Ready for the Christmas Holiday!

Merry Christmas!

What is everyone planning for their big Christmas feast? Since we are staying in Oregon this year for Christmas instead of traveling back to Texas to visit family, we are having fun planning our meal.


Here's our menu:

• Veganomicon's Cornmeal-masala Roasted Brussel Sprouts
• Creamy Tomato Soup
• Celine's Pumpkin Yeast Bread Rolls, with added cornmeal
• Diet Dessert and Dogs' Tofu Fritata, with lots of good veggies!
  
• Homemade Agave-sweetened Cranberry Sauce
• Italian Cornmeal Cake, sweetened with all natural date sugar
• The Happy Veganarian's Vegan Speculaas
• Cinnamon Roll Biscuits, this time with a cinnamon-maple-fig filling
• "Egg" Nog Spiced Smoothie
  
• Dark Chocolate Bars for sweets! :)

Yummy, lots of leftovers expected!! We are so excited this year to stay here in Oregon and savor our all vegan meal, instead of being surrounded by non-vegan food and smelling the unappetizing meats. All vegan feast galore!What are all your plans for Christmas holidays? We recently attended a wonderful "Sound of Music" musical at our local theater, which got us into the joyful spirit of Christmas. We also plan to drive around and view the beautiful Christmas lights, as well as attend a Christmas Choir concert. Of course, we wouldn't want to miss all of those great classic holiday movies, such as "It's a Wonderful Life"! What is your favorite holiday movies? What is the one thing you most look forward to for the Christmas holidays?

Christmas can be a hectic time, especially if traveling is involved. This year seems to so far be a smoother, easy-going Christmas season. We also finished our gift shopping many weeks ago, mailed them all off in time, and beat the crazy crowds in the stores. Remember to slow down if Christmas gets to stressful! Christmas is more than just gifts and shopping and planning. Christmas is a time to relax, find comfort in family and friends, celebrate Christ's birth, and reflect on all the blessings God has given us.

May Love, Joy, and Peace dwell in your homes and hearts always!
Merry Christmas and God bless,

Artisana Raw Nut Butters Winner!

We had a lot of fun with this giveaway--everyone had such great ideas! From breakfast to savory meals to sweet treats, it is wonderful how versatile nut butters can be with a little imagination!

For breakfast, Animal Friendly loves a heartwarming stick-to-your-ribs breakfast, with nut butter melted into oatmeal. Yummy! Ricki says nut butters are great made into a sweet sauce of nut butter, mylk, and spices, poured over baked sweet potatoes--a great alternative to the usual cereal breakfast!

Sweet Karoline is inspired by the coconut butter to make a Thai chickpea pancake, which can be enjoyed for a savory breakfast or as part of a meal later in the day.

Meghan uses nut butters to enhance sauces and pestos. Vegetation and Sara agreed with Meghan, that nut butters could transform soups or curries into "creamy deliciousness".

Most everyone has a sweet tooth, right? Vegetation also listed some easy ways to use nut butters-in smoothies, ice cream, or popsicles. Refreshing! Erica specifically loves raw banana soft serve--a blend of just nut butter, frozen bananas, and cinnamon. Vegan Lisa and Sara both love to top cakes, cupcakes, and caramel apples with luscious raw "buttercream" frosting.

For coconut oil, Deb Schiff recommends Ani's Pineapple Icebox Cake, a big crowd pleaser. She also suggests replacing oil in brownies with tahini--what a nice way to enhance nutrition and flavor in brownies! Rachel H also uses coconut oil for decadent melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookies!

For those of you who love sweets so much that you'd also enjoy them for lunch or dinner--make dessert hummus and serve with cinnamon pita chips and some fresh fruit. Courtney is inspired by the idea of using different nut butters in hummus and changing up the flavors: Pecan butter with pumpkin and cinnamon, Almond butter with cranberries, Macadamia butter with cocoa powder and a touch of vanilla, or Walnut butter and Cacao bliss. Sounds heavenly!
Personally, we (LKSisters) have been using the nut butters in many ways--with fresh fruit over waffles, added to scones, cookies, and bread, swirled into a creamy smoothie, and spread on top of homemade graham crackers...

What wonderful ideas! Now, we're salvating for some delicious food and nut butters!


Alright, now to the results:

Random.org's Random Integer Generator was used to make this as fair as possible. We generated a winner in a more complex way just for something different and fun--Each person entered was randomly assigned a number between 1 and 200, using the random integer generator. Then, the random integer generator was used again to generate numbers between 1 and 200, and the first number it generated that aligned with a person's assigned number was the winner.

The winner will receive a sample of Artisana Nut Butters (tahini, pecan butter, walnut butter, macadamia butter, almond butter, coconut oil, coconut butter, and cacao bliss), plus a few brochures/coupons from the Portland Veg Fest!

Drumroll please....The winner is-----------Erica from Discovering Raw blog!

CONGRATULATIONS ERICA! Erica, let us know where we can send you the Artisana sample pack! We will also email you through your blog just to be sure you get this message.

And thank you everyone for your entries and inspiring ideas! May you all try some Artisana nut butters and continue to be creative in the kitchen!

Tomato-ey Meals

Tomatoes are becoming less expensive and are so juicy ripe! A great reason to buy lots for tomato-ey meals.

We tried Veganomicon's Potato Kale Enchiladas, but instead of rolling up the tortillas to make enchiladas, we layered them to make a Mexican lasagna. Easier to make it layered! A healthy homemade enchilada pie.
We liked the textures and flavors - juicy tomatoes, creamy potatoes, and crunchy pumpkin seeds for textures, and tomatoes, potatoes, and jalapeno/Mexican spices for flavors. It was tasty, but needed something else, like a drizzle of olive oil or fresh oregano. Also, it took so long to make - and we even split the tasks, prepared the potatoes and sauce ahead, and the next day assembled everything.


When our Dad visited last week, we immediately thought of a tomato dish to make for him - everyone likes tomatoes right? Whenever we cook for him, we try to make healthy but flavorful meals that he will like, because usually he doesn't eat the healthiest and he doesn't get much homemade food either. So, we decided to try Fat Free Vegan Kitchen's Italian Layered Vegetable Casserole. Another layered tomato-ey dish, but Italian style! This was really really good. We prepared the eggplant, bean filling, and sauce ahead of time, and then the next day assembled everything. An easy homemade tomato sauce - though next time we will increase the amount, because the dish could have used more. An easy bean filling too. Had a dollop of olive oil. Next time we might use fresh basil for more intense flavor. Our Dad was very happy :)

We served this with olive oil and homemade Garlic Spelt Rolls, a recipe from a favorite cookbook, the Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway.


For an Easy 5 minute Tomato Soup, with a fresh tomato-ey flavor, try this easy recipe!

Easy 5 minute Tomato Soup

6 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 -2 Tbsp pesto (try Alive Organic Pistachio Pesto)
2 Tbsp olive oil
lots of dried basil (or fresh)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or Vitamix, then blend to your liking (smooth or somewhat chunky). Eat or heat, then eat. So delicious, easy, and fresh! You can also blend in some avocado to make it creamier.

Another delicious tomato soup, but more preparation, is the Fresh Tomato Basil Soup with carrots, red bell pepper, and celery.

Tomatoes don't have to be in just Mexican or Italian meals. At our local Thai Restaurant, we had Thai Sweet and Sour Pineapple Tofu dish with tomatoes in it, and it was delicious! What meals do you like to have tomatoes in?

Whirlwind of Seasonal Eats Part 2

Since the warm weather didn't last, we also enjoyed hearty comfort foods:

Calazones stuffed with mushrooms, kale, onions, bell peppers, garlic, and balsamic sauce. - We got this idea from Dreena's Moraccan Vegetable Phyllo Rolls. We made calazone dough, sauted veggies, then stuffed the dough with the veggie mixture and baked in the oven. Then we served the calazones with balsamic sauce, which was SO good. The leftover sauce we ended up using later in the week over sauted greens and tempeh.

Tempeh Sausage and Hashbrowns - We got this recipe from iamglutenfree.blogspot.com (adapted from the Vegan Chef blog). A great idea but WAY too salty. Should cut down Braggs to like 1/4 cup or less instead of 1/2 cup. It would be good to make different variations - serve with mushroom gravy, tomato sauce, or mustard sauce; add balsamic; add different spices like curry powder or italian seasoning.

Tandoori Tofu with rice and broccoli - We got a tandoori spice packet from the store (these spice packets are great!), and added it to plain yogurt. Served the sauce over rice, tofu, and broccoli and it was a spicy authentic Indian meal!


Miso Soup with tofu and cabbage - We used Vegan Planet's miso soup, and it made tons - leftovers for the week! Great easy soup, nice on a cool day to sip on healthy miso broth.

and Baba Ganoush Pizza - For the pizza, we used Vegan Planet's baba ganoush recipe minus the fresh mint leaves, spread on homemade pizza crust and topped it with bell pepper, tomatoes, and onion. DELICIOUS! Another easy pizza would to use hummus instead - both make the pizza creamy, and are great substitutes for cheese.


Looking foward to more spring! And Happy Easter! We wish you a great blessed day. - LK

Whirlwind of Seasonal Eats Part 1

Spring is finally here, with a hint of summer this week (high 70's and sunshine)!! But sadly, it is only temporary. In terms of meals from the end of March to the beginning of April, we have cooked meals that have wavered like the wind- from winter, spring, and summer meals.

To celebrate the sunshine, we enjoyed many meals outdoors and ate crisp, refreshing, summer/spring-type foods:

Raw Buckwheat Pepita Pate with carrots, cucumbers, and collard greens. Very palatable, much like fancy tuna/chicken/chickpea salads. Good with lots of celery seed.






Raw Creamy Tomato Soup, with fresh red bell pepper, onion, herbs, and garlic for enhanced flavor, and with avocado for richness.


Fresh corn on the cob. We're ready for more sweet corn to make some corn soup. But for now we enjoyed the corn with some buttery olive oil on it.

Tempeh BLT's (no bacon of course), based off of this recipe. Awesome. We just started experimenting with tempeh, and it is so versatile, nutritious, and tasty. We love hearty healthy sandwiches, and the marinated tempeh with avocado and red onion was delicious!

Cheezy Quesadillas with pinto beans, based off of this recipe. This was almost too rich, slightly sweet. We love the idea though and feel this is a great idea to branch from. We are making cheezy hummus quesadillas when our parents come up to visit this weekend.

and Tofu Scramble Fiesta Wraps, with potatoes, black beans, salsa, avocado, onion, bell pepper, and jalapeno.

For breakfast, we made a refreshing Raw Buckwheat Porridge with fresh blueberries and sliced oranges on the side. Zesty, fresh, and flavorful! For a nice snack, we chomped on Kettle's Baked Potato Chips (the best potato chips, and baked, too). And, we savored some Homemade Root Beer Banana Ice Cream.


Stay in tune for Part 2 of "Whirlwind of seasonal eats" post - about the winter eats. :)
-LK

Re-energize!

Everyone experiences days when they feel lazy or weary, when their lives are too hectic and stressful, and/or when they can't seem to be happy and think optimistically. How do you overcome this? We personally feel that the following have brought us better joy:

1. A wholesome vegan diet and
2. Faith in God

Despite weariness and stress, we are more assured and energized each day. God gives us eternal strength and hope. And, being vegan gives us inner peace, knowing that we are doing the right thing and eating fresh, nutritious plant foods that are good for our bodies, good for the animals, and good for the earth. Nourishing our bodies and souls the right way is so energizing and uplifting!

Some vegan food we've recently made has put smiles on our faces :) We've enjoyed using our Vitamix to blend smoothies and soups!

We are officially on the "green smoothie" bandwagon. We enjoyed our first Kale Berry Banana smoothie this weekend, and it was a great way to start the day. Our smoothie we based off of the Green Smoothie Blog's recipe. We blended together some red kale leaves, bananas, hemp protein powder, and frozen marionberries for a delicious, creamy breakfast smoothie! As if we hadn't had enough Kale, we've also been enjoying raw kale salads, with some garlic, olive oil, and lemon dressing or sundried tomatoes.


With our handy pressure cooker, we easily cooked up some red potatoes and whipped up Creamy Potato Broccoli Soup, adapted slightly from Veganomicon!


We also tried a refreshing citrus fruit - the pummelo! This fruit is a big citrus fruit, with a greenish-yellow skin and a pink flesh. Similar to a grapefruit with a hint of lemon, yet mild and sweet in flavor.


A few weeks ago we enjoyed a trip to New Season's Market in Lake Oswego, OR. These markets are like Whole Foods. The employees are the nicest people - they really care about customer service. Shopping at New Seasons is so much fun!

Trying new products always boosts our mood, and at New Seasons we got to purchase a lot of great eats.
(Note, some of the products in the photo above we've already reviewed)
Dr. McDougal's Lentil Couscous Soup Mixes, low in sodium, yet very flavorful and filling!
Terra Sweet Potato and Carrot Chips, although fried, are a nice variation to the usual chip.
Suzie's Puffed Kamut Cake - so good, with a nice "popcorn" bite and flavor, all whole grain.
Dagoba 'Single Origin' Milagros Dark Chocolate bar - with notes of banana and fruit.
Panda Licorice - the best licorice bar with a great molasses-licorice flavor, soft and chewy!
Laura's Wholesome Junk Food Gingerbread Bites - good because healthier ingredients (such as dates); but too much sugar/sweetness, and expensive.
Woodstock Farms Mango Applesauce - natural and flavorful!


What are some ways you all find energy and happiness each day? The coming of Spring is another thing to find happiness about!
-LK

Spicy Start to the New Year!

A Spicy Start to the New Year!

To start 2009 off, we couldn't have forgotten our "lucky" black-eyed peas. And since we thought of home, i.e. Texas, we made some spicy black-eyed pea casserole with spanish rice:

Spicy Black-eyed Pea Casserole

15 oz can black eyed peas, drained
1 4 oz can green chiles
15 oz can diced tomatoes, canned, unsalted
1 1/4- 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4-1/2 tsp Mexican seasoning
1/2 tsp cumin
1 med. garlic, minced
1/2 cup onion, diced
2/3 cup green bell pepper, diced
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup canned corn
1/4 tsp jalapeno powder
cooked spanish rice
olive oil

Chop vegetables (garlic through bell pepper) and saute on stove slightly. While sauteing, combine spices. Once veggies cooked, add rest of ingredients except rice and oil, and heat through. Serve over spanish rice, drizzled with olive oil. Sprinkle more spices to taste.


How about more spicy authentic Spanish food - Tortilla Soup!
This is the best tortilla soup! Spicy, flavorful, healthy, and authentic!

Spicy Tortilla Soup

1/2 cup chopped onion
1 -2 cloves minced garlic
1 Tbsp Bragg's
2 cups water
1/2 cup fresh salsa
1 can no-salt added diced tomatoes (~1 3/4 cup), with juice
1/8 tsp salt (omit if have salted tomatoes)
3/4 - 1 cup black beans (from a can, rinsed)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 fresh chopped cilantro (we like lots, and used about 1/4 cup?)
1/2 Tbsp lime juice
optional: cooked corn, green chilies
When serving: avocado slices and tortilla chips, optional nutritional yeast

We actually had this soup with Just Tomatoes' "Just Veggies (freeze-dried peas, corn, bell peppers...), which was good, but we would like to try corn in the summer and green chiles. Even sundried tomatoes would be a different but good addition.

To cook, we just prepped everything to have the soup later in the week, but you can cook this soup in a slow cooker (add all ingredients except avocado and tortilla chips) or just heat soup over the stove in a big pot, making sure to saute onion and garlic slightly first.

Top your soup with avocado, tortilla chips, and nutritional yeast!

Hope you get enough spice this new year to kick off a new you (hey, maybe that spice will motivate you in keeping your resolutions!). - LK

Dad & First Vegan Thanksgiving

We've been blessed with a wonderful DAD to come visit us for Thanksgiving, now that we are miles away from our family down in Texas. And his visit couldn't have been more memorable! He always teaches us to smile, have fun, be patient, and to just enjoy life!He is so wonderful; he was even vegan for the full 3 days he was here! Now he won't keep it up (b/c he says it's hard to change habits and he still likes his meat), but he is so easy going and very supportive. He gave us so many compliments about our cooking - "Everything is soo flavorful", "Wow this is delicious", and "I don't want to go back home to bland boring food". He made us smile and light up each time he enjoyed our food. Thanksgiving was wonderful too in that it was our first full vegan Thanksgiving, because we cooked all the food! Anyways, as for the delicious food we've been having this past week...

Our Thanksgiving meal:
Danish Squash & Apple curry puree, Homemade Pecan Whole Wheat Bread, Walnut Pecan Patties with Herb Gravy, and Steamed Asparagus. Excellent!

For desert, German Chocolate Fudge and Apple Pie - both recipes are keepers! For the fudge we mixed coconut butter, cocoa powder, chopped pecans, rolled spelt flakes (or oats), and a tad bit of nut butter and agave. You can refrigerate it for a 'fudge' softer consistency, or freeze it for a firmer fudge. We finally made WHF's Apple tart, but adjusted it and made a walnut-pecan-pumpkin seed-buckwheat-date crust, omitted the raisins, and used apple pie spice. Wow the crust was so good, and we like this recipe b/c there is no margarine or oil!

For leftovers here are some ideas!

Roasted beets, carrots, and turnips with walnut pecan patties and pecan whole wheat bread




Winter Squash Apple Puree Soup with salad




Just simply bread and olive oil, or walnut pecan sandwich with gravy and squash - all the "fixin's"
FYI - if you have lots of leftover gravy, why not add it to rice dishes or ... even tamales!


For the remainder of Dad's visit, he loved the Thai Coconut Dish, the Creamy Lima Bean n' Beet Soup, the whole grain bagel-rolls, the coconut cinnamon roll muffins, and the fruit smoothies!
























The Cinnamon Roll Muffins are perhaps the best cinnamon rolls and muffin recipe we've ever made and tried! We were craving cinnamon rolls, but didn't want to be slaving in the kitchen for hours as we would for a usual cinnamon roll recipe. So we came up with these and they were a hit! Our dad loved them! So soft and moist and cinnamony and coconuty too. We'll post the recipe soon!

Hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving full of loving memories and tasty food. We love the holidays because it reminds us of our childhood, of wonderful smells from the kitchen, and especially of family.
And we are grateful for vegans & vegetarians and all of our readers! - LK Sisters

A Little More About Us

This past week we've made lots of healthy tasty meals, but we were unbelievably busy at work that we didn't take any pictures. We made a creamy pumpkin pasta dish made with large wheat shells, tofu/pumpkin 'ricotta' filling, onions, garlic, and marinara sauce. Delicious and made enough for 8 people! We also enjoyed burritos with homemade whole wheat tortillas, revised from the King Arthur Whole Grain cookbook.

Being apart of the Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA), by buying produce for the winter season from a local farmer, has been such a great opportunity. We absolutely love all the mixed greens and salad mixes - we have eaten so much more greens than we ever have! Here was a delicious salad with mixed salad greens and stripped sweet raw beets!


With chan dal beans from Bob's Red Mill, we cooked Channa Palak Masala from Happy Herbivore, though we changed it up just slightly. Love homemade soup out of the crockpot! So easy, filling, and warm on a cold wet day in Oregon.


Fall is all about pumpkin and winter squashes! We have such a craving for anything pumpkin/squash. Yummy pumpkin smoothie with bananas, and yummy pumpkin pudding!Veggie Delight recently tagged us to post more about us. So, here goes:

Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are the people we are going to tag (We're only tagging three):
Monique of The Happy Veganarian
Anni and Heikki of Tofu for Two
Swell Vegan

Facts about us:
1. In junior high and some of highschool, we played violin in the school orchestra, and we took German as our foreign language. We are very passionate about music - we enjoy listening to music and playing the piano, we liked the violin (but got burned out after a while), and we have a guitar sitting in a corner waiting to be learned how to play. We are also interested in culture - we traveled to Germany, we went on exchange for a year in college to New Hampshire, we like cultural foods, and our heritage is a mix of different cultures.

2. Krista is left handed and Lisa is right handed. We are "mirror" twins; even our first cavity was on opposite sides.


3. We like licorice and as children our grandparents would always give us black jelly beans for Easter. Right now we have licorice vegan mints and licorice flavored Nature's Gate toothpaste.

4. As children, we loved to make crafts, color, and be creative. We were very quiet, soft spoken girls who liked to just dive into a project, such as crocheting, making posters, coloring, creating ornaments, etc. Today we still love to work on projects. We make scrapbooks of our unique experiences, create recipe and prayer books, paint ceramics, and create collages to give as gifts to our family members (through websites such as shutterfly.com).

5. We each have a different favorite 'animal' - Lisa's is an elephant and Krista loves dolphins. We have lots of figurines and such of each. Of course, we love cats and dogs, especially our two felines, Emma and Noah!

6. We don't like spending lots, and try to conserve and be good spenders. Sometimes though we do spend alot on food because we like food so much, especially when we see new products or go to cool stores like Whole Foods and Bob's Red Mill.

7. We are followers of Christ and love going to mass every weekend! God is so much a part of us, and He's number one in our life. We love to collect crosses to hang around the house.

God bless! Lisa and Krista (LK Sisters)

Eyes, Bugs, Tornadoes!

Happy November! Since Halloween was yesterday, we wanted to get creative in the kitchen and have a "themed" meal. Easy but delicious...

... Black Eye Soup, slimy cucumber salad with bugs, and tornado and moon crescent rolls.



The Black Eye Soup was a variation of our Black Bean Soup, but we added a can of black eyed peas to have "eyes" in our soup. Pureed the black beans but not the black eyed peas.

For the cucumber salad, we just shredded a cucumber and added onion, currants, black pepper and some vinegar. It would be good with some other seasonings, but it was still refreshing and we enjoyed eating our slimy salad with black bugs!

Our Tornado and Moon Crescent Rolls were made with Bob's 10 Grain flour and carrot puree. We were hoping the carrots would make the rolls orange, but it just made it a darker golden brown. The carrot flavor though definetely stood out and made the crescents subtly carroty sweet. Yum!


We had so much fun carving a pumpkin (quite large one too!). The best part - roasting pumpkin seeds! We loved this garlicy cayenne addicting snack.


We are in the mood for comforting Autumn foods, so this morning we baked gingerbread raisin cookies. The recipe is from David's Pure Vegetarian Kitchen Cookbook that we checked out from the library. It is a great book so far with easy but tasty recipes that are quick to make and don't require much ingredients.

Another holiday treat we made last night was homemade "egg nog". In the Vitamix, we blended So Delicious Vanilla coconut milk yogurt, hemp milk, frozen bananas, nutmeg, and a dash of allspice. Turned out excellent!

Hope your November is off to a great start!

Today's All Saints Day, so here is a Bible verse in recognition of Saint Martha, the patron saint of servants and cooks.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:6a)

We should prepare our meals with love and be thankful for the food we have. We should serve others and ultimately seek nourishment from God.

- LK Sisters