Enclume Pot Racks for Organization and Visual Appeal

If there is one thing that I absolutely cannot stand, it’s clutter. An organized room is a happy room and a makes for a happy person. If you were standing in my living and kitchen area, you may not think me happy, but thankfully the clutter is not around long. Even when stuff is put away, it can be rather troublesome to get it out from the cabinet because it’s stuffed. That’s why many people choose to have something like Enclume pot racks to keep things within reach, eliminate clutter and add to the overall appeal a rack like this lends to a kitchen.

Enclume potracks are the premium quality storage racks designed to look great while being functional. Some of them hang from the ceiling while others are designed to hang on the wall. Either way, there’s sure to be one to fit your budget and decorative tastes in addition to your storage needs.

They even have an Enclume pot rack that not only holds pots and pans hanging from it, but you can use the top of it to store your favorite book or a plant or whatever you desire.

Where do you find these? Why, at EnclumePotRacks.com, of course. They have a huge selection of styles and each one of them comes with a low price guarantee. And some of their products you can’t find anywhere else. When you put all that together with super customer service and FREE shipping on all pot racks, you have winning combination.

Great nutrition seafood, some facts about cholesterol and seafood

Got a problem with cholesterol? I think you need to try Red Lobster restaurant, one of the best seafood restaurants where you can taste the best culinary. Here are some facts about cholesterol and seafood. Shrimp, squid and fish are delicious probably always avoid. Although it was tasty, seafood is often a 'suspect' causing rise in blood cholesterol levels. But whether it is true seafood so it triggers blood cholesterol? Many people who have high blood cholesterol levels began to leave the seafood. Though various types of seafood taste are very delicious, and rich in essential minerals, Seafood has long been dubbed as a trigger of blood cholesterol levels. In the human body there are 2 types of cholesterol. LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) which is "bad" cholesterol that can clog arteries. HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol is 'good' cholesterol that helps to demolish the 'evil'.

Nowadays we can do almost everything online, like finding this useful article. We also easily can find important information or buy fresh seafood online, like find info about lobsters or buy oysters.

Cholesterol is made naturally by the body and is necessary for the body to function properly. Among them maintain body cells stay healthy and produce essential hormones. The imbalance occurs when we consume much less healthy foods that trigger the body to produce "bad" cholesterol more. Effects and the risk is heart disease. Some foods are known as the source of cholesterol such as eggs, shellfish and other seafood species, though the food is actually very small impact on blood cholesterol levels.

Consumption of Trans fats in food type and the others were faster and more trigger levels of "bad" cholesterol in the blood. In other words, consumption of animal fat, coconut oil and Trans fat is more dangerous than eating seafood. Shellfish actually contains very little cholesterol, about 25 mg (for ½ cup steamed mussels), 150 mg (for ½ cup boiled shrimp) and 200 mg for 1 egg medium. So the consumption of fried foods, or foods processed with Trans fat would lead to the number of higher levels of bad cholesterol. Because it is more food to eat boiled shrimp, grilled squid or grilled fish in portions.

Raw Marinated Artichoke Salad

I stumbled upon the BSI (Blogger Secret Ingredient) Event and thought it sounded like fun.  This week the ingredient was artichokes.  With my recent live foods kick, I was worried about whether, this could work.

From Google, I learned that raw artichokes are commonly served in Greece and other countries.

Here's my first brush with raw artichokes:

This salad is the kind of thing you just throw together, so feel free to make substitutions or changes.  My recipe and instructions are below.

Raw Artichoke Salad Recipe

2 fresh artichokes
chopped tomatoes
marinated mushrooms (baby bella is what I used)  and onions
Kalamata olives
crumbled cheese (cashew cheese in this case)
greens (baby arugula in this case)
sliced scallions
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
lemon juice
Nama Shoyu or soy sauce
Italian spice blend

First, slice the mushrooms and onion.  Mix  a splash of Nama Shoyu, olive oil, and vinegar with a generous sprinkle of the spices.  Add the mushrooms and onions and mix to coat.  Refrigerate for a few hours or days.  The longer the better. (Shaking the bowl to mix it up occasionally is a good thing.)

Juice a lemon and mix with a bowl cold water to prevent the artichoke from browning.  Prepare the artichokes by removing tough outer leaves and the fuzzy choke as well as any purple leaves in the center.  Dip in lemon water as you work.  Slice the artichoke thinly and leave in the water while you prepare the salad.

Mix tomatoes, chopped olives, marinated mushrooms and onions in a bowl.  Add the artichoke slices and a splash of vinegar.  Stir again to combine.

To plate:  Start with greens, add the artichoke mixture.  Garnish with crumbled cheese and sliced scallions.

Hope you enjoy it!

The artichokes were a little tough at first, but the texture grew on me.  I've added my remaining artichoke slices to the mushroom marinade in the fridge and will check to see if that softens it up without destroying the color.

ETA: I'm so excited to say that this recipe actually won the contest.  It is very encouraging so see a vegan recipe beat out standard fare.  In this case raw vegan made the grade!

Raw Beet Patties

I saw a recipe for smokey beet cakes that Alicia Silverstone posted and decided they could easily be converted to a raw dish.   With a few ideas in mind, I also searched to see what others have already tried.  This recipe followed pretty closely to what I was thinking already.

Soaking walnuts takes up too much time, so I opted to use sunflower seeds and ground flax instead.  The rest was a matter of what was in the fridge.

The final product with some onion bread and crumbled cashew cheese.

There were a couple of  Twitter requests for the recipe.  It certainly wasn't exact, but here's an attempt at documenting it.  

 

Raw Smoky Beet Patty Recipe

1 cup of carrot/celery pulp leftover from the juicer (whatever you have will work)
1/2 red beet
1/2 yellow beet
1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tomato

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 Tbl of ground flax seed mixed with 2 Tbl of water

1  tsp of smoked paprika

Salt or Nama Shoyu to taste

Food process to incorporate, adding water if necessary.  Basically, you just need a consistency that allows for making patties.   Form patties, then dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight.   These were best right out the dehydrator with a crispy outside.  Though they are still great the next day and keep well.

 

Enjoy!

Tal Ronnen and Gardein - Conscious Cooking

Today I was excited to know Tal Ronnen would be demonstrating recipes at Whole Foods near my office.  At lunch time I headed over there.  He was set-up in a small area speaking to an audience of about 10 people and showing them how to make recipes.

I sat down and watched while he made Gardein Chik'n Marsala.  The sample was delicious.  You can get the recipe on Gardein's site by clicking here.  Unfortunately, my seat didn't facilitate photo taking for this dish.  Tal was so friendly and down to earth and really tried to speak with everyone.   At one point he took a break to sign cookbooks.  I was bummed that my copy was on the shelf at home. 

The second recipe that Chef Ronnen prepared was Asian Gardein Beefless Stir Fry.  While he was making this dish he talked about his cookbook, The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat. I was surprised to learn how popular it is outside the vegan community.  The book actually made #3 on the New York Times Bestseller list.  Epicurious also named it one of the top ten cookbooks of the year!  While it is great to see a vegan book making a mainstream smash, it is disappointing that some of the other great vegan cookbooks out there don't have as much commercial support.  Hopefully, Tal's influence will make people explore some other titles.

Below is a picture of the stir fry before Chef Ronnen served it up.  This dish was also mighty good.  After that, it was back to office for me!

Raw Kale Chips

With the recent bout of warm weather, I've been experimenting with a high raw diet. So far I'm really digging it and feeling great.

Most of my meals are simple salads, fruit or smoothies. Occasionally, I've prepared a more involved entree like raw tacos. This week I'm planning on raw pizza. The crust is actually in the dehydrator right now!

Awhile back I checked out Prana Raw Cafe and really enjoyed the kale chips that came with my meal. These have been on my list to make for awhile. Google turned up some complicated recipes, so I opted to wing it.

Basically, I mixed together a little cold pressed olive oil, nama shoyu, and raw sesames seeds. Then I poured the mixture over some kale leaves that I had torn up. After mixing it up well and making sure all the pieces were coated, I tossed them in the dehydrator for about 5 hours. These came out great. Prana definitely used more oil, but I was happy with these results.

The yellow/orange you see in the picture is some nutritional yeast.  I sprinkled about 1/3 of the chips with nutritional yeast, to add some cheesy flavor.  Both varieties are great.

Many people make kale chips in the oven, so no dehydrator necessary.  Soy sauce works fine in place of the nama shoyu if you aren't trying to adhere to a raw diet.

Give these a try, kale chips will surprise you.

Puerto Rican Pink Beans

Joyfulgirl415 posted a family recipe for Puerto Rican Pink beans on a vegan forum I frequent.  The post got a lot of attention and I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I needed to figure out is what exactly pink beans are.  I originally though this was just another name for pinto beans.  That is incorrect.  Pintos and pink beans are good substitutions for the each other though.  It turns out pink beans are their own variety.  Sometimes they are also called chili beans.  They are smaller and lighter in color than kidney beans.

I bought a bag of the dry beans and used the pressure cooker for 5 min to avoid the long soak time.  Then, I followed the recipe here.  Note that Joyfulgirl415 originally forgot the green olives and listed them later on in the thread.   When I googled around to learn more about this dish, I found that it is commonly topped with slices of avocado.

The recipe is simple to make, healthy, and really delicious.  Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!