Asian Noodle Salad

OK, so this one is inspired from a Pinterest post. For those of you who don't know what Pinterest is...google it....and thank me later for all of the creative inspiration it will bring into your life. I'm not quite obsessed with it yet but I do enjoy it each and every time I plug in :) Follow my vegan pin board here to see some of the recipes that I will be trying very soon and get inspired yourself~
http://pinterest.com/cuspofbeauty/vegan-food/

The Asian Noodle Salad was really very good and it passed the boys taste test with "flying colors" as they say. As E was cleaning the kitchen this evening, he turned around to look at me and said "Mom, that was actually really good!".....music to a mama's ears :)

Asian Noodle Salad

one box angel hair pasta
1/2 cup peanut butter (or any nut butter you like)
1/2 cup asian dressing
4 large shredded carrots
1 cup shelled edamame
chopped spinach, red pepper, avocado and peanuts

boil pasta, shredded carrots and edamame together for about 5 minutes and then strain and rinse with warm water
(angel hair only takes about five minutes to cook)
mix together 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup asian dressing ( I used a soy/ginger marinade) and stir in a small bowl
drizzle dressing mixture over the pasta and veggies, stir, then add the fresh veggies on top.....truly delicioso!

Mexican Gumbo and Black Bean Tacos

We love us some Gumbo over here in this vegan family....actually we love anything that is super saucy and full of flavor so a Mexican Gumbo is just the thing to warm the heart and fill the belly of my always hungry and growing boys. My husband actually got us started in this idea because he is obsessed with the Mexican Gumbo at Qdoba and was eating it at least twice a week. I'm pretty sure there is msg in the restaurant food and no Mama who has any knowledge of the dangers of msg can feed this stuff to their family without some guilt...so we have started making a similar version at home.

My version goes as follows:
~One pot of Vegan Tortilla Soup (recipe below)
~one batch guacamole (also recipe below)
~fresh salsa or tomatoes
~brown rice
~black beans
~tortilla chips

You basically put the beans and rice in a bowl and add several scoops of tortilla soup on top. Then add the fresh accoutrements on top so they stay cool and crush a few tortilla chips, if you desire, on top. Perfection!!

My boys also love tacos so we decided to serve them as well for dinner. I don't use a lot of soy products or even faux meat....it's not that I'm against them...they are actually quite delicious it's just that we don't use them very often because I try to avoid processed foods as much as I can. So since we already had the beans and rice I used these items as the bulk of the taco and added salsa, vegan sour cream and chopped romaine on top.


This picture was just the first plate I made...I'm pretty sure they ate at least ten between the older two of them :) This recipe is a must if you enjoy mexican food...let me know if you love it as much as we do!

Tortilla Soup recipe~
Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1/2 cup green onion, chopped
3 tbsp ground cumin
One 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
1 can chopped green chili peppers, drained (optional)
3 cups vegetable broth

lime juice to taste
salt & pepper & crushed red chili pepper, to taste

1. In a large pot over medium to low heat, add the olive oil, onion and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, chop the peppers, zucchini, green onion....Add the veggies into the pot and sauté for another 5-10 minutes.

3. Add in the crushed tomatoes,green chilis, cumin and broth. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Simmer on low-medium heat for 25-30 minutes.

That is it!

Simple Guacamole Recipe~
ingredients:
1/2 white onion chopped
2 TBSP lime juice
3 Avocados
sea salt to taste

1. marinate chopped onion, lime juice and sea salt in a bowl for 10 minutes then add avocado and crush gently with a fork...then serve~

The Original Potato Chip

You would not believe how MANY different kinds of vegans there are in this little subculture. There are fruitarians, high carb low fat raw vegan, gourmet raw vegan, cooked vegan, junk food vegan, macrobiotic, vegans who only eat local, dumpster diver vegans (yes you read correctly), liquidarian and even the vegans who call themselves vegan but still eat a fair amount of animals foods...and the list goes on. It also seems we are all striving to encourage each other to progress further on our path to health, or enlightenment or whatever the reason we have chosen this life style. I am not claiming to be anything other than someone who abstains from eating animal products....I'm not 100% healthy, I'm not 100% raw, I'm not not colorful or even gourmet...I'm just sharing the things that we eat on a regular basis. Right now I'm doing this little challenge called "Eat most of what you've got before you go to the grocery again"....tough one for me :) I think I'm a foodie...or a shopaholic or whatever you would call it when you buy more than what you need just because...well...you can. i know it sounds spoiled but I guess we. just. are. There is nothing more in the world that I would love to do at this time than eat a simpler diet of maybe even mono fruit for a while (easier said than done) but I'm just not there yet. Sigh....so in the mean time I'm extremely grateful for what we've been given and I will share with whomever wants to know about our lifestyle. So in the process of "Eating whatever is here instead of going shopping again" it has stretched me a bit. I have this compulsion to have a certain amount of fresh food on my plate in order for the meal to feel balanced. It's been ingrained in me over almost 11 years of raw food brainwashing...which is not always a bad thing ;) So we've been eating potatoes (gasp) and cans beans (yikes) and buttered toast....it's painful to admit. After all my husband owns a raw food company so to a degree my ego has always been on guard. But worse things have happened in the world than buttered toast...I'm sure of it~
For snack today, I found a bag of organic potatoes (potatoes are extremely important to eat organic because they are a root and therefor soak in a tremendous amount of pesticides) and peeled off the little buds that were starting to grow and washed them up to look perfect and new again. Then I sliced them halfway down about 8 or 9 times to make slits in them. You can either drizzle olive oil over top or stuff the potato slits with crushed garlic...I just left them plain and cooked them unwrapped for a long time on 375 degrees. It was well over an hour (I didn't realize it takes so long to cook a potato!) But when they came out they were delicious and you can just rip off each chunk and dip it in a sauce (for kids) or just eat them plain like me. My kids loved them so much. And of course I had sliced apples and some sour pickles on the side. Baby T ate the apples and the boys each ate two whole potatoes. They were not too thrilled at first when they saw what I was making because apparently it looked too plain (spoiled much?) but in the end they gave high accolades and I got to say "told ya so"....always a plus around here!


This picture is what Baby T had on his high chair. He gobbled up the green juice that I made for everyone (kale, apple, celery) and yes they "got to" drink it before eating :) They secretly loved it......

Tacoless Taco salad

Sunday is here and it was a busy one....not that it's different from any other day :) We recently painted a small 2x8 foot wall in the kitchen with chalkboard paint. I love it because it's a really great color first of all and then secondly I thought it would be put to great practical use as well....mainly for announcing the days events (because the kids constantly are asking me what we are doing that day) and then also for answering the question "What's for dinner?". Here is a picture of the board today~



Baby T and I spent the morning together so we went on a date and got some mango sorbet. He loved it! Just thought i'd add this in here since it relates to food and kids. He's not really a big eater so I don;t give him a lot of sugar at all but this was a special occassion...well really when is it not a special occasion with him!



Also,I joined an amazing monthly Women's Circle for many reasons but mainly to be with...well...women. It's great because there are no kids, we sing around a bonfire under the stars and then share what's going on in our lives...joy, pain, growth...it's beautiful....and it was tonight which means I got to make food for the potluck and for the other women....not just my family! Sharing food has got to be one of the most communal and loving things out there and I love seeing what everyone else makes. Here's what I made....

Creamy Chickpea Salad
this is similar to an egg or tuna salad
3 cups of cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup vegenaise (vegan mayo delicioso)
large squirt of mustard
4 stalks of finely chopped celery
two large spoon fulls of sweet relish
sea salt to taste
tons of fresh pepper
maybe some cayenne pepper of you're feeling spicy

So you crush the beans with a potato smasher or the back of a fork until the majority are squished and then gently fold in the remaining ingredients. I served this with romaine lettuce leaves and round crackers. You could also make a sandwich or just put in on top of your salad. mmmmm mmm good :)

The kiddos ate mainly a ton of berries (and by a ton I'm probably not even exaggerating), beans and rice and chips and salsa today. Simple and self serve...a sort of day off for mama :) When I got home though I was pretty hungry so i put together this DELICIOUS concoction in about 30 seconds. I love salads...what can i say!



Dinner was: a head of romaine chopped small with two kinds of salsa, about a 1/4 cup brown rice and 1/2 of an avocado. The tacoless taco salad~ my chalkboard read soft tacos...so I guess I was close :)

BBQ chik'n wraps

Football is just part of our weekends these days...I've really had to accept this. It's not that I have anything against the sport really...I would totally go to the Super Bowl.....I'm a competitive person to a degree so I get it. It's exciting, something to look forward to and something to have in common with the average American person out there. It's just hard to deal with when you have a toddler who would rather be, well, social. I don't think people usually talk about this, at least no one I have talked to lately, but the parent who is least interested in the game gets to watch the baby....for four hours straight. Baby T has no interest in football other than sitting next to everyone on the sofa for about three seconds just to imitate their behavior......"Go.....ball.....fooball....." it's cute but in just a short while, he's back to wanting a snack or wanting to play with his brothers or doing something else that does not involve staring and the tv. One of the things that I do love to do for football days though is to make something a little more interesting for dinner....surprise surprise :) Today it was BBQ wraps which has already been a tried and true winner around here.



For this recipe I sauteed the "Gardein" brand chik'n and added BBQ sauce to it. Then layered the chik'n with fresh tomatoes and romaine lettuce on top. The sauce was the best though: a ratio of 2:1 vegenaise (vegan mayo) and BBQ sauce. I think everyone could eat about five each of these if I had enough :) I did eat one and then had a pretty big salad after that. E tried to steal my salad but I made him make his own....it;s good for a little boy to know his way around the kitchen! Also for dessert I made these everything bars. They have oats, goji berries and coconut oil in them so I convinced myself that they are healthy :)



this recipe is as follows:
1/2 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup dark choc chips
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup agave or maple syrup
1 cup raw oats
handful of goji berries
Melt the first four ingredients in a sauce pan then add the last two. Place the chocolate goo into a glass pan and put it in the fridge to solidify. Then eat and enjoy~

We did all have a lot of fun this morning though :) J got us outside really early (8am) to play in the snow! It's the first snowfall of the season so everyone had to get their fix. Our backyard is awesome ...that is why we bought the house. It backs up into the woods and has a creek that flows through the yard and also has THREE large hills for sledding. (I'm an outdoor junkie so this is like heaven for me). Baby T didn't want anything to do with the sledding at first. He wanted to take his four wheeler down the hill!

Lovely Little Oranges

I always live by the rule of fasting when you don't feel 100%. This was one of those days for me. Something is definitely going around and i want to avoid it to the best of my ability so fasting is one of my big secrets. Since I'm still nursing Baby T now, i don;t fast on water because it doesn't feel right, so instead i fasted on fruit and tea today. It feels good to do this anyways...to give the body a chance to slow down, digest something simple and conserve energy to fight off all of the nasty little viruses and germs that invade our bodies each and every day. When my kids get sick, they naturally have lessened appetites and eat very meekly. J, who is my biggest eater presently, eats a ton of fruit....all the time. he can polish off a huge container of raspberries (think the large ones from Costco) in a matter of a few minutes.....or he can sit there with those little orange cuties and eat about 8 at a time. He just loves fruit and I just love watching him eat it. Hopefully it will take just a few days to feel back to normal, but for dinner tonight, it was oranges for me. They were delicious too :)

Lentil Loaf with Romaine leaves

.....so I had a much needed "girl moment", as I call them, today in the car. I live with four boys and so it's really enjoyable for me to share this reality with them on a regular basis. We use sarcasm a lot in our family and tend to tease each other incessantly. This means that nothing is off topic and there are no big elephants in the room as they say....ever. Baby T and i get to drive an hour every day to pick up the big boys from school. There are a number of coersive tactics that I have up my sleeve to get him in the car but none work better than "snack" or "chocolate".....I know i know.....sugar and chocolate are not really healthy for a toddler but I figure he might as well be happy on the chocolate love while strapped into a bucket for an hour instead of screaming "mama mama".......yeah, remember that one? Here is a picture of Baby T in his happy place with cocoa drool and all:


He also ate some oats with chopped apple and brown rice with sunflower seeds and peas this morning......but..... On to my "girl moment" now. So we carpool. Like every good suburban mom should, and she just so happens to be a girl, this lucky carpool kid. My boys don't really understand girls, they say, because they don't have any sisters, obviously, and the majority of the people we are closest to are boys. So when this little girl gets in the car after school i have so much fun with her. She tells me the scoop about fifth grade and we talk about veganism and all sorts of other topics. Today I just so happened to be listening to Pandora and Adele came on and it was "Someone Like You".....you know it....you've belted in out at the top of your lungs before, admit it. That song transports me to another world....one where I am a broken hearted lovestruck rock star who has the voice of a goddess....apparently it transports this carpool girl there too because she was right there with me...passion and all. But, my boys on the other hand were mortified. I really don't care at all either because it was my "girl moment" and they were not taking it away from me....well they tried. J kept trying to turn down the volume but i persisted and they had to apparently suffer through it....it was pure bliss for me though. But at the end where she sings the chorus "nevermind I'll find someone like you...." i pushed pause and looked at E and said "Come one E....give me just one 'never mind i'll find....' you know you want to. it feels so good"....he said "No way Mom" and went back to reading his book. So I said "Come on! i'll give you $20"...and the sad thing is that i would have. He actually considered it for maybe a half second but resisted...he's got strong will power to resist Adele ;) Another day in the life of my three sons :) For dinner we had a lentil loaf and some steamed broccoli/cauliflower. I wrapped my lentil loaf into romaine lettuce leaves to add a fresh vibe and the boys gave it a "9" on a scale of 1-10 10 being the best. Baby T liked the veggies the best but I think we all need to be eating more fruit for the next couple of days....

Everything goes in the bowl: 2 cups cooked rice, 2 cups cooked lentils, one onion and two cloves garlic sauteed, tablespoon sage, 1/3 cup barbecue sauce or ketchup and the mash all of this up in a bowl and then cook it for an hour on 350~



This is a picture of the beautiful lentil loaf which almost got a perfect score!

Chopped Spinach salad with Potato Gnocchi

This was my lunch. I just love salad so much and really try to eat one everyday. Today my Mom came over to help me paint my kitchen and I really love making her food. She became a vegan as well a few years back and it has been such a joy to share this life with her....plus she is into food as much as I am....Talking about vegan food, trying new vegan recipes, researching etc....we are vegan sisters for sure :) This particular lunch took about...five minutes again. I made it as soon as Baby T went down for a nap so I could really focus on making it look fresh and taste great. It's a simple chopped spinach salad with red pepper and tahini dressing. In the wooden bowl is potato gnocchi with marinara sauce and then of course a few pieces of dark chocolate for dessert. Bon Appetit!



Dinner was a quickie also. We had a busy night with J going to art class and Aaron had a videographer buddy over to brainstorm an exciting future project (more on that soon) so we just put together left overs and another salad. This is chopped romaine with avocado and red pepper, leftover quinoa and broccoli with homemade ginger dressing on top. We also ate popcorn a little bit later on because J and I love us some popcorn :)

Eggplant Cutlets on a Bed of Romaine

Ok so I have a confession to make. Baby T ate something super weird today.....in true toddler fashion (and I'm not sure it was even vegan). He has been really clingy recently because of the agony of teething and getting over a fever on New Years so I can't get anything done around the house that requires two hands because he is always on my hip.....constantly. And he has also decided to become obsessed with the word "Mama". He will say my name over and over and over until I actually stop and look at him. Sometimes that's all I need to do too....is look at him. So here's how it goes. I'm cleaning up the kitchen and he's on my hip..."mama". "Hi Toby".....I try to give him a quick glance and continue to put lids on condiments and gather all the dishes into the sink. "Mama"....."Toby"...."Mama"...."Do you want a snack Toby?"......"No, .....Mama"......"Mama Mama"......at this point he is screaming at me....to just look at him. So I look at him. And I look away....but He follows my gaze with his whole body until I look at him again. Sigh...we are just sitting here looking at each other and he has stopped saying my name so I give in and just look at him.....hopefully everyone wasn't counting on me getting much done today.... The best of today though was in the car on the way to pick up E and J from school. Baby T kept saying my name and then saying "snack". He had already eaten the snack I packed and was playing with something in his cup holder......this is where all sorts of random gross things have ended up so I really wasn't sure what was in there or whether he should even be trying to eat it. So I reached my hand back there and just grabbed what I found and it wasn't too squishy so I was a bit relieved...until i saw what it was he was referring to as a snack. Have you seen those small little erasers that kids collect now that are animals.....well my sweet little baby had eaten the heads off of two of them and declared them a snack. I don't even know what those things are made of or how he got ahold of them. All I know is that they are headless....and sad looking. Poor things :(

On another note, dinner was delicious tonight. I had a smoothie at about 6pm but Aaron made dinner at 8:30 for himself and he made me some too! I would have made it look prettier (because I'm a snob about that) but the flavor was there and E even got out of bed to eat *cough* steal half of it off my plate. It was romaine lettuce with eggplant cutlets and tahini sauce. Then he added thick slices of fresh tomato...mmmm mmm good :)

Tofu Scramble on Toast with broccoli, kale and quinoa

Tonight we had a delicious dinner and it was so simple and easy. In fact it took just about 5 minutes to make...you can't get much better than that. Before I tell you what exactly we ate, I'll take you into our night a little more in depth. We had a long and busy day helping my sister de-clutter and clean out her place. The kids played outside nearly all afternoon and we dug deep into her mess. There was a lot accomplished and I only came home with three things from her place: a glass vase, a sparkly scarf and a Twilight book I had lent her. Super proud of myself and a high five to me! (I'm sort of a trinket/furniture/clothing/everything collector) Right after we got home, Aaron, my husband, and I were planning to go straight to IKEA to burn through this rather large gift card we had unfortunately aquired, thats not sarcasm....it's a long story. We were in a hurry because it's a school night and I like things to be smooth on school nights for everyone's sake. I quickly told the kids to grab a snack before we went because you know kids are incessantly hungry and the minute we get in the car it's always "Where's the water" or "I'm hungry". Needless to say, no one was hungry before we left so just Baby T and I had some coconut yogurt with a bit of granola and dried strawberries and we were off. We were actually there for almost two hours and the kiddos were really doing awesome....except for the marble incident where J bounced it so high that he almost broke a display of glassware and the IKEA worker gave us a serious glaring staredown....or when my darling husband had Baby T on the very top of a really high loft bed and one of the other worker came jogging towards us and sternly scolded him, loudly, for allowing a child up there. I just turned my head and pretended to read the prices of the beds....boys boys boys boys boys ahhhhh. Now to the dinner part. So it's 8pm and we are on our way home and I know everyone is more than ready for dinner so I ask Aaron to make tofu scramble because honestly that is the only thing he will ever cook other than canned soup. We do not eat tofu very often at all and this particular batch had probably been in the fridge for a couple of weeks so I knew it would be good to use it soon. I had to put Baby T to bed right away so Aaron got going on dinner and when I got out to the kitchen everyone looked at me with such sad faces. He had given them literally a bowl of crumbled warm soggy tofu; at least he tried. They needed some Mommy magic in the kitchen. I got out the sprouted wheat bread, toasted it, added Vegenaise, and fresh tomato and made these really delicious open faced sandwiches that *surprise* everyone loved. (Mommy 1 point--Daddy 0) Not that I'm really counting or anything......shhhhhh. On the side went some quinoa with chopped broccoli, cajun kale chips and a garnish of fresh red peppers because a meal isn't complete without something fresh. It was pretty, delicious, and a well balanced meal to fill their bellies before drifting off to sleep. Happy kiddos=happy mama.

Pho

I'm going to start this blog in a new direction...hopefully one with a little humor that will amuse and inspire. Well, it has been increasingly hard to find things that my oldest son enjoys eating that has any resemblance of "healthy". Let me start out that I have three sons who are completely full of life, laughter and energy...I was going to say joy but we have had a hard day today and they are officially on my sh*t list ;) My boys are as follows: E who is just shy of 11 yrs old, J who is 7, and Baby T who is 21 months. They have all been vegan since birth except for a few oops encounters but we are actually very strict with this. My kids go to an alternative school which supports all the different lifestyle choices of all the families and for this I am extremely grateful. They oldest two have been blessed with having the large majority of snacks and birthday treats at school being prepared vegan for the entire class. This is just a dream come true for us and a real nod to the sense of community the school fosters. But...back to the pickiness of my oldest son E. So I mostly make homemade and whole foods based lunches and dinners but E would mostly rather eat **dun dat dat dun**...Salt and Vinegar potato chips....not at all healthy for anyone especially a growing vegan child. We used to be a lot more strict with only eating raw foods, or only eating fruit for snacks but as the kids have grown we have given in to some of the junk food for convenience and also just for fun, or maybe even to feel a bit more "normal". Everyone said this would happen but as a new and idealistic mama, I said "No way". My kid will never eat potato chips or cereals or god forbid fast food! (They are now addicted to a certain chain owned by McD's who claims to have "burritos as big as your head"...darnit. Well my intention with this blog is to share the things that my family eats and also share random tidbits from our life for family and friends new and old. Lets begin with the delicious dinner I slaved over I mean made tonight. I always have tons of food in the house but sometimes I get so inspired to make something particular that I just have to go to the grocery store....again. Tonight was no exception. It was the football playoff night and I wanted to make these delicious barbecue wraps for our guests so I went to the local Kroger. But while I was there of course I traveled up and down every aisle looking for something new that is vegan and lo and behold I found something! It was Pho. I love Pho. My kids love Pho. My husband loves Pho and it is rare in out house for everyone to love the same thing so wow I had a little heart flutter (yes food does that to me) and I bought the pre-packaged Pho soup. Now normally one would make this broth homemade but sometimes you just need the convenience of heat and eat so into the cart it went. Our plans fell through with the friends coming over for football so of course I wanted to change up dinner and make the glorious Pho soup with it's chewy rice noodles, chopped garnish and sweet n spicy sauces......I was confident everyone would love it because we get this dish all the time at the local Loving Hut restaurant down the street and everyone leaves happy everytime. So before when I said I slaved over this dinner, it was so true. Baby T was in no mood for me to be doing anything other than sitting quietly and nursing him so he screamed at me the whole time while I was cooking. He was also insisting that E had the blue bowl and J had the red bowl and then he would just yell at me when I said "yes that's right"...kids are so strange sometimes. Finally my husband took Baby T and I was able to finish up the soup and make it look beautiful, because in my world presentation is equally important as flavor, and i served the Pho. It was....just ok, I'll admit but the reaction I got from everyone else is just so typical of our family. E smelled it and just looked at me with that ungrateful look, you know the one. He then proceeded to take a bite and promptly said "This is disgusting". My husband said "Rice Noodles are so weird" and then put the bowl down on the counter. he was done. E was done. I was eating it because I've just become accustomed to eat whatever is there. J, bless his heart, ate every bite and Baby T kept trying to eat the noodles and then spit them out. Sigh. Later, after Baby t went to bed, J and i made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting. Those were a hit....go figure. Sugar and fat wins everytime!