HOW I ROLL…….
An earlier post I commented or if you have read any of my recipes yet, you know I am a long ways from a refined chef. I am your classic amateur who has a passion with no formal training. I read a lot, experiment, come up with some great recipes, forget to write down what I did, start over and try to replicate it again. You also should know I don’t typically measure how much I put in of things, and with spices and seasonings, I keep adding as I go to get the flavor I am looking for. I know this isn’t exactly the “recipe” for a great blog site about plant based cooking. Recently I stumbled onto a site that was called something like “No Recipes Here”. This site, while not vegan, was about cooking based on taste and instinct vs. following a firmly scripted recipe. I can relate to that! I would say my recipes are close to how I would prepare a dish, and now that I am writing this blog, I will pay more attention to how much of things I use and try to be more specific. But you will notice, I like to use A LOT of garlic, spices and pepper. I try to minimize the salt, but it’s true that salt brings out the flavor in certain dishes, so I error on flavor here.
I also tend to make A LOT of food with each recipe. I have tried to scale the amounts back a little, but depending on the size of your family, you may want to cut back a little. We never know who is going to show up to eat and we LOVE leftovers. Many of these recipes are better the next day anyways!
OTHER TRUTHS ABOUT MY COOKING
As you progress with your plant based cooking, you figure certain things out and you begin to find ways to make your recipes even more healthy. In the beginning, if I was making a salad dressing (we don’t buy any salad dressing – all are made from scratch), olive oil would be the main ingredient or base. Olive oil is good for you right! Well, yes and no. No oil is really good for you, just some are better than others (my opinion). As I read and learned more, I started to see that different nuts could be used as a base for salad dressings, sauces and creams. This seemed really foreign and somewhat weird to me, so I hesitated on trying it for a while. Finally, I gave it a go and WOW, it really worked and the flavors were awesome. Now I use nuts (mostly raw cashews) as a base for a ton of things. If you have a nut allergy or another issue with nuts, sorry about that. Other things I use more of now are coconut oil, aquafaba (liquid from chickpeas), nutritional yeast, flax seeds, brown rice, quinoa, seitan, tempeh, tofu and a lot more. I continue to find new ways of creating flavors and great dishes using unique and different ingredients.
Hopefully at this point you have found something in this blog that interests you. I am continuing to add more recipes every day and I will try to add interesting and insightful content as well. The one thing I can promise is that I will continue to read, research, experiment and grow my cooking skills and ingredient lists. And I promise to share what I find right here with you!
