Soyican

One thing you need to know about me is that I'm Chilean and I thought it would be cool to share my vegan version of this Chilean dish called "charquican." Usually this dish has ground meat, beef jerky or Durvillaea anteractica (chilean seaweed) but my version is a bit different. Also, I wanted to show you how to make "Ensalada Chilena" which is a tomato salad that has tons of flavor and shows you how the textures of raw food make all the difference.

Ingredients: Charquicán
Serves: 4-6

• About 12 small potatoes or about 8 big potatoes (yukon gold will do)
• one cup of green beans (not canned but fresh or frozen) 
• one cup of kernel tcorn (fresh of frozen) 
• 1.5 cup banana squash cubed 
• 1/2 big onion (purple or white depending which one you like)
• 2-3 roma tomatoes 
• half a bunch of spinach  
• 3-4 small carrots 
• 2 cloves of garlic 
• 1/4 of a red bell pepper 
• 1 cup of mushrooms
• 1 1/4 cup of textured soy protein (or soy meat, textured vegetable protein)
• 1 serrano pepper
• sea salt 
• pepper if you want (not a fun of adding pepper to every single dish like people do sometimes) 

Preparation: Charquican 

1. Wash all of the ingredients.
2. Boil potatoes, banana squash, corn and green beans in salted water until potatoes are soft. I prefer using a pressure cooker for this if you are in a hurry. 
3. While all ingredients in #2 are boiling get a sauté pan or frying pan add olive oil and turn the heat to med high.
4. Mince or dice (depending on your cutting abilities and how much your family likes onions) the onion. Mince garlic, Serrano pepper (take out the seeds before mincing) and red bell pepper. Add to the pan and turn down the heat to medium. Cook everything until onions until they are translucent. 
5. Add sliced mushrooms, and sliced carrots and diced tomatoes (if you have a this is a piece of cake) and add them to the frying pan with the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 3-4 min. Turn the heat to med-low
6. Boil about 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and add the soy meat. It will mandoline dehydrate in about 2 min. After that drain the meat very well and add it to the frying pan with the sliced spinach and add salt and pepper to taste.  Mix very well and cook for another 2 min on med heat until everything is been incorporated very well. Make sure that the spinach keeps the green color. 
7. Drain the potatoes, green beans, squash and corn but leave about 1/4 of the water. Place in a big pot or bowl. Gently smash them (do not puree) you should be able to see big chunks of the ingredients. Add all of the ingredients from the frying pan to the bowl and mix gently until everything has been well incorporated. Taste and add salt if needed. Serve hot. 

Ingredients: Ensalada Chilena 

• 6 globe tomatoes ripe but not still hard 
• half a bunch of cilantro 
• 1 big yellow or white onion
• sea salt  
• red wine vinegar
• grape seeded oil (Love this type of oil for salad or salad dressings) or olive oil 

Preparation: Chilean Salad 

1. Wash all ingredients 
2. In chile everyone peels the tomatoes. Don't ask me why but I enjoy the peel so I leave it on in my version 
3. Thinly Julienne onions. In case you don't know watch the video below. 
4. Add the onions to a bowl with cold water and about 2 tbs of sea salt. Pressed the onions with your hands until everything has been kinda of covered with salt and the water. Leave it there for about 20 min and rinse.
5. Roughly chop the cilantro 
6. Mix all ingredients in a bowl with salt, grape seeded oil and vinegar and mix. 

Lentil and Spinach Soup

This is one of my favorite lentils recipe. It's Jamie Oliver's Lentil and Spinach soup (you have to love that guy, even though he's not vegan. He always uses organic ingredients and he's super into having his own garden, you gotta love that guy)). One you thing you will have to get used to with me is that I will always change the original recipe. Most of the time is because I need to adjust for missing ingredients, but sometimes it's just because I think you need to be adventurous in the kitchen. Am I right?! Otherwise where's the fun in cooking...YOU CAN'T BE SCARED OF TRYING NEW THINGS, if you mess up SO WHAT?!

ok so enough of the blah blah. Here's the recipe

**This soup works really well if you make it with yellow split peas or dried green peas, as well as with greens like spinach, cabbage and swiss chard. 

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 2 carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 2 medium onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 3/4 quarts vegetable broth, preferably organic (Pretty much the whole carton) 
• olive oil
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
• 1/2-1 fresh red chile (I used green serrano peppers instead)
• 10 grape or cherry tomatoes 
• 2 cups red lentils
• 7 cups of spinach (I used a mixed of spinach, kale and swiss chard) 
• sea salt (you always want those extra minerals in your salt!)
• black pepper

To make your soup

• Peel and roughly slice the carrots
• slice the celery
• peel and roughly chop the onions
• peel and slice the garlic
• put the broth in a saucepan and heat until boiling
• put a large saucepan on a medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil 
• add all of your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon
• cook for around 10 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is lightly golden
• meanwhile, peel and finely slice the ginger
• seed and slice the chile
• remove the stalks from the grape or cherry tomatoes ad slice the tomatoes i half
• add the boiling broth to the pan with the lentils, ginger, chile and tomatoes 
• give the soup a good stir and brig to a boil
• reduce the heat and simmer for 10 min with the lid on, or until the lentils are cooked 
• add the spinach, swiss chard and kale and continue to cook for 30 seconds 

To serve soup

• season well with salt and pepper
• you can now serve the soup just as it is, or using and immersion blender or liquidizer, pulse until smooth
• divide between your servings bowls
• try grilling, toasting or baking chunky croutons or slices of your favorite whole wheat bread

Avocado Pesto Pasta (Raw)

So this is not the actual recipe picture but I just added it so you can get the idea of how it supposed to look

This is my first contribution to this blog. So I hope you like my ideas. This recipe is inspired from Chef Chloe Coscarelli I just love her vegan recipes!
I've made some changes from her original recipe: instead of whole wheat linguini I use raw zucchinis as my pasta. Also, I like to add spinach :) Enjoy!!

Serves about 6 people

Ingredients

• 4-6 zucchinis (depending on the size and you can do a combination of yellow and green zucchinis)
• 1 bunch basil leaves (about 2½ ounces)
• ½ cup pine nuts (since pine nuts are a bit expensive I use walnuts instead)
• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about ½ of a lemon)
• 3 cloves garlic
• ½ cup olive oil
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp. of UDO oil (optional)
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• ¼ cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional)

Directions

1. In a food processor or Vitamix, blend basil, pine nuts, spinach, avocados, lemon juice, garlic, UDO oil and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the zucchini into lengthwise ribbons. Peel off several from one side, then turn the zucchini and peel off more. Continue to turn and peel away ribbons until you get to the seeds at the core of the zucchini. Discard the core. You can also do this on a mandolin, adjusted to a very thin slice.
3. In a large serving bowl, toss pesto with zucchini pasta and garnish each serving with a basil leaf. For an extra touch of color and flavor, top zucchini pasta with sundried tomatoes

Sweet and Spicy Vegan Curry

This is the dish without potatoes, and more beans and peas added, served over millet. (If you come up with a better one, please update this!)
*4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp. curry powder
2 tsp garam masala
1/2 to 1 inch fresh ginger root, peeled and minced
1 tsp salt
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 package frozen petite peas
1 can coconut milk (or cream of coconut)
Rice of your choice

Boil potatoes until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and allow to air dry.
Heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Add rest of seasonings, incorporate, and cook for about 2 minutes.
Add remainder of ingredients and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Serve over hot rice.
Enjoy!

*I adapted this recipe from "Spicy Vegan Potato Curry" on allrecipes.com. Because I suggest putting this over rice, the potatoes may be redundant. Judge for yourself.

Note: if you don't do the potatoes, feel free to add additional beans or peas--or whatever you imagine up might be good! If you like it more spicy, by all means add more spice. Just be warned that it gets a little more spicy the more you eat.