Tahini Eggplant

This is not a very sweet recipe, but I enjoy it very much for how satiating it is, and its ability to be eaten hot or cold and still taste alright.  The proportions here will yield two to three large servings.  Sometimes, I top this with balsamic vinegar, or sunflower seeds.

Ingredients

♕1 large eggplant
♕At least 0.5 lb / 0.25 kg spinach
♕6 T / 180g tahini
♕1/4 cup / 20g raisins
♕1/2 cup / 50g walnuts
♕Grapeseed oil, for cooking

Procedure

♕Heat up a frying pan to medium heat, with oil
♕Dice the eggplant into 1' by 1' / 2cm by 2cm cubes.
♕Cook eggplant until browned and mostly translucent, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
♕Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in the spinach.
♕When the leaves are almost entirely wilted, take the frying pan off of the heat and stir in walnuts and raisins.
♕Stir in the tahini.
♕Serve.  

Lunchboxing

These past days, I've decided that my stomach and campus food aren't ever getting back together.  So, I've taken to packing my own lunches!

The lessons I've learned while packing lunch feel rather valuable, and so I will share with the Internet my lunch ideas from time to time, as well as just some good lunch-packing tips to keep in mind if you want to take a home cooked meal to work.

The sample recipe I've included is Japanese inspired.  The main part of it is rice, fermented soybeans, and an egg.  The side dish is salad, and the snacks are nori and carrots.  The process takes about an hour and a half, but you will be actively working for 15 minutes at most.  The rest of the time is just for the rice to cook.

Rules of Thumb:

♕ If your lunchbox is solid, try to have it just filled completely.  This reduces how much your food jiggles around as you carry it.

♕ While preparing your food, think of meals that you enjoy cold.

♕ Also, think of foods that become better the longer they sit, like marinades or tiramisus which absorb cream.

♕ Try to increase your collection of small containers, a few centimeters tall.  These are excellent for holding garnishes like sauces, berries, nuts, and herbs separate from your meal until right before eating.

♕ Following that strain of thought, try to keep as many things as possible separate in your lunch.  Sandwiches are oft best fresh assembled, so keep the bread away from the soggy components if at all possible.

♕ Invest in reusable plastic eating utensils, plastic baggies, and plastic containers for maximum glass-shard prevention.  Tight screw on lids are nice too, lest your lunch gets leaky and freaky.

♕ Know how you respond to certain foods.  I get very drowsy after eating Greek yoghurt always, so when I want it for lunch I also pack some coffee.

♕ As always, try to keep things healthy.  A multicolored lunch filled with whole grains, good proteins you don't mind eating cold, and many fruits and vegetables will provide great satiety.

♕ If you are worried about having halitosis after finishing lunch, you can pack some foods which naturally cleanse the breath, such as a few cardamom pods or cilantro.

Sample Lunch Ingredients:

♕ 1 cup / 90g forbidden rice (a purple glutinous rice sold in many Asian supermarkets)

♕ 2 cups / 475mL water

♕ 1 pouch (60g) natto

♕ 1 egg

♕ 1T / 15g mustard

♕ .5T / 7mL soya sauce

♕ 1 cup / 50g torn lettuce

♕ 1t / 3g black sesame seeds

♕ 2T / 5mL salad dressing

♕ Handful carrots, sliced as you wish.

♕ 1-2 sheets toasted nori, cut into ~6cm by ~3cm rectangles

Under the egg, bottom left, sits the natto, while at the top
you can see the forbidden rice in all of its blackness.
I use a small, rinsed container from peanut butter for my
main dish.

Procedure

For the rice

♕ Boil the water, add rice, cover

♕ Simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally

♕ Take off heat and let sit for 15 more minutes.

♕ Spoon about a fourth of the recipe into a small sealable plastic container.
note: as soon as you are done with the rice, refrigerate.  Forbidden rice gets its deep purple color from minerals and all sorts of healthy molecules the grains contain inside.  While this makes the food nutritious for you and me, it also makes it delicious for many bacteria.  I left the cooked rice on my stovetop overnight, and in the morning there was so much bacterial growth in it that it had to be disposed of.
If you cook brown or wild rice instead of forbidden, the same warning applies.  The risk is lessened with white rice.  You should still refrigerate it though.

♕ Top with natto.

♕ On a pan, break an egg and cook to desired doneness.

♕ Top natto and rice.

♕ Into separate container(s), pour mustard and soy sauce. 

note: they are added to the natto and rice.

For the salad

♕ Tear leaves, cover in sesame seeds.  Put into container.

♕ Pour dressing into separate container.

Assembly

♕ Into one plastic bag, place carrots.

♕ Into another, place nori.

♕ Arrange your salad and rice containers.

♕ Into remaining space, put dressing containers.

♕ Place plastic bags on top of containers.

♕ Insert eating utensil (chopsticks or fork)  

♕ Refrigerate until ready to go

♕ The morning of, I made some green tea to go with the meal.

Quick Fragrant Salad

Despite most of the recipes posted on my blog being desserts, I do actually consume not sweet things too, sometimes.  I am a bit embarrassed to post something so simple.
This is a very quick salad that can be made with any crunchy leafy green.  The amount made is very adjustable, so in addition to posting a recipe with volumes of ingredients, I will also post the ingredient ratios.

Ingredients:

For the dressing

♕ 2t / 7mL sesame oil
♕ .5t / 2mL soy sauce
note: I used reduced sodium soy sauce
♕ 1T / 12mL mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking rice wine)
♕2t / 1g fresh dill, chopped
♕2t / 1g fresh parsley, chopped

The dressing marinates.

Which translates to
sesame oil:soy sauce:mirin:dill:parsley
4:1:6:4:4
note: it is very viable to mix a bottleworth of the dressing and keep it in the fridge, if you believe you will eat lots of this salad.  In fact, doing so will preserve your fresh herbs and give the dressing a very strong dill/parsley aroma.

For the salad

♕1.5 cup / 50g torn salad leaves, like boston, romaine, or iceberg
♕2t / 5g black sesame seeds

Procedure:

♕Mix the ingredients for the dressing as far in advance as you can.
♕Combine salad and dressing, garnish with sesame seeds.

♕Serve.

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Truffles

These truffles were surprisingly successful.  They have an interesting fruity aroma that can be attributed to the walnuts and strawberries working in tandem.  They are completely raw, vegan, and have about 20 minutes of hands-on time.

Ingredients:

♕ 1 cup/150g walnuts
♕ 4 strawberries
♕ 5T/45g cacao powder note: I used cacao powder without any sugar, but with vanillin added.  If you do want to add a vanilla aroma to your truffles, either use vanilla enriched cacao powder (if you have it), or add powdered vanillin.  the recipe will be too wet to accept liquid vanilla extract.
♕ 2t/6g molasses
♕ 2 T/20g agave
♕ 3T/45mL coconut oil

♕ pinch salt
♕ splash strong, unsweetened coffee
♕ 1 cup/100g cacao nibs or unsweetened coconut flakes note: with the cacao nibs these truffles become less sweet than if you just ate the batter.  If you are fond of a higher sweet:bitter ratio in chocolate treats, you can either add more sweetener or roll the truffles in both cane sugar and cacao nibs.



Procedure:

♕ Soak the walnuts overnight.
♕ In a food processor, combine all ingredients save for the cacao nibs or coconut flakes.  Process into a smooth paste.
♕ Scoop out teaspoon-sized balls of your paste and roll in the cacao nibs or coconut flakes.
♕ Refrigerate for at least two hours, or freeze for at least 10 minutes.
♕ Serve with coffee.

Raw, Vegan Berry Cheesecake

This post is about a recipe by the blogger, Fragrant Vanilla Cake.  I found her recipe for a raw vegan cheesecake and couldn't help but try it.  The results were great!  Very rich, flavorful, and so dense in nutrients.
The cheesecake's "cheese" is actually cashews that were soaked in water and pulverized.  The addition of coconut oil, lavender, lemon, vanilla, and blackberries makes it really darn good.
The only changes that I made to her recipe were:

A) instead of using only agave nectar for sweetness, I used equally raw cane sugar, honey, and agave.  I did this because of doubts about agave's healthiness, but still included the agave since honey has a very strong flavor and sugar is not a liquid.

B) I didn't make the frosting for lack of a young coconut, but if/when I remake this cake, the frosting will definitely be included, it looks so pretty!

I strongly recommend making your own opinion about this cake. The hands-on process is only about half an hour if you're quick and have a good food processor (and not making the frosting), but you need a total of 12 hours to make the cake come to its ready-to-eat glory.