Wow, almost had to re-learn how to post on my own blog. Sorry it's been so long, life has been a bit crazy. The good news is that I'm still following my plant based diet. I've now lost 45 lbs. and feel WONDERFUL!! Of course, there are some new problems to contend with, the first being that my clothes are waaaay too big! I keep punching holes in my belts and cinching things up further but we are finally to a point where I need to look at getting new clothes. Nice problem to have! On a side note, one of the recent recipes I tried and really enjoyed was a recipe from one of the McDougall books for strawberry syrup. The syrup can be used over pancakes, ice cream or for dipping other fruit. Whatever it's use....it's good stuff! Here's the recipe: Servings: Makes 2 cups Prep Time: 5 minutes Cooking Time: 6-8 minutes 1 cup unsweetened apple juice 1 cup sliced strawberries, thawed frozen or fresh 1 Tbsp. corn starch Directions: Pour the juice into a blender and add 1/2 cup of the strawberries. Process until smooth. Pour into a saucepan. Add the cornstarch and stir until well mixed. Cook, stirring until thickened. Add the remaining strawberries. Heat through and server warm. Enjoy!
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My buddy Mike (who is also on a plant based diet) brought in some enchiladas that he promised fit the diet. I tried them and was astounded how wonderful they were. I finally decided to take my own stab at enchiladas, and indeed, with a few tips from Mike, they were wonderful! The main key to the enchiladas is a wonderful ground beef substitute called Smart Ground. Not sure where all it is sold but we found it at Fresh and Easy here in Bakersfield (Update: Lassens also carries it). This product can be used as a ground beef substitute in any recipe and does a wonderful job in these enchiladas. (Thanks Mike for the Smart Ground tip!!). Prep time: 25 min Servings: 4-6 Ingredients: Enchilada Sauce
Enchiladas
Instructions: Enchilada Sauce
Enchiladas
Note: Modified recipe from McDougall book. Last night I asked Cari what she was making for dinner and she said, "White Bean Chili". Now normally, the White Bean Chili has chicken in it. Cari started thinking and said, "How about if instead of chicken I use tofu and then you can have it too!" I, of course, agreed and it was delicious!! Here's the recipe..... White Bean Chili Prep time: 10 min Servings: 4-6 Cook Time: 30 min Ingredients:
Put white bean chili and tofu into a skillet (we use our electric skillet) Add enough salsa to turn the liquid in the skillet a little red (1-2 cups) Bring to a simmer for about 30 min. Today is a "Western BBQ" here at work. Something fun to do to break up the daily routine. Each department was given food they needed to bring. Our responsibility was to bring rice and beans type dishes. Thankfully, the dear lady that organizes this thing recognizes there are more and more vegetarians at work (yes, some were already here and some are my converts!) so she put on the bulletin to make sure each department brings at least one vegetarian dish. I wanted something relatively easy but also something I had not tried yet. So, I dug through the McDougall book (one of my favorite books) and found this recipe for Spicy Spanish Rice. It has some green pepper, onion, garlic and a few other seasonings and to give it a kick, a little Tabasco sauce. See the recipe below.... Spicy Spanish Rice Prep time: 15 minutes Servings: 4 Ingredients:
Instructions:
A couple of weeks ago, my dear bride went away for the weekend on a scrap booking retreat. To please her fellow cult members (oops, I mean scrap bookers), she made fresh cinnamon rolls to share with the other ladies. She then left, with the cinnamon rolls and only left the wonderful scent of the cinammon rolls behind in our house. The kids and I were a bit dejected, even though I knew I couldn't eat the cinnamon rolls because of my diet. So, I set out to make cinnamon rolls that WOULD work with my diet. I found a recipe for whole wheat cinnamon rolls and with a few adjustments, was able to produce my own fresh, whole wheat, NO OIL cinnamon rolls. The first picture is the bread rising. The second picture is the finished rolls cooling. The last picture is one, yummy cinnamon roll. Here's the recipe (which can also be found in the "recipe" links in the upper right. Cinnamon Rolls Prep time: 3-4 hours Servings: around 30 rolls Ingredients: Dough Ingredients 1 cup water 2 Tbsp yeast (4-1/4oz packets) 2 tsp. honey 2 1/2 cups non-fat soy milk 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (butter replacement) 1/2 cup honey 4 tsp. Braggs Aminos (salt replacement) 8 cups whole wheat flour Ingredients for the “ innards” of your cinnamon rolls: 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (butter replacement) 3/4 cup Splenda (you can use white sugar if you want) 2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon Melt your butter and set it aside. Mix together the rapadura and cinnamon in a bowl. Ooey-Gooey Frosting 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce 6 Tbsp. milk 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla 8-9 Tbsp. powdered sugar to make the consistency you like (or more) Stir in apple sauce, vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. Whisk together until smooth. Instructions: Okay, here’s how to make the dough… In a large bowl, mix 1 cup very warm water, 2 T. yeast and 2 t. honey. Stir this together and kind of mush the yeast around. Let this sit for a few minutes while you do the next step. In a saucepan, add 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup honey, 4 t. salt and 2 1/2 cups of milk. Heat this to 120 degrees. Pour milk mixture into yeast mixture and stir. Stir in 8 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time. (add more if you need it) Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes. Plop it into a bowl, cover it and let it rise for 1-1 1/2 hours. After dough is nice and fat, punch it down and knead out all it’s bubbles. Cut the dough in half, setting one half aside. On a well floured surface, roll dough into a nice big rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Use a pastry brush to spread 1/2 of the applesauce all over the rectangle. Sprinkle 1/2 of the cinnamon/splenda mixture all over the applesauce. Roll up the dough. Cut into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick. Place rolls side by side on baking pan. Repeat process with other 1/2 of dough. Allow dough to rise about 30 minutes. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown at 350 degrees. Allow rolls to cool a bit, then drizzle lots and lots of ooey-gooey frosting all over them. I've been needing some little thing to have after my meals to satisfy my sweet tooth. I found a neat little recipe from cooks.com that fit the bill nicely. I had to make a few adjustments to the recipe, but the cookies came out great! Here's the recipe (can also be found in the "Recipes" link in the upper right hand corner): Whole Wheat Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Prep time: 15 minutes Servings: makes about 25 cookies Ingredients:
Instructions:
First, a big THANK YOU to Brandy (fellow vegetarian and Pepperdine Alumni) for sharing this with me. When she found out that I was officially vegetarian she past on a link to a wonderful summer treat. Ice cream.....made from frozen banana. The recipe is super simple and easy to adjust. First, peel a banana and then throw it in a ziploc into the freezer. Let it freeze overnight. When the kids got home from school Friday, we were ready for a treat. When you are ready to use the banana, throw it in a good blender or food processor until it is the consistency of your typical ice cream. Some cool variations that I did with the kids....for Tristan, added some vanilla extract to make it more like vanilla ice cream. For both girls, we added peanut butter. There are many options....try adding frozen blackberries, blueberries, mango, strawberries, etc. to get the flavor you want. You could even add chocolate to get chocolate flavored ice cream. Very simple and cool summer treat!! Thanks again, Brandy! I love trying new recipes because it's always an adventure. I grabbed this recipe because it looked quick and easy and I wanted some leftovers. This recipe is from the McDougall cookbook that has 100's of quick and easy recipes. Prep time was listed as 15 minutes with cook time about 20 minutes and that was pretty accurate. The bulk of the prep work is chopping up the onion, bell pepper and hot dogs (Smart dogs....no meat!). The only variation I made to the recipe is to double the cayenne pepper because I like a little kick in my food. Overall it was pretty good. The extra cayenne definitely gave it the kick I wanted. Flavor was pretty good and I'm looking forward to the leftovers. My dear bride even tried it and said, "I could eat that!" which I believe is a compliment to the food.....I think. Prep time: 15 min Servings: 6 Ingredients:
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