A Veggie Kind of Weekend

Lately I have been feeling a little sluggish and tired so I have been trying to decrease my sugar and up my veggies, beans and grains. What follows is my trip on Friday to the grocery store. I usually get most of my veggies at the farmer's market, but since I had nothing to do on Friday night, I really wanted to pick some stuff up to make to eat over the weekend. It had been a long time since I had just gone crazy in the produce section of a grocery store and I really ended up going a bit crazy.

Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Chard
Red Grapes

Brussel Sprouts
Kale
Romain Lettuce
Broccoli
Celery
Mango

Bananas
Lemons
Kiwis
Garlic
Pears
Onions
Limes

I have made a couple of green smoothies over the last week. Kale, soy milk, protein powder, ground flax, banana, a date, some ice cubes and one time I used frozen blueberries. Really good.
I have been having oatmeal for breakfast a few days. I used to eat steel cut oats but this week I have been eating rolled oats because I can cook them quickly.

1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup oats. Cook for 1 minute. Add 1/3 cup oats and microwave for 30 seconds more. Separately microwave a banana until it gets all melty. Add that, a handful of chopped pecans, a pinch of salt, some frozen blueberries, some ground flax, a little protein powder and a tiny bit of maple syrup. This has been really a surprisingly delicious breakfast though I find that I am hungry a few hours later.

I used a small portion of this broccoli to throw together a salad I brought to a family get together yesterday. The salad took less than 10 minutes to throw together and was quite a hit. Unfortunately I do not have a picture but there are left overs so maybe I'll take one later. And then give you the recipe.

These grapes were delicious!

I mixed this sliced kale with some garlic infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar and then let it marinate. And if you can see in the back there, those are presoaked garbanzo beans ready to be cooked. I'm not sure if I have mentioned it here (I probably have) but I am madly in love with my pressure cooker. I used it three nights this week to make beans after work. It is genius.

Love.

My boyfriend recently brought me a bunch of tangerines from the tree at his moms house. Most of them sat in my fruit bowl for a long time as they had a number of seeds and were quite a pain to eat. I decided to juice them and make the orange glazed beets from Vegan with a Vengeance. The glaze never really set up, but the beets were great none the less.

My dinner last night consisted of:

Previously mentioned marinated kale topped with some sliced grapes
Tangerine Beets
Shredded Brussel Sprouts

This recipe was modified from one I found on the internet but I changed it so much that it does not even really resemble the original recipe except that it contains shredded brussel sprouts and toasted walnuts.

I melted some earth balance in my cast iron skillet and then added in the brussel sprouts that I put through my food processor and a tiny bit of liquid smoke. (The original recipe called for bacon) I cooked them for about five minutes and then removed from the heat and mixed in some toasted walnuts and a dressing of apple cider vinegar and a little sugar. I topped my serving with some nutritional yeast. This was a very delicious and nutritious dinner.

And that's mostly what I have been up to the last two days. Got any good ideas for some vegetables? Especially broccoli or chard? How about a smoothie recipe? Or oats combos?

Dinner and a smoothie

Today at the farmer's market I got some brussel sprouts which I thought would be nice for dinner.  I used the recipe for Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Toasted Garlic from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I also threw in some cauliflower to satisfy my other half who is not the biggest fan of the sprouts.  I thought that these along with some nuggets would be a pretty good dinner.  Then I got to thinking that a salad would be nice as well.  I bought tons of lettuce today but not too many things that I wanted to add to a salad.  In the end I decided on a strange to me combination of lettuce, walnuts, raspberries and balsamic vinaigrette.  After I had the salad assembled I kept looking at it and trying to figure out what I could add to it to make it seem more appealing.  I decided to just try it as it was and surprise, surprise, it was delicious! 

After I finished eating this I didn't feel quite full.  I was tempted to smash up some raspberries and eat them with another one of these cinnamon rolls but since I had already had 2 for breakfast I didn't think it was very appropriate.  So I thought.  And I thought.  And I went into the kitchen with the intention of making some sort of a smoothie.  I pulled out some frozen cherries and some soy milk and continued to think.  I tried to figure out what I could include with those two items to make something yummy.  Then it struck me.  I had a little bit of a package of chocolate pudding mix left and so I would make a chocolate, cherry shakey, smoothie, puddingy thing.  I added some arrowroot powder for thickening though I think the pudding mix already had a bit of a thickener in it.

And voila

This was sooo good.  Everything balanced really well.  I had just enough pudding mix left to not overpower the cherry and the soy milk made it so creamy.  It was quite a lot like a milkshake.  I only wish I had enough to make more!