another ketchup recipe

I thought I already posted this but I can't find it so here it is (again?).  This is the ketchup I've been making lately.

Ingredients:
1 onion, cut into large pieces
1 medium apple, peeled, sliced
a few cloves garlic, peeled
2-3 carrots, cut into large pieces
a few medjool dates, pitted
2 16-oz cans tomatoes
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Cut everything into large pieces and put in a baking dish.  Add the liquid from the tomatoes.  Bake for about an hour at 350 degrees with just enough water to keep it moist.  Here's the result of the baked dish (I didn't use dates this time):

Blend everything in a blender.  Add more vinegar if you think it needs it.

It's good, a little more orange than normal ketchup.  If you prefer, don't add the carrots and then it will be more red.  Add as many dates as you want for sweetness.  For me, 2 is enough.   Often I don't use any.

Red sauce (ketchup? barbecue?)

I've experimented with making my own ketchup and barbeque sauce. Of course, store bought is fine as long as it's used as a condiment. I just prefer lower salt and sugar in mine. Anyway I decided I like a sort of combination of the two. Here are the ingredients I used today:

That's salt-free mustard, fire-roasted tomatoes, garlic powder, chipotle powder, onion powder, apple-balsamic vinegar and a baked beet on the right! The beet adds sweetness and a little thickness when blended up. If you want a different sweetener, you can use maple syrup or dates, whatever you wish. The Chipotle adds a smoky flavor but I have to be careful not to add too much because it's hot. Another thing I thought of after snapping the picture smoked paprika, which I also added. I blended this all up, then froze in an ice cube tray!

Then put the cubes in a ziplock bag and back in the freezer. Now I have individual servings whenever I want. They thaw quickly in the microwave. Here's today's lunch with the red sauce as a dipper for my potato fries.

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?

salsa

This is simple and yummy. It makes a great soup too!

Ingredients:

1 16-oz can tomatoes (or 1-2 tomatoes from the garden when available)

Small handful fresh cilantro, or to taste

chunk of zucchini, peeled, and cucumber, peeled. about 3" long each, or a few oz total

1-2 Tbsp red onion or scallions or any kind of onion (i.e., not much)

1/2 red or yellow or orange (or green) bell pepper

juice of 1/2 lemon (less or more to taste)

sweet corn (optional)

peas (optional)

Blend the tomatoes and zucchini/cucumber in a blender. Add in the lemon juice onion, bell pepper and cilantro and pulse to chop but not puree. If you want, add some sweet corn and/or peas.

You can make a double batch, eat a bowl for yourself as soup and serve up the rest to your guests with killer tostada chips (yes, I'm willing to poison my guests with their favorite foods), or you can make healthy chips by slicing and baking corn tortillas (unsalted); 5-10 minutes at 350 F works for me. Or eat with fresh veggies--peppers, celery, carrots.

winter salsa

It's not the season for fresh local cilantro and fresh local tomatoes, so I used some more local ingredients, which were

1 can tomatoes (from the garden or store), drained

1 carrot

one small apple, peeled and cored, or 1/2 regular (I eat the peelings)

part of red bell pepper (1/8 or so)

dried cilantro (or fresh from the store if it looks reasonable--ours was droopy)

tiny bit of onion and garlic so it doesn't overwhelm the other flavors. Add more to taste.

Blend up in a blender. The carrot thickens the sauce.

sweet potato kiwi dip (with raw or lightly steamed veggies)

I'm almost embarrassed to call this a recipe. This is just what you do with the few ingredients you happen to have on hand and you feel like a quick easy meal. But it was good!

Ingredients:

1 medium or 1/2 large sweet potato, baked (1 hour, 350 F), let cool

1 kiwi

1 Tbsp hemp or sunflower seeds, or 1/2 oz walnuts or other nut (or 1/4 cup boiled peanuts)

1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice, or flavored vinegar

1/4-1/2 cup water

Peel the sweet potato and kiwi (I eat the skins of both and like them!). Blend everything in a blender to desired dipping consistency. If you want more of a sauce to pour over steamed veggies or greens, add more water and maybe some pomegranate juice. Today I didn't use any nuts or seeds because I had plenty earlier in the day--it was still great. I ate this with raw carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery:

I'm curious to try a sweet potato banana dip sometime. You never know 'til you try it if it will be awful or great.

zucchini-sesame sauce

This is a summer version of the tahini-rutabaga sauce (rutabagas last well into winter in Wisconsin). I didn't think to add onions. That would probably be good too.

Ingredients:

1 zucchini (yellow or green)

2 Tbsp sesame seeds, well rinsed

juice of lemon

some water

herbs from the garden or cupboard (optional)

Cook the zucchini in a little water. It cooks fast. In fact, I'm not sure you even need to cook it but I haven't tried it raw yet. I will and edit this if it's good. Combine everything except the herbs in the blender. Blend for a while so the sesame gets ground up. It gets creamy once the sesames are all blended. It gets warm and steamy too. Add the herbs and blend for a second if you didn't chop them fine. My herbs were chives, tarragon, basil, and parsley, because that's what in the garden. This is a good sauce, really good with collard greens. Housemate liked it a lot. She's going to get irritated when she reads this because she will find out it has zucchini in it and she claims to not like it.

salsa

I made this up when I didn't have any onions or bell pepper.  This is my favorite salsa recipe so far.  The exact measurement of ingredients is really to taste.  you have to decide for yourself how much flavoring you want.

Ingredients:

1 can tomatoes (16 oz in my case)

kumquat peels (cut them in half, squeeze out the insides)--this was from about 5 kumquats.

cilantro (to taste--a handful for me)

goji berries (to taste--1/4 cup?)  (optional)

1/2 red or orange bell pepper would be good too (I didn't have any)

blend in a food processor.   no need to chop, so this takes only about 5 minutes to prepare.  

banana sesame lemon sauce

I was kind of stumped about what to have for lunch today.  I had a bunch of vegetables.  and some sesame seeds.  and a bunch of bananas.  and a lemon.  and not much time.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp sesame seeds

1 banana

water (I used the water that I steamed my veggies in to reclaim the vitamins)

juice of a lemon

blend it all in a blender.  Believe it or not, this tastes good.   Pour over steamed vegetables.  Serves 2.

Total calories: 288, protein 5 g (7%), carbs 47 g (58%), fat 11 g (35%)

tahini-rutabaga sauce

Ingredients:

1 rutabaga or turnip

part of an onion or leek (optional, I almost always forget this)

1 oz (about 2 Tbsp) sesame seeds or 1 Tbsp sesame seeds and 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds

juice of 1 lemon

some water or liquid from the veggies if you are steaming veggies to eat with this

peel, cutup the rutabaga or turnip, steam until tender (probably at least 20 minutes for the rutabaga in a regular pan, or 2 minutes in pressure cooker). Blend everything in the blender until nicely pureed. Makes a good sauce to top over vegetables or kale.

Total calories: 325, protein 9 g (9%), carbs 50 g (58%), fat 12 g (33%).

We usually split this into two servings.

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.

tahini sauce

This is similar to my tahini-cashew sauce but I didn't have any cashews.  I am getting to like plain tahini more and more.  It's an acquired taste I guess, like many things.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw unhulled sesame seeds.

juice of 1 lemon.  It was a juicy lemon so at least 3 Tbsp, which I believe is 1/4 cup.

1 clove garlic

2-4 dried apricots or 1-2 dates (optional)

small zucchini (optional)

or banana instead of zucchini and apricots/dates (optional)

1/2-1 cup soy milk or water

1 Tbsp veggiezest (optional--I didn't add it)

Rinse the sesame seeds and add them and soy milk and garlic and lemon juice to the vita-mix and let it blend up and get warm and cook the garlic a bit.  That takes maybe 5 minutes?  Add liquid as needed for desired consistency--today I'm using it as a sauce for a bunch of kale so think I used 1 cup of liquid.  Then kind of experiment.  see if 1 apricot added tastes better or worse.  if better, maybe add another.  I added 4 but actually thought it tasted fine without any.   I added a small zucchini (peeled) to make the sauce go a little farther (and because I had one left in my almost empty refrigerator)--I thought this worked well.  I considered adding a banana instead of the zucchini and apricot.   I don't know if it'd be good or not but it would dull the strong taste of the sesame seeds, extend the sauce and add some sweetener.

lemon tahini-cashew sauce

To me, tahini sauce is just a wee bit too bitter.  But cashews round it out nicely.  I'll probably tweak the amounts more in the future but this turned out well.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup raw unhulled sesame seeds

1/2 cup raw cashews

2 Tbsp lemon juice (fresh squeezed)

1/2 cup water (I think)

1 tsp veggizest or other no salt seasoning (optional)

1 small clove garlic

1 date, pitted

Rinse the sesame seeds, then put eveything in the blender.  Blend for a long time so it gets nice and creamy and warm and steamy.   This makes a pretty thick sauce.  I think I might add more water next time or cut back on the seeds and nuts, just so it's a lighter and less fattening meal.  If you split the sauce into two servings, that's at least 2 oz of nuts/seeds each which is probably too much.   I'll work on those relative portions next time I make it.   Maybe I'll try making a lighter sauce for four servings (two meals at my house).    I'll also try it without the date to see if it's still good.

banana-berry-cashew sauce over spinach

I was in the mood for inventing a new dessert today with my three favorite ingredients, banana, cashews, and berries. So first I blended up a banana, 1/4 cup cashews, and 1/2 bag frozen cherries. It made a cream sauce. I guess it was more of a dressing. I started eating it but decided it needed something. So I chopped up some spinach. Then I poured the sauce over the spinach. It was really good, satisfied my splurge desire, and I'm not even sure it counts as a splurge. I still want to experiment more with the "dessert" part. If I'd used a frozen banana, I could have called it ice cream and eaten it without the spinach. Or I could have blended up just the cherries and cashews and poured that over banana pieces. But I actually really liked what I did and it served as my meal. I'll try it with other berries, and play around some more with variations. That will be a fun experiment!

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.  

another pesto recipe

I have discovered this summer that you really don't have to follow recipes very closely, unless you are baking, which is why I'm a lousy baker.  So today I experimented with pesto and made a good one.  It's a variation on my old recipe which is a variation on a cookbook recipe.

Ingredients:

3 cups packed basil

little less than 1/2 cup walnuts

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds.    The seeds and walnuts totals 1/2 cup.  oh, I should have tried the pumpkin seeds in my freezer---next time

2 Tbsp lemon juice (fresh squeezed)

a few mushroooms, say 1/4 cup?  I would have done more but didn't have that much

3 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp water

1/8 cup chives, something like that (optional)

Blend everything but the basil and water in a food processor.  not to a paste, just so it's all small pieces.  Add some of the basil and water, blend, add some more, blend etc until all the basil is mixed in.    Now everything in this recipe is optional except the basil and some nuts and lemon and garlic.   I liked the mushrooms though.  I think it could have used just a bit of sweetener.  maybe a date?  I'll try that next time.   Each batch I split into four small plastic containers.  so that would be only 1/4 date per container so I don't think it would be overpowering.  or maybe just a touch of maple syrup, 1 tsp?

avocado butter

Ingredients:

1/2-1 avocado, peeled and pitted

some chopped chives or basil or cilantro or other favorite herb (optional)

lemon or lime juice (optional)

peel the avocado and smash it in a bowl. Add any optional ingredients or none at all! Truly, I recommend nothing but the avocado because I eat this on corn on the cob. It is best to just have the avocado and corn flavor and nothing else. It is great on corn on the cob! My house guest loves this way better than butter.

chive spread for corn on the cob

My visitor Gail and I came up with this

Ingredients:

1/8-1/4 cup chopped chives

few leaves basil (optional)

1 tsp ground flaxseed

1 tsp maple syrup

1 tsp lemon or lime juice

I'll update the measurements more as I experiment with this.

blend the chives and basil and ground flaxseed in a coffee grinder or food processor.  put in a bowl and add the other ingredients.  Vary to taste (e.g., maybe you want 1 Tbsp of the syrup and lemon instead of 1 tsp).   You can also just do this with chives and nothing else---just blend them in the coffee grinder.  They get slimy enough to work as a spread on their own.  

This spread also works for other vegetables like potatoes. 

Note:  this was okay but later on I discovered avocado spread and it was way better.