Lentil Meatloaf

  Since becoming vegetarian, I haven't had to worry about missing some of my childhood dishes, because lentils are a perfect substitute for meat!  You can use them to make tacos, meatloaf (see below), meatballs, sloppy joes (which I renamed sloppy lennies), lasagna, shepard's pie, and moussaka!  Okay, so the last two are just dishes that I really love.  :D  Meatloaf can be highly personal, but also very versatile.  I created this recipe from one passed down from my mom.  I tried measuring out the ingredients for the first time this past week when I made it, so that I could share it with you.  I was taught that it is kind of an eyeball thing.  Hope you like it!

Food Diary: Week 12, 3/19-3/23

Disclaimer: This information is collected using information from packaging and caloriecount.about.com. It is probably not super accurate, just a good guesstimation.

Note:  Not all recipes are recorded.  Some have links, while others just have pertinent calorie information.  If there is any recipe that you want that I haven't written down, post a comment.  :)


Monday, 03/19:

• Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (12g; 204cal) w/ a piece of buttered toast (51cal {1/2 tbsp} + 4g; 80cal); protein: 16, calories: 335
• Snack: 1/4c Love Crunch granola (2.5g; 130cal) w/ 1/4c vanilla probiotic yogurt (2.7g; 50cal); protein: 5.2, calories: 180
• Lunch: 1 egg (6g; 102cal) salad (1Tbsp mayo, 100cal) sammie (2 slices of bread, 8g; 160cal)  w/ lettuce, s/p; protein: 14, calories: 362
• Snack: 6 squares of Lindt white chocolate  (2g; 210cal) and 2Tbsp white chocolate peanut butter (6g; 180cal) protein: 8, calories: 390
• Dinner: 2 med jacket potatoes (5g; 236cal) w/ 1/2c kidney beans (8g; 100cal) and 50g cream cheese filling (2g; 200cal); protein: 15, calories: 536
• Snack: 2Tbsp white chocolate peanut butter (6g; 180cal); protein: 6, calories: 180
• Other: hot lemon water, water, liquid vitamin, chai tea
  

Daily totals: protein: 64.2, calories: 1,983
*To cut down on calories, avoid the late night pb.  :)

Grocery List for Week 11, 3/12-3/16

For a printable version, click here.

Dairy:

1. eggs*
2. cheese*, your choice
3. cream cheese
4. tempeh*
5. yogurt*, plain or flavored 

Food Diary: Week 11, 3/12-3/16

Disclaimer: This information is collected using information from packaging and caloriecount.about.com. It is probably not super accurate, just a good guesstimation.

Note:  Not all recipes are recorded.  Some have links, while others just have pertinent calorie information.  If there is any recipe that you want that I haven't written down, post a comment.  :)


Monday, 03/12:

• Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (12g; 204cal) and a piece of toast with 2tsp raspberry jam (4g; 80cal + 70cal); protein: 16g, calories: 354
• Snack: 1/4c Love Crunch granola (2.5g; 130cal) w/ 1/4c light kefir yogurt (2g; 20cal); protein: 4.5, calories: 150
• Lunch: l/o coconut (170cal) lentil (13.4g; 172.5cal) soup; protein: 13.4, calories: 342.5
• Snack: 1/4c vanilla probiotic yogurt (2.7g; 50cal) w/ 1/4c crunchy buckwheat cereal (3.25g; 101cal) and 1Tbsp pb (3.8g; 94cal); protein: 9.75, calories: 245
• Dinner: 1/2c white beans (8.7g; 124.5cal) and 1c cooked quinoa (11.2g; 294cal) w/ 2Tbsp evoo (238cal) + green onion, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins (1/4c=54.25), lemon juice, and s/p; protein: 19.9, calories: 710.75
• Other: hot lemon water, water, multivitamin w/ iron
  

Daily totals: protein: 63.55, calories: 1,802.25

Applesauce Cake

  This is seriously one of my favorite cakes of all time.  It is so good that it's hard not to gobble it all up in one sitting.  It's great for breakfast, as a snack, or for dessert!  Thank you, Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook for this one!

Jacket Potatoes

  If you've ever been to England, then I am sure that you've heard of the jacket potato aka baked potato.  There is nothing better than something warm on a cold day, and instead of selling hot dogs on the street corners, the English sell jacket potatoes.  B/c I'm not super patient, I created  a jacket potato inspired dish sans baked potato.  :/  Baked potatoes are great, but since I didn't want to wait an hour to eat, I just boiled a few potatoes whole and then chopped them up.  The final product came out not too shabby.  ;)

Grocery List for Week 10, 3/5-3/9

For a printable version, click here.

Dairy:

1. eggs*
2. cheese*, your choice
3. parmesan (or you can make your own vegan parm)
4. tofu*
5. yogurt*, plain or flavored 

So, What Do Vegetarians Eat?

  I've often heard friends exclaim that they don't know how to cook vegetarian meals or that they just don't like veggies.  So, I thought that I'd let you peer into a cross section of my life and start a weekly food diary.  Honestly, it is probably more for me than for you, but I think it can help people see that eating vegetarian is not so hard and that if done right, veggies can actually be delicious!  ;D  I'll try to add recipe links to some of the meals that I eat and some basic nutritional information.

  I'm not a certified nutritionist, so I won't have a complete breakdown of every vitamin and mineral.  I thought I'd just stick to the basics for now: protein and calories; to show that you can get your protein needs met w/o meat and provide calorie breakdowns for those who might want to try a vegetarian diet or wish to view it as a meal plan.

Disclaimer: This information is collected using information from packaging and caloriecount.about.com. It is probably not super accurate, just a good guesstimation.

Note:  Not all recipes are recorded.  Some have links, while others just have pertinent calorie information.  If there is any recipe that you want that I haven't written down, post a comment.  :)

Monday, 03/05:

• Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (12g; 204cal) and a piece of buttered toast (51cal {1/2Tbsp} + 4g; 80cal) w/ cinnamon and sugar (1tsp=16cal); protein: 16g, calories: 351
• Snack: 1/4c yogurt (2g; 20cal) w/ 2Tbsp crunchy buckwheat cereal (1.6g; 50.5cal) and 1tsp maple syrup (18cal); protein: 3.6g, calories: 88.5
• Lunch: 1/4c dry couscous (5g; 148cal) w/ 1/4c chickpeas (3.6g; 67cal), carrots, cilantro, 2Tbsp evoo (238cal), lemon juice, s/p/red pepper flakes and 1Tbsp pumpkin seeds (2.7g; 57cal); protein: 11.3g, calories: 510
• Snack: 1/4c almonds; protein: 7.5g, calories: 204
• Dinner: watercress soup w/ potatoes (2.5g; 118cal per potato); protein: 5g, calories: 236
• Snack: 2 rice crackers (70cal) w/ almond butter (2Tbsp=5g; 190cal) and 1/2 an apple (47.5cal); protein: 5g, calories: 307.5
• Other: hot lemon water, water, thyme tea, multivitamin w/iron

Daily totals: protein: 48.4, calories: 1,697

Eggplant and Sweet Potato Curry

  My dear friend, Ngan, introduced me to this dish.  It is very versatile, and you can use any veggies you have on hand.  For this dish, I used eggplant and sweet potato, but I've done many other variations in the past.  Potato/carrot, for that day when you have no other veg in the house, and one of my favorite combos is pumpkin/carrot.  Pumpkin or butternut squash comes out very rich and creamy tasting in a curry, but it is a bit of a struggle to chop it up uncooked.

Potato and Watercress Soup

  I bought 3 bunches of watercress from the Asian market and about the only thing that I wanted to do with it was make a soup!  So, I did.  I did a little research and found this recipe online.  It's pretty basic, but I wanted to make sure the flavor of the watercress came through.  Like always, I made a few changes of my own.  :)

Crunchy Buckwheat Cereal

  Today, I am going to share one of my new favorite snack food recipes.  This recipe comes from a cookbook that I love, "The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook".  While eating vegetarian is my choice, I am a little worried about meeting all of my nutritional requirements when I become pregnant.  This is really the only book on the market that I've found, and the recipes in it are great!  The author, Cathe Olson, also provides a pretty good nutritional breakdown of every recipe.

   This recipe is in her breakfast section and is a great alternative to the normal processed cereals or granolas.  I make this snack in small quantities, so that it is easier to mix up and b/c I only use it as a topping.  Once you try it out yourself, you can decide whether you want to make it in larger quantities, i.e. to eat as a cereal.

Preparing for Spring

  A few weeks ago, we attended "Seedy Saturday" on 02/25 and planted a few seeds for the Spring.  Thanks to Sarah from Sarah's Kitchen Gardens, we started a cilantro, sage, and two basil plants.  It has now been just over a week, and our sprouts are going strong.  Admittedly, I'm a little worried.  I was told not to take them out from cover until their first true leaves formed, but these babies are already too big to be covered up by saran wrap.

  I hope they do well in our apartment...  We don't have too much direct sun, and it is still a bit too cold to take them outside!  Here is what they look like so far!

  I <3 cilantro!  Once the sprouts get a little bit bigger, we will start to thin them out.  So far, this plant seems to be growing the fastest.

  Yay for sage!  It looks like there will be a clear winner when it comes to thinning time.  This is the only perennial herb we have this year.  Can't wait for the Summer to throw this in some pasta!

 Our little basil.  This one is still inside of a container to stay humid.  A couple of the sprouts have started, though they aren't growing as fast as the sage and cilantro.  For the two basils, I planted 7 seeds each.  And by planted, I mean laid them on the soil and lightly raked, b/c the seeds are so tiny, they don't need to be buried deep.

  And finally, our lemon basil.  This has only one small sprout so far.  And it is pretty hard to see it b/c of a bit of dirt on it.  I thought I could brush it off to get a better picture, but I accidentally pulled out the little sprout.  :S  Hopefully, it will be all right.  I tried making a little hole for it and putting it back upright.  I also hope to see some more sprouts coming up soon.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

  Who doesn't love Reese peanut butter cups?  Wouldn't it be great to have a slightly healthier, homemade alternative?  I found this recipe on Pinterest that I think you will love!  Of course, I did some tweaking of my own.  I absolutely love dark chocolate, the darker the better.  It has two benefits really.  More antioxidants and the richness of it will prevent you from eating too many!  Well, that's the idea anyways!  ;) 

  Here's a piccie of the final result, along with a background shot of the board game, Hansa Teutonica.

Guacamole Pasta Salad

  The other night, I was so excited to make this dish inspired by a recipe I found on Pinterest: Creamed Avocado and Lime Chilled Pasta.  But, when I got started, my dish quickly transformed into something entirely different.  I thought it would be so nice to create this simple, elegant Asian inspired dish, but when I first tasted it, I couldn't help but think that it tasted like guacamole!?!  Maybe that is not so surprising, considering the recipe consists of cilantro, avocado, and lime.  So, here is what my final product looked like and my recipe for it is below.

 

Hello World!

  Hmm...  so, I've tried blogging before, and it didn't work out too well.  haha  I'm not sure if that had to do with the amount of time it took to write/upload photos or if it was b/c of the low amount of traffic.  I guess that is what happens when you buy your own domain.  :/  So, we'll give it a try again on blogspot.  :)  That is the royal we, of course.  haha  I'm mostly interested in cooking, baking, and the beginnings of a permaculture gardening.  If any of that interests you, stay tuned.  ;)

  Here's an example of an everyday lunch.