I was looking back on my last few posts and well honestly they have been lacking in quantity and quality. My excuse isn’t that I have nothing to write about or don’t feel like blogging because I do…it’s just I have been strapped for time. This has been one of the craziest months for me between training, traveling, health coaching and other new adventures. I hope to get back on track in September when things quiet down (a little). I have been cooking a lot lately, we currently have a no eating out until Philly rule, but most of my meals have been quinoa or brown rice with steamed veggies. Now I think it’s kind of boring but if that interest you I can post- just let me know.
So the other thing is although I have not been blogging has much here you may have seen me around a few other places such as:
My husband and I are headed to Boston this weekend for a leisurely weekend away and I had a bunch of produce to use up. This morning I decided since I was going to be out of the house all day that it would be good to get something prepped for dinner ahead of time. We have been trying to eat high raw now that our winter CSA is over and we don’t have ridiculous amounts of rutabaga and turnip to use every week. This recipe is almost raw with the exception of the nutritional yeast which gives it a yummy cheesy flavor.
Ingredients (makes 2 large portions or 4 sides):
2 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
8oz button mushrooms, cut in half (you can also try baby bella or portobello if you’d like)
1 red bell pepper, chopped into medium sized chunks
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (if you want to make this totally raw you can omit this ingredient)
1/4 cup cold pressed olive oil
3T lemon juice
1t onion powder
1t garlic powder
1/2t salt
1/4t black pepper
Directions:
Toss the veggies with the nutritional yeast, olive oil, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper; make sure everything is evenly coated.
Spread evenly onto mesh dehydrator sheets (I used 2 in my Nesco).
Dehydrate at 115F for 1-2 hours (this helps to reduce fermentation) then turn down to 105F for at least 10 hours but you could dehydrate these up to 24 hours if you want them really crispy.
This morning I was lazy and stayed in bed a little later and by later I mean like 6:30 am. Once I finally dragged myself out of bed I decided to make a green smoothie in my new Blendtec Total Blender. Let me tell you how excited I was when I came home to this a few weeks ago. The good people at Blendtec sent me my own red Blendtec Total Blender and I am just loving it. I have mostly made smoothies and vegan ice cream it in it so far but I am dying to try my hand at making soup in it. This morning was a yummy green…er brown smoothie (1.5 cups water, 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1 small apple diced, 1 small banana diced, 2 handfuls of spinach). The best part about this blender is that I only have to push one button for my smoothie to be made (the button that says smoothie) and it does all the work for me!
I did some yoga this morning and then an elliptical session where I finally finished reading The China Study – I read a good chunk of it when I was on vacation back at Christmas but just haven’t taken the time to do much reading lately but I told myself I HAD TO finish it this week. Now I am on to working on a blog post about this amazing informative book.
For lunch I made up some of Kristen Suzanne’s “Twilight Pecan Shallot Pate” from her Entrees book. I served it up on some romaine pieces and let me tell you this stuff is sooo good I will be making it again!
After lunch I did some yoga for abs with Rodney Yee and then headed to the co-op to pick up a couple of things. To my delight there was a package on our steps from Tropical Traditions when I returned home. Once I got things put away I decided it was to make my Kitchen Sink Cookies since my husband has been asking for about a month for me to make them.
Coconut Oil from Tropical Traditions
Kitchen Sink Cookies
So Kitchen Sink Cookies are crazy easy to make the base is:
1/2 cup nut butter (I used PB today)
2 T water
2 T agave
1t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
Mix this all together and to this add whatever nuts, dried fruit or chocolate you’d like to it.
Today I used: 1/2 cup raw trail mix (goji berries, pistachios, cashews and a few other dried things), 2 T raisins, 1t shredded unsweetened coconut, 1 T pumpkin seeds, 2T sunflower seeds, and 1 T mini chocolate chips
These are best after they have set in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
Blogger Disclosure: Cooking For A Vegan Lover received these products at no cost from the company for review.
