The Lustful Vegan

It’s a wet, grey day outside, and rather cool and dark inside. It might seem bleak if it weren’t harvest day. Yep, today my wee little sprouts became food, and their crisp greenness offered a nice reminder that spring’s lying just beneath that melting snow out there.

The mung beans went into cilantro tabbouleh. Even though I’ve been nibbling those for days and throwing some in everything I’ve cooked, I still had a good two loose cups for the salad. Not bad considering I started with just two tablespoons of seed! They turned out a little bitter, apparently because I didn’t hide them away in the dark while they were sprouting. That’s okay, though — I still found them tasty, and the flavour went well with the salad, so it all worked out well.

The broccoli sprouts I used as a garnish. They’re light and fluffy compared to the mung sprouts, and taste like, well, little fiery broccoli bursts. Go figure. I didn’t touch them until today, and what you see in the photos is the entire ‘crop’ — a single spoonful! From an entire seed pack! (I’m not sure how much the packet contained, but definitely less than 2 T.) Must see if I can find a bulk source of seed so that I can sprout more, because otherwise I just won’t be able to grow enough.

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Today I found myself craving pasta and so, inspired by the Raw Food Wednesday posts on one of my favourite blogs, I tried my hand at making raw zucchini fettucine with a basil-kale pesto.

It was surprisingly tasty. I wasn’t sure I’d like the raw zucchini ‘noodles,’ but they had a nice texture and added flavour to the whole. To make them I just peeled and trimmed a zucchini, then used my vegetable peeler to whittle off noodles until I reached the core.

Basil-kale pesto

• 1 1/2 cups kale, destemmed and chopped coarsely
• 1 cup basil leaves, torn up
• 2 T nutritional yeast
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 T dried sundried tomatoes, minced (mine come that way, which makes life easier)
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces
• 3/4 tsp sea salt (or to taste)
• 1/2 cup oil (I used my rosemary-thyme oil, which made the results extra tasty)

How to:

1. Pulse the kale, basil, and nutritional yeast in a food processor until gooey.
2. Add the pine nuts, walnuts, and garlic, processing until fully ground and blended with the kale.
3. Add the sundried tomatoes then, while the processor is running, drizzle the oil in gradually.
4. Taste, add salt if and as needed.

This tastes very good with tomatoes.

At long last, I took a shot at making a beet-mango salsa. It’s pretty tasty for a first try. My only regret is that I used half my mango to make apple-mango crisp last night, so I only made about half as much salsa as I’d actually like to eat.

Regarding the beets — I roasted those rather than boiling or steaming them, in order to bring out their sweetness and preserve their colour. Their skins proved thin and tender enough that I didn’t even bother peeling them.

Beet-mango salsa

• 1/2 mango, chopped smallish (~3/4 cup)
• 2 small roasted beets, cooled to room temperature and chopped similarly smallish (~1 cup)
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1 small lime, juiced
• 2 T fresh coriander, minced
• 1 tsp brown sugar [optional; you may not need this if your beets and/or mango are particularly sweet]

How to:

1. Chop up the mango, beets, and green onions, then toss together in a glass bowl.
2. Add the coriander and lime juice, toss again.
3. Taste. Add sugar if necessary.
4. Let sit for a little while to let flavours blend, then eat!