Vegan Enchiladas or Tacos

Filling:

3/4 cup walnuts

One and a half cups cooked lentils (or one can)

2 TB Cumin

2 TB Chili Powder (mild or hot as desired, or use mild with cayenne)*

1 teaspoon salt (ideally smoked), or to taste
1/2 cup corn
1 cup cooked spinach

1/2 cup sauteed mushrooms (optional)

other cooked veggies like anaheim peppers are great as desired
2 TB olive oil

For tacos: 

Steam tortillas in microwave inside a damp paper towel in an open plastic bag for 30 seconds for 10 tortillas. Heat filling with vegan cheese, top with quick salsa, and eat! (for low carb this is also good in romaine lettuce)

For enchiladas:

15 small or 10 large tortillas (recommend white corn)
1 15 oz can red or green enchilada sauce (for homeade check out Gimme Some Oven)*
1/4 cup mexican vegan cheese 
1/4 cup vegan sour cream ( I like kite hill for vegan)
LImes and cilantro

Preheat oven to 350.  

Pulse walnuts in food processor until chopped fine. Add lentils and pulse until they have a mealy texture together. Spoon into bowl. Integrate salt, spices, and olive oil. Mix in veggies. 

Steam tortillas in microwave inside a damp paper towel in an open plastic bag for 30 seconds for 10 tortillas. Fill each tortilla and turn seam side down until tray is full. 

Pour enchilada sauce over enchiladas and top with mexican cheese. Bake for 12-13 minutes. slather with sour cream and return to oven for 2-3 minutes. 

Serve with cut limes and cilantro- lime juice gives them a nice finish.


* If you use premade red and like heat, spin red sauce with 2 adobo peppers

Keto Cereal/Granola

Vegan Keto Cereal (or Granola)

The worst thing about Keto is no cereal, and no bread. Well also no chips.

But breakfast. Eggs get really old, and I don't eat bacon because most of the pigs I met are smarter than I am. So I kitchen tested about 10 versions of cereal and ended up here.

I'm baking this at elevation so if you're at sea level, you may need to put it in a little longer or reduce your butter and oil. Just play around with it a bit.

Ingredients

1 cup slivered (preferred) or whole almonds.

1 cup coconut flakes- make sure they are unsweetened

1/4 cup chia seeds 

1.5 TB coconut oil 

3-4 teaspoons stevia or to your taste

1/2 teaspoon vanilla*

1-2 teaspoons cinnamon or apple pie spice (optional), per your taste

Pinch of salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300.

Pulse the almonds and coconut in a food processor on chop setting. If you're using whole almonds, start with the almonds until they are mostly chopped and then add coconut or you'll pulverize the coconut before almonds are chopped. 

Place almond coconut mixture in a bowl. Add stevia, salt, and cinnamon and stir for 30 seconds. Add water and chia seeds and let sit for about 5 minutes. The mixture will coagulate and become almost like a paste. Melt coconut oil briefly if not liquid. Stir in coconut mixture and vanilla to dry mixture in to integrate thoroughly.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and spoon the mixture on. It will be clumpy, don't break it up. Bake for about 25 minutes. The cereal will not be crispy at first but as it dries it will become crispier. I eat it plain or with half and half.

Has about 6 grams of carbs per 1/4 cup and a ridiculous amount of fat. If you're counting net carbs it has about 2 grams of fiber per serving as well.

Culebra!

OMG, what is there to say about this island? Paradise, in a word.

 

Getting there was kind of nuts. Our first night we spent in San Juan at Casa Del Sol because our SW flight got cancelled. SJ near the airport was...a hotel near the airport. Nice, but nothing compared to our destination.

 

So we got to the island on Wednesday via our little puddle jumper plane. Scary, but oh so amazing. And then our six-seater plane somehow forgot our luggage. Things weren't starting out well. Luckily, the folks we were staying with at Mango Fish Guesthouse were amazing. While we waited for the next flight, Fred gave us a million dollar tour of the island. He showed us where to eat (Dinghy Dock! El Eden! Zacos Tacos) and where the quieter beaches are, as well as the more popular (Flamenco). He gave us some of their great local beer- Medallion- while we were on the ride, and by the time we got back to the airport I couldn't have cared less if our luggage had arrived. Which it had! Then we got to go explore our beautiful Casita.

It was so nice. We loved it!! Everything about it, except maybe for the fact that the ghetto neighbor chained up their dog in the backyard.

Chili Recipe

Vegan Chili

About 90% of this comes from the Moosewood Restaurants Low-fat favorites festive black bean vegan chili recipe. 

2 cups chopped onion*
1 each red (or yellow or green) and pablano(or anaheim or pasillo) pepper  chopped

4 garlic cloves

2 TB olive oil

2 TB ground cumin

1 TB ground coriander

2 cups prepared salsa- buy per your heat preferences- I used Kirklands Medium Organic Salsa

1 can or equivalent cups black beans

1 can or equivalent cups kidney beans

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 can adobo peppers in sauce

1/2 cup brewed coffee, preferably dark roast

1 teaspoon salt, preferably smoked

2 bay leaves. 

2 TB apple cider vinegar

Quick roast cumin and coriander over high heat in dutch oven for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add olive oil. Reduce heat to medium.

Add onions, peppers and garlic* with a generous pinch of the salt. Saute,  stirring constantly, for 5-7 minutes.

Add salsa and red peppers. Simmer for five minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes, coffee, bay leaf, adobo peppers, ACV and rest of the salt. Simmer over lowest heat for about 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

Add beans at the end so they don't overcook and split.

Adjust for seasoning. 

*- I typically saute a serrano or jalapeno at this point as well but I like hot food a lot if you prefer less heat you may not want to. 

Coffee Ice Cream Recipe

Seriously the worlds best coffee ice cream...

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup cream
• Heavy pinch sea salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 2 packets instant coffee
• 1 TB cocoa powder

Bring sugar, cream, salt and coffee to a simmer in a saucepan.

Store about 1/4 cup slowly of hot mixture into egg yolks until integrated. Return to pan. Allow to thicken but do not boil. Once thickened add cocoa powder.

Chill over ice in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Stir in the heavy cream.

Add to ice cream maker and churn until ready. Refreeze for a harder ice cream. 

So we're doing this house thing...

We hadn't really even started looking for a house so to speak. Robin had JUST landed a WFH job literally days before, so we started kind of poking around the weekend of June 16 in a small mountain neighborhood called Pinewood Springs about 30 minutes or so away from where we currently live in Longmont, Colorado, a bedroom community of Boulder. We stopped by an open house and scheduled to see another in the neighborhood the next morning. 

And that night we rechecked to make sure there wasn't something more we wanted to see- and we saw THIS HOUSE! At about the same price as the other- well under market.

So obviously we scheduled a showing. Along with a parade of other people that next morning. And it was just as amazing as we'd hoped.

We went up against 4 other parties with our offer barely 24 hours after this house went on the market. We crossed our fingers, and threw some fairy dust around. Oh, and we wrote a letter as to why we loved the home that referenced our personal histories in Western PA and Canada and Danny's obsession with detail in his craftsmanship, among other things.

So, you never know whats going to work in a multiple offer situation, but some combination of this did. We were lucky to get an agent who knew the area and was able to understand how to compete in this situation. And we know from speaking with the *amazing* sellers we got it in some part because the current owners two grew up in Dravosburg and Cheswick, just about 30 and 40 minutes respectively from Robin's hometown of Murrysville, PA. Who knew?!

So yea, we moved to the mountains and now we're REALLY moving to the mountains. It is isolated but not entirely in the middle of nowhere; it is in fact just 15-20 minutes to Estes Park and 10-15 to the vacation community of Lyons, CO. And we'd love to have our dear friends and family visit. Here's our lovely guest room and some drone footage of the house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_4IxYg43aU

Dog friends: We will be promptly replacing the carpet so the house will be very dog friendly. The creek pools have been fully dog-tested and approved, though the granite can get slick in spots.

The community is rather amazing. Here's an article Pinewood Springs-it was heavily impacted by the 2013 floods:

https://www.denverpost.com/2013/09/23/pinewood-springs-residents-thrive-as-they-survive-flooded-isolation/

They're not Snyders, but they'll do

Honey-mustard onion Keto Crackers, baby

So I just (re)started a ketogenic diet. For many reasons. Brain health, gut health, body health, and to fight off this last 10 stinking pounds that will not leave my aging hips and belly. I'd lost about five earlier this year on keto and gained it back at light speed with a fervent dedication to chips, margaritas, and gnocchi.

So, I'm four days in. And I feel like would steal crunchy snacks from a baby, so I decided to try my hand at a homeade version of my favorite snack: Oily, yummy, honey mustard and onion pretzel bits from Snyders of Hanover.

So do they measure up? Um, no. But they stave the craving and I'm not stealing snacks from babies. And they help immensely with the constipation I tend to get on keto. If you don't like honey mustard just omit the optional ingredients. Again- these alone will be bland but they're good when you need a cracker to dip things in, put cheese on, etc.

To make:

1/2 cup chia seeds
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup flaxseed meal (you can also just put flax seeds in a food processor and make flaxseed meal or just do a whole cup of whole flax seeds)
2 TB onion powder (optional)
1/4 cup mustard (optional)
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon stevia or other calorie-free sweetner


Preheat oven to 350.

Mix all ingredients and let sit for one minute. Spread thin on a cookie sheet (ideally with parchment paper) with a spatula or hands. If they are thicker they will be more bread-like; thinner more cracker like.

Score them with a fork along the top to make them easier to break into cracker size pieces.  I'm cooking at elevation, so its different than cooking at sea level, but mine take about 40-45 minutes to get golden. I'd suggest checking them around 30 minutes at sea level. Other recipes for similar suggest flipping but I do not find this makes a difference.

I also made a sweet mustard onion dipping sauce with 1/4 cup mustard, 1 teaspoon stevia, and a teaspoon of onion powder. I bet they'd be good with cheese, meats and other keto-friendly dips.

So this is approximate because I can't math, but each 2 inch cracker contains: 40 cals, 3 grams fat, 1.5 grams carbohydrate, 1.8 grams protein, and 1.4 grams fiber  (ie net carbs are only .01).