The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (28 page)

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Authors: Alicia Silverstone

BOOK: The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet

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Scrape the roasted vegetables and their juices into a large bowl, and add the couscous. Bring the vegetable broth back to a boil, and pour over the couscous mixture all at once. Cover tightly with a plate and allow to stand for 15 minutes. Add the scallions, toss the couscous and vegetables with a fork, and serve.

Barley Casserole

Get out your Birkenstocks! This casserole is hearty, tasty, and deeply groovy. Perfect for a family meal or to bring to a hippie potluck, this recipe makes a lot, so keep leftovers in the fridge to serve later. Hulled barley (also known as whole barley) is great in this dish, but if you can’t get your hands on it, use pearled barley instead.

SERVES 6 TO 8

2 cups hulled barley

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 carrots, grated

2 celery stalks, diced

5 tablespoons shoyu

¹/
₄teaspoon fine sea salt

¹/
₄teaspoon dried basil

¹/
₄teaspoon dried oregano

¹/
₄teaspoon garlic powder

³/
₄cup Tahini Dressing (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan; add the barley, and cook for approximately 55 to 60 minutes or until tender. Drain off any remaining water, and set cooked barley aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, and sauté until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. If the onion starts to stick or get too brown, add a bit of water to the pan. Add the carrots, celery, shoyu, salt, basil, oregano, and garlic powder and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender. Add the barley, and stir over medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Taste the seasonings and adjust if necessary.

Transfer half of the barley mixture to an 8" x 12" baking dish; drizzle half of the Tahini Dressing on top. Add a second layer of barley mixture and the remainder of the dressing. Bake, uncovered, until heated through, about 35 minutes.

Tahini Dressing

¹/
₄small onion, diced

¹/
₂cup tahini

1 tablespoon shoyu

Pinch of garlic powder

Pinch of paprika

¹/
₈teaspoon crumbled dried basil or
¹/
₂teaspoon chopped fresh basil

Pinch of dried oregano

Combine the onion with 2 tablespoons water in a small skillet, and sauté over medium-high heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Add more water as needed if the onion begins to stick or brown.

Scrape the onion into a blender and add
¹/
₂cup water and the remaining ingredients. Blend for 1 minute or until creamy.

Hot Rice with Cold Lemon, Basil, and Tomato

One of my favorite snacks has always been rice covered in chopped tomatoes and topped with a generous sprinkle of salt. This recipe evolved from that snack. It’s a great way to serve grain, and the vegetables make the whole dish light and refreshing.

SERVES 2

1 cup Arborio rice

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 pinches of fine sea salt

2 pinches of freshly ground black pepper

¹/
₂cup (or as much as you want) fresh tomato, large dice

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Place the unrinsed rice in a saucepan with 3 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer 10 to 15 minutes or until mostly tender but still a little firm in the center of the grain. Drain off any water that was not absorbed, and transfer the rice to a mixing bowl.

Add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste (it’s better to start off with a tiny amount of salt and pepper and add more if you need it). Mix well, add the tomatoes, and sprinkle with the basil. Toss to combine, and serve.

PROTEINS

In this section you’ll find delicious ways to serve your new key protein foods: beans and seitan. No time to cook? Here are some delicious, filling, and super-easy ways to feed yourself in a hurry.

Burgers:
Great for summer barbecues, pool parties, or just a quick lunch at home. Many people love Boca
burgers, so they’re a great place to start as you explore the big ole world of vegan burgers, but there are loads of interesting options out there.

Start with a healthy bun. Although my favorite burger bun is two pieces of chewy, toasted sourdough bread, many companies make great whole wheat buns. All good health food stores should carry some.

Add extras like fresh heirloom tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, sautéed onions, vegan cheese, ketchup, whole grain Dijon or stone-ground mustard, Vegenaise, lettuce, avocado, and pickles. Tempeh bacon is also a great topping—just fry it up like real bacon and enjoy!

Hot dogs:
Another easy, yummy food. There are great veggie dogs made by Morningstar, Tofurky, and Lightlife. Just follow the directions on the package and serve on a healthy, whole grain bun. Top with ketchup, mustard, relish, sauerkraut—you name it.

Sausages:
Although the hot dog companies above also make good sausages, I recently discovered an apple-smoked vegetarian sausage by a company called Field Roast. It’s amazing.

Sandwiches:
Ahhh, the glory of sandwiches—where yummy meets quick meets easy! I consider the sandwich sorely underappreciated.

Use a great sourdough or other whole grain bread from the farmers’ market, toasted or not, as you prefer. Some of my favorite sandwich stuffers include Vegenaise (a must), avocado, hummus, thinly sliced baked tofu (you can find it in a bunch of great flavors at the health food store), sprouts, heirloom tomatoes, whole grain Dijon mustard, cucumbers, chives, freshly ground black pepper, and Tofurky (or any other vegan lunch meat). Even stuffed grape leaves taste great in a sandwich. Incorporate anything that makes you happy, and arrange your sandwich to suit your fancy.

Waffle, Sausage, and Cheese Panini

Okay, this dish is really decadent. If it were made from the animal-based versions of these foods, I’d be setting you up for a heart attack (but of course it isn’t, so I’m not!). That said, it does contain a lot of processed foods and therefore shouldn’t be a daily treat. Oh, what the heck: If you’re just getting off meat and dairy, eat this messy, fun, scrumpdiliumptious dish as much as you want!

SERVES 4

4–6 (1- to 1.5-ounce) Italian-style soy sausages

¹/
₃cup fruit-sweetened apricot jam

¹/
₄cup Vegenaise

1
¹/
₂teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or
¹/
₂teaspoon dried

¹/
₄teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

8 frozen whole grain waffles, toasted

4 tablespoons oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped

1
¹/
₂cups arugula

4 slices vegan mozzarella

Cook the sausage according to package directions until browned in a large skillet. Transfer the sausage to a cutting board, and when cool enough to handle, slice each sausage in half lengthwise and then in half crosswise.

Stir together the jam, Vegenaise, thyme, and pepper in a small bowl.

Wipe out the skillet you cooked the sausages in and place over medium heat, or preheat a panini press or countertop grill. Spread each waffle with 1 tablespoon jam mixture. Sprinkle sun-dried tomatoes over 4 waffles and layer each sandwich with arugula, 1 cheese slice, and one-quarter of the sausage slices. Top each sandwich with the remaining waffles.

Brush the heated pan, panini press, or grill with oil. Add the sandwiches, and cook 3 to 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted, making sure to turn the sandwich once if you are using the skillet method. Cut the sandwiches in half, and serve.

Note:
Use a second skillet weighted with a heavy can or two to press the sandwiches as they cook to re-create the panini press effect in your skillet.

Pecan-Crusted Seitan

This recipe was created by my dear friend Joy and is published in The Candle Café Cookbook. It’s a real crowd-pleaser—perfect at a fancy dinner party or at a Thanksgiving feast to replace that big dead bird.

SERVES 4 TO 6