#182 Dessert is definitely a meal

 

Sean made me this one night after dinner. Upon first glance, I immediately wanted another scoop! Hahahaha! However, when I was done I realized it was actually the perfect size- especially after a full meal! 

Here's what he used to create this magic:

A small scoop of soy vanilla ice cream

A few slivered almonds

A few vegan chocolate chips

Fresh chopped cherries

A drizzle of vegan chocolate syrup

MMMMMMMMM!!!!

#181 Pumped Up Left-Overs

You wouldn't know by looking at this picture that this is left-overs from my spaghetti dinner earlier in the week. Sean gave new life to that spaghetti by adding broccoli (fresh from our garden!) sauteed with some garlic and making a fresh pesto-ish sauce. In the food processor he put in some raw cashews, basil, garlic and a little tomato. The tomato added great flavor but it turned the pretty green pesto brown. . . I little art lesson for you in case you didn't know: Green + Red = Brown.  This was really yummy- though a little on the rich side. 

#180 Pizza and a Calzone

Sean's Pizza

I made this for dinner tonight. I bought everything from Whole Foods. They sell pre-made dough in the refrigerated section. I used daiya for the cheese and tofurkey pepperoni. I also bought some roasted garlic, sun-dried tomato, and olives from the olive bar.

I also chopped up some jalapeño and basil from our garden to sprinkle on the pizza.

To make the calzone, I rolled out a small circle. I spread the sauce and put toppings on 1/2. Then I folded over the top and sealed it by pressing down on the edges with a fork.

My Calzone

It all cooked nicely and we both enjoyed our dinner!

#179 Chef Salad

I veganized a chef salad! Wooo! I replaced the classic chef salad ingredients with delicious vegan options. Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm!

I started with a bed of green leaf lettuce. I added some sprouts because they are delicious and also because I needed to use them up. I put the traditional cucumber, tomato and avocado. I replaced the traditional turkey with some beans. I replaced the bacon with tempeh bacon (Tofurkey of course!). Instead of cheese I put shredded carrot. I know shredded carrot and cheese aren't similar in flavor...but they are similar in color so I went with it! Finally instead of egg, I pan seared a thin slice of tofu. I sprinkled some black salt (thanks, michelle! I finally used it! Now I'll return it!) on the tofu. Woah. That salt straight up smells like an egg. The smell was strong strong, I worried the flavor would be really strong. I put a very small amount on each piece of tofu. So the sulfur flavor was mild. Phew!

This was so yummy! I love these summertime salads!!

#178 Taquito Dinner

I know I've posted about these taquitos before...but they are so yummy! I made a complete dinner with them by also cooking up some Spanish rice. The two paired perfectly together! Mmmmm! My only complaint is that there are only 8 taquitos in a box. Sean and both wanted one more! A box of ten would have been much better! :)

*The 2 dipping sauces are While Foods guacamole and Follow Your Heart Sour Cream!

Here's a link to the previous post for more information on the brand of taquitos and where to find them.

#177 Dinner For Four

Chris and Mike came over yesterday for dinner and some jamming with Sean. We were diverse diners (I'm vegan, Sean & Chris are vegetarian and Mikey is an omnivore) so I wanted to make something familiar.

I went with spaghetti, a Gardein scallopini and garlic bread. The spaghetti sauce was a combo of left over ratatouille that froze and defrosted from a few weeks ago and a jar of TJ's marinara sauce. For the garlic bread: I mashed fresh minced garlic with earth balance, parsley, and a sprinkle of onion powder. I spread it on sour dough slices and broiled it in the oven. I cooked the Gardein according to their directions on my cast iron skillet.

Everyone ate it all up- so I think they liked it :)

#176 Vegan Brunch Potatoes

These are the Roasted Potatoes from Vegan Brunch.  I amped them up by using the Paprika Rosemary and Garlic variations.  I used my beloved smoked paprika so they were extra delicious!  I like using the bags of pre-washed, mixed yellow, red, and purple baby potatoes!  Served with a toasted sourdough english muffin that's been topped with mashed avocado, a squeeze of lemon, and a sprinkling of salt.  Super easy and filling!

My (current) favorite way to start the day!  With a Venti Soy Misto of course ;)

#175 Deconstructed BLTA Salad

WooHoo!! Another salad!!! It's summer and I all I want to eat is salad! I love a a good BLT- especially when it's made from Tofurkey Tempeh Bacon.

For this salad, I chopped up all the classic BLTA ingredients including the bread. I toasted a slice of 12 grain bread and then chopped it into bite sized pieces. For the dressing, I drizzled a little ranch on top. This was super yummy! I loved it!!

#174 Tostadas Fresca

It's been hot outside! Whew! I needed to make something filling but also light and fresh. I also had to fight he urge to make another salad because I knew Sean wouldn't want one after a hard days work. Tostadas seemed to be the perfect fix!

I fried tortillas and spread warm refrained beans on them. I topped it with avocado, lettuce, and tomato. This picture is of Sean's plate. He also added chopped onion and sliced jalapeño. We both drizzled rice vinegar and put a dollop of sour cream on top.

We ate outside and had a cold beer. Mmmmm! I love summertime!!!

#173 Quinoa Kale Tofu Bowl

I had this for dinner the other night, after a run around the rose bowl. I had cooked a batch of quinoa earlier in the week so that saved a lot of time. I sautéed chopped garlic and kale in a little olive oil. I sliced some savory baked tofu and added it to the kale to warm it up. Some salt, pepper, and chopped fresh tomato and I was ready to eat! I love this combo. I go on kicks where I eat this every night for a week! So satisfying, healthy, and delicious!

#172 Taco Salad: Take 2

I wanted a quick dinner that would use a lot of my fresh ingredients. I seasoned some taco meat with sprinkles of: cumin, chipotle powder, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, and a little turmeric. I didn't measure the seasoning, I just kept tasted as I went along. It came out great! I also put in some warm black beans, avo, tomato, and cucumber. I had left over ranch from my mini baked potatoes. So I added some chipotle powder and soy milk to it to spice it up and thin it out. Mmmmm! Oh how i love a big salad.

#171 French Bread Pizza

I only remember my Dad ever making 1 thing in the kitchen...French bread pizza! The kids had pizza sauce, daiya mozzerella, pineapple, and kalamata olives on theirs. Mine had sauce, daiya, tomato, garlic, basil, and kalamata olives. This meal is fast and fun for the kids. It was tasty too!

Happy Diners!

#170 1/2 Sandwich and 2 Mini Potatoes

This is what I made for dinner tonight. I had a big, late lunch so I made mini versions of things I like to eat for dinner. The sandwich is on 12 Grain bread. I put cream cheese, tomato, sprouts, a slice of Tofurky deli meat, sliced cucumber and avocado in the sandwich. Mmmm! I also baked 2 mini potatoes. I put a little Earth Balance, a few shreds of Daiya Cheddar and a dollop of ranch. While I was making all this, Sean was cooking up some broccoli from our garden for a snack. When he saw what I was making, he gave me a little piece of broccoli for each potato. How nice!! It was a good dinner...and fit on an appetizer dish perfectly :)

#169 Father's Day BBQ

We had a BBQ at the Johnson house today. This is my chili cheese dog, burger, and lynzie's amazing potato salad. Lynzie's Aunt Lorraine made the vegan chili. Yum! Some follow your heart cheese on top, I haven't had FYH since daiya came out. It was nice not to have the sometimes overpowering flavor of daiya. Not pictured is the 13 glasses Lynzie's sangria that I drank! Thanks for the invite Marty and Connie!!!

#168 Farm Fresh

What an awesome day!

Travis picking the perfect orange

Earlier this month, my mom and I took my nephews to a farm. It was such a fun day! The kids loved

running  through the rows of orange trees and searching for the perfect oranges to pull off the trees. We brought a picnic lunch, but the real stars of the day were the fruit we picked and bought there. I loved seeing Travis and Ethan chowing down all the fresh fruit. 

If you live near any farms, this would be a great summer day trip to take with your kids. We all had so much fun!!!

Mmmmm!

  

My mom bought us all kale shirts!

Ethan taught me the correct way to eat strawberries and blueberries

yummm!

Rigby also enjoyed some fresh fruit that day!

#167 Classic Burger

This was dinner! SO good and simple. This is a gardein patty with lettuce, tomato, avocado and 1,000 Island dressing. If you haven't made 1,000 Island dressing, you should! It's so tasty and easy to make! Just stir together some vegenaise, ketchup and relish. I don't mesaure it out, I just do it to taste. 

I also baked some fries for the side. yummmmm!

#166 Sammie

I made these enormous sandwiches for dinner. It has an olive relish (green and kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and basil) on the bottom, cucumber, baked portabella, lettuce, tomato, avocado and veganaise. I used a roll from Trader Joe's. It was a little tough though. Next time I think I'll use a softer bread, like panini. But don't get me wrong! This was delicious!!

#165 Brussels Sprout-Potato Hash

Are you sick of seeing this yet? It's obviously delicious and Lynz and I just can't get enough! I made the Easy Breezy Cheezy sauce from AFR. I'm trying to lose some Lbs and although I adore the Mac and Cheese sauce, I know it's not low cal. I was not expecting to like the low-cal version very much. It was actually really good! I also followed the book's recipe for grilled portobellos. I made them on my indoor, cast-iron griddle. The kids really liked this meal, and Max DOES NOT like mushrooms. Mia asked if she could have it for breakfast. HA!! That's a winner, good thing I doubled it ;) thank you Lynz, for literally shoving this recipe down my throat. I can't believe I've had this book for nearly 2 years and haven't made this yet!

Extreme close up

Check out Lynzie's hashes here and here.

Buy the book already! 

#164 Another Yummy Salad

I was inspired by Michelle's quinoa/chickpea salad the other day. My salad had: green leaf lettuce, tomato, avocado, kidney beans, quinoa, and shredded carrot. I tossed it with ranch dressing. . . but I took the picture before adding the dressing. It was super yummy and filling!

#163 Upside-Down Lentil Shepherd's Pie

with Caulipots. Both recipes are from Appetite for Reduction. Have we convinced you to buy this book yet?!? Hahaha. I used a golden zucchini from the garden, yay!! This is such a hearty, filling meal for only 400 calories, well 435 since I made the cheesy caulipot variation. It comes together pretty quick too!

#162 Sunday Brunch

This is a sorta repeat... Michelle came over for brunch. She had never tried the brussels sprout and potato hash served with portabella mushroom and cheese sauce. So I wanted to make it for her. I also made amazing biscuits to go with it.

I saw a picture of these bacon cheese biscuits on pinterest. When I saw them I couldn't stop thinking about how amazing they would be if I veganized it. So I did!! I bough a can of biscuit dough from Ralph's. I sliced thin pieces of Daiya Jalepeño Havarti and put one slice on each piece of dough. Then I crumbled up some Tofurkey Tempeh Bacon on top. I cooked the biscuits according to the directions about 15 minutes. When there was only a few minutes left, I sprinkled some Daiya cheddar shreds on top. The end product was pretty irresistible!!

#161 Spicy potato and corn salad

As you've probably guessed by now, I love Appetite for Reduction. I'm amazed at how many recipes I haven't even tried yet! It's easy to stick with tried and true favorites, but this blog has been pushing me to try new things. I don't want you to get bored! This is the Spicy Blue Potato and Corn salad. Isa said that I could substitute red potatoes for the blue and I happened to have a bunch on hand. Perfect! I love the cilantro in it and the smoky chipotle pepper dressing. It's so exciting to have all these new tasty options. Yay variety!!!

#160 Pasta Dinner

We're growing zucchini in our garden! We have so many right now :) So I needed to use them!!!

This is what I did: I sautéed some sliced mushrooms in olive oil. Then I added a bunch of shredded zucchini to the pan. When the zucchini was cooked, I added a can of stewed tomatoes. I let the the sauce simmer with the lid on while the pasta was cooking. Last I stirred in a little olive relish that I made for sandwiches (it's a mix of green and kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, basil and olive oil). I added the pasta to the sauce and served it up! This is a picture of Sean's plate. He also added shaved truffles to the top of his. I don't like truffles so I had mine sans truffle ;) I loved how fast this dinner was to make!

#159 Everyday Chickpea-Quinoa Salad

I am obsessed with this salad! The basic recipe comes from Appetite for Reduction. Isa says she calls it Everyday Chickpea-Quinoa Salad because she eats it almost every day. I totally get that, I've had it for 3 days straight! It's pretty simple: lettuce, chickpeas, quinoa, red onion (which like Lynz, I usually find too aggressive but I sliced them paper thin on my mandoline and they did not offend). Some optional add-ins are suggested and I went with baked tofu, shredded carrots, fresh basil (my favorite part!), and tomato. Instead of the recommended balsamic vinaigrette, I used the leftover Caesar Chavez Dressing that I had on hand. SO delicious! It reminds me of the first salad I ever copied, CPK's chopped salad. Next time, I'll make my favorite ranch to accompany this satisfying salad.

I coarsely chop the garbanzos so they cling to the lettuce and are easily speared with my fork.  Otherwise I end up with a bunch of roly-poly garbanzos in my bowl when I'm finished with my salad. 

#158 Warm Lentil and Hummus Salad

I guess Michelle and I are both in the copy cat mood! This is my version of Pita Jungle's Lentil Fetoosh Salad. I just found out their pita isn't vegan! Oh no! I just have to remember to tell them not to put it on next time. Pita Jungle is in Old Town Pasadena. They are really vegan friendly. They even have a vegan chart describing what's vegan or not and why.

In my version of the salad I used: green leaf lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avocado, sliced kalamata olives, Trader Joe's Steamed Lentils, a little scoop of hummus, and a little...just a little tahini dressing! I also forgot to put on the pita chips before I took this picture. I sprinkled some of that on too.

This was soooo good! We were both full and happy after eating this dinner!!!

#157 Tomato Pesto Quinoa Bowl

This is another copycat meal. If you've ever been to Kind Kreme, you know that their raw, vegan ice cream is delicious! But have you ever tried their food? It's just as healthy and delicious as their sweet treats. It's a little pricey though. I decided that I needed to duplicate my favorite quinoa bowl so I can enjoy it more often. There's raw kale, cooked quinoa (that I soaked/sprouted overnight before cooking), sun dried tomato sauce, pignoli (aka pine nut) ricotta, walnut pesto, sauerkraut, cucumber, carrot, tamari almonds, and hemp seeds. Phew! Have you noticed my love for salads with a ton of components? While they can be a bit of work, once all of the ingredients are made, the salads can be easily assembled multiple times throughout the week. Totally worth it for such a filling, nutrient dense meal. The tomato sauce and ricotta recipes came from Raw Food real world by the former partner owners of Pure Food and Wine in New York. The walnut pesto is from The Saucy Vegetarian by Joanne Stephaniak. Making sauerkraut has been on my to-do list for some time but for now, I buy Bubbies brand. The tamari almonds are from Trader Joe's. This was a close match for my first try, but I will be making some changes next time. I'll try Sun-Dried Tomato and Spinach Pesto instead of the 2 separate sauces. It will save some prep time and is way better as far as calories are concerned. I'm also going to substitute a different sauce for the ricotta. It's good, just not worth the fat and calories for this salad. Now I just need to figure out how to make Kind Kreme's Wake and Shake. My favorite!

#156 Ratatouille

When I say he name of this dish, I can't help but think of a little rat slaving away in a kitchen. Instead of a little rat, I got a little help from a dinosaur.

I found this recipe online. Be sure to click on the link because there is the recipe and a video that shows you all the steps.

I followed the suggestion and served it over couscous. This dinner was easy and fun to make with my dinosaur friend. Make this and eat outside with your favorite glass of wine!

#155 Mandarin Chicken and Bok Choy

This is a bag of Gardein's Mandarin Chicken cooked according to their directions. Yum! Sean also sautéed Bok Choy from our garden and put it all on top of brown rice. Delicious!!!!

#154 Marguerite Pizza

I've been wanting to try Pit Fire pizza for awhile now. Last night I found myself near their North Hollywood location. Ive always been a fan of marguerite pizza. My parents owned a pizza shop when I was in high school, they had Michelle's Marguerite on the menu :) Pit Fire's was incredible!! The crust and sauce were fantastic. I love it when pizza places offer daiya cheese (or sometimes their own non-dairy cheese). It's just one extra ingredient for them to carry and we can all enjoy delicious, artisan pizza! Woohoo!

#153 Goddess Nicoise Salad

So colorful! Some of my garden's lettuce is in there :)

Another must make from Appetite for Reduction. This salad is fantastic! What you see pictured is only 295 calories!!! What?!?! That's amazing. Lynzie loves this salad too, check it out!  The recipe says to use red leaf lettuce but I prefer it with Boston (aka butter) and radicchio.  It's great with whatever lettuce greens you have on hand.  Instead of the traditional tuna, there's a garbanzo bean mash mixed with some of the dressing and capers for that brininess.  I rinse the beans in really hot water because it's way easier to mash them when they are warm.  The Green Goddess Garlic dressing is out of this world!!!  It is chives, parsley, garlic, tahini, miso, water, lemon juice, and salt.  My mouth waters just thinking about it!  I like slicing the olives so I can have some with every bite.  Yum yum yum!!!