Tostadas

 There's going to be a slight change here at Greenbeane (formally known as WarmSocks).  I am now 100% gluten free and 60-80% raw.  As a result, my recipes will reflect my new diet.  But don't be scared! They just keep getting better and better!  I maintain my promise not to post anything less than scrumptious.

Starting with these Cabbage Shell Tostadas!!!  Michael and I went to a cooking class at our favorite restaurant in Silverlake called Cru.  This place ROCKS.  If you're in the LA area, I HIGHLY recommend a trip there.  If you're not, I still HIGHLY recommend a trip there.  Here's what they have to say:


Inspired vegan and raw cuisine in the heart of silverlake, renowned for it’s creative use of the freshest organic produce and entirely gluten-free menu.
Chef Rachel Carr crafts exquisite vegan offerings from a huge variety of seasonal fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and whole grains. Artfully weaving Italian, Japanese, Tunisian, Thai and Indian flavors into a fresh interpretation of life enhancing gourmet food, including desserts that even the most health conscious individual can indulge in guiltlessly.

We went to the class yesterday morning, and made this recipe last night - we shoulda doubled it.  It's the perfect mix of savory and slightly sweet and will blow your mind away with how much it tastes like tacos! It's 100% raw (no cooking = super easy and fast!) and fits right in with the 21-day cleanse...did ya start yet??

 

Crazy Sexy Kris

 Kris Carr is one of my heroes!  She's the #1 Wellness Warrior (in my book) and a super cool gal.  Ok, I don't know her personally, but after reading her book, I feel like she's part of the family.  I saw her documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer, a couple years ago and I've been a huge fan ever since.  She recently came out with a book, Crazy Sexy Diet (now a New York Times Bestseller!!) and I'm hooked.  I've read a bunch of books on plant based diet that were super informative and entertaining, but this takes the cake!  She's so funny (I was laughing out loud) and the book is so fascinating and easy to understand that you'll be eager and excited to make significant lifestyle changes.  At the end of the book there's a 21-day cleanse.  I am currently on day 14 and it has already transformed my life.  I wanted to get a head start before I blogged about it so I could share some of my journey before you got started.  Oh yeah, you're doing this cleanse.  It will change your life.  I promise.  I now place you in Kris' healthy hands.  But when you see her website and blog, please promise to come back to mine every now and then, k?

Visit CrazySexyLife.com and let the fun begin!!!

Edamame Hummus!

This recipe is courtesy of my cousin Elise - an amazing chef!  She made this for a cousin home-video viewing party.  It was great fun and I ate this hummus non-stop the entire time I was there (and I'm eating it right now).  This is a super healthy and super delicious snack!

Roasted Cauliflower Soup With Curried Cashew Crème

New Years resolution #1: Venture outside of your comfort zone.  A couple facts about me: I'm not a fan of soup and I've never really cared about cauliflower.  Therefore, I generally stay away from both.  So what better opportunity to put my new year's resolution into action than to try Robin Robertson's Cauliflower Soup recipe in this months issue of VegNews.  I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised!  This soup is so flavorful, hearty and creamy, it feels like you're coating your insides with spoonfuls of velvet.  It sounds fancy and will take about an hour to make, but the steps are cake and most of that time is spent waiting around while the oven and pots do the work for you.  You could even double it and freeze the rest for a bonus meal a couple weeks down the road.

It's a Jolly Holi-dog!

My sister found this on youtube and I thought it was so cute!!

Broccoli Cheese! Broccoli Cheese!

Broccoli Cheese was the highlight of my holiday dinners.  The responsibility (and high honor) of making it would alternate between us and the McDevitt cousins.  One year when it was our turn, our beloved dog, Goober, enjoyed the entire casserole to herself while we stopped at McDonald's on the way to the family gathering.  It was an utter tragedy, and so was losing the broccoli cheese.  This tasty concoction consisted of a block of velveeta cheese, a can of cream of mushroom soup, frozen broccoli and spinach and fried onions (the canned kind).  When I became vegan, I mourned one dish only - Broccoli Cheese.  How could I replicate coagulated cream of mushroom soup? And a mysterious block of orange goop with such questionable edibility??  Impossible!  Well not anymore.  We've done it!  With real ingredients that will make your heart skip- not stop.  This year I had the pleasure of having non-vegans over for Thanksgiving.  They were self-proclaimed cheese fanatics who couldn't believe their taste buds.  "This isn't cheese?! Really?!?."  Really.  So now, I have the great honor of presenting one of my most proud moments in vegan cooking history.  I give you...the Broccoli Cheese.  

Rich Man's Toasted Walnut Pesto Pasta

...you'll be rich from all money you didn't spend on the pine nuts and Cuisinart.  Traditionally, a pesto is made in a cuisinart with a lot of olive oil, pine nuts, basil, garlic, and Parmesan cheese.  I wanted to simplify the recipe and see if it tasted just as good without the cuisinart, loads of oil and parm cheese.   It was awesome! I think this will become a staple because of how easy and delicious and healthy it is!  Yay for new staples!

Clean and Green

 I know I'm behind the times a bit on this, but I'm finally putting to rest the harmful chemicals that I've grown so fond of cleaning with.  No more bleach, lysol, scrubbing bubbles, windex, pine sol or....I can't believe I'm about to say this....cleanser.  I have five animals - three cats and two dogs - so I've been reluctant to switch to green cleaning products because I relied on the overwhelming swimming pool scent to cover the unwanted scents - and I thought green products just wouldn't cut it.  This past Wednesday, however, I became a believer.  If Michael hadn't stopped me, I would've wiped down every single wall in my house.  I found joy in the household activity I typically loathe with a passion.  When I bought it, I thought it was a splurge because of how expensive it was.  But it's ultra concentrated and you only use 1⁄4 cup per gallon.  My eyes weren't burning, my hands didn't feel like I had just dipped them in acid, and I didn't bleach my favorite pair of sweatpants.  My house smelled like the crisp clean log cabin in the snowy hills of Vermont I wish I had.  And of all the concoctions I've developed to get rid of animal smell, this worked the best!  I used a 1⁄4 cup of Meyer's clean day, a couple splashes of vinegar (a natural disinfectant) and a 1⁄4 cup of natural pet enzyme cleaner.  Voila!

Lentil Loaf with Truffle Scented Mushroom Gravy

Ok, I'm kinda really proud of this recipe.  I created it without the help of someone else's recipe, and I have to say, it DELISH!  I tested it out on some friends last night and it was a huge success.  I'm going to serve it in honor of the bird that will be happily frolicking in a meadow and not laying on my table :)  It's a lot of ingredients, but it's Thanksgiving!  I'm going to make this a day in advance so I can just pop it in the oven on Thursday.  Sorry, I'm not able to get a picture up til Friday - we ate the whole thing last night!

PUMPKIN BREAD!!!

Of all the recipes I've posted, I'm most excited about this one.  Every year since he was about 7, my wonderful husband has been in charge of making the holiday pumpkin bread.  This year, he as been tirelessly working to create the perfect vegan version of his famous classic.  After about 4 different loaves, he's finally found THE ONE!  It's light, fluffy, moist, sweet, pumpkinny, and the most delicious bread I think I've ever had.  The only other bread that could compete would be my dad's zucchini bread.  I seriously considered not posting this because I've always wanted a stellar secret recipe, but Michael insisted I share it with everyone :)  He's too nice.  Remember that baking is a science, so you want to follow this recipe like the straight A student you always wished you could be ;)

Indian Dahl

Not only will your taste buds be giddy, your heart will thank you too! This delicious recipe is from Caldwell B. Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.  There's some chopping that has to be done, but you basically throw it all in one pot and let it cook.  It's super easy!

Chili

 I love chili on a chili fall day ;) This is a basic recipe that is amazing on it's own but can also be pimped out to your liking.  Michael likes to add celery but I am anti-celery unless it has peanut butter and raisins on it :) You could also add a zucchini, red, yellow, or orange bell pepper, butternut squash, etc... This is also a recipe where you get to call upon your inner chef.  I'm a flavor lover, so I usually go heavy on the spices and add a little more than what's listed here.  But start with these amounts, let your chili simmer for a couple minutes to let the spices incorporate, and then test it and go from there.  I know this recipe looks like it has a lot of ingredients, but besides chopping the onion and whatever veggies you decide on, the rest is just canned goods and spices that get thrown in.  Plus it's a one-pot meal! My FAVORITE!  

If you want to get really creative, sometimes Michael and I turn it into a cornbread-n-chili casserole.  Reduce the simmer time for the chili to 5 minutes, pour into a large casserole dish, top with the your favorite cornbread batter (stay tuned for a cornbread recipe -still trying to perfect it), and bake according to the cornbread's instructions.  Super yummy and fun!

Chef Peter

My amazing "little" brother (10 years younger and 3 inches taller) has recently discovered the joy of cooking.  As a varsity soccer player on one of the best soccer teams in the state, he realized he needed to be filling his body with clean burning fuel that would enhance his performance on the field.  With no prior cooking experience and hardly any help from the 'rents he has mastered several of the recipes on this blog! He's even leading the grocery shopping expeditions to shop for the intriguing ingredients that are new to him.  So if you're timid to delve into cooking delicious and healthy meals, you can look to this amazingly good looking and super cool 16 (I mean 9?) year old guy -who totally takes after his older sister- for inspiration.  His latest endeavor: Peanut Butter Eggs!

 Me and Pete when he won his Eastern PA Challenge Cup championship! 

Cheers, Bill!

Wolf Blitzer interviews President Bill Clinton as he explains his change in diet after his bypass surgery.

Click here to view the video.

Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole

This recipe cooks itself.  It's so easy and so delicious it might just become a staple for you as it has become for us.  If you don't have all of those spices, don't fret, just add a little more of what you do have.  If you want to add some garlic, go for it - it's not a picky casserole.  And if you don't have vegan cheese, it'll still be really good.

This will take 10 minutes (at the most) of prep and then cooks in the oven for an hour and a half (while you take a long and relaxing bubble bath).