Thursday, July 31, 2008

Yogi Bhajan's Onion Soup

zwiebel-suppe
I am a soup junkie. I've never met a soup I didn't love. So the other night I had a favorite...my beloved German Potato Soup, and still craving soup, last night I made this new onion soup recipe, which I found on the Yogi Tea web site.

If there is one other soup that gives the German Potato Soup a run for its money, its a good onion soup.....and this one delivers!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup oil

  • 3 onions, thinly sliced

  • 3 tablespoons minced gingerroot

  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic

  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper

  • 2 teaspoons turmeric

  • 1 tablespoon caraway seeds

  • 1 pinch of crushed red chilies

  • 3 quarts water

  • 1 tablespoon kelp powder

  • tamari


onion-soup
Directions

  • Heat the oil in a 4-quart pot over a medium-high flame

  • Add onions, garlic and ginger, allowing this mixture to soften and lightly brown

  • Add the balance of the spices: garlic, pepper, turmeric, caraway seeds and red chilies

  • Cook until well done

  • Add water and bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes

  • Add kelp and tamari to taste


**to this recipe, I added some komis bread (sourdough-rye) from the local German bakery, and some vegan melting cheez (I didn't heat it enough though, it didnt' melt haha)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Family Dinner

Summer classes have been keeping me busy. Cooking has been limited to tasty but functional meals. Thankfully the summer semester is just about over, and then its a whole month off. I can't wait!

This past weekend was lots of fun! We had our monthly veggie meetup, this time at the beach. Sounds like fun, but it was really cold and overcast and windy. I LOVE weather like that, but not when I'm wearing shorts and a tank top and looking forward to splashing around in the water! It was a good time though. On my way home, I stopped by 118 degrees for one of their awesome raw chocolate smoothie shakes - chocolate supreme. It didn't disappoint!

Went over to my aunt and uncle's house on Sunday for a family dinner. My aunt cooked an AWESOME vegan meal. My aunt, uncle and cousin are omnis, so I was really surprised and touched that they went out of their way to have a really good vegan dinner for the evening. We had wheat pasta tossed with toasted pine nuts, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, broccoli, oil and a few other ingredients. For appetizers we had 2 types of hummus - an olive hummus and an asparagus hummus, as well as an artichoke tepenade. I was really blown away with how good everything was, and to top it off, my aunt made a Spanish raspberry iced tea with tea that they got on their recent vacation in Europe.

While we were waiting for dinner to be ready, I played some Mario Cart with my cousin, on his Wii. That's a fun game, but its so strange to get my butt kicked by a 9 year old!

Our absolutely delicious dinner! I forgot my camera, so I used my uncle's, and he ended up taking the photos to a developer, so I had to scan the prints back onto a computer, hence the slightly lower quality of the picture!
vegan pasta

Friday, July 11, 2008

On Tea

Masala Chai Tea

I just had a delicious cup of Masala Chai Tea. I'm not used to high-caffeine drinks, so when I have even a bit, I'm bouncing off the walls. I can barely sit still at work this morning. Thankfully, I'm sitting on my yoga ball, so I'm putting my energy to good use.

Ingredients to make the best Chai tea EVAR:

Chai tea (of course)

Silk vanilla soymilk creamer

Generous helping of raw agave nectar

Something to munch on....I've got almonds (this is optional!)

My most favorite tea in the whole world:

Jasmine Pearl Green Tea

Jasmine Pearl Green Tea

I drink this pretty much every night. Just the smell of it puts me in a coma, its that good. I put a dab of raw agave in it to enhance the flavor, and that's all it needs. My family calls me Mr. Tea whenever I make a pot. I pity the foo who's never tasted this tea!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

4th of July

condiments

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, and a safe one! I drove out to my friend's house in Riverside to enjoy the holiday. We were treated to 2 different fireworks shows, all from the comfort of his backyard! Great conversations, great company and great food.....didn't leave their house till 2 in the morning.....late night for me, I'm usually in bed by 10 pm!

What does this statue have to do with 4th of July? Absolutely nothing, but I love it and had to share it =)
buddha

While my friend and his wife are omni, they were very considerate in providing vegan options for me and also for my friend Matt, and so I had a vegan boca chik'n burger (which Matt brought) with hummus, avocado, onions, and corn. Sooooo good! It was getting toward night time, so the pictures of the patties on the grill didn't turn out very well but I got some good shots of the condiments....and fireworks!

fireworks