First Meal from The Kind Life- Success!

The other night I tried my hand at a recipe from Alicia Silverstone's book, The Kind Life. I made the Ginger Zucchini Pasta. It was so simple, clean, and awesome! It has an Asian-y taste because of the Shoyu and ginger. The recipe makes two servings so it was perfect for dinner and then breakfast the next morning. I will definitely be adding this to my regular weeknight rotation.

It isn't super colorful since it is primarily whole wheat pasta, tofu and zucchini, but it is colorful in your mouth! The next time I make it I will probably have a side of veggies or a salad, for more color, but as a quick, healthy, filling meal- it is a hit!

Grrrrrrrains!

I’m getting busy with the whole grains!

Quinoa with apples, agave, spices and soy milk- where have you been all my life?

I had some cooked quinoa in the freezer (it held up quite well) that I wanted to use up. I also wanted something quick to put together last night to take with me to work this morning for breakfast. So I put about 1 cup of quinoa in a pyrex bowl, added a giant chopped Jonagold apple, about a ½ cup unsweetened soy milk, about 3 Tbsp Agave syrup ( I went a little crazy with this on accident- but it was nice and sweet!), and some ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. When I got to work this morning I heated it in the microwave and the apples got nice and soft. It was seriously good!

 you can always click on the photos to see a close up

For lunch I got inspired by The Kind Diet’s ‘Clean Mean Burritos’. I had some simple black bean soup leftover from lunch a couple days ago, so I strained a ½ cup of the beans, added a ½ cup brown rice, and then some chopped veggies- romaine, jicama, red pepper, radish sprouts. I drizzled all of this with some of my sesame vinaigrette and wrapped it up in a warmed Ezekiel tortilla. Hearty, filling, yum. I don’t know if I could ever get tired of rice and beans and their infinite possibilities!

 The beans are there in the middle and the rice is at the bottom.

Usin' up the leftovers and last bits!

Seriously delicious food day today. My meals today were a combination of food inspired by The Kind Diet (lots of whole grains, veggies, non-processed foods) and leftovers (which is also very 'kind diet-ish' as Alicia advocates using up everything and getting creative with leftovers!).

I started my morning with some oolong tea. Coffee just sounded icky to me today. But the oolong has just enough caffeine since it is a mixture of green and black teas.

For breakfast I had brown rice and a mashed sweet potato. I put a tiny bit of Earth Balance and cinnamon on the potato. I cooked the rice using the 'excess water' method, where you cook it like pasta and drain when it's done. Turned out awesome and it only took 30 minutes instead of 45! I added a tiny bit of soy milk to the rice and kind of mixed the two as I ate. This was so delicious! I also had a cup of Morning Thunder tea after breakfast. This had a good amount of caffeine and I still wasn't ready for any coffee. It was also my last bag of Morning Thunder.

For lunch I had a sandwich with the last of the mock tuna salad I made last week on Ezekiel bread, and a yummy salad of romaine, purple cabbage, jicama, red bell pepper, radish sprouts and zucchini, with a sesame vinagrette I whipped up last night (olive oil, sesame oil, rice vinegar, dijon, agave, salt).

I didn't eat all the salad and later I got hungry and used the leftovers to make a wrap with an Ezekiel tortilla as my afternoon snack. I had a third cup of tea this afternoon- Tummy Mint. (keeping with the theme, it was my last bag of Tummy Mint, too.)

not wrapped up yet

wrapped up 

After hitting the gym for some light cardio and a stint in the sauna (still 'detoxing' :)), and to bring the day to a close, I had the last of the Pumpkin Pasta from last week (cannot wait to make it again!!) with some cubed extra firm tofu and cubed zucchini thrown in. I added these items at the last minute so they would heat through, but so that the zucchini would stay mostly raw and crunchy. Yowza- it is still sooooo good!

 there is a hunk of ginger root in the background... 

I think I have finally fully recovered from my rowdy weekend!

Pumpkin Pasta Perfection!

Breakfast, lunch and snacks were the same today as Monday (except I didn't make juice and ended up super hungry all morning!). 

So- check out my new lunch tote bag: Smurfs! Only a buck in the $1 section at Target. It is the perfect size, just big enough to carry my breakfast and lunch and snacks to work and it is washable! I feel like I seriously scored with this find. My 7^th birthday party was Smurf-themed and I have always been a fan!

I also recently received a $50 Target gift card as a thank you for my roll on a project at work and I used it to purchase a variety of sizes of covered Pyrex dishes- to house leftovers in the fridge and freezer and to bring my meals to work. I got rid of all my icky semi-disposable plastic storage containers (recycled the ones my city program will except) and couldn’t be happier about my new containers. 

Another random tidbit- I donated blood last week. It was the first time since I have gone veg and guess what? My iron was higher than it has ever been in my blood-donating years! In fact, the last time I tried to donate when I was still eating meat- I got rejected because it was low! Take that people who freak out that I’m not getting enough protein or iron!

Now on to food: I made some seriously delicious Pumpkin Pasta for dinner tonight. I got the recipe from this post at The Palatial Palate. I subbed out whole wheat rotini for the penne since I had it. I also added two tablespoons of raw sugar because I like even my savory pumpkin dishes a little sweet. I also added the juice of one key lime to brighten it up a touch. Other than that I followed the recipe and it was super easy and I wanted to eat more, more, more!! I restrained myself though... I will have it again for dinner tomorrow- I think I'm going to have it for breakfast tomorrow, too! I'd eat it for lunch but I have a lunch date. :)

I Like These...

I have had a crazy stressful day... without going in to too many details, I'm on a crazy deadline at work and also, some jerks at work decided that our resident kitties are causing an odor issue and they have to go, and I could go on. But I won't.

Instead I'm going to talk about my new favorite treat! (sorry this is a bit of a MOFO cop out, as I'm not talking about something fabulous that I made...)

Turtle Mountain's So Delicious Banana Split Mini Sandwiches. They are tiny non-dairy ice cream sandwiches made with coconut milk. They look like Neapolitan sandwiches, but the flavors are strawberry, chocolate and banana! At first I was like, "oh- it is so teensy. I'll have to eat three!" But really, one is enough because they are very rich! You can still taste a hint of coconut in each flavor, which I LOVE! Coconut is one of my favorite things.

They only have 100 calories each (2 Weight Watchers points) ;) and are the perfect end to an evening. When my stressful day is done here in about 3 more hours... I'm going to have one!

Asking for What You Want... Not as Scary as I Thought!

When I go to a restaurant- which is pretty often- I have been hesitant to ask for special changes to menu items to veganize them. I will order something that is already vegan- like a roasted veggie salad or pasta marinara. I have asked for cheese to be left off or a vinaigrette dressing to be subbed for a creamy one, etc., but that had been the extent of special requests, until tonight.

We went to one of my favorite restaurants- a quaint, local Italian place with a live accordion player on Friday nights! I just love it there, but generally order the one item that I didn't have to make many changes to, except ask them to leave off the parmesan. The problem was, this dish is just spaghetti with LOTS of olive oil, a few red pepper flakes and garlic. It is REALLY oily and pretty overpriced for what it is...

So tonight I asked for the thing I always want to order- with a pretty small change- but was kind of afraid to ask for before. The original dish is penne with fresh veggies in Alfredo sauce. I asked for marinara to be subbed for the Alfredo and any and all parmesan or other cheese to be left off. The waiter was like, "no problem!!" And the dish came out perfectly- tasted delicious (I have more than half left over for lunch or dinner tomorrow)- and was such an easy adjustment for the kitchen to make.

I was really proud of myself and now feel more empowered to ask for what I want.

Coming Up...

This week I plan to post some pics of a yummy cheese-less pizza I made, my first experience with seitan, and I'll probably rave some more about tofu, tempeh, and Sweet & Sara's Peanut Butter S'mores. :)

Fruity Slaw

I'm a huge fan of exotic slaws! I was never the biggest fan of regular coleslaw- mostly because I was never a fan of uber mayonnaise-y stuff. But gimme a slaw in a vinaigrette or an interesting asian-y sauce and I'm all over it!. I like to make slaws with broccoli-slaw too, just a side note there. These pics are of the Fruitful Red Slaw from Vegan Express- I forgot to get pineapple or mango at the store so I used golden raisins. It also has red cabbage, granny smith apple, shredded carrots, toasted sesame seeds and the dressing is a simple mix of lime juice, olive oil and sesame oil.

I'm eating this with veggie potstickers this week and also with BBQ roasted tempeh and veggies.

Here's a pic with the potstickers drizzled with a sweet-hot mustard/teriyaki sauce: