a boil, then let simmer until carrots are tender (5-8 minutes). Transfer in batches to a blender. Blend until you reach desired consistency. Pour back into pot and add the juice of 1 orange. Stir and let simmer 5 minutes on low heat. Season again if necessary.

I enjoyed this with some homemade hummus and my favorite crackers today. Hummus is so easy to make and so delish! The possibilities are endless for the different flavours you can make (beet being my all time favorite). Today I roasted an orange pepper to put in my hummus. Here is what I did:

1 bell pepper (red, orange or yellow) roasted for about 45 minutes, then skinned when cool
1 1/2 cups cooked chic peas
1 1/2 tsp tahini (any kind of nut butter will work as well)
1 lime Salt and Pepper or other seasoning

Add all ingredients in a food processor and blend. Or, if you don't own a food processor, add ingredients to a medium sized bowl and blend using an immersion blender. Mmmm enjoy!

A Stew For You!

         By special request I decided to make a slow cooker stew. It seemed to be in line with all the snow we've been getting here in Vancouver. This stew is loaded with veggies that have many healing properties. Here are a few of our nutritional winners: eggplant stimulates brain activity, ginger is good for digestion and nausea, and garlic gives a good boost to the immune system! Tumeric has been long known for its cancer cell-fighting properties and cayenne pepper cleanses your blood.  The lentils give it a nice hearty protein as well as great texture. You can really feel free to play around with this recipe, change up the veggies, throw in Quinoa or beans. 
         I think what I enjoyed the most about making this was that it filled the house with seriously mouth watering smells all day long!


Chop and Drop Veggie Lentil Stew Recipe:


1 medium eggplant

Chop and Drop stew about 5 hours into cooking

1 zucchini
1/2 head of cauliflower
2 cups of lentils (any colour)
1 cup of okra
3 carrots julienned
1 turnip
1 cup chopped fresh spinach 
2 Tbsp fresh chopped ginger
5 garlic cloves


Spices:
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Salt or to taste

1 Tbsp Braggs

Chop all veggies and drop them into the crock pot with the lentils. Pour enough water in to cover the veggies. Mix together spices and stir into pot. Plug in and set to high, cover and let stew for 8 hours. If there is an excess of water when you are getting towards the end, leave the lid off for the last 45 mins or so. 

With all the time you saved cooking this stew, you can now make a delicious homemade...
                           Gluten free Cornbread!
This recipe was on the back of the Bob's Red Mill Organic cornmeal package that I got which I tweaked a bit. It called for whole wheat pastry flour but I wanted to try it with the brown rice flour that i had ground up myself! (See Tips below for a how-to!)


1 cup cornmeal
1 cup brown rice flour (or pastry flour if gluten isn't a problem for you)
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar (optional, I didn't use it)
1 egg or egg replacer
1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1/4 cup butter (I used Earth Balance vegan margarine)
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add egg, milk and butter. Beat until smooth, about one minute. Preheat oven to 425. Bake in a greased 8 inch pan for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with butter :)


Sarah's Tip for the day:


* For fresh ground brown rice flour, all you need to do is use a blender, coffee grinder or I used a magic bullet. Put in as much rice as you want and grind until fine. Use immediately in your cornbread recipe or store it for a couple of weeks.

First Post, Oh Boy!

"Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food"

Yummy Eggplants from the Trout Lake Farmers Market

          This quote by Hippocrates has really led the way in how I now think about food. Eating a diet of whole, unprocessed, organic foods is high on my priority list for many reasons. First, foods that are whole and unprocessed such as fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts and seeds are high in vitamins and minerals; when we have taken in all the nutrients that we need, they trigger our stomaches to tell our brain that we are full quicker. Refined carbohydrates like white flour fill our stomaches to the brim without triggering the brains to say stop and cause us to overeat. When we don't over eat, this gives our digestive systems love in the form of time; time to break down and process the food into fuel and medicine.

         Whole foods are Karma foods. This means eating foods that are lower on the food chain. By doing so it uses up much less energy in its production. Plants come from the soil, making it only one degree of separation between them and your belly. Meat and dairy products on the other hand have a much larger footprint, and are much higher on the food chain. We must first grow and harvest plants, feed the livestock, deal with its toxic excrement and of course process the meat (mostly done in conditions that are on a mass scale, crowded and inhumane).

        Just like you, food has life force! And when you eat foods with a healthy happy life force, it is in turn projected through your body with added energy, alertness and balance. So this is why I decided to start a food blog - to help people learn how to prepare and ENJOY the delicious food options that are accessible to everyone and oh so easy to make!

        My lovely blog partner Melanie and I (Sarah) will be sharing with you delectable recipes, mouth watering photos as well as nutritional knowledge so that eating well and feeling well is that much easier! Since I have many roommates that love being taste testers, they have conveniently asked us to be our official recipe raters and will comment on each dish that comes out of the Karma Kitchen.

Now to the good stuff!.... But what to cook first!??