Vegan Black Eyed Pea And Hominy Enchiladas My Annual New Years Day Recipe For Good Luck!

Eating black-eyed peas on New Years Day brings good luck!

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My Annual New Years Recipe
As many of you know, I always start the year with a black-eyed pea recipe. For many decades, this tradition has brought me lots of luck so I dare not stop now.
This year, Im making enchiladas.


Easy is Good
My son makes the best enchiladas Ive ever eaten. They take hours to make and like most of his gourmet recipes, they are complicated, dirty lots of pots and pans and require far more patience than I have.
My friend also makes excellent enchiladas. One day she told me her secret - Lawrys. OK, I was surprised. Shes half Mexican so I assumed she slaved all day making some family recipe. But I was delighted to know this as I could now make enchiladas without much fuss. I wont say enchiladas made with Lawrys are better than my sons, but they are quite good and I have used this ready-made seasoning mixture in todays recipe. For those of you who love spice, Lawrys is mild so plan on adding some cayenne, jalapeño or chili powder to give it more heat.

A simple way to make enchilada sauce,
Unfortunately it is not gluten free. 

I Love Hominy
I was introduced to hominy while living in Texas - the same great state where I discovered black-eyed peas. Hominy is corn without its hull and germ. When hominy is ground its called "grits". I love hominy in all forms. When whole, it has a wonderful, chewy texture. It combines well with the black-eyed peas and gives a lovely texture to the meatless enchiladas.

White hominy

Vegan Cheese
For those of you who are vegan, lactose intolerant or just wanting to avoid dairy because you just watched "Forks over knives" or read Joseph Keons "Whitewash - The disturbing truth about cows milk and your health", you are probably still searching for a cheese substitute. To be perfectly honest, its pretty impossible to replace the taste and texture of real cheese. But lots of people are pretty excited about Daiya, a dairy, lactose and casein free cheese substitute that is also gluten and soy free. I use the Daiya Cheddar Style Shreds in this recipe. If you are not vegan, you can substitute regular cheddar cheese. If you are trying to wean yourself from dairy, use half cheddar and half Daiya. 

This tapioca based cheese substitute is free of dairy, gluten and soy. 

Black-eyed pea and hominy enchiladas
vegan
[makes 8 enchiladas]


For the sauce
1.6 oz package Lawrys enchilada sauce spices & seasonings
6 ounce can tomato paste
3 cups water
pinch of cayenne, or to taste (optional)
For the enchiladas
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
15 ounce can black-eyed peas (or 1 3/4 cups cooked), drained
15 ounce can white or yellow hominy, drained
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup Daiya cheddar style shreds, divided
8 corn tortillas


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Take out a 9"x13"x2" baking dish.

To make the sauce, mix the Lawrys spices, tomato paste, water and cayenne (optional) in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make the enchilada sauce first and let it simmer while you prepare the filling.

In a frypan, heat oil and cook onions for 5 to 8 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and cook another minute. 
Add drained black-eyed peas, hominy and cumin and mix thoroughly. Cook until heated throughout.
Add half the cheese and stir until melted. 

Stir half the cheese into black-eyed pea mixture.

Pour 1 cup sauce in the bottom of baking dish.
Coat each tortilla with sauce and place 1/8th black-eyed pea mixture in center of each tortilla.
Roll up the tortilla and place seam down in baking dish.

To make enchilada, place filling in the center of tortilla.

Roll up placing seams on the bottom of pan.

Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas and cover with remaining cheese.
Bake uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Bake until bubbly and serve.

Per enchilada: 248 calories, 5.5 g fat, 1.3 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 6.5 g protein, 40.6 g carbohydrates, 6.4 g dietary fiber and 724 mg sodium.


Happy New Year and thanks for following my blog!

My Daughter’s Raw Vegan Spicy Chipotle Gazpacho

Day 13 of our “One Month Raw Food Cleanse”
As I was talking to my daughter Linda yesterday about raw soups, she got inspired and whipped up this spicy chipotle gazpacho. When I was doing my raw food nutrition research for my dissertation, she went completely raw for several months. During that time, she created some of the most beautiful dishes I’ve ever seen and since we live on opposite coasts, she’d send me gorgeous photographs of them each day.

So here’s her recipe. You can also check out her wonderful organic products at luluorganicsnyc.com or click her link below, “Luluiswho”.

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Raw Vegan Spicy Chipotle Gazpacho By Linda Aldredge [Serves 4]
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 medium tomatoes or 6 cups, diced
1 diced red pepper, half for soup and half for garnish
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 chipotle pepper (rehydrate a dried one or use the ones canned in adobo or you can use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle powder, more or less to taste)
3 pitted jumbo Medjool dates, soaked
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 avocado, diced for garnish
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped for garnish
Kernels from 1 ear white corn
1/2 green onion, thinly sliced for garnish (optional)

Combine water, oil, tomatoes, 1/2 of the red pepper, garlic, chipotle, dates, lime juice and sea salt in a Vita Mix or other high speed blender. Blend until smooth and pour into four bowls. Garnish with the other 1/2 of the red pepper, corn, avocado, cilantro and green onion and serve.

Per serving: 303 calories, 19.5 g fat, 2.8 g saturated fat, 0 g cholesterol, 4.8 g protein, 33 g carbohydrates and 7.8 g of fiber.

Menu for Day 13
Breakfast was a berry smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, pear, almonds, brazil nuts and flax seed oil. We’re going out for lunch so I’ll probably have a raw salad. My sprouted lentil crackers and pizza crust just came out of the dehydrator so I’ll be experimenting with raw pizza tonight (yumm). For a snack today, I’ll be munching on these crackers with almond butter. Dessert will be cantaloupe with raw nut crumble.

The Fast Metabolism Diet Question When can I say that my metabolism fixed

We keep on saying that the main goal of the fast metabolism diet is to heal your metabolism. 

With your healed metabolism you get to lose your weight and lived a healthier lifestyle. But I bet most of you here is only priotitizing our weight-loss goal, right? At the end of the fast metabolism diet program,  we get to ask ourselves once again if weve achieved our weight-loss goal. If yes, then congratulations! We lost that annoying pounds that we wanted to get rid off. If not, we undergo the whole process again or apply some tips and strategy to continue losing weight.

But have you ever wondered, while you undergo the fast metabolism maintenance, if you just happen to be off track because of a party night-out one night, the next morning you gaineda few pounds in the scale? You keepon gaining weight even though your applying all of the weight-loss and maintenance tips? What is the root causefor all of this? Have you ever wondered that maybe, you still didnt achieved the main goal of the fast metabolism diet? That your metabolism is not yet fully healed, not yet fixed? To help you in knowing if your metabolism was fixed, here are the signs to look out:

1. Its easier to gain weight than lose weight

When your healed metabolism is on fire and in harmony, it will burn everything you throw on it. Thus, youre body is in a state of balance. Youre not gaining nor losing weight. However, if your metabolism isnt fully repaired, it is much easierto gain weight and harder to lose.

2. If you take the weekend “off” and start Monday 5 pounds heavier, your metabolism is not supported well.

With your healed metabolism it should be able to handle any types of events you engaged on, may it be a party, birthday, or wedding event. But if the next morning you found out youve gained a few pounds in the scale, your metabolism is out of balance.

If youre metabolism is fully healed, it doesnt end there. We didnt want to weaken up the fire of our metabolism and will be forever trapped in darkness and fear of ganing weight again. Thats why we need to maintain our metabolism on fire. Here are the tips to stay our metabolism on fire:

- Always eat whithin 30 minutes of waking

- Keep stress levels under control

- Drink water half your body weight, in ounces everyday.

- Eat your snacks and dont skip meals.

- Eat a lot of fruits and veggies.

From now on, learn on hitting two birds in one stone. Start losing weight and healing your metabolism to finally succeed and complete this journey. For other helpful articles you can read the fast metabolism diet maintenance, survival tips for attending events, weight loss goal, slow weight loss problems, breaking weight plateaus, your life after the fast metabolism diet.