This blog's purpose is to help make more information available to people to make choices that support their health. Plant-based nutrition is shown to have many health benefits, and I hope to provide ways to make it more affordable.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Curried Chickpeas with Coconut Cilantro Quinoa

Although more complicated than the Easy Quick Meal: Curry-seasoned grain and veggie dish I posted about before, this was really good for a whole foods plant-based dish.

I first got the quinoa going and in a separate pan, I toasted some cashews and coconut flakes that would later be added to the quinoa along with cilantro and lemon juice.

I water sauteed (see this link about healthy sauteeing- but you can use plain water) sliced carrots, chopped green chili, and garlic, plus a good amount of curry powder and a dash of Bragg's liquid aminos.  Then I added the coconut milk, chickpeas, and kale and cooked that up for a few minutes.  It was quite delicious.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Cashew Sweet Potato Cheesecake

I was looking for a way to use the natural sweetness of sweet potato in a dessert so I wouldn't feel compelled to add sugar.  I found a recipe that combines the healthiness cashew-based cheesecake (as opposed to one made of real or fake cream cheese) with sweet potato, which I imagine would not work raw like many cashew-based cheesecakes are.  I've tasted a delicious raw vegan cheesecake, which is unfortunately $7 a slice but is just as good, if not better, than vegan cheesecakes made with processed ingredients.  I also made one when I received raw cashews and other nuts as a gift, but if I had purchased all the ingredients, it still would've been expensive even if it was less per slice.  The raw cheesecake, while having some benefits of the living foods, is much more involved than this recipe which doesn't have a crust.

I liked that the recipe included some stevia, since I was also concerned about minimizing sugar.  Despite the presence of the sweet potato and the stevia, I wasn't prepared to omit the sugar, although I did use less than it called for (1 1/2 tbsp rather than 2 tbsp), and I used a coconut sugar (sourced from the coconut flower) which is supposed to be one of the healthier sugars.  I have agave nectar at my house, but I have come to suspect that most agave nectars are processed similarly to high fructose corn syrup (with even more fructose) unless it's raw, which is too expensive for me.  I'm glad I didn't skip the sugar, because it really wasn't even very sweet even with the sugar.

I had baked the sweet potato, then took off the peel and added the coconut oil to melt it.  I think the coconut oil, while I would have preferred to skip that too, gave the cheesecake a firmness that made it easier to eat and serve.  This firmness could've possibly been accomplished with lecithin or something, but I've never used that and don't own any.

I also altered the recipe by adding lemon juice of about 1/2 lemon, and frozen blueberries which I blended just a bit longer.  I baked it in a glass pie pan that I greased with coconut oil, then sprinkled with almond flour.  The cheesecake ended up a bit thinner than I thought it would.  It was less than an inch thick.  Next time I might double the recipe for one cake, but I would probably also have to cook it longer.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Is it Guacamole with Mangos or Mango Salsa with Avocado? Who Cares, it's Great.


Mangos were on sale recently, then we made a stop somewhere that had avocados on sale.  I had cilantro from some friends' garden (thanks!), so I thought now was the time for some mango salsa.  It has ripe mango, fresh cilantro, a bit of chopped red onion, a clove of chopped garlic, some serrano chili (jalapeno tends to be too spicy for me), and lemon juice.  I added the avocado and mixed it together. 

I decided since I didn't want to eat corn chips, I'd make a salad of it, so I added romaine lettuce.  It was really delicious.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The China Study's Compelling Arguments for Plant-based Diet

I had read bits of the book The China Study here and there, but I finally borrowed the book and am reading it more thoroughly.  I highly suggest checking it out.  To me it is rather validating since I have been vegan for nearly 12 years.  There is a lot of compelling evidence that more animal protein directly correlates with worse health.

At the same time, I think the emphasis may be too much on the lack of animal proteins and not enough on the presence of a variety of phytonutrients like anti-oxidants and other nutrients that benefit health that are only more recently being discovered.  All the beneficial chemical compounds in veggies like broccoli and kale for example.  Also, while the author recommends a whole foods plant-based diet, I feel that some people may feel like all they have to do is go without the animal products and reap healthy benefits.  Having been a junk food vegan until a few years ago, I know that vegans are perfectly capable of being unhealthy.  Even in the last year of eating especially healthy foods, has shown lowered cholesterol (yeah, it was actually not at an ideal level), blood pressure, and body fat.  Not to mention other benefits.  Anyway, here's some intriguing excerpts of the book's intro.  The link below allows you to read a lot more of the intro without having the book in your hands.

I will potentially change my views on the message of this book.  I know for example that it goes into depth to question whether fiber is beneficial in and of itself, whether it is part of a synergistic set of nutrients that are beneficial, or whether it just displaces unhealthy foods like animal protein (meaning the more fiber in the diet the less animal protein). 

Anyway, here's some of the book:
Some of the findings, published in reputable scientific journals has shown that:
- Dietary change can enable diabetic patients to go off their medication.
- Breast cancer is related to levels of female hormones in the blood which are determined by the food we eat
- Consuming dairy foods can increase the risk of prostate cancer
- Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, are linked to better mental performance in old age
- Kidney stones can be prevented by a healthy diet. And two excellent books have been written about reversing heart disease, even severe heart disease, with diet alone.
These findings demonstrate that a good diet is the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness. An understanding of this scientific evidence is not only important for improving health; it also has profound implications for our entire society. We must know why misinformation dominates our society and why we are grossly mistaken in how we investigate diet and disease, how we promote health and how we treat illness.

...

What we found was shocking. Low-protein diets inhibited the initiation of cancer by aflatoxin, regardless of how much of this carcinogen was administered to these animals. After cancer initiation was completed, low-protein diets also dramatically blocked subsequent cancer growth. In other words, the cancer-producing effects of this highly carcinogenic chemical were rendered insignificant by a low-protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed.  Read more.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Easy Quick Meal: Curry-seasoned grain and veggie dish

Here's a quick, easy, and cheap meal idea.  This works especially well if you have a pre-made batch of rice or quinoa, but you can cook some quinoa pretty quick or brown rice if you have a bit more time.  Although I don't like frozen veggies as much as fresh, it's good to have some frozen veggies on hand in case you run out of fresh.  My favorite for this dish is a carrots and peas combo.  Cauliflower would be good too.  You can cook up anything: garlic, onion, carrots, greens, sweet potato, eggplant, squash, etc. Tomatoes add a great flavor. Chickpeas are good in this too.

I suggest water sauteing the veggies, adding some curry powder to taste and some optional salt or Bragg's liquid aminos.  Adding extra garlic powder and/or lemon juice might minimize a desire for salt.  Stir in the cooked grains when the veggies are pretty much done, and heat until it's all hot if the grains had cooled.  You can also add some coconut milk if you have it on hand, and I especially like this with crushed cashews. 

As a general time-saver for the week, cook up a batch of maybe 2 cups dried rice or quinoa (per person) to use with different dishes.  Do this on a day you have an extra hour or so, perhaps even at the same time that you're cooking up a batch of beans, or doing housework.  You can read more about cooking quinoa here.  You should also view this article about how quinoa is becoming more expensive for those for whom it has been a staple in their diet.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Banana Ice Cream: just made from bananas!

Blending frozen bananas to make ice cream is one of my favorite food-related discoveries.  For one, bananas are one of the cheapest produce items available (unfortunately it's not locally grown).  Two, you can make a great dessert just with fruit and a food processor.  Well, actually the idea evolved from me slicing bananas and putting them in a bowl in my freezer, then eating it with nuts and/or chocolate.

If you're going to freeze bananas, you're going to want to peel them and cut them in thirds, if not smaller, then keep them in a plastic bag or container.  You can use them in smoothies, but for ice cream, you can simply blend them up with a little bit of water or milk substitute.  If you're not so concerned about the fat or calorie content, adding coconut milk and/or peanut butter is excellent.  Of course you can add all sorts of things: chocolate, carob, chopped nuts, coconut flakes, other fruits, flavorings (vanilla extract is great), etc. 

If you don't have a food processor, a blender might work.  Or, a friend of mine actually uses a champion juicer and doesn't have to add water and that turns out like soft serve.

If you have some dates, make a banana date shake by making banana ice cream and blending it up with date pieces and more liquid, adding some vanilla extract if you have it.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Arugula Salad

I got a decent size bag of arugula at the farmer's market last weekend for $2 and had to use it up.  Last night I made a salad to eat for lunch today.  I was just chopped arugula, pears, blood orange pieces, blood orange juice, a dash of coconut vinegar (I could've used apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar for a similar flavor), and crushed almonds on top.  It was actually quite good. 

Adding nuts, or seeds is a good way to add the healthy fat (which your body needs and the fat also helps you absorb nutrients from other plants), in particular the flavor of the fat, without adding too many calories such as if you used oil.  I would be using more avocados if it were easier for me to get some under $1/each.

The day I got the arugula, I made a salad with arugula, chopped apple, and a tahini dressing (tahini, lemon juice, garlic powder, water, and a bit of Bragg's liquid aminos) that was good as well.

Also the other day, I thought I'd be adventurous and try to make an almost-raw soup with arugula.  I blended arugula with water, miso, tahini, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, and dulse flakes.  That was all, unless I'm forgetting something.  I'm going to work on trying to write up recipes as I go.  This is a challenge for me, which is why I don't have more complete recipes.

Arugula is a member of the cruciferous (Brassica) family, so it's related to all those nutritious veggies like kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli, brussells sprouts, etc.  It has a very distinctive taste that unfortunately isn't as versatile as the other milder greens.  At the same time, it adds to the variety of healthy foods available.  If you get a chance to purchase it for a low price, or to sample it somehow, take the opportunity.  It might be a bit hard to find, or expensive. 

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sweet Potatoes are More Healthy and Versatile that You Might Think

I put a sweet potato in the toaster oven to bake for lunch tomorrow and thought I'd share this somewhat new appreciation for this root veggie. I don't remember when I first had sweet potatoes, but it might have been in my Whole Foods Cuisine class- part of the nutrition program at the school I studied herbalism around 5 years ago. In that class I learned that usually what they call yams here are actually sweet potatoes. It's rare to actually find real yams in stores in this country. They are root veggies, but they're not closely related to sweet potatoes.

I might have been lucky that my family never served that sweet potato dish with marshmallows and sugar (something that passes off as part of the meal and not dessert?) during holidays. Sweet potatoes are sweet, but not nearly as sweet as that dish, and is of course a complex carbohydrate- a good carb.  Plus, as I mention below, it may even be beneficial for those with Type II diabetes or at risk.

I think sweet potatoes are a great veggie to have around because they're relatively cheap compared to a lot of vegetables. I buy them at $1.99/lb. and one half-pound sweet potato is good enough for a meal for me. It's something you can buy that doesn't rot as fast as other veggies if you don't use them right away. I have found that I can eat it baked with nothing on it, hot or cold. So assuming I think of it and throw one in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 350 or 375 degrees, I can just put it in a container and eat it later, like on my break at work. If I bake it, I don't eat the skin, but if I boil it, it's with the skin on. It boils up pretty quickly if cut in small pieces- I usually slice it thinly. Steaming is probably a more ideal method so you don't lose nutrients in the water. If you cook it in soup, you'll be consuming the water as well.

You can add salsa or some other sauce or dressing to a baked sweet potato. I once made coconut chutney that was so delicious with the sweet potato. I use sweet potato in similar ways as regular potatoes. It has a similar texture and the flavor isn't so strong that it doesn't work with most things. I make a potatoes "au gratin" with a miso and tahini sauce (equal parts miso and tahini, with some water for creaminess and usually some garlic powder and maybe some dijon mustard- this is just added to boiled sliced (sweet) potatoes and not baked) and I discovered that this is good with sweet potatoes. Sweet potato can be added to curries, Mexican dishes like with beans, and in salads. Use sweet potatoes as the starchy part of a meal (instead of grains) with green leafy veggies.

According to "The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods", sweet potato has been shown to help control blood sugar levels and "improve the response to the hormone insulin" (baking may increase the glycemic index, however). It contains carotenes- more the darker the sweet potato. They have vitamin C and B6, also manganese, copper, biotin, pantothenic acid (B5), B2 and fiber. A type of protein in sweet potatoes has anti-oxidant effects as well. According to the World's Healthiest Foods website,
It's important to have some fat in your sweet potato-containing meals if you want to enjoy the full beta-carotene benefits of this root vegetable. Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes.
There's also information on that website about compounds in sweet potatoes that have anti-inflammatory effects.

By the way, the leaves of the plant are edible as well.  Also if you happen to be able to get a good portion of the stem and leaves, I was informed that you can plant the stem (where it was broken off the rest) into the ground and it will propagate.  This actually worked in my experience.  You can also plant a "sprouting" sweet potato and get a new plant as well.  I did both of these at my last garden.

See also my post on Sweet Potato Breakfast.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Eating Healthy in the Face of Fear of Radiation

Hopefully we won't have to worry about radiation, but I know that so many people are looking for Potassium Iodide to help keep their thyroid from using radioactive iodine.  Although of course I cannot make any claims about food and cancer, it makes sense to try to be on the safe side.  There's a good amount of evidence that what you eat plays a role as far as the chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

When you eat, do you just seek out food that you like the taste of and that fills your body, or do you also take into consideration what it is doing for your body?  Most people assume that health (including mental health) problems are out of their control, when in fact they might be directly related to the foods/beverages that are harming them, and/or the lack of foods that can nourish them.  When you consume food, why not make it really count?  Why spend your money on something that doesn't nourish you, and possibly even causes you problems? Do you consider that you might be drawn to unhealthy foods because of the way our tastes are intentionally manipulated by those that make/market processed and fast foods?

If, as some evidence demonstrates, healthy foods meaning whole plant foods like vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains can provide us with protection against cancer, and that certain foods might increase our risk of cancer like processed foods and excess animal protein, then isn't it worth the effort?  Isn't this the case when this way of eating can also decrease obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?

Honestly I don't know much about the effect radiation has on our bodies.  In the US, we're fortunate enough that we won't get very high amounts of it and are unlikely to get the acute radiation poisoning, or so we hope.  So if we are exposed to some of the radiation, the worst will be that we will risk cancer development 10-20 years down the line.  If we can take precautions to minimize this, why not?  Even if there's no risk of this radiation affecting us, there are certainly other reasons to maintain our health.

I hope that those in Japan affected by the radiation can look to the more traditional whole foods diet that a decreasing number of the healthiest Japanese population, the Okinawans, follow or followed.

For further information:
Listen to this video (which is from an audio version of a portion of the book The China Study): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfWSHaaPiE8
And read the book if you get a chance.  There's an excerpt here too: The China Study excerpt

Cancer Alert: Your Best Defence- Go Cruciferous by Dr. Fuhrman


This is specifically about breast cancer, but useful nonetheless: Avoiding Breast Cancer with Diet

This has some information related to radiation and healthy food: Foods For Long Life: Is The West Coast At Risk For Radioactive Contamination? How Your Diet Can Help You Avoid Radiation Poisoning.





Friday, March 11, 2011

Lettuce Wrap Bean Tacos

I was making dinner for myself, and initially I figured I'd make a bean dip to eat with carrots.  Since there was some lettuce to use up, the idea changed, although the bean dip didn't really.  I made a sort of hummus with black beans, adding nutritional yeast, cilantro, cayenne, and miso, along with the standard lemon juice, tahini, and garlic.  I decided it worked well as something like re-fried beans.  The lettuce would be a wrap, and then I decided to slice some yellow crook-neck squash ($1.99/lb vs. zucchini at $3.99 right now, and the two taste pretty similar).  It was kind of like a raw taco, except obviously my beans weren't raw, and the tahini probably wasn't either. 




I wished I had some tomatoes or something for more flavor and color.  Either way, this was pretty tasty.  The lettuce held up pretty well, although things got a little bit messy.  This was a pretty cheap healthy meal, although I couldn't tell you how much it costs.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

How I ate Kale 8 Meals in a Row

Mung beans with Kale and a lemon dijon sauce
It occurred to me that I was eating a lot of kale the past couple days and I noticed that I had had kale for 7 meals in a row and decided to go for 8 with my dinner. 

For lunch two days ago I made the Smoky Kale Soup I posted about earlier.  Then I had kale salad with dinner. The next morning for breakfast my partner made chili that included kale (I know, chili for breakfast is a bit odd, but it works).  At lunch I had leftover soup, then dinner was mung beans with kale and lemon dijon sauce (I plan to write a bit about mung beans- it's very fast to cook and goes with anything in my opinion).  Breakfast this morning was a pineapple blueberry kale smoothie, and for lunch: the last of the leftover soup.  I threw in kale with my quinoa w/ beans and tomatoes for dinner.
 
Quinoa and beans with tomatoes and kale
My quinoa bean dish tonight also had lemon juice, salsa, and pumpkin seeds added.

I actually use a bag of "organic kale salad" which includes some shredded carrots and cabbage.  It's $4.99/lb which is a pretty good deal if you use the whole thing, especially because it's pre-cut, but I think it's also cheaper than buying it the regular way, although the weight of a bunch seems to vary, as does the price at times.  I also recently found that I can buy frozen kale at $1.99/lb, although it's not organic and has more stems in it than I prefer.  However, that's what I used in my soup and my smoothie and it worked out well.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Smoky Kale Soup

Chipotle, peanut butter, and greens sounded like a good combo to me, so I made a soup yesterday by cooking then blending up some roasted bell peppers, kale, garlic, chipotle powder, a dash of liquid smoke, onion powder, and Bragg's liquid aminos in water.  While blending it, I added some fresh orange juice and peanut butter.  Then I reheated it with some frozen corn and chopped sun-dried tomatoes (I didn't realize that the cheaper sun-dried tomatoes I bought had salt added-oops). 

This is the sort of thing I would not have made a year ago, but I found it to be quite delicious.  It's good to be flexible and creative so you can use up ingredients that might go bad, and avoid forgoing a recipe simply because you don't have an ingredient.  It's fun to look at various recipes just for inspiration.  Of course if you're new to cooking or have little confidence, then it makes perfect sense to follow a recipe so you can avoid having to eat something that just didn't work out right.

Blending a lot of greens in a soup is a really good way to eat a lot of greens at once which is great for your health.  Sure, a lot of the nutrients come out of the veggies when they're cooking, but they're in the water that's part of the soup.  It's hard to stick with the recommendations to chew veggies, especially green leafies really thoroughly to get all the nutrients, especially if you're in a hurry such as on a break at work.  A soup like this, which you might even enjoy cold, is a good way to consume greens which are pretty much pre-chewed by a blender.  By the way, I do not have a Vitamix, and my veggies blend just fine thanks.  Just remember to let it cool enough before you start blending because hot liquids can create pressure in the blender that causes it to splatter out.  I saw a chef accidentally do it on a show, which was a better reminder than making that mistake myself.

I apologize for making no effort to figure out how much this soup costs, or providing a recipe.  I just threw it together and don't have a good sense of quantity to guess well.

I was thinking about putting in some sweet potato or carrot.  Since I didn't buy or roast the bell peppers myself, it is something I wanted to add, but if I were making a cheap version of this, I would probably skip that.  If I had put more thought into this, I would have put in fresh onion, but since my veggies were roasted bell peppers which were already cooked, and kale which cooks quickly, this made for a really quick soup.  Also beans would've made this good as well.

Best Cheap Breakfast: Oatmeal- Try it different ways

I determined that oatmeal is the best cheap breakfast when I figured out that buying organic rolled oats from the bulk bin provided me with a breakfast for a little over 15 cents per bowl. The oats themselves would cost me about 15 cents per 1/2 cup dried oats. Of course I don't eat them plain, so whatever I combine it with adds more to the cost. It's hard to beat that for a whole meal (even at McDonalds, ha ha). Better yet, I found that where I shop, steel cut oats are actually cheaper than rolled oats, and although they take longer to cook, I like the texture and flavor much better.

I've been experimenting with ways to eat oatmeal without adding a sweetener. For a while I was using stevia, but I'm trying to avoid relying on any sweetener. I like my oatmeal with a fruit and nut combination, like chopped apple and nuts. This is even better with some fresh-squeezed orange juice, although those watching their blood sugar levels should watch the juice.  A sliced banana is also good in oats.  Various crushed nuts or nut butters, seeds, coconut flakes or coconut milk are really great additions, just keep your fat intake in check if you're concerned about that.  Vanilla extract helps provide a nicer flavor if you're not used to the lack of sweetener.

Adding flax meal to oatmeal works rather well.  I usually buy whole flax seeds and grind them in a coffee grinder almost every morning (although I've been making more smoothies than oatmeal these days, but it works well in both). 

The soluble fiber in oatmeal (and in fruits) is shown to help with cholesterol levels. It's become one of those "functional foods" marketed to people concerned about their health but who don't take the time to just make meals out of whole foods. When people don't understand what makes food healthy, they can become victims to marketing schemes like the McDonalds'. Even I thought, "Wow, at least they're making an effort" when I saw their oatmeal advertised. But that was until I read about it.

As a New York Times blogger writes,
Yet in typical McDonald’s fashion, the company is doing everything it can to turn oatmeal into yet another bad choice. (Not only that, they’ve made it more expensive than a double-cheeseburger: $2.38 per serving in New York.) “Cream” (which contains seven ingredients, two of them actual dairy) is automatically added; brown sugar is ostensibly optional, but it’s also added routinely unless a customer specifically requests otherwise. There are also diced apples, dried cranberries and raisins, the least processed of the ingredients (even the oatmeal contains seven ingredients, including “natural flavor”).

A more accurate description than “100 percent natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”
For a quicker option, soak rolled oats (steel cut oats won't be digestible if not cooked) overnight with some water, milk substitute, or juice (or combination of these) in the fridge.  You can throw in your additions in the morning of course.  Or you could throw in some frozen fruit like blueberries with the oats the night before so their thawed by morning.  Dried fruit (avoid the stuff with added sugar) will be nice and moist if it's soaked with the oats as well.  Throw in whole raw nuts and they'll be even more digestible by morning, even though the oats will probably not be as digestible soaked as they are if they're cooked.  Nonetheless, this is a great way to have breakfast on the go.  You can heat this if you don't want it cold, but it'll add on some time.  Because I'm not real big on the texture of soaked oats, I've made a smoothie out of it which worked out pretty well.  That's not a big time saver, but it gave me a fiber-filled cheap whole food smoothie.

Speaking of soaking, if you want to try the steel cut oats, which I highly recommend, soak them the night before and that will cut down on the cooking time, just like with other grains and beans.  I haven't tried this yet, but I imagine you could cook a large batch of steel cut oats and keep the rest in the fridge to eat throughout the week.

If you're concerned about gluten, you can find oats that are certified gluten-free, but of course that makes them more expensive.  If you don't have celiac, oats may not be a problem.  Of course there are other grains you can try, such as buckwheat, quinoa, millet, etc.  Most of these are more expensive than oats, unfortunately.  Brown rice might be a good choice that's closer in price to oats.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Sweet Potato Breakfast

Sweet Potato Breakfast with sauce made from heated fresh orange juice from one orange, a handful of (frozen) blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and arrowroot to thicken it.
Sweet potatoes sliced thinly and boiled for a few minutes until tender. Topped with fresh crushed pecans.
cost: under $2
time: under 20 minutes

This is a great way to have a vegetable for breakfast, and break from grain-based breakfasts. I was trying to think of a way to make sweet potatoes for breakfast, and it occurred to me that blueberries would pair well with sweet potatoes.

I also make sweet potatoes with a miso and tahini sauce which I started making with regular potatoes but works possibly even better with the sweet potatoes. I'll post the recipe for that sauce sometime in the future.

Lunch Salad

Red cabbage, dino kale, carrots, and crushed cashews with a dressing made from tamari, ginger juice, garlic powder, and coconut vinegar. Pretty good.

Beans and Quinoa Salad with Blood Oranges

The other day for lunch we had seasoned black beans and corn, cilantro lime/orange quinoa (made sort of like cilantro lime rice), blood oranges, pumpkin seeds, and chipotle salsa on a bed of chopped lettuce (i wish i had avocado, but i added tahini for some creaminess)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Pumpkin "Pie" Smoothie

This was something I made in November. Blended previously-baked pumpkin flesh, frozen banana, almond butter, flax seed, chia seed, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Travel Foods

While I was visiting my family, it was difficult to make one shopping trip that would provide me with most of my food for that trip, and without all the things in my kitchen that I use to make my food tasty. This is some of what I came up with:

breakfast: plain oatmeal (rolled oats) with chopped dates and slices of clementine

lunch: mashed chickpeas (cooked from dried beans), chopped garlic, lemon juice, Bragg's liquid aminos, sliced almonds, wrapped in collard leaves

dinner: spinach salad with walnuts, chickpeas, balsamic vinegar, and Bragg's liquid aminos
plus  butternut squash (baked) added to a low-sodium lentil soup

breakfast: plain oatmeal (rolled oats) with chopped apple and crushed walnuts

dinner: chickpeas, butternut squash (leftovers), collards, sweet potato, walnuts, cooked in balsamic vinegar and Bragg's liquid aminos, with garlic and lemon juice