Can't believe it's been three months since I blogged, considering I hoped to blog every day. Yeah, rite. Not even going to make a New Year's resolution about this. Meanwhile, friends have been asking for recipes for a few vegan dishes I made for various holiday dinners: African Groundnut Stew, a traditional West-African recipe I got at a vegan-cooking class at the Mustard Seed a couple of years ago, which I made for a Christmas dinner and for New Year's Eve. The second recipe is an Asian wilted cabbage -- look, ma, no bacon drippings -- salad I made up for New Year's Day to replace lucky cabbage cooked in animal fat. The last is yummy, robust, luscious black-eyed peas I made for New Year's in place of traditional Southern-style Hoppin' John, normally also heavy with ham hocks. I gotta tell you, nobody around the table today missed the meat. Yum, yum, eat 'em up, y'all, and Happy New Year!!!!!!
African Groundnut Stew
Serves 4-6
1 small head cauliflower, cut into large florets (3 cups)
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt
1 small onion (1 cup), diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced, peeled ginger
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1/2 pound (1 cup) turnip, peeled and large chunks
2 medium carrots, large chunk (1 cup)
1 celery stalk, cut in 2.5-inch pieces
2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, chopped into chunks
2 tablespoons shoyu or tamari or soy sauce.Best is shoyu or tamari
2 cups water
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut large chunks (1 1/4 cups)
1 pound acorn or other delicate squash, halved, seeded, peeled and cut into large chunks (4 cups)
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter mixed with 1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoons ginger juice (can make your own by grating a few large chunks of ginger, then squeeze the juice out of the grated ginger, using your hands)
2-3 green onions, sliced (1/4 cup)
1/4 cup cilantro, plus more for garnish
pinch cayenne
1/2 cup chopped, roasted, unsalted peanuts, for garnish
Arugula for garnish.
Toss cauliflower in bowl with 2 tablespoons of oil, sprinkles with salt. Spread on baking sheet and roast in oven for 30 mins. Can stir halfway through, or ok if not. Heat 2 T oil in large pot. Add onions and cook med-low for five mins. Add garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes and cook another 5 mins. Add turnips, carrots, celery, tomatoes and shoyu and cook uncovered over med heat, stirring occas., for five mins until tomatoes are reduced and thickened. Add water. Cover pot. Bring to boil on high. Lower heat, simmer, partially covered, 10 mins. Add potato, squash and 1 tsp. salt and cook another 15 mins until vegs tender. Stir in roasted cauliflower and peanut butter mixture and cook for just a few minutes, stirring occas to keep stew from sticking to bottom of pot. Add ginger juice, green onion, 1/4 cup cilantro, adjust salt, add a bit of cayenne. If stew is too thick, add water. Serve with peanuts and cilantro and arugula. Serve over brown rice or couscous. Divine.
DL’s Wilted Asian Cabbage Salad
1/2 large head of cabbage, sliced and chopped
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 red pepper sliced and chopped
1/2 cup peanuts or cashews
1/4 cup veggie broth
3 cups water
1/2 - 1 teaspoon raw organic cane sugar2 T toasted sesame oil
2 T red wine vinegar
salt
cracked pepper
Boil water with veggie broth. While water is boiling, chop cabbage. Pour boiling water over cabbage. Let sit 10 mins. While cabbage is wilting, chop carrots and pepper. Drain cabbage. Run cold water over to cool cabbage a bit. Mix all vegs together. Drizzle on oil. Ditto vinegar, then salt, cracked pepper, sugar, and nuts. Stir. Chill. Voila.
DL’s Alternative to Meat-Based Hoppin’ John for New Year’s Eve
3 cups dried black eyed peas
1/2 onion
1/2 sweet red pepper
3 large clove garlic
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt
olive oil
veggie broth
Soak beans overnight. On New Year’s Day, get up if you can and put beans on to boil with veggie broth in several cups of water. The amount is personal preference. I’d say 8-10 cups water and 1/2 cup powdered veggie broth. As beans begin to boil, chop veggies. Put olive oil in saute pan. Throw in onion, then pepper, then garlic, then pepper flakes. Saute for a few mins. Add to beans. Cook uncovered til beans have soaked up water. Add brown rice. Really yummy. Almost gone. See:
It's January. Must be diet time, and here come all the Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers commercials. Here come, also, two mainstream studies championing vegetarian, vegan and even raw-foot eating as paths to a healthy body. Macrobiotic eating is also mentioned in one of the studies, but it doesn't get as many kudos. Both studies rank several diets according to weight-loss success, nutritional completeness, health benefits and ease. Regardless of rankings -- and whether you support popular media or not -- it's nice to see mainstream health professionals publicly supporting lifestyles that start with no meat and go from there. Bravo, U.S. News and World Report. Bravo, Yahoo! 
