Thursday, August 22, 2013

Hump day food


Breakfast started out with  a fresh fruit salad made from a peach, a pear, a banana, a Mexican papaya and some trail mix sprinkled on the top.  The Mexican papayas are very large (about the size of spaghetti squash) and not as sweet.  I like using them because  the small ones from Hawaii are grown from GMO seeds.

My mid day snack was a mix of mung beans, bulgar wheat, and broccoli sprouts with a little bit of pesto.

Lunch was quick and simple because I needed to eat it on the walk to my hairdresser.  I chopped a collard green leaf and mixed it with some hummus and stuffed it in a bell pepper.  Easy to eat while walking.

Before going to the gym I ate a ruby red grapefruit.  The ones from Whole Foods are sweet and juicy.  Post gym I had some brown rice with sauteed veggies and the coconut curry sauce.
It is really good, I promise

Before bed I had a green smoothie made with almond milk, cherry juice, banana, chocolate protein powder and spirulina.  Spirulina is a bacteria that is a complete protein containing all the essential amino acids.  It comes in a really large container and you only use a teaspoon at a time.



Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Eating healthy

Immersion blender

Tommy is in Maine this week and I making this a uber healthy eating week.  Since I made large batches of a lot of foodstuffs, some of my meals get repetitive.  I had the quinoa, veggie, avocado burrito and salad with seeds and nuts again for lunch.  I also had the Carrot Ginger Soup again at dinner.  The photo above is of an immersion blender.  That is the best tool in the kitchen for making creamy soups.  Instead transferring the soup from pot to blender to storage container, you just immerse it in the pot and everything is blended into a creamy soup.  This is the second one I have owned, I wore the motor out on the first one I had.  This one has a more powerful motor. I also blend yogurt and frozen fruit with it to make a soft serve ice cream like dessert.
Fruit smoothie

Breakfast was a smoothie made in the regular blender.  This is a fruit version made with a peach, pear, banana, almond milk, chocolate protein powder, chia seeds, and the last of my Mango Ginger Jam.

To accompany the soup at dinner I made a salad with tempeh. This is a great bacon substitute.  It has the same seasonings and is sliced in strips like bacon.  It can be microwaved or broiled to the desired crispness.  The salad included spring mix, the mixed veggies, and the dill dressing.
During the morning I had a energy bar for a snack.  This one was nut based and was surprisingly good.  The chocolate one from this brand was really bad.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

More soup

Fresh pineapple juice and pulp

I  put the juicer back in action today.  I made a batch of pineapple juice and kept the pulp for breakfast.  Juicing creates a lot of pulp and it is a waste to just throw it away.  I try to use it in soups, smoothies, stocks or with breakfast grains.   Today I added it to the oatmeal while it was cooking.  The water rehydrates it and it makes make a nice dish
Pineapple oatmeal
At lunch I had the last bit of some vegetable soup I had made earlier.  This one had a tomato base and was filled with potatoes, onions, carrot, and  corn.    The bread was from an earlier meal.  Since I only had about a cup, I added some of the mung beans I cooked earlier.
Vegetable soup
To round out the meal, I had a salad.  The based was spring mix with artichoke hearts, walnuts, alfalfa sprouts, avocado, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas and pecans.  I used the dill dressing with it.
salad
Dinner was easy.  I just combined the brown rice and the veggie mix that were made the day before.  I added some of the sundried tomato pesto for flavor.
rice and veggies
On the side was a small salad of spinach, broccoli and sweet potato with the dill dressing.

The last dish I made yesterday was a Carrot Ginger Soup.  I sauteed some shallots then added vegetable stock, carrots and ginger.  When everything was soft I added some silken  tofu, dill, salt and pepper.  I had a little cup at bedtime before putting the rest of the soup away.
Carrot ginger soup



Monday, August 19, 2013

Back in the Kitchen

Sauteed mixed veggies.

I did lots of cooking yesterday, some for now and some for later.  I will be eating a lot of rice or quinoa with veggies, so I created a big batch of fresh mixed veggies that I can just scoop on top for a quick meal.  this is a mix of Yukon gold potatoes, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, onion and green onion with dill and parsley.
Avocado Soup
Whole foods had a big sale on avocados, so I bought a big batch.  Some went into the Cream of Avocado Soup.  The picture does not do it justice.  It is made with onions, vegetable broth and silken tofu and is quite delicious.  Also, I whipped up a batch of guacamole with onions, tomatoes and garlic.  Both of those went into the freezer to eat at a later date.
Sundried tomato oil

I infused some olive oil with sundried tomatoes to give it a little more flavor.
I started my day with a smoothie made from cherries, cherry juice, hemp milk, Brazil nuts, protein powder, chia seeds and honey.  I forgot to take a picture, but it looked like a burgundy smoothie.
Hummus
One of my staple items is hummus, and I made a fresh batch.  This one was made with chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, onion, garlic and parsley.  I used less oil than earlier batches to make it more thick.  It was awesome on flaxseed crackers.
Burrito
For lunch, I made a burrito with a fat free tortilla, quinoa, some of the sauteed veggies, and avocado.  I made a big batch of quinoa so it is ready to microwave with a dish. I also made a simple salad with spring mix and broccoli and a dill dressing made with olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon, garlic, dill and parsley.

For an afternoon snack, I had some sweet potato, broccoli and spinach. Some pesto topped it off.  The pesto is a mix of basil, dill, walnuts, garlic, nutritional yeast, and olive oil.


For dinner I sauteed some red kale and mixed in brown rice and mung beans.  The rice and beans were cooked earlier in a large batch as well.  Some went into the freezer for later.  I made a coconut curry sauce to flavor it.  The sauce was made with tofu sour cream, vegan mayonnaise, toasted coconut and a basic curry seasoning that I had made earlier. On the side, I had a salad of spring mix, pecans, walnuts, pepitas, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds with the dill dressing.



Sunday, August 18, 2013

Bonnaroo Food

Tommy at the campsite

Okay, it has been a while since I last posted.  I was doing really well until we went on vacation in June and I never got around to posting stuff again.  I am still on my vegan journey and I have lots of photos from my cooking as well as visiting restaurants.  I will start out with where I ended, Bonnaroo.  This was our 2nd trip to the music festival in Manchester, TN.  We camp and bring a lot of our food as well as eat from vendors.  Finding vegan fare was not hard at Bonnaroo except on the last night, but the vendors were running out of everything that night.

Blonde Brownies




I made a vegan version of blonde brownies with dark chocolate chunks for our sweet craving.  They were made with whole wheat flour, maple syrup and walnuts.






Zucchini bread and peanut butter



For breakfast I had zucchini bread with peanut butter.  This was a non rising quickbread  made with whole wheat flour, applesauce, maple syrup and walnuts.  Much more filling than the white bread PB&J.






For the meals I made a variety of salads. These were easy to keep in the cooler.I used recyclable containers that I had been collecting to make them single serving size.  We do not bring a grill or anything to cook with.  Hot foods come from vendors.  The first salad was a Rice, Zucchini and Corn Salad.  I used brown rice and the dressing was a mix of lemon juice, olive oil, scallions, dijon and dill.  Next was a Citrus Fruit and Grain Salad.  This was made with brown rice, oranges, currants and the same dressing described above. My fave was the Tunisian Potato Salad.  I used a mix of white, yellow and purple potatoes in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, paprika, and cayenne.
Potato salad and the Zucchini Corn Salad
Green Salad with Tortilla chips
  The last one was a basic green salad with tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, radishes and red onion.  I toasted some corn tortillas for homemade tortilla chips.

Falafel


Tofu curds over Black beans and rice

Sweet Potato Hummus
Some of my vendor fare included a Falafel sandwich, Sweet Potato Hummus with blue corn chips and a very spice BBQ Tofu Curds over Black Beans and Rice.