Asian Veggie Salad

I’ve got another summer salad for you! It will sadly feel like summer for a while longer in Texas I think. Too hot to cook. (So much so that I bought some paleo English muffins from the store rather than bake.) 

A few nights ago I drizzled a few things over some cabbage to go with my gluten free frozen General Tso’s Chicken. I got way more excited about my red cabbage salad dressing than my Chinese food. It was so delicious. I loved it and thought you would too. 

image

So yesterday I measured. And added some more veggies that I’ve been eating a lot of this summer. I always loved red bell pepper and it’s sweet flavor. I’ve been making a lot of cucumber noodle salad recipes all summer–now I finally made my own. Buying red cabbage already shredded from the grocery stores just seems to make life easier. I’ve been eating a lot of red cabbage doused in ranch dressing and calling that a veggie. 

Today I brought the salad for lunch. Held up perfectly!

The salad dressing is nice and light. The taste and smell of sesame oil always reminds me of (fairly authentic) Chinese food. (No, you can’t sub again oil if you want this dressing to taste the same.) I love the tang the lime juice imparts here (always one of my favorite flavors.) I’ve used coconut aminos here for a soy sauce flavor–but you could use tamari or soy sauce. 

image

Asian Veggie Salad

Prepare the veggies as follows and place in a large bowl: 

  • 1 English cucumber (spiralized and chopped into 2″ strands or cut in half and chopped finely)
  • 1 red bell  pepper, thinly sliced

  • 1 c. red cabbage, shredded

Combine in a smaller bowl:

  • 1 ½ Tbl. lime juice
  • 1 Tbl. liquid coconut aminos
  • 1 Tbl. sesame oil
  • ¾ tsp. sea salt
  • Ground pepper

Whisk the dressing ingredients and then pour over the veggies. Mix thoroughly.

Serves 3-4

image

This salad tastes great the next day as these veggies hold up well. I always like having one part of my lunch made and then I can decide what goes with it later. I’ve eaten this salad with cooked chicken thighs. I think it would also go well with pork. I will try it with white rice or rice noodles. 

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Green Bean Salami Rolls

Hello! It’s been far too long! I’ve missed you!

image

I got a new job at the end of March, quit old jobs, traveled for work for a week in San Francisco, adjusted to new schedule, was not cooking as much as usual, etc. etc. etc. Excuses, excuses! 

Thankfully, I love the new job! I have lots of wonderful coworkers and get to work on an interesting project. Lots of editing, formatting, emailing, and working with other people. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about leaving academia but it was for the best. God knew that and prepared me in lots of way. Like moving to a house 15 minutes away from this new job last August. It had seemed so strange to be moving further away from church, family and friends. Now it makes perfect sense and for a great commute! (Plus I love my roommates.) Managing multiple freelance clients and teaching college at the same time was good prep for a lot of my responsibilities at the new job too. Feeling very thankful.

image

In March, I actually had two recipes ready for you, complete with pictures taken, but the last few months have truly been crazy. (I’ve even had this drafted written for 2 weeks sitting here!) I’ve finally gotten into the new routine, I’m cooking and meal prepping again. So I’m ready to share with you a delicious recipe!

image

These Green Bean Salami rolls are great for appetizers or for lunches. They are delicious cold, which is great in this Texas heat. They stand up wonderfully for a day later lunch. The lemon in the green beans actually tastes clearer the next day so it’s wonderful for lunches after the flavors have all melded overnight.

My new favorite vegan cheese is from Treeline. Their cheese actually has a complex flavor like cheese and a nice texture. Plus I feel good about the ingredients (mainly cashews). It’s a little pricy at $7 a container but it’s a treat that’s worth buying. We’ve all had some bad vegan/dairy free cheese in our day. I’ve found it at Central Market and sometimes make a trip there just for their cheese. It has a great texture and flavor on crackers, with olives, and on salami! This recipe doesn’t use the whole container so you’ll have some extra to enjoy. I wanted to make an appetizer or lunch that included vegetables, had no complicated “bread” element, and was easy to hold. 

image

For those of you who like simpler ingredients, cream cheese would work fine here, especially is you throw some herbs or ground pepper in it. Soft goat cheese (chevre) would also be wonderful. (Aldi has some good chevre!)

Green Bean Salami Rolls 

Heat in a cast iron skillet: 

  • 1 Tbl. Olive oil 

 Add: 

  • 8 oz. extra fine green beans 

Cook until beans are cooked through and beginning to brown but still crisp. 

Add: 

  • Juice from ½ lemon 
  • 1/8 tsp. salt and pepper 

Cook until the lemon juice evaporates and set aside the beans to cool. 

  • 3 oz. Treeline creamy soft nut cheese 
  • 16 pieces of salami (about 4 oz.) 

Spread cheese on the salami, about a teaspoon on each piece of salami. (If your salami is sliced thin, use two pieces.)  

Add 6 pieces of cooked green beans on each salami slice and roll them up. 

Chill until ready to eat. 

Optional: Serve with 1/3 c. warm pizza or spaghetti sauce.


image

I’ve been loving frozen green beans with lemon juice on them and thought that would be perfect inside some meat and a nice cheese. Let me know what you think! 

image
image
image

P.S. I love salami! So delicious!

Butternut Squash Mash (with Five Possible Meals from the Leftovers)

image

A lot of the meals I cook for myself are easy like this recipe—cook some vegetables, cook some ground turkey, throw them together in some way with some unique flavor that’s easy to add and ta dah! I’m not usually a complicated chef. I also really like to cook meals that easily morph into a different type of meal later on in the week and below are some tips on how to be a rockstar meal prepper like I occasionally am.

image

You’re really going to want to try this mash because the flavors and textures are so perfect together with ground turkey. The leftovers of this taste great the next day for lunch! The unique flavor comes from the nuanced combination of the nutritional yeast, balsamic vinegar and coconut oil. The vinegar plus the nutritional yeast creates a depth of flavor that’s hard to describe. For a while I was flavoring e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I ate with these three things! Since I’ve been told that I use “strange” ingredients: The flavor would change but you could easily substitute parmesan cheese, another kind of vinegar, and/or olive oil. 

image

The most complicated part of this recipe is the butternut squash. If you don’t feel like cutting open a butternut squash, scooping out the seeds, cutting it into much tinier pieces than pictured here (it took forever to roast to optimum mash-ability), and roasting it forever—you have options. Trader Joe’s (and most grocery stores) sell butternut squash already chopped up and ready for you (if you’re willing to pay the price). If you do want to go the whole mile and cut up that squash yourself, notice that I’m using a grapefruit spoon above to scoop out the seeds. I am convinced grapefruit spoons make life easier.

If your grocery store doesn’t have butternut squash, I think you could easily roast half carrots and half sweet potatoes for this recipe and it would still be super delicious. I’m guessing 2-3 sweet potatoes and 4-6 carrots would be about the same.

This recipe is a great meal preparation recipe. You can use the other ½ of the squash for soup: Throw some chicken broth, canned carrots, some lemon juice and salt in the Vitamix for a few minutes and ta dah! You have healthy soup! (Resist the urge to measure anything.)

I only use ½ pound of the ground turkey here to serve with the mash. I start off nearly every week by cooking 1-2 pounds of ground turkey with an onion and coconut oil. This feeds me throughout the week in enough different ways that I don’t feel like I’m eating boring turkey all the time. You can utilize the rest of the cooked ground turkey from this recipe as:

  • Taco meat with corn tortillas: Just add hot sauce or guacamole.
  • Nacho dip:  Heat with ½ cup vegan cheese and some salsa.
  • Barbecued meat—just add barbecue sauce.
  • Meat to go with any vegetable you have cooked.
  • Meat to go with any veggie soup you have made in the Vitamix.

And now that you know what to do with the leftovers, the recipe you’ve all been waiting for!

image

Look at that beautiful pastry blender cutter (whose name I found after Googling “pie crust masher;” Google knew what I meant)! 

Butternut Squash Mash

Heat the oven to 450˚F. Prepare:

  • One butternut squash

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 2” squares. Prepare a baking sheet with:

  • ¼ teaspoon coconut oil

Roast the squash for 45 minutes or until it is browned and falls apart when pricked with a fork.

While baking, mix the flavoring for the mash in a separate bowl:

  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
  • 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon of sea salt
  • Pepper to taste

Heat your cast iron skillet and then add:

  • 1 teaspoon coconut oil
  • 1 pound ground turkey

Cook, stirring occasionally, until the turkey is pink in only a few places. Then add:

  • 1 diced red onion

Cook until the onion is soft. Add:

  • ½ teaspoon salt

Set aside half of the ground turkey, if desired, for other meals.

When the squash is cooked, set aside half for another recipe if desired. Add the squash to your flavorings. Mash until soft and well-mixed with a large fork, potatoe masher, or pastry blender cutter.

Place half of the squash mash on a plate and top with half of the ground turkey mixture. Enjoy!

image

If the 80 degree Texas weather in February is faking you out and making you think you don’t want a nice warm recipe like this one, try my Kalamata olive-filled summer salad from last year.

“The Taco Cleanse” Cookbook Review and Sauerkraut Egg Breakfast Tacos

It’s nearing the end of January so your motivation to fulfill all your New Year’s resolutions is probably waning. Now is the perfect time to start a Taco Cleanse, the easiest, healthiest and most beautiful way to have your body feeling stellar in as little as one day.

image

I’d like to review for you The Taco Cleanse: The Tortilla-Based Diet Proven to Change Your Life. It’s my new favorite, snarky, visually well designed cookbook. (Also, funny and snarky cookbooks are my new favorite genre. I may limit cookbook reviews on here to snarky cookbooks only.)

The four authors are from Austin, which is the heart and soul of many of the best things Tex Mex. This cookbook has a ton of awesome recipes. Also, taco yoga poses (including the full taco pose), “quotes” from famous people and proverbs about tacos, supplements (margaritas, ya’ll! but sadly no mojitos), a crossword puzzle, gardening advice, and encouragement for when everyone is down on you for doing the taco cleanse (it’s so difficult to incorporate into your lifestyle!). Every page is so hilarious that my father stole the cookbook from me after I got it on Christmas. And proceeded to read most of it out loud. So really I’ve really read this book twice.

image

Know what this book doesn’t have? A discussion of how it’s vegan. I was waiting for it and it never came. However, I teach Rhetoric, so I know that everything is an argument. If you publish an entire cookbook that’s vegan, you are making an argument implicitly. But they only get explicit on page 214, in the “Resources” section, where they come clean about how they hate other cleanses and also have a kind three paragraph section on “Going Vegan.” I respect that. I think we could all eat a little less meat because, you know, the planet earth and ethically killing things even if you believe God gave us the authority to eat meat and rising meat prices. So I’m glad they’re not hitting you over the heat with the vegan-inity, just with the cleanse-ness.

Back to the recipes, usually the main goal of a cookbook. They’re all easy, simple to follow, ingredients that most vegans / mildly healthy people / people who like to cook would probably have on hand. I would (shhh, don’t tell the vegans) probably substitute ground turkey for a lot of their recipes that include things such as tempeh and fake meat. A few of the recipes include gluten but you can just skip those. The possibility of corn tortillas opens up a whole world of gluten free tacos. If you’re advanced in eating gluten free, you’re likely to know how to sub for it easily by now anyway.

image

Look how pretty the layout is! They even picked a nice font.

Some of the recipes I can’t wait to try include “Deeply Roasted Chipotle Butternut Squash” (with chickpeas), the plantain tortilla recipe, “Cashew Crema” (with 2 Tablespoons of kombucha, so obviously it’s a cleansing diet), and “Regenerative Red Onions” that are pickled. From the picture above, you can see the two rows of sticky notes—my way of documenting which recipes I want to make out of a cookbook when I read it the first time. I want to make a lot from this cookbook. (No, I never actually get through all the recipes I want to.)

All of the recipes seem straight-forward and easy to follow for anyone who has done some cooking. None of it is baking where proportions are really important; it’s a lot more sautéing or heating some things together until they get more delicious. I’ve made the “Affirmation Cumin-Onion Rice” (almost all eaten up at Bible study) and the “‘Living’ Chipotle Sauce.” This sauce recipe involves chipotle and lime, two of my favorite things, so it’s been pretty much life changing. It’s possible I may be eating it straight out of the refrigerator by dipping chips in it with the fridge door still open. Often. I am so cleansed.

This review doesn’t do the cookbook justice. It is. So. Funny. Ya’ll. Buy it and read it now—or come borrow my copy because I still have enough “Living” Chipotle Sauce to last me a few more days of eating out of the fridge. (Also putting it on tacos! Check out my Instagram!)

image

To do homage to The Taco Cleanse, I wanted to share with you the taco recipe I’ve been eating almost every other day since New Year’s. It’s not vegan. (I’m sorry, taco scientists.) It is, however, vegetarian. Which some people are okay with as I begged the chickens who are my friends to give me the eggs. (Important: I want chickens someday but only if we can be best friends and have nice chats and I can pet them.) If you are vegan, you could incorporate my recipe with The Taco Cleanse’s page 95’s recipe for “Mighty Megas” that uses firm tofu as eggs. (But my version is easier.)

My recipe includes sauerkraut. Ironically, I learned about making your own when I did my own Whole 30 14 that made me tired and grouchy with none of the promised fire dragon of energy at all. (I’m totally on board with cleanses being dumb.) You can learn to massage sauerkraut here and then proceed to wait three weeks to make my recipe below. Or you can buy fresh sauerkraut at the store in the deli section–which involves way less of your roommates being weirded out that you’re massaging cabbage for 10 minutes and leaving it in the garage for three weeks and warning them that the garage might smell like rotting cabbage because you sure hope it is rotting in all the best ways possible. Real sauerkraut involves probiotics, the same you get from yogurt. But if dairy bothers you like it does me, sauerkraut is awesome. Probiotic sauerkraut is amazing, making this recipe is not only a taco recipe but also a cleansing recipe.

I believe the sauerkraut makes it a German-Mexican fusion dish. Mostly because this makes me laugh and because my ancestors were German.

image

Sauerkraut Egg Breakfast Tacos (Or, German-Mexican Fusion Cleanse Tacos)

Place a skillet over the stove on medium heat. Heat the following on both sides until warmed and slightly browned:

  • 2 corn tortillas

Remove the tortillas; place under a towel to keep them warm.

Turn the heat down to low and add to the skillet:

  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil

When melted, add:

  • 2 eggs

Scramble them in the pan as they cook. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper to taste.

When the eggs are halfway cooked, add:

  • 2-3 Tablespoons of probiotic-infused sauerkraut

Serve the egg mixture in the corn tortillas for tacos. Add mustard, ketchup or your favorite hot sauce.

image

Start your taco cleanse off right early tomorrow morning with this breakfast taco recipe! After only one day of tacos every meal, “the mild level,” according to The Taco Cleanse, “your mood will improve,” as promised on page 3. Go forth and eat tacos, ya’ll!

image

P.S. I love this purple spatula my mom gave me for Christmas!

Restful, Spicy Peach Smoothie (Gluten-free, Dairy-free and Vegan)

image

Smoothies: A healthy and fast meal for busy times just like these! I feel like the last few weeks have been crazy with grading finals, getting ready for Christmas with gifts and cooking. Nothing really slowed down until after Christmas, when I stayed at my parents’ house for a few days. My brother (the professional barista) made coffee for me every morning and even cooked breakfast for me one day.

While holidays are about family and friends and traditions and good food, they’re also about rest. Rest is so important that God instituted a day a week off. While having lunch with a friend today, I realized I haven’t really had two days off of work together since August (when I moved) or July when I was on a family vacation, so really since last Christmas. The flexibility my jobs afford are also terrible in ways like this. Not to blame it on my jobs, but my own inability to rest when there is time for it. I get antsy and can’t sit still or bored with things that are supposed to be relaxing. I overthink things and don’t know how to rest from that either.

My church does something that’s a non-church building gathering the last Sunday of the month. I’ve felt self-conscious about trying to explain to other people why I’m not going to church on a certain day. I’ve enjoyed the Sundays of serving people with my church family or having brunch with a smaller group. But on rest Sundays, break Sundays, I’m like, “what do I do? Can I take a walk? Should I go shopping? can I be seen by others out and about on a Sunday? Should I watch TV?”

These rest days have helped me realize how bad I am at resting (in God) and how badly I need to be able to rest. Part of the problem is being happy with myself based on how much of my to do list I’ve finished. And so not having church to do on the last Sunday means I can’t check it off my list and can’t feel good about myself. I don’t remember that God isn’t happy with me based on the fact that I cleaned the bathroom/unloaded the dishwasher/answered those emails/dropped letters off at the Post Office. God’s happy with me because He’s happy with Himself and I have His merit all credited to me. So God is no happier with me at the end of a productive day than on a Sunday where I try to relax. So I need to chill, to not be happier with myself based on what I do and not even be frustrated with myself that it’s so hard for me to rest.

A perfect application for all of those deep thoughts are drinking a smoothie for lunch instead of cooking something complicated. Less dishes to make yourself feel better about having washed. There’s enough appetizers to make for New Year’s Eve, have a smoothie for lunch!

I usually throw whatever into my smoothies without any measurements, so smoothie recipes seem odd to me. But I’ve been making this exact smoothie for about three months now. The ingredients are so delicious and perfect together and they are ones I tend to have on hand. I measured the recipe—just for you!—a few weeks ago and it’s perfect.

Let’s talk protein powder for a minute. You don’t want to drink a smoothie and be hungry soon after. Some delicious and/or cheap options for protein in your smoothies are:

  • Protein powder. Jay Robb’s Egg White powder is the King of protein powders; not grainy, no weird aftertaste. Plant Fusion is a decently cheap vegan one.
  • Chia seeds. Especially good if you’ve soaked them in vegan milk overnight (or at least easier on your digestion system). They blend up great in the smoothie. High protein and nutrients. I’ve heard they’re good for skin so I’ve been putting them in my morning smoothies. (Note that chia will thicken your smoothie so you might need to add extra liquid.)
  • Oats. Super cheap and, if you put in less than 3 Tablespoons in a smoothie that you’ll drink right away, not too grainy. Tastes especially good in smoothies with peanut butter, I think.
  • Peanut butter. Natural, with no sugar. Delicious with strawberries, grapes, and I think, the peaches in this smoothie recipe.
  • Nut butters. Or straight nuts, it’s all the same after a few minutes in your Vitamix.

This smoothie recipe has two kinds of protein—peanut butter and chia seeds— for extra oomph that is enough to keep you full for a while.

image

 Spicy Peach Smoothie

  • ½ cup spinach
  • 1 cup frozen peaches
  • 1 tablespoon diced fresh ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 Tablespoon protein powder or chia seeds
  • 2 Tablespoons peanut butter (or nu butter)
  • ½ Tablespoon lemon juice
  • 15 drops English Toffee Stevia
  • 1 ½ cups water

Add all ingredients to your Vitamix. Blend on high for 2 minutes or until smooth.

image

This smoothie is spicy—which is why I like it! But if you want to use no or less fresh ginger, we could maybe still be friends. You can always leave out the spinach.  The lemon juice is also optional. You could use a vegan milk as the liquid and for some extra calories.

Don’t you love this mug? I bought it at the Asian art museum (Arthur M. Sackler and Freer Gallery of Art) when I interned in DC, so it has a lot of fond memories for me.

Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup (Six Ingredients, Gluten Free and Dairy Free with a Vegan Option!)

image

It’s Christmas in two days! So many of us will be making traditional recipes that call for creamed soups. Homemade things are always more delicious! So I have a cream of mushroom soup recipe you’ll love. The canned cream of mushroom soup is full of allergens and kind of disturbing once you read the label. If you’re avoiding wheat and dairy like me, cans are usually a bad choice.

There are a lot of homemade dairy and wheat free recipes for cream of mushroom soup online. A lot. I looked through all of them for you the night before Thanksgiving, trying to find a good choice for the green bean casserole I had to make. (Side note: Aldi and Sprouts both have gluten free French onions now! Delicious! The French onions really prompted all of this.) 

All of the thousands of online cream of mushroom soup recipes I found had problems: Problem 1, Searching “gluten free” gave me many recipes with dairy. Nope! Problem 2, Many recipes had nuts (my mom is allergic to nuts and I often don’t have any in the house anyway). Problem 3, They included coconut cream as a main ingredient, which we didn’t have in the house and another guest was allergic to. And coconut cream is midly expensive, so c’mon, really?

Problem 4 was the biggest problem: The recipes often involved stirring things over a hot stove to thicken them. I. don’t. stir. over. hot. stoves. Not worth it. I use my wrist to grade, text and freelance—no need to tire my wrists stirring and stirring and stirring and being bored. (Partially I blame this abhorrence of stirring on not properly heated homemade caramel liquid that my grandmother and I stirred for over an hour while I was in high school. The caramels were cooked and delicious–eventually. Then I cut them apparently too large for my grandmother, who said I should cut them “the size of my conscience.” I said I was cutting them the size of my conscience. Grandma replied, “Your conscience is too big.” Haha, that’s always been my problem.) Also, stirring with gluten free flours is even likely to cause weird clumps in thin soup, so definitely not worth the stirring. So all of these recipes were a no go for my holiday meal.

So I decided to use something to thicken the soup that wasn’t nuts, wasn’t stirring with weird flours, wasn’t coconut cream, and is totally cheap. I decided to thicken it with brown rice, which I almost always have on hand, often already cooked and in the fridge. The brown rice and using the Vitamix allows for easy adjustment to how thick you want the soup. You’ll have to run it for a while to make sure it’s smooth but Vitamixes are good at running forever.

My recipe, made in the Vitamix, has absolutely no long stints of stirring involved. No allergens. Delicious. Six ingredients including salt and pepper. What are you waiting for? Make this recipe today! Your Christmas will be delicious-er, easier and better for it! Doesn’t it look so tasty?

image

Cream of Mushroom Soup (Gluten Free and Dairy Free with a Vegan Option!)

Heat in a cast iron skillet:

  • 3 Tablespoons olive oil

Then add:

  • 1 yellow onion, diced
  • 14 ounces of white mushrooms, cleaned and diced

Cook until softened and aromatic, then place half the onions and mushrooms in a large bowl.

Place the remaining half of the onions and mushrooms in the Vitamix and add:

  • 6-8 ounces of chicken stock
  • ¾ cup cooked brown rice
  • ¾ teaspoon sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Blend on high for 2-3 minutes or until smooth. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Mix in the pureed soup with the remaining onions and mushrooms.

Eat, use in recipes or store in the fridge for 2-3 days.

image

This recipe even got me an A grade in a calorie counter. Wow. Doesn’t it look so yummy?

If you want to have a fully pureed soup without clumps, just add all of the vegetables into the Vitamix. If you want this recipe to be vegetarian, just use vegetable stock. Use any oil you want to cook the vegetables—coconut oil is delicious but a guest was allergic. 3 Tablespoons seems like a lot of oil but you can use a little less if you’re not using a cast iron skillet (though why aren’t you?!) and remember the oil is really the main flavor here.

I hope you enjoy using my easy, allergen friendly recipe for cream of mushroom soup! It’s delicious straight up or in green bean casserole. 

Pro tip: Don’t use still frozen green beans for green bean casserole. At least not and expect dinner to be soon. I and my delicious green bean casserole delayed Thanksgiving dinner. But my brother’s homemade pumpkin rolls weren’t done until after dinner, so I won!

image

I’m super excited to go to my mom and dad’s to celebrate Christmas once my brother flies in tonight. Planning on making some Christmas cookies, cooking other things, finishing decorating the tree, Christmas Eve service at church for some encouragement, and lots of family hang out time. I need a mental rest after the end of this crazy semester and I’m hoping I’ll get that at home. If nothing else, it won’t be all about me, and I won’t be able to focus on my own problems. Selflessness can be mentally helpful. I brought along my journal (for some more Christmas scripture journaling), a book to zone out to, and my walking shoes as well. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

‘Bello Broccoli Cheese Soup (always gluten free, dairy free, and this recipe has a vegan option!)

I’ve made this soup every other week since fall weather started here in Texas so I know the recipe is good enough to share with you! I keep craving its deliciousness and straight up vegetable superpower.

image

The original recipe was inspired by Elana’s Pantry’s 5 ingredient broccoli soup, which is very tasty! I had been wanting a broccoli cheddar soup, so I added some Daiya cheddar the first time I made it and ever since. Knowing me, it shouldn’t be surprising that I kept adding other ingredients too! (I never added poblanos, surprisingly.) I do like this soup more with chicken broth than Elana’s original water for a nice flavor (homemade broth from a whole chicken was especially good!). But feel free to use vegetable broth to make it vegan. Even though I don’t usually like sweet with savory, a little bit of apple made the flavor of the soup so much more complex. Lemon with broccoli is always good and some lemon juice really livens up this soup. The spinach adds more veggies and makes the green color brighter and more intense. (These pictures are from a non-spinach iteration, so they look a little pale! I was surprised how much the other ingredients took over the broccoli’s green color.) Though the recipe changes a little bit each time I make it, based on what I have on hand and what sounds good, it is delicious in every single one of its iterations.

The nice thing about a Vitamix soup is that measurements don’t really matter! Which is always my favorite kind of cooking, and always the cooking I do if I’m not writing for you! The only advice on this soup I would give is not to add too much liquid as it will get very thin.

image

As for the Portobello mushroom topping, it’s a new ingredient I’ve started using. Until recently, I had never cooked portobello mushrooms. My grandmother and mom were big into carefully washing mushrooms and cooking them in a certain way, which they didn’t do very often, and so I hadn’t really seen anyone cook portobellos. I went to a friend and fellow food blogger’s house for a dinner a few weeks ago and Amber cooked whole portobellos in her cast iron skillet (yes!) with some coconut oil and they were delicious! She was able to handle talking to me, prepping other things and talking to her kids while cooking them, so I figured I could handle cooking portobellos! A while later, Kroger had some already sliced portobellos on sale and so it was the perfect time to try them. I sliced the mushrooms up and cooked them with coconut oil and a dash of red wine vinegar at the end. They cooked fast and were so delicious with this soup, adding another texture. I also like keeping part of the sautéed onions out from the soup for some texture as well.

‘Bello Broccoli Cheese Soup

Sautee in a cast iron skillet:

  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 diced onion

Cook in the microwave:

  • 12 ounces of frozen broccoli pieces

When the onions are browned, add half of them to a Vitamix or food processor with the cooked broccoli and the following:

  • 6 ounces Daiya cheddar cheese (or lactose-free cheese or 3 Tablespoons of Nutritional Yeast)
  • 4 ounces fresh spinach
  • ¼ apple (I used honey crisp)
  • 8 ounces chicken broth (or vegetable broth or water)
  • 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
  • Dash red and black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt

Blend on high until pureed and steam is coming out the top. Add 2 Tablespoons water if you desire a thinner consistency.

As the soup is heating up, begin to sauté in the cast iron skillet:

  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
  • 12 ounces of portobello mushrooms, sliced into 2” by 1” rectangles

When the mushrooms are just softened, add the following and cook for one more minute:

  • 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Serve the soup in bowls, topping it with the remaining onion and the mushrooms. Sprinkle with more red and black pepper as desired. 

Serves 3.

image

This soup heats up really well for the rest of the week. The portobellos heat up fine the next day, though the texture changes some, so I’ve also waited to cook the rest of the sliced mushrooms until the next day but my soup is already made so it’s still a quick lunch hack. The soup is also nice topped with bacon or some chopped meat, and also with fried potoates. This makes for something different which is especially nice if you eat leftovers for lunch all week like I usually do!

Oddly enough, this soup is a super delicious great cold dip for crackers (not that I’ve ever gotten desperate for a snack RIGHT NOW or anything).

I hope you enjoy this hot, satisfying soup with the cold weather we’re having now! There are leaves falling outside my window as I type this, which seems very appropriate for a fall soup.

Chipotle Pecan Salad, Summer(ish) Salad II

image

I promised you another salad this summer because I titled the last one “Summer Salad 1.” Well it’s still 90 during the day here in Texas, so we’re calling it summer. And the first time I made this yummy salad, it was still summer! Also, I’m going to the State Fair of Texas next weekend, which was traditionally during summertime when I was growing up in the midwest.

The inspiration for a salad topper came from the past: I once toasted some pecans with chipotle tabasco sauce–which I love–and a little oil. And those pecans were delicious! I was thinking that they would be good on their own as a side dish and even more amazing as a topping for a delicious Tex-Mex salad. Have I mentioned how much I love the flavor of chipotle powder? In everything? I didn’t have any tabasco sauce and was attempting a Whole30 (haha) so I added oil, chipotle, cumin and coconut oil to the pecans in my cast iron skillet and a little apple cider vinegar for the tanginess of tobacso. It turned out amazing and did a good job replicating chipotle tobasco! The flavors coated the skillet and therefore the meat when I cooked it next. Take a look at those tasty beauties below!

image

This salad has so many complementary flavors and textures—the coolness of the guacamole (mango, avocado, jicama and cilantro—all the things good in life!) and the crunchy spiciness of the pecans, the softness of the meat, olives and lettuce. This recipe is very forgiving and anything could be left out—the meat, for instance, if it needed to be vegetarian, or the guacamole could have some different ingredients. The guacamole lasted for me overnight in the fridge fine but you may want to eat it all and make more for your leftovers.

 These are really just a series of pictures to show off my cast iron skillet:

image

Chipotle Pecan Salad

Heat in a cast iron skillet:

  • 1 Tablespoon coconut oil

Add:

  • ¾ cup pecans
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon chipotle powder
  • 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Stir and cook until lightly toasted. Remove pecans and add to the skillet:

  • 1 pound ground beef 
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 diced red onion

Cook until the meat is browned, stirring occasionally.

While the meat is cooking, make the guacamole. Combine in a bowl:

  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 diced mango
  • 1 cubed avocado
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1/3 cup diced jicama
  • Fresh cilantro to taste

When the meat is cooked, split between four plates:

  • 2 cups lettuce
  • 1/3 cup halved black olives

Add the meat, pecans and guacamole. Enjoy this amazingly high-in-protein salad today and again tomorrow as a lunch hack!

image

Spicy Meatballs for Easy Lunches (Gluten-free and Dairy-free)

image

Another gluten-free, dairy-free meatball recipe for your lunchbox! These Spicy Meatballs have some bite to them and include my absolute favorite pepper in them, poblanos! My friend Marla cooked them with me and was dubious about some of the ingredients but was won over by the finished product (though we did eat them for dinner). Meatballs would make a great school lunch, since it is September and I myself am eating lunch at university … when I’m done teaching.

I tried to make a recipe for these meatballs a few months ago with some lactose free pepper jack cheese cubes in the middle. I loved the cheese on its own but somehow the flavor didn’t transfer very well into the meatballs and most of the cheese oozed out (plus putting a cube in each meatball was more work!). Vegan Daiya cheese’s inability to melt exactly like milk cheese is actually a boon here, preventing it all from ending up in the pan and not deliciously oozing throughout the meatballs.

image

Meatballs are great with pasta (zucchini noodles if you’re paleo or doing a Whole30 like I am starting soon). Also good with crackers, raw veggies, roasted veggies—anything! These are such great lunches cold or hot and really easy to substitute ingredients and still be successful. 

Substitutions: You could use beef, pork, chicken or—as I did—turkey “mince” here (ground meat, for the Americans). Pork rinds work fantastically in gluten free meatballs, as discussed here, because they’re cheap and easy to crush! My friend Marla was dubious about the pork rinds. Let’s be honest, pork rinds smell terrible and taste awful. She wanted to try one—bad idea because then she was convinced our meatballs would be terrible. But you cannot taste the pork rinds in the meatballs at all! Marla even liked them. But if you have gluten free bread crumbs or crackers you want to crush, those would work well too. Don’t be scared by the pork rinds though!

You could use apple cider vinegar or lemon juice or another vinegar. You can use mayo or plain yogurt. You could even play around with the spices or substitute another kind of pepper, but I wouldn’t recommend that as these are just about perfect!

Dice the vegetables very finely so they cook nicely in the oven.

Spicy Meatballs

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Combine in a large mixing bowl:

  • 1 pound ground turkey
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup crushed pork rinds
  • ¼ cup mayo
  • 1 tablespoon ACV
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cumin
  • 1/3 cup poblano pepper, diced (about 1 pepper)
  • 1/3 cup onion, diced
  • 1/3 c. shredded mozzarella Daiya cheese (or pepper jack style)

Using a metal scoop, form and place individual meatballs on a parchment-lined pan or in your cast iron skillet. (Should make 18-20 meatballs.)

Cook for 35 minutes or until browned.

image

I hope you enjoy these! Let me know what you add to make a complete meal!

Pineapple Poblano Bean Bowl (Gluten free, dairy free, and vegan!)

image

This recipe happened as the synergy of some really delicious leftovers turning into an even more delicious dish. It has my favorite in it– poblanos! And the best black beans you’ll ever make (liked by people at my home group from church!). And pineapple. Mmmm, pineapple.

Cumin and chipotle powder are really delicious in the beans, bringing out the Mexican/bean flavors in the best way possible. Chipotle powder is also good on eggs, taco meat, roasted nuts, or anything savory. I got this chipotle powder from my friend Laura a few months ago. We went to a spice shop in Austin before lunch during our trip home from San Antonio and BSF HQ. At the spice shop, I saw the chipotle powder but didn’t want to buy a whole jar, so Laura and I shared the jar. I’m loving the flavor on lots of different dishes! Chipotle feels like a very Texan flavor. These chipotle cumin beans are good on chips or with tacos as well.

You can use any kind of pineapple for this dish: Cubed, canned pineapple works, frozen then thawed pineapple slices work, or fresh if you’re feeling fancy.

The raw cashews roasted with the poblano is especially tasty. I like to have my cast iron skillet on fairly high heat to sear the poblano and it also creates some lovely brown marks on the cashews. Because they’re just barely cooked, the cashews add a chewier texture and a gentle flavor counterpoint to the other, stronger flavors in this dish.  

It’s definitely a great dish to make for your vegan friends. Meat lovers won’t feel like they are missing anything and the cashews and beans add a lot of protein! 36 grams of protein in each of the 3 servings. (This got an A rating on a calorie counter website, which is rare for my recipes because they’re usually high in fat/deliciousness! Which usually makes me laugh but I keep checking the recipe counter. Usually for protein and vitamins)

There are quite a few ingredients and steps, but if you make the rice ahead for another meal, that’s done. Then make a double batch of the black beans to eat with chips the day before. Then all you have to cook is the yummy poblano/cashew combo and combine everything into one fantastic dish. I’m really excited to share this dish with you, as its unique, easy and tasty! The leftovers are great for colorful lunches.

image

Pineapple Poblano Bean Bowl

Serves 3.

If you don’t have cooked brown rice, cook ¾ cup brown rice first (you’ll want 1 ½ cups cooked).

In a small pot on the stove, simmer the following while you prepare the rest of the ingredients:

  • 1 15 oz. can black beans
  • ½ teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon ground chipotle powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Heat in a cast iron skillet:

  • ½ Tablespoon of coconut oil

Sauté in the skillet:

  • 2 large poblanos, diced

When the poblanos are just softened, add:

  • 1/3 cup raw, whole cashews
  • ¼   teaspoon salt

Cook until the cashews are slightly browned and the poblanos are done.

Combine on top of ½ cup cooked brown rice per serving:

  • Cumin Chipotle beans
  • Poblano/cashew mixture
  • 1 cup diced pineapple (1/3 cup per serving)

Enjoy!

I’m really excited to share this dish with you, as its unique, easy and tasty! Let me know what you think after you make it!

image