What I Ate Wednesday #20

 

Short and Sweet. Today, I have a mound of paperwork combined with a few tasks with deadlines of 9:00 tomorrow.  I wanted to still squeeze in my day of eats.  I just can’t miss a WIAW.

Tuesday was filled with many random and necessary to do’s that just could not be put off.  I knew even my workout might get a bump to tomorrow.  I did still mange to get my 6:00am thirty minutes of elliptical in. As soon as I was done, it was a quick breakfast and get Mya off to camp.  I had to dress her up like and alien.  It was fun, lots of green eye makeup and a cute outfit.  I was in such a rush getting her out on time I forgot to take a picture. I thought I could snag one at the end of the day, but all her Alien makeup was gone by her pickup time.

We all had breakfast sandwiches on whole wheat Bagel Thins.  I just love those bagels.  It was tofu egg, Daiya block cheddar cut in thin slices, and some vegan bacon.  Not packed full of veggies like I hoped, but it was fabulous anyway.

Lunch was also on the run.  I had to stop by one of my bakeries on my way to visit a bread customer.  They had some fresh ciabatta rolls that were a little bigger than dinner rolls.  I got a few to go and made Andy and I both hoagie like sandwiches for lunch. 

Still, not the most nutritious, but I did manage to add a load of shredded romaine, fresh tomatoes, and some sweet red onion to them. They also had some Tofurky turkey for protein, some crushed red peppers for heat, and a few thin slices of Dayia block style Jack cheese.  A drizzle of balsamic and olive oil completed them.

I ate a few cherries on the side and finished my meal with a small bite of one of Mya’s vegan cookies, and a hot cup of coffee to go, again.

Andy and I fled in two directions having to get our tasks done before camp ended.  Oddly enough, were both turning back into the driveway precisely at the same time. How does that happen?  We definitely could not have planned such timing.

Once I picked Mya up, she wanted a snack and some relaxation.  Since I was not even close to through my pile of paperwork, her wish was granted until dinner.

I hijacked every vegetable in the fridge to make this awesome nutritious dinner.  It was a combination of two zucchinis diced, one diced red onion, four ounces of  quartered mushrooms, one sliced bunch of asparagus, half a pint of grape tomatoes, and a bag of steamed brown rice.  I seasoned everything while it sautéed, using just a few tiny drizzles of Braggs liquid aminos and some Mrs. Dash Garlic Blend. The veggies were sautéed until just cooked, but not too soft. I also quick sautéed a bunch of curly kale for the base of our dish and  made us a few Gardein Chicken tenders on the side.  I ate a huge plate of veggies and had two tenders sliced thinly on top and a few drops of lemon garlic dressing for some kick!

Now this tastes like summer! One more busy day to enjoy before the next heat wave begins.  Time to clean, so the relaxing by the pool can commence by the time the intense heat comes our way.  A good book and a glass of wine, Mya splashing in the pool, sounds like a heavenly weekend ahead, but first…work! happy WIAW.

Check out my last post Lasagna Lovin’, if you missed it!

Have a great day, and stay cool!

 

Lasagna Lovin’ Vegan Style

 

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weekend after that short heat wave.  Today it is pretty perfect outside, sunny 85 degrees, and low humidity.   Perfect day some “not cooking”, just eating. This make ahead lasagna totally did the trick for a quick filling meal without actually cooking today. Just heat and eat.

I must say, every time I make lasagna, I forget how much I love it.  I think I only make it on occasion because I don’t really think of it as a healthy meal.  But prepared the way I made it today, at less than 260 calories a slice, especially with a salad on the side, it is a much more waist friendly option that I can indulge in more often.

For this recipe, instead of using the 3 layers of pasta I would normally use, I made the bottom and top layer pasta and the middle layer zucchini “pasta”.  This saves a ton of calories and adds a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals at the same time.  It takes 4 noodles to make a layer or 1 medium zucchini sliced thin.  I sliced the zucchini on my mandoline slicer.  Four noodles of the organic brown rice lasagna noodles I used are 420 calories, a medium zucchini is only 31 calories. That is a calorie savings of 389 per layer! Believe me, you will not even miss that middle layer of pasta if you use my technique of completely covering and overlapping each thin slice of zucchini.  Here is a picture of my lasagna while building it.

My recipe is pretty simple.

• 4 cups of your favorite pasta sauce
• 8 rice pasta lasagna noodles, cooked according to package.
• 1 medium zucchini sliced length wise is thin “noodles”
• 8oz mushrooms, sliced thin
• 16oz frozen spinach, defrosted and drained of liquid (squeezed dry)
• 3 Field Roast Italian Sausages, crumbled
• 3 cups tofu cashew ricotta* (see my recipage)
• 1/2 cup Daiya Mozzarella Shreds

Preheat oven to 350.  When your noodles are cooked, cool them in cold water and lay them on damp paper towels in a single layer to keep them moist while assembling lasagna.

Cover the bottom of a large casserole dish with 2 cups of pasta sauce.  Then, cover the sauce with four of your cooked lasagna noodles, overlap to assure complete coverage. Next, spread half of your tofu cashew ricotta onto noodles.

Now, cover the ricotta with half your crumbled sausage.  To achieve perfect crumbles, pulse sausage in the food processor several times.

Over the crumbles, sprinkle half of the drained spinach and your mushrooms.  Then, cover the entire area with overlapped layers of zucchini “noodles”. 

Over the zucchini, repeat by covering with the remaining tofu ricotta, sausage, spinach and mushrooms.  Then, top with remaining four noodles, and spread the other two cups of sauce over the noodles. Refrigerate until ready to bake. 

Place in oven and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, if cooking immediately, bake for 50 minutes from the refrigerator. Allow to cool 15 minutes before slicing into twelve pieces.

Each slice of this fabulous lasagna is only 259 calories, 10g fat, 15g protein and 5g fiber.  Pair this with a nice salad for a nutritious lunch or dinner.

Have a wonderful day!

What I Ate Wednesday #19

 

Hello all, and welcome to another addition of What I Ate Wednesday!  This weeks meal plans were a little gentler on the stomach, nothing as spicy as I usually like.

I have been watching what I eat this week due to experiencing a few days of stomach pain after taking Aleve on an empty stomach.  I am pretty sensitive to all medications, but when we were camping, I got a horrible migraine from the smoke of a bonfire and woke up in the middle of the night with my head screaming in pain.  I was not thinking, and took two Aleve, without food.  The intense headache was still not gone by morning and I ended up taking another.  Ever since then, my stomach, which is usually thinking about the next meal while I am currently eating, has been in knots.   I have had this happen to me once in the past, same situation.  I should have known better, but at 2:00am I was not thinking about food, just pain.   So the WIAW meals I am sharing today are stomach friendly, so I can eat and heal. Anyone else ever experience this?

For breakfast, I opted for some stomach soothing probiotics.  I made a parfait of sorts.  The base was 1/4 cup Swiss muesli sprinkled generously with cinnamon, then a 1/3 cup dollop of plain soy yogurt that I blended with vanilla Spiru-tein protein powder until thick and creamy. Next, I mixed in some fresh blueberries, blackberries and diced strawberries.  Then, I added some Uncle Sam’s cereal and some hemp seeds for fiber and protein. I garnished with another tbsp. of my protein yogurt and a few berries.   I felt much better after breakfast.

After catching up on my daily blog reading while on the elliptical, I was inspired by egg salad.  I have not made my “Tofu Egg Salad” in  awhile, I thought it would be a nice lunch.  Mya loves this stuff!  I make her her own bowl, and she always finishes it.  It is quite simple to make and tastes so much like egg salad, you can fool most people. I will post the recipe on my recipage today. 

After I made my “egg” salad, I let it cool in the fridge for a while.  Once it was cool and the flavors were blended, I made us some wraps.  When I made my wrap, I added in some diced up avocado to my tofu egg salad, and it was really divine.  Mya and Andy are not huge avocado fans, they eat it, but I adore it.  I put it in everything I can.  My wraps were made on Flat-out Lights, which, if you have been reading my blog, you know I highly recommend. They are high protein, high fiber, and low calorie wraps, which are great cold or toasted as a pizza shell.  I filled them with spring mix, chopped tomatoes and my tofu egg salad. We had a handful of baked chips on the side.

Lunch was so protein and fiber packed, that I was totally full until dinner. To keep with my stomach soothers theme, I decided to make millet for dinner.  Millet is an under used grain that is a nice change from rice.  It has a wonderful nutritional profile, full of minerals and protein, and it is also extremely gentle on the stomach.  This versatile grain is not just “bird food” it can be cooked and eaten like rice, prepared like polenta or mashed potatoes, it can be added to baked goods for crunch and it can even  be sweetened as a breakfast porridge. Remember to always rinse your grains well before using.  You will be surprised how dirty the water gets when you clean rice, quinoa, millet, etc. 

I checked the fridge for veggies, we had zucchini, onions, and mushrooms. I added some Gardein Beefless tips for some extra protein.  I made my millet like rice.  1 cup millet rinsed well, drained, added to a hot dry pan.  Then I toasted it about 8 minutes before adding it to 2.5 cups boiling water and 1 cube vegan low sodium bullion. I let it simmer with lid on 20-25 minutes until it was fluffy like rice.

In my double griddle pan, I cooked all the zucchini until it was browned on both sides, then let the onions grill beside them. The a cooked the mushrooms and added a slash of Braggs liquid aminos to them.  Finally I cooked the beefless tips in a little coconut oil until browned on all sides.  I seasoned the zucchini with  Mrs. Dash garlic blend.  I placed some millet on our plates, then a pile of veggies and a few pieces of the Gardein.  It was fantastic.

Of course, Mya wanted her leftover vegan “mac and cheese” and bbq chicken from the night before. So I heated that up for her. When she saw me cooking the zucchini, she said, “zucchini again”.  She thinks I am making a lot now, wait until I can pick it from my garden!  We have zucchini everything!

Since we ate around 4:30pm, my stomach began to growl at 8pm, so I had a tiny bowl of Uncle Sam’s cereal with berries, drenched in Almond Breeze Coconut-Almond milk. 

I did feel much better after eating all these meals.  I will be getting the recipes up sometime today.  Have a happy Wednesday!

Vegan Father’s Day Camping Trip

 

Happy Father’s Day! We could not have a had a more perfect weekend for camping.  Sunny and 80 degrees with a heated pool and plenty of new friends.  Mya got her dream camp trip and Andy and I got a peaceful getaway to celebrate Father’s Day.

Camping is by far my favorite summertime activity.  It was tent camping for years, until we purchased our small RV last year to accommodate our lifestyle.  When you only have limited time on a weekend to camp due to your business, being efficient is a priority.  Working from home 365 days a year causes need for a scenery break from time to time.  We love our home based business, but with just 6 days off a year, getaways are short but sweet. Camp trips are 24 hours and kept to a 40 mile distance.  They happen just a few times a year, but they are my favorite weekends. We do enjoy camping in our yard through the summer as well, but little road trips are a fun break from the norm.

Friday, we were booked at Colonial Woods Campground, in Upper Black Eddy PA.  It was a forty five minute ride to a slice of PA heaven.  We arrived with our camper fully stocked and a pre-made lunch of vegan hoagies brought from home.  Mya was eager to dive right into the pool and make friends while we got our gorgeous lake side site prepared for our weekend.

After enjoying lunch and a cup of coffee, we watched Mya by the pool for awhile and then headed home to place our bread orders and prepare to come back Saturday morning.

On Saturday, Andy, Mya and myself started our morning with a 4:00am trip to the bakery to see our drivers off.  I picked up a few essentials while there (fresh baked bagels and hotdog rolls).  We were able to comfortably head out and back to our campsite by 10:00am. We arrive at our site by 11:00 am, just in time for the pool to be open, the sun to warm our skin and lots of kids for Mya to have fun with. 

Our site was slightly wooded but a direct path between the pool and the lake.

It was a non-swimming lake, so we got to enjoy the view while Mya swam in the clean heated pool.  Surprisingly, there were no mosquitos, which I had worried about upon arrival.

It was a perfect spot.  I fired up our little portable grill for lunch.  Tofurky hotdogs and Field Roast Italian sausage with “the works”.  We had some chips and fruit alongside.  Andy and I both had a Cactus Lime beer while preparing lunch, it was quire refreshing on the cloud-free day.

After lunch it was FREE MINI GOLF for Dad’s and kids.  I watched while Andy and Mya participated in their competitive nature.   I brought along my new copy of VegNews to read while they golfed.  The next activity was a scavenger hunt.  Mya and I participated in the hunt, tearing apart our camper, for thing on the list, while Andy took a much need siesta after being awake since 3:30am. 

Once rested and scavenged out, Mya went back to the pool where she was busy making new friends.  Andy and I went back and forth while listening to the Phillies game. He had a few beers, I indulged in my afternoon coffee addiction.

I also got to read some of my book 11 Southern Vampire Mysteries, uninterrupted and listen to unlimited Adele Radio on Pandora.

Mya introduced us to some of her new friends and their welcoming family, who had a seasonal campsite.  They generously invited us over to their place for an after dinner bon fire and a movie night for the girls.  They had a new puppy, he just might have been one of the cutest puppies I have ever laid eyes on. 

After hours at the pool, Mya took an outdoor shower to get rid of some chlorine in her hair, and I made dinner while drinking my favorite evening Decaf. 

Dinner was Morningstar Riblets, organic baked beans, fresh white, corn on the cob and organic russet potatoes both complimented with some Earth Balance buttery spread!

Everything cooked to beautifully on the grill.

I cooked the beaked beans and corn inside, in the cutest little pot. 

 

We all ate too much.

We took in the gorgeous lakeside scenery while eating dinner.

Mya was anxious for us to finish dinner so she could spend some time with her pals.

After dinner was cleaned up, I made a cup of tea and we ventured off to meet our new friends at their campsite. 

Andy got to play a round of horseshoes while I gabbed it up with the girls.

We stayed way past our normal 10pm bedtime“bread”time.  The girls indulged in s’mores by the fire and along with lots of laughs and puppy breath kisses. 

It did not take long to fall asleep in our cozy camper once we were back at our site.  We listened to bugs and bullfrogs instead of my normal meditation sleep music.  We awoke first at 3:00am by a text about a bread delivery issue, we had NO phone reception.  The crisis was solved via my Dad’s intervening, at 3:00 am, thanks dad! I had a pounding headache and was forced to take an Aleve, but we both went back to sleep until 7:00am. That was seriously late sleeping for us. 

There is nothing that makes me happier than having an outdoor summer breakfast on the grill with Mya and Andy.  It was a happy Father’s Day morning.  Mya and I gave Andy his gift, a Game Stop gift card, which made him very happy.

For breakfast we had  bagels toasted on the gill and grill cooked Tofurky Breakfast Links.

It was delicious, although, all this food and not as much veggies already makes me want to go home and eat clean.  But, a one day vacation allows some room for bready foods I don’t normally eat.  When breakfast was cleaned up, Mya ran off to spend what little time was left, with her new friend Heather, while Andy and I dismantled our temporary home.

We said farewell to the lake and the snails Mya scooped up in her bucket.

We headed out by 10 am and arrived home fore 11:00am.  It was an awesome vacation and I am happy to be back home with my pets who were well taken care of by my best friend and neighbor, Lisa.  Thank you Lisa!  Xander, Booey and Cupcake were happy to see us upon our return and are now enjoying the remainder of Father’s Day beneath our feet! 

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend,thanks for reading about our little Father’s Day Camp trip.