Sprouted Adzuki Bean and Rice Salad
Sprouted Adzuki Bean and Rice Salad is a hearty dish full of vegetables, beans, and a trio of rice: wild and germinated red and brown rice. The nutty flavor of the rice combined with the slightly sweet red Adzuki beans and the earthy vegetables – mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini – and fresh chopped cilantro along with Zatar (a popular middle eastern spice) – makes for a flavorful salad that is both filling and nutritious. Easy and quick to make, the Sprouted Adzuki Bean and Rice Salad is a terrific alternative to traditional rice or bean salad. Read more 
Purely Elizabeth Granola
This past week while grocery shopping, my vegan daughter convinced me to try a new brand of granola made by a company called Purely Elizabeth. She didn’t have to twist my arm even though we have at least a half-dozen bags of granola in our cereal cabinet, each one lovely in its own special way.
In our house, granola has a special importance and is given the status of both diamonds and water. Valued for its clarity in ingredients and adaptability (almost everything tastes better with granola just as diamonds look great with nearly anything), granola is the one food that tastes heavenly in its many variations and is a source of sustenance, just like water. Read more
“Appointment in Samarra”
The road was his. He wanted to drive on the left side and zigzag like an army transport and idle along at four miles an hour. But one time when he thought the road was his he had done all these things, finally to be arrested for drunken driving by a highway patrolman who had been following him all the while. “You’d think you owned the road,” the patrolman had said; and Julian could not answer that was exactly what he had been thinking. Read more
The Give
Last year, through a Facebook friend who has a child with a serious health issue, I learned about a woman named Donatella Botolino, a mother of four young children in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Donatella lost her 11-year old son, Denali to pancreatic cancer on June 11, 2012 after a two-year battle. She chronicled her son’s and her family’s struggle on a Facebook page called Please Pray for Denali Botolino which has over 7,500 followers. The story is heartbreaking and will bring most readers to tears. Read more
Rainbow Quinoa and English Pea Salad
For decades, my husband has been bringing me home recipes (from Outdoor Alpha Male, Men’s Protein World or some similar sounding magazine) that invariably include quinoa which was hard to find years ago. Back then, I could only find quinoa in a health food store or on-line but with its recent surge in popularity – due in part to its high protein and iron content – nearly every supermarket now carries various types of quinoa. My family prefers the Rainbow Quinoa which contains three types of quinoa: white, royal red, and royal black because they enjoy the slight difference in flavors and the various colors certainly make a dish look appetizing. Read more
Pulse: Organic Roasted Chickpeas
Pulse is a new brand of organic roasted chickpeas that are low in fat, gluten-free and high in fiber, protein, and flavor. Super crunchy and flavorful, Pulse Organic Roasted Chickpeas make a great snack and are particularly delicious in a salad (instead of croutons). Made by Pulse Foods out of the Bronx in New York City, Pulse Organic Roasted Chick Peas come in four flavors: Read more
“Continental Drift”
It’s as if the creatures residing on this planet in these years, the human creatures, millions of them traveling singly and in families, in clans and tribes, traveling sometimes as entire nations, were a subsystem inside the larger system of currents and tides, of winds and weather, of drifting continents and shifting, uplifting, grinding, cracking land masses.
Through the years, much has been said about Continental Drift and probably equally as much about the book’s author, Russell Banks. Born into a blue-collar family, Banks led a tumultuous young life stealing a car and running away from home at 16 only to return and enroll in college before dropping out – leading him to hitchhike to Florida, where he got married, became a father and was divorced by the time he was 20. And, that’s just the beginning. Read more
Brownies (Vegan)
Brownies made without pure creamy unsalted butter and fresh eggs seemed impossible to imagine until recently. These were the ingredients – along with cocoa – that made brownies taste so decadent. But, when my daughter decided to lead a vegan life, I started to re-think several recipes because I wanted to make food that all of us would eat; otherwise, I would be chained to the kitchen making separate meals for everyone. Read more
Cinnamon Sugar Sprouted Lentils
The Perfect Snaque makes a product called Cinnamon Sugar Sprouted Lentils that is deliciously crunchy, high in protein, and low in fat and sugar, despite the use of the word “sugar” in the product name. Whenever I see the word “sugar,” my first response is to move on but as the company truly states, these snacks are “insanely delicious and ridiculously nutritious.” Read more
Vegan Carrot Cake
For years, I relied on a carrot cake recipe from the The Silver Palate Cookbook, which was THE cookbook of the 1980’s. Full of carrots, pineapple, coconut, and walnuts, the Silver Palate carrot cake was my ideal of what a carrot cake should be: moist, sweet, rich, and mile-high. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’m less inclined to put 3 cups of sugar and a cup and a half of corn oil in a cake recipe; and with a vegan daughter, dairy and eggs are not optional ingredients. Read more
Paddock Post 