Breakfast Rice Bowl

Get creative when it comes to breakfast. J and I have taken to preparing shakes every morning before work because they're portable and packed full of fruits and veggies. But on the weekends, I really enjoy sitting down with a good book, a cup of coffee, and a nice breakfast that I can eat with a utensil! 

Enter Breakfast Rice Bowl. You can really make this however you want - different veggies, different dressings, add fruit, etc. But here follows my version this Sunday morning:

Breakfast Rice Bowl

1/2 to 3/4 cup of brown rice luke warm or cold (I used leftovers and microwaved them for 30 seconds)

5 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup shredded purple cabbage

1/4 cup julienned raw beet

2 Tbsp tahini 

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1 tsp lime juice

1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast 

Serves 1

Mix it all together in a bowl and enjoy! If I had a navel orange or clementine on hand I likely would have added some sliced, in addition to a splash of orange juice mixed in with the rice. You could also add blueberries or strawberries. If you wanted something sweeter but don't have fruit, you could add some agave, honey, or maple syrup as well. 

Month Long Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Challenge

We're back at it again! My doctor (who is actually a nurse practitioner) recommended for the third time that I try going gluten-free and sugar-free for at least a month and asked that I document how I feel. I picked the month of June because, leading up to this point, I haven't been feeling so great. I've been sluggish, been getting more headaches, stomach pain in the evening, and my acne has been out of control. So I started on Tuesday with a well-crafted meal plan and a lot of conviction.

Week one has gone pretty smoothly, though not without some ups and downs. On Tuesday, I had a mild headache which I attributed to sugar withdrawal. On Wednesday, the headache morphed into a tension headache - sugar detoxing coupled with high stress from work, a pending storm, and not enough calories in my system? It was the set up for a bad scene. I ended up leaving work early and, after eating a handful of almonds and drinking two big glasses of water, I actually felt a lot better. I'm sure stepping away from work and my computer screen was a big help too. Thursday through today I have been feeling great! I'm not craving sweets and gluten was really easy for me to cut out.

Here's a sampling of our meal plan last week - I started by using other people's recipes so that I can get the hang of it and then begin writing my own!

Tuesday
Breakfast: Wild Blueberry Shake from lunchboxbunch.com
Lunch: Green Goddess Bowl from lunchboxbunch.com
Dinner: Vegan Macro Meal from lunchboxbunch.com

Wednesday
Breakfast: Wild Blueberry Shake from lunchboxbunch.com
Lunch: Green Goddess Bowl from lunchboxbunch.com
Dinner: Bake Stuffed Sweet Potatoes from lunchboxbunch.com - modified, we just topped them with diced tomato, broccoli, and tahini

Thursday
Breakfast: Homemade Shake - 1 1/2 cups frozen mixed berries, 2 Tbsp peanut butter, 2 cups almond milk - Serves 2
Lunch: Green Goddess Bowl from lunchboxbunch.com
Dinner: Celebratory dinner at Green Elephant (it was J's last day of work at his old job!) - I had the spicy green leaves salad with gluten free dressing and brussels sprouts

Friday
Breakfast: Homemade Shake (see above)
Lunch: Lunched at Local Sprouts - I had the fiddlehead salad special with balsamic dressing
Dinner: Sesame Miso Zucchini Noodles & Tofu from Snixy Kitchen

Saturday
Breakfast: Almonds, peanuts, and blueberries (we bused down to Boston and need something easily portable!)
Lunch: Tofu Pad Thai at My Thai Vegan Cafe in Boston's China Town
Dinner: Sesame Miso Zucchini Noodles & Tofu from Snixy Kitchen

Sunday
Breakfast: Sweet Citrus Avocado Dreamboat from lunchboxbunch.com
Lunch: Green Power Tower Salad from lunchboxbunch.com
Dinner: Raw Macro Bowl with Knock-Off Dragon Sauce from Raw Food Recipes

Our snacks throughout the week consist of homemade oil-free hummus with veggies, frozen grapes, apples, and baby carrots.

So far, I've lost 6 pounds. I'm hoping to add at least 20 minutes of walking to my days to continue on this track and I'll keep monitoring the effects of GF/SF eating - maybe you'll want to test it out too? Check out other recipes we're considering on our Pinterest board!

Sushi Night

Although it's time consuming, J and I love making sushi together. It's a great meal to make with someone and there are so many combinations to try - it never gets old! We got hit with yet another snow storm today and decided not to risk driving to restock our fridge, so it was a let's-see-what-the-heck-is-in-the-fridge-and-wing-it kind of night. Wing it nights might be some of my favorite. Somehow we always end up with awesome results!

First, I started by making the rice (while J was kindly shoveling) because it needs to cool before you can handle it. I used Alton Brown's sushi rice recipe and it turned out nice and sticky. While the rice cooked, I chopped up a bunch of different veggies. It's fun to cut up all the options hanging out in your fridge and use whatever you end up using without worrying about not using it all. If you don't use it all, you can throw it into a salad for tomorrow's lunch, or save it in a container for a stir-fry later in the week. In other words, don't sweat it!

So tonight I sliced yellow bell pepper very thinly, some dinosaur kale, sautéed some thinly sliced mushrooms in a little oil and Braggs, julienned a few carrots, diced up a 1/4 cup of cilantro, thinly sliced a 1/4 of a cucumber, and 1/2 of an avocado. I also sliced some tofu in long, thin rows after it had been pressed.

Then J took over and started the assembly process! To accompany the sushi, we made a delicious tahini miso ginger sauce from This Rawsome Vegan Life which J used inside one of the rolls and we also served as a dipping sauce on the side.

While J assembled the sushi rolls, I made a Seaweed Salad similar to the recipe we posted about a year ago. This time, I added some of the sautéed mushrooms and didn't marinate the tofu, but just tossed it in. 


I used some of the leftover sticky rice to make two rice balls which had avocado in the middle. To make rice balls, you'll want to wet your hands with cold water to prevent the rice from sticking so much. Pick up a handful, create a little crater in the middle, and mash the avocado into the crater. Then cover it by patting and rolling the rice into a ball. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and kelp granules in a dish and roll the rice ball around to coat.

We made the table up all fancy and served dinner with sake shipped to us by my best friend straight from Japan.

All fancy sake comes in a juice box with a straw :-)

Nemo Roasted Veggies with Pesto over Spinach Spaghetti

We live in Southern Maine so of course we've spent the majority of the last two days homebound, shoveling, taking snowy walks to the Speckled Ax for soy lattes and the Works Bakery for a bagel with Tofutti cream cheese, and baking. I named the following recipe in honor of our dear storm, which has yielded a whopping 31.9 inches of snow, "Nemo Roasted Veggies with Pesto over Spinach Spaghetti." It was a real pantry raid since our last trip to Whole Foods did not take into account the impending storm. Nonetheless, we ended up with a cozy, quite satisfying meal!

Nemo Roasted Veggies with Pesto over Spinach Spaghetti

1 rutabaga, cubed
1 turnip, cubed
1 portabello mushroom, sliced into 1 to 2 inch pieces
1 sweet potato, cubed (skin on or off, you choose!)
1 fingerling potato, sliced thinly (could use more, but that's all we had!)
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
1-2 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 package of spinach spaghetti (or a whole one...we tend to make portion sizes for 2 or 4 and you don't need a full package for that)
3 Tbsp Seggiano Raw Basil Pesto (this stuff ROCKS - you can find it at most Whole Foods)
1-2 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 410 degrees.

Toss all of the veggies in a baking pan and coat with olive oil. Roast in the oven for 45-65 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before handling.

Cook spaghetti according to package instructions. Drain, and return to pot. Coat pasta with olive oil and  pesto.

Serve by placing pasta in a bowl and topping with roasted veggies. Voila! Take that Nemo!

Polenta "Caprese"

Caprese salad is made with some combination of fresh (uncooked) mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes. J made his own take on it using cooked and fresh ingredients and polenta to replace the mozzarella. It was incredibly delicious. The polenta was nice and crispy and the juice of the tomato softened it slightly. We used our own basil plants to top it off. Try it out and let us know what you think!

Polenta "Caprese"

Polenta, prepared in advance - J made a creamy polenta and veggie saute the previous night. We put the left overs into an 8 x 8" glass dish, spread it out smoothly, covered with plastic, and put it in the fridge. The next day, the polenta was nice and firm. We used a cookie cutter to cut it into circles and then sliced those circles in half (not through the top - through the side, still maintaining the circle shape). We had about 10 circles.
Roma Tomatoes - sliced into circles - one per polenta ring
Fresh basil
2 Tbsp Earth Balance
Olive oil

In a skillet, melt the Earth Balance. Fry each ring of polenta, allowing it to get a little darkened (we actually like a little char) and crispy.

In another skillet, add a little olive oil and heat the skillet. Fry each ring of tomato.

Plate: Alternate polenta and tomato slices, fanned out across the plate. Top with fresh basil leaves.

Spiced Lentils with Mashed Cauliflower and Delicata Squash

Spiced Lentils with Mashed Cauliflower & Delicata Squash

1 small yellow onion, diced
olive oil
1 small carrot, chopped
1 cup mixed french lentils
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cumin
salt
3/4 - 1.5 cups veggie stock (Depends on how soft you like your lentils. We like them a bit firm so I used 3/4 of a cup.)

1 small delicata squash, cut into rings and seeded

1 small head of cauliflower, chopped
2-3 Tbsp soy creamer or almond milk
1 1/2 Tbsp Earth Balance
salt & pepper
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne

In a pot, cook the onions in some olive oil until translucent. Add carrots and cook until softened. Add in spices, lentils, and veggie stock. Cover and simmer until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Once the liquid's absorbed and the lentils are cooked, remove from heat and set aside.

While the lentils are cooking, steam the delicata squash for 5-10 minutes until bright yellow-orange and tender. Remove from pot and set aside.

Steam the cauliflower for 20-30 minutes until very soft. I mean very - like falling apart soft. Remove from heat and drain off the water. Return cauliflower to the pot and mash with a potato masher after adding in Earth Balance, soy creamer, salt, pepper, and cayenne. After mashing it a bit, get it really smooth by transferring it to a food processor. Process until it looks like mashed potatoes.

To plate: Place a base of the mashed cauliflower in the center of a plate. Top with some of the lentil mixture and 2-3 squash rings. Sprinkle with a little salt and if you like, drizzle a little olive oil on top. Serve!

Serves 3-4.

Rice & Wheat Balls

Our fridge was empty last night - we're talking baron. We haven't gone food shopping all week because I wanted to clear out a lot of foods before starting to try out the anti-inflammatory diet on Monday. So last night felt sort of like that show Chopped where they put random things in front of you and tell you to create a meal.

Surprisingly, I was able to pull something together that was really tasty and, with the addition of more veggies next time, I think it's a keeper. We had a few of Nate's Savory Mushroom Meatless Meatballs floating around our freezer, about a cup of broccoli florets and stems, an onion, garlic clove, and the butt of some ginger. Oh, and rice. We always keep a stock of grains on our shelf, all lined up in Ball jars. There's rice, lentils (green and multi-colored), quinoa, polenta, arborio rice, couscous, amaranth, millet, buckwheat, and steel cut oats. It's nice to always have a stock of various grains and legumes - I recommend everyone stock their kitchens this way. It makes nights when the kitchen's bare go a little easier!


Rice & Wheat Balls

2 cups uncooked brown rice
5 cups homemade vegetable stock, or water
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 inch of ginger, grated
1 cup chopped broccoli
5-6 Nate's Savory Mushroom Meatless Meatballs (or whatever brand you choose)
1/2 cup fresh basil
olive oil

Sauce:
1/4 cup Hoisin Sauce
2 Tbsp roasted red chili paste
2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil

Cook your rice in a rice cooker with the vegetable stock (you can also use water, but the veggie stock really imparts a great flavor and I recommend you try it at least once).

Defrost the Meatless Meatballs in the microwave.

While rice is cooking, put a little olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the onions. Once onions are translucent, add garlic and ginger. Then Meatless Meatballs and cook until nice and browned. Add the broccoli and basil and cook. I like it when things get a little charred - but cook it to your preference. Then remove from heat and set aside.

Mix together the sauce ingredients - those aren't exact measurements as I don't normally measure things out when I'm making sauces so just taste and make sure you like it.

To serve:
Put some rice in the bottom of a bowl (you'll have more rice than you need - yay! left overs for another dish) and top with veggies. There were enough for 2 servings, but if you added more veggies you'd get 4 probably. Serve with sauce on the side. I'd like to try adding some mango in the future - I think it would go with the flavors really well and add some natural sweetness.

Guest Post by Lindsay!

Today we continue our theme on how to be a vegan on the go! Below is a post written by a fellow vegan who lives in New York. She's a busy artist in graduate school who doesn't have time to fuss with complicated recipes. Lindsay proves that it's easy to be a vegan on the go if you put a little thought and planning into it.



TIPS ON BEING A TIME EFFICIENT VEGAN
Being a gluten-free, soy-free (even coconut-free) vegan is not always the easiest thing
when you are out and about all the time. Plus, I am a full-time student commuter. Fast
food or even supposed “health food” venues are not always friendly to my way of eating.
I have, however, come up with the perfect way to pack food and prepare for the day that
stays within my restrictions, tastes yummy, and treats my body right…in just one hour (I
do a variation of this EVERY morning…so if I can do this, so can you). Think of it as a
morning food meditation. If you set your alarm one hour earlier tomorrow, and continue
to do it one day at a time, by the end of the week you will be used to it, and you will
naturally start going to bed earlier. This way, you won’t be grabbing unhealthy
snacky foods, wasting money on food out, or wasting time trying to read every
label in a store to find something you CAN eat.

Let’s go through this step-by-step.

1) Put brown rice and water into rice cooker (this takes one hour). I cook 2 cups of dry
rice (with 4.5 cups of water) at a time, and it stays good in my fridge for 3-4 days. I can
eat brown rice (in lieu of oatmeal) as a breakfast cereal, add it to my salads, or throw it
into an evening stir-fry to make fried rice. I can even make a quick rice dessert pudding.
It is ridiculously easy and good for you. Make sure you always have some on hand. To
make it extra delicious, soak the rice overnight, and the texture turns out creamy. You
wont be able to go back to using non-soaked rice. It also adds to the nutritional value of
the rice and ensures that it is clean (we’ve been hearing in the news about all that arsenic
in rice, so it’s never a bad idea to do an overnight soak). In an extra hurry?? Put on rice
first first thing before you even brush your teeth, and it will be done before you know it.

2) Put on oatmeal water. I use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Old Fashioned Oats. One
serving needs one cup of water. When it boils (after about 3 minutes), I add ½ a cup of
oats, and let it cook until most of the water has evaporated. Then I let it sit for 2 minutes.
While this is cooking, I prepare my fixings. I add these things to a bowl: 1 tablespoon of
chia seeds, 1 tablespoon of ground flax, 1 tablespoon of cacao powder, 4-6 strawberries, a
banana, two tablespoons of SunButter, and a sprinkle of salt. Then when the oatmeal has
finished sitting, I add it to my bowl, add a little almond milk, and the effect is divine. It’s
like dessert for breakfast, but every ingredient is good for you. I use Himalayan sea salt
and unsweetened almond milk. Take your vitamins with this and drink some green tea,
and you will be ready to face even the toughest of days.

Note: If I’m really in a rush, I eat my breakfast while I am preparing my food for the day.
The macrobiotic people would censure me, but we’re talking about efficiency here!

3) Packing snacks. I need to pack at least 2 snacks each day. Usually I pack some
conglomeration of: raw nuts and dried fruit, an apple or any other fruit (sometimes with
nut butter), some carrot sticks or other vegetables (sometimes with hummus), a health bar
(the brands that I like are Macrobars, Luna Bars, Pulsin' Bars), and rice, corn, or kale chips.
And the amount that I need depends on whether I make a smoothie or not as I leave the
house…I’ll get to this in step 8.

4) A cooler and lots of food storage containers. You are going to need a cooler of some
sort if you are going to be gone all day with no access to a refrigerator. As a student I
don’t have any fridge access. I use a cold compress and an aluminum water bottle filled
with ice inside of a soft cooler that I got at Whole Foods. It keeps the contents cold and
food safe for at least 8 hours (as long as there’s no dairy or meat…but if you are vegan,
you have no need to worry).

5) 2-4 BIG salads at once. Always make more than one salad at a time. Salads take a
long time to prepare, and it’s way easier to just cut up a few extra vegetables than it is
to pull out all the vegetables again and again. If I have leftovers from the night before,
I only need to pack one salad for the day; otherwise, I eat one for lunch and dinner. To
put into your salads: any kind of vegetable that you want. Be creative. If you aren’t
creative and need help, today my salad consisted of: mixed greens, chick peas, avocado,
red onion, kalamata olives, carrots, and cucumber. Anything goes. Dressing lately has
been balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and flax oil with a few herbs from my spice rack.
Simple yet delicious.

6) While you are waiting for your rice to finish: read the newspaper, empty the
dishwasher, check email, write out your to do list for the day, check your Facebook, go
to the bathroom, take a shower, put on your makeup, brush your teeth etc, etc. Pack up 2
servings (3-4 cups) in a preferably glass container and continue to step 7.

7) Putting it all together. So, today, you are going to eat:
breakfast: oatmeal and fixins
snack 1: green smoothie (step 8)
lunch: fun salad with brown rice and balsamic vinegar, an apple
snack 2: raw cashews, raw almonds, dried figs & gogi berries (or any other snack
from the list)
dinner: leftovers from last night OR fun salad #2, with brown rice and balsamic
vinegar, and an extra fun snack.

Put all of these things into your cooler. Pack a fabric napkin and metal silverware (let’s
be good to the environment too). And you are almost ready to go.

8) Just before you head out the door, make a GREEN SMOOTHIE. The most efficient
way of doing this is buying a pre-made green drink (my favorite is the Bolthouse Farms
Green Goodness, but Odwalla and other companies make them too), and throw it in a
blender with a serving of protein power. This becomes your morning snack that you can
sip on for an hour or so while you are commuting, or in my case during my first class of
the day. There are thousands of green smoothie recipes to be found online if you feel
more creative or have 4 extra minutes (I don’t always).

Please note: If you are sick of brown rice, you can use other grains to supplement,
such as making a quick cold quinoa salad with chick peas, red onion, cherry tomatoes,
cucumbers, turmeric, and cumin.

There are thousands upon trillions of variations to my morning routine and food listed here, but this serves as a basic day. Sometimes I buy a veggie sushi at a local supermarket for my dinner and eat it with a bag of chips.

Also, please note: If you are wondering about all the dishes this creates, sometimes I
have time to wash them and throw them in the dishwasher right at the moment, and other
times I don’t, so I fill them with water and leave them until I get home at night (at 10pm
sometimes?!?). I tell myself that soaking the oatmeal pan, oatmeal bowl, and blender is
the best way. How you do your dishes is up to you, but if you do this every day, you’ll
find the dishes do themselves.

9) Go about your day as usual and wait for people to be impressed with how prepared
you are for your life! Remember efficiency is key. Time is money.

Lindsay Garcia
www.lindsaygarcia.com
lindsaydgarcia@gmail.com

Vegan Lunchbox!

Today's lunch:

Rice wrappers filled with avocado, carrot, mint, kale, and zucchini. A small salad of kale, mint, and cucumber. Spicy peanut dipping sauce: a spoon full of peanut butter, rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and garlic chili paste (sorry - I just winged it and didn't measure).

Really light and refreshing lunch for hot days when your apartment feels like it's 900 degrees and you don't want to actually cook anything!

Vegan Lunchbox

Rainbow Salad
2 carrots, julienned
3-4 baby portebelloes, chopped
1/4 red onion, diced
1 cup green beans, slivered
1 cup snap peas, halved
2 stalks celery, diced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup clover sprouts
1 sheet of nori, ripped into small pieces
 salt & pepper

Dressing:
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1-2 garlic cloves, minced

Mix everything together!

Serves 6-8

Cashew Spread Veggie Sushi
Post Punk Kitchen's Cashew Spread (made without scallions & red pepper)
1 carrot, julienned
1/4 avocado, sliced
1/8 yellow bell pepper, sliced thinly
1/8 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup clover sprouts
1 sheet of nori

Serves 1

Rice Noodle Bowls and Warm Cherry Quinoa

J and I have been testing out a lot of recipes lately - vegan and non-vegan. I came across Eat, Run, Live's recipe for almost-vegan rice noodle bowls with crispy tofu and decided to take a stab at it. We ended up making a bunch of modifications and actually transformed it into a new dish.

Rice Noodle Bowls with Dry-Fried Tofu
Serves 4

1/4 summer yellow squash, cut into thin strips
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1/2 head of red cabbage, chopped
1/2 package of rice noodles
1 package of firm tofu, drained/dried
1-2 green onions, sliced thinly
Vegetable stock

Sauce:
3 Tbsp Braggs
1 Tbsp vegan oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sriracha sauce
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp freshly grated ginger

Boil water, add rice noodles and remove from heat. Allow the noodles to sit for 5-10 minutes then rinse in cold water and set aside.

In a skillet, saute veggies in a little veg stock (or oil if you don't care about the fat content). Add the sauce to the vegetables and cook a little while longer. Don't over cook - the veggies should still be a little crisp.

Chop the tofu into triangles or cubes, whichever you prefer. Heat a DRY skillet on high and add tofu once it's hot. Press on tofu and allow moisture to sizzle out. turn when the tofu is the desired color and repeat on all sides.

Assemble: Put some rice noodles in the bottom of a bowl. Top with veggies, tofu, a little vegetable stock, and green onion.


This afternoon, my stomach was grumbling and we didn't have anything quick to snack on. So I decided to try out a recipe I'd been curious about for a while that's been floating around on Pinterest - warm quinoa with cherries. I like the recipe but don't have the exact ingredients in my kitchen so I played around and here's what I came up with!

Warm Coconut-Citrus Cherry Quinoa
Serves 1

1/2 - 1 cup of cooked mixed quinoa (or whatever kind you have)
1/4 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup light coconut milk
1/4 cup almond milk
2 Tbsp orange juice

Combine all ingredients; heat in the microwave if you want it hotter. Could eat this as dessert, breakfast, or snack - super yummy, nutritious, and filling!

27 is here

Today I turn 27 and the day is always bittersweet. I'm happy to be another year older and don't fear the approaching 3 - 0 as many do. What's makes it bittersweet is that someone isn't here to celebrate with me. In 2007, my mom died from an extremely aggressive version of cervical cancer. She was my idol, my hero, my best friend. And so on this day, I'm spending the day at home by myself with the kitties, baking for an event on Sunday, remembering her life, and feeling thankful she brought me into this world.

I'm glad today is quiet. I'm going to test out two new types of cupcakes: Cookies n' Creme and Peaches n' Cream. It's another test of my willpower over sweets! I've lost another pound this week and am down by 17 since starting, so I'll just keep reminding myself that fitting into those jeans and that skirt and that blazer are WAY more worth it than scarfing down a cupcake.

Yesterday, I took off work and treated myself to a haircut in the morning and then walked around the city with J. We went into LeRoux Kitchen, an amazing kitchen supply store in the Old Port. While there, we did buy a little Taza Chocolate that was salted almond and I stowed it away in my purse. Taza Chocolate is incredible and if you haven't tried it, you need to. It comes as a small circle and although it looks and feels like a dense chunk of chocolate, it tastes incredibly airy and light. Then we walked around a bit more and started feeling hungry by 1:30, so we went over to the Portland Public Market and visited our friends at Granny's Burrito, Kamasouptra, and Market House Coffee. Whenever I visit the Public Market, I try to spread my wealth around by purchasing something small from several vendors. So for lunch we shared a burrito filled with peanut tofu, rice, lettuce, and hot sauce from Granny's, a small cup of vegan chili from Kamasouptra, and a pineapple coconut water from Market House Coffee. It was certainly a larger lunch than we're accustomed to and I was glad we'd skipped both our morning and afternoon snacks. We also spent the good part of the day walking at a good pace - I'm guessing we walked 5-6 miles by the time we were done.

It's all about balance! My coworker says it's simple, "Calories in must be equal to or less than calories out." I think it's important to celebrate things once in a while and to not deprive ourselves of things forever because that is exactly what causes me to fall off the weight loss wagon.

So for dinner last night we had a very very light dinner of 1/2 cup of brown rice over arugula with 1/2 cup of shiitakes and a wedge of lime squirted on top. We followed dinner by a few bites of the Taza chocolate and then ran some errands for my day of baking today. After returning home, we were both hungry. Stomach grumbling hungry. So I suggested we make some Ginger-Lime Hummus and have a little with some carrot and bell pepper sticks. It totally did the trick and I'm pretty sure Ginger-Lime Hummus is our new favorite flavor!

Tonight, J's taking me out for a birthday dinner at the Green Elephant - my favorite restaurant. We've already talked about the idea of getting an appetizer to split and then sharing one entree so that portion sizes are smaller. Green Elephant makes vegetarian and vegan food and it's wonderfully fresh and elegant. I'm excited :) J's birthday present to me is a two night stay in Camden, Maine next weekend and I'm super excited about that!

Since 2006, I've thought my birthday was "cursed." In 2006 and 2007, my mom was re-diagnosed with cancer once on my birthday, once the day before. In 2008, we were told my grandmother (my mom's mother) going to die from cancer just days before my birthday. So I've had trouble celebrating these last few years, no wonder. But I'm going to move past the past and look to the future. A future filled with healthy happiness and a celebration of the strong and beautiful women who helped shape me into the woman I am today.

Seaweed Salad and Marinated Tofu

A few nights ago, J made a delicious seaweed salad using local frozen seaweed found at Whole Foods. We've been meaning to try the stuff ever since the company, Ocean Approved, did a tasting at the store. We were intrigued by kelp noodles and kelp salad, having had them at Japanese restaurants, but never making them ourselves. It's kind of expensive - $5.69 a package - but well worth it!

J also made marinated tofu, which complimented the salad nicely - the contrast of the soft, uncooked tofu against the somewhat tough and tangy seaweed was a really nice paring.

Seaweed Salad with Marinated Tofu


2 cups seaweed (frozen, not dried), salad cut
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 block firm tofu, pressed, then sliced into 8 steaks
1/2 cup chopped broccoli
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp brown rice vinegar
1/2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp sesame seeds

Place frozen seaweed (in unopened package) in a bowl of hot water to thaw.

Blanch broccoli in boiling water. Remove and set aside.

Mix vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and ginger in a bowl. Soak the tofu in 1/3 of the marinade. After seaweed thaws, place in a bowl with broccoli and mix with 2/3 of the marinade. Allow to marinate at least one hour.

Sprinkle seaweed salad with sesame seeds and spring onion before serving.

Serves 4

Photo by Justin Lumiere

Goals revisited

A year ago, my fiancé and I made the commitment to become vegan. I started this blog to document our new way of life, the things we learned and to share our trials and tribulations along the way. As I look back through my 107 posts, it's clear that we've loved being vegan! At this point, we are fully committed to veganism for life. We have both learned so much over the last year and there is certainly no way we could ever go back. I've even converted my baking service to a fully vegan operation and thus far, I've received rave reviews.

Let's revisit the goals I set all the way back on January 5, 2011:

1. Health - Although we both do feel healthier, I must say that we haven't really experienced the weight loss that many have when they switch over. This is for a number of reasons - the biggest probably being that I'm constantly baking and, well, it's just too hard to resist! The other, we don't exercise very much. I've started taking Pilates classes once a week and I'm trying to walk more and J is thinking about taking up fencing. I also bought the Forks Over Knives companion book which has some great, low-fat, low-cal recipes. Although we are cooking and eating MUCH healthier now, we tend to make things that are fairly rich and use a good amount of olive oil. So my new goal - eat simpler, more wholesome foods. Replace carbs with proteins like lentils or beans.

2. Environmental - well, no one can argue that we aren't helping the environment! But one of the biggest things we've noticed since going vegan is that the amount of trash we generate has significantly decreased. Practically everything we use is recyclable and the only things we really throw away are veggie waste after we've used it for making stock. Just think - if we had our own back yard, we could compost! I recently read an article that said you're not truly recycling unless you buy recycled products/products made from recycled materials. So true. So we are being more conscious about this now too!

3. Cost benefits - I haven't really been tracking our savings, but I know that we are. Meat and dairy products are far more expensive than vegetable based foods. J and I tend to spend a lot on groceries but that's because we LOVE cooking and buy things like morels ($20 for a few ounces) or vegan pesto ($9 a jar). We do purchase a lot of things we could be making on our own (pesto, hummus tapenade) so we recently bought a food processor and have started with making our own hummus - and it's SO much better fresh! We've also really embraced local buying and have been utilizing our local farmers market as much as we can. You wouldn't believe the money you save buy shopping at the farmers market - so worth it! And your food isn't from California - it's from a few towns away, if that!

So that's where we are folks - happy and healthy; ready to jump into 2012 and to keep learning and experimenting and I hope you'll join us for the ride! Even if you're not vegan, I hope you've learned something here and have enjoyed reading! Happy New Year, friends!

Potato Leek Soup

Sorry for the hiatus, friends. Things have been crazy in my life lately - my friend at Last House Productions created a bakery logo for me (beautiful!), the bakery has been re-named to Salt and Pine Bakery (please LIKE us on Facebook!) and I've started a Cupcake of the Month Club - more on all this later!

For now though, let me leave you with a yummy fall recipe for potato leek soup. I've had a migraine for the last 4 days and in a moment of lucidity, I whipped together this delicious soup. Enjoy!

4-5 potatoes - I used medium sized red skins; use whatever you want!
1 leek, greens removed and chopped
1/2 a yellow onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
A stick or two of celery, diced
salt & pepper
parsley, rosemary, & cayenne - I didn't measure, just use as much as you want!
Broccoli, chopped up really small - as much as you want, I used maybe 1/2 a cup b/c that's all we had!
5-6 cups of veggie stock
1 cup cold veggie stock with 3 Tbsp flour mixed in

Chop the potatoes into small pieces and boil in water until tender. Remove from heat, drain and mash.

In a large soup pot, cook the leek, celery, and onion in some olive oil. Add in garlic and spices and cook. Add mashed potatoes and cook a while longer. Add in the 5-6 cups of stock and bring it up to a boil. Once it's boiling, use an immersion blender to make it really smooth and creamy. If you don't have an immersion blender you can use a regular blender - just be careful because it's hot!!

Allow the soup to simmer a while longer, then add in the 1 cup cold veggie stock with 3 Tbsp flour (make sure there are no lumps). This will thicken the soup a bit. Simmer for a while longer - 5 minutes or so, then add in the broccoli and stir. Check the seasonings to make sure they're where you want them and serve hot! YUM!

Vegan Laptop Lunchtime!

Mixed lettuce & barley-quinoa salad (recipe below) with apple picked on Sunday and soynut butter

Barley-Quinoa Salad



Ingredients:

1 c. uncooked quinoa

1 c. uncooked barley

1 can garbanzo beans

3/4 chopped zucchini

2 med. chopped carrots

5-6 kalamata olives, pitted, and diced

1/4 c. dried cranberries

5-6 crimini mushrooms, diced

1/2 c. broccoli, chopped very small

1/3 c. seitan, diced

1/4 - 1/3 white wine

Prepare quinoa and barley as directed. After they're ready, mix together in a large bowl. Add garbanzos, zucchini, carrots, olives, cranberries.

In a small skillet, saute the mushrooms, broccoli, & seitan in white wine until wine is cooked off. Add to the salad. Mix everything thoroughly and allow it to chill in the fridge for an hour or two.

You can serve this salad over greens and add a vinaigrette. I had it over mixed greens with a fig dressing for lunch and it was divine :)



A Farmers Market Dinner

It's Wednesday which means it's Farmers Market day! Wooo! My goodies, for $10, included a bag of basil, 2 yellow tomatoes, 2 lemon cucumbers, 1 other kind of yellow cucumber I didn't catch the name of, rainbow chard, 1 summer squash and 2 purple bell peppers. Seriously people, you can get a lot of food for just $10 when you shop local - so shop smart!

So we winged dinner and made up our own little stir-fry creation using a bunch of this week and last week's Farmers Market findings and the result was a delicious sweet and spicy Thai-style stir-fry. I just gotta say, since going vegan this past January, I have realized that vegan cooking is SUPER easy. I'm amazed that so many people think it's harder to cook vegan. Our meals generally take less time to cook, are lower in cost, and there's never any fear of getting sick from not cooking something or eating something bad (it's pretty easy to tell when veggies have gone bad!).

I know many of you reading this blog are not vegan, and hey, that's totally ok! But I hope that you'll at the very least try out some of my recipes and the recipes that I try and start thinking about how the cooking part of going vegan is not the difficult part at all (at first it's really just the cheese cravings, but they go away, I promise. Especially after you take the time to learn more about the dairy industry).

Ok - so here's the recipe and dude, you should try it because it's delish and had us saying mmmmm every other bite. So do it. Go cook this up NOW!

Farmers Market Fresh Stir-Fry

1 block of tofu, drained and pressed to remove excess water, then cubed
olive oil or sesame oil
1 yellow onion, sliced into thin strips
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 bell peppers, we used purple
1/2 summer squash, sliced
1/2 zucchini, sliced
1 yellow tomato, sliced, seeds removed
1 red tomato, sliced, seeds removed
A handful of basil leaves
About 2 Tbsp shredded kohlrabi
salt & pepper to taste

Sauce:
2-3 Tbsp Sweet Chili Sauce
3-4 Tbsp Braggs
1 tsp Peanut Oil
1 tsp Brown Sugar
2 drops Liquid Smoke



In a non-stick skillet, dry-fry the tofu (just lay the tofu in the pan without any oil and let it simmer the water out, pressing on the tofu every once in a while to squeeze out more water). Continue to cook until all the sides are browned.

In a wok, saute onion in some oil until they are translucent. Then add veggies in the order listed in the ingredient list, sauteing each one as its added until it's fully cooked.

Meanwhile, make the sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Then add the cooked tofu and let it sit until you're finished adding veggies to the wok. Once the veggies are cooked and the flavors have melded, dump in the tofu and sauce and mix. Saute for another minute and then remove from heat and serve! You could serve it over rice if you want, but we had fresh corn on the cob and homemade kale chips so we found it wasn't needed.

Couscous Veggie Stuffed Peppers

The stuffed peppers were a huge success, as was our engagement announcement :o) Normally I make the peppers using quinoa, but right as I started cooking, I realized we've only got maybe a 1/4 cup of red quinoa left. Whoops! So I improvised and below is the recipe for what turned out to be some really stellar stuffed peppers. Enjoy!

Christi's Couscous Veggie Stuffed Peppers
4 large red or yellow bell peppers, tops removed and centers cleaned out
1 cup couscous
1 1/2 cups veggie stock
olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 cup crimini mushrooms, chopped
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 zucchini, diced
1/2 cup veggie stock
1/2 cup textured vegetable protein (TVP)
1 cup mild-hot salsa
Salt & Pepper

Preheat the oven to 350.
In a pot, boil the 1 1/2 cups veggie stock, add the couscous, cover and remove from heat.
In a skillet, heat olive oil and add onion and mushrooms, sauteing until soft. Add shredded carrot and zucchini and cook.

Heat 1/2 cup veggie stock in a bowl in the microwave, then add the TVP. Allow the TVP to absorb the liquid. Add salsa to veggie mixture in the skillet. Then add TVP and couscous. Add more salsa or veggie stock if they mixture is too dry.

Spoon the mixture into the peppers and place peppers in a baking pan. Bake for one hour; check the peppers after 30 mins, adding a little veggie stock to the base of the pan and to the tops of each pepper. When finished, peppers will be softened, but not mushy. When they start to pucker a little - it's done!

Should we serve...pasta?

Tonight my fiance and I have invited his mother to dinner to tell her we're engaged. My family already knows because the live 9 hours away, but my fiance wanted to wait until we got the ring to tell his mom, and well, here we are!

Now, as you may or may not have figured out, we like to cook. And his mom isn't close minded when it comes to food, though it does sound like she's not especially open to eating a meal made from meat substitutes (i.e. Tofurkey, seitan, veggie burgers, etc.). We sat on the couch around midnight looking through VeganYumYum and VegWeb trying to find inspiration. I found that we kept leaning toward pasta dishes, which is what she normally serves us when we visit her house. I think pasta tends to be a default vegan dish. It's easy and filling and doesn't have to involve cheese or dairy. We were leaning heavy towards VeganYumYum's Pistachio Arugala Pesto with Penne and Sauteed Brocolini, when I turned to him and said, "We need to show her that vegan dishes are more versatile and cook something other than pasta."

He remembered when I had made him stuffed peppers when we first starting dating and we agreed this would be a more interesting dinner choice and would show his mom that we don't just eat pasta! My stuffed peppers incorporate quinoa, TVP, salsa, sauteed veggies and bread crumbs. They're really yummy. In addition, we're going to make a nice big herb salad and I'm going to try baking a Mediterranean olive loaf from The Joy of Vegan Baking. For dessert, I'm going to test out a new From Scratch & Sniff cupcake idea - ginger cupcakes with bosk pear filling, dipped in chocolate ganache, topped with vanilla icing. Yum!

I've got a full day of cooking ahead of me so I'd better hop to it. I'll share my stuffed pepper recipe later; I don't normally measure the ingredients so I'll pay attention when I make it today and try to give you some more exact instructions!

Left-over Veggie Syndrome

I looked into the fridge this afternoon and noticed that we've got all these odds and ends and a shit-ton of veggie stock. I also noted that we have 4 containers of veggie ends waiting to be made into stock for next week. Eep! Stock overload!

I figured the easiest way to use up a quart or two of stock would be to just make some soup, but like I said, most of what was lurking in the fridge was sort of random. And so, voila, Random Soup was born! Honestly, 9 times out of 10 you do not need to hit up the food store when your pantry's getting low, you just need to switch on some creativity!

I wanted to serve a salad with my Random Soup so I started by roughly chopping up an onion, 3 carrots, 2 russet potatoes, some left over eggplant, garlic, and some Portland Winter Farmers Market goodies - a turnip, golden turnip, and rutabaga. I tossed them all into a roasting pan with some olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme and let them roast for about 1.5 hours, stirring every once in a while.

 Portland Farmers Market goodies: Olivia's Garden Greens, Turnip, Golden Turnip, Rutabaga, & some kind of potato that looks like a large version of fingerlings

After the soup was completed, I served it with the cooled root vegetables on top of Olivia's Garden greens, also from the Farmers Market. You could use some dressing if you want, but I think the flavors of the roasted veggies against the crisp salad greens are glorious and that a dressing would just cloud the flavors. 

Here's the soup recipe, but I didn't measure things so the measurements are just guestimates. I recommend you try making soup from the random odds and ends in your fridge too - it's pretty fun :o) 

Random Soup

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, sliced

1/2 eggplant, cubed

1 can black beans

1 can white beans

1-2 cups of kale, chopped

salt & pepper

cumin

turmeric

cayenne 

3/4 cup wild rice

Lots of veggie stock 

In a large pot, saute onion in olive oil until soft. Add carrot and cook until softened. Then add beans and eggplant - cook 1-2 minutes. Add kale last and cook until it turns dark green and has softened a little. Add spices to the saute mix and saute for a while until the flavors combine. Then add veggie stock followed by rice. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 30-60 minutes until rice has softened and flavors are combined. Add spices if needed.