Black Rice Salad

I bought black rice several months ago because Dr. Oz said it was good for you! LOL! I had no idea what to do with it and I needed a side dish for some veggie kabobs. I like cold rice salads, and WOW, this was born! It is delicious!

Makes about 6-8 servings.

1 Cup black Thai rice
1-3/4 Cups water
pinch salt
1/2 yellow pepper diced
1/2 red pepper diced
1/4 Cup red onion diced
1/4 Cup fresh chopped mint
1/4 Cup fresh chopped basil
2 Tbsp. fresh chopped cilantro

Sauce
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
2 Tbsp. Tamari sauce (or 1 Tbsp. soy and 1 Tbsp. vegetarian fish sauce)
Juice of one lime

Bring the rice, pinch of salt and water to a boil in a sauce pan over high heat. Reuce heat to simmer and cover with lid. Let the mixture simmer for 45 minutes, or until water is absorbed.

Whisk together sesame oil, tamari and lime juice. Set aside.

Once rice is cooked transfer to bowl. Pour sauce over the rice while it is still warm. Stir well. Add chopped pepper and onion and chopped herbs. Chill and serve.

Carrot Cake

We received a pound and a half of carrots this week from our CSA. I found a delicious recipe for carrot cake. It is not low fat, that will be my next mission is working on how to make this a no fat cake. Let me tell you though, this carrot cake is delicious. Instead of using a cream cheese type fattening frosting, I did lighten it up a bit by just using a glaze made with 1.5 Cups of powdered sugar, 1.5 TBSP. almond milk and 2 tsp of vanilla extract. I applied the glaze while the cake was still a bit warm. Wow is this good!

Original recipe came from Christine Hennessey's blog

The Best Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe Ever
(adapted from GroupRecipes)

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose white flour
1 cup of white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
2 tsp of cinnamon
3 cups shredded carrots
3/4 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup of golden raisins
1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x9 inch square pan with oil.

Mix together the flour, sugars, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Add the shredded carrots and the oil to the dry ingredients and mix well with a spoon (not a hand mixer!).

Add the orange juice and mix again, then fold in the nuts, raisins and coconut.

Put the batter into pan.

Bake for 45 minutes or until knife/toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.

Let cool before topping with vegan buttercream cinnamon frosting.

Fresh Salsa

Traditionally I had been making salsa by parboiling the tomatoes to remove the skins, and cubing them resulting in a chunky salsa. While I still think this kind of salsa is the bomb, sometimes you need fresh salsa in a more expedient and less messy manner!
I have come up with a way to make a delicious, albeit less chunky, salsa in my Ninja food processor. I am sure you could use any food processor or a Vitamix.

Rough chop the following:

5 tomatoes
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 jalapeno
Place them in your processor and give them a whiz
add the following:
juice of one lime
couple generous pinches of Kosher salt
2 tsp cumin
Give it another whiz

From here you can just place it in a jar to use within the next 10 days, or freeze it in freezer jars or bags.
You can also use a food strainer to strain off some of the juice. Remember the longer it sets the spicier the jalapenos will get.