Raw Vegan Challenge 2011, update

It's now been over 2 weeks - I've lost almost 10 pounds.  I confess - the first week of January, I didn't do very much to push myself to get into the gym.  I did, however, get my refrigerator cleaned out and put together my workout regiment tracking sheet (this is not new - I've used some version of this for the last 10 years).

EXERCISE: My workout regimen - granted - it's getting off to a slow start and I'm lazy, is something like this:

• Visit the gym (3-5x/week)
• Ride my bike to the gym & back (4+ miles total)
• 80 minutes on the recumbent bike - it's good for hamstrings & I can read my book!  I usually work out around 160-170 bpm for an hour, then step down from 150 to 100 in a 20 minute cooldown
• Strength training
• Crunches/push ups (2-4x/week)
• Yoga (1-2x/week)
• Hiking (1-2x/week) 

Yoga at home is different from going to a teacher-led class, that's for sure.  Cats interfere, space is limited and there are more distractions.  In December, I went to about 20 classes at Square One Yoga - and I love the space and some of the teachers were really great.  However, it reminded me that I really don't like Hatha yoga - it's too "busy" and fast.

I like iyengar for the precision, the slow stretching and the long held asanas that are more body weight training than yogaerobics I get in Hatha, Vinyasa or Ashtanga.  Also - as a swimmer, I value my shoulders and just a few weeks of Hatha had my shoulders crying "foul!" from too many repeated vinyasas.  I am going to go back to yoga with Stack Buss - she's a certified iyengar instructor and and very patient.

DIET: Breaking one of the cardinal rules of good dieting and nutrition, I have not been keeping a food journal.  My basic diet is that the bulk of my meals should be high nutrient, low glycemic index vegetables, with some fruit.  Over the past couple of weeks, my diet has looked like this:

• Breakfast:  decaf organic coffee (french press) with sucanat & So Delicious coconut milk creamer, carrot juice or green juice if feel like it, maybe 1-2 apples or a couple of carrots.
• Green smoothie: my favorite is 3-4 leaves of kale, 1 small zucchini, 2 cubes of frozen persimmon puree or 2-4 frozen strawberries, brown rice protein powder and psyllium husk powder
• Snacks have included:
• "I Am Spirit" sprouted teriyaki almonds (from I Am Grateful)
• Kale chips
• "I Am Relishing" Buckwheat crackers & sprouted almond hummus (from I Am Grateful)
• Flaxseed & carrot pulp crackers
• Dinner varies, and I have skipped a few dinners after having a great big green smoothie late in the afternoon.  Dinner has looked like this:
• Kale & fennel salad
• Romaine salad with red pepper, avocado, carrots & dressed with lemon juice, salt, black pepper and olive oil
• Green papaya salad
• Raw cabbage salad/coleslaw
• Raw enchiladas from I Am Grateful - the spinach tortillas came out a little thin, but delicious, and the two fillings I made were Red bell pepper & Cashew, Pumpkin Seed & Green Chiles with raw cashew sour cream (also from  I Am Grateful) and a nice spicy sauce leftover from kale chips
• Cauliflower couscous - holy cow!  who'd have thunk?
• Kim chee - I'm very fortunate that a friend passed on a 7.5 Harsch Gairtopf Fermenting Crock to me last summer for kombucha.  The kombucha mother lives on in the compost pile in the backyard and my first batch with green cabbage came out great! A couple of friends came over for a motorcycle mechanics tutorial and they helped me test it extensively!  For recipes check out  I Am Grateful and  Wild Fermentation - there are also plenty of resources on the web.
• "I Am Authentic" Koi Teow soup, from I Am Grateful, a super delicious and easy miso based soup - equal parts miso, agave & lime juice mixed with hot water, add 1 cup of spiralized, shredded or julienned veggies, a bit of garlic & hot chile oil.
• Herbal tea (unsweetened)

 My goal is to keep my caloric intake around 1000-1200/day, which - combined with my activity - should effect the weight loss by end of April.  Never fear - I eat appropriately for my activity level and weight loss goal.  My salads are quite big - a whole bunch of romaine with half a red bell pepper, a whole avocado, a carrot & 1/4 c sprouted seeds (sometimes).

SIDE EFFECTS:  Other than weight loss, there are definitely some side effects to switching to a raw diet.  Detoxing will happen when you cut out wheat anyway - but I was quite unprepared for some of the effects.  After the first week or so, I started noticing a few things.

First, a few sips of port tasted like cough syrup.  I tried having a glass of wine last week and again on Saturday and it just tasted sour - and not in a good way.  Late last week, I noticed that my eyes felt goopy - I was waking up with lots of crusty bits in the corners of my eyes, and for about two days - my eyes felt blurry and bleary, and I noticed a decrease in distance vision.  I had a few headaches, too, so I thought I was coming down with a cold or allergy attack but the symptoms passed after Saturday.  I also noticed that my skin has gotten a lot drier - and yes, I am eating avocados in salads & smoothies, in addition to nuts. 

Finally, I noticed that - well - I don't feel as "hungry" as I did before I started this regimen.  I don't have the desire to snack.  I feel pretty well satiated - after chewing through 3 bowls of kim chee, you get to mandibular workout  and enough nutrition.  I haven't had any unusual cravings (though tempted by the knowledge that Cha-Ya's expanded location is open to go get agedashi tofu!).

Raw Vegan Challenge 2011

For the time being, there's a bit of a change of direction over here in the Live Green, Wear Black kitchen.  I decided to start off 2011 by going 100% raw vegan.  I was planning to do it for 1 month, but now I am thinking that I am going to extend it through April - a full 16 weeks.  Partly, I want to lose weight - the other goal is to experience the benefits of eating a live foods diet.

Let's rewind to two years ago.  January 2009 saw me dealing with the sudden onset of a really bad kink in my neck - I fell asleep in a weird position and didn't move.  For two months, the pain was so excruciating, that I gave up swimming.  I quit taking the train and went to work and back via bus because the pain was so bad that I was having Anna Karenina fantasies.  I discovered restorative Iyengar yoga and ART chiropractic - and things began to improve.  I also started riding a motorcycle (hey, fun is always a good distraction) - and my bicycle started collecting dust.

By June 2009, my neck pain was improved by going to yoga classes 2-4 times/week, and I was going to the gym 4-5x/week at lunch.  I was around 155 lbs.  My breakfast consisted of a smoothie (water, fruit, brown rice protein powder), and my lunch consisted of a big salad with lots of romaine, different raw veggies, ground flaxseed and some raw nuts, dressed with lemon & salt (usually around 500 calories with the nuts).

That summer, I experienced a lot of very stressful life changes - not the least of which being that I left my job, had a couple short term temp jobs and then transitioned to working from home at the end of the year.  I also stopped going to the iyengar studio due to differences with the owner.  The biggest change was basically cutting out the 2-4 miles/day that I walked between home/work and public transit, walking around in an office (I often took stairs if it was fewer than 2-3 floors), trading the bicycle for the motorcycle, and not having the routine of wanting to escape the office to the gym at lunch time.

In a year, I went from a 32C size 8 to a 36D size 10 - at 5'10" - most people insist I look "great" - but if I cared what other people thought about how I look, I'd probably wear make up, maintain a hair style and put more effort into my wardrobe.  I got back into the pool last spring - and the neck problem flared up again, so I would swim and back off periodically.  I went back to the gym and I spent a lot of time hiking (both mushrooming and regular hikes).  I was in pretty good shape by the time I went to Kauai for my solo backpacking trip in April 2010, but not thrilled with the size of my backside.  Actually, I was doing pretty well until I injured my knee in July 2010 and was basically on my butt for 3 months.  Bye bye, summer!

After 3 months of physical therapy, I found motivation to get back into the pool and the gym.  To be honest - I love fried food and desserts.  Hanging out with people who ride motorcycles often means lots of beer - and long motorcycle rides in Northern California don't burn calories like bicycle rides.  Often the destinations don't have a lot of healthy options for vegan dining (Barstow, for example).  As a vegan, I have to make sure I bring my own food or I end up eating french fries & beer for lunch, or some wilty horrible looking salad.

To be brutally honest - this is the most I have ever weighed in my entire life.  And yet, I'm only about 10# over the weight of the average woman in the US, and 5 inches taller.  Blame it on vanity, blame it on being cheap (seriously - who wants to go buy all new clothes? I hate shopping!) - I'm determined to get back on track.

A raw vegan diet is something that has always interested me.  I adore the food at Cafe Gratitude - but as many friends are quick to point out: there are lots of nuts in their dishes.  Nuts, it would seem are a great way to gain weight if you over-rely on them.  They are just as much a convenience food as bread & pasta.

I spent about 3 months doing a lot of reading up on various raw vegan diets, including "high fat," "low fat," the 80-10-10 (calories should come from 80% carbs, 10% protein, 10% fat), green smoothies vs juicing, fruitarianism and more.  Some basic findings include:

• Reduce frequency & don't graze.  People do not need to eat 5-6 meals a day.  This does not copy patterns found in nature and results in obsession with your diet & feeding yourself.  Eat 2-3 times a day, fast every so often (ie, skipping a meal if you aren't hungry).
• Know when you are hungry.  Most people don't really know when they are hungry - they eat because they are bored (ie, entertainment) or they eat because they are thirsty.
• Protein is synthesized by our own bodies using the amino acids in the food we eat.  Eat lots of different leafy greens and other colored veggies -- you'll be fine.  No need to obsess.
• Raw, sprouted nuts are not as fattening for you as unsprouted or roasted/toasted because they contain the enzymes our bodies require to properly digest the fat in the nuts.
• You can't eat too much kale.  I am not kidding.  It is just about the most perfect vegetable.
• Raw fermented foods are essential to the raw diet.  They provide bacterial cultures that promote digestion and taste yummy.
• Smoothie or juice - concentrated greens every day are also critical.
• Water - early and often.

Of course, standard diet advice applies: don't be too hard on yourself, if you fall off the wagon, get back on.  Also, if there is one thing that is outside the diet that can be reasonably included - indulge.  A diet is not about punishment.  My exception is decaf coffee with coconut creamer & sucanat in the morning.

My library of raw cookbooks includes:  I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude, Sweet Gratitude: A New World of Raw Desserts, The Complete Book of Raw Food, Entertaining in the Raw.

The web is incredibly helpful and I have found tons of great resources for information about nutrition & recipes.

My goal is to to lose at least 30# and get back to 32C (bras are so expensive and I like the collection I have in that size!).  I already eat a lot of raw food - I love salads of all sorts, I use my dehydrator to make flaxseed crackers and kale chips (among other things).  The main changes for me in this diet are the elimination of wheat (including beer), fried food, refined sugar and other convenient snacky type items.  Actually - you can see it's not nearly as "radical" as it might sound at first.

Mushroom Season 2010-11

Mushroom season is underway - despite all the rain we have had, the chanterelle season is lagging about six weeks behind last year's season.  Last year I was harvesting 40-60 pounds of mushrooms/week by this time of year!  This year - I'm lucky to come out with 4-6 pounds.  Most of the chanterelles are closer to the edge of any given stand of trees where they get a bit more warmth, quite a few buttons.

Lots of other foragers are finding bonanzas in other areas but - being the creature that they are - they aren't giving up the information on where they are finding stuff!  Hoping to head out to Salt Point State Park next week to look for black trumpets, hedgehogs, maybe some late porcini and other good stuff.  Mushroom reports & pictures coming soon!  I've sprayed my shoes & rain jacket with Scotch Guard just to be ready! Maybe I should go do my hat, too...

Golden Chanterelle Stroganoff

If you haven't yet signed up for one of Chef Eric Tucker's cooking classes at Millennium, perhaps this will tempt you - Chanterelle Stroganoff.  He said it was ok for me to reproduce this recipe, so here you go!

This is one of my favorite recipes - I have experimented with a few variations which I will mention below. 

Chanterelle "Stroganoff" by Chef Eric Tucker

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 yellow onion, sliced into thin crescents
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 2 Tb olive oil
• 1# cleaned chanterelles, sliced thin
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 Tb tomato paste
• 2 c vegetable or mushroom stock
• 1 Tb nutritional yeast (or more, to taste)
• 1 c cashew cream (make yourself with pre-soaked cashews, drain, blend with cold water, dash of salt and squeeze of lemon til you get a cream)
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt & pepper, to taste
• minced fresh dill
• lemon zest
• cooked papardelle (super easy to make yourself!)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large skillet, sautee the onion in the olive oil over medium, stirring often until onion is medium caramelized.
2. Add garlic & mushrooms, continue to sautee, stirring often until the mushrooms are dry.
3. Add thyme & paprika, sautee 30 seconds, then deglaze with red wine.
4. Add tomato paste, stock & nutritional yeast and simmer 5 minutes.
5. Add cashew cream, simmer until thick.
6. Taste & adjust seasoning.  
7. Toss the cooked papardelle with some olive oil.  
8. Place a portion of sauce over noodles, sprinkle with dill & lemon zest.

Variations:  I have made this with morels and other mushrooms - it comes out pretty delicious.  I have also substituted dry sherry for red wine for deglazing.  

Make your own pasta  - it's really not hard, and papardelle are wide strips that you want to cut by hand anyway.  Rustic homemade noodles are divine!

Millennium Winter Mushroom Cooking Class 2011

If you have never attended a cooking class at Millennium - or even at all - I highly recommend getting behind the counter at Millennium with Chef Eric Tucker for his annual Winter Mushroom Cooking class.  There's usually a pre-class foraging trip in addition to the pre-class Farmer's Market trip.


Winter Mushroom Cooking Class
Sunday January 9, 2011
10am-4pm (ish)
$155/person
Join Eric Tucker for a hands on cooking class in the Millennium kitchen. Spend the second Sunday of the new year creating multiple mushroom filled courses that you will then have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy family style. You will be working with mushrooms that Eric has foraged locally and you will have the opportunity to join Eric for a guided tour through the Ferry Building Farmers' Market on Saturday, January 8 at 10am.
Space is limited, please call Alison for a reservation 415.345.3900x13

Chanterelles & Israeli Couscous

Recipes often result from "what do I have in the house" - in my case, I am fortunate that I have a giant pile of chanterelles, plus kale growing in the yard and a well stocked pantry of dry ingredients.  This is a quick and easy dish that you can make up using one pot and one skillet, substituting any mushrooms you like!  This recipe can also be done fat-free since chanterelles throw off a lot of water.


INGREDIENTS:

• 1-1.5 pounds golden chanterelles (or other mushrooms) 1/2" dice or coarsely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 c chopped parsley
• 1/2 c  Tuscan or Dino kale, chiffonade into thin strips
• 1 c dry Israeli couscous
• 2 packets Road's End Organics herb gravy
• Veggie stock or almond milk, as needed
• 1 tsp dried thyme 
• 1 tsp dried lemon zest or 1 Tb fresh lemon zest (or more, to taste!)
• Salt, black pepper, paprika - to taste
• Olive oil  or sesame oil (optional)
• splash of dry sherry or cheap sake for deglazing

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepare the couscous in a separate pot with salted water or veggie stock, adding the lemon zest after liquid is about half reduced.
2. Mix gravy packets in a measuring cup with 1 c almond milk, stock or water and put to the side.
3. Sautee onion til soft, add garlic.  When they are transluscent - and before garlic starts to burn - add chanterelles.
4. Reduce heat and let chanterelles release liquid.  If it gets a bit low, deglaze with sake, sherry (or stock/water/white wine).
5. After chanterelles have gotten softer, add kale and parsley and spices. 
6. Allow chanterelles to cook down a bit more and as the liquid reduces, mix in the couscous and gravy mix.  Thoroughly but gently toss and allow to cook down til thick.  Add more stock/almond milk/water if needed.

Serve warm - also works great at room temperature and as leftovers.  The couscous will swallow up any remaining liquid so your leftovers will have more of a sopa seca or pasta salad appearance. The lemon also gets more lemony if you used dried lemon zest.  Delicious, quick and easy!

Candy Cap Blondies

Last month, after signing up for the culinary interest group for the Mycological Society of San Francisco, I found myself volunteering to help make desserts for the annual holiday dinner. The organizer and her other volunteer both live within a few blocks of me, so meetings were convened and e-mails flew back and forth.  In the end, I brought a pile of delicious vegan desserts including: Mexican Chocolate Torte, Persimmon Bread Pudding with a Bourbon Anglaise sauce and  Candy Cap Blondies using a recipe created by Eric Tucker for one of his classes at Millennium Restaurant (recipe below). 

The dinner came off pretty smoothly - my friend Scott joined me and even loaned a hand (& tools) to help set up the xmas tree and set tables.  There was so much food!  We could have easily had more people there - and the East Bay location at the Albany Community Center had a fantastic kitchen and huge dining room.  The chanterelle-quinoa stuffed portobello mushroom was really delicious, as were the mashed potatoes with *vegan* mushroom gravy and a delicious mushroom soup with loads of delicious mushrooms.  My desserts partner made up about 20 different kinds of chocolate truffles, mini eclairs and cream puffs.  Needless to say - I was very well fed and brought home much of my dinner for lunch the next day. 

I am still eating some leftover desserts this week, as well - I hope you'll pop in for coffee and cake!

Eric's Millennium Candy Cap Blondies

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 c cocoa butter
• 1/3 c grapeseed oil
• 2 T ground dry candy cap mushrooms
• 1/4 c rice or almond milk
• 1 t vanilla extract

• 1 c brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 t baking powder
• 1 t Ener-G egg replacer
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 t ground cinnamon
• 1/4 t ground nutmeg
• 1/4 t ground allspice
• 1/4 t ground clove
• 1/2 c pecans, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
• 1/2 c chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the first 5 ingredients into a double boiler and melt.  Remove from heat and let steep for 20 minutes or so, then remove double boiler from hot water and let it cool.
2. Sift dry ingredients together - except for pecans and chocolate chips.
3. Add wet ingredients - at room temperature, not warmer - to dry ingredients.  When mixed, add pecans & chocolate chips.
4. Turn into lightly oiled pan lined with parchment paper, bake 22-24 minutes at 350.  This will fit in a large loaf pan or a 9 x 9 pan if you like thinner blondies (which will need to be removed sooner than a deeper pan).  Keep an eye on this - if you increase the recipe size, it will take longer.  If you use a dark metal pan that holds more heat, they will cook faster and you will end up with cookie instead of blondie.  You want to see the blondies puff up and get tall, filling the sides of the pan and becoming golden brown on top.  A 3x batch fits a 13 x 9 pan and takes well over 40 minutes to achieve doneness!

Persimmons are BACK! - Persimmon Bread Pudding for BREAKFAST!

If you're like me - an avid forager & kitchen witch - you might wake up one morning to discover that 40 of the 212 persimmons you harvested and have spread out on cookie sheets, trays and the little cardboard trays that once held pint and half pint canning jars - are ripe and already have been discovered by the ants.  Fortunately, the ants never get farther than under the little crown of four leaves at the stem and are easily evicted under running water.

After filling six dehydrator sheets with sliced persimmon, and putting 11 cups of persimmon pulp into freezer bags - you then discover that the gallon bag of croutons and the decidedly non-vegan chicken parts rescued from the freezer of a friend moving to Portland (to pass along to another friend for chicken stock - hey, the chicken is already dead!) - are taking up so much space that you don't have much room for more persimmon pulp in the freezer.

Then, the next morning - say, today - you wake up and find that only 3-4 persimmons, small ones at that, are really super ripe and it's not worth adding them to the dehydrator when you can kill two birds with one stone by using up some of those fabulous sourdough croutons.

Ladies & Gems - I give you:


Persimmon Bread Pudding


INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups bread cut into 1"-1.5" chunks (last night's leftover baguette baseball bat is ok!)
• 3 cups almond milk (regular or vanilla)
• 2-3 small Hachiya persimmons so ripe that you have to take care not to pierce the skin with your fingertip
• 1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 Tb ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground clove
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins or currants or dried cranberries (or some other dried fruit - chopped dried apricots, nectarines or apples might be nice!)
• 3/4 coarsely chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pour almond milk into your blender up to the 2 cup mark.
2. Cut hachiyas in half and scoop out pulp with a big tablespoon, straight into the blender.
3. Check the level - add more almond milk to bring it up to 3 or 3.5 cups.
4. Add maple syrup (reserving 3 TB), cinnamon, clove, vanilla to the blender cup - put the lid on and process til smooth.
5. Pour custard onto bread crumbs in a large mixing bowl - let soak 5-10 minutes, depending on how tough your bread is already.  You want it to absorb a lot of the liquid and there will still be some liquid floating around.
6. Mix in raisins and toasted nuts gently - don't mash up the bread!
7. Transfer to a lightly greased gratin dish or baking dish - the depth of the dish affects the cooking time and the final outcome.  If you like a soft, custardy bread pudding, use a deeper dish - if you like it to be a little more chewy and crispy, use a more shallow dish.
8. Drizzle reserved maple syrup on top.
9. Bake in 375 oven for 20 minutes - the bread pudding will bubble and get puffy - it will settle a bit after it cools.

Eat it warm or cold!

Hot Kale Mess

There's nothing that nourishes like greens - a sweet & savory Japanese-inspired sauce makes this dish stand out to my friends (one friend always requests it as "that hot kale mess.")  usually, it just means going out the garden to pull a bunch of kale & arugula, and adding it to the other ingredients in the house, I give you:


Pan-Seared Greens with Ginger & Mushrooms


INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Tb rice wine vinegar or sake (if you want more sweet, instead of sour)
• 1 Tb sucanat
• 3 Tb soy sauce
• 3 Tb olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced or coarsely chopped
• 1 Tb minced fresh ginger
• 1 vidalia or red onion, cut into thin crescents
• 1 c sliced mushrooms - chanterelles, morels, oyster, shitake - whatever is fresh & local
• 1 small hot chili - sliced  or 1 Tb cayenne flakes
• 1 small red bell pepper, seeded & julienned
• 6 cups coarsely chopped winter greens - chard, kale and arugula are my favorites (use scissors to cut out the coarse bits which may be finely chopped and added to the pan with the onions)
• Herbs - 20 basil leaves, or equivalent in other herbs that are fresh & local
• 1/2 c raw cashews

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the first 3 ingredients. Set aside.
2. Heat the oil over high eat in a large cast iron skillet or wok.  
3. Quickly stir in the cashews and toast in the pan - remove and set aside.
4. Stir-fry the garlic, ginger, onion & mushrooms (and any reserved chopped chard stems) for about 1 minute
5. Add chile and red bell pepper, cook for 1 minute
6. Stir in greens - add a splash of sake if needed to deglaze
7. Cook greens until they are bright in color and just tender, about 2 minutes or to taste (do you like crisper or softer greens?)
8. Add herbs, cashews and sauce - toss gently to coat and cook for another minute or 2 - the sauce will thicken up a bit (this shouldn't be soupy).

Serve immediately - as a side or over steamed quinoa, rice or couscous.  Enjoy!

Pumpkin-Chipotle Hummus

I love hummus - despite my own allergy to legumes, I occasionally indulge in various flavors of hummus with roasted red pepper or garlic - but rarely make it at home to avoid making too big a batch that I end up eating it all and make myself sick.  I can't help it - garbanzos are delicious - in everything from chana masala to stews and gravys.  I even named my first cat "Ci-Ci" because I liked the little beans so much.  When Julia from Mariquita recently included a suggestion for pumpkin hummus in a newsletter, and the idea inspired me to do my own version of the recipe. 

Like pestos and pad thai and many other good things, this is the type of recipe that is open to interpretation by the chef.  Feel free to improvise and make your own variation - I already have plans for a gingery-hot 5-spice version, a chai spice version, and might even do a peanutty version with peanut butter in addition to tahini and roasted red peppers (yum, right?).


INGREDIENTS:

• 2-3 pounds peeled and seeded pumpkin cut in 2-3" chunks
• 3/4 c tahini paste (or more to make it more hummus like)
• 1/4 c mellow red/barley miso
• 1 Tb garlic powder or 2-3 TB minced garlic (to taste)
• 3/4 c fresh lemon juice
• 1 whole dried chipotle pepper or your own smoked red jalapenos in oil
• 1/4 c sesame oil
• 2 Tb dried lemon zest or fresh zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp salt or to taste 
• 1/2 Tb cumin
• Optional: sweet paprika, freshly ground black pepper, nutritional yeast

DIRECTIONS:

1. Roast the pumpkin, tossed with a tiny splash of sesame or olive oil to keep it from sticking to your dutch oven.  It's done when it's tender.
2. Soak the dried chipotle in warm water to soften it - unless you have smoked peppers stored in olive oil in the fridge like me (I know, I'm weird).
3. Pulverize the heck out of the pumpkin and the other ingredients - if it doesn't taste hummus-y enough, add more tahini (this also helps if you made it too spicy and are out of pumpkin!).

 I plan to enjoy this with some carrot-flaxseed-sprouted almond crackers that are going in the dehydrator right now.  Come on over if you want to try some!