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

Guest Post by Liz!

The following is a guest post by my friend Liz who lives in Washington, D.C. She has a busy life, working as an environmental specialist and fostering shelter dogs in her spare time. Like many of us, she doesn't always have the time or energy to commit to making gourmet vegan food in the kitchen. Read below for Liz's awesome simple quinoa dinner recipe:

Last night I got home late, hungry, and tired. I didn't want something fancy. I didn't want to fuss with a cookbook. I didnt' want to run to the grocery store. So I thought about what I had on hand and it reminded me of an amazing meal I had at a DC restaurant awhile ago.

That meal was quinoa and roasted veggies in a balsamic reduction. It was decadent and delicious. So this recipe feeds 4 and is very filling - the two tall, meat-eating guys I live with ate every last bite but didn't need seconds.

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa (I used red)

1 zucchini, sliced and quartered

Olive oil

2 cloves minced garlic (or as much as you like)

Small amount of minced onion - I used red for a bit of a kick

Dried or fresh basil, or Italian herb blend

Balsamic vinegar

Directions: 

Start the quinoa cooking, then prep your veggies while it's boiling.

1. Cook the quinoa (if you don't know how, this is how I did it: for a cup of quinoa, fill the pot with a cup and a half of water, turn on the heat to about medium, rinse the quinoa, add the quinoa. Once the water gets to a boil, lower the heat so you have a simmer going. Stir the quinoa now and then.  I have no idea how long I cook it for - I just watch for the little white tendrils to appear on the side of each quinoa seed. With red quinoa it's easy to tell because the seeds will "pop" and you can see the translucent insides of them.) Once it's done, turn off the heat, drain any leftover water, fluff it with a fork and transfer it to a large bowl.

2. In a skillet, heat 1 T of olive oil, the garlic, and onions. Once the onions turn translucent, add the zucchini, turning the pieces over to brown both sides, about 10 minutes total.

3. In a small bowl, make a simple balsamic vinaigrette with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and whatever herbs you like (I recommend basil, or an Italian blend), plus some salt and pepper. Whisk with a fork and taste test by dipping some bread or a cracker into the dressing.  I don't measure when I make my vinaigrette - I do it on sight and taste. For this recipe, I went heavy on the vinegar.

4. Your quinoa should be done by now - transfer it to a large bowl, and add your vinaigrette to the pot the quinoa was in (this step is optional). On low heat, stir your vinaigrette for a few minutes.

5. Transfer the zucchini to the big bowl with the quinoa. Pour in the balsamic sauce and stir. Set aside.

7. Plate!

The meateaters were as in love with this dish as me. It gets even better the more veggies you use, but we were just working with a limited supply. Beets are fantastic in this as well - you get the whole sweet-savory mix going on. Caramelized onions would work too.

It couldn't be quicker and easier, and it was definitely a crowd pleaser. Only uses 1 pot, 1 skillet and 1 bowl, so it's easy cleanup too!

Guest Post: Kelly's Almost Empty Cupboards Chili!

Kelly is a good friend from college who lives in Boston and is trying to adopt a more plant-based diet to lead a happy healthy life - go Kelly! The following post is her most recent kitchen experiment, Almost Empty Cupboards Chili. It sounds delicious! 

Thanks for sharing, Kelly!

In case you haven't noticed, it's been pouring in New England all week (until today, which is beautiful). I  had no desire to go supermarket shopping in all this rain, so I scoured my cupboards for something tasty for dinner on Tuesday night. There are a few things I always have laying around: beans, TVP and some form of tomatoes or tomato sauce. I decided to try my hand at an emergency-we're-running-out-of-food chili. I had more than what I really needed for a proper chili, but I kept throwing things in the slow cooker anyway. I'm happy to say that after throwing in a bit more spice, it was delicious. Note that tomato sauce and some kinds of veggie broth use almost no salt, so I had to add some in to make the flavors really pop.

 

Almost Empty Cupboards Chili!!

 

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

2 cloves garlic

1.5 cups of dried black beans, black-eyed peas, navy beans and pearled barley (this was a mixed bag I had called Bob's Bountiful Black Bean Soup, but use whatever beans you like! Cut out the veggie broth, and you can cut your cooking time if you used canned beans, but it's cheaper to used dry!)

1-2 cups cooked corn

1 sm to medium onion

1 medium red pepper

1 or so cups of vegetable broth (or water) as needed

1/2 cup of dry TVP

Season to taste. Spices I used included:

hot sauce

chili powder

paprika

salt

black pepper

garlic powder

onion powder

and a tiny bit of curry powder

 

Stick everything (except the TVP) in a slow cooker for 3 or so hours on high, add in the re-hydrated TVP and stir. YUM.