Creamy Orange Sweet Potato Sauce

This is so decadent tasting, it's hard to believe it's both healthy and easy!  I had it with steamed kale but I will have to think of other things to eat it with!   It reminded me of Hollandaise sauce.  It even looked like it because I used an oriental yam, which is yellow.

Ingredients:
1 medium sweet potato
2 Tbsp pignolias (mediterranean pine nuts)
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 Tbsp riesling raisin vinegar

Peel the sweet potato, cut into cubes, and steam or pressure cook until tender.  Blend everything including cooking water in a high-speed blender until really creamy!  Pour over something.  Here it is with steamed kale:

I bet this would be good with asparagus!   Do you have any other suggestions?

easy greens

This was "clean out my fridge" day. I didn't measure anything because I was using up whatever I had, but I list suggested amounts in case you want some guidance.

Ingredients:

a bunch of kale and any other greens you like to cook

1/2-1 onion, chopped

1/2-1 lb mushrooms, chopped (optional)

2-4 cloves garlic, chopped (to taste)

1/2-1 oz pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)

1 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar (or other flavored vinegar, or lime/lemon/orange juice)

Steam the greens, onion, garlic and mushroom for 10-20 minutes on stove, or 2-3 minutes in pressure cooker. Add the rest, toss and serve. Yummy.

eggplant, veggies, & seeds

This is one of my favorites now. I finally learned how to make eggplant: you have to cook it enough for it to get really tender--at least for my tastes. The pressure cooker is perfect for that.  But this dish will work fine one a conventional stove--just cook for a long time.  Which reminds me,  the PC is a great summer appliance because it cooks things so quickly.  I highly recommend it!  Here is the one I got:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant

1 bunch of kale, or more if you'd like

a bunch of mushrooms, 8-16 oz

a leek or onion

any other veggie you want to throw in or subsitute--zucchini, for example.

2 16-oz cans of tomatoes (or 1 if you want)

herbs or italian spices or other spices (I used stuff currently in my garden:  chives, cilantro, tarragon, parsley.  The basil isn't ready yet).

ground seeds, I used hemp, sunflower, pumpkin.  I did 4 Tbsp but I might do 6 next time.

Peel and cut up the eggplant.  Cut up the kale, mushrooms and leek/onion.   Here's how I made it in the pressure cooker:  cooked the eggplant in 1/2 cup water for 2 minutes.  Then added the kale and onions for another 2 minutes.  Then added everything else for another minute.   For conventional stove, cook the eggplant, onions, kale and tomatoes for about 20 minutes, then add everything else for another 10.  that's my guess.  maybe cook the eggplant for even longer.

The ground seeds remind me of ricotta cheese so this feels kind of like an Italian dish.  

You can add beans or edamame too.   I often add edamame to the leftovers.

kale and (another) sweet potato sauce recipe

I like this even more than this one.

Ingredients:

1 medium sweet potato, peeled, cut, and steamed (or baked in skin and peeled afterwards--this is the best!) for about 10 minutes

1/2 cup pomegranate juice or 1 apple and some water

1/2 - 1 oz raw nuts (walnuts good) or seeds (pignolias yummy!) or boiled peanuts

some green onions or small portion of leeks (optional, steam with potatoes)

a bunch of kale, destemmed, (I rip it into pieces by hand), steamed for about 20 minutes or until desired tenderness.

optional: some mushrooms, steamed in the microwave for a minute or two (depending on power).

1 Tbsp blueberry vinegar

You can cook this on the stove top in separate pots, or throw them all together in a pressure cooker for a few minutes. (I overcooked them today and it was still great!). Put the kale and mushrooms in a serving bowl. Blend everything else including the water it steamed in, in a blender until creamy. Add the sauce to the kale and stir.

This is easy and really good. Even housemate really liked it and she doesn't normally like sweet potatoes (I added cabbage to this once and she says she doesn't like that either).

Makes 2 servings. Calories per serving: 302; Protein: 8 g (8%); carbs: 48g (62%); fat: 10 g (31%).

kale and root vegetable sauce

It turns out root vegetables make a great sauce for kale.

Ingredients:

a root veggie or two (e.g., turnip, rutabaga, celeriac, cauliflower is good too)

some onion (half a medium one say)

some garlic (1-2 cloves, optional)

1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman black fig or other flavored vinegar or lemon juice

some veggiezest or unsalted seasoning (optional)

a bunch of kale, ripped off stems and steamed

1 oz nuts and/or seeds (e.g., sesame seeds, raw cashews, walnuts, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds; optional)

a small zucchini (optional)

1-2 figs (optional) 

steam the kale separately.  boil every thing else (except the vinegar and nuts/seeds) together in a pan with small amount of water.  then throw it in the blender with the vinegar to make a sauce.  It's good.  I listed a bunch of optional things I've tried.   Right now my favorite mix is with the root vegetables, onion, garlic, sesame seeds and vinegar.  I really like this.

kale and celeriac/turnip sauce

I had a celeriac, I was in the mood for kale, and two blogs I visit recently showed a recipe for celeriac soup, Mary's and fatfreevegan.com.  They didn't have kale in their soup, but I figured I could add it.  But I wasn't in the mood for soup, I really was more in the mood for kale.  So I decided to make celeriac sauce instead of soup---same sort of ingredients, just less water.  I thought it was good, not great, but housemate really liked it, to my surprise.  I used lemon juice, following the fatfreevegan recipe but I think next time I would use vinegar instead so I'm putting that here.

Ingredients:

1 celeriac, peeled and chopped

1 turnip, peeled and chopped (optional, just happened to have some)

1 small onion or leek, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp veggiezest or other powdered vegetable broth or no-salt seasoning (optional)

some water for cooking, not too much, 1/2 cup?

1/2 cup soymilk?  I didn't really measure.  maybe it was 2/3 cup.

1 bunch kale, destemmed, steamed

2 dates (optional)

1-2 Tbsp black fig or other mild flavored vinegar  (good with the kale)

With the kale I usually just use my hands to rip off the pieces into the steamer basket.   Get that steaming for 20 minutes.  Cook everything else except the dates and vinegar together in a pan.  Once this is done, puree it in the blender with the dates, and vinegar  Add soymilk or water to desired consistency (thickish for a sauce).    Combine with kale in a bowl.  Makes two big servings for a main dish, or 4 for sides.

kale & sweet potato sauce

I got this recipe from Mark on the Fuhrman forums (modified a bit).

Ingredients for 2 large (main dish) servings:

1 bunch kale and/or collard greens

1 leek or part of an onion (optional)

1 large sweet potato

1 small lime, juiced or 1/2 large

1/3 cup cashews

Destem the greens, chop and cook in a small amount of water, along with the chopped leek.  Cook for 15-20 minutes for kale, about 30 minutes for collard greens.  

peel the sweet potato, chop and steam for 15-20 minutes.  

Blend the sweet potato, cashews, lime and 1/2 cup water.  Add more water if needed.  

Pour the sauce over the greens (which have some water in them) and stir.

This makes a little too much sauce, but I find it's hard to blend smaller quantities in the blender.  So you could add less sauce and save the rest for tomorrow and have another batch then.  Or if you are serving more than 2 people, cook up 2 bunches of the greens.

kale with cashew sauce

This is my version of recipes from Fuhrman's site and fatfreevegan.com.   Check out their versions if you prefer.  

Ingredients:

2 bunches kale (and/or collard greens or other leafy green)

3 oz raw cashews

1/2  large onion

1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's veggizest or other powdered veggie broth or no-salt seasoning (optional)

Blend the onion with some (~1/2 cup) water in a blender--don't need it pureed so 5-10 seconds will do it.   Put it in a pan, add the kale, start cooking.   Blend the cashews with some water and veggie zest.  you probably need 2/3 cup water to have enough volume to blend smoothly.  As the water in the pan boils down (after about 10 minutes),  add the cashew sauce and cook for another 5-10 minutes.   the sauce will thicken.  Add water if needed.   Note:  kale only needs 10-15 minutes to cook, collard greens need 20-30.  The cashews give it a sweet and creamy taste.