Slather on the gravy…2012 style.

In the 8th edition of McCall’s Cooking School, which was published in 1981, an advertisement for Wyler’s Bouillon cubes presented a rice and gravy recipe. Despite its simplicity, the gravy calls for ingredients that put a dent in your diet and health. Here is a better, vegan alternative to gravy that keeps the creamy, buttery goodness without all the preservatives, simple starches, and hydrogenated fats.

Most bouillon cubes are high in sodium and contain monosodium glutamate (MSG). One cube has nearly 600 milligrams of sodium and MSG is a potentially dangerous additive that can cause an host of symptoms, such as heart palpitations, headaches, and numbness. There is often a large amount of preservatives in bouillon cubes as well.

And while margarine is a cheaper substitute for butter, it’s a fat you should steer clear of. During its production, vegetable oils are heated at levels that completely destroy antioxidants in the oils and virtually make them them cancerous. Then the margarine is hydrogenated, using hazardous chemicals that remain in finished product as well as create fat molecules that are unnatural and unknown by the human metabolism. White flour is also an empty substance in the human body and is hard for it to process.

We can do better. By keeping the ingredients real, we take one step, but by keeping them vegan, we go a mile. Here’s a vegan gravy recipe that’ll satisfy even the most skeptical of palettes.

Vegan Gravy

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups crimini mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 tablespoon vegan butter (Earth Balance)
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1.5 tablespoons vegan butter (Earth Balance)
• 1 tablespoon whole-wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 1 cup almond milk (or any other vegan milk)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• Fresh thyme for garnish

Directions:

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the 1/2 tablespoon of butter and add the crimini mushrooms, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook down until the volume has reduced and the liquid from the mushrooms is cooked off.

In a separate pot over medium heat, melt the 1.5 tablespoons of butter, add to it the flour and nutritional yeast, and stir until evenly combined. This will prevent clumping later. Next add the milk, wine, and soy sauce. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continuously stir until the mixture thickens.

When the mixture thickens to desired consistency – it should drip in clumps, not drizzle, from a spoon – add the cooked mushrooms and dried thyme. Stir over medium-low heat for 1-2 more minutes.

Garnish with fresh thyme and serve aside rice or whatever you’d like.

Bon Appetit!

Images: JB Curio, Aylin Erman

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Vintage Recipe Revamp: McCall Cookbook’s Gravy (2012 Style) appeared first on EcoSalon.

This pepper isn’t spicy but it sure brings unique flavors to your palette.

Stuffed peppers are no stranger in traditional cooking, but it usually assumes the role as the filling. Using pasta in a pepper is harder to come by, but it’s a fantastic way to deconstruct flavors and keep serving sizes equal. Rounded with an international touch, this dish just might be my new favorite dinner. Using a whole-wheat pasta, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes, I put together a hearty vegan stuffed pepper with some Asian inspiration.

Yellow bell peppers carry some serious street credibility. They are a great source of carotenoids, vitamin C, and vitamin E and contain more than twice the amount of vitamin C that is found in the same serving size of orange. The sweet pepper also has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory benefits, protects vision, wards off arthritis, reduces cardiovascular disease, colon cancer and lung cancer, and is used in traditional Chinese medicine as a natural treatment for blood circulation, indigestion, loss of appetite, swelling, frostbite, nausea, vomiting, phlegm and toxicities.

There’s no need for cheese or meat in this dish, because the flavors are bold and the satisfaction level is high. By cooking the peppers before stuffing, there is more continuity in texture, making for an overall warm and comforting meal. Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 4 large bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large white onion
• 2 cups chopped Crimini mushrooms
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon nama shoyu (soy sauce)
• 2 cups cooked pasta
• 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup spinach leaves
• 1 tablespoon capers

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare 2 cups of cooked pasta according to package instructions. All pasta types work well!

Slice off the lid of the peppers, making sure to keep the stem intact. Remove the flesh and seeds. Place them in a baking dish. If the peppers won’t stand up on their own, trim the bottoms so they are flat, without making a hole. Place the caps slightly off center so the insides cook as well. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until the peppers have softened and the edges have browned.

While the peppers are cooking, prepare the stuffing. In a large saucepan, cook the mushrooms and chopped Crimini mushrooms in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Season with pepper. After a few minutes, add the soy sauce and mix.

When the mushrooms have browned and the onions are translucent, add the halved cherry tomatoes, capers and spinach.

Fold the mushroom mixture into the cooked pasta, which has been drained and rinsed.

Remove the peppers from the oven and stuff each one with an even amount of pasta.

Serve with the cap for presentation’s sake. There’s no proper way to eat it – pick it up and chomp or use a fork and knife. Regardless, with each bite try to get a piece of that pepper!

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Photo Credit: Aylin Erman

The post Recipe: Stuffed Peppers (Rice Need Not Apply) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Cabbage just got more interesting.

I have a huge crush on kimchi. If I see it on the menu, chances are you can find it in my mouth several minutes later. The spicy cultured treat is a Korean staple – it is served at almost every meal and Koreans are known to pack in 40 pounds of kimchi per person, each year!

The base of kimchi is cabbage. Cabbage lowers blood cholesterol, prevents cancer, and contributes to better digestion. In many cultures, cabbage juice has been used to relieve stomach ulcers. The vegetable is a great source of B vitamins and omega-3s and contains approximately seven times more vitamin C than an orange. Like  garlic and onions, cabbage also boasts a high sulfur content, which helps to fight infection.

Aside from the benefits of cabbage itself, kimchi should be praised mostly for what it accumulates during preparation: healthy bacteria. The cabbage rests in salted and spiced water for a few days or weeks before it is served, contributing to the growth of lactobacilli, which are healthy probiotic bacteria that balance the intestinal tract and help to alleviate digestive problems. For this reason, kimchi is a great companion to every meal.

However, one of the downsides to ordering kimchi at a restaurant or purchasing it from a grocery store is the unknown factors – what kind of salt was used, how much sugar was added, and whether sneaky ingredients, like fish sauce, are in the mix. You can never really know. That’s why I decided to make my own kimchi, but in the most unintimidating and frills-free way possible. That way, I could enjoy it all the time knowing exactly what it contains and without the begrudged process to get there.

It’s a practice of patience, sure, but in the name of all the balance and restoration that kimchi provides my body, I vow to prepare it with similar gusto. Luckily enough, you can get on with your life for a few days while the kimchi does its magic. Do try this recipe out and you’ll have the most delicious and addictive digestive aid ever made.

Enjoy!

Homemade Vegan Kimchi

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients:

• 1 large Napa cabbage
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons sea salt
• 6 scallions
• 8 garlic cloves
• 1 two-inch nob of fresh ginger
• 3 tablespoons Korean chili powder (kochukaru)
• 2 tablespoons Nama Shoyu (soy sauce)
• 2-3 slices apple

Directions:

In a glass quart, dissolve the salt in the water.

While the salt dissolves, core the cabbage and roughly chop the leaves. You can pull the leaves off so they remain full and intact, or you can do what I did and simple cut through the body of the cabbage.

Pull apart the individual pieces and place them in a large bowl. Pour the salted water over the cabbage and massage the leaves until they wilt and reduce slightly in volume.

Transfer the salted cabbage leaves into the glass quart, pushing down with your fist so that the leaves are tightly packed.

Pour the remaining salted water into the quart so that all the leaves are completely submerged. Seal the top of the glass jar and store at room temperature away from direct sunlight for 24 hours.

The next day,  drain the cabbage leaves from the water and rinse, reserving the salted water for later use. Place the leaves in a large bowl.

In a food processor, mix the garlic, chili, scallions, ginger, and soy sauce until mushy.

Massage the spicy mixture into the leaves so that each one is evenly coated. Toss in a few slices of chopped apple. The sugars from the apple will help the fermentation process.

Tightly pack the leaves in the same quart-sized jar, making sure there are no air pockets.

Pour some of the reserved salted water over the spicy cabbage leaves so that they are completely submerged. It is important that there are no air pockets.

Seal the top with a lid and store at room temperature away from sunlight for at least 3 full days. During this time, the kimchi will ferment, developing healthy bacteria. As long as the leaves are submerged, they will not mold.

Enjoy with chopsticks aside a Korean-inspired meal, or any meal!

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Recipe: Getting Probiotic with Homemade Kimchi appeared first on EcoSalon.

Recently, a colleague sent me a link with the words “what, soy sauce causes cancer now?” emblazoned across the email. I could sense her frustration through the keyboard. What next, the very air we breathe causes cancer? (Actually, in my city, it does.) Sometimes it seems like we have to give up everything for the gods of health: trans fats, antiperspirants, and/or mascara that doesn’t run. When is the time to say – enough, I want my high fructose corn syrup-sugared cake and I want to eat it too?

Well, that day is not today. (Nor is it any day for a person who doesn’t want to live in Ignorance is Bliss Land. This exists right next to magical Cake Town and Pie Ville. Sighs all around.) Because, yes, some soy sauce could cause cancer. Soy sauce contains an organic chemical compound called 3-MCPD. It occurs when hydrochloric acid is used to speed up the reaction of the soy protein, a cheaper method used by some manufacturers. According to sources, this compound “is carcinogenic and highly suspected to be genotoxic in humans, has male anti-fertility effects, and is a chemical byproduct which may be formed in foods.”

The compound has been found at high levels in many causes in East and Southeast Asia. But recent information also links it to sauces found all over the world. As the Canadian Cancer Society reports, “3-MCPD is a substance that has been found to be present in a number of soy, mushroom and oyster sauces in Canada and the United Kingdom. The levels vary from product to product ranging from very low levels to relatively high ones.”

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) has sorted out “brands and products imported from Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Brands named in the British warning include Golden Mountain, King Imperial, Pearl River Bridge, Jammy Chai, Lee Kum Kee (李錦記), Golden Mark, Kimlan (金蘭), Golden Swan, Sinsin, Tung Chun and Wanjasham soy sauce.”

So do we start a soy tea party and start dumping our soy sauce into the streets? Not just yet. The FSA stresses that some soy brands were found to be 3-MCPD free and that these non-toxic brands all came from major food chains.

So for now, just be aware of who made your soy sauce. And in the meantime? Prepare yourself for the next delicious food which will be declared unhealthy. I’m standing guard over cupcakes. They’re very healthy. I know it. (Hands plugging ears.)

Images: avlxyz

The post Now Soy Sauce Causes Cancer? appeared first on EcoSalon.