Crocodie Crunch

I tried out the Crocodile Crunch recipe from the Kind Diet. It's was DELICIOUS! I switched it up a bit so I could make it more of a smoothie bowl but it's basically the same.

It makes 2 servings
2-3 cups of bite sized pieces of fresh fruit ( kiwi, strawberries, bananas, apples, pears, mango, avocados...)
2 t spirulina
1.5 T non dairy milk
2 t almond butter
1.5 T maple syrup
2 T fresh orange juice
2 T shaved fresh or dry coconut
0.5 c kamut cereal

* t = teaspoon, T = tablespoon, c =cup

Divide the fruit into 2 serving bowls. Use a fork to stir together the spirulina and soy milk in a small glass. Add the almond butter and mix again. Stir in the syrup and orange juice, stir. The sauce should be smooth and neither too thick nor too runny pour over the fruit and sprinkle with coconut and cereal.

I don't have spirulina so I omitted that and I don't have kamut cereal so I just used something that looks like grape nuts. I blended frozen blueberries with fresh strawberries, some banana, and blood orange slices. I poured that into a bowl with some chunks of nectarine and added the sauce on top with the coconut and grape nuts. I highly suggest this recipe!

Variation of Crocodile Crunch

~S&M

Saturday Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building!T

The Saturday Farmer's Market has been voted best farmer's market in the city for a reason! It's huge and they have absolutely everything. M said it's like healthy Costco because if you skip breakfast you can just fill up on samples.  We walked out of there with some pretty sexy lookin' fruits (if it has a seed it's  fruit right?) and some other gems. I heard the earlier you go the better because it's less crowded. I only go late because I love sleeping...a lot. It's pretty hard to maneuver around the sea of people so do yourself a favor and wake up before 11am!

Here's the loot: 2 sweet bell peppers, hot peppers, 2 avocados, 2 blood oranges (not pictured -we got hungry), lavender salt from Eatwell Farms http://eatwell.com/what-we-grow/flavored-salts-and-sugars/ (dude you HAVE to try this stuff...just email me any thank you letters), caper hummus http://www.maringourmet.net/marin_gourmet_product/hummus.html, strawberries, flowers, a nectarine, and some tartlet dishes from Sur La Table.

flowers, hummus, bell peppers, avocados, lavender salt, nectarine, peppers, strawberries, tartlet dishes

Happy Saturday. Try a new veggie every week!
~S&M

Braised Daikon in Mirin and Shoyu

So I'm home alone tonight; M is working and pets are in So Cal.  I decided to try out a recipe from The Kind Diet. I had no clue what daikon was until last Sunday when I bought the book. It looks like this:

raw daikon

The recipe is as follows:
1 large daikon
2 T shoyu
1/4 C mirin
2"-3" strip  kombu

Slice the daikon into 3/4" rounds and place them in a skillet in a single layer. Add water almost to cover the daikon. Add shoyu, mirin, and kombu. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to low, cover pan, and simmer the daikon for 30 min or until all the liquid has absorbed.

• I had to google all of the ingredients (the picture in the book and it looked good so I gave it a shot)
• Turns out shoyu is pretty much soy sauce. But I bought it anyway but I'm sure you can just use soy sauce -low sodium I would suggest! Or better yet liquid amino acids. You can probably find marin in the "ethnic food" isle of most markets it comes in a bottle and is clearish/yellow.
• I didn't get kombu. It's in the kelp family. I had some rice seasoning with seaweed pieces in it so i just sprinkled a bit on 
• After 30 minutes my water was not evaporated so I took my lid off and waited for it to dry up.

It's delicious!

braised daikon

Also threw some peeled fingerling potatoes into my rice cooker with some quinoa, cumin, turmeric, sea salt, a big garlic clove and a shallot. cooked it, smashed it all up and it's soooo good. 

I'm scared to say what I watched while cooking in fear that M will read this and never let me use net flicks again.

OK OK!! I WATCHED STEP IT UP 3 I'm so sorry...watching the movie was punishment enough so don't judge me.

Happy eating!

~S

Coffee cookies!

I attempted to make chocolate coffee cookies. Cookies right before bed is always a good idea!

Music while baking- Fiona Apple (mostly Extraordinary Machine)

They came out lovely! But definitely needed more coffee.

 

Time for bed!

~S

Radicchio pizza with cilantro pesto sauce/ Roasted tomatotillo salsa

S and M both have a Sunday off work together!!!  This is a very rare occasion for us.  It was decided the night before that we would make a pizza for dinner.  Luckily for us, the city of San Francisco provides plenty of gems, in the form of family and employee owned businesses.  Arizmendi is a bakery coop offering a wide variety of popular and original baked goods (not all vegan) and a daily pizza recipe.  Earlier in the day I bought 19 oz of Arizmendi's (vegan) pizza dough.  This is what I used for my dough, although you can use any type of homemade dough or store-bought ready to bake dough.   

Music Inspiration:  It was a very 70's type of day for us.  A lot of Fleetwood Mac (Songbird, Never going back again) and Richard and Linda Thompson (Just the Motion), then jumped to a steady stream of Mumford and Sons.

Ingredients:
Pizza:
19 oz. of pizza dough (homemade or store-bought)
Small head of radicchio chopped
4 shitake mushrooms sliced
1/4 sliced onion
Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic
1/2 lemon juiced

Cilantro Pesto Sauce:
Olive Oil
2 Cloves Garlic
1 1/2 C Basil
1/3 C Walnuts
1/2 Lime juiced
1/2 C Cilantro

To make sauce simply add ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse.  Sauce should be smooth and bright green in appearance.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Knead and stretch dough using a rolling pin  (or wine bottle like we use!).  Once dough is thin and consistent throughout, spread on ungreased cooking tray and form crust using fingers.  Spread cilantro pesto on pizza dough and add onion and mushroom toppings.  Bake pizza for 7 to 9 minutes.

Once pizza is in the oven prepare radicchio.  In a blender or food processor add about a 1/4 C of olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice.  Blend and add the mixture to a small bowl with radicchio and toss.  After 7 to 9 minutes remove pizza from oven and add radicchio as a topping to pizza and bake for an additional 5 minutes.  Remove pizza and let cool for a few minutes. 

Roasted "Tomatotillo" Salsa:
2 Roma Tomatoes
3 Tomatillos
2 Jalapenos
1 Clove of Garlic
1/3 C Cilantro
1/4 C Onion
1/2 Lime Juiced
Pinch of Sugar and Dash of Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cut Tomatoes in Half and place on foil covered cooking tray.  Peel and halve tomatillos and place with tomatoes on cooking tray.  Cut stems from jalapenos and halve.  Place alongside tomatoes and tomatillos.  Place in oven and roast for about 10 minutes or until skin is moderately burnt.  Remove from oven and remove skin.  Place in blender along with other ingredients and pulse about 4 times or until desired consistency.  Enjoy with chips or as a compliment to any meal!!!

The results!

radicchio pizza with cilantro pesto sauce

 

 

 

 

 Roasted tomatotillo salsa

 

 

 

 

 

 

* How it came out- The salsa was pretty much the best salsa I have ever had and if M doesn't put it away soon I might just eat all of it. The pizza was delicious but I think the lemon and raddicho was not my favorite thing; M seemed to like it just fine so maybe it was just me.

We got the idea from The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone but we added and replaced a few ingredients.Try it and let us know what you think! 

-S&M

Thank you for viewing our blog!!!

Allow me introduce ourselves: My name is Matt and my wonderful girlfriend is Stephanie.  Together we are S&M (get it?).  We moved in together in the beautiful city of San Francisco a little more than 7 months ago.  S has been a vegan for the past 2 years and myself for about a year.  Keeping good health and maintaining happy relationships with our bodies and other walks of life are main priorities to us.  The city we live in allows fresh local produce to become readily accessible and also provides constant inspiration.
We will be providing healthy and simple vegan recipes for readers to follow.  Food is only one of the many components when preparing a meal.  Along with ingredients and cooking directions we will be listing what has inspired us to create each specific meal, be it song, mood, wine or beer pairing, or person, for these things are the gusto to our simple lives!
-M

Hello, S here! Being vegan was a struggle at first but after discovering new foods and new flavors it's become something M and I take a lot of pride in and it has brought us closer together. We love love love food and making dinner together (when work schedules allow) is a really fun time for us. I also am into baking and hope to open a baking company within the next few years so along with our meal posts I'll add some baking posts and I'm sure our SF adventures and pets will end up on here too! 

 

 

 

Lady (L) Harry (R)

agave peach cupcakes (pre oven)

~S

We hope this blog will serve as an answer to the question all vegans get, "So what do you eat?!"