Persimmon Salad

I am in love with persimmons.  If you've never had a persimmon, they look like orange tomatoes, but are firmer with a thick skin.  The flesh is soft, sweet, and almost creamy, kind of like a mix between a melon and a mango.  There are two kinds of persimmons available- fuyu and hachiya.  The hachiya are heart-shaped and are very astringent, so you must wait to eat them until they are extremely ripe-almost like they are going bad.  Otherwise they will leave an awful dry/bitter taste in your mouth.  But if you wait 'till they are super soft, you can just cut the top off and scoop out the insides like pudding.  The fuyu variety are tomato-shaped and you can eat them like an apple.  When persimmon season comes, I am in heaven!  I eat them whole, or slice them and put them into salads with arugula, avocados, and pecans.  My friend Hilary knows how much I love them, and the other night brought over a bunch of beautifully ripe and shiny persimmons for us to eat.  She cut them up and marinated them in lime juice and fresh vanilla beans.  The tartness of the lime and the floral taste of the vanilla brought out the perfect flavor of the persimmons.  Try this simply delicious recipe out and enjoy the persimmon season while it lasts! 

Sweet Potatoes 3 Ways

I absolutely love sweet potatoes... I could eat them forever.  I love their sweetness, their fluffy texture, and how nutritious they are for you.  Here are 3 recipes for sweet potatoes that I love.  The first is recipe for simple roasted sweet potato wedges.  The second is my famous Thanksgiving mashed sweet potatoes.  And the third is a delicious sweet potato pie recipe!  Enjoy!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes Wedges

Ingredients:

• 2-3 large sweet potatoes 
• Olive oil, salt, pepper/cayenne

Directions:

1. Wash your sweet potatoes and peel if you like, but I like to keep the skins on (more hearty and more healthy!)
2. Cut them into 1 inch wedges (I do this by cutting the potato into disks, then cutting each disk like a pie into 4 pieces.)
3. Place sweet potato wedges onto a baking sheet.  Drizzle olive oil all over, sprinkle salt and pepper and cayenne on top.  With your hands mix together so the sweet potatoes are coated well.
4. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 25-30 minutes.

Thanksgiving Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients: 

• 5 large sweet potatoes
• About 1/4 cup of Earth Balance
• About a 1/4 cup of maple syrup
• About 2 tablespoons cinnamon 
• About 2 tsp of nutmeg
• About a 1/4 cup of orange juice
• Salt and cayene pepper
• 1/3 cup of pecans or walnuts

Directions:

You can choose between boiling or roasting the sweet potatoes.  Boiling is faster, but kills some of the flavor.  Roasting takes longer, but retains much more flavor.

1. To boil:  Chop each potato into 4 big pieces.  Keep the skins on.  Boil chunks in a large pot of water for about 25 minutes, until soft.  Place in a strainer and rinse with cold water to remove the skins easily.
2. To roast:  Prick each potato with a fork, cut in half, and wrap each half in tin foil.  Bake all halves  in the oven at 450 degrees F for about an hour, until they are soft in the middle.  Scoop out the insides into a bowl (and nibble on the skins while you cook.)
3. Take the boiled/roasted sweet potato meat and mash in a large bowl.  
4. Add the Earth Balance, maple syrup and orange juice in slowly, testing the flavor to your liking.
5. Add all the spices in and adjust to your liking and mix together until you have a heavenly bowl of mashed sweet potatoes.
6. In a pan, roast the pecans/walnuts on medium heat. Coat with any extra maple syrup and spices and heat 'till toasted and aromatic. Sprinkle nuts on top of mashed sweet potatoes and enjoy!

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1 cup of gluten free oats
• 1 1/2 cups of nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts are good!)
• 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance or coconut oil
• 1-2 tablespoons of honey

Filling

• 3-4 mashed sweet potatoes (or 1 can of pureed sweet potatoes)
• 1/3 cup of coconut milk (or soy, or rice milk)
• 4 tablespoons of maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon of orange juice
• 2 eggs beaten (or substitute with 1/4 cup of cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water)
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a food processor, grind up the nuts and oats.  Add the Earth Balance and honey and pulse until mixed.
3. Press the crust mixture into a 8/9 inch pie pan and pre-bake in the oven for 5 minutes.
4. In a large bowl mix together the sweet potatoes, coconut milk, maple syrup, orange juice, spices and eggs until smoothly mixed.  (You can also process in a food processor if you want it to be completely smooth, but I like it more thick.)
5. Pour sweet potato filling into the pie crust.
6. Bake pie in oven for about 45 minutes or so, until the crust is golden and you can stick a knife into the middle and have it come out mostly dry.  Let cool before serving.
7. Serve with Coconut Bliss vanilla ice cream!  

Pecan Pie

   

When I was a kid, my mom would bring my sister and I to the farmer's market every Thursday afternoon.  She would always buy fresh flowers and an assortment of imperfect tomatoes for her students to paint in her watercolor classes.  My sister and I would sample the gouda cheese and each buy a honey stick from our favorite vendor.  Every once in a while, if we were really lucky, my mom would splurge on a freshly made pecan pie, from the turkey vendors who also sold turkey pie and fruit jams.  Pecan pie is one of my favorite pies ever- I love the gooey sweetnesss.  Now that I can't eat wheat/sugar/dairy anymore, pecan pie is a distant memory.   It's been many years since I had a slice of pecan pie, and I have been craving it for a while.  I've been planning on making a wheat/sugar/dairy free pecan pie for months now, but since I've never made any kind of pie before, let alone a wheat/sugar/dairy free pie, I was nervous.  So I bought a gluten free pie crust mix by Glutino, to allow me to focus on the filling.  I researched some different recipes and finally, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I made my pecan pie!  It turned out so nicely, with the same sweetness of a traditional pecan pie, but not loaded with processed sugars.  Plus mine is vegan and could easily be corn and soy free if you use tapioca starch instead of cornstarch, and soy-free Earth Balance.  I added some chocolate powder to bring some richness to it.  Enjoy this dessert!

Ingredients:  (makes one 9 inch pie) 

• 1 unbaked gluten free pie crust*
• 3/4 cup of rice milk
• 3/4 cup of maple syrup
• 1/2 cup of brown rice syrup
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/4 cup of cornstarch dissolved into 1/4 cup of water
• 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of Earth balance
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of toasted pecans

Directions

1. Follow directions on the box for the pie crust mix, and pre-bake the crust for 5 minutes at 400 degrees F.
2. In a pot mix together the rice milk, maple syrup, and brown rice syrup and bring to a boil over high heat.
3. Add the dissolved cornstarch and keep whisking until it gets thick, about 5 minutes.
4. Turn off the heat and add the vanilla and Earth Balance.
5. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and smooth it out.
6. Place pecans on top in concentric circles, starting from the outside going in.
7. Bake in the oven at 350 F for about 30 or so minutes.  
8. Let cool and chill in the fridge for 10 hours.  Then enjoy!

*Glutino pie crust was good and is sweetened with honey not sugar.  Follow directions on the box, and use ground flax seed mixture instead of eggs if you prefer.  For the butter, I used Earth Balance's vegan shortening!

Curried Red Lentil Sweet Potato Soup

Sometimes all you need is soup.  This past Sunday it was rainy and cold, and stress from work had made it's way into my lower back.  I told my roommate that I was in pain and he kindly lent me his heating pad and encouraged me to lie down on the couch with a blanket and listen to "This American Life," on the radio.  Afterwards, I began to feel better and decided to make a pot of red lentil and sweet potato curry soup.  It was exactly what I needed, something warm, nourishing, easy and comforting.  And it was exactly what my other roommates needed as they were feeling tired and under the weather.  It felt so nice to share my soup with them, and it reinforced the idea that it is ok to ask for support from others, that in fact people like to help others out.  I hope you find some comfort in this sweet and savory soup!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of red lentils
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1-2 large sweet potatoes
• 3 large carrots
• 2 tablespoons of curry powder
• 1tsp of cinnamon
• 1 tsp of ginger powder
• 4 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 can of low fat coconut milk
• 1/4 cup of maple syrup
• 1 head of kale
• 1/2 a lemon
• salt, pepper, and olive oil

Directions 

1. Soak and rinse lentils.
2. Chop the onion and saute in a large pot with olive oil till they begin to become translucent.
3. Chop the sweet potatoes and carrots into 1 inch pieces and add to the onions.  
4. Add the garlic and 1 tablespoon of the curry powder.
5. Saute vegetables for a few minutes, then add the broth and lentils and bring to a boil.
6. Simmer the soup on medium/high heat for about 20 minutes.
7. Add the coconut milk, maple syrup, and the rest of the spices to the pot.
8. Wash and chop the kale into small pieces. Add to the pot and cook for another 5 minutes.
9. The soup is done when the vegetables are tender and the lentils are soft and mushy.  Squeeze lemon juice on top and add any extra salt and pepper if needed.