Filed under: Kid Friendly
Soybean burritos on corn tortillas ready to roll.
Soybean burritos became a “national dish” in the early days of The Farm community in Tennessee, and continue to be a favorite for many. They are always on the “vegan experience” menu for the groups of midwifery students that I feed while they are here for workshops. These burritos can be one of the best introductions to soyfoods as a main dish, providing affordable complete protein that is easy to prepare and served in a familiar, comforting tortilla wrap. Burritos can be put together with whatever fixings are your favorites; the options are endless, including a hefty serving of some type of raw greens. My favorite combination is a line of soybeans on corn tortillas (for a wheat-free dish) with fresh salsa, tofu sour cream, nutritional yeast, sliced avocado (in place of vegan margarine), and either chopped lettuce, baby kale, or sprouts.
Originally we always rolled or pressed our own tortillas, a special touch that can still be done if you have the time and inclination. Now there are a vast variety of ready made tortillas available when time is an issue. Canned soybeans are also available for that time issue making these burritos a truly quick, easy, and nutritious meal.
Cooking Whole Soybeans for Optimum Digestibility
To be truly digestible, soybeans need to be cooked until they are soft enough to squish on the roof of your mouth with your tongue. In our first soybean experiments in the Farm community (early 1970’s) we found the only way to achieve this was with a pressure cooker at 15 pounds pressure for about 75 minutes. That was in the days of the old time pressure cookers with the pressure rockers, and it could only be done without soaking the beans, since if the beans were soaked the skins came loose and got caught in pressure valve and caused the cooker to go on overload and try to blow up. The new generation of pressure cookers is vastly improved, with more safety features for pressure release when necessary. With the new type of pressure cooker, soaked soybeans can be safely cooked at 15 pounds pressure for 15 to 18 minutes, then removed from the heat source and let to drop down to zero pressure on it’s own. Salt to taste. The pressure cooker instruction books says the soaked soybeans only need 9 to 12 minutes at pressure, but they were not soft enough for my liking with that timing. This is still a great savings in time, energy, and money. Anyone who consumes beans would do well to invest in this new type of pressure cooker.
Another energy saving method for cooking soybeans that has proved worthwhile is the crock-pot or slow cooker. It takes longer than the pressure cooker, but still works well, and the slow cooker is a low energy use appliance.
Soaked soybeans before cooking with uniform rehydration.
For the crock pot or slow cooker, soak the soybeans 10 to 12 hours or until when one is split open it has uniform color and tenderness throughout. Rinse and drain the soybeans several times. Bring water to boil in the slow cooker on high, and bring the soybeans to boil in water in a pot on the stovetop. Transfer the boiling soybeans and water to the slow cooker and cook on high for 5 to 6 hours, making sure the beans stay covered with boiling water until the soybeans are soft enough to squish with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Salt to taste.
The Basic Soybean Burrito
These are just some of the possible fillings for the burrito; choose what you like:
- cooked soft soybeans (pressure cooked, slow cooked or canned-see above)
- tortilla of your choice (corn, wheat, teff, etc), warmed to soften
- your favorite salsa or chopped fresh tomatoes and hot peppers
- chopped lettuce, greens, or sprouts of your choice
- chopped cilantro
- sliced avocado
- tofu sour cream or mayo (commercial or home made)
- nutritional yeast
- mustard
Don’t put so much on one tortilla that you can’t roll it up. Folding the ends in as you roll makes helps avoid drips while you are enjoying your burrito.
¡Buen Provecho!
April 2, 2010
Mason sampling the muffins.
These whole grain, wheat-free, sugar-free muffins are great ones to make ahead and freeze any surplus for breakfast on the go. This is another recipe that children can help with, and for small children, the mini-muffin size is a good choice. This recipe yields about 18 mini-muffins.
As a vehicle for blueberries (or other berries if you like), these muffins do not puff up as much as some muffins might, but are tasty and hearty. With whole grain oatmeal and no processed sugar added, two of these muffins make a filling breakfast for me. The frozen ones reheat very nicely in an oven or toaster oven at 325ºF for 15 to 20 minutes.
The flax and soymilk egg replacement mixture after about 15 minutes.
The ground flax seed soaked in soymilk is the egg replacement for this recipe. It’s egg-like consistency becomes apparent after in a few minutes of soaking. This mixture makes a good egg replacement for almost anything.
The oatmeal flour can be ground from old fashioned oats in a blender or coffee grinder if you don’t have oatmeal flour on hand.
Coating the blueberries with the dry ingredients before stirring in wet mixture helps to keep them separate in the muffins.
As with all muffins, to avoid a tough finished product, the batter requires only a few strokes to bring it together. If cooking with children, you might want to oversee this part. Little hands can also help oil the muffin tins and load the batter in.
Coating the blueberries with the dry ingredients.
Filling the muffin tins.
Vegan Oatmeal Blueberry Breakfast Muffins
Yield: 9 regular size muffins or 18 minis
¾ cup soymilk, ricemilk, or almondmilk
¼ cup ground flax seed
½ cup applesauce or pearsauce
1 1/3 cups old fashioned oatmeal flour (ground from 1 ½ cups old fashioned oatmeal)
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cup blueberries
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Let the ground flax seed soak in the soymilk while measuring the other ingredients. Spray or spread oil in nine spaces in a regular muffin tin or line them with paper cups. Fill nine muffin spaces, and bake 20 minutes or until risen and golden brown. Let them cool for a few minutes before trying to remove them.
Muffins cooling in the tin.
February 28, 2010
The finished Raw Torte de Chocolate with Strawberry Icing, decorated with raw pecans and double impatients.
Oooooo, this one turned out really well, both as eye candy and truly tasty. This Raw Torte de Chocolate with Strawberry Icing was an experimental cake for the combined birthday party for my son and his wife. Mason, my grandson the sous chef, assisted. His job this time was pouring the ingredients into the food processor and then licking clean the emptied work bowl. He did take some photos and I did give him a bit of the torte mix to play with. A job well done.
The cake formed and ready to frost as the sous chef looks on with approval.
This came together quite quickly in the food processor. Be sure to process the nuts first, gradually adding the rest of the ingredients to mix in evenly. If you just throw everything in at once, there will be a lot of stopping and scraping and manually mixing and pressing it all together. I imagine a Vita-Mix would make short work of it all. It is on my short list of equipment to add to the kitchen along with a food dryer.
The soaking is short term–only an hour which doesn’t require too much thinking ahead, but it is essential. Soaking nuts, seeds, grains, or beans brings them to life again with augmented nutritional content as they begin to grow. Once the torte is mixed, there is no baking time, just manually forming the torte and chilling until firm. It could be formed into almost any shape. I did start a day ahead to let the completed cake firm up with an overnight chill in the fridge. This also allowed more time to do the rest of the party prep the day of.
The partially frosted raw cake.
Frosting on, ready to be chilled.
A raw cake is dense and potent in flavor, so the servings can be petite. It is more like candy than cake in intensity, but with no refined sugar, plus no wheat or soy. For the valentine theme, I chose strawberries for the topping, resulting in an alluring shade of pink. The combination of strawberry and chocolate with a little vanilla is classic, especially for Valentine’s Day. On the day of the party I checked the greenhouse to find whatever edible flowers might be blooming. It turned out to be double impatiens—no hibiscus flowers were open. Another option would have been streaking melted chocolate over the top that would have become solid as soon as touching the cold cake. The candles were a birthday party addition, but for Valentines Day, no candles are necessary.
¡Feliz Dia de Amistad!
Putting on the candles for the party.
Raw Torte de Chocolate with Strawberry Icing
Yield: one nine inch heart cake
For the Cake:
2 ½ cups pecans (12 ounces), soaked in pure water 1 hour
2 ½ cups pitted medjool dates
6 tablespoons raw cacao nibs, ground superfine
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
Drain the pecans and process the soaked nuts in a food processor into a fine meal. The soaking water can be used as stock for another recipe. Gradually process in the dates, ground cocoa nibs, and vanilla, continuing to process until the mixture forms a ball. Transfer to wax paper on a flat surface and form into the desired shape, about ¾-inch thick, then slip the paper onto a serving plate or platter. Cover and refrigerate until firm.
For the Icing:
1 cup macadamia nuts or raw cashews, soaked in pure water 1 hour
1 cup strawberries, stems removed (fresh or frozen)
¼ cup pitted medjool dates
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Drain the nuts (reserve the soaking water for stock) and combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender, process until smooth, thick, and creamy. Cut or peel the wax paper away from the cake then spread the icing over the chilled torte, and chill again until all is firm.
The raw cake cut open. I cut pieces about an inch wide and 1.5 inches long.
February 5, 2010
As much as possible I like to eat either what I can grow or find locally. There occasionally comes a time in the middle of winter when I give in to the less green options, especially when the pineapples start showing up from Central America, and the oranges and pomegranates are harvested in Southern California. So for a special treat recently with snow on the ground the icicles falling, Mason and I put together a colorful winter fruit ambrosia. His small hands were quite adept at separating the pomegranate seeds from their membranes after I opened it up for him. After slicing off the top off a pomegranate, you can usually see it has five sections separated by membranes that can be slit down with a knife and pulled open for easy access. If you can’t find a pomegranate, dried cranberries are a good substitute.
For chunks from a fresh pineapple, slice off about ½ inch of the top and bottom, then stand the fruit upright. Using a flexible, serrated knife, slice off the skin following the curve of the pineapple, cutting off as many of the dark brown eyes as possible with each downward slice and leaving as much fruit as possible. (You can always nibble out any good bits left attached to the removed skin). If you don’t get all the eyes with the first cutting, a shallow “V” cut can be made diagonally around the pineapple following the pattern of the eyes to lift them out. For pineapple chunks, cut the whole pineapple lengthwise into quarters, slice out the core, and chop into chunks.
We added fresh organic navel orange chunks and slices of a banana to the bowl along with some unsweetened shredded coconut, plus a touch of almond extract. The juices from the fresh fruit dress the mixture. This is definitely kid friendly food, as illustrated below. Mason has a pomegranate juice beard.
Mason mixing the Winter Fruit Ambrosia.
Winter Fruit Ambrosia
Yield: 8 to 10 cups
2 oranges, peeled and chopped
2 cups fresh pineapple chunks
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup fresh pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
This makes a wonderful winter fruit treat since all these fruits should be easy to find seasonally in a supermarket. It can be made a day ahead without the banana, which can be sliced and added upon serving. Serve as a salad, snack, or dessert.
Sampling the Ambrosia.
February 1, 2010
