Dinner for four

Callie and I decided to make a dinner last night. We invited our good friend, Georgia Tollin, and my mom, Wendy, to help us enjoy our meal. We made agave glazed tofu, steamed vegetables, tahini sauce, and a edamame/corn/lima bean mix. It was fun starting from scratch and making all these healthy foods together. We sat around the dining room table and had a lovely meal.

-Meg

First yoga, then protein shakes. Now that's what I call a solid start to a beautiful day.

Hello everybody! 


Yesterday, Meg and I began our day at 9:45 (early for Meg) by taking a great yoga class called "XFlowsion" at my yoga studio, "Yoga Shelter". This yoga class was not traditional in any sense, it was partially kickboxing and partially yoga. When Meg and I got back to my house we were really hungry so we decided to experiment with two different kinds of protein shakes. Below are the recipes for them and some pictures. 


Green "Vega" Protein Shake:
Ingredients:
1 frozen banana
1 scoop (2 if you would like) of Vega Original Flavor Protein Powder (available at most health food stores such as Whole Foods or you can order it online from the following website: http://myvega.com/)
           -The Vega brand also makes other protein powder flavors such as berry, chocolate, and vanilla          
chai
1 cup of ice cubes 
Unsweetened almond milk (start with one cup then add more as needed) 


-Blend all of the ingredients in a blender and enjoy! 

Banana-Date Shake (very sweet) 
Ingredients: 
4 pitted medjool dates
1/2 cup of raw whole cashews
1 frozen banana (freezing the banana gives the smoothie a more creamy and satisfying texture) 
Unsweetened almond milk (start with 3/4 cup then add as needed) 


-Blend all ingredients and then consume your delicious creation

-Callie

Oatmeal Earth Bars

While Callie and I were lounging outside enjoying the sun, we were flipping through our numerous cookbooks and both decided we keep making all these amazing vegan sweets! We need to make something that isn't a cookie or a cake! We landed on the Oatmeal Earth Bars from "The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes." We used the recipe as a guide line but added all sorts of healthy ingrediants to make it our own and fully get the nutritional benefit out of it! We added super-foods like goji berries (a new favorite of mine, yum!), unsweetened coconut flakes, cooked steel cut oats, walnuts, and cocoa nibs.

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Don't let the picture fool you, they make a perfect snack for anytime you want a healthy, hearty, and nutritious snack! 

-Meg 

Coconut-Vanilla Cupcake

A few days ago, at the beginning of our vegan adventure Meg and I happened upon a delicious vanilla cupcake recipe (vegan of course!). We referred to our "BabyCakes" cookbook (an incredible vegan/gluten-free bakery in Los Angeles and New York) for the vanilla frosting recipe. The original cupcake recipe (attached below) called for vegetable oil, however, we substituted it with coconut oil which made the cupcakes dense, rich and delicious with a hint of coconut. 






-Callie


Vanilla Cupcake Recipe: 
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27258.0 

Vegan Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6658.0

Another cookie recipe! I picked these because I love oatmeal and I also had all of the ingredients in my house (there were no obscure ingredients that I couldn't pronounce), so I thought why not give it a try!
They turned out well!

I also always have extra cookie dough that I find myself either just eating (which is ok with vegan recipes because there are no yucky eggs or risk of salmonella!) so this time i took the rest of the cookie dough I didn't bake, flattened it out and put it in the freezer! Now we have TWO kinds of cookies.

Put those cookies between Purely Decadent Turtle Trails soy ice cream and I don't think there could be anything better..

Tofu Bell Pepper Scramble

For lunch today, I went to one of my favorite blogs, Veganstoner.com and chose one of their easy, yummy recipes. I landed on the Tofu Bell Pepper Scramble.

firm tofu (chopped)
bell peppers (chopped)
nutritional yeast
garlic powder
handful of chopped kale
tortilla chips
chili sauce

The full recipe is on Veganstoner.com, I added the kale and garlic powder and forgo the avocado. 

The entire process took about 20 minutes and it was SO good!

A Note on Nutritional Yeast : I've read so many vegan recipes that involved nutritional yeast, I had no idea what it was or what its purpose was. If you questioned the same thing, HERE is the info I learned:

-Yellow in color with a nutty cheese flavor
-it is an inactive yeast that is favored by vegans because of its similarity to cheese
-has vitamin B12 (vegans need to make sure they get B12 which is regularly found in meat)
-don't get brewer's yeast-it looks similar but it is not the same
-add it to hot popcorn, garlic bread, a stir fry, or pasta sauce

you can get it a little of it at the 'help yourself' part of whole foods. This is definitely a new item I will be adding to my diet!

Soy-Free, Dairy-Free, ANIMAL-FREE, Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies from Heaven! Also, a rant about processed foods and Henry D. Thoreau

It is currently 9:36 am on a Sunday morning and I just started my day with a fruit smoothie and piece of Ezekiel bread with almond butter! Yesterday, I was craving some sort of dessert that I wouldn't need to feel guilty about when I remembered a recipe for gluten free/vegan chocolate chip cookies. I found this recipe a few weeks ago on one of my favorite blogs: www.sketch-freeveganeating.blogspot.com. The authors of this blog (Jennifer and Jaclyn) never include any processed sugar or processed food in general (such as tofu) in their recipes, which I absolutely love. One of the biggest problems I have found when it comes to being vegan is that it is WAY too easy to be an unhealthy vegan if you are not careful. Just remember, just because the package says its vegan, DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT IT'S HEALTHY! I have met many a vegan who simply live off of white pasta, beans, fake cheese, processed tofu, various meat substitutes, and sugar-filled "vegan" cookies and soy ice cream. There will NEVER be any processed food in my recipes except for the occasional tofu! Everything in moderation is perfectly acceptable, however filling your body with unnatural foods will simply make you feel drowsy and emotionally/physically unstable.
In my favorite book, "Walden Pond, the author, Henry D. Thoreau, discusses the reality that our Earth provides us with everything we need...INCLUDING FOOD. Let us help both our bodies and our planet by consuming the food that we are meant to be eating. The truth is, the more you tamper with a vegetable or piece of fruit by cooking it, or processing it in any way, you are getting farther and farther from its natural state of nutrition. 
Anyway, here are some "before" and "after" photos of these DELICIOUS vegan/gluten free chocolate chip cookies I made yesterday. I have posted the link to find the recipe below. 

http://sketch-freeveganeating.blogspot.com/2010/08/gluten-free-and-vegan-chocolate-chip.html