Change to Vegan

I love polenta.  Being vegan and wheat free, polenta is one of my favorite dishes to impress guests.

For dinner, I prepare polenta by cooking it in vegetable broth.  Once cooked, but not to dry – still creamy, I add:  minced garlic, olive oil, minced fresh herbs, chopped sundried tomatoes.  I them bake for 50 minutes (350) in a clay pan.  The pan is oiled with olive oil and I drizzle a bit on the top, before baking, with pine nuts.  I serve this with my vegan pesto (almonds, garlic, olive oil, basil and nutritional yeast) and marinara.

Then I use the leftover polenta for breakfast…

This is squared of the baked polenta smothered in vegan hollandaise sauce, toasted pecans and avocado.  It is amazingly good.

So, this shows how you can use polenta in a few ways.  There are many other variations, such as Mexican polenta still to come…

I have really neglected this site lately.  We have been so busy building our wonderful Casa Metta that it may seem like I don’t care about Change to Vegan.  On the contrary, I have continued to create and share wonderful vegan dishes and have been teaching guests how to cook vegan and gluten free delicacies.

Our greenhouse is built and veggies and herbs are growing.  Our rescued animals are thriving.  We have dogs, cats, chickens, quail and bunnies.  They are so fun to interact with and watch.  Our sauna is glorious, followed by a dip in our salt water pool.  Our landscaping is magnificent.  Birds and butterflies enjoy the flowers and adorable little lizards abound.  Our fountain provided water for all the creatures.

We are dehydrating tomatoes, zucchini and carrots these days.  I will start posting photos of great food, etc. shortly.  Life is good.

Check out our Casa Metta web site and Facebook site:

We moved 4 weeks ago, but the house needs major work.  It will be about 6 to 8 weeks before all is ready.  We have two kitchens and lots of space to relax and enjoy the beautiful mountains of Costa Rica, where the air is always cool and fresh.  We will have vegan/vegetarian cooking classes, a B&B for healthy foodies, and we will be producing and selling some vegan food products locally.

We are currently painting, changing tile, re-doing plumbing and electrical, remodeling bathrooms, building a salt water sanitizer pool.  We are cooking up some vegan delights and will post some new recipes here soon.  We did not have internet for the first few weeks here.

Our place is called Casa Metta – house of loving kindness.  It is set on an almost 3 acre sight with amazing views – even an ocean view on really clear days.  It will be a healthy, relaxing retreat with space for up to 4-6 guests, once all is completed.  We are loving our new lives and our new challenges.  We look forward to sharing fantastic vegan foods with others, in our new locale.

I am vegan and gluten free.  And, I live on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica where the products you can find in other countries do not exist.  So, I have no bread or crackers that I can eat available here.  I have to make my own.  I just made a 5 seed fry bread that is tasty, healthy and filling.

I mixed together the ingredients and cooked large spoonfuls on a pan sprayed with non-stick spray, over low to medium head.  10 minutes each side, press down with spatula when you flip, and back over if not quite done.

Vegan Gluten Free Bread

Ingredients

1½ cup ground buckwheat or buckwheat flour/meal

1 cup ground flax seeds or flax meal

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 cups filtered water

⅓ cup sunflower seeds

⅓ cup whole flax seeds

⅓ cup pumpkin seeds

¼ sesame seeds (white, black, or a mix)

1 tbsp poppy seeds

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

This tastes excellent as a sandwich bread, with tofu dogs, as a side with main courses, or even as a garlic bread – toasted with olive oil and crushed garlic.  Yummy and good for you.  No guilt bread!   Buckwheat is actually a seed, so this can be a 6 seed bread.

Or, you can dehydrate for a raw bread – about 4 hours each side.

My good friend, Johanna, has written an amazing eBook of vegan desserts. All of these recipes are made without regular cane sugar. Instead, they are sweetened with fruit sugar from fresh, dried, and frozen fruit and berries. Agave syrup or maple syrup is also used. Agave syrup is a yummy low GI sweetener that works really well in these recipes.

All but 5 of the recipes can be made 100% raw, but if you don’t have 100% raw resources such as genuinely raw cocoa powder, you can still make them and they will taste incredible!

Check it out: http://www.miss-best.com/LLLD.html

There is absolutely no reason that as a vegan you cannot enjoy some of your favorite non-vegan foods, changed but even more delicious.  This is a vegan spinach, open-faced enchilada.

I adore Tex-Mex food, but enjoy it even more using vegan variations.  I eat enchiladas, tostadas, tamales, rice and beans, etc.  All super healthy, filling and delicious.

(more…)

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. — Hippocrates, father of medicine, 431 B.C.

A long time ago, Hippocrates knew more than most people understand now.  You are what you eat.  Your health, vitality, energy, skin, hair, disposition and outlook are all directly related to what you put in your mouth.

People are looking for the quick fix, the pill, the super food to overcome all the crap they put in their mouths.  It does not exist.  You have to be responsible for your choices.  You have a choice each and every day about what you put in your mouths.

I have heard people say, “Heck, I’m gonna die anyway, so why not die happy.”  That is justification for a big steak, baked potato with butter, sour cream, cheese and bacon, and maybe a few carrots for decoration.  And, then when the heart attack comes, they utter, “Why me?”

Your body, your choice.  Be healthy or destroy your body by eating processed, fatty, cholesteral laden foods that will kill you one way or another.   Eat to live.  Enjoy your families and friends.  Enjoy your high energy levels and trim figures that allow you to do more.  Enjoy the glow you have from eating healthy foods, instead of the pallor, obese body, labored breathing, and exhaustion your body feels from eating badly.

It’s a new year and you have a choice.

Every day I read articles about how nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables can protect you from illnesses or decrease symptoms of diseases such as cancers, diabetes, MS, etc.   Every day I read articles about how eating dairy and meat  can cause health problems.  Why are people so determined to be unhealthy, just to please their palates?  That makes an assumption that eating a plant-based diet is not satisfying.  On the contrary, eating a plant-based diet makes the palate sing with delight and increases the well-being, health, energy and positive vibes of the body.

“The vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases,
and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented
simply by adopting a plant-based diet.”

T. COLIN CAMPBELL, Ph.D.,
former Senior Science Advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research
Director, Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health and Environment 1983-1990

“An unrefined plant-based diet, together with
appropriate exercise consistently followed,
would eliminate most of the degenerative
diseases that curse our western world.”

RAY FOSTER, M.D., FACS

You become what you ingest. You become what you put into your mouth.  The food that you put into your mouth helps make you who and what you are.

(more…)