pasta and vegetables

This is based loosely on Cathy's Pizza Pasta recipe, but I don't really think of it as pizza and I used different vegetables.  I think of it more like a pasta primavera or ratatouille.  I liked the idea of fresh basil and nutritional yeast--that worked really well.

Here are the vegetables I used, which is just what was in the fridge:
onion
red fry pepper (like a red bell pepper)
celery
a little leftover mushrooms
a little leftover green bell pepper
eggplant
zucchini
broccoli

I fried up the onions, bell pepper and celery (the cajun trinity), added the others as I chopped them, added a little water when needed.   then added

1 can of tomatoes

simmered for about 10 minutes.  then added

some frozen corn
basil leaves (mine were frozen and I just crumpled them, about 1/4 cup)
1 tsp nutritional yeast

cooked for another 10 minutes.

I cooked up some organic einkorn whole wheat rigatoni pasta.   I like it.  It's very hearty.  I think I'm a little sensitive to wheat or gluten, but I understand if you only have slight sensitivities, these "ancient" versions of wheat (this has not been hybridized) might not be a problem.  So I thought I'd experiment and see.  So far so good.

I ate half tonight and will have the rest for lunch tomorrow.   Yum!

Veggies for the week

Last week by about Thursday I decided I was tired of eating so many salads.  Fortunately that feeling only lasted a couple of days and by today I was desiring one again.  I'm planning a better balance this week between cooked and raw so I don't get tired of salads by Thursday.  Yesterday I made my bean soup like I usually do.  Today I made a giant batch of cooked veggies.  Actually after cooking it was not so giant, and just filled 7 bowls.  My veggie choices were inspired by this clip from Dr. Gregor.  His video clips are awesome.  They only last a couple of minutes and are very informative.  So this clip showed some recent studies that maybe did a better job of measuring antioxidant values in vegetables (I'm not going to try to explain, see the video).   I was surprised by the results.  I grabbed a screen shot of the result (hope he doesn't mind!):

So guess what I put in my two big pots of veggies:  beets, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, mushrooms, and garlic.  And I threw in some herbs du provence, and some fines herbs and some cinnamon.  Note that red bell pepper is really high on the list but Dr. Gregor says it loses too many nutrients when cooked.   So I added that to my salad.  I love red bell peppers!   Here are the veggies are ready to cook up in 2 large pressure cookers:

Here they are after cooking and cooling and dished out into bowls to freeze for the week:

I still tend to overcook veggies in my pressure cookers, so they are soft but they taste delicious.  I am not sure there is a cooked veggie I don't like.  I doubt you even need the seasonings.  Speaking of those, Dr. Gregor talks about spices with huge health benefits but I can't remember it all.  I seem to recall cinnamon and cloves and marjoram?  oregano is pretty good too.  It's in one of the recent videos. 

Another cooked veggie I plan to eat this week is baked sweet potatoes.  My absolute favorite are the oriental yams.  They have purple skin and yellow flesh.  They are so sweet I wonder if they are even healthy.

cooked veggies

I don't use recipes much, so this is just an example of what I made today from food in my fridge.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium eggplant, peeled and chopped

1 small (or bigger) onion, chopped

1 16-oz can tomatoes

4-8 oz shitake mushrooms

1 bunch kale, chopped

brussels sprouts, 12 oz in this case

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped

1 Tbsp sunflower seeds + 1 Tbsp sesame seeds, ground

1/4 cup raisins (I'm guessing--I added an unripe white peach instead and didn't like it, so next time I will try raisins or an apple)

1 cup beans

1/2 tsp each of some spices--I tried cumin, garam masala, and curry (felt like an Indian flavor)

fresh herbs if you have them--right now, it's cilantro, chives, and dill

1 Tbsp flavored vinegar (e.g., spicy pecan, or pomegranate balsamic)

Combine everything in the pressure cooker except the raisins, beans, ground seeds, and tomatoes. Cook for 2 minutes at high pressure, let set for a few minutes before letting out pressure (cooks them longer). Then add the raisins, beans, and tomatoes--also helps cool it down. It's pretty good. I'm not sure what spices work best, was just experimenting.

quick pressure cooker veggies

I usually eat lunch at home and I need it to be a fairly light meal (no beans, but you can add them!) because I exercise only 3 hours later. Today's meal was very good so I'm posting it. This was a somewhat random selection of veggies from my fridge, but I'd say a good combination is definitely the eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms and pine nuts. Then just add other veggies from your fridge, like broccoli or greens or cauliflower etc Edamame would be good. It was a bit too much food though so I'm going to list smaller quantities than I used, for next time:

Ingredients:

1/3 eggplant

nappa cabbage or bok choy

shiitake mushrooms

1/2 can tomatoes

1 Tbsp ground pine nuts

Cook everything except the pine nuts in the pressure cooker for 3 minutes; let cool under pressure for a few more minutes. Grind the nuts in a coffee grinder, add to the dish and stir. I thought the combination of flavors was quite yummy. The mushrooms added a meaty taste, the eggplant and pine nuts were good. Here's what it looked like:

Oh, and since housemate doesn't like eggplant or shiitake mushrooms I made her favorite veggies which were potatoes, peas, carrots, tomatoes, and corn. With 1 Tbsp ground pine nuts added in:

this week's meals; curried salad recipe

Boy I have been busy since I got back from vacation. I changed my schedule around again so I can get more work done. It's working and so I haven't had much time to post. Now I work more in the morning and moved my exercise to the afternoon. So that affects my meal plans. I'm eating lighter brekky and lunches, and heavier dinner---more like the way most people eat. typical meals are:

Brekky: blended salad

lunch: cooked veggies (any kinds including tomatoes); or raw veggies and dip. I've been into my peanut-banana dip this week. today I had asparagus, cabbage, and tomatoes; and various seasonings (italian type). I need to add pine nuts to my grocery list. Ground pine nuts is good in this kind of dish. Tomorrow it will probably be raw veggies and peanut-banana dip for the second time. Friday I'm thinking collards with sweet potato sauce or sweet potato/peanut sauce (on the collards). I guess I'm into peanuts (limited amounts of course) this week.

dinner: big salad with beans or edamame, seeds (usually ground), and fruit, and a little flavored vinegar. basically kitchen sink salad. Tonight's was really good which is why I'm posting. It turned into a curry dish. I took my usual beans, which already have great flavor from the carrot juice and veggies blended in (this week was eggplant and onions); added 1 tsp curry powder, 2 Tbsp ground seeds (take your pick--today was sunflower and sesame), a chopped banana, and chopped grapes! This was really good. Curry is good with sweet fruit. I had this over a chopped head of lettuce. yummy!

These are all fast meals to prepare because I made the blended salads on the weekend and froze them; made the beans on the weekend and froze them into individual servings; and use the pressure cooker at lunch time to cook the veggies.

broccoli stalks

I've always thought of broccoli stalks as garbage or compost. Here's a picture:

Does that look edible to you? Well, I heard the inside is tender and tasty. So I peeled of the outer layers with a potato peeler:

and guess what, it does taste good. It's quite tender. Who knew!

butternut squash/apple bake

This is really a version of Dr. Fuhrman's sweet potato apple bake, but I tried it with butternut squash instead of sweet potato, since we get the squash locally for much of the winter.

Ingredients:

1/2 large or 1 medium butternut squash

2 apples

2/3 cup raw cranberries, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup raisins

2/3 cup orange juice (I used mandarin oranges)

1/2-1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cut the squash in half lengthwise, and dig out the seeds and stringy stuff. I found scraping it with a knife first frees up the stringy stuff, and then a spoon can remove it. Peel the squash. I recently got what I think is called a t-peeler. This worked great. Here's a picture showing the t-peeler at top left, and the chopped squash:

Next, peel and chop the apples. Combine everything in a baking dish. Cover with foil. Bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes. In the last 15 minutes, add the cinnamon and remove the foil to toast it a bit.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished project. Here's a picture of a version with sweet potatoes instead of squash:

Note on modifications: I recently tried this with beets and squash and didn't like it as much. It's better just with the squash!

beans & veggies & seeds

It's time to write up this recipe since I eat it practically every week day and it will save describing it. It is easy and good. My SAD (Standard American Diet) friends like it too. Today my friend wanted to eat my food instead of the food he was eating at a restaurant. And that was loaded with salt and oil which is usually hard to compete with.

Ingredients:

beans

steamed veggies

0.5-1 oz ground seeds

The secret is in the beans which are cooked in fresh carrot juice. And we get really good locally grown carrots most of the year. Man we are so lucky. I go through a 5 lb bag every week. I have orange skin.

I have 2 main variations on the veggies. The first is greens (e.g., collards, kale, bok choy) and root veggies (e.g., rutabaga and/or beets). I steam them all up in the pressure cooker (3-4 minutes on high; or 20-30 minutes in regular pan). Then I blend the root veggies with sesame seeds (1-3 Tbsp), the water from the steaming, and juice of a lemon, in the vita-mix. This makes a sauce that I mix in with the beans and greens.

The other variation is to just steam a bunch of veggies (2-3 minutes on high in the pressure cooker, 20 minutes in regular pan). Today was brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and carrots. Then grid up some seeds (hemp, sunflower, and/or pumpkin) in the coffee grinder (2 Tbsp works for me). Stir the ground seeds in with the leftover water from the steaming, then combine that with the beans and pour over the veggies. You can taste the sweetness of the veggies and the beans.

Yum, both variations are loved by my lunch guests.

simple collard greens

Easy and good side dish.

Ingredients:

a bunch of collard greens

leek or onion, chopped

flavored vinegar

Chop the onions and collard greens. Cook in a pressure cooker on high for 3-4 minutes with 1/2-1 cup water. Or steam or boil for 20-30 minutes. Add the vinegar. serve. I really like this! and it's super healthy.

aug. 4

brekky: 1/2 musk melon, 2 carrots, a grapefruit, 2 Tbsp sunflower seeds

Lunch: corn on the cob + avocado butter, and a dish of veggies+greens+beans. This would have been really good but I burnt the lentils. I didn't follow the instructions for my pressure cooker--didn't add enough water to the lentils. I didn't realize they were burnt at the bottom until I had mixed everything in and cooked some more and was dishing it out. oops! So the sweet flavor of the beets and carrots got lost in the slightly burnt flavor. It would have been a great meal, and instead it was just okay. It was all local food except the lentils: eggplant, zucchini, kale from the garden, beets, carrots, onions, lentils, and basil, chives and dill from the garden. Here's the garden haul before cooking:

Our first tomato! We sliced it and ate it as is. That's the herbs on the left and kale in the middle. The lentil veggie mixture wasn't too bad so I went ahead and ate it for lunch and dinner. I'll probably have the rest at lunch tomorrow.

Dinner: 1/2 musk melon, 1/2 small orange, 3 carrots, some salad greens, and leftover veggie-lentils. oh, and I figured I needed more seeds so I had 2 Tbsp hemp seeds.

veggie pot

I'm going away for the weekend and wanted to empty the fridge so I cooked everything that was in my fridge (except some potatoes):

beets, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, celery, zucchini, carrots, bag of frozen edamame, and hemp seeds; and herbs from the garden (dill, basil, chives).

The beets, onion, carrots, and broccoli stems take longer so I cooked them for 2 minutes in the pressure cooker, then added the rest (except the seeds), and cooked for another 2 minutes. Then put it into three big tupperware bowls. Then ground 3 Tbsp of hemp seeds and put them in each bowl and stirred.

So this has everything you need: veggies, greens, beans, and seeds. And it tastes great! I love beets and edamame combination, well, and everything else. yummy. so I'll be set with food for the weekend. fun!

easy beans, greens, and seeds

This is a high-protein meal, good for building muscles (if you exercise), and easy for me because it uses garden produce.

Ingredients for 2 servings:

about 5 oz chopped collard greens or other greens (kale, chard, mustard, bok choy)

1 leek or onion

1 16 oz can tomatoes

another veggie if you have one: e.g., zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, about 1 cup chopped.

various herbs (today I had chives, dill, tarragon, basil, parsley from the garden)

1 cup cooked or canned beans

1 Tbsp each sunflower, pumpkin, hemp seeds (or any combination, all sunflower, whatever you have), grind in coffee grinder

Collards and kale take the longest to cook. Cook them and the leek/onion on stove top for 20 minutes or pressure cooker for 2 minutes (get a pressure cooker!). Then add everything else, cook for a little longer (5 minutes on stove, 30 sec in pressure cooker).

This was even better at dinner. Maybe it was the herbs. They added a nice flavor, especially the dill.

eggplant, veggies, & seeds

This is one of my favorites now. I finally learned how to make eggplant: you have to cook it enough for it to get really tender--at least for my tastes. The pressure cooker is perfect for that.  But this dish will work fine one a conventional stove--just cook for a long time.  Which reminds me,  the PC is a great summer appliance because it cooks things so quickly.  I highly recommend it!  Here is the one I got:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant

1 bunch of kale, or more if you'd like

a bunch of mushrooms, 8-16 oz

a leek or onion

any other veggie you want to throw in or subsitute--zucchini, for example.

2 16-oz cans of tomatoes (or 1 if you want)

herbs or italian spices or other spices (I used stuff currently in my garden:  chives, cilantro, tarragon, parsley.  The basil isn't ready yet).

ground seeds, I used hemp, sunflower, pumpkin.  I did 4 Tbsp but I might do 6 next time.

Peel and cut up the eggplant.  Cut up the kale, mushrooms and leek/onion.   Here's how I made it in the pressure cooker:  cooked the eggplant in 1/2 cup water for 2 minutes.  Then added the kale and onions for another 2 minutes.  Then added everything else for another minute.   For conventional stove, cook the eggplant, onions, kale and tomatoes for about 20 minutes, then add everything else for another 10.  that's my guess.  maybe cook the eggplant for even longer.

The ground seeds remind me of ricotta cheese so this feels kind of like an Italian dish.  

You can add beans or edamame too.   I often add edamame to the leftovers.

veggies, greens, & seeds

This is similar to beans, greens & seeds, but has veggies instead of beans.

Ingredients:

some veggies: I used a beet, a zucchini, some mushrooms, and some cauliflower

some onion or leek: I used 1/2 leek.

some greens: I had kale, mustard greens, baby bok choy.

some seeds: I used 1 Tbsp pumpkin and 1 Tbsp hemp, grind in coffee grinder

some herbs: I had tarragon, rosemary, cilantro, and chives from the garden.

I used a pressure cooker (PC) which made it go fast, but you can do this with a regular pot, steaming everything. Cook the longer-cooking things first (beets for 3 minutes in the PC). Then add the shorter-cooking stuff and cook some more (everything else but the seeds and herbs, 2 minutes in the PC). Then add the ground seeds and chopped herbs. Use whatever veggies, greens, seeds or nuts, herbs (dried or fresh) you have on hand.

It was great!

ratatouille #2

I threw a bunch of vegetables together and realized it was essentially a ratatouille recipe.  In the past, I've found this to be a boring dish, but I liked this one.  And I liked how the eggplant tasted.  In several of my past attempts at cooking eggplant, it was bitter.  I think slow cooking in tomato sauce works well.

Ingredients:

1 eggplant

1 onion or a couple of leeks

1 bunch collard greens

1/4 cup pesto (or lots of chopped basil, chopped garlic, 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast and 1 oz ground walnuts)

2 garlic cloves (or however many you want, I kind of like this to be garlicy)

2 16-oz cans tomatoes (or 1 28 oz, whatever the big ones are at the store)

a bunch of mushrooms (I must have had a pound)

zucchini would be good too, I didn't have any

herbs:  I had some tarragon and chives from my garden.  dried italian seasoning would work fine or just fresh basil (above) if you have some.

Chop the onion, put it in a big pot, add the tomatoes and start cooking.  Peel the eggplant, chop into bite-size pieces, add to pot.  Wash and chop the collard greens, add to the pot.  Chop the garlic and add.  Wash and chop the mushrooms and add.  Add the pesto or ingredients therein  (you can grind the walnuts in a coffee grinder, or don't bother with them, they just happened to be in my pesto).   chop the zucchini and add.  Let it cook until the eggplant is tender.  40 minutes after you add it?

I think the nutritional yeast was a key ingredient, neutralizing the metallic taste of tomatoes when you don't use salt.

spaghetti sauce #3

This is my favorite so far, similar to the previous one but adds prunes and green peas to sweeten the sauce.  Without salt and oil, I find I need something to offset the metallic taste of the tomatoes.  Also, this makes a smaller batch, which is good for 2 meals for two people.  This looks more complicated than it is.  After soaking the mushrooms, it only takes about 30 minutes.  And you don't have to follow this exactly, you can subsitute for a lot of the veggies whatever is in your fridge.

Ingredients:

1 16-oz can tomatoes (from the garden, if you are so fortunate)

1/2 onion or leek

about 3 Tbsp pesto (made from basil, garlic, and walnuts) 

OR

some chopped fresh basil (or dried italian seasoning) and chopped garlic cloves (2-4, to taste) and 1 oz walnuts.

1 medium carrot

some dried porchini mushrooms (~1/8 cup)

some fresh mushrooms if you have them (4 oz)  (I didn't today)

some bell pepper (any color), if you have it.  (I had 1/2 red pepper today)

3  prunes, chopped (or was it 4?)

2/3 cup frozen peas

Boil some water (1/2 cup) in a small pot, turn off the stove, soak the porchini mushrooms for about 30 minutes. 

Cook the sauce in two different pans because one will be blended in the blender. So for the blended pan, cook the carrot and most of the onion in some water (or broth--I freeze liquid from when I steam veggies).  You can cut up these vegetables in big pieces because they will be blended. In the other pan, chop up the rest of the onion and start cooking it with the tomatoes and juice. If you don't have the pesto, chop the garlic and add it. Cut up and add the mushrooms and pepper.  Add the pesto or basil and let that cook up.

While this is cooking, you can cook up your spaghetti or substitute. I made whole wheat spaghetti for housemate (boil in water until tender) and made lightly steamed spiralized baked sweet potato for me.  Another time I had it over steamed brussels sprouts. It's also good on broccoli and cauliflower.  It's even good over spiralized potato.  

Once the carrots and onion are done, blend them up in the blender.  If you aren't using pesto sauce, add 1 oz walnuts to the mixture and blend that.   Add that to the other pan.  Add in the frozen peas and that will cool off the sauce nicely.  

tomato sauce

We use garden tomatoes all year round, fresh in the summer, canned during the rest of the year.  They are so good, I prefer using them whenever a recipe calls for tomatoes.  I came up with a quick way to make tomato sauce using the blender.  I'm still working on the recipe and made a mistake today so I'll post what I think is a better version even though I haven't tried it yet.

Ingredients:

2 16-oz, canned tomatoes

some onion or leek (I used half a leek)

some garlic to taste (I used a large clove)

2 prunes, chopped (yep!)

1/2 oz almonds or walnuts (optional)

Drain the tomatoes, freeze the drained juice for later.   blend everything except the prunes in the blender.  Then cooked with the prunes for 20-30 minutes.  

Now today I added a carrot too--blended at the beginning.  I don't think that's necessary.  I also added some unsalted dried olives (blended too).  This seems like a good idea, right?  I thought it was an olive oil replacement.  Well, it made the sauce bitter.  I like the bitter taste of the olives, but not when it's blended.  The prunes add a nice sweet taste.  I think it goes well with tomatoes.  

pureed rutabaga and/or turnips

I learned this one from Picks Over Peas:

Ingredients: 

1 rutabaga and/or some turnips

parsnips (optional)

part of an onion (optional)

1/2-1 cup nut or soy milk OR  

1/4 - 1/3 cup raw cashews and 1/2-1 cup water

(the amount depends on the size of your rutabaga--start small and add more as needed)

1-2 dates or dried apricots (optional)

Peel the rutabaga/turnips/parsnips, cut up and steam along with onion for 20 minutes.  You can microwave the milk for 30 seconds to warm it up.  Blend the rutabaga with the nut milk (or nuts and water) and dates.   It's delicious!  Now, I used the dates because I was fearful of rutabaga.  Picks Over Peas didn't use dates.  I thought I didn't like rutabaga but I really like this, so don't let your fear of rutabaga stop you--you can ease into it with the dates like I did.  I've tried this with rutabaga, turnips, and rutabaga/turnips/parsnips.  It's all good!  Today I had this with steamed carrots, peas and corn.  Super easy meal that tastes great.  And it's healthier than mashed potatoes!   We still get local all these root vegetables from our co-op.    Note in the picture, my pureed rutabaga is a little brownish in color--that's from the color of my nut milk made from a bunch of different nuts and seeds.  If I'd used cashews or almonds or soymilk, it would be whiter.

baked beets

Mary over at resolution1.wordpress.com told me that baked beets are way better than steamed and boy was she right. She also said they are good on salads. That will be my next post.

To bake the beets, put them in the oven at 350 F for 1.5 hours. If they are big, leave them in longer. Then let them cool. They look ugly and shrunken after they cool. Don't panic (as I did), just slice off the ends, and the peel will come off easily. The peel tastes good and has lots of nutrients so feel free to eat them, if organic. The baked beets are sooooo gooood. I made 4 and I just had to eat 2 of them as is. The other two I made into a salad dressing. We still get local beets here and they are really good, better than the ones shipped from 2000 miles away (I won't say where from so as not to offend). I will be baking a lot of beets now.

Edited later: Mary suggested using foil when baking beets so I'll try that next time.

beets & edamame over arugula

Ingredients for 1 large serving:

2 small beets or 1 large

1/2 cup edamame

optional: chopped apple

chopped arugula or other salad greens, enough to fit on a large plate.

chop the beets and cook in a small amount of water for about 15-20 minutes. Add the apple after about 5 minutes. Add the edamame after about 10 minutes. pour over the salad greens. hard to believe this tastes so good.