Corn Chowder

Every time I went to Mimi's Cafe, I’d order the corn chowder. It’s warm, sweet, savoy, basically the perfect comfort food. I've had their recipe for several years and love to make it at home but like everything else I've modified it to make it plant based.

Ingredients
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup onion chopped
1 cup celery, large dice
3 cups hot water
2 1/2 cups raw potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 cubes
16 oz bag frozen corn (white or yellow)
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tea salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
5 Tbsp flour/gluten free flour
5 cups of plant milk (I use hemp milk)
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:
In a large pot or dutch over, melt vegan butter. Add onion, celery, simmer until softened but not browned. Add water potatoes, corn and seasonings. Cover and simmer 30 minutes or until tender. Whisk flour into 1 cup of plant based milk and stir into soup. Add remaining plant milk, adjust seasoning if needed. Simmer 15 minutes, until soup thickens. Add salt and pepper. To thin add a little more milk, to thicken simmer 5-10 more minutes. Serve with fresh ground pepper. Enjoy!

Food Culture, an interview

I found this gem in my draft folder. I can’t remember why I never posted it. As we approach the one year mark of Covid 19, reading this, even though it was only a year and a half ago brought me a wave of nostalgia. So much has changed, there’s been so much loss. Way too much. I thought 2020 was going to be the year I started on a community compost project and planned to partner with schools to get Tower Gardens. Well, the pandemic had other plans, and like a lot of people my mental health has suffered. Loss is real, depression is real, anxiety is real. All of which can be debilitating at times. I’m grateful that I’ve made it though the last year.

Anyway, please enjoy this “little piece of nostalgia”,

October 2019:

Last month my daughter interviewed me for a school assignment. (Which was super fun) It really made me think about my “food culture” and what’s important to me. Here’s the interview, I later added a couple of stories….

What’s the most important part of your food culture?

Healthy eating has always been important to me. I really wanted to raise my kids vegetarian but my husband was a meat eater when we met. I quit eating meat when I was 15. Over the years he changed his view on thinking you couldn’t get enough protein without meat, thankfully now we have a mostly vegan household. 

How has your relationship with food changed, having grown up in the most highly processed food decades (70s and 80s)?

Both sets of my grandparents had gardens in the 70’s and my dad started juicing and shopping at health food stores, so I don’t think I was affected until I went to live with my mom. I remember the natural foods store in Mammoth, I got to have carob chips & banana chips for treats. My dad let me have mandarin lime soda and Have’a corn chips, while the other kids were eating twinkies and cokes. I remember wanting ‘Corn Pops’ cereal so badly, that I threw a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. His compromise was puffed rice central with pure maple syrup and fresh raw goats milk. To a six year old that was “cruel and unusual punishment”. Haha!

Once I went to live with my mom things were quite different, especially after she got our first microwave. She still made a lot of things from scratch (for a while), we canned fruit & jam and she baked bread. But my mom started buying Lean Cuisines and other frozen stuff and a lot of processed foods. I remember Otter Pops being one of my favorite treats in the summer, I also loved canned frosting. Now I’d never let that stuff in my house. All the Artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.....  When my kids were little, it was a lot easier to make sure they were eating healthy but snack & lunch at school changed that some. They wanted “the good snacks” like everyone else had....they didn’t want to be the weird kid. So I started buying chips, fruit snacks and packaged drinks. Again, something I’d never do now. (I was right to begin with and now research supports it!)

Why did you want to start growing your own food?

I remember picking veggies from my grandparents gardens, and having fruit right off the tree and I wanted my kids to experience that too. I planted my first garden when I pregnant with my son back in 1996, it was fun but also a lot of work with a newborn so it’s not something that I kept up on. I did manage to plant a garden at most of the houses we’ve lived in even if they were very small, sometimes only tomatoes and zucchini. I liked the idea of having the kids help, I thought it would be fun and they’d be more likely to eat what they grew. We’ve also had fruit trees at a couple of our houses, we made jam from plums, lots of lemonade from our lemons. One year we had so many peaches that we froze them and used them for peach cobbler, peach salsa, peach smoothies. We also had tons of figs, I tried making fig bars and fig jam. After my kids all left the house, I needed another project, and love spending hours in my garden everyday now.

Blood orange lemonade

Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to do with all the fruit you have when you have fruit trees, especially lemons or limes. Back in March when all of the lemons were ripe at once, I stripped the tree and juiced all of them. I poured the juice into ice cube trays and froze them. Once they were solid I put them in a freezer safe container. Since it’s been warmer I’ve been making lemonade. Blood orange lemonade and strawberry lemonade are our two favorites. Blood oranges are coming to the end of their season but you could definitely use regular oranges or a combo or oranges and strawberries or raspberries and still get the same beautiful color and similar flavor. Here in the Riverside, Corona area, there is no citrus shortage. The citrus industry pretty much put this area on the map in the 1800’s. Anyway, enough of the history lesson….here’s the recipe. If you’ve never made your own lemonade, you’re in for a treat.

Blood orange lemonade

1 cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup fresh blood orange juice (or strawberry purée)

1-1/2 cups organic sugar

4 cups of water

In a medium pan make a simple syrup by boiling 1 cup of water and adding the sugar. Make sure all of the sugar is fully dissolved and set aside. Pour your lemon juice and orange juice (or strawberry purée) through a strainer. You will still end up with some pulp so you can do this a couple of times or you can strain it through cheese cloth if you don’t want any pulp. Once you have them strained just pour everything into a large pitcher and chill until ready to serve. You’ll end up with about 6 cups. It’s delicious, refreshing and a great way to use up your lemon juice! Enjoy! (I’m sure it would also make a great mixer for your favorite cocktail.)

Vegan Persimmon Pudding

This is one of my favorite desserts, it just tastes like Christmas to me. It’s one of the first desserts beyond sugar cookies I learned to make back in high school. You have to have super ripe and squishy persimmons for this. I get mine from the farmers market, they save them for me every year. I used walnuts but you could also use pecans. If you like raisins you could add those as well. For the pulp I strained the persimmons through a colander into a large bowl. (Remember to compost the skins and stems).

Persimmon pudding

2 cups of persimmon pulp

3 egg replacement (I used Follow Your Heart’s)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/2 nutmeg (or pumpkin pie spice)

1/2 cup melted vegan butter

2 1/2 cups almond or cashew milk

1 1/2 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour

1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  In a large bowl add the egg replacement to the persimmon pulp, whisk in the sugar.  Add baking powder, soda, salt and spices.  Pour in melted vegan butter, stir & pour in the almond milk.  The mixture will be sort of soupy, whisk in flour, fold in chopped nuts.  Pour into a greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake for 1 hour or until knife comes out clean.  Serve warm or room temperature with vegan whipped cream.

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Soup

I love tortilla soup and have for years. I think the first time I had it I was in high school and I've been trying to perfect the recipe ever since.  While experimenting I came up with a vegan version that’s just as good if not better than one with chicken. For the broth, I like to use veggie bouillon cubes & hot wader. Usually, I add 2 or 3 types of beans and frozen corn. I like Trader Joe's taco seasoning or a combination of chili powder, garlic, cumin & coriander. I add carrots and zucchini, once I was out of carrots and used small chucks of butternut squash and my daughter said it was the best version I’d ever made. Basically use what you have. I add the zucchini towards end so they don’t get mushy. You can use fire roasted tomatoes if you want it a little more spicy.

Tortilla Soup

32 oz vegetable broth
1 onion diced
2 Tbsp olive oil
3-4 carrots chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
2-3 small zucchini chopped (optional)
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 bag of frozen corn
1/2 package taco seasoning
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4-1/2 bunch cilantro

Toppings:
cheese
lime
avocado
salsa
tortilla chips

In a large soup pot, saute with onion, carrots, and garlic until almost done. Add broth, tomatoes, beans, taco seasoning, salt, sugar, pepper, and corn. Bring to a boil and turn down to very low, after about 10 minutes and add zucchini and cilantro. Simmer for about 20 minutes, serve with your choice of toppings. Enjoy! It’s best when shared.