A Little Bit of This & That Seasoned Tofu Cutlets

These tofu cutlets are easy to cook up! (We don't really measure spices or amount of time to cook up...)

A Little Bit of This & That Seasoned Tofu Cutlets

1 block of Tofu, cut into 8-12 cutlets

A little spice of Cayenne pepper
Lots of squirts of Bragg’s
Lots of sprinkles of Garlic powder
Lots of shakes of Dried Basil
Lots of showers of Nutritional yeast
Lots of love of Creamy avocado

1. Add a little spice, squirt, and sprinkle to each tofu cutlet, then brown tofu on either side in a skillet.

2. Tofu is done - now to serve, add lots of love, then on top add more squirts and sprinkles, and lots of shakes and showers! Enjoy with sandwich bread, on crackers, or in a rice bowl.

YUM! Our favorite way to have tofu! - LK

Re-energize!

Everyone experiences days when they feel lazy or weary, when their lives are too hectic and stressful, and/or when they can't seem to be happy and think optimistically. How do you overcome this? We personally feel that the following have brought us better joy:

1. A wholesome vegan diet and
2. Faith in God

Despite weariness and stress, we are more assured and energized each day. God gives us eternal strength and hope. And, being vegan gives us inner peace, knowing that we are doing the right thing and eating fresh, nutritious plant foods that are good for our bodies, good for the animals, and good for the earth. Nourishing our bodies and souls the right way is so energizing and uplifting!

Some vegan food we've recently made has put smiles on our faces :) We've enjoyed using our Vitamix to blend smoothies and soups!

We are officially on the "green smoothie" bandwagon. We enjoyed our first Kale Berry Banana smoothie this weekend, and it was a great way to start the day. Our smoothie we based off of the Green Smoothie Blog's recipe. We blended together some red kale leaves, bananas, hemp protein powder, and frozen marionberries for a delicious, creamy breakfast smoothie! As if we hadn't had enough Kale, we've also been enjoying raw kale salads, with some garlic, olive oil, and lemon dressing or sundried tomatoes.


With our handy pressure cooker, we easily cooked up some red potatoes and whipped up Creamy Potato Broccoli Soup, adapted slightly from Veganomicon!


We also tried a refreshing citrus fruit - the pummelo! This fruit is a big citrus fruit, with a greenish-yellow skin and a pink flesh. Similar to a grapefruit with a hint of lemon, yet mild and sweet in flavor.


A few weeks ago we enjoyed a trip to New Season's Market in Lake Oswego, OR. These markets are like Whole Foods. The employees are the nicest people - they really care about customer service. Shopping at New Seasons is so much fun!

Trying new products always boosts our mood, and at New Seasons we got to purchase a lot of great eats.
(Note, some of the products in the photo above we've already reviewed)
Dr. McDougal's Lentil Couscous Soup Mixes, low in sodium, yet very flavorful and filling!
Terra Sweet Potato and Carrot Chips, although fried, are a nice variation to the usual chip.
Suzie's Puffed Kamut Cake - so good, with a nice "popcorn" bite and flavor, all whole grain.
Dagoba 'Single Origin' Milagros Dark Chocolate bar - with notes of banana and fruit.
Panda Licorice - the best licorice bar with a great molasses-licorice flavor, soft and chewy!
Laura's Wholesome Junk Food Gingerbread Bites - good because healthier ingredients (such as dates); but too much sugar/sweetness, and expensive.
Woodstock Farms Mango Applesauce - natural and flavorful!


What are some ways you all find energy and happiness each day? The coming of Spring is another thing to find happiness about!
-LK

Nutritious Punch with A Bunch of Kale

Kale is special to us. We love kale. And this winter season we've eaten so much kale.

Why do we like kale so much?

1. It's not as bitter as other greens.

2. It's not as soft as other greens like mustard greens or spinach.

3. But then it's not as tough as collard greens or chinese cabbage.

4. You can eat it raw or cooked - so you can have fresh raw salads, or when it starts to wilt you can cook it up. Much easier than buying a huge lettuce and not being able to cook it up once it starts to wilt :)

5. Makes easy meals, because even though it's great with vinegrettes, etc, we love it as is or with some olive oil and garlic. So easy!

6. Last but not least, it packs a punch of nutrients!


According to the World's Healthiest Foods, Kale is a low-calorie food, but with a high profile of nutrients.

"Kale has more nutritional value for fewer calories than almost any other food around. One cup of cooked kale contains just 36.4 calories, but provides 192.4% of the daily value for vitamin A and 88.8% of the daily value for vitamin C." Kale also packs in lots of manganese, fiber, copper, calcium, vitamin B6, and potassium."

And nutritiondata.com shows that raw kale provides over 200% vitamin A and over 130% vitamin C, with 9% calcium and 6% iron!


So, some easy ways to use Kale:

1. Add to Asian rice bowls with garlic, spices, soy sauce/Braggs, tofu or beans, bell pepper, and onion.
2. Add to vegetable soups or pasta.
3. Makes salads!
4. Use on sandwiches or in wraps or pitas.
5. Add it to tofu scrambles or stir fries.
6. Use as you would spinach or cabbage.

Meals we've had with kale:

A raw meal - raw kale with garlic, sundried tomatoes, and olive oil; served with raw mushroom soup!

Raw kale salad, with carrots, creamy avocado, sesame seeds, nutritional yeast, and spicy salsa!

And more ways to eat - see previous post here!

Go eat some nutritious food! LK

Whole Grain Carb Delights

Here is a taste of some of the carb-rich foods we have eaten and baked throughout the week. Of course, they all are whole grain, healthy, and delicious!

Most of the time for breakfast we enjoy a hearty bowl of cereal and mix in a bunch of nutritious goodies, including dried or fresh fruit, hemp or flaxmeal, and wheat germ or oat bran. When we're not eating cold cereal, we like to soak some rolled flakes (oats, barley flakes, spelt flakes, triticale flakes, etc.) in mylk and enjoy cold, or have a bowl of warm porridge (with flakes or grits/meals such as pumpernickle meal, kamut grits, etc.). We love texture, chewiness, nuttiness, and all things nutritious/whole grain!

Our favorite cold cereals include: Nature's Path Cereals (Millet Rice, Mesa Sunrise, or Gluten Free Whole-O's), and Arrowhead Mills Shredded Wheat. We periodically like Barbara's Bakery Shredded Oats and Puffins. A new cereal we also really liked is Enjoy Life's Cinnamon Crunch Granola (p.s. this is so crunchy, it needs to be soaked in mylk before eating).

This week we decided to do something different for breakfast. We warmed up cereal (in this case it was Peace's Cinnamon Spice Crunch) in the microwave and enjoyed it warm, like la belle vegan does periodically. It was very good - the spiced flavors came out into the milk and the texture was a nice softer bite.












Every week we make homemade bread/rolls and muffins. This week we savored homemade garlic breadsticks dipped in high quality Italian olive oil. Buttery rich, garlicy goodness! We enjoyed them with some steamed kale (with garlic, too), and a bowl of soup with lentils.

Now, for dessert, we love experimenting. We had anise powder hidden in our pantry for quite some time and finally put it to use - with fig anise oatmeal cookies. The idea was cool, and we love licorice flavor, which is similar to anise, but the flavor wasn't right. The anise didn't taste licoricy, and in a cookie, it was odd. The texture of the cookies turned out nice, we just need to tweak the cookie flavor and make authentic oatmeal spice cookies, or other flavors such as maple date oatmeal.

Another flavor we made in the kitchen along with the fig anise was fig orange. Sadly, the orange flavor wasn't strong enough, because we just used o.j. instead of orange peel. We spread on some coconut frosting, which made it a rich cookie!


We are baker fanatics, so had to make another special sweet - this time it came out perfect. Lemon Poppyseed Whole Grain cake from Bob's Red Mill, with added banana, flax, and fresh pineapple. Tropical, sweet, and so deliciously moist!What is funny is that as I am writing this post about baked goods/carbs, I have been eating all raw today, so these foods look very tempting! We are planning to make Sundays >90% raw days - with dried fruits, fresh fruits, smoothies, veggies, seeds, and raw meals. (That means no carbs except raw soaked grains and wheat germ.)

Cravings for carbs galore!
-LK

Raw Food Made Easy for 1-2

Interested in raw food but don't know where to start?

We recommend getting the book, Raw Food Made Easy (for 1 or 2 People), by Jennifer Cornbleet!
This "cookbook" includes simple delicious recipes with easy ingredients and quick preparation. Jennifer writes a good introduction on your 'kitchen setup' - equipment and raw food staples, and 'raw basic' info to help you get started.

Some recipes that look especially delicious that we want to make in the future:

Raw Fig/Date Granola and Muesli
Whole Oatmeal using soaked oat groats
Zucchini Hummus
Cream of Tomato Soup
Spinach Apple Soup
Shaved Beet Salad with Lemon Herb Dressing
Tahini Lemon Dressing
Mock Rice Pilaf
Mediterranean Kale
Apple Crumb Cake

The two recipes we've enjoyed so far was the Sunflower Herb Pate and Key Lime Mousse.

The Sunflower Herb Pate calls for soaked sunflower seeds, lemon juice, garlic, dash cayenne, onion, and fresh herbs (like dill or basil). We also added celery seed, and some kelp granules. We used the pate to make collard green wraps and stuffed mushrooms - both very good! It was a very filling wrap and was good complimented with juicy tomatoes, cucumber, and avocado. The mushrooms were so elegant yet easy and filling too!

The Key Lime Mousse (pudding) was so easy to whip up - all you need is avocado, agave, and lime juice. Awesome served with fresh berries (we used Marionberries)! Good recipe to make other variations like lemon pudding or banana pudding.

Now we don't eat raw every day, but we are trying to have more raw foods even if it's just part of our meal. So if you want to start eating more raw foods check out this book!

Have a sunny week, LK