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Cheesy Vegan Kale

My friends, it is an amazing day here on the blog.  I am in Israel and I just made a dish with kale!  For those of you who don’t live here and wonder why my panties are on fire over a green vegetable, I give you my tale of unexpected immigrant woe:

kale 1

The Hebrew label says kale is an “Explosion of Health”!  Everything has to “explode” here, ya know?  Then under that it says “Like this, you have never had before on your plate!”

Story:  Before I moved to Israel 6 years ago, I was deep into a heavy kale-dependency habit.  At will, I would stroll on down to the Stop N’ Shop, go over to the massive pile of dark green vegetation that most people overlooked, and take whatever I wanted, however much I wanted.  Sometimes people would ask me what kale was and how you eat it.  The Kale Revolution had not yet hit suburban NY.

I had so much kale at my fingertips that I had no qualms about using an entire bunch everyday in my fresh Green Lemonade juice.

It never occurred to me that my supply would be anything less than endless.

Prior to making aliyah (moving to Israel), potential olim (immigrants) are schooled on many immigration-related subjects by shlichim (the case workers who help facilitate all aspects of this difficult move).  Our shaliach helped us understand the Israeli school system; what documents we would need to have notarized and translated; our mortgage benefits; where to learn Hebrew; how much tax we would have to pay on the items in our 20′ foot shipping container, etc, etc.

But the lack of kale in Israel?  Nope, no mention.  Also no mention of the years I would hereto fore be spending without fresh berries, fresh pineapple, fresh young coconut, frozen fruits, Kashi cereal, Cliff bars, and several other pre-aliyah favorites I would hence forth have to live without.

Honestly, there have been days over the past few years, when I have thought,  ”If I had known there wouldn’t be raspberries, I probably wouldn’t have come.”

But slowly, slowly the Israeli food market is expanding.  Everything I have pined for has eventually come or I’ve discovered I can order it online.  I have actually ordered Kashi Go-Lean and Cliff bars from overseas and then rationed them out in tiny increments to my kids under strict 24-hour surveillance.

A year after arriving, I heard a rumor of kale being grown at a nearby farm.  Sometimes we would go there and they would pick it fresh from the fields.  I was in heaven.  But the season was short and the place was not convenient for me to get to.  Then CSA’s began to spring up and I heard my friends’ reports of kale being delivered to their door!  I knew the grocery store was not far behind.

So when a friend emailed me yesterday with the words “I just got kale at shufersol” (a major grocery store chain), I called my husband, who had the car, and bade him not return home without my leaves!

He delivered.  My man.

This recipe is actually for Kale Chips.  But one night Sivan, editor and chief over at The Vegan Woman, served the sauce from this recipe on raw kale as a dressing and I wanted to sneak off to the bathroom with the bowl so I could eat it all without sharing.  That good.  I have had the recipe bookmarked for that fateful future day I would eventually have kale of my own.

The future has arrived.

Cheesy Vegan Kale

Cheesy Vegan Kale

The original recipe comes from Healthy Happy Life: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/08/cheezy-spicy-kale-chips-vegan.html I made changes for ease and ingredient availability.

Ingredients

  • 1 large bunch kale, de-stemmed and ripped into small pieces
  • juice of half a lemon
  • 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 large red pepper or tomato
  • 1 hot pepper or 1 tsp schug
  • 3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked for a couple of hours and drained
  • 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
  • 2 Tbsp tahini
  • 1 tsp maple syrup or sweetener of your choice
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • dash sea salt
  • dash garlic powder

Instructions

  1. Wash kale, remove stems and tear into bite-sized pieces.
  2. Place all other ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.
  3. Put kale in a bowl and pour sauce over the top.
  4. With your hands, massage and mix the sauce well into the kale leaves.
  5. Let sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.
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This post is participating in Healthy Vegan Fridays and Wellness Weekend.

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Dr. Fuhrman’s Vegan Greek Salad

dr f greek salad 2

Greek Salad normally has feta cheese and lots and lots of olive oil.  Not a very “healthy” or weight-friendly salad if you ask me!  But, Dr. Fuhrman’s Greek Salad, on the other hand, has chickpeas and potatoes instead of cheese, and vinegar instead of oil.  It has chopped green apple for a surprising tart twist and Brazil nuts, and sun-dried tomatoes (my addition) and cilantro and, and, and…  

Yes, I am this excited about a salad, people.  Try it and prove me wrong!  

Dr. Fuhrman’s Vegan Greek Salad

Serving Size: 2

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (chick peas)
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 boiled potato, peeled and chopped in chunks
  • 1 green apple, peeled, cored and chopped
  • 1 cucumber, chopped
  • 1/2 small onion, chopped
  • 1/4 cup chopped Brazil nuts, divided
  • 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
  • 3-4 chopped sun-dried tomatoes (NOT in oil)
  • 1 head Romaine lettuce, washed and chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix everything and eat. (My kind of recipe!)
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This post is participating in Healthy Vegan Fridays HERE and Wellness Weekend HERE.  Check those links for tons of healthy, delicious recipes!

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Vegan Swiss Chard Quiche with Oat-Sesame Crust

swiss chard quiche

I found this recipe on another blog HERE.  The recipe itself violated a few of my iron-clad lazy chef rules about using an abundance of pots and pans and having steps within steps.  So I re-wrote it to my specifications and cooked up a delicious vegan quiche!

The original recipe calls for Swiss chard and corn, but I didn’t have any corn, so I used peas.  OK, so stick with the corn. (Not all of my revisions are successful!)  I think the sweetness of corn will better balance out the bitter of the chard.

But really, you could use ANY vegetables you wanted to.  I will definitely be using this recipe as my blueprint for a basic vegan quiche.  The crust is the best vegan crust I have ever had and it was very simple to make.

Vegan Swiss Chard Quiche with Oat-Sesame Crust

Vegan Swiss Chard Quiche with Oat-Sesame Crust

Ingredients

    Crust
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 3 Tbsp sesame seeds
  • 1 cup whole wheat or spelt flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp cumin powder
  • 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
  • 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1/3 cup non-dairy milk of choice (unsweetened of course)
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • Filling
  • 3 Tbsp oil
  • 1 onion chopped
  • 1 bunch Swiss Chard (Mangold) cleaned, de-stemmed and chopped
  • 12 basil leaves, chopped (optional)
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp red chili flakes
  • 300g tofu
  • juice of one lemon
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cup cooked corn kernels

Instructions

    Crust
  1. In a skillet, lightly toast the oats and sesame seeds over medium heat until they are just becoming golden and fragrant.
  2. Place the oats and sesame seeds in a food processor and grind until almost fine.
  3. Add in remaining dry ingredients and pulse until combined.
  4. Add in non-dairy milk and oil and pulse until mixture begins to stick together and is all combined.
  5. Pat the mixture into a greased pie dish with a removable bottom (I used a 9"springform pan).
  6. With a piece of plastic wrap, pat the crust firmly into an even layer and about 1"up the sides.
  7. Lightly cover the pan with a kitchen towel and refrigerate until the filling is ready.
  8. Filling
  9. Preheat the oven to 190C.
  10. In the same skillet you toasted the oats, heat the oil and saute the onions until soft.
  11. Add the chard, basil, garlic and red chili flakes and saute until all is soft and cooked.
  12. Place the tofu in the food processor with the lemon juice and salt and process until smooth. (adding soy milk if needed to make a custard-textured mixture).
  13. Stir in the cooked veggies and the corn kernels and mix well.
  14. Taste for seasonings and adjust as desired.
  15. Remove crust from fridge and spread filling inside crust firmly, flattening the top.
  16. Sprinkle with paprika if desired.
  17. Bake for 45-50 minutes until firm.
  18. Let the quiche rest for at least 10 minutes and up to one day in pan before slicing. (I baked mine one day before serving and it re-heated and sliced perfectly).
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This post is participating in Healthy Vegan Fridays HERE and Wellness Weekend HERE.  Check those links for tons of healthy, delicious recipes!

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Pasta with Lemon-Basil Cashew Cream Sauce

vegan mo fo 2012

OK, so yeah, I am not doing so well with Vegan MoFo.  I’m just really busy lately.  Doing important stuff like this…

And, you know… feeding people:

Pasta with Lemon-Basil Cashew Cream Sauce

Pasta with Lemon-Basil Cashew Cream Sauce

This creamy, lemony dish uses no dairy and no soy. Soaked cashews do the trick!

Ingredients

  • 1 package pasta of choice
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 cups of mushrooms, chopped
  • 6 cups spinach, roughly chopped
  • Sauce
  • 1 cup raw, unroasted and unsalted cashews, soaked in water for at least 1 hour
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 cup fresh basil leaves
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1-2 tsp miso or bouillon (or just use salt to taste)
  • about 1 cup pasta cooking water

Instructions

  1. Prepare pasta per package instructions
  2. Before you drain the pasta, take off 1-2 cups of the cooking water and set aside.
  3. Drain the pasta and rinse in cold water. Set aside.
  4. In the same pot you cooked the pasta, heat the oil.
  5. Saute onion for 4-5 minutes.
  6. Add mushrooms, garlic and spinach and saute everything until soft.
  7. Meanwhile, drain the cashews.
  8. Put cashews in the food processor with the garlic, basil, and lemon juice.
  9. Process until well chopped.
  10. Slowly add in pasta water until you achieve a smooth sauce.
  11. Season with nutritional yeast and miso, bouillon or salt to taste.
  12. Pour sauce into pot with cooked vegetables.
  13. Add pasta and toss until all is combined.
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This post is participating in Healthy Vegan Fridays HERE and Wellness Weekends HERE.  Please visit for lots of great recipes!

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Chickpea Flour Omelette

I realize that I never shared here what my book club gave me for a birthday present this year!   Well, on the night of my birthday, we met at a pub for our usual lively conversation, bodacious belly laughs, and very little discussion of the actual book.  When it came time to present me with my gift, my friends piled this enormous pile of gifts on the table in front of me!  As I embarrassingly (but delightedly) unwrapped the first gift and saw that is was a lovely bowl, I immediately “got it”.

“Did you guys give me a bunch of dishes and bowls because you are sick of seeing the same dang dishes on my blog over and over again?”

Of course they tried to soften the blow “Not at all!”  ”I didn’t even notice those blue dishes with the small white pattern that you use in every single post!”

Friends like these are truly priceless!

The truth is, I often think about better styling for my pictures.  I know other bloggers spend time collecting props and settings and dishes and whatnot and it really does make their photos look beautiful and interesting.

But then I think about the gazillion things I have to get done as a business owner, and dishes and napkins fade to the back of my mind.

Yet, thanks to the amazing ladies of my spectacular book club, you my readers, will soon be treated to some VARIETY around here!  Hallelujah, you proclaim!!

To kick it off, today we have delicious chickpea flour omelettes on lovely pale green plate. Ta da!

I had been looking for ideas for packed lunches for kids and hubster that don’t require eggs and cheese, so when I stumbled upon this idea for Indian chickpea flour pancakes HERE, I knew I had to try them.   Try them I did and like them THEY did.  I serve a pancake plain for my own lunch and wrapped in a sandwich for the lunch boxes.  What a great, high protein, high fiber, low fat alternative to eggs!!

chickpea flour omelette sandwich

Chickpea Flour Omelette

Yield: makes 2 omelettes

Chickpea Flour Omelette

This is a very versatile recipe. You can use any vegetables and seasonings you prefer. The original recipes is here: http://tastespace.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/savoury-indian-chickpea-pancakes-besan-chilla/

Ingredients

  • 4 scallions or 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 small tomato, finely chopped
  • 1 cup chopped spinach or parsley
  • 3/4 cup chickpea flour
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric
  • red pepper flakes to taste (optional)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup water (or enough to make a thick-ish pancake batter)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
  2. Heat skillet over medium-high heat.
  3. Lightly oil or spray with cooking spray.
  4. When pan in hot, pour in half of the batter and spread gently with the back of a spoon to make a uniformly thick pancake.
  5. Let cook for a few minutes until bottom is lightly brown, you can easily slip a spatula underneath, and pancake is firm enough to be easily flipped.
  6. Cook a few minutes on the second side to desired doneness.
  7. Slide onto a plate.
  8. Repeat with remaining batter.
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This post is participating in Wellness Weekends HERE and Healthy Vegan Fridays HERE.  Check them out!

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Vegan Thai Pizza

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a “everything is better with peanut butter on it policy.”   I also have a bit of  a thing for ‘za, dudes.  So when I saw some Thai pizza with peanut sauce on pinterest, the drooling got a little out of hand.  Friends, I give you the Vegan Thai Pizza.  Who the heck needs cheese?

Vegan Thai Pizza

Vegan Thai Pizza

Vegan Thai Pizza

Ingredients

    Same Crust as I always make
  • 4 1/2 tsp dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1 Tbsp sugar or natural sweetener
  • 4 cups flour (I use a combo of white, whole wheat and chickpea flour, but you can use any flour you like)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • Peanut Sauce
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 2 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 dime-sized piece of ginger, minced
  • dash sugar or natural sweetener
  • dash or two of hot sauce if desired
  • 1-2 Tbsp water to thin to spreadable consistency
  • Toppings
  • Whatever floats you boat! I wanted to use pineapple but my crowd wouldn't go for that. I used:
  • Mung Bean Sprouts
  • Fresh Basil, chopped
  • Red Pepper Strips
  • Chopped Peanuts
  • Green Onions, chopped
  • Zucchini, halved and sliced
  • Sesame seeds for spinkling

Instructions

    Crust
  1. Mix yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup warm water.
  2. Set aside 5-10 minutes until bubbly.
  3. In the meantime, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl until combined.
  4. Stir in yeast mixture, 1 cup water and olive oil.
  5. Mix with your hands until you get a smooth dough.
  6. Place in a greased bowl, cover with a towel and set aside to rise in a warm spot for 1 hour.
  7. Sauce
  8. Mix all
  9. Assembly
  10. Pre-heat oven to 200 C.
  11. Oil 2 pizza pans or cookie sheets and sprinkle lightly with corn meal if desired
  12. Punch down dough
  13. Separate into 2 balls
  14. Gently spread into pans with your hands, stretching to fill the pan evenly.
  15. Spread sauce on top of dough and sprinkle on toppings.
  16. Bake 15-20 minutes until crust is firm and starting to brown on the edges.
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This post is participating in Healthy Vegan Fridays HERE and Wellness Weekend at DietDessertnDogs HERE.  Be sure to click those links for a plethora of healthy vegan recipes!

 

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Healthy Snacks: Roasted Chickpeas; Roasted Carrots

I wrote this a while ago back in the old apartment. (You can tell by the poor light in the photos!)  Then it sat in my drafts folder, oops.  But now I am back in the swing of things and it’s time to set this baby free in the world.  Unfortunately, it’s a high-heat oven recipe and the weather is now high-heat oven all day, all the time.  So maybe shelve this one until the Fall?  Or make it if where you live is nice and cool.

Today, a recipe double-header:  While you already have that oven on, blasting it’s roasting heat, make 2 different roasted vegetables and enjoy some serious plant-based snacking!

Oftentimes I hear whining in my home that goes “There is nothing to eeeeeaaaaaatttt!”  The fridge is full of food.  What they are really saying is that there are no snacky, junk foody things.  Yes, true, we are purposefully poorly stocked with those sorts of things.  Pity.  But these roasted chickpeas and carrots are a big hit with my little munchers!  Crunchy, salty, a little sweet, and not too unhealthy or binge-inducing.  I promise to always keep a supply handy.

You can do the seasonings on these any way you choose.  I did the chickpeas with rosemary, but you could do them with Mexican spices or Indian curry or even these salt and vinegar chickpeas HERE.

The carrots I did with lemon flavor, but again, anything goes!

roasted carrots and roasted chickpeas

Roasted Rosemary Chickpeas

Roasted Rosemary Chickpeas

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of cooked or canned chickpeas
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil OR spray with cooking spray
  • sea salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary or a handful of dried to taste
  • few dashes of garlic powder or a fresh garlic clove, chopped

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Toss chickpeas in a bowl with oil and seasonings.
  3. Spread on a baking sheet.
  4. Roast in the oven for about 30-45 minutes until they reach your desired doneness. You want them crunchy on the outside but not so hard that you break a tooth!
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Lemon Roasted Carrots

Lemon Roasted Carrots

Ingredients

  • 5-6 large carrots
  • 1 Tbsp oil OR spritz of cooking spray
  • sea salt and freshly ground pepper
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Cut the carrots into coins.
  3. Toss with oil, seasoning and lemon juice.
  4. Spread on a baking sheet and roast 20-30 minutes until crispy and caramelized and absolutely delicious!
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This post is taking part in Wellness Weekends at DietDessertnDogs.com.  You can see all the delicious, nutritious submissions HERE.

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Isa’s Vegan Moussaka

Firstly, so that the sunset doesn’t get jealous:  Did I happen to mention that if I just turn my head to the other side, I ALSO see the sunset each day??

Yeah, I know.  This new apartment totally sucks.

On to Moussaka.  True confession:  I’d never had Moussaka of any kind, vegan or otherwise before I made this.   It is one of those meat-plus-dairy sorts of things that kosher-keepers stay away from.

So, whether or not this Vegan Moussaka is representative of Moussaka in general, I have no idea.  But I do know that it is delicious and you should make it.  I served it at Friday night dinner to confirmed carnivores and even they liked it.  It’s got a lot of steps and the oven is on for quite a while, but the final  result is worth it!

The original recipe comes from Isa Moskowitz and can be found HERE.  Her recipe is a little different in that it uses a pine nut cream (I didn’t have pine nuts) and a zucchini layer (I didn’t have zucchini).  She also did the assembly a little differently than I did, and I seriously lowered the oil content.

Vegan Moussaka

Vegan Moussaka

Ingredients

    For the vegetable layers:
  • 2 large eggplants
  • 6 large and long baking potatoes
  • olive oil or cooking spray to brush on the vegetables
  • For the sauce:
  • 1 Tbsp oil olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2, 800g (15 oz.) cans crushed tomatoes, with juice
  • 2 teaspoons oregano
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • salt to taste
  • Tofu-Cashew Cream:
  • 300 g tofu
  • 1/2 cup raw cashews
  • 3 Tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon arrowroot powder (corn starch would probably work here too)
  • 1 clove garlic
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Instructions

  1. Peel the eggplants and cut lengthwise, about 1/4 inch thick.
  2. Salt both sides and place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes.
  3. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200C.
  4. Lightly oil or spray 2 baking sheets.
  5. Peel potatoes and place in a bowl of cold water to keep from discoloring while you slice them into slices 1/4 inch thick.
  6. Dry potato slices and lay in prepared pan.
  7. Spray or brush potato with oil and place in oven.
  8. Roast potatoes for 25 minutes or until just barely beginning to brown. (They won't be entirely cooked through but not super hard either).
  9. Rinse the eggplant and dry.
  10. Remove potatoes to a plate and layer the eggplant on the same baking sheets.
  11. Lightly coat eggplant with oil and bake for 15 minutes or until tender.
  12. Remove from oven and let cool.
  13. While vegetables are cooking prepare the tomato sauce.
  14. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil and minced garlic to a large heavy bottom sauce pot.
  15. Bring to medium heat and let garlic sizzle for about 30 seconds, then add onions and cook until soft and translucent, 3 to 4 minutes.
  16. Add water and simmer until slightly reduced, another 3 minutes.
  17. Add crushed tomatoes, oregano, and ground cinnamon.
  18. Partially cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 12 to 14 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sauce should reduce slightly. Turn off the heat and adjust salt.
  19. Make the cashew cream:
  20. In a food processor blend together cashews and lemon juice, scrapping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula until a creamy paste forms.
  21. Add tofu, garlic, arrowroot, nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Blend until creamy and smooth.
  22. Assembly:
  23. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 pan.
  24. Spread 1/4 cup of sauce in the pan.
  25. Then add a layer of the eggplant and then a layer of potatoes.
  26. Dot the surface of the potatoes with some of the cashew cream.
  27. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
  28. Add the next layer of sauce, followed by a layer of eggplant, potato, cream, and breadcrumbs.
  29. Repeat 1-2 more layers until your vegetables are used up.
  30. Spread the remaining cream over the surface of the entire dish and give one final sprinkling of breadcrumbs.
  31. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until top is lightly browned and a few cracks have formed in the topping. Allow to cool 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
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This post is taking part in Wellness Weekends at DietDessertnDogs.com.  You can see all the delicious, nutritious submissions HERE.

and…

a NEW Blog Carnival run by some very special vegan bloggers, Healthy Vegan Fridays which you can see HERE!

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Meal Planning 102: The Next Step in Kitchen Organization

I wrote all about my basic meal planning strategy in this post HERE.

I have a free blank meal planning template give-away HERE.

I wrote this post for another website about meal planning, with sample menus and recipes HERE.

And I have a new post coming out on TheVeganWoman about Your Healthy Vegan Kitchen, which should be up later this week.

That’s a lot of blah-blah about cooking and planning and stocking, no?  As I looked at the editing room floor scraps of text that didn’t make the final Vegan Woman cut, I thought “But maybe my readers want to see things in ACTION more?”  Like, less theory – more DO.

I know it is helpful to actually see what other people do in their day-to-day lives, so right now, in this hot summer weather, this is how things have been going down in my kitchen.  Hope it’s helpful!

Morning:

I’m up before the sun these days!  Partly I am just excited about my new apartment and cannot wait to have a cup of tea on the balcony with my morning pages and the sunrise.

I don’t have to pack kids’ lunches because they are at home this summer, but I still pack a lunch for my husband.  While I’m at it, I do two other things:

  • Make a salad
  • Cut up fruit

The Salad:

It’s hot and really I don’t want much other than salad these days.  I basically take this large glass bowl and just FILL IT.  I put in lettuce, spinach, cabbage, cucumbers, kohlrabi, carrots, tomatoes, green onions, parsley, chopped fresh mint, sun-dried tomatoes – just really whatever we have.  Then I cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  It will stay fresh and crisp all day like this.  I do not toss it.  I do not dress it.  Sometimes I even make segments of what each person likes, like this:

I serve it at both lunch and dinner – topped with different things like:

  • toasted sunflower seeds and pumpkins seeds
  • cooked beans
  • cooked corn
  • crumbled veggie burger
  • leftover cooked grains
  • salsa*
  • hummus*
  • tahina

*I am totally grooving on  the combo of 1 Tbsp salsa and 1 Tbsp hummus stirred into my salad instead of dressing.  I imagine I will get sick of it, but right now it’s the wind beneath my wings.

The fact is, if this salad were not pre-prepared, when it came to meal time, I might not get around to making it.  Kapish?

And the fact that it is not tossed and not dressed, makes it easy for picky children to pick around certain elements they don’t like.

The Fruit:

Sometimes this ends up being a fruit salad.  That usually happens when all the fruit becomes suddenly over-ripe at the very same instant.  Other times, I just cut up a bowl of watermelon or mango or whatever is ready.  Again, if it weren’t chopped and chilled in it’s nice bowl, do you think it would get served quite so easily?

My dears, doing salad and fruit prep in the morning before I go to the gym, is making it possible for me and my family to eat healthy this summer.  If it sounds to you like “Oh woe!  That is too much chopping in the morning!”, I promise it takes 20 minutes and is one of those things you will thank yourself for later in the day.  You could also do it at night before you go to bed if that’s how you roll.

Be strong and chop on.

The Smoothies:

At some point during the day, smoothies get made.  This is usually our afternoon snack.  Getting up pre-dawn means I’m ready for bed at 4pm. That won’t do so I have been making this Coffee Frappe to perk me up:

Coffee Frappe

1 frozen banana

1 date, pitted

1 tsp espresso powder (cafe shahor if you must know the truth)

1 Tbsp ground flaxseeds

1 1/2 cups water

Blend all until smooth and creamy.  Drink and wake up.

The kids’ smoothies are usually more like banana-flax-peanut butter-dates-and cocoa powder affairs.

The Entrees:

Basically whatever you see on this blog is what ends up on the lunch and dinner table.  (Recipe Index HERE).  But in the spirit of keeping it simple, I can tell you there are sandwiches and quesadillas or burritos normally for lunch and that dinner is a more organized cooked food deal with some sort of casserole, noodle/pasta dish, or bean/grain dish.  Plus the salad and the fruit at both meals.  Sometimes I pick up a really fresh bread at the bakery near my gym and center the meal around that with veggie dips and spreads.

Keep it simple sweetie!  This is not the time for long, slow cooked meals that heat up the house and make you cranky.

One final tip:  I am using Pinterest for meal planning A LOT.  I have gone ahead and re-arranged my boards for different dishes, courses and cooking tips.  It is truly a thing of beauty.  I am on there every day and am cooking so many new and interesting things.  You can see and follow along HERE.

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Savory Green Pea Herb Fritters

pea herb fritters, vegan pea fritters

The idea for these little delicious nuggets of greeness, came from a Hebrew recipe for Ktzitzot Afunah, which means Pea Patties… Pea Balls?  Pea Pucks?  I decided they clearly needed a re-name that makes them sound as tasty and they are.

The original recipe can be found HERE.

High in protein, fiber, and calcium, flush with vitamins and minerals, and big on taste, these little green balls will please the whole family.  Plus, they are baked, rather than fried.

Savory Green Pea Herb Fritters

Savory Green Pea Herb Fritters

Ingredients

  • 400 grams frozen peas
  • 1 cup unroasted almonds
  • 1 bunch of parsley
  • 1 bunch of cilantro (cusbara)
  • 1 bunch fresh dill
  • a handful of fresh mint leaves
  • 5 Tbsp tahina (golmit)
  • 1 Tbsp ground flaxseeds mixed with 1 Tbsp water
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 3 Tbsp potato starch
  • herbs to taste: cumin, za'atar, sumac, dried chili flakes, salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Set the peas in a colander to thaw or boil lightly and drain.
  2. Grind the nuts in a food processor until ground.
  3. Add all the herbs and grind until mixed and ground.
  4. Empty into a bowl.
  5. Process thawed peas in food processor until lightly chopped.
  6. Empty into bowl with nuts and herbs.
  7. Add remaining ingredients to bowl and mix well.
  8. Place bowl in the refrigerator and chill for 1 hour.
  9. Preheat oven to 180 C.
  10. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and lightly spray with cooking spray.
  11. With wet hands, form mixture into balls and place on prepared sheet.
  12. Spray lightly with cooking spray and place in pre-heated oven.
  13. Bake 20 minutes until lightly brown and firm.
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This post is participating in Wellness Weekend over at DietDessertnDogs.com.  Check out all the amazing recipes HERE.

and in Healthy Vegan Fridays which you can see HERE!

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