Thursday, November 8, 2012

Homemade Vegan Sushi


Most people are surprised to find out that sushi doesn't have to contain raw fish.  You can normally find several vegetable rolls on the menus of most Japanese restaurants where you can choose from tempura sweet potato, tempura asparagus, avocado, carrots, cabbage and tofu.  You can also order miso soup and a salad with ginger dressing and you have a completly vegan meal!

The sushi pictured above has carrots, tofu and avocado.  I added nutritional yeast for extra nutrition. I also used Organic Eco-Farmed Basmati rice, so don't think you need to buy special short grain sushi rice...or a sushi mat for that matter.  You just need the sushi nori (seaweed sheets), which you can get from any health food store or asian store.

This past week has been a big sushi week as I have packed it in my kid's lunch boxes every single day.  The trick is making the rice the night before AND cutting up your tofu and carrots in little pieces.   Then it's literally a 3 minute assembly process per roll in the morning.   There's a nice step-by-step recipe with pictures at wikihow.com.  You don't need to flavor the rice the way they did it, though it probably does taste better.  I just season mine with rice vinegar and dip in low sodium Organic Tamari.  And as I mentioned, you can also add nutritional yeast!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Very Pumpkin Smoothie

 
 
It's that pumpkin time of year again where we must find creative ways to eat pumpkin!  This smoothie is not raw but I am going to try a raw version using an organic pie pumpkin in the near future.  Pumpkin is a nutritional powerhouse.  We all need to eat more of it, but not so much in baked goods where a lot of the nutrition gets lost :)  According to Nutritiondata.com, pumpkin is a good source of Vitamin E, Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Iron, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Potassium, Copper and Manganese.
 
So eat more pumpkin...in a smoothie!
 
Makes two 24 oz smoothies + extra
 
1 cup cooked pumpkin (I used Organic canned)
2 frozen bananas
2 cups ice cubes
2 1/2  cups unsweetened Almond milk
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Cinnamon
 
Toss everything in a high powered blender and blend until smooth.  This smoothie is very pumpkin flavored and not very sweet.  If you want it sweeter you can add a medjool date or two or agave nectar to taste.