Vegan Cheese Sauce

Do you miss those cheezy sauces because you want to eat healthy? Here is a very good recipe.

1 1/2 cup of rice milk
1/4 cup of any flour (I used whole wheat flour)
2 table spoons of sesame tahini
2 table spoons arrowroot
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic
2 teaspoons of light miso. 

Place all ingredients in the blender and process untill completely smooth.
Pour the liquid in a small saucepan and cook over medium hight, stirring constantly with a wire wisk until very thick and smooth.

This is another recipe from "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook", that you can buy in our store.

It is slightly adapted for health food, as I do not want to use nutritional yeast flakes, I use the miso instead.
You can add 1 teaspoon of mustard and/or a bit of paprika powder too.

Of course this sauce is delicious with macaroni, spaghetti, on cauliflower or broccoli.

When children less than 7 years old  eat at your table make a second batch of this sauce, but without the salt and half of the tahini, and add some natural colour, so you can make the difference between the child sauce and the adult sauce.

Mouthwatering, indeed!

Chickpea Burgers

Ingredients:
2 cups chickpea flour
1 cup grated carrot
2 small onions, diced
2 Tablespoons fresh coriander leaves (cilantro), chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
optional 1/8 teaspoon garlic, minced
other herbs/spices to taste.
Mix everything very well, add water till you get a kind of burger feeling and bake well on both sides.

Chickpeas are also called garbanzo beans and are beneficial for pancreas, stomach and heart, contains more iron than other legumes and are a good source of unsaturated fats.

Tempeh

Tempeh is fermented cooked soybean, originally from Indonesia, but lucky for us, it founds it way all over the world, via the health food stores.
I prefere tempeh over tofu for many reasons: if the tempeh get older, it gets more "cheezy", tempeh is a fermented product, tofu is not, tempeh contains vitamine B12 (except the tempeh made in the USA, as the FDA applies some strict rules about "hygiene").
The best way to serve tempeh is to marinate a few hours in a bit of soy sauce and ginger, and then bake it in some sesame oil. But it is also delicious grated for spaghetti sauce in stead of meat, or even in soups, but don't forget to fry it first.You can make burgers with it, tempeh chips and a lot more.
Here are some books about tempeh

Miso

Image via Wikipedia
Miso is a traditional Japanese food produced by fermenting soy (sometimes together with rice, barley) and with salt and koji (starter). The result is a thick paste used for soups, sauces, spreads and pickling vegetables.
High in protein and rich in vitamins and minerals, miso played an important nutritional role in feudal Japan. Miso is still very widely used in Japan, both in traditional and modern cooking, and has been gaining world-wide interest as it is now available in health food stores around the globe.
Miso is typically salty, but it's flavor and aroma depend on various factors in the ingredients and fermentation process. Different varieties of miso have been described as salty, sweet, earthy, fruity, and savory, and there is an extremely wide variety of miso available. Sometimes miso is called after the ingredients, sometimes after the color: mugi-miso (barley miso), shiro-miso (white miso), aka-miso (red miso) etc...
Miso has vitamine b12, enzymes and a lot of minerals that makes it a very healthy product.
Some modern healthfood books have recipes with raw miso, but miso should never be eaten raw, and never be cooked neighter, it should simmer a bit, just below cooking temperature. And never give miso to babies. Here you can find some books about Miso.

Vegan Yoghurt

Image via Wikipedia
Today we gonna make vegan yoghurt. For this recipe, you need Rejuvelac, but if you have non pasteurized miso, you can use miso too.
Take 4 cups of cooked brown rice, 1 cup of rejuvelac (or 1 teaspoon white miso, mixed in  1 cup of water).
Blend the rice at high speed and slowly add the Rejuverlac or miso, blend untill creamy and keep 8-10 hours at room temperature, wait till the desired taste is acquired and then put it in the fridge.
Of course you can use this vegan yoghurt like you use cow yoghurt, you can make dips with it, salad dressing or mix it with fruit.
I got this idea by reading the Uncheese Cookbook, a cookbook that teaches you to make vegan cheese: they use a lot of  nutritional yeast, but as I do not use yeast, I replaced it with miso.

Rejuvelac

Rejuvelac is a fermented drink, it helps you to digest your foods and rejuvenates the whole body.
Here is the best way to make it:
take 1 cup (230gr.) of organic (non parboiled) brown rice (or any other cereal ), put it in a wide mouthed jar , add two liters of water, a few drops of lemon juice  (in hot climate/season max. one table spoon lemon juice) to kill the pathogene bacteria (the bad ones) and fix a tissue over the mouth of the jar with a rubber band. Let stand for 24 hours (12 hours in hot climate/season), dont put  in direct sunlight, and stirr it slowly every 6 hours for a few seconds with a wooden spoon.  Once a light foam develops and  it is getting cloudy, you have Rejuvelac.
Take the liquid, put it in the fridge and put again 2 liters of water on the used rice, you can use the same rice till 4 times, but the 2nd and the 3rd batch are the best, bubbling like Chamagne. It is the easiest way to make a fermented product.
How to use it? Mainly as a drink, in the morning on an empty stomach , better take it out of the fridge the night before and put it in a covered glass, as the good bacteries flourish better on room temperature.
It will give better natural bacterie to your digestive system, so you will have easier detox thanks to Rejuvelac.
For people who eat healthfood, one small glass a day will be more than enough, and like every cure, do it for 3 weeks and then stop one week.
For MPS people (meat-potato-sugar people) 1 big glass in the morning and one big glass in the evening, till you feel the difference.
You also can use it to start sourdough.
 

Ingredients: Carob

Image via Wikipedia
A very good chocolate substitute is carob powder, it is much sweeter than chocolate, so it needs less sweetners. The carob tree is cultivated in the Mediterrenean area and is also called Saint John's bread because, according to tradition of some Christians, Saint John the Baptist subsisted on them in the wilderness.
I saw that "The Carob Cookbook" is available again and "The Carob Way to Health" too. Both books can give you some mighty ideas how to replace chocolate by carob and make some delicious desserts for you and your family. You can buy organic carob online here.
Here more about carob:
Amounts Per Selected Serving ~~ %DV
Vitamin A : 8.7IU
Vitamin C : 0.4mg
Vitamin E : 1.4mg
Vitamin K : 6.7mcg
Thiamin : 0.1mg
Riboflavin : 0.2mg
Niacin : 0.9mg
Vitamin B :60.1mg ~ 6%
Folate :18.3mcg ~5%
Vitamin B 1 : 20.2mcg ~ 4%
Pantothenic Acid 0.7mg ~ 7%
Choline :16.5mg
Total Omega-3 fatty acids 27.0mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids 230mg
Minerals
Amounts Per Selected Serving %DV
Calcium 264mg 26%
Iron 1.1mg ~ 6%
Magnesium 31.3mg ~ 8%
Phosphorus 110mg ~ 11%
Potassium 551mg ~16%
Sodium 93.1mg ~ 4%
Zinc 3.1mg ~ 20%
Copper 0.2mg ~ 8%
Manganese 0.1mg ~ 6%
Selenium 4.5mcg ~ 6%