Tag Archives: Vegetarian

Side dishes, Vegetarian

Kohl-slaw!

Leave a comment
.
I work on a CSA farm (http://www.facebook.com/schoonerfarms) and this week we harvested a TON of radishes, red, pink, and French breakfast, plus I got a spare kohlrabi. I’ve never had kohlrabi before, so I googled recipes, and found this gem on the goodbowl.com which makes a coleslaw from kohlrabi, turnips, and radishes. I still had some turnips left from 2 weeks ago too. I decided while making it to make it a little more colorful, so I threw in some carrot and cucumber too!
Slaw:
1 cup shredded kohlrabi
1/2 cup shredded radish
1/2 cup shredded turnip
1/3 cucumber, shredded
1/2 large carrot, shredded
Dressing:
1/4 cup miracle whip
1 1/2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
pinch black pepper

Shredding the kohlrabi was a bit difficult, I did not know how stringy the interior was. Maybe mine was too young or too old, or I should have cooked it first?

Step 1: Put all shredded vegetables in a large bowl.

Step 2: Mix all ingredients of the dressing, and pour over veggies. Mix well. That’s it!

This makes about 4 small servings. Refrigerate before serving. The dressing is deliciously tangy, and it’s a good mix of textures. It only gets better as you let it sit. It would be a great side dish to take to a picnic or party, with fresh spring flavors. Very healthy, and vegetarian.

Bonus: My tomato plants that I’ve been growing in pots outside for months have produced their first tiny ripe tomatoes! They were amazing, and tasted like my childhood. =)

Main Dishes, Side dishes, Vegetarian

Homemade Chipotle

3 Comments
Cooking with Herbs Lavender and Lovage
Chipotle is one of my absolute favorite “fast food” places for several reasons. They encourage responsible practices, local and healthy food, quality, plus it is just dang delicious. However, even the best intentioned company makes some compromises to be large scale, and I always prefer making food myself so I know what’s in it and can control the portions. Plus, though $6.95 seems pretty cheap, more than once a month or so isn’t practical. 
Therefore, I decided to make my own version of my favorite, the chicken burrito bowl. A website called Chipotlefan.com has recipes for several Chipotle favorites. I used their recipe for the chicken marinade, with a few variations of my own. Then I made my own version of the fresh tomato and corn salsas based on memory, and the cilantro lime rice. Try it yourself, it isn’t exact, but it is close and Delicious!
 
Chipotle Chicken:

1 (7 ounce) can chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (remove chipotle peppers, skim out seeds)
2 tsp fresh ground ancho chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 tbsp powdered garlic
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 quarter red onion
1/4 cup oil (canola/vegetable/olive)
Boneless skinless chicken breast or tenders

 
Step 1: Mix all marinade ingredients in a blender/food processor. Add oil until it’s slightly pourable. 
Step 2: Poke holes in chicken, and pour marinade over chicken. Let marinate in the refrigerator for at least one hour up to 24 hours. The best way to cook the chicken is to grill it, but you can cook it in a frying pan with a weight on top as well.
 Chicken sitting in marinade
Spiced Pinto Beans:

1 can pinto or kidney beans, drained
1/2 cup water
3-5 bay leaves
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp garlic powder

Step 1: Drain and rinse the beans, pour into a pot. Add spices, simmer on very low for 10-60 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure the beans don’t stick.

 Seasoned beans

You can add a bit of bacon here too, if you have it and like that kind of thing. Chipotle has changed their recipe to make it vegetarian, so no bacon included.
.

.
Cilantro-Lime Rice:

1 cup rice
1 1/2 cup water or chicken bouillon
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup lime juice
Sea salt
.

Step 1: Boil the rice or prepare as directed. 

Step 2: When cooked, add the cilantro, salt and juices, fluff with a fork.

The rice magic makers. Lemon juice, lime juice, and chopped fresh cilantro.

 

Finished rice, ready to be mixed
Corn Salsa:
1/2 cup corn
1/4 red bell pepper
Pinch fresh cilantro
Splash lemon juice
1/8 red onion
Step 1: Blacken the corn in a skillet or grill. 
.
Step 2: Dice the pepper & onion, add to the corn with the cilantro and lemon, mix well. 
.
For extra spice, take one of the chipotle peppers from the adobo sauce and dice it up to add, or use a fresh seeded jalapeno.
.
 
Fresh Tomato Salsa:
1 large tomato, diced
1/8 red onion, diced
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
Handful fresh cilantro
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp lime juice
Sea salt
.
Step 1: Mix the diced tomato, onion, pepper, cilantro and juices. Add a grind or two of salt to taste. 
.
Refrigerate both salsas until ready to serve.
Chicken after grilling and dicing, salsas ready to go.

 

 Beans and rice, ready for assembly.

 

Finished plate. Can make it into a burrito, tacos, or a bowl.

I tore up a few large romaine leaves and put the rice, beans, chicken and both salsas on, with a sprinkle of cheese on top. It was deliciously fresh tasting! It is on the spicy side, so if that’s not for you then dial down the seasonings and forget about the chipotle peppers in adobo. For vegetarians, ditch the chicken and marinate some tofu, add some guacamole, or other grilled veggies. Enjoy!

This recipe submitted to the May 2014 “Cooking with Herbs” challenge!

Cooking with Herbs Lavender and Lovage
Healthy, Snacks, Vegetarian

Kale chips really are good!

Leave a comment
.
I am working on a CSA farm this summer, and we have begun harvesting and distribution. This week the take-home was:
  • 1 bag mixed lettuces.
  • 1 bag kale.
  • 1 carton snow peas.
  • 1 bunch radishes.
  • 1 bunch turnips.
  • 1 bunch pak choi.
  • Handful broccoli .
  • Herbs – spearmint, pineapple mint, oregano, thyme, farrow
I have been hearing so many people and blogs talk about how kale is bitter and hard to cook, but kale chips seem to be wildly popular. And they are amazingly easy to make! Then when searching recipes for turnips, I kept “turning up” (haha) mashed potatoes and turnips recipes. The pak choi lends itself well to stir-frying, add in some extra veggies and you’ve got yourself a meal! So my good (brave) friend and I embarked upon a cooking adventure to use up most of the farm food.
.
Mashed Potatoes & Turnips:
2 large potatoes, diced
3-4 turnips, diced
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter/margerine
1/4 cup cream cheese or sour cream
Garlic powder
Step 1: Thoroughly wash veggies. Dice potatoes and turnips into small pieces. The smaller the pieces the faster they cook.
Step 2: Put the potatoes and turnips into a pot and cover with water. Get to a rolling boil, then boil for 20 minutes or until soft.
Step 3: When soft, drain and place in a large bowl. Break big chunks with a fork.
Step 4: Add wet ingredients, and blend well. Add as much garlic as you like!
The turnips have a soft taste to compliment the starchy potatoes, and of course you can experiment with other milk products and butter and spices or salt. But honestly, after you get used to the first few bites, mashed vegetables au natural tastes like nothing else! And it is delicious. We both had seconds.
.
Pak Choi Stir Fry:
1 bunch pak choi
1 large carrot
~2 cups snow peas
1/2 cup broccoli
2 tbsp olive oil
Step 1: Thoroughly wash all veggies. Dice the carrots and broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Put the oil into the pan and put on medium heat.
Step 2: Add veggies in order of firmness, carrots and broccoli first, then snow peas, then pak choi for the last 5 minutes. Stir and keep covered throughout.
About 10 calories per serving, mostly from the oil! You can also steam the veggies.
.
Kale Chips:
1 head kale
2 tbsp olive oil
~2 tbsp sea salt
Optional seasonings – we did one batch with chili powder to spice it up
Step 1: Tear the kale leaves from the main stem, and tear into bite size pieces.
Step 2: Place in a bowl and drizzle olive oil, in small amounts. Toss until just coated.

Step 3: Lay in single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake at 300 for ~20 minutes, tossing once. When chips are just beginning to turn brown and are crispy to the touch, they’re ready.

Crispy, healthy Kale chips!

These chips are light and airy, but totally delicious. It’s a strange sensation your first bite, but I guarantee it won’t be your last!

Dinner fresh from the farm!
Vegan, Vegetarian

Vegetarian couscous stuffed peppers

Leave a comment
So I’m going to a dinner party, and planned to bring my old standby, stuffed peppers . However, at least one of the guests is vegetarian, and I am also trying to eat a more vegetarian diet. So I decided to get the best of both worlds, and make both! 
Veggie:
3 bell peppers (any color)
1/2 cup couscous
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup broccoli
3 large baby bella mushrooms
1/2 onion
1/2 cup diced red bell peppers
Lemon juice, soy sauce (optional)
Garlic powder, cumin, sea salt, olive oil
 
Step 1: Add 1/2 cup boiling water to 1/2 cup couscous and microwave 3 minutes.

 Step 2: Cut up all the veggies while its cooking.

 Step 3: To cooked couscous, add about 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tsp cumin and 1 tbsp olive oil. Fluff well & set aside.

Step 4:  Add a tbsp olive oil to a frying pan, and begin sauteing veggies, hardest one first. Broccoli and asparagus, then peppers and onions, and finally the mushrooms. I added a squirt of lemon juice and a dash of soy sauce too.

 Step 5: Add cooked veggies to couscous and mix well.

Step 6: Stuff the peppers with the mixture. Cook in oven at 350 for 1 hour, or a Crock Pot on high for one hour. Sprinkle with cheese if you like.
 
Tonight at the party we will see how well I did! I snuck a spoonful while stuffing though, and it tastes pretty darn good. I included some shots of my meat-eater stuffed peppers too, just to make you drool a little! =)
 


Cooking the meat and rice
Cooked meat & onions, rice, and tomato sauce stuffing!
Scooping the filling into the peppers


Mmmmm stuffed bell peppers!
 

 

Vegetarian

Vegetarian Stir Fry

Leave a comment
This is one of my favorite go-to meals because: 
a) it is quick
b) it is easy 
c) it is cheap
d) it is different and delicious every time! 
Stir fry is great because it is so versatile. Basically it’s rice and whatever else you want to put in it! I’m sure I will be stir frying a LOT this summer, because I’m working on an organic CSA farm (http://www.facebook.com/schoonerfarms) and will have a ton of fresh veggies once the growing season gets into full swing. Also, I’m trying to eat at least 2 full days a week vegetarian, for health purposes. So anyways, here is the stir fry du jour.
Ingredients: 
1/2 cup white rice ($2 for 24 oz)
2 large baby bella mushrooms ($1 for the pack)
Handfull snow peas (Free from the farm)
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped ($1 for pepper)
1/2 large carrot, shredded ($1 for 1 lb bag)
1/2 cup small broccoli pieces ($1 for a head)
1 stick celery (~1 for 2 lbs)
2 tbsp each soy sauce, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce
Garlic salt
Total cost: ~$2
 
Step 1: assemble ingredients, put oil in a frying pan on low. Boil water for the rice.

Step 2: Dice up all the veggies while the rice cooks.

Step 3: Begin cooking veggies, toughest one first. I put in the broccoli for about 2 minutes alone, then the celery and peppers, then the carrots and peas, and finally the mushrooms. It helps to add a few tbsp water and cover tightly to steam them for a few minutes.

Step 4: Add the cooked rice and sauces, fry everything together for a minute or 2, and enjoy! There are endless variations of this, you can add as much sauce and different kinds or none at all, you can scramble an egg or add meats if you like. This is also very frugal and budget-friendly because you can use up all the odds and ends of vegetables in your fridge before they go bad!

Salads

Steak salad

Leave a comment
.
In summer, everything tastes better on the grill. So when craving beef, it is only natural to want to grill a steak. I don’t have pictures of them, but I wish I did. Because I came home to a pound and a half steak that was bigger than my head!

So there was a sizable chunk left (of mine anyways) for the next day. Since I had also bought a head of romaine and I work on a farm, a salad with steak on top worked wonderfully. The farm I work on had radishes by the truckload, and some wild leafy greens that I had harvested 2 days before. Add to it the last leftovers of a veggie tray from a Memorial Day cookout, and a beautiful salad took shape.

Ingredients:
4 oz steak
2 cups torn romaine
1/2 cup leafy greens
1/2 cup baby carrots
2 radishes, sliced
Handful broccoli florets
Balsamic vinaigrette

Step 1:Place a handful or two of fresh washed greens on a plate. Put all the vegetables on top of the greens.

Step 2: Cook or microwave steak slices for a minute, add to greens, and top with 2 tbsp. balsamic vinaigrette. Tasty and super healthy!

Of course, you don’t need the steak on top if you’re vegetarian or vegan. You can also use any other kind of grilled meat you have.

Breakfast, Vegetarian

Mini quiches

Leave a comment
.
These were made for my thesis defense because it was at 10:30 in the morning and these are breakfast-like, plus I had all the ingredients already on hand. And they turned out amazing!!! The best part is, the dough is super easy and cheap, and you can fill them with just about anything.
Dough (makes about 4 dozen):
3 1/3 cup Bisquick
2/3 cup butter or margarine
6 tbsp boiling water
Fillling (fills about 4 dozen):
Crab
1 can crab meat
1/2 block cream cheese
Lemon pepper seasoning
Vegetarian filling:
4 cups shredded zucchini and squash
1 bag shredded mixed cheese
Nature’s seasoning
Custard (makes ~8 dozen):
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk or half and half
sprinkle of nutmeg
Step 1: Mix the Bisquick and butter together. Add the boiling water and mix well. Roll 1 tsp. dough into a ball and place in a mini cupcake pan. Even out the bottom using a wooden tamper or a shot glass.

Step 2:  Mix whatever fillings you are going to use. Add about 1 tsp to the dough.

Step 3: Mix the custard well. Then add 1 tsp of the custard on top. If it covers the top of the dough, it’s fine. But be sure to use a VERY tiny amount, because if you put too much dough or custard in, they will explode.

Step 4: Add cheese and/or seasonings on top, bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Step 5: Let them cool before popping them out of the muffin pans with a butter knife. Then enjoy! They are good to warm up the next day, or even at room temperature. These flew off the trays! I will absolutely be using this recipe again, and getting creative with the fillings in the future.

Vegetarian

Kidney bean and quinoa burgers

Leave a comment

Well, this one came from a combination of boredom, hunger and a determination to not go to the grocery store this week. I had half a can of kidney beans in the fridge, and some googling brought up this blog’s recipe: http://sweetbeetandgreenbean.net/2009/02/04/kidney-bean-and-quinoa-burgers/

So of course I made my own version of it.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup kidney beans
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp olive oil
Garlic salt, burger seasoning, Nature’s Seasoning, and cumin

Step 1: Add the chicken stock to the quinoa and microwave for 10 minutes. Then add the rinsed and drained kidney beans, and microwaved another 10 minutes.

Step 2: Mash the beans and quinoa together, and add the spices, flour and olive oil.

Step 3: Put some oil in a frying pan, shape 4 patties from the mixture, and fry them for about 5 minutes per side, until golden brown.

Step 4: Drain the patties on a paper towel, and man they are delicious! 

You seriously need to try this. I put a patty on a slice of whole wheat bread with baby romaine and grilled bell peppers. Seriously, try it!

Healthy, Informative, Vegetarian

Meatless Mondays

Leave a comment

 

For those who haven’t heard, “Meatless Mondays” is a newish eating trend. I’m not sure when it started, but basically you devote one day per week to a fully vegetarian day of meals. Typically Monday, but it can be whatever day you choose.

This trend has several very strong positives:

  1. Meat is more expensive than grains and vegetables, therefore eating less meat saves you money
  2. Meat is more of a burden on the environment to produce. It costs much less to grow one crop of grain or vegetables versus raise a cow or pig and butcher one pound of meat. You save water, energy, and the grain that would have been fed to the cow for one meal can now be fed to you directly instead.
  3. A whole food vegetable based diet is MUCH healthier overall for you. This way of eating lowers cholesterol, makes losing weight easier, decreases risk for cardiovascular disease and hypertension, etc.

Look it up for yourself, or watch “Forks over Knives”. I’m not saying go cold turkey vegan, but adding in more fiber-filled fresh fruits and veggies plus 100% whole grains can never be a bad thing.

Mostly because of the health benefits, I’ve decided to try to incorporate one day a week as a meat-free day. No guarantees, but I have also been making a conscious effort to add in more whole foods to every day.

Today I pulled off a meat-free day without even realizing it.

Here’s an overview:
Breakfast: 1 small slice of banana bread and a Tropical Fruit Smoothie. Mango, pineapple, banana, orange juice. Delicious and refreshing, plus it is portable. 2 minutes in the blender and I can take it with me to the lab.

Lunch was a large salad consisting of a romaine leaves and spinach tossed with 1 plum tomato, 1/2 cucumber, 2 tbsp sunflower seeds and Italian dressing. I had a side of Quinoa & Veggies

Snacks: To work I brought a baggie full of 1 cup of cantaloupe and 1/2 cup of baby carrots. They also made popcorn in honor of National Libraries Week, so I had about 3 cups of popcorn.

Dinner: I had soaked white navy beans overnight and had leftover Easter ham and made myself some Ham & Bean Soup*: At only ~150 calories per cup, you can have a bowl for dinner and another as a snack when you inevitably get hungry a few hours later!

The whole day covered all the major food groups, provided lots of fiber and nutrients, and was under 1500 calories, my ideal calorie range to maintain or lose weight.

 

*Note: going back and re-reading this years later, I just realized I said ham and bean soup is vegetarian… LOL @ former me’s writing. Clearly NOT 100% vegetarian. But hey, life is a learning process.

Breakfast, Vegetarian

Hearty Fruit & Nut Toast

Leave a comment

 

Breakfast is reportedly the most important meal of the day. I know I function best with a full stomach right off the bat. But we rarely have time to cook a well-rounded, 30 minute breakfast, enjoy it and clean up, and still get to work on time, right? So I came up with some better alternatives. You only need a few minutes to throw these together, and they are even portable (as long as you bring a napkin as well and maybe don’t mind peanut butter on your car seat…)

#1: Strawberry almond delight
Toast a piece of wheat/whole grain bread to your liking. Spread with 1 tbsp strawberry jam. Sprinkle a handful of slivered almonds on top.

#2: Elvis toast
Toast 1 piece of bread. Spread with 1 tbsp peanut butter. Top with sliced banana. (This one’s my favorite!)

#3: Mediterranean breakfast on-the-go
Toast 1 piece bread. Spread with 1 tbsp Greek yogurt. Top with thin slices of pear or grapes. Drizzle a little honey on top.

#4: Sweet treat
Toast a slice of bread. Spread with 1 tbsp Nutella. Top with sliced pear or other fruit.

These are just the ones I’ve tried, of course the possibilities are endless. Try blueberries and crushed walnuts with almond butter, or applesauce and raisins with some flax sprinkled on top.

The point is to try to use spreads which are low in fat and pair with at least 1 fruit and 1 type of nut if you can. Start every day this way and I’ll bet your mood and productivity increase, and your weight will likely decrease because you will be less hungry later on in the day!