Lunch Time

Lunch has become a very important part of my day as of late. It takes a little time to prepare and it has to be ready by 12:30 or I wont be in the best of moods. So usually around 11:45 I am thinking about lunch. For me lunch is always a salad and something else. Here are some lunches that I have been enjoying.

Lunch # 1 - Salad with a mushroom kale panini.

To make this delicious sandwich, saute the kale and mushrooms in water. Drain the water and stir in a couple spoonfuls of Daiya Mozzarella style cheese. Let the cheese melt a bit in the saute pan and mix in a bit of seasoning (I took a picture of the seasoning I used so you could get an idea of the spices used). Spread some earth balance on two slices of sprouted grain bread and then place the mushroom kale filling between the slices and grill in a George Foreman grill or in a skillet.

Here is the spice blend I used, but really any savory spices would pair nicely with this sandwich.

Lunch #2- Eggplant bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich with a chickpea salad and greens.

Toast the bread, spread on some veganaise, top with lettuce, tomato, and eggplant bacon. To make the eggplant bacon, slice fresh eggplant thinly or with a mandolin, marinate the slices in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, and some maple syrup, then dehydrate until crisp. You could probably make the "bacon" in the oven as well, but I haven't experimented with that yet.

Lunch # 3- Salad and mashed turnips.

This is my new favorite salad - arugula and cucumbers with a creamy balsamic dressing, topped with eggplant bacon crumbles and pumpkin seeds. To make the dressing, stir together some veganaise, balsamic vinegar, and a tiny splash of water.

We have been getting turnips with our CSA for a couple weeks and this has been my preferred way to eat them. Boil until soft, mash them up, and top with a little earth balance, salt, and pepper.

Lunch #4- Salad and spaghetti squash and swiss chard.

For this dish, cook the spaghetti squash in the oven (takes about an hour at 350 degrees F) and mix the cooked squash noodles with some sauteed swiss chard. Stir in some Earth Balance or olive oil and top with salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.

Perhaps this post will give you some good lunch ideas, or perhaps you will just think I eat crazy stuff. Regardless, I enjoyed all of these lunches immensely!

Kitchen Happenings

I haven't been up to much recipe creating lately, but I have been up to a lot of eating. Here are a few things that have been made in my kitchen over the last month.

First apple pie of the season.

A lovely fall dinner to cheer a bad day.

Bananas and pumpkin pie spice on my oatmeal.

"Cheezy" Chard on toast from the cookbook Vegan Yum Yum.

I also have been obsessed with a chocolate chip cookie. So much so that I made them twice this week. They are quick and easy and made with items you most likely have in your cabinet and if not could be easily substituted. Maple syrup and molasses add such a richness to this cookie, so they are perfect for dunking in coffee or hot chocolate on a cool day. So when you are in need of an amazing vegan cookie, look no further. Added bonus, they are such a soft cookie and stay soft after cooling - yum!

Here is the link. Note: the only thing I changed about this recipe is to add about a tablespoon of rice milk to the batter after you have mixed it all up. I found that there wasn't enough liquid in the recipe for my batter to not be crumbly. Only add a splash though, it just needs a little bit. The recipe on the link does address this issue and she suggests more maple syrup, but rice milk works beautifully as well.

Healthy Smoothie

Before I was pregnant, I would have a daily green smoothie. I still keep up those, but now I most often have another smoothie at some point during the day. Sometimes it's a more decadent peanut butter banana, and other times it is a chia seed and berry smoothie. Most often I go for a chia seed one for it's added nutritional benefits. Chia seeds are a complete protein and contain essential omega 3's. Oh so good for baby.

To make this smoothie, soak 1 Tablespoon of chia seeds in a bit over 1/4 cup of water for 10 minutes. Stir them a couple times during the soaking process just to get all the seeds immersed and to avoid clumping. Like flax seeds, chia seeds get thick and gel like when soaked in a liquid.

After your soak time, combine a handful of strawberries and a handful of frozen mango. Really any fruit will do in this smoothie. Frozen berries are great for a quick and deliciously cold smoothie. Toss in the soaked seeds and water as well.

Add one cup of orange juice and blend until smooth.

So good!

Here is a belly picture to leave you with. This is at 30 weeks. I hit 31 weeks today. Only 9 weeks left. I can't believe it!

Cheezy Garlic Bread and some Link Love

Last week I had some dill from our CSA that was sitting around in my refrigerator for way to long. In an effort to not let it go bad, I sought after a yeasted dill bread recipe but came up with only those involving items that I did not have at my disposal. So I turned to a basic French bread recipe and Just mixed the fresh dill into the dough. Delicious. Note that you can make the recipe vegan by rubbing olive oil over the bread instead of egg whites before putting it in the oven. I sprinkled on a little salt before baking as well.

The first night we ate one loaf with roasted butternut squash and green beans. I started reminiscing about cheesy garlic bread which I have not touched in years. Not even a vegan version. So the next night came and on the table with our pasta was this amazing garlic bread.

Cheezy Garlic Bread

1 loaf of dill french bread or just french bread

Earth Balance Buttery Spread or margarine

Garlic powder

Daiya Mozzarella style vegan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Slice the bread in half through the middle.

Spread on the earth balance to your liking. Season with garlic powder to your liking.

Sprinkle on Daiya Cheese as desired. Bake in the oven until the bread is a bit

crispy and the cheese has become melty. Enjoy!

If you are looking for a meal of pasta and garlic bread that is a little less carb heavy, use zucchini noodles. Take a zucchini and make "pasta" strips using a vegetable peeler. You can peel off the skin or leave it on depending on what you like. Top with heated tomato sauce.

Now for some amazing food from other blogs.

Banana Brownies from The Mommy Bowl (these are nut, grain, and sugar free)

Coffee Spiked Chocolate Carmel Bars from Satisfy My Sweet Tooth (I must veganize this

recipe soon!)

Black and Blueberry Sandwich Cookies from BitterSweet

Five Minute No Bake Sunflower Oat Bars from Choosing Raw

Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispy Bars from Happy Healthy Life

And some Non-desserts

Lentil, Kale, and Sweet Potato Empanadas from YumUniverse

Stuffed Mushroom Phyllo Roll from Oh She Glows (the kale salad looks awesome too)

Indian Inspired Aloo Gobi Wraps from Choosing Raw

Are there any recipes you have been drooling over lately? Please share!

I Have Learned That......

Fresh from the CSA tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos make amazing salsa.

Simple Dinners are often times the best.

Breaded eggplant and summer squash really wasn't that hard to accomplish.

Kale salad is always a welcome addition to my plate.

Tomato, basil, avocado sandwiches are so delicious, I

could eat one every day.

Homemade spiced donuts are a new favorite, and hard to not

obsessively bake.

When life gives you a bit over 1/4th cup of flour left in the bag,

why not make cake.

Washing a sink full of dishes can be quite satisfying if you are

using a brand new, unstained dishcloth.

Pizza Dinner

Every now and then we get adventurous and make a whole pizza from scratch. Usually its a last minute thing, so I look up a no rise pizza dough recipe and go from there. This time, Matt suggested early that we make pizza on focaccia bread. So with enough time before dinner to let the dough rise for an hour, I whipped up our favorite recipe. That recipe happens to come out of a Cuisinart promotional cookbook that we received in a goodie bag when registering for wedding gifts about 5 years ago. I don't think I have ever used any other recipe in that book, but that one is a winner. It is a basic focaccia dough, brushed with olive oil, salt, pepper, poppy seeds, and red pepper flakes, topped with thin sliced onion and baked to perfection. So good!

This is a little bit different take on that recipe. So grab your favorite focaccia bread recipe and get started on this pizza. You will be glad you did!

After the dough is made and risen, press it out into a 1/2 inch thick circle, on a pizza stone or pan. I only made half of my recipe, so depending on how much dough you have made you can make two pizzas, or make some bread sticks out of the remaining dough.

Brush the dough with olive oil and season to your liking. For this pizza I used red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano. In a saute pan, slow cook onions, peppers, and mushrooms with a drizzle of olive oil so that they can caramelize a bit. Depending on your patience you can totally caramelize them, or just partially caramelize them if you are in a hurry to eat. I was :). After they are cooked to your liking, spread the vegetables evenly over the dough.

Top with some thinly sliced tomato.

Then bake it for about 12 minutes at the temperature your focaccia bread recipe suggests.

Slice and Enjoy!

Chocolate Pudding

Shocking is the day when Matt comes home with a bunch of avocados, and even more shocking is the fact that he intends to eat them. Avocados are definitely not an appealing food to him, they smell funny, they aren't pleasant tasting, etc. I on the other hand love avocados and would eat them all the time in a number of ways. The other night I made some chocolate pudding in the blender for our dessert. I knew Matt didn't like avocado, but I figured the taste would be masked enough by chocolate, and sure enough he was hooked. As a result there has been a lot of pudding consumption going on. Please note that this is the only way Matt will ever eat avocado.

Healthy Chocolate Pudding

serves 1-2

1 avocado

1 banana (2 if your bananas are small)

a couple spoonfuls to 1/8 cup cocoa powder or more or less if desired

4-5 dates, soaked in warm water for 1/2 hour or more, seeds removed

(alternatively use maple syrup to sweeten)**

non dairy milk of choice or water

Toss the avocado and banana into the blender along with the soaked dates (or maple syrup) and cocoa powder. Add just enough liquid for blending, being careful to not make the pudding to runny. Blend until smooth. Top with fresh fruit of your choice and enjoy!

**I have only used dates to sweeten the pudding once. My blending did not blend them smooth, so we had chunks of date in that pudding. Maple syrup ensures that your pudding is silky smooth.

Try pouring some pudding into popsicle molds. It makes a delicious pudding pop!

Here is a 22 week belly bump picture (I am now 24 weeks). Our little girl is growing like crazy and we are starting to be able to see her move when we look at my stomach. Tonight we were playing music for her to see if she would dance. She moved around a bit, but when we played her Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins she was totally still. Perhaps it should go on her "Go to Sleep" mix.