Vegan potato salad

Potato salad. . .a delicious side dish, easy to make, and like my favorite dishes, you can put virtually anything into it.

So why are my potato salads different? Because of one, essential ingredient, that I believe every good potato salad should have.

An apple!!

Yes, that's right - an apple gives the right crunch and sweet touch to potato salad. To be fair, this isn't even my idea. It was passed down to me by my Mom, who learned it with my best friend's Mom (who is czech, by the way, and has the most awesome recipes). Since I was five, all of my potato salads have had an apple in them.

So, go ahead, get creative! Here are some ideas of what to put in your potato salad:

• Homemade mayonnaise (that's a tricky one, and something I've never done. But in honour to my mom and my best friend who both know how to make it, I'll leave it written down).
• Corn
• Peas
• 4 boiled large potatoes
• A chopped apple
• Chopped celery (more crunch)
• Chopped spinach
• Chopped raw or cooked carrots

Mix it all up, chill, and enjoy! 

Vegan pizza n°2

This is just an idea of the wondrous ingredients you can add to a hearty vegan pizza. And this is also the third pizza I make this past two weeks- it's becoming my favorite dinner to whip up at the last moment.

The beautiful place mat is made by my mom. She sells them in Brazil.

This delicious pizza has:

• Purple cabbage
• Swiss chard
• Dried tomatoes
• Black olives
• Corn
• Soft tofu
• Olive oil & herbes de Provence :)
• Tomato sauce.

Basically, spread the tomato sauce onto the dough, and top with everything else. 

Here's the recipe for the pizza dough.  I substituted the white flour with whole wheat flour and it turned out beautiful. Enjoy!

Vegan chili

Hello and welcome, winter!

Let's celebrate winter with hearty recipes :)

Below is an adaptation of a vegan chili: simple to make and delicious! It's great as a main meal served with rice. Since it's a recipe that relies mainly on beans, it's also an excellent source of iron and protein.

Ingredients:

-Red beans, black beans, chickpeas, or all of them together. Pre-cook beans before! This can be done with a pressure-cooker.
-A can of peeled tomatoes
-Corn
-Chopped celery
-Chopped carrot
-Chopped bell pepper
-Chopped chili pepper or chili powder
-1 small onion
-1 clove of garlic
-Salt and oregano

All you have to do really is heat oil in a large pot, lightly combine the onion, garlic, pepper, carrot, celery until they're coated with oil, and then add the corn, tomatoes, and beans. Add salt, chili pepper, and oregano. Stir until thick. Enjoy!

Vegan pizza with mushroom topping!

A couple weeks ago, I showed you guys how to cheat by making pizzas in 3 minutes. 

Here's the real thing. You can top your vegan pizza in many, many ways. I chose to start off simple, with only three ingredients: onions, mushrooms, and broccoli stem. You can also use spinach instead of broccoli stem, or chopped bell pepper. As there's no sauce involved, this pizza topping makes a dry pizza- it's good for a light snack.

To start with, you'll need pizza dough. Click here for instructions. Once that's done,

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C.
2. Chop the broccoli in thin strips, dice your onion, and cut your mushroom in thin slices. They should look like this:

3. Heat oil in a skillet. Grill the broccoli stems, then add the other ingredients until mushrooms are browned and onions are transparent. Let cool for a little bit.

4. Spread your pizza dough on a pizza pan, oil it, and spread your topping over it.

Before going in the oven. . .

5. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes.

How to make pizza dough

Here are simple instructions on how to make a basic pizza dough. You'll need:

-A packet of yeast
-1 cup warm water (it needs to be warm to activate the yeast. Ideal temperature is when it's warm enough to touch but not hot enough to burn)
-1 teaspoon sugar
-3 cups flour
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions:

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water and add the sugar. Mix gently and let rest for 5 minutes.
2. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a hole in the middle of the flour, and add yeast mixture and oil in the hole.
3. Gently mix the flour in the water, mixing so that there are no clumps. Mix until it is homogeneous.
4. Knead your dough for 10 minutes on a surface with flour, until dough is elastic and soft.
5. Oil a bowl and put your dough in it. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen cloth, then let rest for 1-2 hours.

Dough after 1 hour

All done! You can refrigerate any unused dough for up to 3 days.

Questions I get asked: What if you were stranded on an island and you had to eat meat to survive?

So what if you were stranded on an island and you had to eat meat to survive?

Well, let me explain. There are limits, and then there is stupidity.

It is reasonable to boycott meat in a society where vegetable protein is largely available and can suit everybody’s needs. Killing animals is not justified when you can get your protein from perfectly peaceful sources.

It is not reasonable, however, to boycott meat when you are stranded on an island and your only chance of survival is by eating crab meat. If this ever happens to you, then, by all means, eat crab meat.

It is not reasonable either to refuse meat when you are on a peace mission in a Native American tribe in Bolivia and they offer you llama meat. Take it. It’s not worth a clan war to explain why you prefer to eat vegetables.

It is not reasonable to refuse meat when you’re a journalist sent to cover a story in Nigeria and a family offers to house you and feed you with meat, when there’s scarcely enough to go around. Don’t try explaining why you, rich person, would prefer not to eat meat. They won’t understand.

If I’m ever caught in one of these situations, I would probably eat meat.

But so far, I’ve never been in one of these situations. I live in the part of the world where food is aplenty. I can choose what I eat, and I choose not to kill for my food.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: don’t you kill lettuce when you eat it?

Aha, got you covered. Check out my answer to this question. 

Questions I get asked: Don’t you kill lettuce when you eat it?

Answer: Yes, lettuce dies when we pluck it from the soil and stuff ourselves with it.

But what shocks you more? The death of a lettuce head or the death of a mother cow?

I won’t post the videos here – YouTube has plenty of them. Let’s get back to the point: killing lettuce.

I personally believe that lettuce is a living being, but much less evolved being than a cow. I prefer to kill lettuce than to kill cows based on that belief. I believe there is a huge difference between the two of them. Namely, cows are capable of walking, mooing, licking their babies, dancing-

Yes, dancing. Check out this video. It’s friendly, I promise.

But lettuce is a simpler organism, biologically speaking. So that is why I prefer to kill lettuces than cows. It’s my choice to kill who or what I want. In fact, in my mind, cow is a ‘who’ and lettuce is a ‘what’.

If you think there isn’t a difference between the two, I suggest you go to a petting zoo and meet some baby cows up front.