Homemade Nut Dip

The Ingredients

honey nut (Turkish mix of pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, and peanuts)

brown rice syrup

almond milk

Put all ingredients into a blender and mix away. Super delicious with celery. 

Fruit Strips

The Ingredients

apple, beet, and ginger juice pulp

maple syrup

water

sunflower oil (I think it's better than canola oil)

Having a juicer is awesome. It is teaching me to be less wasteful. Instead of just throwing random scraps away, I will now say "I bet I can put that into a juice", and magic happens. I had leftover pulp from a juice I made, and thought I would get creative and make a kind of crunchy, chewy candy. Great success!!!!

All I did was add the pulp into a saucepan with some water and maple syrup (to taste). I just reduced it down a bit and let it simmer to really let any little bit of juice left develop. Then, I spread some sunflower oil onto parchment paper. I spread the fruit mixture on top and threw it in the oven on very low heat- 200 degrees, for about 7 hours. 

It looked like this:



Then, I broke it into pieces and it looked like this:

Yummy, yummy treat. 

I can't get over how I used such few ingredients and wasted basically nothing! It is so much healthier than buying store-bought snacks and really delicious. (And vegan!)

Veggie Patties

The Ingredients

celery, spinach, radish tops, and kale pulp

1/2 white onion

4 potatoes

3/4 cup of water

3/4 cup of flour

1 egg

salt

pepper

cayenne

cumin

coriander

olive oil

I made a delicious juice with these veggies this morning and thought that with all the lovely greens I could absolutely reuse the pulp for a new recipe. I was right! 

The leftover were just enough to fill up a small bowl. Here, you can see them in a rather large mixing bowl to commence the veggie patty process. I put this aside and worked on the binder to hold it all together.

Peel 4 potatoes and cut into medium-sized chunks (larger than dicing them- into 8ths). Then, shop 1/2 white onion. Put the ingredients into a food processor. Add some salt to taste, then the water. Mix away! 

The mixture should look like this:

Add the mixture to the green pulp in the mixing bowl. Then, add the flour, egg, and the spices to taste. Mix thoroughly. It should look a little bit like pancake batter. 

All together now!

Lightly coat a  pan with olive oil. Cook for a few minutes and flip over to do the same thing with the other side. I used a 1/2 cup to scoop out the batter, and it made about 10 larger patties. 

They should look like this:

Cooking away

SO GOOD. 

This could easily be made into a vegan patty by using an egg substitute. 

Monster sandwich: two veggie patties, radishes, baby spinach, and baba ganoush on wheat slims. 

Apple Beet Ginger Juice

I HAVE A JUICER. 

The Ingredients

1 apple

1/2 red beet

1 ginger root

What do you get when you put all these together? 

This beauty right here:

Gazpacho

The Ingredients

tomatoes

extra virgin olive oil

1/2 onion

1 clove of garlic

cilantro

hot pepper

adobo

water

All I did was put all of this in a blender. Presto! 

The finished product. A delicious summer treat.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

The Ingredients

4 fresh grape leaves

1 cup basmati rice

2 lemons

1/2 container ground beef

1/2 onion

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or pine nuts)

parsley

dill

olive oil

I had fresh grape leaves. Yup, grape leaves. And I had no idea what to do with them. I have eaten stuffed grape leaves a ton of times, but was worried about attacking them myself. The trick is to boil them a bit in salt water after removing the stem. Then, shock them in ice water. If they aren't boiled, they will be tough and hard to cut through. Once cooked and cooled, set these aside. You will get to them soon enough! 

Next, boil the rice in some salt water. Make sure the rice is not 100% cooked- it will continue to cook later on.

For the filling, coat a pan with olive oil. Chop the onion and lightly sautée for a few minutes. Then, add the ground meat, and cook until the meat is brown. Add the chopped walnuts, a little salt and pepper to taste, chopped parsley, and dill. Take one of the lemons you have and zest it up! This brings out some great flavor. Save the lemon! You will use this (and more) soon. 

Sautéeing awesome

Then, add the rice to the mixture.

It should look like this- good meat to rice ratio.

You can then start filling your grape leaves. Make sure you fold them tightly. 

Stuff it up!

Then, line the bottom of a pot with the grape leaves. Squeeze the two lemons to coat the bottom of the pot. Cover the pot. (They can also be steamed if you so wish). 

Enjoy! They will be very lemony if eaten right after they are cooked. If you don't want them to be as lemony, add less lemon and refrigerate for a few hours before eating. 

Organic Garden

When I got back from my time away this summer, I knew I needed to get some produce. Lucky for me, my boyfriend's parents have an organic garden. 

Check out my lovely findings below:

green beans

English cucumber

tomatoes

grape leaves, green onions, parsley, cilantro, rosemary, basil, thyme, mint, and dill

labeled and ready for freezing