Dinner this week...

 Last week I was a little lazy about dinner.  This week I am more motivated and am trying several new recipes.  All so far, have been easy, delicious, gluten free and vegan.  So what have we been eating?
Sunday
We went to the Grant Park Farmers Market on Sunday morning.  We got there right when it opened, so no crowds and it was easy to see all the great food offered.  Sierra requested Grace's Goodness pimento cheese for her school lunches and both the girls had to have a King of Pops!  I bought amazing corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and onions.  That night I had to fix all of our fresh veggies.  We had corn on the cob, green beans, and a tomato, cucumber, onion salad with red wine vinegar.  I baked tofu as well.  Delicious summer dinner.

Monday

 New recipe!  Chad found a quinoa recipe on Patagonia's blog.  The link is:
http://www.thecleanestline.com/2011/08/climbing-catering-community-quinoa.html

I changed it up a bit - here is what I used:

• 2 cups uncooked quinoa - cook according to directions (2 part water, 1 part quinoa)
• 1 can garbanzo beans , rinsed
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1/2  bunch scallions, thinly sliced
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup pepitas (I toasted mine with salt first) - you can use almost any seed or nut
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes,halved
• Dressing: whisk  1/2 C of water, 1TBS grape see oil, juice from 2 lemons and 2 tablespoons curry powder.

Mix it all together!

Tuesday
I tried another new recipe from my friend KP.  She seems to effortlessly throw things together and create amazing meals.  She can come up with ideas on the spot when I ask her.  Last night I made a few modifications but my inspirations was KP.  This was SUPER EASY.

• brown rice
• 1 can Wholefood Organic Spicy Black Beans - drained
• 1/2 cup diced mangos (I use the frozen ones at Trader Joes)
• 1/4 cilantro, chopped
• 2 minced jalapenos (I put these in after I took the girls portion out)
• salt and pepper to taste

I put all of these in a big pot and let simmer.  I stirred it constantly, it only took a few minutes and it was done.  I served it with new Hemp chips I found at Wholefoods.
 

Wednesday
Last Saturday night, we had friends over for dinner.  We ordered pizza.  So, I fixed my own.  I made the sauce from theppk.com again and used a crust from Sally's Bakery.  As I did in this post:
http://vegginaroundblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/gluten-free-pizza-night-adventure.html
I have some of the sauce left over and I dont want it to go to waste.  Tonight, I plan to use Quinoa, gluten free spiral pasta, this Romensco sauce and broccoli.  Yum!

Thursday
Another KP inspired recipe.  Again, one I have not tried.  I plan to saute all in one big pot:

• Lentils (I buy the box in the produce section at TJs)
• 1 can of fire roasted tomatoes from Trader Joes
• 1/2 cup of water 
• 1/4 cup of veggie broth
• 1/2 of a chopped onion (vidala)
• 1 cup of frozen artichoke hearts - Trader joes
• juice from half of a lemon
• 2 TB Corriander
• 2 TB Cumin

I will let you know how pizza night and lentil night go...

Throw it all together??

What do I do with this?

Friday - lunchtime.  I do not plan to cook until Sunday, but I do have one roma tomato, one avocado, one zucchini, red potatoes, and a jalapeno left over from our Natures Garden Delivered box.  I really hate to see produce go to waste.  So -  I peeled and chopped the potatoes up, sliced the zucchini, and laid those out on a baking sheet with a little spray olive oil on the sheet, salt and pepper.  I baked at 400 for about 20 minutes, then roasted them for a few minutes. 
Meanwhile, chopped up the tomato and avocado and jalapeno.   I try not to use a lot of imitation products, but a little every once in awhile does help a recipe.  I put one big tablespoon of vegan sour cream, a little less than a tablespoon of lime, the minced seeded jalapeno, salt and pepper in a small bowl and mixed together for the dressing.
Once the potatoes and zuchinni came out of the oven and cooled, I put them in a bowl with the avocado, tomatoes, and mixed with the dressing.   - Throwing stuff together worked! (This time!)  Great lunch.

Baked the potatoes and zucchini

Voila!

Quick Dinner to use the my goodies from Natures Garden Delivered

 Salad

• Lettuce
• toasted almonds and sunflower seeds
• sliced peaches
• dried cranberries
• Dressing - I like just a little balsamic vinegar but you could add any light dressing - lemon, vinegar, agave - pre-made dressing, etc

 Squash Casserole

• 2 squash sliced
• 1/2 vidala onion sliced
• 1 tablespoon vegan sour cream (I used tofutti)
• salt and pepper to taste
• Gluten free bread crumbs sprinkled on top - you can buy these at Wholefoods or I made my own with Udi's GF bread

I mixed all the incredients, put in a small casserole dish and sprinkled the bread crumbs on top.  I cooked at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Quick, easy, and delicious.

Both these dishes were very spur of the moment yesterday afternoon using the produce I had left in the kitchen. Because I am not cooking today!!!  Enjoy your Saturday.

Nature's Garden Delivered box came last night!

It really is fun receiving a big white box on the front porch.  Natures Garden Delivered

http://ga.naturesgardendelivered.com/ features organic and local produce.  You can specify if you want only local, only organic, etc.  Some produce is local and organic.  Last night's box was the third one I have received.  The produce is beautiful and plentiful.  You can also look online on your account and pick and choose what you want in your box.  When I first signed up, I specified all the produce we never wanted (very few on the list) and then I let it be a surprise.  This week's box contained something I had never seen or heard of before.  Purslane.  Purslane is often considered a backyard weed.  But on further investigation, I have learned it is packed with vitamin E, C and Omega 3s.  Omega 3 is great news for me, because I do not take fish oil, so it is harder to come by in my diet.  I found a recipe I am going to try tonight at http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tomato_cucumber_purslane_salad/.  Basically, purslane, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapeno pepper and lemon juice.  A nice mexican salad. Yum.  I am going to make that with vegan mash potatoes from the ones I received in our box and probably marinated tofu.  For the mash potatoes, I keep it simple - vegan sour cream, salt, pepper. 

Added bonus, the girls acted as though it were Christmas, they loved opening the box and discovering what goodies it contained. 

After school snack, dinner, and gardening:

Oh afternoon snack....  What a dilemma.   I know the girls are starving.  I know the girls want sweets (I always wants sweets at about 3pm - well more specifically - I want chocolate).  How do I give them what they want but also something healthy?  I decided to experiment.  Yesterday, I was cutting up a lot of veggies for our dinner and decided to put some out on a plate with dip.  The day before I received my first order of Dr. Sweet's Emporium dairy free, gluten free chocolate chip cookies (more on those later).  So, I put out the cookies and the veggies.  Just put them on the table, didn't make a big deal about the snack.  I watched.  The girls devoured the cookies.  Then, they started eating the veggies!  The finished half of that plate of raw veggies.  Awesome.  Again, I didn't say anything too them, but was thankful they enjoyed their veggies too.  (The dips were an organic ranch from wholefoods, and a chickpea tahini dip I made (no one liked this one).

Cookies - Have you heard of Dr. Sweets?  OMG -
http://drsweetscakes.com/

Half of a cookie!

Wow.  I discovered them at an Atlanta Underground Market and have been following them on twitter.  I did not have an occasion to order a cake from them, and felt kind of silly ordering just cookies BUT they had no problem with my small order.  AND, I could pick them up about 5 minutes from my house, so no delivery fee.  They can make treats with almost any specification, everything is gluten free, but they can also make it without dairy, nuts, sugar, etc.  AMAZING.  I ordered a dozen GF / DF chocolate chip cookies.  They were pricey - but have you seen the prices of boxed gluten free cookies from Wholefoods?  Expensive and not good.  I made the plunge and wow did these cookies exceed my wildest expectations.  First, you get your monies worth - they are delicious and huge.  Mine were still warm when I picked them up.  They melted in my mouth, so rich, so fresh, so perfect.  The girls and I both LOVE them. And, I put some of them in the freezer - I hope this will work.  I had too, or I would have eaten the entire dozen.

Dinner - still trying to find meals to suit everyone.  Last nights was an adaptation of the girl's creation - salad pasta.

 I chopped up fresh spinach, tomatoes, vidala onions, cauliflower and broccoli.  Simmered all of this in a big pot with veggie broth, salt and pepper.  I toasted pumpkin seeds (again) to sprinkle on top.  I used Quinoa spaghetti.  I loved the dinner.  No one else did.  Chad had a grilled chicken breast to add to his. He felt it needed more seasoning, tomato sauce or something.  I loved the fresh taste without too much seasoning - so what do you do?  Ry (who created the salad pasta - but note she did not help fix it this time) would not try it and S had some objection to it.  So all in all - disaster dinner that I enjoyed!

Lastly - so, I am having some luck cooking these days, but still no luck growing anything.  In my head, I imagine a small little garden out back with all my fresh herbs and veggies.  But reality - I really do not like anything about gardening.  And, apparently I have no talent either.  I took a risk and bought a basil plant.  Start with one thing - how hard could it be.  I followed the directions diligently.  The outcome - in 2 weeks, I managed to do this:

Having people over for dinner

There is a new place in our neighborhood that sells homemade casseroles.  Casseroles -
http://www.casserolesatlanta.com/

Chad tried a breakfast casserole and the mac and cheese recently.  He rated them fair but really wanted to try some of the other items on the menu.  I could not wait to try it again, because they had a vegan / gluten free option right on the menu.  Hooray!  We had another family over for dinner on Saturday night and decided to try the baked ziti with beef for Chad, and the Vegan Biryana.  I was going to prepare a simple salad and dessert to go along with, but got motivated Saturday to try new recipes.  The black bean salad with avocado - lime dressing recipe from wholefoods.com sounded great.
Here is the recipe from the website:
Serves 4

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=2908

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado, mashed
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 (15-ounce) cans no-salt-added black beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup corn kernels, fresh or thawed if frozen
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Method

In a large bowl, whisk together avocado, cilantro and lime juice until blended. Add beans, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, pepper, pumpkin seeds and toss until evenly coated. 

 My Modifications

I used only one can of black beans, and I added 1/2 of a chopped Vidala onion.   I added salt and pepper and 1-2 more tablespoons of lime juice to the dressing.  It was very tasty - I loved the creamy avocado dressing.  And, the toasted pumpkin seeds always add a great flavor and crunch.  Chad felt it needed more pumpkin seeds.

I was craving desserts on Saturday.  GF has eliminated many of my favorite desserts - so I was hopeful I could find something that would satisfy my sweet tooth.  I made the Strawberry Oat Bars from Wholeliving.com.  Here is the recipe

http://www.wholeliving.com/recipe/strawberry-oat-bars

Makes 6

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups pitted dates
• 1/4 cup raw macadamia nuts
• 2 tablespoons old-fashioned rolled oats
• Pinch sea salt
• 1 cup strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced

Directions

1. Pulse dates, nuts, oats, and salt in a food processor until combined.
2. Press the date mixture into the bottom of a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
3. Mash half the strawberries and spread on top of date mixture. Top with remaining strawberries. Slice into rectangles.

My Modifications
I used cashew nuts instead of the macadamia (that is what I had on hand).  And, I used the incredibly expensive Bob's Red Mill gluten free oats - to make them GF.  I put them in the frig after I made them.  This was a mistake, it made them too mushy.  I would leave them out next time, and add more oats, 3 tablespoons should do well.

Lastly - I made a chocolate pound cake from thehealthyapple.com.  I have really enjoyed this blog / website.  She has amazing recipes and tips, however this recipe did not turn out well, so I wont post the whole recipe.  Here is the link if you are curious!  http://thehealthyapple.com/2011/08/01/gluten-free-dairy-free-chocolate-pistachio-pound-cake/

I did replace the eggs with flax seed - so that might have been what went wrong.  The cake is pretty, but extremely dense and not a lot of taste.  Here is a pic:

In Conclusion

The casseroles were a hit.  We will definitely order them again.  And, welcome the new addition to our neighborhood!  Beginner mistake I made - I didnt give much thought to the menu as a whole.  The black bean salad was delicious, but certainly did not go with a biryani nor a baked ziti.  The strawberry bar was amazing, so sweet, it was unbelievable no sugar was added, but do not put them in the refrigerator before serving, and add more oats!  Chocolate cake - bombed.

Lastly, it was very fun to have other people over, especially considering we all had different eating styles, ranging from me (GF/ VG), Chad wanting beef, to no beef (but brought own chicken), Paleo - oh and the kids - they were happy with the frozen pizza.  So, lots of variety, but I think everyone left satisfied!

Gluten Free Pizza Night Adventure

I did not eat much pizza before going gluten free - however, I did enjoy good pizza every once in awhile.  The thing that I love about pizza is its crust.  I never minded not having cheese on the pizza, just good sauce, veggies and a great crust.  I used to think vegan pizza was a challenge, but it really wasn't, I would sometimes endure funny looks from the waiters as I insisted that I really didn't want cheese, but other than that I always was able to get what I wanted.  Now gluten free really does bring a challenge to good pizza.  I have tried Mellow Mushrooms GF pizza.  I applaud them for giving me an option - thank you.  But I love Mellow Mushroom's regular crust, so I was hoping the GF would be somewhat similar.  No, not at all.  It was cardboard.  Very disappointing as I was drooling over everyone else's pizza.

So, with great trepidation, I tried Sally's Bakery frozen GF / Dairy Free pizza crust. 
http://www.sallysbakery.com Sally's is a long drive, but so far, worth it.  I buy pumpkin bread, banana bread and muffins all GF/ DF and freeze them.  The girls enjoy the baked goods as well.  This was my first venture into her pizza crust.  My friend K told me about a great sauce, once again from theppk.com .  It is called Romesco Pizza.  Here is the recipe:
http://www.theppk.com/2011/08/romesco-pizza-with-caramelized-onions-squash/

I had little luck with carmelizing the onions, but I did try.  And, I still put them on the pizza.  The sauce was amazing.  I loved it.  I used the left overs as a veggie dip- cold!  I was going to also use it on GF toasted bread for a dinner on Saturday night, but I dropped the bowl and it shattered all over my kitchen.

Back to the pizza.  I spread the romesco sauce on Sally's crust.  Then I placed sliced peppers, squash and zucchini on top.  I baked for about 15 minutes at 375.  I did keep checking in on it, it can over cook quickly.  The pizza was pretty good - it was by far the best GF crust I have had.  Chad and I ate most of the pizza.  S liked it, Ry would again not try it!  But if you are crazing pizza and need GF/ DF try Sally's.  And, regardless of your eating habits, the Romesco sauce is awesome. 

Trail Mix

I think my real motive is that I want to eat a lot of chocolate today - my youngest started kindergarten this morning, I was so proud of both of my girls  getting on the school bus, but it was also incredibly hard seeing both my babies leave on that big bus.  Thus, I turn to chocolate to  ease the pain!  So, I came up with a little snack - 1/4 of a cup of each of the following -
dried cranberries
pistachios
vegan dark chocolate chips
toasted pumpkin seeds (I did this in my toaster oven, a little salt sprinkled over 350 degrees for about 8 minutes)

I mixed them all together - beginner mistake - I put the hot pumpkin seeds in the mixture, which melted the chocolate and made a huge chocolatey mess.  So I then spread out the mixture and put it in the frig for a little while to cool. I am hoping they will separate more like trail mix.  But I believe my concoction will actually be more like trail bites. Little clumps of goodness!

Enjoy.

Purple Potato Dinner

Because Ry loved the tofu so much the other night, I made it again the very next night.  But guess what?  Nope, she wouldn't touch it.  Oh well.  So, the menu included tofu (with tahini and GF soy sauce) a stir fry and purple potatoes!  The stir fry consisted of what I had in my frig - broccoli, boc choy and zucchini.  I marinade the veggies in
1/4 cup veggie broth (I use organic / low sodium)
2 TBS GF soy sauce
2 TBS Rice Wine Vinegar
1/2 TBS agave syrup
and I chopped up a jalepeno - I stirred all of this together, poured it over the veggies in a zip lock bag and let it all marinade until I was ready.  Then just threw it all into a hot pan and stirred it up!

The Peruvian Purple potatoes - I have not perfected this yet, but I boiled the peeled potatoes until they were tender (10 minutes).  Then put them in a bowl with 1 TBS vegan sour cream, 1 TBS of lime juice and a handful of thinly chopped cilantro.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Next time I will add more sour cream and lime juice and a lot more salt and pepper.  I mixed all of this together with my hand mixer.  But I can tell I am getting close to the perfect purple potato recipe.  Purple potatoes are fun to eat and LOADED with amazing nutrients such as the antioxidant, anthocyanin which has been shown to boast ones immunity and aid in the prevention of cancer.  Added bonus, when you pour the lime juice on the potatoes (if you have children let them watch) they will change to another brilliant shade of purple!