Summery wild rice and lentil salad

Yesterday, Sam made a tasty concoction that really hit the spot. So much so, I had it for lunch again today.

Basically, it is a wild rice and black lentil salad with the following raw ingredients, diced fairly small: cabbage, carrots, celery, jicama, red onion, red pepper, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. He cut up and deseeded a zucchini and steamed that with the lentils for about 5-10 mins. Mixed altogether with a red wine vinaigrette.

Vegan pizza

One of our favorite places to eat here in Athens, OH is Avalanche Pizza. They have some of the most inventive and delicious combinations of pizza, they use local ingredients when possible and have an organic tomato sauce that is awesome. I thought since we were going vegan that a good pizza would be out of the question. I was wrong. The "I Was A Teenage Vegan Werewolf" pizza is their signature vegan pizza.

"Our Famous Hearty Spelt Crust, topped with Freshly Blended Marinara, Fresh Baby Spinach, Hand-diced Red Onion, Plump Marinated Artichoke Hearts, Sweet Roasted Red Peppers and Fresh Sliced Mushrooms. Pizza comes without cheese." - Avalanche Pizza

Give it a try - a spelt crust mean gluten-free!

Sushi and salad

Simple meal tonite. Just sushi and a salad. The sushi has cucumber, carrot and avocado. The salad is red leaf lettuce, cucumber, avocado, kiwi, jicama and celery with a dijon mustard vinaigrette.

Also, made some new vegan peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies last night. Added a banana and coconut flakes for texture and binding. They were AWESOME!

PANCAKES! with pear, coffee and maple syrup

Yes, even pancakes can be vegan and delicious! I found an awesome recipe and of course had to tweak it a little. The recipe is as follows:

1 cup flour (I used whole wheat flour, which made them a bit more dense)
1 tablespoon sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup soymilk (I used So Delicious Coconut Milk)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
I added 1 large mashed banana, for binding and taste.

Directions:
Prep Time: 5 mins
Total Time: 15 mins

Set out all your ingredients.
Set a stove element with a pan to medium heat. Or if you have a griddle, crank that baby up!
Combine the 3 dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) in a bowl.
Add the sugar, soy milk and vegetable oil to your mixture.
Mix until smooth.
Now the pan should be ready for your batter, so spoon one pancakes' worth of the mixture into the pan.
Flip [carefully] when you see bubbles in the middle of the pancake, or if the edges are looking stiffened.
Repeat until the batter is gone, and try not to eat them all while you're cooking them.

Tuesday night's feature...

Coconut and tofu curry, Indian cauliflower curry

We always add extra veg and greens to almost every dish, these two being no different. We had green beans that needed to be cooked, so they went in with the Cauliflower dish. Picked fresh kale from the garden, washed and chopped coarsely, and threw it in at the end into the Tofu dish. Every recipe can be tweaked... the best thing about cooking is experimenting!

Dinner time!

Tonite we made 2 recipes from the Whole Foods website: Tofu and black bean tacos and raw vegetable pasta. We actually made burritos using Ezekiel Bread 100% sprouted grain tortillas and left cheese off them to make it vegan. Sorry no pics, but you can't have everything. Needless to say, both recipes were WONDERFUL! I hope you guys will make some of these recipes and post the pics for us to see!

Mmmm din din!

Thank goodness for the middle east. Vegan-friendly Tzatziki, baba ghanoush, and falafel. Yummy Yummy!

* Follow the tip from TYEBUG in the comments on roasting the eggplant on the stovetop for the baba ghanoush.

morning weigh in

168 lbs and 206 lbs

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

Very Simple Vegan Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup nondairy milk
[I substituted a mashed banana, half a mashed ripe peach,
plus coconut milk to equal 1 cup total]
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup frozen blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place baking cups in a muffin pan.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in nondairy milk and oil.

3. Fold in blueberries. Pour into baking cups and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Makes: about 8 muffins, Preparation time: 5 minutes, Cooking time: 30 minutes

These were really yummy, and moist. Did not bake for the whole thirty minutes, keep an eye and use a toothpick to test for your particular oven.

Mmmmmmm

Red leaf lettuce, rice, avocado, peach, sunflower seed, heirloom tomato, celery with a peach vinaigrette. Heaven.

Vegan Falafel

Trying this recipe out tomorrow that I found here. Instead of the canned beans, I am soaking my own overnight.

Baked Falafel
Makes about 21 balls

1 15 ounce can garbanzo beans
1 small onion, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans. Put in a medium sized bowl and smash with a fork. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Form into small balls, about 1 1/2″ in diameter and slightly flatten. Place onto an oiled baking pan.

Bake for 15 minutes on each side, until nicely browned (since it’s baked, only the part actually touching the pan will be browned and crispy).

Serve with mini pita pockets, hummus, tahini sauce, tomatoes, lettuce and/or cucumber.

Yummy cookies!

Last week while surfing the Intargoogles, I ran across this wonderful recipe for egg-less, flour-less, butter-less and added sugar-less cookies here.


3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed, almost a liquid (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm - so it isn't solid (or alternately, olive oil) - I used Olive oil and it worked perfectly
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened - I left this out and added raisin and walnuts instead - just a small handful of each.
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 - 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped
Optional:
Raisins
Walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don't worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (I used Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect - about 14 minutes

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

Morning weigh-in:

168 lbs and 209 lbs

Welcome!

This is the adventure of two middle aged queers who are slightly overweight and sick of it.

Here we will document our daily weigh-ins, adventures with food, exercise, recipes (good and bad), things we are growing in our garden and maybe some pics of our slowly shrinking bellies and awesomely hot pecs. =)  OK, so the awesomely hot pecs bit is a lie, but hopefully someday it won't be.