Improving my recipes
On Monday, I participated in Wellness Secrets’ diabesity seminar, which is a weight loss program with an emphasis on diabetes since the two topics go hand in hand.
I learned how I can save money on my cashew cheese, cashew gravy, and other nut based recipes. In the lecture, the speaker said that you could replace half of the nuts with a cooked grain like millet, and most of the flavor of the recipe would still be retained. I tried it out this week when I made cashew gravy, and sure enough, it came out like the speaker said. Cashews are very expensive. I’m getting them for over $8 a pound. When I use it as frequently as I do, if I want to be economical, I have to look for other options. I can get rice for a little over $1 a pound, so although using the full amount of the cashews will give the recipe the richest flavor because of the fat content, I’m going to go the more creative, economical route and continue to experiment using grains with my nut based cheeses and gravies.
Also, in the lecture a strong emphasis was placed on getting oil from whole foods as opposed to from a refined, liquid version in a bottle. In some of the OpenSourceVegan.com recipes that have been posted, they do contain oil in them, but yesterday and today, I experimented with making my blueberry muffins without oil. Yesterday, I boiled whole flaxseed, and I strained the gel from that and used it and water to replace my oil. (I would’ve just more used flaxseed gel, but I was running out of time, and I started doing breakfast late…). Today, I replaced oil with applesauce. I should’ve reduced the sugar content to 1 cup when I did that, but when I asked someone that had tried both variations which one she liked better, she said she liked the applesauce version better. That option works better for me because it’s quicker to make than the flaxseed version, but I just have to figure out what I’ll do with the remaining applesauce when I make my blueberry muffins this way. Another person told me that my oil content for the blueberry muffins was too much, so I’m going to experiment with it a little more, and then maybe revise that recipe.
I hope these tips were beneficial for you. Please tell me what you think about them in the comments!
A 19th Century Writing on Animal Torture
“Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated…”
“Often animals are taken to market and sold for food when they are so diseased that their owners fear to keep them longer. And some of the processes of fattening them for market produce disease. Shut away from the light and pure air, breathing the atmosphere of filthy stables, perhaps fattening on decaying food, the entire body soon becomes contaminated with foul matter.
Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching a market. Taken from the green pastures, and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads or crowded into filthy cars, feverish and exhausted, often for many hours deprived of food and water, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses.
In many places fish become so contaminated by the filth on which they feed as to be a cause of disease. This is especially the case where the fish come in contact with the sewage of large cities. The fish that are fed on the contents of the drains may pass into distant waters and may be caught where the water is pure and fresh. Thus when used as food they bring disease and death in those who do not suspect the danger.The effects of a flesh diet may not be immediately realized;but this is no evidence that it is not harmful. Few can be made to believe that it is the meat they have eaten which has poisoned their blood and caused their suffering. Many die of diseases wholly due to meat eating, while the real cause is not suspected by themselves or by others…”
“The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery. The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer. They use their organs far more faithfully than many human beings use theirs. They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering. Many animals show an affection for those who have charge of them, far superior to the affection shown by some of the human race. They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them.
What man with a human heart, who has ever cared for domestic animals, could look into their eyes, so full of confidence and affection, and willingly give them over to the butcher’s knife? How could he devour their flesh as a sweet morsel?”
From Ministry of Healing chapter “Flesh as Food” (pg. 313-316). Get your copy here. The author, Ellen White, OpenSourceVegan.com’s favorite health advocate, died in the year 1915.
Do you want to make history?
Go veg for at least 7 days!
A New & AWESOME Teen Health Series
I’ve been impressed with the vision of Gerrod Clarke, founder of NEWSTART Teens, a new and upcoming health series made for teens by teens.
Gerrod was kind enough to share his exciting vision not only with me, but with you on the opensourcevegan YouTube channel. Thanks to Gerrod, this is our most professional YouTube video yet!
In addition, he posted a vegan potpie recipe online that he made when he was ten years old!
Using my recipes in the Open Source Vegan kitchen
Honestly this week, I just reverted back to old OpenSourceVegan.com recipes for my breakfast meals.
On Tuesday, I made blueberry muffins, cashew gravy, and rice.
Also, yesterday, I went to the grocery store to buy ingredients for my four layer, dairy free ice cream cake.
I baked the cake and made the ice cream.
Now it’s going through it’s varied freezing processes to be ready for church potluck this Sabbath. 
Blueberry Muffins
This recipe was definitely a hit in the vegan cafeteria I used to manage. I love it!
Some people did say it was a little sweet, but many students enjoyed it. (I did work at an international school which did have people who weren’t used to sweet breakfasts, so taste buds were varied.) You can modify this recipe to your liking, and please tell me how it goes!
Here was our cafeteria trusted blueberry muffin recipe:
Here’s the recipe:
Dry Ingredients:
1 Tbs Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
3 c. Whole Wheat Flour
2 c. Frozen Blueberries
Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. Water
1 1/4 c. Honey***
1 Tb. Vanilla
3/4 c. Oil
Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Then mix all the ingredients together. Place muffin cups in muffin pans and spray them with an olive oil spray or another spray so the mixture won’t stick to the cups. Allow your mixture to fill about 3/4 of muffin cups, and bake it at 350 F for 35 minutes.
These are OpenSourceVegan.com’s preferences:
1. OSV prefers to use Rumsford aluminum free baking powder.
2. OSV uses alcohol free vanilla in all of its recipes that call for vanilla.
***If you don’t use honey, then you can use agave nectar as a substitute.
