FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Favorite Snack

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Coconut Oil Popcorn

Can you imagine the look on my friend’s mom’s face when she served us popcorn and I asked if she had nutritional yeast {in 1987}?  True story. Popcorn with nutritional yeast has been my favorite snack for as long as I can remember.  But two things have changed.

Popcorn Maker

1. I have a popcorn maker that pops without spewing kernels all over the kitchen.  Or even worse, down your shirt.  Kernel burns are a real thing when you’re working with a dysfunctional popper.

Coconut Oil

2.  I’ve traded in butter for coconut oil.

I melt, drizzle, and sprinkle with salt and yeast.  And then I curl up on the couch with my cozy snack and call it a day.

Pop Yum Pop

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Here it is!  My favorite childhood snack: popcorn and nutritional yeast.  I might have been the only kid in town that didn’t care for movie popcorn.  And you better believe I was the only kid in town that requested yeast on the regular.

My mom had an ancient air popper, or so I thought.  It turns out that poppers haven’t changed much over the last twenty years.

Well… Except for the fact that the like-model popper that I bought spewed out scorching hot kernels and gave me awkward popcorn burns.  Not cool.

So I bought the carnie-like popper pictured above and, since then, popcorn making has been a lot less painful.

All you have to do to recreate this snack is pop some kernels and sprinkle with melted Earth Balance, salt, and nutritional yeast, in that order.  And!  Since nutritional yeast has 18 amino acids, 15 minerals, and is a super duper source of B-complex vitamins, there’s nothing guiltful about this guilty pleasure.

Resolution Pants Pizza – Part Deux

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I paid a long overdue visit to the friendly folks over at Viitals today.  I was in the mood for more pizza and thought it best to baby step my way to homemade.  Viitals offers pre-made, gluten-free pizza crust locally at their cafe AND they’re willing to ship if you’re not so local.

If you recall, I had already sampled this dough at Gourmet Pizza Company on New Years and knew it was a sure shot to goodness.

I ran my plan by Silvia, the owner, and she suggested that I brush the crust with garlic and olive oil.

So I did.

I spooned a layer of homemade sauce on the crust, topped with a layer of spinach, spooned a little more sauce, and then added sliced baby bellas.

I baked the pizza in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes and sprinkled with nutritional yeast.

It was the first time this year that I missed cheese.  It was really good, but it would have been AMAZING with some mozzarella and feta.  So here I am, 16 days into the no-meat, no-dairy new year, missing real cheese pizza.

I’ve found the perfect crust, now I just need the perfect vegan cheese. Suggestions please!

The Fungus Among Us

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Remember a few posts ago when I said Vegan with a Vengeance’s pesto was the jam?  Well it is – and even more so than I thought.  The recipe calls for nutritional yeast which, turns out, has the instant ability to kill a cheese craving (i.e. has made the past eleven non-dairy days completely tolerable).

Needless to say, I’ve gone through an ungodly amount of yeast over the past few days.  And it was the first thing on my mind when I thought of how delightful a stuffed shroom dinner would be.

SO super easy. Just make the Vegan with a Vengeance Pesto, stuff the baby bella caps, and cook at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  I filled the bottom of the dish with a tiny bit of water just in case, but I’m not certain it was necessary.

The best part (other than being extremely tasty) is that nutritional yeast contains 18 amino acids (forming a complete protein), 15 minerals, and is rich in B-complex vitamins.  It’s probably the perfect food for me to be addicted to these days!