Falafel Was A Success

Happy Tuesday!  First I want to thank everyone for all the suggestions yesterday!  I think I have our meals planned out for us for the rest of the week now thanks to you guys!  I can't wait to try some of the recipes out that you suggested!  I'll keep you posted as to what Tony thought about his meals.  Last night I made Isa's Falafel from Vegan With A Vengeance, left over wild rice (spiced up a bit), and spicy corn stir fry.  This meal was a success!  Tony ate 4 of the Falafels....ha   I'd say he liked it! :o)  The corn stir fry was very good too...much better than the chewy corn that we had on Sunday night (bleh).  Here's the corn recipe in case you would like to give it a try.

1 bell pepper (any color will do)

1 tablespoon minced jalapeno

2 tablespoons olive oil (I think this would also be good with vegan butter, which I'm going to try next)

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 cups fresh or frozen corn (thawed)

vege-sal to taste

Heat oil or butter in a skillet, and saute the bell pepper and jalapeno for about 5 minutes over medium heat.  Add corn and spices and saute for about 5 more minutes, or until the corn is done to your liking. 

Last night before I went to bed I put 1/4 cup oat groats in some water to soak over night, and drained them this morning.  I chopped us up some fruit (strawberries, kiwi, and banana) for breakfast this morning.  When I got to work I mixed the soaked oat groats in with my fruit and added a little homemade almond milk.  BTW...I made some more almond milk last night....so yummy!  Maud over at FoodFeud has gotten me into the soaked oat groats for breakfast.  Hers always looks so good.  I didn't even miss my smoothie this morning.  :o)  Here's the almond milk recipe.

1 cup almonds (soaked for 8 hours, or however long you can soak them.  This batch only soaked for 3 hours and the milk turned out great)
6 dates (pits removed)
4-5 cups water (start out with 4, and if the milk is too rich, then add more water)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla

Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.  I blended mine for about 3 minutes.   Pour milk mixture out into a nut bag, held over a bowl, and squeeze all the milk out.  You can save the almond pulp to make cookies with, which is what I'm going to do tonight when I get home.  If you don't have a nut bag, you can use cheese cloth.

For lunch I made Tony a salad, but apparently he didn't eat it.  He just informed me that he had cheese pizza, because they had a sales meeting at work....at least it wasn't meat!  I had Falafel wraps and some left over roasted veggies (cold) from Sunday night.  I wasn't sure how cold roasted veggies would taste, but it was pretty good!

Tonight will be Mexican.  I like what you guys said about keeping it simple and try to make things that Tony's familiar with.  Thanks again for all the tips!

~Peace~

Making Do....

Howdy folks! So it's been a few days since I've posted anything, and that's because I have been super busy and haven't done any cooking. We have eaten out so much lately that I don't want to think about eating out...do you ever get that way? We are also in major need of groceries. I had planned on going grocery shopping last night after church, but it was pretty late and I was exhausted for some reason...probably from eating so much junk over the last few days. :) Tomorrow will turn a new leaf though as I will have a freshly stocked food in the frig and pantry....yay. I have been with out kale for 5 days now and am having serious withdrawals from it. It's hard to believe that I love kale the way I do now. It's good to see that other people love it as much as I do.

Monday morning I made a smoothie, but I was all out of fresh greens. I used some frozen spinach to replace the fresh, which I don't think I will be doing again. I wasn't a big fan of the frozen stuff. I could taste that it wasn't fresh...for sure. It's been so long since Monday, so I don't really remember exactly what all I put in the smoothie. I think it was water, frozen spinach, flax seeds, frozen banana, frozen pineapple, some shredded coconut, cinnamon, protein powder and maca powder. I drank it, but that's about all I can say for this one....not the best tasting smoothie that I've had. I think it probably would have been great with fresh spinach or kale.

Yesterday for lunch I ate out. I order the Bean Curd with Broccoli from the #1 Chinese restaurant down the road from my work. I haven't had it in a while so it hit the spot.

Tuesday night we had a birthday party to go to which was held at another steak house (The Old Hickory Steak House). I was hoping that their salads wouldn't be like the last one that I got at Dixie Castle about a month ago. It consisted of iceburg lettuce, with a slice of tomato, 2 slices of cucumber and 2 slices of onion...not much of a salad. I have to say that I was very impressed with this steak house. I was so shocked when they brought my salad out. I ordered a small Greek salad with out the cheese. It was AWESOME, and can you believe that I didn't even take a picture of it....what's wrong with me? I guess I was too busy talking and enjoying my salad. Anyway, it was made of fresh greens (no iceberg), tomatoes, red onions, olives, peppers, and cucumbers. It had a Greek dressing on it that was made up of olive oil, vinegar, and spices. Totally yummy! I got a baked potato also. Oh, we ordered some fried mushrooms as an appetizer too. Oh man...they were so good! I must make some!

Today for lunch I had a "bacon" wrap. I scrounged around in the freezer and frig to find enough stuff to make a wrap for lunch today. I had like half a head of cabbage in the frig, half a red bell pepper, and a little bit of shredded carrots. I also had some vegan bacon in the freezer and a little store bought hummus in the frig. I used all those things to make my wrap for lunch, which was really good!

That's all for today. Hopefully I will be back with some good home cooked or raw food in the next day or two. :o)

~Peace~Love~Happiness~

After the Storm Comfort Food....

Happy Tuesday! It's a beautiful day here, which is a much needed day from yesterday's storms. I had to run by the grocery store on my way home last night to pick up a few things, so I got what I needed to make Alicia Simpson's spinach lasagna from her cookbook, Vegan Comfort Food. Tony is not a fan of spinach, so I made him his own lasagna. Since I was going to be the only one eating the spinach lasagna, I halved the recipe. This may come as a surprise to you, but this is the very first time that I have ever made any kind of lasagna...yep....sure is. And, the out come was great. Of course I did follow the recipe word for word this time...no adjustments with this one. I was worried about Tony's not being good, because I just winged it on his. Thankfully he said his lasagna was good too. That was our after the storm comfort food. :o) The spinach lasagna was so simple. It consisted of frozen spinach, minced garlic, tofu, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, store bought marinara sauce, lasagna noodles, and shredded vegan cheese. I will definitely be making it again!

As usual....my morning started off with a smoothie. I did change it up a bit this morning. This time I used 1 cup of water, 2 kale leaves, 1 date, 1 small frozen banana, 1 cup frozen pineapple chunks, 1/8 cup shredded unsweetened coconut flakes, protein powder, and maca powder. It was really good! My blender didn't blend up the coconut flakes very well, but that was okay....it gave me a little something to chew on. :)

For lunch I made a couple of veggie wraps. The one pictured below is a collard wrap. I rubbed some lemon juice on the collards before I added the hummus and veggies. I saw where someone else did that and thought it sounded good (it was). I was going to make some hummus last night, but when I went to Kroger they had some on sale. I couldn't pass that up. I bought some regular and spicy pepper (spicy is the word!). Have you ever tried the spicy pepper hummus? It was on the spicy side, but it was good! Anyway, I spread a little hummus on the collard green and then added some shredded carrots, red bell pepper, cucumber, Roma tomatoes, and alfalfa sprouts. I made another wrap the same way except I used romaine lettuce. I was going to take a picture after I got them wrapped up, but both of them ended up bursting...boo! I guess I filled them to full. They sure were good though!

There's a giveaway that I need to tell you about. Aren't giveaways fun? Over at FoodFeud's place, you have a chance to win a copy of Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr (a very good book). Or, if you happen to already have that book like I do, she will bake you something and send it to you.....yeah, now that's what I'm talking about. If you have drooled over her baked goods like I have, then you just may go for the goodies. Anyway, go check it out! :o)

~Peace~Love~Happiness~

Partial Raw....Day 2

Today is my 2nd day of eating a partial raw diet and so far so good. First, let me start out by telling you how my first day went. It went pretty well, but I felt hungry all day. I'm sure this is my body adjusting to not having any "junk"! Of course, I wasn't as prepared as I should have been yesterday either. Normally I have some kind of snack in the afternoons, but I skipped that yesterday, since I didn't really have anything raw to snack on. Needless to say at dinner time I was starving. I had 2 Boca Chik'n patties with some Newmans spaghetti sauce on top and some mushroom & spinach risotto. Shen, I ate both patties this time. :)

For breakfast I started out with a smoothie, which had several new things in it this morning. First I put a cup of water into the blender with 2 collard leaves (torn apart). I put my blender on juice and blended that for about a minute (I don't have a high speed blender). I then added 1 frozen banana, 3/4 cup frozen mango chunks, 4 frozen strawberries, about a tablespoon of lemon juice, a dollop of honey, 1/2 teaspoon maca powder, and a dash of cinnamon and ginger. I changed the setting on my blender to smoothie and blended everything until smooth and creamy. This was my first time to use water, lemon juice, and collards in a smoothie. I was really afraid that it was NOT going to be good, but to my surprise....it was awesome!

I made a couple of wraps for lunch today, but ended up eating one before lunch. I had to be at work an hour early this morning (7:00), so that messed my eating schedule up. The first wrap I made was a collard wrap, which I ate at 11:00. I spread a little hummus on it that I made from my new cookbook, Vegan Comfort Food. About the hummus...as I was putting everything into the food processor, I realized that I was out of tahini. I remembered seeing a few people use peanut butter in the place of the tahini, so I used almond butter (awesome). I then added some some sliced carrots, alfalfa sprouts and cucumber to the wrap. This was the first collard wrap that I've made/had also. I'll be having them a lot more often, but with some other veggies added to it. I'm guessing that hummus isn't considered a "raw" food, but I just had to spread something in there to go with the veggies. I didn't have any cashew cheese made up, so I went with hummus. The wrap rocked!

Onto my second wrap, which I ate at 1:00. That one collard wrap could only hold me over for a couple of hours. :) The second wrap I made was a lettuce wrap that was made out of leafy green lettuce. It had some hummus on it also along with some broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, and alfalfa sprouts. Another very yummy wrap. These two wraps were inspired by FoodFeud. Maud has been making some awesome looking wraps, which has had me craving them for several days now. Mine didn't wrap up as well as hers did though. I'm sure I'll perfect them after making them about 20 more times. lol

Sorry about the picture quality of the food lately. I'm without a camera for a while, so I have been taking pictures with my new iPhone, which I just got a couple of weeks ago. I've only been wanting one for a year now...ha

~Peace~Love~Happiness~