The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook - Crispy Kung Pao Tofu

Crispy Kung Pao Tofu

Ingredients:

Cornstarch                               ½ cup and 2 teaspoons, separated

Vegetable oil                           1 ½ quarts

All-purpose flour, sifted         ½ cup

Baking powder                       ½ teaspoon

Kosher salt

Cold water                              ½ cup

Vodka                                     ½ cup

Tofu, extra firm                       ½ pound

Vegetable stock                      ¼ cup

Soy sauce                                1 tablespoon

Chilli paste, Sichuan               1 tablespoon

Vinegar, Chinkiang                 1 tablespoon (can be substituted with cane vinegar or white vinegar)

Sugar                                       2 teaspoons

Scallions, minced                    1 piece (separate the whites and the greens)

Garlic, minced                         1 tablespoon

Ginger, grated                         1 tablespoon

Dry chilli peppers, chopped    4 pieces

Leeks, cut ¼ inch sizes           1 piece

Celery, cut ¾ inch sizes          2 ribs

Roasted peanuts                      ¼ cup

Cooked white rice for serving

To Prepare:

In a bowl, combine the ½ cup cornstarch, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Add the cold water and vodka and whisk until the batter is smooth and thin. If too thick, add a couple of tablespoons of water. It should be just as thick as thin paint.

Heat up the vegetable oil in a stainless steel pan or in a wok if you’ve got one. If you have a thermometer, make sure the oil is at 190°C. You can also test the oil with a piece of bread crust; if it browns right away, the oil is ready for deep frying.

Cut the tofu into rectangular blocks, about ¾ of an inch thick. Coat the tofu in the batter individually; allow the excess batter to drip off. Lower the tofu into the hot oil, dropping them away from your body so that the oil doesn’t spatter towards you. Add more tofu until the pan or wok is full. Agitate the tofu a little with a metal spider or slotted spatula so that they don’t stick together. Let the tofu cook until golden brown. Transfer the tofu to a paper-towel lined plate when they’re done.

Set the tofu aside. Combine the stock, soy sauce, bean paste, vinegar, sugar, and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the scallion whites, garlic, and ginger.

Strain the oil you used for deep frying and return about two tablespoons into the pan. Sauté the leeks, and the celery until softened and until the vegetables are tender. Add the scallion, ginger, and garlic mixture and sauté. Add the roasted peanuts, dried chillies, and tofu. Add the sauce mixture last and sauté until everything is coated evenly. Add the scallion greens and give the ingredients a final toss.

Serve the kung pao tofu with white rice.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook

The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook - Awesome Black Bean Burgers

Awesome Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients:

Black beans, canned               2 cups

Vegetable oil                           4 tablespoons, separated

White onion, chopped             1 cup

Poblano pepper, chopped        1 cup

Garlic, minced                         2 to 3 tablespoons

Chipotle chilli, minced            1 piece

Cashews, roasted                    ¾ cup

Feta, crumbled                                    ½ cup

Mayonnaise                             2 tablespoons

Egg, large                                1 piece

Panko bread crumbs                ¾ cup

Cheese for topping                  As much as you want on your burger

Hamburger buns                      1 per person

Your favourite condiments and toppings

Salt                                          Season to taste

Pepper, white                          Season to taste

To Prepare:

Heat up the oven to 180°C. On a foiled baking sheet, spread out the beans in a single layer and place inside the oven until they have split open and their outer skins have become crunchy. That usually takes about 20 minutes or so. When they’re done, remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the beans to cool.

While the beans are roasting, heat two tablespoons of the vegetable oil on a medium pan. Sauté the finely chopped onion and the finely chopped poblano pepper and cook until softened. Add the garlic and sauté until you can smell that garlicky fragrance. Add the minced chipotle chilli and sauté until everything is cooked. Transfer everything into a bowl.

Roast the cashews without oil on a stainless steel pan until you get that nutty fragrance and until it’s slightly browned. Place the cashews inside a food processor and pulse then add the ground up cashews to the bowl of cooked onions and peppers.

Go back to the beans. Place the beans into the food processor and pulse, about two or three times, until they are roughly chopped. Add the crumbled feta and pulse along with the beans. Add the beans and cheese mixture into the bowl with everything else. Add the mayonnaise, egg, and bread crumbs too. Don’t forget to season with salt and pepper. To check if it is properly seasoned, take a little bit of the mixture and cook in a pan and taste.

Shape the mixture into balls, as small or as large as you prefer, and flatten them out to form a thick patty. Cook as you would any burger patty, on a grill or on a non-stick pan on medium heat with a little vegetable oil. 

This is an excerpt from the book: The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook

How to Home School Your Child - Homeschooling Children with Special Needs

Special needs children need special education and many parents of special needs kids prefer to home school. They feel that they can provide their child with the one on one attention that they need to learn as much as possible. Public schools sometimes do well with their special education departments but that is not always the case. In addition, even though some schools do better than others, none can offer the constant one on one attention that you can provide for your child.

Homeschooling a child with learning disabilities gives them a unique advantage. You can allow the child to learn at his own pace and to give time to the areas where he excels. These children need special attention and the freedom to learn in their own way. When you home school, you allow the child to discover their own potential, and excel in ways they may never experience in a public school.

 

Developing Teaching Methods

The most important thing to immediately learn before homeschooling special needs children is successful teaching methods. While you may be able to develop your own teaching style and methods according to what works for you and your child, you need to start out with some basics. Children with learning disabilities require specific, tried and true teaching methods. The methods you use, and the materials you teach, will depend on what type of learning disability your child has.

The best way to develop these teaching methods is to talk to professionals involved with your child’s case. This includes their doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, and any other specialists that they see on a regular basis. These individuals understand your child’s situation fully and can offer advice and resources to help you determine the best way to teach your child. You can then take what you learn and alter it as needed to fit your child’s needs.

Measuring Success

With special needs children, it becomes even more important to measure their success within the home school. Their progress needs to be clearly charted, as well as failures. This will help you determine what is working and what isn’t. It can also give important insight into how severe developmental or learning disabilities really are.

These records should be carefully maintained and shared with any doctors or specialists your child sees. These professionals can help ensure that your child is learning to the best of their ability. These records will also give these individuals the information they need to make decisions about the care of your child. They may also be able to offer additional advice and resources based on your child’s progress.


This is an excerpt from the book: How to Home School Your Child: and Develop a Well Trained Mind 

The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook - X.Recipes: Tofu, Burgers, and Other Proteins

X. Recipes: Tofu, Burgers, and Other Proteins

One of the biggest issues with living on a vegetarian diet is not getting enough protein because people meet most of our protein needs via meat like beef, chicken, or pork which are basically pure protein. A lot of people might not think that not getting enough protein isn’t a big deal, less of a big deal than not getting the carbs that you need for energy, but protein plays a vital role in our everyday bodily functions. That being said, that doesn’t mean that you need a lot of protein in your daily diet.

Protein is nothing if not essential – DNA repair, tissue repair, and enzyme production are only a few of the things that proteins are in charge of. You need protein in your diet; but you don’t need a lot of it. The average American eats a lot more protein than he or she actually needs for the day. Being on a vegetarian diet doesn’t mean that you should be trying to inject protein sources into every single meal; the key to a healthy diet is still variety. Only one calorie for every ten calories we take in needs to come from a protein. 

With that in mind, don’t try to have tofu or beans for every single meal; that can get old very fast. When you do want to add high protein food in your diet, here are a few recipes that even non-vegetarians would be happy to try.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook

The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook - Cannelloni with Spinach, Tomato Sauce, and Béchamel

Ingredients:

Cannelloni Shells                    1 to 2 cups

Tomato Concassé Sauce         1 to 1 ½ cups (or a simple tomato sauce will do)

Onion, minced                                    2 tablespoons

Garlic, minced                         1 tablespoon

Milk                                         2 cups

Flour, sifted                            1 tablespoon

Butter                                      1 tablespoon

Bay leaf                                   1 leaf

Ricotta                                                1 to 2 cups (or enough to fill the cannelloni shells)

Spinach                                   1 to 2 cups

Parmesan, grated                     1/8 cup

Nutmeg                                   Season to taste

Salt                                          Season to taste

Pepper, white                          Season to taste                        

To Prepare:

Cannelloni isn’t as hard to prepare as it looks, especially since you can buy dry cannelloni. This recipe might not be something you want to do if you’re just cooking for yourself (unless you’re an avid home cook). But it will definitely come in handy when a few guests or relatives come over and you want to impress them with your cooking skills (think mother-in-law comes to town).

With a baked cannelloni dish, you don’t have to pre-cook the cannelloni. Instead, make sure you pre-heat your oven to 155°C.

Blanch the spinach by shocking it in boiling water. Make sure you squeeze out all of the excess liquid before chopping into large chunks. Peel, wash, and chop the onions and garlic finely.

Prepare the béchamel which is one of the classic sauces of French cuisine. The first thing to do is to cook the tablespoon of butter and tablespoon of flour in a sauce pan. When they are cooked until they look like mashed potatoes, add the milk and the bay leaf. Allow the mixture to simmer while stirring constantly until the consistency is right. For this recipe, let the béchamel sauce be a little runny because the pasta will cook in the oven and will need more liquid. Season the béchamel with a little nutmeg.

With a teaspoon, fill the cannelloni with a mixture of ricotta and spinach.

Prepare the baking dish by pouring some of the béchamel on the bottom. Place the cannelloni pasta on top of the sauce. Pour more of the béchamel on the cannelloni, essentially covering them then top with the tomato sauce. Sprinkle parmesan over the dish and place inside the oven at 155°C. Do not use high heat because the cannelloni will dry up. Test for doneness with a fork; the cannelloni should be soft through and through.

To serve the baked cannelloni, top with more parmesan and garnish with basil leaves. You need to try cooking this recipe at least once, you won’t regret it!

This is an excerpt from the book: The Ultimate Easy to Prepare Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook

33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss - Part XI - Keeping Your Juicer Clean

One of the common mistakes that juicers make is not cleaning their juicers right after they’re done using it. What juicers don’t know that those same enzymes they value in their juices have very strong chemical reactions and can lead to those brown stains and gunk that no one wants in their juice machines. And when you leave traces of juice and pulp in your juicer, you’re encouraging bacteria build-up that will make your next glass of juice the opposite of healthy.

When you clean your juicer right after you use it, all it usually takes is some lukewarm water and some dishwashing soap. But if you wait too long, those juices are going to stain your juicer and that pulp is going to harden and stick like glue. When it reaches that point, you’ll need hot water, a lot more soap, and longer scrubbing to get your juicer clean. Wait long enough and there’s no ridding that juicer of those ugly brown stains.

A lot of juicers will take 5 minutes to clean. There are even some juicers with parts that you can just rinse of then stick inside the dishwasher. Admittedly, there are also juicers that are notoriously difficult to clean, but those are the juicers that you should avoid completely.

Cleaning your juicer can be downright easy with the right tools, even the juicing screen that separates the juice from the pulp. The best way to clean that mesh is with an old toothbrush or an equally fine brush. While holding the mesh under running water, gently brush both sides with a rotating movement. You can dip the brush in soap water so that you can get rid of both physical and chemical contaminants. The juice screen’s tiny holes make it prone to pulp build-up and staining but with a bit of light brushing, you can get it as clean as the day you bought it.

Disassembling the juicer is an absolute necessity for getting it clean so it’s important that you’re familiar with the different parts of your juicer. It’s also the reason why I would recommend simpler models instead of the more fiddly models that are everywhere these days. Don’t forget to always, always unplug your juicer whenever you’re cleaning it or fiddling with the parts. Also, don’t wash or disassemble the electrical parts of your juicer! For the electrical parts, simply wipe clean with a dry and clean kitchen rag.

If you’re using the juicer again that day, do you really need to take apart the juicer and wash the parts each time? When you’re juicing three times a day, I would totally understand if you don’t want to be washing those juicer parts over and over. Let’s compromise by still taking the different parts apart and rinsing them under lukewarm water but instead of soaping and brushing them, you can place them in a bowl of water, cover the bowl with cling wrap or Saran wrap then place it in the fridge. You can just clean them after your last juicing for the day.

What if you’ve already let the cleaning wait for too long and you’re now dealing with the brown gunk we’ve been talking about? Bad news, the brown gunk means that the leftovers of your juicing episodes have actually started to rot and decay. At this point, do not use your juicer to make any more juice until you’ve thoroughly and completely cleaned it! Unplug your juicer and disassemble the different parts then rinse them in lukewarm water. Brush them lightly with a fine toothbrush, occasionally dipping the toothbrush in warm, soapy water. When you’ve removed most of the gunk and other physical contaminants, place the juicer parts in a bowl of water and vinegar solution. About 5 spoons of vinegar in a litre of water should do. Periodically brush the different parts then place them back in the solution and let them sit there until the stains are all gone. Then you can wash the juicer parts with lukewarm water, a toothbrush, and soap then put them aside to dry.

The same reason and logic apply to your blender and all your juicing tools and all your kitchen tools for that matter. Wash them after every use and make sure they’re all perfectly clean so that they don’t contaminate your juices and make you sick. Love your tools and they’ll love you right back!

This is a sample from the book 33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss--to get the complete recipes you can get the book here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NB0RD8I 
 

33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss - Part X - Choosing the Right Juicer

Choosing the Right Juicer

Thanks to the huge rise in popularity of juicing, there are a wide range of specialized juicers out there that are meant to cater to the health juicers market. There are some that are going for an astounding price tag of $350 or even $400. And while I do believe that these highly priced juicers will get the job done and do it well, I don’t think they can justify the cost, especially since they pretty much do the same thing as other, more affordable juicers do. The most that I would personally pay for a juicer would be $200 for a machine that’s heavy duty and long lasting, but I won’t try to stop you from buying a more expensive juicer that you truly love. Maybe I’ll just caution you a little.

Juicers have been around for a long time and you can buy a good quality juicer for $50. The big debate about buying a juicer is really between the centrifugal juicers versus the masticating juicers. The centrifugal juicers are the more common type of juicers and are relatively more affordable.

A centrifugal juicer has a metal spinning basket that has tiny holes in them that basically turns fruits and vegetables into pulp, separating the juice and the solids in the process. The concern for most juicers with the centrifugal juicer is that the friction between the ingredients and the spinning basket can create heat which can kill the enzymes that’s part of what makes raw juice so healthy. Let’s take a more scientific approach and look at the facts – enzymes are killed in wet heat at 118°F and in dry heat at 150°F. While you can technically reach that kind of heat with friction, it won’t be prolonged as if you placed your ingredients in a pan on top of a hot stove. The rule of thumb is, if you can touch the food without burning your fingers, the enzymes are pretty much intact. But can the friction from a spinning metal basket of a centrifugal juicer kill some of the enzymes in your raw ingredients? Yes, some.

A masticating juicer on the other hand is a very different method. The ingredients are slowly pushed down a screw-like blade that squeezes the juices out of them. This type of juicer can also have two blades, squeezing the produce in between them, basically masticating or chewing the produce into a pulp. Because a masticating juicer slowly squeezes out the juice, it avoids creating heat via friction and it reduces the possibility of killing any of those precious enzymes.

So which juicer should you buy? At the end of the day, it’s all about preference and budget. I would advise you to lay down all the cards, find out as much about the available juicers as you can, then make a decision based on your personal needs. And if there’s one thing that you should keep in mind when buying a juicer, it’s the ease of cleaning. It’s very important for you to use a clean juicer when you’re juicing which means that you need to clean that machine after every use. If it takes longer to clean than to use, walk away.

The differences between the types of juicers are there but they’re small and almost negligible. As long as you pick a juicer that you’ll actually use and fits your budget, you’re good to go.

This is a sample from the book 33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss--to get the complete recipes you can get the book here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NB0RD8I 

33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss - Part VIII - Review of Juicing Concepts

Before we move on to the next chapter, we need to make sure that you haven’t missed any of the important points in the beginner’s guidelines to juicing. Here are some of the important information in this chapter that you can read at a glance.
1.    Juicing is a great way of getting vitamins, minerals, and fibers into your body without having to include too many fruits and vegetables in your meals. You can just drink them as delicious juices instead!
2.    Juicing should not completely replace your meals. Instead, they can supplement your daily diet. If you want to try juice fasting aka only get food and nutrition via juices, consult your physician or nutritionist or dietician first to see if you are a candidate.
3.    When juicing, pay special attention to the produce or ingredients that you juice. Make sure that you have washed and cleaned them before juicing.
4.    Do not use canned or preserved ingredients. Only use fresh fruits and vegetables.
5.    Do not use fermented, overripe, or bruised ingredients.
6.    Pay special attention to where you buy your ingredients from. Local farm markets can have cheaper produce that haven’t been treated with any pesticides, fruit waxes, and other unhealthy chemical substances.
7.    Set your goals. Your goals will be the basis of how often you drink your juices, what kind of ingredients you should use, and will be the bar that you measure your success against.
8.    When setting your goals, be reasonable. Do not set goals that are impossible and unhealthy. By setting proper expectations, you can better appreciate your progress.

This is a sample from the book 33 Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss--to get the complete recipes you can get the book here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NB0RD8I