Spinach is a beauty food that is incorporated into my diet daily - not only do I use it in my Glowing Green Smoothie every morning, I usually have some sort of salad that uses spinach also. On this day of appreciate for spinach, though, I decided to use it in meals rather than a basic salad. I started off my day with my Glowing Green Smoothie - I got some spinach right off the bat. For lunch I cooked up a 'Greens Stir Fry' - In coconut oil I threw in onions, green beans, asparagus, zucchini, broccoli and spinach, seasoned with tamari, onion powder, and brown rice vinegar. For dinner I classed it up a little and did a vegan 'carbonara'. I had been watching Food Network while I was at the gym and was inspired to make my own carbonara, vegan edition. I used my raw taco meat, tomatoes, salt & pepper, spinach, and extra virgin olive oil all tossed with gluten-free pasta. |
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There's one weekend every month that I allocate a cheat weekend, mostly due to the fact that my boyfriend visits me or I visit him once a month, and our dietary plans are quite different. This weekend was that cheat weekend for me and I'm already feeling so ready to get back on track. I wasn't able to have my smoothies in the morning for the past three days because I was out of greens, celery and bananas - today I made it to the grocery store and am fully stocked and prepared for the week.
I did get to enjoy washington d.c. in a special way with my boyfriend this weekend - it was absolutely gorgeous weather and the leaves are starting to change into the fall season. it was the most perfect weekend for me (and I think I did well at my job interview!) This morning, I had to do a job interview for a position as a Resident Assistant on campus at my university. One of the activities that we had to prepare for was called a Tiny Teach - we were given five minutes to present something important to us and teach the class how they can do it, too. I decided to make a Glowing Green Smoothie for my Tiny Teach. I wanted to share how easy it is to incorporate greens into your diet in a healthy, delicious way, and while I made my smoothie for everyone to try I also explained some of the principles from Kimberly Snyder's The Beauty Detox Solution book. I think everyone loved it!
After my taco fiesta with Emma last night, I had a ton of food left over - there was no way we were going to be capable of eating all of that ourselves! I was craving sloppy joes so I decided to convert my leftover taco meat into a sloppy joe meal, and once again it was delicious. I sautéed onions and garlic in coconut oil for a few minutes before I added my "meat." I warmed up and browned the meat for a little while before adding ketchup, coconut sugar, and worcestershire sauce to the mix. I used about a cup of taco "meat", a tablespoon of coconut sugar, two tablespoons of worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 cup of ketchup. It is certainly not the healthiest option but it absolutely satisfied my craving in a more healthy and vegan way. I would have used tomato paste instead of ketchup but at the time I was out. I ate the sloppy joes open-faced on gluten free bread! I was feeling a little homesick today so I decided to make something that reminded me of home - Mexican food. It's not a beauty detox friendly recipe, but it is Vegan and absolutely delicious. I decided to make tacos ... from scratch (tortillas and all, which was a terrible idea). To make the taco meat, I used Kimberly Snyder's soaked walnut taco meat from the Raw Taco Salad Recipe - walnuts soaked for 6 hours, cumin, coriander, and tamari. I made guacamole with avocado, lime, fresh cilantro, tomatoes, red onions, and cayenne pepper. The tortilla was amaranth flour (gluten free) and salt with water, but tortillas are much more challenging to make than I ever realized. I ended up with "tortilla fritters," most of them ended up being tiny pieces but I managed to make four or so that somewhat resembled a tostada shell for me to pile the ingredients on. I set up a spread worthy of a king with chopped raw onions, lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, "meat," and my tortillas to share with my friend Emma. It was absolutely delicious and definitely something I will make again.
We're starting to get into my favorite season - the time of leaves changing and pumpkin spice everything and most importantly, HALLOWEEN. In order to celebrate the season, I decided to try making my own vegan pumpkin pie for my friend Emma. I didn't follow a recipe, I kind of just put everything together and added things until it tasted the way I liked it. I used puréed pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, soaked cashews, agave syrup and a dash of salt to make the pumpkin filling. I ended up adding oats to the mixture because I thought the pumpkin tasted too pumpkin-y. For the crust base, I food processed almonds into a fine chop and blended in oats with cinnamon, agave, a splash of salt and water. The recipe is flexible - next time I may use unsweetened coconut in the crust instead of almonds. I baked the crust first in the oven just to make it a little firm, and then I put the filling on top and baked it just a tad to heat it up. Emma ended up loving it! |