Chickpea Omelette

This is my absolute favourite weekend breakfast!  I used this recipe, with the following modifications.  

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• 2 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 cups water

Instructions:

1. Whisk the chickpea flour, ground flax seeds, baking powder, salt, turmeric, garlic powder, and water together in a bowl until smooth. Set aside and let sit for 5-10 minutes while you prepare the filling.
2. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium-high heat and add chopped onions to the pan, letting cook for 1-2 minutes.  Then remove from heat and set aside while you make the omelette.
3. Add some olive oil to a non-stick pan and heat the pan on medium-high heat.
4. Spoon 1/3 to 1/2 of the omelette batter into the pan, using your other hand to swirl the pan in a circular motion, so the batter spreads out evenly on the pan.
5. Let cook on medium heat for 3-4 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.
6. Add your filling to the omelette, then fold in half over the filling. 

You can probably make this in an incredibly well-seasoned cast iron pan, but I use a non-stick pan that I save for special occasions (because there are so many health concerns, and because the less I use it the less it sticks!).   I added roasted eggplant, the fried onions, and some Daiya Mozzarella Shreds to my omelette, but you can add just about anything!    Olives and fried onions works well, and also means you can cook from your pantry during a pandemic.    You can get chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour in the international section of regular grocery stores, and it's cheap!   

Black Beans and Cabbage with Vegan Mayonnaise

This is a great pandemic dish because all the ingredients will keep in your fridge and pantry for weeks (well, except for the cilantro, which isn't necesary)!   Also, it's just one of my favourite dishes to eat, it has become a real staple meal.  

I made the beans by frying two diced yellow onions until they were starting to become translucent.   Then, I added three teaspoons of this Taco Seasoning, three tablespoons of this lime juice, and two small (drained and rinsed) cans of black beans.    I turned down the heat, covered the pan, and left it for about ten minutes.   Thanks to my friend Sarah for teaching me to add lime juice to my black beans, and thanks to my friend Karen for giving me this delicious taco seasoning as a gift!   You can currently get the seasoning packets at the local products display in the corner of Metro.  I'll leave it to you what kind of heat you add to this dish, and how much.  

To make the cabbage dish I, first, sliced a green cabbage quite thinly.   Then, I made this amazing vegan mayonnaise and mixed it in!    I used this recipe, with the following modifications. 

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons (45 mL) aquafaba (chickpea brine)
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) fresh lemon juice (also Lakewood)
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) maple syrup 
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 3/4 cup of avocado oil

Directions:

1. Add the aquafaba, lemon, vinegar, syrup, salt, and dry mustard into a Magic Bullet and blend to combine. 
2. Add the avocado oil 1/4 cup at a time.  It will take it about five minutes of blending to become thick, and it will happen INSTANTLY.  It's crazy!   

 

YOLOS!

This is taken from the Oh She Glows cookbook, however you can find the recipe here.   They're easy, and delicious.  The only problem is they make me crave chocolate covered cherries!

Fried Radishes

Here I am frying again.   Do as I say and not as I do! ;) Frying is not ideal as your primary form of preparing foods because the high temperatures change the characteristics of the oil, and the food itself, in ways that can potentially cause harm.   However, fried foods are nice to have occasionally!   Additionally, I highly recommend frying in cast iron cookware, whenever possible.  

I hate radishes!   Specifically, raw radishes.    If you don't care for raw radishes either, you still have to give fried radishes a try, they're delicious!   You can also roast radishes and get the same kind of effect.   One of the things I like about radishes is that they will keep in the fridge for weeks at a time, which is particularly handy when we're practicing social isolation.  

I topped the radishes with hemp hearts and avocado.    

Do you have trouble eating avocados at the right time?    Here is my formula that works for me every time.   Buy the avocados when they are very hard.   Take them home and leave them out until they become just soft enough that you can feel them give slightly under your finger when you press on them.     When this happens, immediately throw them in the fridge (well, don't 'throw' them, place them in there gently).    If you do this right they will keep in the fridge for quite some time (at least a week)!   

Sweet Potato and Sage Poutine

It's kind of funny that my web design platform, obviously based in the United States, doesn't recognize 'poutine' as a word ;)

This dish includes:

• fried and boiled sweet potato (more on that later)
• one half of a yellow onion, chopped
• Daiya Shredded Mozzarella pea -base cheese substitute
• pine nuts
• one thinly sliced pepperette (also, apparently, not a word in the United States....I refuse to call it a 'meat stick')  
• fried sage

Okay, first of all, I totally realize I'm frying too much.   I'm going to work on that!  

Secondly, I'm going to try really hard to share how to make good food with what you have in your kitchen during a pandemic.   I made this dish because the two things in my kitchen that were going to go bad next were a sweet potato and some fresh sage.

If you've never fried sage, it's absolutely delicious!   I made it in my cast iron frying pan, with some olive oil.   The trick is to leave it at a medium-temperature, moving it frequently, until it gets crispy, and then immediately remove it.   You're going to think you're doing it wrong....just give it time!

I made the sweet potato by:

• first frying the onion for about a minute 
• then adding the peeled and cubed sweet potato, and frying that for about five minutes at a medium high temperature
• then carefully adding enough water to come 2/3 up the sides of the pieces of sweet potato (be careful to do this gradually so that you don't crack or damage your pan), and leaving it to cook uncovered at a medium heat until the water had evaporated
• after the water evaporated, I left it a low heat, covered, for about five minutes.   

I didn't learn this technique anywhere, so maybe it is super weird, but it allows me to make fried things super fast!    

  Fried Fish and Steamed Broccoli with Ginger Dressing

The ginger dressing on this dish is AMAZING!!!!   It tastes a little bit like the dressing you might get a on a plain salad at a sushi restaurant.   Just throw the following ingredients into a blender.  I used my Magic Bullet, I assume a Vitamix would work just as well.

• 1/2 mild onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup avocado oil
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp minced fresh garlic
• one small carrot, chopped
• one tbsp tamari or soy sauce
• one tbsp maple syrup
• one tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

It takes about five minutes to thicken up, so don't freak out if it seems runny at first!  

I made the fish by thawing frozen fish and then dipping it into a mixture of cassava flour, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper, and then frying it in a cast iron frying pan.    I'm sorry, I didn't measure, but basically you can't go wrong!   

It's really hard to figure out what kind of fish to buy, isn't it?   I buy frozen fish, mostly because I lived on the West Coast for ten years, and fish counters here smell like old fish to me.    I always make sure what I purchase specifies that it was wild caught, and strive to find fish that was caught in a human and environmentally-sustainable manner.     This is a really great tool for choosing what kind of fish to buy!  

I'm a big believer in following your cravings.    If you can, stand in the produce section of your grocery store, or in your kitchen, and see what you feel inspired to eat.    If we can tune out the call of Doritos and chocolate bars, our body has the capacity to tell us what nutrients it wants.   For a couple of years now, I haven't had a taste for broccoli.    Then, the last time I went shopping, the craving came back.   It was delicious! 

Instant Pot Spinach Saag

This dish tastes much better than it looks!   I made it in my Instant Pot.  From start to finish, it took about 30 minutes.   

I used this recipe, but with the following substitutions:

• I used whole chicken thighs, and increased the cooking time to 10 minutes
• I didn't have any ground coriander, so I used one tsp. of curry powder instead
• I used two 300 gram frozen blocks of spinach
• I used 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

This recipe can easily be made vegetarian.   Blocks of tofu might substitute nicely for the paneer you would get with this dish.   

I'm bringing this blog back to life!   Why?   The number one reason is that we're all going to have a lot more free time in our kitchens, so why not!   This pandemic has the silver lining of giving each of us more time to focus on self-care and healthy routines.   Additionally, eating well keeps you in better health!  

In the past, I've posted a breakfast, lunch, and dinner with each post.   I'm going to make things easier on myself and post primarily dinners, with a few breakfasts.   This is because my dinners vary far more than my breakfasts, and my lunches are almost entirely leftovers. 

I put a lot of focus on breakfasts with my patients.  Our culture has taught us to eat loads of gluten and dairy for breakfast, often highly processed, and it isn't doing us any favours.  Instead, I encourage my patients to eat a balanced, hearty breakfast that includes vegetables and protein as soon as they are hungry.   I also encourage them not to have coffee before they eat, because this suppresses the appetite and throws off the rhythm for the day.     This works out extremely well for a huge portion of my patients!    Results include better blood sugar control (including in one patient who produced hard data via an implanted glucose sensor), a significantly decreased urge to snack, and a much more steady mood and energy throughout the day.   Want to learn more?  Here is a nice article you can read.   

I know a lot of you are learning about intermittent fasting these days, but in the interest of not having this post be too long, I'm going to save information on this for another time.   In the interim, I challenge you to try this breakfast approach.  Just like most of my patients, I'll bet you'll find you feel good doing it!

So, this breakfast includes:

• an orange (that one was kind of obvious)
• pickled herring* (a quick source of breakfast protein)
• sliced radishes, fried in olive oil, with some sliced Daiya Smoked Gouda Style pea-based fake cheese melted on top 

*I don't expect everyone to get excited about pickled herring, it just works for me ;)

What vegetables can you imagine eating for breakfast?