"Cheesy" Kale Chips

Glad you all liked the sounds of our warm tomato and sweet pepper pasta last night. We loved it!

And now I’m going to bring you another recipe. It’s really one of our favorites and when it’s made, it’s never in the house longer than two days. Ever. Because we eat it. Right away.

Kale Chips!!

Yes, they look just like leaves you could go pick up outside, and, yes, when you eat them, they sound just as if you’re eating a crunchy leaf you found outside. But do not knock them until you try them!

A lot of people ask me how to prepare kale since it has such a distinctive flavor, can very really chewy, and many don’t like it plain. Well … here is my answer!

“Cheesy” Kale Chips

Ingredients:

• 2 large bunches of kale
• 1 cup cashews
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• Juice of 1 lemon
• sea salt, to taste
• 1/2 cup water

Instructions:

• Wash and de-stem kale bunches, then chop or tear into large “chips”. Place in large bowl.
• Blend together all other ingredients until smooth.
• Pour “cheese” into your bowl of chopped kale and massage thoroughly.
• Place massaged kale onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrate* on 118 degrees for around 12 hours. (If you live in Missouri where it’s extremely humid like I do, that 12 hours will be more like 24-48!)
• Take out, and enjoy!

*Note: If you don’t have a dehydrator, your oven will work perfectly fine! Just put it on a low temperature and keep watching until they’re really crunchy. It, of course, will take a significantly shorter amount of time.

Seriously addictive, and such a delicious and easy way to get in a whole lot of dark, leafy greens!

Things to Come

Okay, you guys. Today was a bit of a monumental day in The Purple Carrot household.
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, this is old news to you

If not, it involves Erik, much trial and error, extreme measures, and perfect New York style pizza crust:

Let’s just say we’re going to be eating some pretty good pizza from now on. #Ilovemyhusband.

See you later!

Easy Cashew Cheese

Hope you all have had a great 4th of July!!

My parents and grandma were in town this weekend, my friend flew in from CA, and I was in another friend’s wedding. While it was a great weekend, it was also a busy weekend, to say the least! I'm left here pretty exhausted and when everything calmed down, I took a nice long nap, and have left the mess in my house to clean up at a later date, ha.

Cashew Cheese

I promised a cashew cheese recipe, and a cashew cheese recipe you shall get!

Since beginning to eat a predominantly vegan diet, cheese is the one thing I thought I would miss the most. I mean, what was I going to eat with, well … everything??

After making cashew cheese, I don’t miss dairy cheese at all! As you can see, we’ve been adding it to our normal dinner dishes with things like quinoa and roasted veggies, salads, wild rice and sauteed veggies, potatoes, etcetera. The below meal consisted of veggies lightly sauteed in hemp oil, wild rice, topped with cashew cheese. (And after I took the picture, I added more cheese!)

Yum!

We’ve made several variations, but here is our so far tried and true simple combination:

Ingredients:
-- 1 C raw cashews
-- 1 C water
-- 3 heaping Tsps. nutritional yeast
-- 1/4 ts salt (we use Himalayan)
-- Juice from a lemon (optional, to taste)

Directions:
-- Blend together in a good quality blender, or use a food processor, until smooth.

It turns out creamy and delicious! Make extra to store in the refrigerator for easy, “cheesy” go-to meals throughout the week.

You can make different variations (i.e. creamier, thicker, or thinner, etc) by adding more or less of each ingredient.

We use a similar, thinned down version for summer salad dressings as well, and it’s pretty wonderful!

What’s one thing you would miss the most eating a diet devoid of meat and dairy?

Summer Salads

I’m trying to figure out where the day went! I think it was the fastest Wednesday ever. This weekend I’m in a wedding, my family is coming to town, and I get to hang out with my best friend growing up … so I don’t mind.

BADSEED Stash

One of the many fun things Erik and I did this weekend was go to BADSEED and stock up on veggies.

If it’s not already apparent lately by my posts, we haven’t had meat or dairy for the past month. It was partially inspired by Forks Over Knives and hearing medical reasons as to why a “whole foods plant based diet” is beneficial to your health. But you know us, we like to experiment with foods so it’s not all that crazy for us to up and start eating vegan.

That being said, lots of veggies are in order!

The highlights included: kale, arugula, zucchini, tomatoes, beets, turnips, fava beans, and chard. All local, and fresh.
In fact, perhaps these are my very stalks of kale right here at URBAVORE farm in the ground

Anyways, doesn’t it all look delicious??

I love the naturally beautiful colors of fruits and veggies!

Veggie Time

Thus, a lot of different salads have been consumed … they’re simple, have lots of variations, are really healthy, and can be so refreshing on hot summer days.

We’ve been using a lot of avocado dressings and cashew cheeses with our veggie-based meals. Both are so good, especially cashew cheese. I should have been eating it a long time ago, vegan or not!

What’s your favorite avocado and/or cashew-based “cheese” and dressing??