Garden Fresh Vegan Meal

After a long day spent weeding, feeding, cultivating and prepping new beds in the garden, Sky and V used what we harvested to prepare an incredible vegan dinner for the house. If we keep eating like this, this vegan diet challenge is gonna be a piece of cake!

We were inspired to try out a vegan diet for the month of October by the documentary Forks Over Knives, which explains how a plant-centered diet can not only stop the progression of illnesses like heart disease and cancer, but can reverse cumulative damage and prevent health problems in the future!

Salad

Add chopped up kale, napa cabbage, and loma lettuce and thinly sliced green beans to a bowl. Season with coconut oil and salt before dressing the salad. Toss with dressing and sesame seeds. Garnish with a basil tip, chipotle sauce, and grapefruit papaya dressing.

Grapefruit Papaya Dressing

Add grapefruit juice and lemon juice (3:1) to a sauce pot with sesame seeds and honey. Reduce by half and cool. Add ginger, papaya, coconut palm sugar (or honey), whole peppercorns and coriander seeds, and cloves and mix in a blender. Slowly add a blend of olive oil (75%), coconut oil (20%), and sesame oil (5%), season if needed.

Chipotle Sauce

Soak (for 24 hours) dry chipotle, guajillo, california chili pod, and/or poblano peppers in 2 cups of water. Blend with garlic, salt, apple cider vinegar, tahini, and a pinch of coconut palm sugar.

Ginger and Tat Sai Stir Fry

Heat saute pan up with a mixture of 90% olive oil and 10% sesame oil. Add ginger (1/2 tablespoon) and garlic (1 teaspoon) until aromatic, then add the tat sai (3 bunches). De Glace (chef talk for adding liquid to a sauteed mixture) with Bragg’s liquid aminos (1/4 cup) and vegetable stock (1 cup) and reduce by a third. Add sesame seeds (1 handfull), tahini (3 tablespoons), salt (to taste), peppercorns (3), cloves (3), coriander seeds (5), coconut palm sugar (to taste), and dried asian pepper (to taste), and serve.

Chipotle Rice and Black Beans

Add 1 cup of brown jasmine rice and 3 cups of vegetable stock to a sauce pot on high heat. Add 1 clove of garlic (chopped up), 5 coriander seeds, 3 black peppercorns, 2 chipotle peppers (chopped up) to the pot. Bring mixture to a boil. Let rice simmer (medium heat) for approximately 40 minutes. Once ready, add black beans, chopped parsley and cilantro and sesame seeds and fluff with a fork. Bring up to temperature and serve. Season with salt and pepper if desired.