Thursday, July 5, 2012

Vegan Lettuce Wraps

This is always such a good summer food and being in the hot Texas weather only makes me want to eat lighter.  Lettuce wraps are light, easy to eat and delicious. They make a great snack, meal or party munch.

Ingredients:
  •  Cashews
  •  Tempeh
  •  Stir-Fry Sauce
  •  Ice berg Lettuce
  •  Shredded Carrot (Shredded)
  •  Green Onions
  •  (Diced)

 Heat skillet over medium high heat. Add cashews. Toast cashews until lightly brown, stirring several times. Remove cashews from pan.

Add small amount of vegetable oil of your choice. Remove tempeh from package and dice into manageable bites. Add tempeh to pan.  If you want extra sauce for dipping or drizzling, add to the skillet while marinating.

Add stir-fry sauce and cashews and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is absorbed

Remove leaves from the head of bibb lettuce, rinse and pat dry if necessary. Stack smaller leaves inside larger leaves for added wrap strength, if desired


Spoon tempeh mixture onto each lettuce stack and top with shredded carrot and green onions.  

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Cleansing Cocktail

Well all, I come before you now, for the first time as a married women!  We are so excited and so happy to start this new chapter of our lives together.

After a week of eating out with family and drinking cocktails and beers I really need a break!  Sure it was all vegan but that doesn't mean it was good for me.  So its time for my favorite thing:  Juice cleanse!  So here I am pumping myself up with the movie Fat Sick and Nearly Dead and drinking a new kind of cocktail.

The Cleansing Cocktail:
Apple
Beet
Small piece of Ginger
1 Juicing carrot or 2 regular

Add all of these into juicer one at a time in the order listed above.  Enjoy!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Quick Thai Slaw

Ready for those nice cool summer salads?  Me too!  Here is a new favorite of mine.

Ingredients:
1/2 head of red cabbage
1/2 head of white cabbage
2 carrots grated
4 tbsp veggie broth
4 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp Peanut butter

Lime wedges and crushed peanuts as garnish

Whisk together broth, vinegar and peanut butter until smooth and creamy.

Toss with cabbage and carrots until coated.  Add additional garnishes before serving cold.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Crispy Rice Balls

So this was inspired by one of my favorite places to eat it Austin.  Sadly I live in San Antonio and there are only so many times I can justify driving the hour to Austin for the soul purpose of eating, so I am trying to figure out how to do some of these recipes on my own.  

Ingredients:  

Sticky Sushi rice- about 1/3 of a cup cooked per ball
1/2 cup of Soy Sauce
1/3 cup Rice Vinegar
1/4 cup of Sesame Oil. 
Piece of sea weed paper large enough to hold one of the rice balls each 

Steam rice as directed on the package.  Once it is finish let cool until it is cold enough to handle but not entirely cold.  Form the rice into tight balls, pressing them together hard so that they will not fall apart when put into pan.  You want these to have a flat top and bottom so that they can be evenly coated

Whisk together the liquid ingredients and pour into a pan over medium to high heat.  Once the liquid is close to boiling, carefully place rice balls into pan, turning them to coat with liquid.  Cook for about three minutes on each side.  

Drain off most of the excess liquid from the pan and put the pan back on the stove.  Continue to turn the rice balls in pan so that they do not stick.  Cook until both sides have a crisp texture.  Remove from heat.

Place each individual rice ball into a piece of sea weed paper and serve almost like a wrap. 

Enjoy while hot.  

Cinnamon Bun Smoothies

Here is a nice sweet smoothie recipe packed full of yummy banana!  Perfect for breakfast or as a sweet cooling snack.
Makes 2:

2 frozen bananas
2 cups of none dairy milk
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients together in blender and blend well.  Feel free to use some extra ground cinnamon for a garnish as seen in the picture.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Stuffed Mushrooms

So I just have to say that Mushrooms are with out a doubt one of the best foods ever.    In our package from greenling yesterday we got a half a pound of these beautiful button mushrooms.  They were so perfect; white and moist but still firm.

I decided to make this recipe for lunch and I hope that you enjoy it as mush as we do!

Ingredients:
- Baby Bellas or Button mushrooms
- 1 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs (Fresh is better)
- 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
-1 clove of garlic, pressed
-2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
-1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 1+ Tbsp nutritional yeast
- Lemon juice to taste (optional)

If making your own bread crumbs, process about 2 slices of whole wheat bread in a food processor.   This makes about 1  cup of bread crumbs.    Set aside. 


Remove stems from mushrooms and chop them right up.  Toss mushroom tops lightly in 1 tbsp of olive oil and place on backing sheet.  Heat the rest of the oil in a pan over medium high heat.  Add garlic, onions and chopped up stems and sauté for 7 minutes.  Stir in salt, and then bread crumbs, basil, and parsley.


Evenly distribute mixture to mushroom caps.  Bake for 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your mushroom caps and any considerations that your oven has.  Keep an eye on them that they don't get too brown. About five minutes before time is up sprinkle a tiny bit of nutritional yeast over the open and return to oven.  Remove and sprinkle with lemon juice.    Serve with a fresh salad or as a passed appetizer, and enjoy!  


Friday, March 2, 2012

Greenling

I feel as though I need to confess something.  Its something that you have probably noticed and something I am ashamed of:  I have not been cooking as much.  Working at a restaurant does that too me because I get free food every shift I work there.

I am so ashamed.  I hate not cooking my own food.  So in an effort to remedy this I have turned to a source that a friend recommended to me:  Greenling.com .

Greenling is a website that brings the local farm to your doorstep.  Forget that for a moment the whole organics argument.  I hear from people all the time that they are just to busy to go to farms markets and support their local agriculture and food economy.  

Well, that is just plain not an excuse anymore!  Greenling is a website where you can place an order of fresh everything (Including dairy and meat if you are so inclined), they will go to the local farms and pick it up, package it for you and then deliver it right to your doorstep!

Now I know what you're thinking.  That there must be something wrong with it.  Its not totally cheap but if you've already graduated over into the health world you know that no matter where you go nutritionally dense food is expensive.

But could it possibly be good quality?  When you're at the super market you get to pick what looks good and what you're going to skip on. I don't know about you but if I walk into the market ans see something I don't like, even if it was on my list I skip it.  And I'm pretty picky.

So lets get to my review.   Here is a picture or two of my box when it arrived.

As you can see the box stuffed with yummys.  The van was refrigerated so everything was cold and crisp and the brochure said it would keep everything inside cold for up to four hours if you were not there to pick it up.  The man that dropped it off was named Robert and he was so nice!

The box itself is ten dollars when you order added on but they are recyclable.  When another order is made you leave the box outside of your door and they will pick it up.  Even if you are not going to be using them again you can schedule a free pick up for the containers.

The food inside it was packed perfectly!  I was so impressed.  Nothing was crushed or under anything it shouldn't have been.  the mushrooms were in a brown paper bag exactly like they should be.  I am so excited to eat it all!  The Kale was still crisp and perfect along with the lettuce.  I am very picky about my leafy greens so it says a lot when I say that they are perfect.

Also in the box since it was our first delivery were two bumper stickers and a welcome brochure.  I know that this is a marketing thing but you can be sure that I will be putting the "Beets Driving" on my car because it is so darn cute!
Also, on the back of my packing slip was a note saying "Packed with Kale :) Jamie."  I found this so sweet and personal that I cant help but feel a personal connection to this company.

All together I am more then satisfied with this order and I will be using this service again. I would recommend it to everyone.  A huge thanks to Jamie and Robert who made this all the more personal and won huge brownie points for this company.