Great Lunch Meals and Delicious No Bakes!

Hi everyone!

It's been awhile ---- we are super busy this time of year at work! Finalizing new Betty Lou's organic vegan bars that taste great and are packed full of nutrition and antioxidants! Get excited for new snack bars that are better than Larabars, Pure Bars, and Cliff Bars! Check out Betty Lou's blog and website for any updates.


January has been milder in weather, but still rainy and damp, so we always enjoy some warm comforting food, especially one-pot meals. One of our New Years Resolutions is to make a dish from one of our vegan cookbooks. So, the past few weeks we've tried Vive le Vegan's Greek Basmati Rice, Veganomicon's Samosa Potatoes, among other great meals and breads.

The Greek Basmati Rice is probably one of the best rice dishes we've tried! Great flavor, not too strong in any particular spice, just an addicting bowl of deliciousness. Full of onion, garlic, olive oil, olives, zuchinni, chickpeas, rice, parsley, and spices we could eat this every day!

Samosa Potatoes was a yummy spiced meal perfect for lunches. Spices like mustard, coriander, onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, and cumin, this dish was great complimented with olive oil and Food Should Taste Good Olive chips! We didn't stuff the potato with the mixture, we just cooked diced potatoes in the pressure cooker, and added peas, parsley, and carrots.


In one of our bread cookbooks, we've been baking whole grain breads. We discovered a great technique for making great sandwich bread. We mix the dough and knead it, then let sit for 1 hour or so, knead again, then let sit another hour or two. We bake it at 400 degrees F as a round loaf, and we put a pan of water in the oven, so the crust is nice and the bread is airy and soft! Try putting some Bob's Red Mill cereals in your bread (like 10 grain cereal, kamut cereal, or just cornmeal), as it gives a great nutty flavor and great texture.
We love Greek food, and we found on vegweb.com "Real Deal Falafel" recipe. We made modifications, but it was tasty and great with condiments such as olive oil, mustard, tomato sauce, and avocado. When you get home from work it's easy to whip up a delicious dinner.


Of course to polish off a delicious meal you need some sweet treats! Delicious No Bake Oat Bites from Vegetarian Times Oct 2005 issue. We used sunbutter instead of almond butter, reduced the syrup a tad, added chocolate covered cacao nibs, and drizzled heavily with 73% Dagoba chocolate. Messy to roll, fun to make, and awesome to eat! Would be good to try an oatmeal cookie dough version with cinnamon and more raisins.



For some fun time outside of work, we've been busy with scrapbooking. Here's two pages we did, one of the Oregon Coast (we used an old calendar photo for the background), and one of our u-pick excursions this past summer!

Have a great last week of January!

Texas Gals Southern Cookin'

Even though we live in Oregon, we are Texas gals, and we'll always have a place in our heart for Southern food!

Veggie pot pies, cornbreads, black-eyed peas, biscuits, gravy, and other spicy Southern food.


Cornbread is so easy to make and a delicious buttery (vegan) treat!

How about our Harvest Cornbread or Sweet Potato Jalapeno Cornbread? We've also love just plain cornbread, with a little cornflour for extra softness and melt-in-your mouth deliciousness. Great to make cornbread muffins for easy snacks. (*Update 10/4/09 We baked some jalapeno cornbread, made just a few modifications, and it turned out melt-in-your-mouth awesome).


Instead of the typical Italian calzones, why not a Southern calzone?!
Black-eyed pea calzones with a cornmeal whole grain crust! We just combined onion, garlic, bell pepper, chopped broccoli, black-eyed peas, oregano, and Cajun seasoning and used that for our filling. We served these calzones with homemade mustard vinegrette (with lots of garlic added to this recipe) and an awesome homemade barbeque-cajun sauce (tomato paste, Cajun seasoning, worceshire sauce, bragg's, garlic, oregano, vinegar, oil, and water). A cilantro vinegrette would be good too.


We make biscuits about twice a month! Tahini biscuits and pumpkin cornmeal biscuits, kamut biscuits, baking powder biscuits and cornmeal biscuits, sourdough biscuits, jam biscuits and spice biscuits, and so much more you can do with a biscuit recipe!

We recently tried Tritticale Rosemary biscuits - perfect with olive oil or Southern gravy - and a gluten free biscuit! Gluten-free baking has been an interest to us, especially since we've been experimenting with gluten-free in the R&D lab at work! With a blend of gluten-free flours (sorghum, tapioca, rice, and potato starch), coconut flour, and some xanthan gum, we followed Bob's Red Mill Buttermilk Coconut Pancake recipe (on the back of the coconut flour package) and made Gluten-Free Biscuits. We added 2 Tb flaxmeal and 2 Tb oat bran, and used a blend of hemp and soy milk to make a biscuit baked in the oven. Very good for gluten-free, held together well, and more of a fluffy texture like mashed potatoes in a bread. Good with garlic and gravy.


Veggie Pot Pies are always so comforting, but time-consuming to prepare! So we made it easy!

LK's Easy Veggie Pot Pie

1 vegetable bouillon
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1 cup water
1 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tb nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp each sage and thyme
1/4 tsp each onion powder and ground mustard
1/4 tsp celery seed
2 Tb oil
1/4 cup diced bell pepper
1 cup broccoli, finely chopped
1 med yellow squash, diced
2-3 large chives or 1/4 cup onion
1 cup potatoes, diced and cooked
3 Tb flour
prepared pie crust or just biscuits or toast!

1. Add first 9 ingredients (bouillon through nutritional yeast) in a small stove pot and cook on medium high heat for 2-3 min.
2. Then add sage, thyme, onion powder, mustard, and celery seed, and simmer while you chop the veggies.
3. Place veggies in a microwave-safe dish, and cook until almost done.
4. Add flour to the stove pot and bring to a boil. Stir constantly until thickens.
5. Combine gravy from the stove pot with the vegetables in a large container.
6. Store in refrigerator until the day you want to have this for dinner.
7. When preparing your dinner, take your prepared pie crust and bake in the oven according to baking instructions (about 10 min).
8. Place the container of the vegetable filling in the microwave and heat until hot.
9. When the crust is just golden brown, take out of the oven. Pour the vegetable filling over the crust.
10. Cut and serve. This will be messy, so another delicious option is to break off pieces of the pie crust, place on your dinner plate, then pour the warm vegetable filling over it, and serve. Or just serve the vegetable filling over homemade biscuits or toast!


She's the sweetest little rosebud
that Texas ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds,
they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your Clementine,
and sing of Rosalee,
But the yellow rose of Texas
is the only girl for me.

ENJOY!

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

The B's - Bowls, Blueberries, Bread, and BUSYINESS

Long work days (9-10 on average, but this week will be ~13 hours) limit our cooking creativity and cooking time... Our cookbooks, like Veganomicon and Soy of Cooking books are starting to collect dust! Hopefully work will get better and we'll have more time to try some of those good looking recipes! While we are cherishing each minute of relaxation and free time we do have, we've been only cooking quick meals or planning ahead. What kinds of nutritious meals do you all prepare during BUSY times?

Our recent favorite meal has been rice BOWLS - they're versatile and chock full of good veggies. Simple, yet elegant. We've been loving red rice with it! The first rice bowl this week was with edamames, carrots, scallions, mushrooms, bell pepper, garlic, and Bragg's. The next day we enjoyed the rice bowl with an addition of orange sesame dressing, crunchy water chestnuts, and a gold nugget squash (creamy, like a cross between a summer squash and an acorn squash). Just mix all the veggies and goodies you want with rice in a bowl and dig in with a big spoon! :)


More "bowls" ahead, only this is a sweet treat - Coconut Bliss Vanilla Bean ice cream with fresh local peaches and cranberry orange granola!


For breakfast, we soaked extra thick oats overnight with hazelnut nut butter and some milk. Then we added frozen banana slices and fresh local blueberries and heated it for a heart-warming healthy breakfast! The BLUEBERRIES here are to die for; we've been buying 1/2 flats for really cheap and freezing them to stock up for the winter.


It's really convenient and cheaper to bake homemade BREAD/rolls and freeze them for the week. We made wheat rye garlic rolls (some wheat flour, rye flour, garlic, and herbs), which olive oil always goes well with. (By the way, we've been chugging our current olive oil - from Italy! It is to die for.)
Other baked goods we made this weekend were guava jam biscuits and ginger spice biscuits. Our grocery store had all natural, no sugar-added guava jam -it tastes so tropical and delicious on bread, we might as well put some jam in the bread!

We recently enjoyed Fat Free Vegan Kitchen's paprika potatoes with local red potatoes. We added more tomato paste, omitted the saffron, and cut down the oregano. We, of course, drizzled olive oil and nutritional yeast on it. It was good served warm with steamed broccoli, as well as eaten chilled like a potato salad. Thanks Susan!

Lastly, here is a pic of our grocery finds, including the guava jam, red rice, and gold nugget squash. There are two new chocolates we've discovered - mango chili and cacao nibs with nutmeg. They're both sweeter than we like (we like extra dark chocolate), but the nutmeg one reminds us of eggnog spice, and the mango chili has subtle notes of tropical coconut sweetness with some heat.
Hope that your lives aren't as busy as ours....we need your encouragement and energy to get through this upcoming week! We're thankful for Farmer's Markets and a vegan's favorite B's - Blueberries, easy meal Bowls, and Bread.

Best wishes, LK

English Muffins, Carrot Pancakes, and Comforting Meals

The past week or so we've been compiling all the great recipes we have bookmarked so that we can print them off and bind them in a binder...that way we can cook these recipes and stop accumulating more recipes. There are so many great looking recipes out there, that we can't make them all. So, we will just work with the ones we will print off for now. (And that adds up to over 100 pages! Yikes!).

Yes, we love food and cooking! We decided this week to go back to what we love - baking bread/breakfast/dessert and making comforting, hearty meals. Who doesn't love the great yeasty fresh smell of bread rising, bananas in the oven, nutty rice cooking on the stove, and cinnamon filling the air?

Like many bloggers recently, we made carrot cake pancakes. Soft, fluffy, and we get our healthy orange fix in the morning! For the first time, we enjoyed them with some cooked apples, a little agave, and heavily doused cinnamon on top. This morning we also enjoyed the pancakes for breakfast, but ate them with more freshly shredded carrots, slightly warmed, and cinnamon. I think we had 1 Tbsp each of cinnamon on our pancakes! Yummy.


We also enjoyed making homemade whole grain English muffins! They actually we pretty easy to make - it just took patience to let the yeast ferment overnight and then let it rise. Easier than bread baking, and used less energy because they don't require an oven to cook. You just cook them on a skillet similar to pancakes. We served them with homemade beet veggie burgers, then tofu sandwiches. Really soft (more like a soft bread texture than a airy English muffin) and very tasty when toasted!

Another great treat we enjoyed was homemade banana-date-walnut-oatmeal bars. We tried to imitate Odwalla bars, but we still need to tweak the recipe. It was very soft and flavorful, it just needs to be less fluffy/bready and more dense like Odwalla's.

Banana-Date-Walnut-Oat Bars

1/4 cup + 1 Tb Scottish oatmeal
1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Peppy Kernels (or rolled oats + some uncooked millet)
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

6 large medjool dates (1/4 cup), mashed/pureed
3/4 cup frozen bananas, warmed and mashed with the liquid (or 3/4 cup fresh bananas mashed plus some liquid)
2 Tbsp flaxseed meal, added to mashed bananas
2 Tbsp agave nectar

Mix together dry ingredients. Add dates into flour mixture, then add mashed bananas. Mix slightly, then add walnuts and mix until just combined. Spread in a 1 1/2 quart glass bar pan (9 x 7 baking pan) and bake 13 min. Let sit before cutting into bars.


With the extra dates, we just mashed them onto a graham cracker and topped with walnuts for a quick and tasty treat. I never knew how soft and versatile dates are in baked goods!


For meals, we chose the hearty dishes - Homemade Sloppy Joe's with Chickpeas, Chickpea & Vegetable Shepherd's Pie, and Edamame "Fried" Rice.
The Sloppy Joe's reminded us of our southern roots - messy, tomatoey goodness! For leftovers, we served them in cabbage leaves for a lighter flare, and then another day served them mixed with cooked red quinoa as a "Quinoa bowl".

The Shepherd's Pie we adjusted from multiple Shepherd's Pie recipes we saw, one from Veganomicon. Ours had lots of nutritional yeast and Bragg's, plus a little thyme, sage, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, onion, olive oil, coriander, and celery seed. For the filling, we used local squash (it was like a cross between zucchini and winter squash; semi-creamy), chickpeas, and diced carrots. The mashed potato topping we had made a few days before, which made the dish less time consuming. It actually was half red potatoes, half cauliflower mixed with soy milk. We really loved the mashed potato/cauliflower mix! Lighter, yet still creamy and comforting. This dish was very tasty when doused with nutritional yeast and drizzled with a little olive oil and more Bragg's.

Our last hearty meal for the week was a healthy Asian bowl- edamames, diced carrots, scallions, diced bell pepper, toasted sesame seeds, and long grain brown rice, with just some olive oil and Bragg's. Sometimes the most simplest ingredients come together with the best flavors.


We have more great concoctions coming soon!

While we've been doing moving/job research (we may be moving to Oregon), we found this great website - walkscore.com. You can search an address, find how "walkable" it is, and even zoom in and see the streets/houses close up! ("street-level" view option)

-LK Sisters

Dessert first, then the meals!

We thought to start the post off with dessert first! These chocolate covered graham crackers are a nice treat! We used a mix of Sunspire's Tropical Source chocolate chips and Green & Black's 70% Dark Chocolate bar. By the way, there is a recipe contest to use Equal Exchange chocolate. We are turning on our thinking caps and going to see if we will bake anything worthwhile for the contest.

Anyways, this dessert was very easy to make - we made our own double broiler by putting some water in a small pot and placing a bowl on top of the pot (stove-top heat proofed). The chocolate goes in the bowl and the water boils below to help melt the chocolate! Once the chocolate is melted, we just spread some chocolate on each graham cracker. Top with an almond or two, and then place in the fridge to harden, and enjoy!

For chocoholics, it could be considered a "healthy snack" instead of a dessert, because of the healthy oat bran graham crackers and the antioxidant rich dark chocolate and the unsalted almonds. But that's a stretch...lol..


On to the meals! With this hot Texas weather already, we crave cool refreshing foods like smoothies, fruit, corn on the cob...

and pineapple salsa with cold Mexican macaroni salad!
Fresh and easy. For the pineapple salsa, we diced onion, jalapeño, and fresh pineapple, and then added lots of fresh cilantro. So yummy with chips or with sliced cucumbers.

For the macaroni salad, we combined 1 can black beans, 3 chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped orange bell pepper, 1 clove minced garlic, 2 small zucchinis, diced jalapeño, cooked corn macaroni pasta (1 entire box!), and chopped cilantro. We made a creamy mustard Mexican sauce with cumin, cayenne, chili powder, nutritional yeast, and spicy ground mustard. The pasta salad was good, but a little strong in the cumin and a little dry, so next time we are thinking of adding less cumin and adding some lime juice and lots of avocado. Serving with pineapple salsa made it great. It made TONS of leftovers - enough for a party of 12 probably. For leftovers tonight we are going to add some orange baby tomatoes and fresh diced mango. We might try adding some balsamic for something different. Overall a versatile pasta salad!


Besides craving "cold" foods, we were hungry for a southern breakfast - tofu scramble and hashbrowns. We diced lots of red and yellow new potatoes (which are local produce from the farmer's market) and browned them on the skillet for a while (it took a while to cook, but it was tasty in the end!). Spices included paprika, cayenne, black pepper, garlic, and onions. We served the potatoes and tofu scramble in a wrap stuffed with slightly-wilted spinach.

We LOVED serving it with homemade "agave" mustard salad dressing and avocado! Ever since Spiral Diner, we've been craving mustard salad dressing. Here is our recipe!:

Agave-Mustard Dressing

2 Tb spicy mustard
2 Tb agave nectar
1/2-1 Tb safflower oil
2 Tb apple cider vinegar
a little water to your liking to make it thinner

Mix all ingredients. Enjoy in salads, wraps, tofu, potatoes, vegetables, etc!



Our only baking this week was Hummus Bread. We changed it up a bit, and used sun dried tomato basil hummus that we bought at Sprouts Market. It had a nice flavor and was soft inside, despite being dense. Yumm!

Hope you are enjoying a fun relaxing vegan summer!
- LK

Just Tomatoes! Recipes

Howdy! We've been too busy to blog, and the next three weeks will be extra busy, but then we'll try to be better bloggers after school is out!

We have more to blog about, but for now here are two recipes that we are entering into the Just Tomatoes! Recipe Contest! We like to enter recipe contents even though we don't think we'll win, just because it's fun to do a challenge and create a tasty dish! We are planning to enter the Vegetarian Times one too.

Indian Bean and Sweet Potato Saute with Apricots

4 medium sweet potatoes, diced
3/4 c. green bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 c. onion, diced
1 c. frozen spinach, thawed
1 15 oz can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 c. Just Apricots (freeze dried apricots)
1 c. soymilk
1 Tb olive oil

1 tsp each of paprika, cumin, and turmeric
1 Tb cinnamon
1 tsp cayenne pepper, ground
crushed red pepper, optional

Steam sweet potatoes (add a little water) in the microwave until cooked. Saute bell pepper, garlic, and onion in a large saucepan until slightly softened and onion is translucent. Heat kidney beans in the microwave until warmed, then combine kidney beans, spinach, and sweet potatoes into the saucepan. Add the apricots, soymilk, olive oil, and spices, and mix until well combined. Heat on medium low until thoroughly heated. Serve with couscous or pita bread.


Fiesta Tofu Scramble Wraps

1/2 c. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c. vegetable broth
1 package of extra firm tofu, drained and pressed to squeeze out water
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp paprika
2 Tb dried oregano
2 Tb nutritional yeast
1 Tb olive oil
1 c. Hot Just Veggies, re-hydrated with hot water and drained
large whole wheat tortillas
optional: 1/2 c. black beans, guacamole, or diced fresh tomatoes

Saute onion and garlic with vegetable broth in a large saute pan until almost, but not quite tender. Crumble tofu into the pan, and cook until thoroughly heated and begins to brown. Add spices and incorporate into the tofu mixture. Add the Hot Just Veggies (and black beans if desired) to the pan, and cook everything until heated. When ready to serve, drizzle the olive oil over the tofu scramble. Fill a tortilla with tofu scramble and add guacamole or diced fresh tomatoes, if desired. Roll up and enjoy!

Testing Testing

It's March already, and we are ready for Spring! Already the flowers are beginning to bloom and the grass is green here. And next week is our Spring Break, but it will be a busy one. We have TONS of catching up to do in our class work and studying for exams and such.

We also are going to complete our Food Insecurity Project in our Community Nutrition class. For 5 consecutive days, we have to plan and eat meals to stay within a budget of $3.28/day (so total $6.56/day for both of us and only $16.40 for grocery shopping for the 5 days). The reason for this project is to experience what people who are on Food Stamps experience and to gain an appreciation for the hardships that food insecure people face. It will be a challenge, but we think it will be a great experience. We have to write a journal on our feelings about it, if we got hungry, our ability to stay within the budget, any frustrations, etc. We'll let you know how it goes!

**Side note - click here to donate food for free

So onto the food - we've done quite a few testings of recipes from various sources - Get Sconed, Veganomicon, Dreena Burton, and other online recipe postings. We've also tested a few new food products.

First off - creamy, sweet, and spiced African Sweet Potato Peanut Stew! Our all-time new favorite soup (along with our Black Beans Soup). We found the recipe online here, and we didn't change it much. Some of our own modifications include: only 3/4 an onion, only 1/4 tsp ground ginger, more cayenne, a no-salt added veg bullion and water instead of vegetable broth, almond butter as the nut butter, and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds in each serving instead of chopped peanuts.

It was quicker and easier to already have precooked the diced sweet potatoes (just cooked them in the microwave a day before). The spices were in the right proportion, except we added more cayenne because we like it spicy! We pureed half of it and let half chunky to give a nice texture. The almond butter made it heavenly, and overall it was creamy and heavenly to eat! Other variations could be to use black beans, cilantro, corn, and mexican spices, or a curry variation with garbanzos. Lots of leftovers to enjoy!


We also tried Get Sconed's Adapted Version of the New Farm Macaroni and Cheez. We used crackers instead of bread crumbs for the topping, and we actually liked lots of them to make the macaroni drier. We wanted to try a creamy mac version just because we haven't had it in years, but mac and cheese was never a favorite dish, and after trying this, we realized that we never really cared much for it. We always liked our mac and cheese dry, and this we really creamy - too creamy with a thick pasty consistency. Next time we want a creamy pasta, we'll do a mushroom cream sauce or make a creamy pasta salad. We served this with kale which made it better.

Today we tested the Veganomicon Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe, though we had swiss chard and had red quinoa instead of pasta. We've really only had tempeh twice before and we wanted to give it a try again. We'll, we won't make this dish again, but we are eager to use tempeh in a tempeh salad reminescent of chicken salad (see here). As for this meal, fennel is a unique flavor and it was too strong and kind of tasted like sausage flavoring. And tempeh is slightly bitter, but it was better mixing swiss chard with the tempeh and then having a bite of swiss chard with the tempeh to mellow out the flavor.

This week we also tried turnips! We chopped it up and cooked it in the microwave until soft, and then mashed it. The turnips were quite good and easy to make, and even eaten raw it was spicy like radishes. We are eager to try them again, and perhaps in salads.

For part of the week, the weather was sunny and warm - perfect for a Black Bean Taco Salad. Black beans, organic cherry tomatoes, organic romaine lettuce, some sunflower seeds, Guiltless Gourmet Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips, a little salsa, a homemade lime dressing, and homemade guacamole. A perfect meal for Texas summer days. The lime dressing was awesome - we just used fresh lime juice, some garlic, and some cayenne. And the guacamole was awesome and creamy - we used creamy avocadoes, some garlic powder, and some cayenne. We also had corn on the cob, which has been really fresh and sweet even though it's probably not in season.

We briefly went home last Saturday to see Michael Buble in concert with our family (which he sounded just like in his albums, though he was a little too entertaining with some dirty jokes that we did not appreciate)(Naturally 7 also performed and they were awesome - beautiful harmonies, check them out). Anyways, we brought our family some Fresh Blueberry Lemon Oat Squares, recipe from Dreena Burton. Overall it was pretty good, though we should have used a larger square pan, because the bottom crust was thick. Also the crust was a little too gummy, so next time we'll make it thinner and use some oil or something to make it more crispy. And there needs to be more lemon flavor - in the blueberries and the crust.



... So, see tomorrow's post on testing food products - we'll have product reviews of the newest foods we've tried! And check out "Our Original Recipes" on our blog - we've updated the site and now the recipes are posted individually for easy view. Enjoy!

Our favorite Wheat Biscuits but with cinnamon!

- LK

A Food Photo Album (& some)

Finally! A moment to post all of our wonderful food for the past few weeks. Our schedules have been so busy - this semester is going to get even more busier, so expect to see sporadic posting every now and then :(

Canada, 2006

Lent has begun and what did we give up for it?? Honey and yogurt and any minute animal ingredients in processed food, which makes us vegan for Lent! And we are so excited, as this is a great opportunity to be vegan and perhaps keep it up even after Easter. We've actually been loving agave nectar and Whole Soy & Co soy yogurt more so than honey and yogurt. So... this blog should really be a vegan food haven!

Now onto the food album (sorry for poor quality pictures):
Indian Potato Spinach Dish with Quinoa, from Soy of Cooking cookbook (probably one of our favorite cookbooks now!)
- great flavors and so creamy. Love the local yams.




Salsa Veggie Soup with Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cornbread
- a soup concoction with spicy herb garlic salsa, broccoli, and beans.
- used Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Corn Flour which made the cornbread oh so soft and delicate!




Veganomicon Chickpea Noodle Soup
- good with tons of chickpeas and noodles; the miso was a little strong though



Curried Tofu Wedges (Veganomicon) with Curried Cauliflower and Tomatoes
- Awesome tofu - one of the best tofu marinades! Love lots of curry!






Sloppy Joes with Lentils
- used our recipe but instead of textured soy protein, used a can of lentils. Easy and tasty! Especially with homemade wheat buttermilk bread (another Soy of Cooking recipe) with a great texture and sliced perfectly. (note - pic to the far right is from this post here)

We also changed up the bread recipe slightly and made rye bread - had it with tofu scramble and swiss chard.


Roasted Lemon Potatoes (Veganomicon)
- Another awesome recipe - the lemon gave it a great flavor, slightly tangy. We used tons of nutritional yeast!


For an easy lunch - mash up one avocado and sprinkle some garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and nutritional yeast. Serve with bread or cucumbers. A quick guacamole!


We've been attempting to eat more vegetables and greens - we seem to have swiss chard or spinach 3 times a week. We also have been eating more fruits - frozen blueberries in our cereal for breakfast (along with sprinklings of flax meal), firm grapes, sweet apples, and creamy divine mango.


One last note:
We recently found out about the Christian Vegetarian Association. There values seem to be so true - on being vegetarian for health, for animals, and for reasons dealing with the poor and hungry and being caretakers of the earth.

About the Christian Vegetarian Association

The Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA) is an international, non-denominational ministry of believers dedicated to respectfully promoting healthy, Christ-centered and God-honoring living among Christians.

We advocate nutritious plant-based diets in the global Christian community. Through publications, websites, and related public information campaigns, we educate people about the distinct health, environmental, and animal-related advantages of plant-based eating.

And here is a wonderful article on "Christianity and Vegetarianism." This article sums up everything that we believe why we are vegetarian. And everytime an omnivore asks us why we are vegetarian or if we get enough protein or if we eat enough, etc, we should refer them to this article!

Cheers to food, good health, and a more compassionate world!
- LK