Part 3 (again): A Few More Recipes…

March 15, 2013

I am continuing my series on menu planning, grocery shopping, and easy vegan/vegetarian meals…Click here and here to see parts 1 & 2. Part 3: Recipes (American), can be found here.

As this is not a ‘foodie’ blog, I’ll just post a couple more recipes and then point you to some of my favorite foodie blogs so you can go forth & be adventurous on your own 🙂

Our all time favorite Italian meal is:

Stuffed Shells, Spaghetti Squash, Salad, and Creamed Kale

Stuffed Shells

• tofu
• 2 T EVOO
• 1.5 t salt
• 1 t oregano
• 2 cloves garlic
• 10 oz frozen spinach or kale
• 12-15 jumbo shells
• marinara

1. Cook jumbo shells according to package directions
2. Drain (place hand towel on above & below & put something heavy on top) & crumble tofu into food processor
3. Add next 4 ingredients & process until smooth/’ricotta-like’
4. Defrost spinach (or nuke in water in microwave for 2-3 min) & press in sieve to remove excess moisture
5. Mix spinach and tofu mixture
6. Pour a bit of pasta sauce in 9×13 pan
7. Stuff shells & place on top of sauce
8. Pour more sauce on top of shells
9. Cover pan w/tin foil
10. Bake 30 min at 350

Give it a try! My parents are NOT vegan or vegetarian and were NOT excited about trying tofu for the first time but they really liked it 🙂

Spaghetti Squash

1. Cut in half, lengthwise
2. Scoop out seeds
3. Place open side down on pan
4. Bake 30-45 min at 350
5. Scrape ‘spaghetti’ out, place in pot, mix with sauce, & simmer while shells are cooking

Creamed Kale (recipe is on yesterday’s post)

Salad – whatever your family likes – try for more toppings, less dressing! 😀

Our favorite soup is a tie between Lentil and Minestrone. Minestrone is basically like a veggie stew with pasta. It has a basic soup base of onion, celery, seasonings, tomatoes, stock, carrots and then I add whatever I have saved from the garden the summer before: sweet potatoes, green beans Add noodles for the last 10-15 minutes. WONDERFUL during the winter! Lentil soup is your basic soup base with stock, tomatoes, and lentils. Simple yet very tasty. We love them both.

Finally, I will leave you with our favorite Mexican sides. Sometimes we eat enchilada casserole with these, sometimes quesadillas, sometimes bean burritos but these are by far our favorites side dishes:

Refried Beans

• 4 c cooked pinto beans (my next post will cover how to do this without buying canned beans and without slaving over a hot stove all day cooking pinto beans before cooking them again…)
• 3 T coconut oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 5 cloves minced garlic
• 2.5 t cumin
• 2 t paprika
• 1.5 t salt
• 1/2 t chili pwdr
• 1/2 t black pepper

1. Saute onion & garlic in butter
2. Put beans in a measuring cup – add enough water until it reaches the top of the beans (but does not cover them)
3. Stir in the rest of seasonings
4. Simmer 15-20 minutes
5. Puree (hand blender) and add any extra water, if needed

Guacamole

Hold onto your hats here, people. It’s as simple and tasty as one, two, three:

1. avocado…mash it
2. salsa…pour some in
3. lime juice…squirt
4. I lied, there’s a ‘four’…stir together! Simple. Yummy. Healthy. LOVE IT!

In my next post, I will be talking about how to save money and time by precooking some of this before hand. Look for it in the next couple of days!

The plan is that I will finish the shingles on the coop today (if I do not kill myself – yikes!) while my husband puts a door on and builds a roost. This of course will have to happen in between feedings – we’ll see how cooperative the 7mo is 🙂 If he decides to cooperate, I will have a post coming soon with final(ish) pictures! It is all in the hands of the baby (isn’t it always) 😉

P.S. Another reason this is not a foodie blog is because I do not take pictures of my food…too busy feeding little people, I guess. These pictures are not mine but I did try to find pictures that looked most like my end product so you could get an idea of what it looks like. And here are some of my favorite foodie websites, as promised:

Whole Food Mommies, Peas and Thank You, Peas and Crayons, Kiss My Broccoli

I also get a lot of good recipe ideas each week during Healthy Vegan Fridays!