Lunch

 

We went to a VERY yummy vegan restaurant.   This was raw kale, spirulized celery root, and lots of other yummy veggies as a salad.  It had an almond cream dressing on it.  Super yum.

Pumpkin Pie Report 2

I'm making another pumpkin pie.

This time, I used my vita-mix with the same recipe.  We'll see how it comes out.  The last time, the texture, before cooking, was a little soy-grainy.  It tasted fine after cooking, but I decided to do the big bad blender this time to make sure it was smooth.

I divided the mix into 3 pans, used a little less sugar, and put chocolate chips in each pie--only one pie has a crust.  Not sure if we'll taste it tonight or have it for breakfast.  I'll add to the report when I get a taste.

Bark

This was our adventure last night. Note, this is really not healthy in any way, but it is vegan.

Kira, Natalie, and I made this last night. I like Peppermint bark, but I can do without the white chocolate, and I wanted to make sure we had a vegan version so we crushed candy canes and melted dark chocolate chips.

We learned that despite the fact that candy canes break easily when you don't want them to break, they are HARD to crush into little bits. Next time, we're going to stick them in my very powerful VitaMix blender.

I didn't measure. We crushed about 12 or so largish candy canes and melted ~8-10 ounces of chocolate chips. We mixed the two ingredients together, spread thin on waxed paper, and refrigerated. (I had more of both ingredients on hand if the ratio didn't look right, but really, you can't go wrong with peppermint candy and chocolate.) When it was cool, we broke it up into smaller pieces. YUM!

Lunch

It's a simple lunch, and I eat a variation of it pretty much everyday when I work from home.  A bowl of steamed broccoli with some topping on a tortilla.  (The girls tell me I eat too much broccoli.  Heh.)

These are my favorite tortillas right now.

Here's the tortilla (toasted, one edge a bit crispy) with white bean hummus and the broccoli.  A little salsa would have been a tasty and colorful addition.

Sometimes it's black bean dip (or tofu) and salsa with the tortilla and broccoli.

It's always the tortilla and broccoli (or kale).  (Remember, I like it green.)  If I'm at work, it's always a salad. (Pictures someday, too.)  I never get bored with my wraps or my salads. 

Garbanzo Bean Hummus

I was looking through the blog and I can't believe I've never posted my "plain old" hummus recipe.

2 (15-ounce) cans garbanzo beans (drained, but save the liquid from one can in case you need it)
1-2 lemons, juiced (usually 6-10 tablespoons depending on how lemon-y you like it; we went through a phase where we (Kira) really liked it lemon-y. Now we tend to make it less lemon-y like 6 tablespoons)
2 garlic cloves (or more depending on how much garlic you like)
2-3 tablespoons tahini
1-2 teaspoons salt (unless your beans are already salted, if so, salt to taste and you probably won't need too much)
1-2 teaspoons olive oil (usually I don't add ANY). 

I make this "doubled" all the time, so I wrote it as double, but if you don't have a lot of hummus eaters, you may want to halve it (1 can, 1 lemon, 1 garlic clove, 1 tablespoon tahini, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon (if any) of olive oil).

Note, don't bother to cut the garlic clove just stick it in the food processor and process like crazy.  I kind of dump everything in at once and process for a while. I make hummus so often, I can make it in my sleep.

Kira (8-years old) often makes it for me. She LOVES hummus. She says it is better than ice cream and she does love ice cream. Also, note, for years, I made hummus in my blender, but now I make it in my food processor.  The food processor IS SO MUCH EASIER TO CLEAN!  (Sorry, I am excited about how much easier it is to clean!)

A variation is to add in roasted red pepper... Hummus with red pepper is my favorite.  When I double this, I can pull half out for Kira and then stick red pepper in the other half and have two hummus versions for the price of one cleaning!

White Bean Hummus

2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans (drained)
2 lemons, juiced (usually 1/4-1/3 a cup)
1-2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 garlic cloves
2-3 tablespoons tahini paste
1-2 teaspoons salt (unless your beans are already salted, if so, salt to taste and you probably won't need too much)
1-2 teaspoons olive oil

Place ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth.  Chill in the refrigerator, it always tastes better to me cold.  Eat with veggies, bread, tortillas, or a spoon (heh).  I love to put it in wraps!  I should take a picture of it before it's gone, but not right now.  (Maybe in the morning.)

Nick's lunch

 

He says he just plays a vegan at home.

Scrambling

Sunday we were scrambling to get done everything! We woke up late (sleeping in is nice!), but then I was a little overwhelmed. We still managed to do pretty much everything on my list of things to do including put of the Christmas tree, make cookies, and make a yummy dinner! 

As I said, we scrambled all day--right through dinner!

Those aren't eggs! 

 

What I used:

2 boxes firm tofu
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp tumeric
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 clove garlic, minced (could be more if you like garlic)
3 roma tomatoes, diced
1 bag of organic spinach leaves
a little olive oil in the pan

Here's what you do:  Press the tofu as best you can to drain.  I only had two plates for pressing.  (I'm totally thinking about adding a tofu press to my Christmas list!) Mix in the curry and tumeric spices (careful, they can stain) until it is the uniform color of scrambled eggs!  (Note, I used my RED spatula for stirring in a glass bowl to avoid staining.)  Set aside.  Saute garlic, then add the tofu, then tomatoes and finally spinach. Make sure everything is cooked the way you like it before you add the spinach.  Add a sprinkle of black pepper if you like. 

Two of the three girls liked this.  Kira ate it without the tomatoes and spinach, and Nat ate it with the tomatoes and a little spinach.  They both liked it on toast like an egg sandwich.  Tia tried it, but didn't love it.

The inspiration for this recipe, and almost all of the ingredients and instructions came from:
http://emilysegal.blogspot.com/2009/12/day-18-sand-yoga-babies.html

Next time I make it, I'll play around with adding more and different veggies.  

Low sugar PB2 cookies

The recipe is here:  http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2012/07/hardly-any-sugar-peanut-butter-cookies.html.

Super yum.  I think that you need only 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup of chocolate chips, not 1/2 cup like I originally said.  It's a good problem to have too many chocolate chips, but it does make it hard to make the cookies--too many chocolate chips and the cookies can't stick together.  

Super fast black bean dip

When you're in a hurry for something filling, with protein, and tasty, we recommend our super fast black bean dip!

3 cans of Black Beans (BPA-free if possible)
1-2 cloves of garlic
1-2 tablespoons cumin
1.5 teaspoons of salt
~8-12 ounces of fresh salsa (like pico de gallo) but use very little of the juice.
Optional: Chili Powder, Onion Powder

Directions:

Put 1/2 a can of black beans (drained and rinsed), the salsa (without the juice), and the garlic in the food processor and process until smooth (you want to make sure the garlic is all chopped up).

Next, add the spices (cumin and salt) pulse a few times to mix them in.  Then add the remaining cans of drained and rinsed beans and process until mostly smooth.

Serve with veggies, rice, tortillas, tortilla chips, or whatever else you like.  I also love to add it to wraps.  This amount will usually last for (no more than) 2 days in our house with our family of 5.  We all love it.  It makes a super easy and fun dish to take to parties, too.