I should have called this salad, “Clinging onto Summer for Dear Life Salad,” but that is a bit too long yet it is accurate. I find myself going outside in the brutal summer heat just to get some sunshine before the days turn grey. This summer has been hot and more blissful than other summers before it and I am sad to see it go.

Fall brings out delicious things and cooler weather, I can’t say I am craving the famous PSL quite yet. Nothing beats berry season, especially when paired with other seasonal produce. 

I haven’t been eating enough corn or peaches this summer so I wanted to get my fill with this salad and lots of blueberry vinaigrette. The vibrant colours, fresh taste, and antioxidant-packed dressing will have me missing the summer season. Cheers to summer, you have been good to me. 

10 recipes down, 20 more to go! See you tomorrow for Day 11: Nutrient Focused Recipe. Missed Day 9? Check it out here.

Stay connected on the daily by following me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Made this recipe? I would love to see it! Use the hashtag #screcipe on your social media. 

Peach Millet Salad with Blueberry Vinaigrette

 

Save Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

This salad is burst with summer flavour! Ripe peaches, fresh corn, and blueberries on greens with lots of flavourful blueberry vinaigrette. The millet is optional but pairs well with this salad and makes it a little bit more of a meal than just a plain salad. You can use any grain you like! 1 cup of uncooked millet makes about 3½ cup of cooked millet. Use the leftovers in big vegan bowls, salad, or morning grain bowls. The dressing will keep for about a week in the fridge.

Author: Jessica DeMarra

Recipe type: Salad, Dressing

Cuisine: Vegan

Ingredients

• For The Blueberry Vinaigrette:
• ½ cup fresh blueberries, rinsed
• ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
• 1-2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons cracked mustard
• ¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 
  
• For the Salad:
• 1 cup cooked millet (or grain of choice)
• 4 cups of greens, I used baby spinach
• 1 cup fresh corn, raw or lightly cooked
• 2 ripe peaches, cut into slices
• ¼ cup fresh blueberries

Instructions

1. To cook the millet:Rinse 1 cup uncooked millet in a fine mesh strainer. Add millet to 2½ cups of water (or stock) in a medium pot. Bring to boil over high heat, turn down heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until tender. Drain, fluff, and let cool. It will make more than 1 cup of cooked grains so you will have leftovers.
2. For the Dressing:
3. Add all the ingredients for the dressing except the olive oil. While the blender is running, steam the oil slowly into the top. Blend until very smooth. Set aside until you are ready to dress the salad.
4. For the salad: Add greens to a large serving bowl or two smaller bowls. Add all the ingredients to the dish or divided amongst the dishes, dress to your liking, and serve.

3.3.3077

The post Day 10 Vegan MoFo: Peach Millet Salad with Blueberry Vinaigrette appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

Mark and I have not ordered takeout or eaten at a restaurant since VeganMoFo started. You are probably thinking two weeks isn’t exactly a long time but both he and I work in a restaurant and go to school full time. It is all too easy to grab a coffee here, a sad sandwich there and call it a meal. We use to do this almost every day. Crazy right? So thank you VeganMoFo for challenging me to make me realize preparing meals for myself and Mark everyday isn’t as hard as I previously thought. It helps to have a day (or evening) to prepare or plan for your week’s meals and I would definitely include this recipe in your next prep day. Sundays are dedicated to staples I make on a weekly basis and this one is my absolute most favourites: cashew cream.

Cashews are like vegan magic! A soak overnight (or during you work day) and the normally crunchy nut (it is actually a seed!) transforms into silky smooth creamy heaven when blended. Truth is, I never really like cashews before becoming a vegan. They usually only had their place in my diet when they were coated in oil and salt in a blue mixed-nuts canister. That’s the thing when people go vegan, it almost forces someone to try new things. I never had a soaked nut before and now I love them.

Why soaking? Soaking nuts “activates” the nut and makes their minerals and proteins easier to absorb in your body. You have probably read that soaking the nuts “sprouts” them and it does but you won’t see any green sprouts popping out of your cashews. I like to eat soaked almonds too, they go from crunchy to “soft crunchy” (you know what I mean) and have a pleasant almost sweet taste to them. Learn more about soaking your nuts and grains here.

But aren’t cashew high in fat? Yes all nuts are high in fat. Cashews actually have a lower fat content than most other nuts, 82% of a cashew’s fat is unsaturated fatty acids, which contains a high percentage of monounsaturated fats. It it is all about what you are getting from those calories. Along with heart-healthy monounsaturated fat you are getting minerals like copper, phosphorus, manganese, magnesium and zinc.

Try not to stress about the calories but ask yourself what am I getting from these calories that will benefit my body? I use to be a huge calorie counter, measuring out everything I ate, even weighing a one-ounce portion of cheese on my little kitchen scale only to binge eat later than night. When I switched my thinking and my diet, it did not have to be as difficult as I made it out to be. Sure I indulge in chocolate and desserts but it is not everyday anymore and I don’t feel ashamed of my body when I eat these things. I feel that is progress and I am happier for it.

What can you use this cashew cream for? Almost everything! I like it made sweet or savory:

 As a soup topper:

Sweet Pea Soup with Minty Cashew Cream

Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Lemon Cashew Cream

 To make cheesy goodness (this is a carnivore fav!):

Ultimate Vegan Nacho Cheese

Ultimate Vegan Cheesy Kale Chips 

As a lightly sweetened or savoury breakfast sauce:

Peaches & Cream Pancakes {Gluten Free + Oil Free} with Amaretto Cream (swoon!)

Portobello Florentine with Lemony-Hollandaise Sauce

 As a base sauce:

Cherry Tomato, Arugula and Herb Pissaladière with Roasted Garlic Cream Sauce

 As a substitute for your favourite creamy salad dressing (I LOVE creamy dressing!):

Vegan Purple Kale Caesar Salad 

Buffalo Chickpea Salad with Garlicky Ranch Dressing 

French Inspired Creamy Lentil Potato Salad

Whatever you like really! Play around with this recipe, modifying the add-ins to suit your dish. I used lime-juice, cilantro and jalapeno to make a green sauce for tacos and it was sooo good. Way better than the old sour cream blob I use to use.

Pinched for time? Forgot to soak your nuts overnight? The quick soak method is easy but it won’t be considered a “raw” recipe and doesn’t have the same sprouting goodness. In a small pot with a tight fitting lid, add enough water to cover the cashews. Bring the water to a boil, add the cashews, cover with the lid and take the pot off the heat. Let the cashews soak in the hot water for 1 hour. Drain and use in the recipe.

The cashew cream will thicken in the refrigerator so just add some water and stir until your desired consistency. It will keep refrigerated in an airtight container for about 4 days.

Happy VeganMoFo! Also Hello Early Fall!! I got the boots and scarves out of the closet. Sighh…I am in such denial.

 9 recipes down, 11 more to go….

The post Sunday Staple: Basic Cashew Cream {10 Ways} appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

 1) Reading

2) Writing

3) Cooking

4) People watching

5) Anything with an abundance of fresh basil

I didn’t love basil until I was in my early 20’s since I was so accustomed to the shaker of dried basil my mother kept in the cupboard. Fresh basil is a million times better than dried and I am grateful that I have access to it year around but it is best when the weather gets warm and I think we are all quite pleased with the recent weather.

At an old serving job of mine we kept a rooftop herb garden in our patio so the air had a smell of sweat, beer and basil. One of my coworkers at the time is a very petite big haired fierce Italian woman and she loved to sit by this garden whenever it was slow. She had this funny habit of gently stroking the herb plants and then rubbing her herb infused hands on her neck. At first I just thought she didn’t want to be smelly since we were sweating profusely midday in our all black button up uniform. Once we became friendlier with each other I finally asked her why she did this. She said that her mother was an avid gardener but never grew flowers, only plants that you could eat since she had grown up with little money. She said she never minded the thrift store clothes since the family “ate like kings” in the summer when everything was plentiful and delicious. Her mother would come in from the garden to prepare dinner fragrant of sweat, dirt and fresh herbs. Her favourite was a salad with sun warmed tomatoes, olive oil and thin ribbons of fresh basil.  Unfortunately she had lost her mother the year previous and whenever she was around an herb garden she would touch the plants and rub their aroma on her skin. She said it reminded her of her mother and felt it brought them closer.

This story has stayed with me all these years and made me appreciate having a meal with someone special. Sometimes a meal is just a meal to sustain your body through the day but other times it is an experience to keep close to your heart.

The post Hippie Goddess Salad Dressing + Shaved Spring Salad appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

The only really good vegan chicken wings I have had are from a Toronto restaurant on Bloor Street called Hogtown Vegan. On their menu, they serve a buffalo chicken finger style appetizer that both Mark and I love so much we get our own plate. No sharing here.We always reminisce about our first date at a shady bar patio eating chicken wings and drinking cheap draught beer. It makes me smile to know how incredibly unromantic it was but Mark and I just loved chicken wings that much. I have (in a past life) participated and won 2^nd place in a chicken wing-eating contest in university. Yikes right?

I had tried a few cauliflower buffalo bites before but they really didn’t do it for me. I read recipes for roasted chickpeas and thought it would be good to try to make them buffalo style. After roasting them in the buffalo sauce only, I knew they need more ingredients to make them more flavourful. After adding some of this and some of that and roasting them until slightly crispy they were pretty delicious on their own but naturally I wanted to keep it up a notch. I tossed the roasted chickpeas in a light coating in more Frank’s Hot sauce and they became exactly what I wanted; crispy exterior, soft interior, hot, flavourful with a good vinegar bite. I could have eaten the whole bowl of them to myself but in the spirit of getting out of the typical salad rut, I made my favourite dressing of all time: ranch which is a typical side for chicken wings to dip the celery and carrots.

When I was a meat/dairy eater I couldn’t even have a bottle of ranch dressing in the house in fear of putting it on everything, not just on salad. Now this ranch recipe doesn’t taste exactly like bottled ranch which is a good thing in my books since the packaged stuff can have a lot of chemicals in it. My version is fresh, garlicky and is a great pair with the roasted buffalo chickpeas.

So when a craving strikes for an old favourite don’t fret, get creative and veganize it. It may not be exactly like you remember it just might be better.

 Notes:

•  Make the dressing first, giving it some time for the flavours to blend together.
• Don’t skip drying the canned beans since a wet bean will never crisp up. It is really simple and essential to the recipe. Drain and rinse the canned beans, layer them in a single layer on some paper towels, place a paper towel on top of the beans and very gently roll the beans under your hands.

• Not all Frank’s Hot Sauce is vegan so read the ingredients before purchasing. For true buffalo style flavour use Frank’s and not another hot sauce brand.
• This recipe serves 2 large salads so you don’t have to share unless you really want to.
• Vegan, gluten free and dairy free

Creamy Ranch Dressing

Makes 200mL of dressing

• ½ cup raw cashews, soaked for 2-8 hours until very soft. If you own a high power blender you can skip this step.
• ½ cup water
• 1½ small garlic cloves (1 was too little but 2 was too pungent. Oh recipe developing can be interesting…)
• 1 green onion, chopped (use the whole thing)
• 1 tablespoon each apple cider vinegar and fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon white or black chia seeds
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt or kosher salt
• ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 2 dashes Frank’s Hot Sauce

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until very smooth. Store in the fridge while you prep the rest of your ingredients.

Buffalo Roasted Chickpeas

•  1-540mL can unsalted chickpeas, drained, rinsed and dried (see notes)
• 2 tablespoons + 1 ½ tablespoon Frank’s Hot Sauce, separated
• ½ tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt or fine grain sea salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• Pinch of cayenne pepper

Adjust oven rack to middle slot and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk all the ingredients (the 2 tablespoons Frank’s) except for the chickpeas until mixed.

Add the dried chickpeas to the bowl and gently toss with a spatula. Layer the chickpeas in a single layer (no overlapping of beans) and bake for 30 minutes, very gently turning the chickpeas halfway though the cooking time, they will shrink and be slightly crispy.

Take the chickpeas out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes. Transfer the beans to medium size bowl and coat them with the 1 ½ tablespoons of remaining sauce.

Now they are ready to serve on the salad.

Assembling The Salad

•  2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 2 celery sticks, trimmed and cut into matchsticks
• 1 red pepper, deseeded, de-ribbed and cut into matchsticks
• 1 head romaine lettuce, chopped, washed and dried

I added a lot more ranch and a few extra dashes of Frank’s after taking the photos since salad dressing wilts a salad pretty quickly. Add any more vegetables you think you would like in it but I wanted to stick to the classic.

What do you do when a craving for a former favourite hits you? How do you veganize it? Leave comments below!

The post Buffalo Chickpea Salad with Creamy Ranch Dressing (All Vegan!) appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.