Lentils and Quinoa

Officially out of beans (except for dried garbanzos, bt i keep forgetting to soak them) I thought I was SOL for lunch today, but... TA DA! Lentils were hiding in my cabinet. So I made this simple, subtly flavorful and very satisfying dish that I just have to share.

Lentils and Quinoa
Serves 2-3
Ingredients:

• 1 c. dried quinoa
• 1/2 c. dried brown lentils
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp. dried coriander*
• 1/2 tsp. Tandoori blend*
• 3 c. water*
• 1 c. spinach, chopped
• 2 white mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Optional: 1/2 c. chopped mango

*If you have a vegetable broth you like, omit the spices and water and add 3 c. broth instead.

Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in a medium saucepan and add the quinoa and spices. Cook for 3-5 minutes, then add lentils. Give a good stirring. Add the water or broth, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the water is all absorbed.

In a skillet, heat the remaining oil over medium heat and add the spinach, mushrooms and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes (until tender and wilted) and add the quinoa and lentil mixture and the mango, if you're using that (which i recommend). Mix well, salt and pepper to taste, and serve!

I had seconds. Enjoy! Oh, and if you have carrots, make roasted carrots. I would link to the recipe but I have to go to work!

the real day 1

At this point, I'm starting to doubt that I really have a food allergy, but I'm doing this elimination diet anyway. I just want the rash and stomach aches to go away w/out going to a doctor. Plus it makes for some creative eating and really fresh ingredients. Here is yesterday:




Breakfast:

Creamed millet!
1/2 c. dry millet cooked with 2 c. water for 20 minutes. Stir in 1/4 c. sugar after 15 minutes. Serve with ground cinnamon and nutmeg, and a little (vegan) maple syrup.










Lunch:

Black beans and kale served with a potato salad. The potato salad was my favorite thing of the day, marinated in red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, rubbed sage and dried dill.












Dinner:

Brown rice and bean patties, fresh spinach and radicchio. A good idea but poorly executed. Phil liked it but I couldn't finish mine.

Food Allergy!

I've had a rash everywhere for the past week or two, and it's just getting worse. After eliminating other possibilities-- i.e. soap, detergent, etc.-- I have to take into consideration that it could be a food allergy! I haven't added anything new to my diet, but apparently I could be allergic to something that I eat all the time and it's just manifesting now.

So today starts a detox. I'm eliminating wheat and anything with gluten (so no oats or spelt yet), berries, yeast, soy, tomatoes, nuts, peas and citrus fruit. My guess would be that if it is a food sensitivity or allergy, it's to wheat, soy or yeast. Yeast or wheat seems the most likely.

To kick it off, Phil made some yummy stir-fried veggies over quinoa for dinner! He forgot about the soy in soy sauce and used some-- oh well. Can't get everything right on day 1.

The veggies are: broccoli, red pepper, radicchio, onion, shiitake mushrooms, and carrots. The sauce was a brown sauce made from tamari, liquid smoke, water, crushed red pepper, garlic, shiitake mushroom stems, sugar, and then thickened with cornstarch.

I'm also detoxing with psyllium seed husks and burdock root tea! I thought burdock was cool looking (in a gross, fascinating way) so I took a picture. Now half an inch of it is steeping in some boiling water!

If anyone has any insight, please don't hesitate to leave some advice. I have no idea what I'm doing. I know that there are many other food allergens but I've decided to eliminate only the ones I eat regularly, since it must be something I've bee consistently eating these past 2 weeks.
Wish me luck!

Chickpea Tacos

My excuse for the lack of posts is as follows:

This past weekend my family held a memorial for my step-grandmother down in Virginia, and in order to take of the weekend for it, I had to work 8 days in a row. This didn't leave much time for blogging, although I did cook as much as I could. But now I'm back, so I have some food that hasn't been posted to post.

The great thing about Vegetarian Times is that they archive old issues on their website and post the recipes. March 2008 is already up there, so I thought I would share their Chickpea Tacos and mexican rice. Unfortunately the rice recipe isn't online yet, but I'll share the basics.

When I went grocery shopping for the week, I bought dried chickpeas for this dish, thinking I'd remember to soak and cook them before attempting this. Wrong. I totally forgot, and ended up having to use a can of small red beans, which are pretty bland in comparison with the garbanzos. But whatever. Phil made a pico de gallo to go with this instead of us using jarred salsa. Overall the avocado/bean mash was good but a little bland-- something I've found often with VT's recipes. I realize they're trying to appeal to all of their reader's palates, so it doesn't hurt to add a little more seasonings if you know you like salt or spicy flavors.

I do love VT, though. Even if I need to tweak some things to my taste, the recipes offer a lot of inspiration!

Oh, and for the mexican rice. I actually made quinoa, and it went something like this:

Mexican Quinoa
Serves 4 (or 2 pigs, i.e. Phil and me)
Ingredients:

• 1 c. dry quinoa
• 2 c. water
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil (optional)
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder (this amount can be tweaked to your taste!)
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 1 c. frozen corn

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add the quinoa and stir until slightly browned, 2-3 minutes. Add cumin and chili powder and stir for another 2-3 minutes or until the spices are fragrant.

Add the water and tomato paste and stir well until the paste had dissolved (mashing it against the sides of the pot helps me!). Then, stir in the corn, peas, and salt. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes.

As usual, enjoy!

Finally! A run! And some more muffins.

Now that the weather is finally nice out, I had no more excuses. I had to start running today, and last night, as I shoveled chips and homemade guacamole into my mouth (at 11pm, no less), I swore to Phil that today would be the day.

Cut to this morning, and I really didn't want to. I started to make the same old excuses, but none of them cut it. It was now or never, and I'm sick of playing this game.

And you know what? It wasn't that bad. Sure, it wasn't as nice as my runs last summer, but it was a start. I mapped out a run, first, using MapRunner and I planned a 1.63 mile run, thinking I'd barely be able to do that. I mean, my only exercise is 3 miles to work and 3 miles back on bike, which really isn't much. When Phil's older brother, Sean, was here visiting, I had told him that everytime I started running again, no matter how long it's been between runs, I can do 2 miles. But as I started this run I suddenly felt so heavy, so out of shape, and so hopeless, that I immediately regretted announcing that out loud.

Gradually, however, I began to feel moe in my element, and I added 4 blocks to my run to push it to 2 miles. I definitely could have done more, but I do still have to bike to work, so I decided to go easy on myself on the first day. Whew! This winter I am getting a gym membership-- I can't let myself get so out of shape again!

Anyways, muffins. I made these last week and I wasn't going to share them because at first I thought they were a little bland. But as I've been eating them, I've still enjoyed them (heated up in the oven more five minutes or so) so I thought I'd share the idea of them, and not the recipe. And that idea is having a little surprise inside. So take your favorite, basic muffin recipe and try doing this with a little sweet treat, be it fresh fruit (some tart cherries would be great), chocolate chips, or carob chips, which is what I used.

Start by filling your muffin cups up 3/4 of the way. Then sprinkle your treat into the middle.

Cover with more batter to fill to the top!

I like to finish my muffins off with a little yummy, decorative touch:

Enjoy!

Crispy Sweet and Sour Tofu

I know I've posted a picture of this before, but today for lunch I made Vegan YumYum's Crispy Sweet and Sour Tofu again. So good! It's a very easy dish to prepare-- most of the time spent preparing it is draining/pressing the tofu.

This time we served it over quinoa, and since I had a can of unsweetened pineapple rings, I threw those in with the last of our 3 lb. bag of almonds (thanks to Nancy, Phil's mom! we got a lot of use from those). If you make this (and you should), throw in whatever you are adding near of the end of a tofu's frying time. If that makes sense. You might also want to drain everything of the copious amounts of oil used by laying it on a paper grocery bag. This helps a lot.

In other news, Lauren Graham is filming in Philly again, and this time I saw her! Last time my friend and co-worker Jeni helped her when she came to Whole Foods, and I think I spent about 2 hours grilling her about the experience (sorry Jeni!). Today, Phil and I saw her by the movie set (2 blocks from our apartment!) and I spilled coffee all over myself, I was so excited. He made fun of me a lot. I don't know why, but I really like Lauren Graham. Or, I do know why, cause she's awesome.

Then we got a whole lot of produce (really, a lot) from the Italian Market for only $7. Ah, Philadelphia.

Whole Wheat Crackers

I'm always looking for healthy snacks to keep around the house, because, well, I'm a snacker. Phil is too, but I am big time. Now that I fought off my potato chip addiction (when I walk past them, I cringe! it's awesome!) I figure snacking is OK as long as I'm eating good things.

Which leads me to crackers. I like crackers. They taste good, they're fun to dip into things. But they're not usually very good for you, and the ones that are can be pretty expensive. Since I'm trying to make as much stuff from scratch as possible, I decided to get some extra use from my pasta maker and make my own damn crackers. That way I know exactly what's going into them, and plus you can use cookie cutters to make them even better. As whole wheat bread flour is only 69¢/lb where I buy it (sure to be raised soon), these end up being so inexpensive, and so much more fun to eat then anything else that comes in a box.

That being said, I also made these with the intention of eating them with a spread, i.e. hummus. If crackers are too flavorful, I just shovel them in my mouth. These aren't bland, per say, but I kept them plain so I'd couple them with something tasty and nutritious. You can do whatever you want-- microplane some garlic, sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper, etc. Go nuts if you want.

I used a recipe by Heidi Swanson from 101 Cookbooks and modified it very slightly. Instead of white whole wheat flour, I used whole wheat bread flour because my neighborhood health food store doesn't have white whole wheat. You can also use all whole wheat instead of half semolina if you want. I also used canola oil instead of olive because the only olive oil we have is super expensive high quality stuff that we try to use sparingly for flavor. I haven't tried making them without the oil-- I'd imagine it would be fine and would just bake a little more quickly. Finally, I sprinkled my baking sheets with cornmeal and did not oil them at all. I really liked the flavor the little bit of cornmeal provided.

I hope you try making these! Have fun with any cookie cutters you have on hand or simply cut into triangles or squares. Enjoy!