Thursday, May 13, 2010

Almost Rawnola and tempeh taco's

A beautiful day out today with no wind...nice! Summer is slowly creeping upon us.  The school year ends in 2 weeks for Keaton, then it's 3 months of summer vacation.  Wow time flies.

Before I move on with the food post I would like to mention a great site to look at and it's
called Forks Over Knives.  Some of you may already heard about it but for those of you who haven't or maybe are dipping into a plant based diet and and wanting to get your health back in your hands then check it out.  I truly believe food is our medicine and if you look at the many diseases out there and the people who have them you will notice the way they eat and or don't eat the proper food.  Now I know
that chemicals do play a part in some cases of disease so let's choose products for our body and home that are less harmful.  If we buy cleaner products and eat a plant based and mostly organic, unprocessed diet we can overcome many, many diseases and reverse them.  Hey it's easy to just pop a pill for high blood pressure or cholesterol or for almost anything now a days, but once people take one pill for something it then leads to more pills for other ailments.  Don't people think about what each of those pills are doing to their body?    It takes more work to change the way you eat than to pop a pill so maybe that's why they continue to do what they do.    My dad has many health issues  and yet he still eats eggs,meat and cheese and even though he takes his pills his arteries are still clogging up and his diabetes isn't going away and his kidneys are a wreck!  Not once does he think about eliminating these foods.  He called me one day to ask me if I've  heard about some oil that is supposed to clean your arteries.  He has no problems taking supplements  but he won't eliminate fiberless, saturated fat and cholesterol laden foods from his diet.  I don't want the health issues my dad has. 

What about our kids?  We do everything to protect them from bad people and teach them how to be safe but are we letting them put bad food in their bodies that can harm them?  It's our responsibility to teach them how to eat properly so they can live a healthy, long and medication free life.  Why do you think they have constant colds, could it be from the mucus forming foods from dairy and eggs?  These products are also full of saturated fat and cholesterol.  Kids arteries are starting to clog up at an early age due to the way they eat. We have control of what we give our kids to eat. let's start when they are young.  I'm so tired of hearing people talk about kid friendly foods and how kids are picky.  Who makes them picky?  The parents let them be picky.  Sure your little one might not like a food right a way but don't give up.  I always served Keaton what we ate but on a smaller scale and if he didn't eat it it the first time I didn't stop putting it on his plate.  Over time he ate it.  I want to be a part of my sons life for a long time and choosing a kinder and healthier lifestyle is the way to go, also if I didn't take care of myself that would be selfish of me.  I also want my son to be around a long time and I am trying to teach him how. I really recommend reading Disease Proof Your Kids by Joel Fuhrman with regards to kids and disease.  The human body is amazing and it can heal if we nourish it.    Give your kids the gift of a healthy and compassionate life by changing your life, with the food you eat and the way you live. 

I made this fabulous granola that's technically a rawnola recipe but I don't have a dehydrater(yet).  I found this recipe at HLife and by clicking here you can get the recipe.  I added about 1/2C. of rolled oats and 1 T. raw organic coconut oil.  I baked in the oven at about 175 with the door opened for about 5 hrs.
This rawnola(granola) makes for a great breakfast and keeps me full for hours.  Here I have the granola, bananas and rice milk.  It's nice to have this for a change instead of a smoothie every morning.  This also tastes really good with coconut yogurt...yummy!  
 Thursdays are our mexican food themed night and sometimes instead of the usual spanish or mexican rice I'll use quinoa instead.  It's so easy, you just use your favorite mexican rice recipe and change out the rice for quinoa. 
 My recipe is the following:
1C. Quinoa, rinsed
oil to saute
2 C. veggie broth or water
2 tomatoes, diced
3 spring onions
1 garlic clove, minced
spices I use are(I don't usually measure just eye it and taste it) 
 cumin, chilli powder, oregano, and salt (or seasoned salt)

Heat oil in a saute pan then add quinoa or rice and cook until brown, stirring often not to burn.  Next add the water and the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil.  Once boiling cover with lid, lower heat to low and cook for about 20minutes. If using brown rice it will need to cook for 40min. 
Tempeh tacos!!!  This one goes out to Jessy at HappyVeganFace cuz I used mustard as you can see. lol!  I know you may think this is weird but growing up we used to eat them this way and I was just in the mood mustard. I did add some tomato, avocado and taco sauce  but I guess I took the pic prematurely.  The taco shells are baked, I just spray or brush oil on them and bake at 375.  For the tempeh filling I usually steam my tempeh before I use it just to get rid of some of the bitter taste.  Then in a pan with a bit of oil I brown the crumbled tempeh and add a taco seasoning or I'll add my own.  If you do purchase taco seasoning make sure you buy one without whey, I notice that most of them do contain some sort of dairy in them.  To make your own seasoning you can use, cumin, powdered garlic, chilli powder, oregano, onion powder, paprika and salt.  I will add a bit of water to the tempeh mixture in the pan just so it's not so dry and sometimes I'll even add a squirt of ketchup as well and mix well.
Enjoy!  It's Survivor night tonight!

11 comments:

  1. Whoa, mustard on a taco?! Being a mustard fanatic, I'll have to try it. You used regular yellow mustard? I tried tempeh at a friends once, but we didn't do our research and did not steam or poach it - quite a bitter, unpleasant result. I do tofu tacos by pressing firm tofu into cheesecloth until it crumbles like ground beef, and then seasoning it.
    I'll have to scope Forks Over Knives - sounds cool. I've been meaning to post about dherbs.com, where I get my herbal detoxes. Their site is full of excellent health/diet related articles, and is all about the vegan/raw lifestyle and maintaining purity in our toxic world. Check it out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That taco looks amazing!!!!!!!!! Love it!!! And love Jessy! :)

    Rawnola is awesome too, mmm!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your dinner looks SO good!!!

    I agree with you about being watchful about the medications you choose to subject your body to..PREVENTION IS INDEED BETTER THAN CURE!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. RockinVegan-The mustard is just an organic yellow mustard. It took a while for me to get used to Tempeh. The bitterness is do to the fermentation and the reason I prefer using tempeh more than tofu is because it's less processed and more digestable do to the fermentation. Steaming for 10min or so seems to remove the alot of bitter taste. The more I use tempeh the more we all like it. It just takes time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the taco.

    http://nuestracena-vegancuisine.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. it's true that people would rather take a pill than change their diet a little and tweak their lifestyle a bit. it's so frustrating, upsetting, and irritaes me. hopefully one day more people will catch on. i've got my fingers crossed! growing up my parents encouraged me to try all kinds of foods multiple times, and they never let me shake my head and just say no. i think that's why i came to love so many foods and wasn't a picky eater.

    i'm gonna have to try using quinoa for mexican eats and next time we make mexican yumminesses we're gonna have to use some tempeh, too. we usually use tvp, but tempeh sounds awesome! your rawnola kicks butt!

    hope you had a wonderful weekend, JoLynn!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I so understand what you're saying. I have family members that are just suffering from so many different diseases but none of them want to make the connection between what they eat and their illness. They feel like they somehow deserve to eat these things and it's better just to take pills. Frustration!

    ReplyDelete
  8. That's some good looking granola, raw or not! Makes me want to revisit raw foods again... It's just such an interesting way to approach "cooking". :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. My dad is the same way - rather pop a pill than eat healthier foods. Sometimes he tries but it's a lifetime of habit that makes it hard to change. I just made quinoa for the first time myself, it's awesome and easy. Great idea to use it in mexican food!

    ReplyDelete