Drink your veggies

Believe it or not, there are days when I have a hard time eating any vegetables. It’s not that I don’t like them, I love my veggies! But sometimes they just don’t sound appealing (especially hot ones in this summer heat) and sometimes I am crunched for time and don’t make any.

Sometimes I drink my veggies. I don’t own a juicer (yet) but I’ve been able to find some good ones already made for me! I’m a big fan of green juice, which I drink most days now. I’m also a straight up carrot juice lover.

But I also like to mix it up from time to time.

I picked this juice up at Walmart of all places!

It contains the following, in all it’s veggieness: 100% Vegetable and Goji Juice Blend (Tomato Juice, Goji Berry Juice, Carrot Juice, Sweet Potato Juice, Yellow Carrot Juice, & Red Bell Pepper Juice Concentrates) with Filtered Water, Inulin (Fiber), Citric Acid, Natural Flavors & Spices, Sea Salt, Veggie Blast Antioxidant Blend (Celery, Spirulina, Jalapeño, Kale, Chlorella, Blue Green Algae, Broccoli, Garlic & Spinach Powders), Xanthan Gum, Vinegar, Vitamins [Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Niacin (Vitamin B3), Pantothenic Acid, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Folate, Biotin, Vitamin B12, Beta Carotene], Plant Derived Minerals.

Each serving contains: 350% vitamin B12; 100% vitamin A; 100% vitamin C; Beta carotene.

It’s nutritionally comparable to Low Sodium V8, but it has way more interesting ingredients in it and I thought it tasted better too. Maybe even a little spicy!

Do you drink your veggies?

More frozen goodies

Even though I just did a big post on how much I am loving hot tea these days, it is still summertime and thus my consumption of frozen treats has increased slightly as well.

Luckily, thanks to the smaller size of these containers (and only buying one at a time), I’m pretty much able to keep myself under control!

I was really interested in this one because it is “fruit sweetened” and contains only 11g sugar per serving, which is only 2g less than the “regular” chocolate peanut butter, but I guess every little bit counts?

As you can imagine, I found this treat to be very creamy and delicious! Chocolate and peanut butter is a match made in heaven.

I’ve also been on kind of a sorbet kick lately. I picked up this Ciao Bella sorbet at Whole Foods last week:

I love blood oranges (and blood orange flavored stuff) so I was excited about this one. It’s also fat free and contains just 60 calories per half cup.

This tasted great! I did have one complaint that it was a little tricky to get out of the container as it was really frozen but once I let it melt a little bit…so gooood!

I hope you guys aren’t bored with both of my overly positive reviews! I just know what I like and so far I’ve been lucky with my choices.

What are your favorite frozen treats?

Trying tempeh

This might be hard to believe, but I have been vegan for 8 months now (plus vegetarian off and on for a couple years prior) and until Monday night, I had never tried tempeh!

Well, I’m sure I’ve had it in some dishes before without realizing it. But I’ve never purchased or made it myself at home before now.

What is tempeh?

Tempeh, or tempe in Indonesian, is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. Tempeh is unique among major traditional soy-foods in that it is the only one that did not originate in China or Japan. It originated in today’s Indonesia, and is especially popular on the island of Java, where it is a staple source of protein. Like tofu, tempeh is made from soybeans, but tempeh is a whole soybean product with different nutritional characteristics and textural qualities. Tempeh’s fermentation process and its retention of the whole bean give it a higher content of protein, dietary fiber, and vitamin. It has a firm texture and strong flavor. Because of its nutritional value, tempeh is used worldwide in vegetarian cuisine; some consider it to be a meat analogue.

Thank you, Wikipedia! The nutritional profile is also outstanding — tempeh is a good source of protein and fiber!

I happened upon this package of tempeh which was on sale at Whole Foods over the weekend.

And since I had some veggies in my fridge to use up, I decided to make a stir fry.

Thanks to my friend Carrie for supplying me with some delicious, local, organic snow peas from her CSA!

I also threw in my own mix of peppers and onions that I had thawed from the freezer. Also, I drizzled on some soy sauce as I cooked everything.

Et voila!

I absolutely adored the tempeh! I might even go as far as to say I liked it better than tofu. It’s just an entirely different texture and I liked how much easier it was to cook!

Now I just need to figure out what else to make with it, since I only used half the package.

Have you tried tempeh?

Mama Pea’s slow cooker BBQ tofu

One of my favorite blogs to read every day is Peas and Thank You. The fabulous “Mama Pea” has some excellent recipes (which are vegan) on her blog along with photos of her two adorable girls and tons of hilarious prose.

A few weeks couple of months ago, I saw her make tofu in the slow cooker. Since I am always looking for new ways to enjoy one of my favorite protein sources, I decided I had to try it myself!

Plus, I have two slow cookers and they don’t get used nearly enough.

I drained and pressed the tofu and then sort of just broke it apart as I placed it into the slow cooker. Then I poured in some of this!

Then I went to work and let it sit in the slow cooker on “low” for about 9 hours. It’s nice to have dinner cooking for you while you are at work!

I decided to serve it in a pita pocket as a tofu barbecue sandwich.

Mama Pea never disappoints me! I loved it. The Annie’s maple BBQ sauce is amazing too!

Later in the week, I had it leftover on a salad.

I might’ve liked it even better the second time.

What is your favorite way to cook tofu?

Farmer’s Market strawberry pancakes

I used one of my finds at the St. Matthew’s Farmer’s Market to make some really tasty pancakes on Sunday!

Well, pancake rather. I ended up making one big one instead of two smaller ones. I used the Hodgson Mill Buckwheat mix and added 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk (for the milk), 1 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (for the egg) and 2 tbsp applesauce (for the oil). Josh didn’t want any, so I had leftovers the next day.

The texture was a little different (fluffy but kind of gritty) but I think that was the egg replacer. In the case of pancakes, flax egg works much better

But they were still tasty, including the Farmer’s Market organic strawberries!

I have a lot more fun products, recipes, and whatnot to share with you guys, so much that it is starting to pile up on me. But I like the way the blog is going right now. Simple posts and more of a foodie feel, as opposed to a food journal. I’m past that point in my life now, so my blog should follow me.

Thanks for reading!

Making vegan pizza

At our Wednesday night potluck this week, it was my turn to bring the main dish and I finally made something I’d been wanting to make since I went vegan…pizza!

I started off with a store bought organic whole wheat crust from Whole Foods.

I brushed each crust with a little extra virgin olive oil and spread it with tomato sauce sprinkled with garlic and oregano.

Then I started adding the toppings, including this meatless pepperoni:

And Daiya cheese, which is all the rage in the vegan realm right now!

Veggie toppings (all organic) included: mushrooms, green peppers, onion, olives…I think that was it.

Before going into the oven!

I baked each pizza (at 400 degrees) for about 17 minutes to melt the cheese and when the edges of the crust were crispy.

Before I went home to start making the pizza, I stopped at the store to get some supplies in order to transport them to my friend’s house.

One fit into this cake carrier perfectly, best idea ever!

And the other one stayed on the baking sheet and got wrapped with this, another very cool invention.

Finally, served for dinner, alongside some romaine salad.

It tasted great! The veggies were firm, the faux pepperoni was crisp, and the cheese tasted very cheesy! My only disappointment was that the crust did not get as firm as I would’ve liked. The edges were crunchy but the rest of it was still rather soft.

But everyone really seemed to like it. Between the 5 of us girls, both pizzas disappeared!

I highly recommend the Daiya cheese. It’s not quite the same, but it does have a very cheesy taste and it melts really well, unlike some other non-dairy cheeses on the market.

I can’t wait to use it in lasagna and some other recipes soon!

Vegan cream cheese

It has been a long time since I have had a bagel with cream cheese.

When I first went vegan, back in October of last year, I didn’t really have an interest in too many “fake” products that replaced what I might eat if I wasn’t vegan. But after having banana oats every day for a straight week, I decided I needed a different breakfast to change things up a bit.

It just so happens, I also needed this for a recipe too, so I said “Why not?”

Another thing I had been missing that I wasn’t really aware of were meatless breakfast patties. The Morningstar brand used to be my favorite (ooh, the maple flavor!) but unfortunately, they are not even close to being vegan and have an ingredients list a paragraph long.

These Yves patties were on sale at Whole Foods, so I decided to try them out (they still don’t have the best ingredients list but at least they got all the animal products out):

The result?

I could not tell a difference at all in the Tofutti cream cheese; it tasted just like regular cream cheese to me! I love that I was able to eat a bagel with cream cheese, not get a stomach ache from it and no animals were harmed in the process!

The meatless patties weren’t the best I’ve ever had but they definitely satisfied my craving. They are also low in sugar and contain some fiber and protein, which is good for satiety. I’m thinking I should try to make my own next time!

What is your favorite “faux” product?

Yummy product alert: Green tea ice cream

Dear Readers: I have two confessions to make.

First, the following product is one of the other reasons I decided to back out of the 30 Day Challenge. Also, as soon as I got a Whole Foods gift card for my birthday, I had this in mind as a must have. I couldn’t wait any longer!

I have wanted to try this ever since I saw it in the freezer at both my Whole Foods and Kroger stores. I have had green tea frozen yogurt in the past and loved it, so I couldn’t wait to try my new found vegan version!

This must be really new because I can’t even find it on the website.

Wow, it really tastes like green tea. Not as sweet as I would have thought (based upon previous experiences with green tea fro yo, which contained dairy) but so incredibly creamy.

It is made with organic coconut and contains just 12 grams of sugar per serving, which is a lot better than most ice creams I’ve had, both dairy and non-dairy. It also contains 6 grams of fiber, wow!

Ingredients: Organic coconut milk, organic agave syrup, green tea powder, chicory root extract, natural flavor carob bean gum and guar gum.

This is a frozen treat I can feel good about. It’s also really good topped with some organic strawberries!

Clif “C” bars

I recently saw these bars over at Hey, Lindsay! and knew I had to try them when she said:

“The Clif C bars are like larabars, only they are slightly baked and not as nut-heavy.”

They are a lot like Larabars, in that they have a simple ingredients list. But these are much lower in calories.

There are actually four flavors of the C bars but I just tried three as I had a coupon from Whole Foods.

The apple was definitely my favorite of the bunch! The other two were much sweeter, especially the cherry, almost too much so.

Second favorite

These bars were pretty good but I think I still prefer Larabars. I didn’t like the “layers” as much as I do the all in one. Larabars also have quite a few more flavors to choose from.

But I do think these are a good snack for anyone looking for a bar that’s minimally processed, contains decent ingredients and is lower in calories (they all contain 130).

Or maybe those of you who don’t like Larabars could try these! They are also cheaper.

I would still like to work them into my snacks from time to time especially when I am looking for a healthy low-cal snack on the go!

Feeling squashy

I started off Wednesday with some more oatmeal. I have had the same thing for breakfast almost every day this week!

Hey, if it ain’t broke…

I’ve been alternating between sprinkling a tablespoon of milled flaxseed and raw wheat germ on my oatmeal. Both have great nutritional benefits (see links)!

Along with green juice, I have also been enjoying homemade iced coffee with unsweetened coconut milk

I snacked on some natural almonds.

For lunch, I had another Sunshine garden herb patty inside of a pita pocket with a tomato slice and salsa verde.

The tomato I used was purchased from Huber’s Farm, which is located about 45 minutes away from me over in Indiana. I felt good about making a semi-local purchase, but I was still sure to wash and scrub the tomato as I’m not sure what might’ve been on there.

I also had some cauliflower to round out my meal!

For “dessert” I had a new to me fruit: a champagne mango!

Since I didn’t bring a knife to cut it with, I just bit right into it.

The skin had a little bit of a funky taste, so I ended up peeling it back and eating the fruit inside. It was so good! It had a slightly different taste than a regular mango and I found this one to be much juicier and sweet than most mangoes I’ve had.

For my afternoon snack, I had a Larabar. One of my favorite flavors!

Then I went home and took Suzie for a walk instead of going to the gym. It was a good choice!

I was hungry when we got back so I had some raisins, which is what I was craving

Then for dinner, we headed over to Beth’s house for our weekly girl’s night potluck. On the menu this week: Squash!

Beth made a delicious dish of summer squash baked in garlic herb tomato sauce. It looked very simple but was bursting with flavor.

Between this dish and my beloved spaghetti squash, I can declare: I LOVE SQUASH! I love how it is technically a vegetable (?) but you can make it the main component of your meal. It is quite versatile since there are so many varieties of squash and ways to cook them.

I also had a side salad with diced tomatoes and onion with Annie’s natural goddess dressing and some warm, soft and chewy Meijer bakery bread, which I have absolutely no willpower to turn down

For dessert, Margie brought a lovely rice milk treat.

I have had this brand before and their ingredients aren’t too bad and the sugar content is moderate, which I think being made from rice milk helps that. I thought it was pretty good too!

I enjoyed this while we watched New Moon. I never read the books but it’s fun to watch the movies and find out what everyone is obsessing about, ha ha. From an “outsider” perspective, I thought the second movie was better (but a little long), since the first one just made me laugh.

Do you like squash?