Healthy and delicious eats

The latest and greatest in my quest for healthy cooking and eating:

As some of you know, I am participating in a “cleanse” of sorts. Don’t get alarmed. It does not involve cayenne or lemon juice or inhumane digestive craziness. But, it does involve avoiding cheese, meat, gluten, alcohol, sugar and other foods that make life worth living. I started this on Monday and I have actually been eating really, really delicious food! As I have mentioned on this blog before, one of my favorite cook books is Super Natural Cooking and I have been making recipes from this book a lot lately. The two recipes below are from this book and both are quite delicious and easy for weeknight meals. Enjoy!

Brown Rice, Garbanzo Beans, and Asparagus Salad with Tofu “Cream” Sauce

This is easy! Make a bunch of brown rice in the rice cooker (or wherever). While the rice is cooking chop one medium sized onion, three cloves garlic, and one large bunch of asparagus (about one inch pieces). Drain one can of garbanzo beans. In a large skillet, heat up enough olive oil to coat the pan (the inside of the pan – of courseJ). Add the beans and sauté until crackling and hot. Maybe 7 minutes? Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is soft. Add the asparagus and cover the pan for a few minutes, until the asparagus is beautifully bright green. I am sure I added some sea seal somewhere in here. I probably added it several times to be honest. I never pass up an opportunity to add sea salt. Add in the rice and you are done, baby, done!
Now for the sauce – add to a blender: approximately 8 ounces tofu (silken would probably be best but I used firm and it was fine), a few tbsp water, a smashed cloves of garlic, juice from half a lemon, and sea salt. I blended it all together and added more of the ingredients to taste. It ends up kind of tasting like a lighter version of hummus. Mix into the salad and eat. Yumsters!

Brown Rice Bowl

Make brown rice. Great. Next…sauté thin tofu slabs on a nonstick skillet. I didn’t use an oil or anything and it was great. Heat until browned but still fluffy. Add to the rice. Add half an avocado, sesame seeds, a couple sliced green onions, and some dried seaweed to the rice bowl. Now you will make the sauce – Put into a small sauce pan the juice of one entire orange and half a lemon with two tablespoons sugar. Heat until it reaches a light boil. Add two tablespoons brown rice vinegar and two tablespoons soy sauce. Again heat until it reaches a gentle boil. Add the zest for the orange and lemon used before. Whisk, add to the rice bowl and enjoy the citrus deliciousness.

Lemon Ginger cookie sandwiches

Just made these tonight with my friend Isaac - they came out pretty well, though are insanely rich.

Cookies

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 t. salt

2 1/2 t. ground ginger

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 C (2 sticks) butter, room temp.

1 C powdered sugar

2 t. finely grated lemon zest

1 t. vanilla

1 C whole blanched almonds, toasted then finely ground (4 oz)

Lemon filling

1/2 C (1 stick) butter

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

2 t. lemon zest

1 TB lemon juice

Sift all the dry stuff. Mix butter and sugar until smooth, with an electric beater if you have one. Add the zest, vanilla, and almonds. Mix in the flour until it's just incorporated. Divide the dough in half and form into 2 6-inch disks - wrap in plastic and refrigerate 40 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 325. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness, and cut out disks with your favorite round thing. This recipe is actually suppose to make only 9 cookies, but I made them a little smaller and wound up with more cookies. Since the recipe has THREE STICKS OF BUTTER in it, it's probably a good idea. For half of the cookies (ie, the tops of the sandwiches) it can be cute to poke out a smaller hole - donut-style - so that the filling oozes out of the sandwiches. 

Bake the cookies for 20 minutes, or until lightly brown. Note: They don't actually change color all that much.

For the filling: With an electric mixer, mix butter, sugar, zest, and lemon juice until smooth. 

Let cookies cool, then spread filling and make the cookies. Then, eat them. Store in the fridge but serve at room temperature.