Recipes

Lazy Sunday and a Greek Feast

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I decided to take the morning/afternoon off from blogging today so that I could relax with the husband and grocery shop and watch movies. It’s been a lazy Sunday around our house and I am happy to finally have a lazy day. This morning I started off with a bowl of oats topped with cinnamon, Sunbutter, banana and a couple drops of chocolate chips. I haven’t had oatmeal in many days and it was nice to be back in my routine.

This afternoon we did some grocery shopping and hubby requested that I make some banana soft serve with strawberries for an afternoon snack.  He sure had a great idea because this was yummy!

Ingredients:

  • 3 small frozen bananas
  • 8 strawberries
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk
  • 1T raw almond butter

Blend this all together and enjoy.  You can make this completely raw if you substitute raw almond milk.

Dinner was the exciting event of the night.  We have been trying to cut back on eating out so hubz and I decided to do themed date nights in.  Tonight we did a Greek feast in memory of our trip to Ft. Lauderdale last September where we had the best Greek food. For our feast I picked up some marinated mushrooms, artichokes, and olives.  I then made some lightened up Greek which included skordalia, hummus, oregano & lemon roasted potatoes and some tomato, tofu, onion salad with Drew’s lemon herb dressing.

Hummus

Ingredients:

  • 1T lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup chickpea liquid
  • 1-28oz can of chickpeas
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • salt and pepper
  • 3 cloves of garlic

Blend in a food processor until smooth and top with paprika and chopped olives.

Skordalia

Ingredients:

  • 1 large potato, boiled
  • 3 cloves of chopped garlic
  • 2T olive oil
  • 1T white wine vinegar
  • salt and pepper

Toss in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Lemon and Oregano Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:

  • 1 large Yukon Gold Potato Sliced
  • 1/2 the juice of a lemon and 1/2 a lemon sliced
  • 1t oregano
  • salt and pepper
  • 1T olive oil
  • 3 cloves of minced garlic

Preheat oven to 425F. Place potatoes in one layer in a roasting pan and sprinkle with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and oregano.  Place the lemon slices on top and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Now I am stuffed and am enjoying a nice pom-vodka spritzer and watching New York, I Love You. Q: What are you doing this evening?

Afternoon Coffee and Evening Tea

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After our busy morning of working out, market and cleaning we decided to spend a few hours down at the local coffee shop to get some work done.  My classes at IIN officially start May 3rd but there are a number of warm up/fundamentals classes. I decided to get a single soy latte to start.

As the afternoon went on we got hungry so hubby and I shared a bagel with hummus and tomato and a bowl of veggie chili.  The veggie chili was really hearty and filled with tons of veggies and beans.  It was filling and I spent another hour working on readings for IIN.

We returned home after a successful afternoon of school work and decided that it was time to spend 30 minutes doing a mega pick up around the house so that we could just sit and relax for the evening with a little future vacation research and catching up on Criminal Minds.  For dinner I decided to head the kitchen and see what came to me.  We had a number of vegetables that we had to use up so I created a few fun dishes.  We had roasted broccoli and mushrooms, sauteed cabbage and onions and a chickpea mash with a yummy Red Hen Rustic Roll.

The roasted broccoli and mushrooms were so easy and delicious to make! I think that this is going to be a new go to dish.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups of broccoli florets
  • 1.5 cups of baby bella mushrooms, quartered
  • 1T olive oil
  • 1T soy sauce
  • a sprinkle of black pepper
  • 1T palm sugar (you can use regular sugar but cut back by half)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F.  Toss all of the ingredients together to coat.  Place in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until broccoli is soft and tips are slightly browned.

Now hubby and I are relaxing on the couch with a big mug of Art of Tea Earl Grey Creme and a couple of Lucy’s Sugar cookies.  Q: What are you up to this evening?


Cold Rainy Days

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This morning I slept in for once and by slept in I mean I got up at 8:30 which is late for me.  The weather was gloomy but hubby and I got ourselves dressed and outside to do a little run/walk before we headed up to the winter market to pick up a few things.  We weren’t too hungry when we got up so we split a Crunchy Peanut Butter Cliff Bar before our work out.

After our workout we stopped back home and picked up our reusable bags and our empty kombucha jar so that we could return it and get ourselves a new jar. There is a lady at the market who makes a number of different flavors of kombucha and we have taken to them.  This week we picked up the memory tonic which I’m excited to try.

Disclaimer: N’Take provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

Aren’t these the cutest reusable bags?  N’Take sent me some of their reusable bags to try and I have been loving them! I love to have reusable bags with me and take these ones everywhere.  My favorite is the insulated bag because well the design is just too cute one side says Stays Warm and the other says Stays Cold.  I also just was checking out their website again and noticed they actually make the Sobey’s Compliments bags in Canada which I have tons of from when we used to live there and frequent Sobey’s often.

After our workout and market rendezvous I came home and made some brunch for us.  I purchased a big block of tofu last sunday that I’ve slowly been using this week so what better way to use it up then make some yummy tofu scramble and serve it with Red Hen Multi Grain Rolls.

Ingredients:

  • 8oz extra firm tofu, drained
  • 1/2T oil
  • 1/2 medium onion, minced
  • 1/4 red pepper, minced,
  • 10 baby bella mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 large tomato diced
  • 1 T salsa
  • 2 handfuls of baby spinach
  • 1/2t each of onion powder, garlic powder, italian seasoning, chili powder, paprika and 2T nutritional yeast mixed together with 1T water to form a paste
  • 1T soy sauce
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat the oil in a medium sauce pan over medium high heat.  Saute the onion, mushrooms and peppers until soft then add the tofu and spice paste and mix to coat.  Add in the soy sauce, salsa and tomatoes and mix together, saute for 3 minutes.  Stir in the spinach.

I topped ours with a tomato and served it with rolls and lots of hot sauce.

After our breakfast we tried to get down to business with cleaning, organizing and packing up our house.  We aren’t moving for another 2 months but we have about a million things going on in the next few months and our daily commute to work makes it more difficult to maintain our apartment.  We basically are packing up anything we won’t need to use in the next few months so that when we do move we have less work to do all at once.  This also gives us the chance to actually go through all of our things and weed out what we’ve been moving from apartment to apartment and don’t need or use.  We are planning a big yard sale in June with hopes of getting rid of as much as we can and whatever we don’t is going to Goodwill.

Q: How/Do you keep your home organized and clean? What tips can you give others?

A Yummy Day of Eating

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I know I have been pretty absent from my blog lately but I am working on getting back in the swing of things and the posts should start to flow again.  Hubby and I spent the day trying to be productive and yet relaxing and fun as well.  We started out with a trip to Plato’s Closet so that we could see how much dinero they would give us for our old clothes.  We made out pretty well so we treated ourselves to a huge veggie sandwich at Martone’s that was filled with veggies, hummus and tabouli it was massive so we got one to share, I wish I had taken a photo of it.  After a wonderful lunch we decided to go to a matinee and we saw Date Night which was absolutely hilarious!

After our relaxing lunch and movie it as time to get down to business and by business I mean shopping.  Grocery shopping that is! We picked up some great finds at Costco (greens, broccoli, mushrooms and Organicville no sugar added BBQ sauce). Then we were off to pick up a few more veggies and such for lunches.  We picked up this yummy treat to share, a little one serving container of Ciao Bella Sicilian Blood Orange Sorbeto:

For dinner I made a yummy dinner of baked BBQ tofu, roasted broccoli, green salad and garlic-saffron quinoa:

Baked BBQ Tofu

  • 80z of pressed tofu cut into 4 thin slices
  • 1/3 cup BBQ sauce of your choice (I used Organicville no sugar added)
  • 1T soy sauce
  • 3T water
  • 1t sirracha

Preheat oven to 425F. Mix the BBQ sauce, soy sauce, water and sirracha together and pour into a small baking dish. Place the tofu in the sauce and flip over a few times to coat.  Bake for 40 minutes, flipping half way.

Roasted Broccoli

  • 4 cups of broccoli
  • 1T olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • Aluminum Foil

Preheat oven to 425F.  Toss the broccoli with the olive oil, salt and pepper.  Place the broccoli in aluminum foil and create a closed packet. Place in the oven and bake 15-20 minutes.

Garlic-Saffron Quiona

  • 1 small onion, minced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/2T olive oil
  • 10 strands of saffron
  • 2 cups of water
  • 1 vegan chik’n bouillon cube
  • 1 cup quinoa
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2T nutritional yeast

In a small pot heat the olive oil over medium heat and saute the onion and garlic for 3-5 minutes.  Add the water, bouillon and saffron to the onion and garlic and bring to a boil.  Stir in the quinoa and return to a boil.  Cover and turn the heat down to medium, and cook 12-15 minutes until the water has been absorbed.  Take off the heat and fluff with a fork.  Add the nutritional yeast and salt and pepper to taste.  Let sit covered for 15 minutes before serving.

For dessert we were cravings something sweet and banana like:

Chocolate Banana Soft Serve

Ingredients

  • 2 frozen bananas broken into pieces
  • 1 T nutbutter (today I used Sunbutter)
  • 1/3-1/2 cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk

Directions

Place everything in a food processor (a blender really won’t work not even a Blendtec or Vita-Mix) and processes until fluffy smooth and softserve like.

Recipe: Vegan “Lobster” Roll

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Vegan “Lobster” Roll

Friday night hubby and I enjoyed some veggie dogs in our favorite New England (top split) hot dog buns.  Since the buns out numbered the dogs I decided to find another use for them.  Then I got to thinking what other things do you usually find in a hot dog roll? LOBSTER Salad! The sea vegetable flakes give the chickpeas a fish taste and the minced sundried tomatoes against the white vegenaise mimics the colors of a lobster roll.

Ingredients:

  • 1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 2 carrots, minced
  • 2 celery stalks, minced
  • 2T onion, minced
  • 1/2T Triple Blend Flakes (or kelp flakes)
  • 10 sundried tomatoes, minced
  • 1/4 Cup vegenaise or your other favorite vegan mayo
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients together mashing the chickpeas a bit with the back of your spoon.  Stuff this mixture into a New England Style hot dog bun because it just wouldn’t be the same in any other roll.

Creamy Miso Morel Pasta with Peas & Leeks

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Creamy Miso Morel Pasta with Peas & Leeks

Ingredients:

  • 4 servings of homemade dried fettuccine pasta (feel free to use fresh)
  • 1 oz. dried morels
  • 1T olive oil
  • 1/2T fresh thyme leaves, minced
  • 1 large leek- white only, minced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup reserved morel soaking water
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • 2/3 cup soy creamer
  • 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
  • 1T red miso mixed with 2T warm water
  • salt and black pepper, to taste

Directions:

  1. Soak the morels in water for a 5 minutes and then drain and rinse them off to remove any dirt that they may have on them.  Then soak the morels in enough HOT water to cover them and let them sit for 1 hour.  Drain and reserve 1/4 cup of soaking liquid.
  2. Cook pasta according to the directions.
  3. In a medium saute pan heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and then add the leek and thyme, saute for 5 minutes.
  4. Add the garlic and morels and saute for a minute and then add the morel soaking water.  Bring the mixture up to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 3-5 minutes.
  5. Stir in the nutritional yeast, soy creamer and peas and let simmer for 5 minutes.
  6. Take the pan off the heat and add in the miso mixture and stir until combined.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Toss the morel sauce with the pasta and serve.

Recipe: Wild Black-Eyed Pea Patties

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Wild Black-Eyed Pea Patties

  • 2 cups of cooked and cooled wild rice
  • 1 block of lite silken tofu (I used Nasoya)
  • 1/2 red onion diced
  • 1T soy sauce
  • 2T nutritional yeast
  • 1t garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 to 1&1/2 cups whole wheat breadcrumbs
  • 1/2T hot sauce
  • 1-15oz can of black-eyed peas, drained, rinsed and smashed

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Blend the silken tofu, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, garlic powder and hot sauce until smooth.
  3. In a large bowl mix together the wild rice, tofu mixture, onion, and black-eyed peas.
  4. Starting with 1 cup of breadcrumbs and mix to combine then if needed add breadcrumbs 1T at a time until the mixture forms balls.
  5. Create patties using about 1/4 cup of mixture per patty and place on a lined baking sheet and press down.
  6. Place in the oven and make for 20 minutes, flipping after 10.