Crispy Breaded Tofu Strips and the Virtual Vegan Potluck

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Welcome! Thanks for joining us for the Virtual Vegan Potluck. What’s the Virtual Vegan Potluck you ask? It’s a world-wide online vegan recipe-palooza! There is lots in store for you today with 105 participants, so do come in. It’s a rainy day out there, let me take your umbrella and coat. I made some hot hors d’oeuvres just for you. Have a seat, but mind the cat hair.

My kids call these Kentucky Fried Tofu. They also make a nice light main course.

Crispy Breaded Tofu Strips

One package of firm or extra firm tofu (454 g)
approximately 1 1/2 cups of Sesame Lime Marinade (below, or use your own soy sauce-based marinade)
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt + pepper to taste
coconut oil

Sesame Lime Marinade

2/3 cup sesame oil
2/3 cup Bragg’s/soy sauce/nama shoyu
2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (optional)
2 tsp agave or maple syrup
1/2 – 3/4 cup filtered water

(also used to marinate my BBQ Veggie & Pineapple Kabobs)

Rinse the tofu, wrap in a clean kitchen towel and press to remove excess liquid. Move to a cutting board and slice into strips. I make mine into 24 thin rectangles pieces (8 pieces long and 3 pieces deep; see photo).

Make the marinade: Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate until ready to use. For this recipe, measurements need not be exact, so adjust ingredients to your taste (like more lime or less ginger). For a more intense flavour, use less water. Marinate the tofu strips until ready to use.

Make the breading: Combine the nutritional yeast, cornmeal, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl or baking dish. Heat some coconut oil on a frying pan on high. Dredge the tofu pieces in the cornmeal mixture so it’s covered on all sides and carefully drop into the fry pan. Fry on each side until crispy and brown. When frying in batches, keep the just-fried tofu warm in the oven or warming drawer until you’re ready to serve.

Makes 24 pieces. This recipe is gluten-free.

Serve warm with your favourite dipping sauce. We like Saigon Soul Food’s Tamarind Ginger sauce, an Ontario product which happens to be vegan.

Check out some other Virtual Vegan Potluck participants:

Thank you to potluck creators and hosts Vegan Bloggers Unite, An Unrefined Vegan, Vedged Out and Jason and the Veganauts!

This is also Vegan MoFo post #20 and my contribution to the Wellness Weekend blog hop.

Rising Moon Ravioli and Pumpkin Parmesan

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Ravioli has always been one of my most favourite foods, going back to my childhood when ate plenty of Chef Boyardee’s beef ravioli from a can (((shudder))). Thank goodness that fluffy pillows of pasta with a creamy filling can be not just vegetarian but vegan.

Spoiler warning: I don’t have an original recipe for ravioli from scratch. As much as I love preparing food, homemade ravioli from scratch wouldn’t be my favourite use of time in the kitchen, when there’s excellent frozen organic, vegan ravioli to be bought. The brand is Rising Moon Organics and their Spinach Florentine ravioli is delicious! They have other flavours of vegan organic frozen pastas though I have only come across the Spinach Florentine ravioli so far. If you have more patience than I do and are up for making your own ravioli from scratch, I see Vegan Dad has a recipe here that looks great.

Tonight’s ravioli was a delicious meal by adding onions, spinach, mushrooms and broccoli and serving it with tomato sauce topped with fresh basil and my homemade Pumpkin Parmesan! It gives a great “cheesy” taste and lovely texture to all kinds of pastas.

Pumpkin Parmesan

pumpkin seeds
nutritional yeast
sea salt

Measure equal amounts of pumpkin seeds and nutritional yeast (nooch). Toast the pumpkin seeds by broiling in the oven for a few minutes or in a pan on the stove on medium heat; careful the seeds don’t burn. Combine the seeds and nooch in a food processor until pulverized. Add a dash of sea salt, to taste.

Note: The pumpkin seeds can be swapped for nuts (walnuts are great) but pumpkin seeds are awesome for the zinc and iron they contain and since I get plenty of nuts in my diet, this Parmesan is a great way to add in a seed I don’t eat as regularly. Plus, being nut-free, I can use it in my kid’s lunches for school.

It would also make a great popcorn topping!

I am submitting my Pumpkin Parmesan to the Healthy Vegan Fridays and Wellness Weekend blog hops.

Vegan Brunch: Savory Scrambles and Sweet Parfaits

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Shortly after I became vegan, I learned a little tidbit I’ll share with you: Brunch is a big deal to vegans. Waffles, pancakes, scrambles, muffins, lattes, even bacon and omelets….. we can do it all vegan, deliciously!
My primary brunch staple for about a year was Oh She Glows’ Sweet Potato Oatmeal Breakfast Casserole. It’s excellent, like everything Angela creates. Then Tofu Scramble with Coconut Bacon took over as my main go-to. Click the link for the recipe.

When I hosted a brunch a few weekends ago, I wanted to create a special dish for a friend with severe allergies. Not only is she vegan, she also needs to avoid soy and gluten. Before cutting out soy, she adored tofu scramble. I wondered if I could possibly make a tofu scramble without tofu and still be delicious and full of protein? I decided to try swapping the tofu in my scramble with white beans and potatoes and I think it turned out wonderfully! All the flavours of my Tofu Scramble with potato and white beans substituting the tofu. Perfect for anyone wanting to change up their scramble or just wanting to reduce their soy intake.

White Bean and Potato Breakfast Scramble
1 cup onion, chopped
coconut or olive oil
2 medium potatoes, chopped into bite sized chunks
14 oz cooked white beans, drained and rinsed if using a can
1 heaping tbsp of spice mix (below)
3 tbsp Bragg’s all-purpose seasoning, nama shoyu or soy sauce
2 1/2 cups chopped veggies (we like red pepper, massaged kale, mushrooms and spinach)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tomato, chopped
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, minced

Scramble Spice Mix
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp Herbamare seasoning or sea salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp sage

Mix the spices together and keep in a glass jar. Makes enough for 6 servings of the scramble.

Sautée the onion in a bit of oil over medium heat in a large pan and cook for about five minutes. Add the potatoes and white beans to the pan with the onion and continue cooking, stirring frequently. Add 1 tbsp of the spice mix to 3 tbsp of water, stir, then add to pan and stir well. Add the Bragg’s, veggies and nutritional yeast to the pan and cook for another several minutes, until the potatoes are fork-tender and veggies are soft. Use a metal spatula to scrape the bottom if the beans start to stick. Taste and add more Bragg’s, spice mixture or nutritional yeast if desired. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm topped with chopped tomatoes and cilantro.
The scramble also makes a great entrée.

I also served my traditional Tofu Scramble with avocado, fresh fruit, raw almonds (brought by a friend from California where nuts are unpasteurized and truly raw), and cherry coconut parfaits! The parfaits can be nearly sugar free if you choose no-sugar added jam and granola, making it a not-too-decadent treat for breakfast, brunch or dessert.
Cherry Coconut Parfaits

cultured coconut milk (also called coconut yogurt. I used So Delicious brand)
your favourite jam (I used homemade chia-berry jam)
granola (I used homemade raw coconut granola, recipe coming soon)
one cherry per parfait to top

Spoon about a two tablespoons of cultured coconut into the bottom of a glass cup or wine glass. Top with two tablespoons of jam followed by enough granola to cover the jam. Repeat the layers of coconut, jam and granola, then top with a cherry. Serve immediately.

I am submitting my White Bean and Potato Breakfast Scramble to the Allergy Friendly Fridays, Gluten Free Fridays, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Foodtastic Fridays, Wellness Weekends and Meatless Mondays blog hops. I’m sharing the Parfaits with the Slightly Indulgent blog hop.
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Creamy Avocado Chickpea Pasta

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

I love creamy pasta, don’t you? This easy pasta sauce can be whipped up just as fast as it takes to boil the pasta.
Chloe Coscarelli’s cookbook Chloe’s Kitchen introduced me to avocados in pasta with her pesto that uses avocados and pine nuts. What a great idea. Her recipe is delicious, but I wanted to find a way to lower the fat and calorie content of the sauce while still keeping it creamy. I tried swapping out the nuts and half the olive oil for chickpeas, and they worked beautifully! My favourite legume also provides protein, iron, calcium and fibre. Adding nutritional yeast adds to the taste and the nutritional value. I kept Chloe’s suggestion to add sun-dried tomatoes; their tang and texture compliment the creamy sauce perfectly.

Creamy Avocado Chickpea Pasta
454 gm uncooked pasta (we used 1 package of Tinyada rice noodles, our favourite)
2 ripe avocados
3/4 cup cooked chickpeas
2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp packed chopped fresh basil (10 giant leaves or 20 small leaves)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste
approx 1/3 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes

While the pasta is cooking, combine the rest of the ingredients except the sun-dried tomatoes in a food processor and blend for a minute until well mixed and creamy.
Stir in the sauce over cooked and drained pasta, add sun-dried tomatoes to your liking, stir and serve!

Serving a guest with allergies? When choosing rice pasta as I have, this dish is free of the top 10 allergens (dairy, soy, gluten, wheat, fish, shellfish, eggs, peanut, tree nuts and sesame).

Updates: I am submitting this recipe to Healthy Vegan Fridays, Allergy-Friendly Fridays, Gluten-Free Fridays; Meatless Mondays and My Sweet and Savory Meatless Mondays; check out the blog link-ups here:

Nacho crackers

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Hi, friends! I’ve been post-less for a week, having been on holidays, soaking up some sun and family time at a cottage in Muskoka. It was a wonderful time. We brought our own food with us, but there wasn’t room to bring my favourite food equipment like juicer, food processor and dehydrator, so I made as much food as I could ahead of time, like raw granola, and packed it with us.

I’ve only had my dehydrator for a few months so I’m still amazed at the variety of healthy food I can easily make with it and the taste quality. I’m enjoying making raw crackers in my dehydrator lately. Here’s my favourite so far: nacho crackers!

The idea came from my nacho kale chips recipe, which I selected as my entry for the first Healthy Vegan Fridays blog party this week. Every week there will be a new list of delicious recipes featuring whole ingredients to peruse, so now I know where to head the next I’m looking for inspiration. Check it out!

I also loved these crackers enough to send them to my vegan food swap partner Gabby @ The Veggie Nook this month. Hope she likes them as much as I do! I used to love store-bought crackers, now I can’t believe I ate all that sodium, sugar and preservatives, thinking they were a “healthy” snack. These nacho crackers are about as healthy as you can get, plus they are raw, sugar-free and gluten-free.

Raw Nacho Crackers
2/3 cup raw nuts (I used a mix of Brazil nuts and almonds)
1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup ground flax
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped red pepper
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp Spicy Herbamare seasoning
1 tsp agave syrup
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper

Soak the nuts and seeds in 2 cups of filtered water for at least an hour and preferably several hours. Empty the nuts and seeds including the soaking water into a food processor and combine. Add the celery, red pepper and sun-dried tomatoes and combine again. Mix the nutritional yeast, Herbamare and spices together in a separate bowl, then add the spice mixture and combine again until uniformly mixed. Note: to be truly raw, you will want to choose sun or dehydrator-dried tomatoes and raw spices where possible.

Pour onto Paraflexx sheets and smooth out with a spatula so they are uniformly thin, like giant crepes. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for several hours, until crispy. After about five hours, when they are starting to firm up, flip them by placing another Paraflexx sheet and tray on top of the crackers, flipping upside down, peeling off the top sheet and returning them to the dehydrator on the new tray. You can either pull the crackers out when they are nearly done but not crisp and slice them into rectangles with a knife and return to the dehydrator to finish crisping up, or wait until they are as firm and dry as you like and break them into small pieces, like the ones shown in my photos.

They were great on their own and awesome topped with Tofutti cream cheese and cucumber and olive slices and a dash of black pepper! A perfect summer appetizer.

Tofu Scramble and Coconut Bacon

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

I’ve never been a fan of eggs; even as a meat-eating kid I wouldn’t touch them. It was no hardship at all giving them up entirely for veganism. When I was first served tofu scramble a couple of years ago, I didn’t find it particularly appetizing to look at, since it resembles scrambled eggs, but one taste and I was sold. Tofu scramble is also a winner with my kids, they will eat every bite.

Tofu scramble makes a superb dish for brunches or dinner entrées. Tofu is an excellent source of protein, calcium and iron, plus it’s not highly processed like some other soy foods. Add some vegetables and nutritional yeast and you have one super healthy dish! I make up a spice mix for the tofu scramble and keep in a glass jar in my pantry so I don’t have to measure out seven spices every time I want tofu scramble.

Tofu Scramble
1 cup onion, chopped
coconut or olive oil
2 14-oz packages of extra firm tofu
1 heaping tbsp of spice mix (below)
3 tbsp Bragg’s all-purpose seasoning, nama shoyu or soy sauce
2 1/2 cups chopped veggies (we like red pepper, massaged kale, mushrooms and spinach)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
optional topping: fresh herbs, Daiya, coconut bacon (see below)

Tofu Scramble Spice Mix
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp Herbamare seasoning or sea salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp sage

Mix the spices together and keep in a glass jar. Makes enough for 6 servings of the tofu scramble.

Sautée the onion in a bit of oil over medium heat in a large pan and cook for about five minutes. While the onion cooks, drain and rinse the tofu, then wrap in a clean kitchen towel and press gently to remove excess liquid. Add the tofu to the pan with the onion and use a metal spatula to chop it up into chunks; it will continue crumbling into smaller pieces as it cooks. Add the spice mix to 3 tbsp of water, stir, then add to pan. Cook the tofu, scraping the bottom with the metal spatula as the tofu becomes brown and crispy on the bottom. Add the Bragg’s, veggies and nutritional yeast to the pan and cook for another several minutes, until the veggies are soft. Taste and add more Bragg’s or nutritional yeast if desired. Serve warm. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper to taste.

The scramble tastes excellent on its own, or you can top it with melted Daiya and even crispy coconut bacon for a higher-fat treat. I first heard of coconut bacon when I read Mary’s rave review of Aux Vivres on her blog This is Vegan and was intrigued. If you don’t like that’s it’s called “bacon”, just think of it as “smoky coconut crisps”. I was excited to make my own crispy treat and was happy to find the recipe for Aux Vivres’ coconut bacon at Kirsten’s Kitchen here. I used large flaked dried coconut since I couldn’t get my hands on a fresh coconut and it worked just fine.

I found that the recipe resulted in a surprisingly sweet taste; in future I will reduce the maple syrup to 2 tbsp for a more savoury taste. The coconut bacon was also lovely in sandwiches and topped on salads, crackers, pastas and pizza. Crispy and delicious!

Because the pink dinosaur told me to

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Vegansaurus, for those who aren’t in the know, is a popular lifestyle blog that I love for blending the adorable with great info and plenty of snark. Mosey on over to check out the cool stuff they’ve got going on. Their pink dinosaur mascot challenged its readers to try new foods this month and it sounded like a swell idea to me.

First up: Longan Fruit.

Once shelled, they look and taste very much like lychees. The internet tells me they are from South Asia and that longan literally translates into “dragon’s eye” because it resembles an eyeball when the black pit is exposed. They were sweet but I wasn’t a big fan of the texture. Now I know what a dragon eyeball tastes like. My family found it tedious to shell them, which goes to show how spoiled we are that we’ll pay for fruit to fly all the way the from South Asia (sorry about the carbon footprint) and then our patience is too low to spend 30 seconds shelling them without feeling annoyed by the time we pop the fruit in our mouths. So we have to meditate appreciatively on how cool it is that we have the privilege to be able to find exotic foods year round in our Canadian grocery store (…where they are mislabeled logan berries).

Satsuma. No surprise it’s a citrus fruit in the orange family like mandarins and tangerines. We bought satsumas of the Miho Wase variety, from South Africa. I also ate this food raw just as it is. The sweet taste is very similar to an orange, plus seedless and easy to peel. Delicious! Wish I could grow these treats in my back yard.

Now to find something local I haven’t tried before:
Garlic Scapes. These came from an organic Mennonite farm just minutes from my home. Garlic scapes are the edible curly leaves of a garlic bulb that sprout before the bulb is ready to harvest. They taste very much like the garlic bulb itself, so it’s a pretty strong flavour.

What to make with these little shoestrings? I found a recipe for Garlic Scape Pesto in the awesome cookbook Ripe From Around Here by jae steele, who also lives in Southern Ontario. She has posted the recipe on her website here.

The pesto keeps for a week in the fridge, so a few days later I used it for pasta sauce. With veggies and some vegan sausages, it made a great, hearty meal.

Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta
One recipe of Garlic Scape Pesto
340 g dried pasta (I used one package of Tinkyada rice pasta)
olive oil
6 mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 large pieces of kale, stems removed, thinly sliced
2 vegan sausages (optional; I used two Tofurky kielbasa sausages)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

While the pasta is cooking, sautée the mushrooms and kale in a small amount of olive oil over medium heat. Drain the pasta and return the empty pasta pot to the stove. Add the pasta to the pot and spread around to warm, then add back the cooked pasta, then veggies and sausages. Let stand in the hot pot a few minutes to warm through. Serve sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a few cracks of black pepper. Serves four. This dish is gluten-free with rice pasta.

When was the last time you tried a new food?

Deluxe Mac and Cheese

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Ask my kids what they want for dinner, the answer is invariably mac and cheese. Up until just a few years ago, this meant opening a box with fluorescent orange powder. But homemade mac and cheese takes just a few minutes longer to prepare and is much healthier, especially if you include some veggies.

Some recipes for dairy-free mac and cheese I’ve seen use nutritional yeast, some use vegan cheese shreds; I’ve been tweaking this recipe for a year and I think the yummiest version come from using both (but if you want lower fat, reduce the amount of Daiya). The idea to cook the broccoli florets with the pasta came from Chloe Coscarelli.

Deluxe Mac and Cheese
500 g dried macaroni or other pasta (I used 1 1/2 packages of Tinkyada rice pasta)
1/4 cup Earth Balance Butter or vegan margarine
1 1/2 cups nondairy milk
1 1/2 Tbsp tomato sauce
3 drops stevia or 1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp tumeric (optional)
1 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, minced
1/2 package of Daiya shreds
2 cups broccoli florets
fresh basil (about five leaves), chopped

While the pasta cooks in one pot, melt the Earth Balance/margarine on medium-low heat in another large pot on the stove. Add the nondairy milk, tomato sauce, sweetener, garlic powder, tumeric, nutritional yeast, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and stir. Taste and add more seasonings if desired.

When the pasta has about five minutes left to cook, add the broccoli florets to the pasta pot. When the pasta and broccoli are cooked, drain and add them to the pot with the sauce and stir. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and Daiya and stir again. Serve topped with fresh basil. Serves 6. This recipe is gluten-free with rice pasta.

Kale is the New Bacon

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

I wish I could take credit for that great line; it was Post Punk Kitchen’s facebook status the other day. But it makes a great introduction for a recipe about delectable, crispy, nacho kale chips!

These chips are the best things to ever come out of my dehydrator! If you don’t have a dehydrator, you could try these in an oven on low heat but I never got great results from kale chips in an oven; some pieces get burned, other pieces are soggy. From the dehydrator, these are perfectly crispy and crunchy, like your favourite potato chip.

A dehydrator doesn’t just pull moisture out, it intensifies the flavours of the ingredients while preserving all the nutrients. I have an Excalibur Dehydrator, bought from Upaya Naturals.

I tried kale chips at a health fair in April and was blown away by the taste. I didn’t have the recipe but knew it had red pepper, cashews and jalapeño. It was slightly too spicy for my taste so I decided to try to make my own jalapeño-free version. As my friend said when she sampled one of mine at the Upcylcing Party: “These taste like Doritos!”

Nacho Kale Chips
1 large bunch of kale (we like curly kale but any kind will work), washed and patted dry
1 red pepper
1 cup raw cashews, soaked several hours, then drained and rinsed (why soak nuts first)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
a splash of lemon juice
1 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp olive oil
optional herbs and spices: 1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder, 2 tsp Italian seasoning, pinch of crushed chilies, dash of black pepper and 2 Tbsp fresh chives, finely diced
sea salt or Herbamare seasoning

You can adjust the seasoning to suit what you like and have on hand, but the red pepper, cashews, garlic, salt and nutritional yeast are the key ingredients. I had tons of chives in my garden, so I threw them in.

In a food processor or blender, combine all ingredients except for the sea salt/Herbamare seasoning and process until smooth. Cut tough stems off the kale and tear into chip-sized pieces.

Prepare to get messy. The cashew sauce gets massaged into the kale on both sides, so use your hands, then spread the kale pieces on dehydrator trays covered with Paraflexx sheets. Sprinkle with salt/Herbamare to your liking.

Dehydrate at 105 degrees for about 8 hours or all chips dry and crispy.

Kale chips coming out the dehydrator. I try not to eat them all!

Update July 28, 2012: I love these chips so much I shared them for the first Healthy Vegan Fridays blog party, hosted by The Everyday Vegan Girl, Carrie On Vegan and The Veggie Nook.