Flax Milk?

This post has a bit of this and that. 

 I'll start off with the other day when I was visiting another blog, Vegan Crunk, she did a review on Good Karma Flax Milk.  I couldn't wait to try it.  That afternoon I went down to our local health food store and low and behold....

Good Karma Flax Milk was sitting right there along with the other non-dairy milks. 

Does this taste like flax?  At first sip it doesn't have much flavor but then you get a very suble taste of flax, very subtle.  It has more flavor than rice milk, just thought I'd mention that.  There is 1200mg of Omega-3 per serving.  Thats huge!

Another great non-dairy milk to add to our rotation.

For lunch yesterday I had a chopped romaine salad, with tomatoes, brocolli, carrots, radish, green onion, sesame seeds and a  homemade ginger dressing.  This is a great dressing and tastes like the one they use at a Japenese restaurant.  I filled 1/2 C. with 1/3 of canola oil and the rest water.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hazelnuts and Arugula

My mother in law had a recipe that I made for Thanksgiving(I know it's January).  I'm not sure where she got the recipe from but it turned out great!  I love the addition of the hazelnuts.  I can't wait to have company over to make it again and it looks so pretty. 



Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Hazelnuts and Arugula

3 or 4 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges(I used white and orange sweet potatoes)

2 Tbsp. Olive oil

1/2tsp salt or to taste

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/4 C. hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

2 C. arugula

balsamic syrup(thick balsamic) -the recipe called for 2-3 T. apple cider vinegar

Heat oven to 400F.  Peel and cut potato wedges then put onto baking sheet and toss with olive oil and salt.

Roast for about 20 min., then turn over and roast for 20 more minutes or so until golden brown.  Open  oven and mix in the chopped garlic and hazelnuts.  Roast for another 5min.

Take out of oven, plate in on a serving plate and top with arugula and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

Mofo#13/ Roasted Butternut on Mixed Green Salad

I hope everyone is enjoying their day.  We've been enjoying our warmer day although we have to bundle up at night.

Yesterday evening I was alone for dinner so I roasted up the rest of a butternut squash I had with a bit of fresh sage, olive and sea salt.  I already had a salad made so I just made some good balsamic dressing to go with it. The dressing I found is here.  The only changes I made to it was that I added a few tablespoons of water and used organic cane sugar instead of brown.  This is a really great balsamic dressing. In a pasta bowl I put some lettuce, butternut squash, dried cranberries and pecans.  Then I drizzled the balsamic dressing and fresh ground pepper.  I Sat down with a nice glass of red wine and scrolled through the old movie section of Netflix and found, to my pleasant surprise, Summertime starring Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi.  What a great way to eat dinner and enjoy a classic movie before the hubby got home.

Tomorrow I'll be back with 2 different biscotti recipes.

Take a hike and Quinoa Salad

Happy Saturday morning to you.  I hope you are all having a great weekend.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow.  I'd rather it be sunny but I know the more rain we have the better it is for us out here in California.

Lots to catch up on and I have some real pretty pics to share from a hike Dave and I took a week ago.
First let me say my wrist is better, yay!

 Also my son got home safe from his 6th grade trip and he had a great time.  They went to Camp Ocean Pines in Cambria.  One of the first things he said was how good the food was and the head chef was really nice.  The chef told Keaton that he was the first vegan to cook for.  Every night when Keaton went into the kitchen to get his dinner the chef would ask Keaton questions about being vegan.  Also the last two mornings he was served pancakes and french toast( which I was told had bananas in it)so anyways, he thought that was pretty cool.  So being vegan has it's perks! hee hee. Last year in 5th grade and for summer camp he went to Rancho Allegre, which is close to us, and the "Naturalists" there are either vegetarian or vegan so Keaton would eat what they did.  So for dinner he would go to the kitchen to get his meal, which he thought was pretty cool and special.  He ate like, stuffed acorn squash and portobello mushrooms and pasta, sound like meals and a nice restaurant doesn't it?  It's so nice to know that when my kid is at camp he isn't going hungry.

So here are some pic's of the hike we took up in the Figueroa Mountains.  The cool thing about many of the areas where we hike, there are parts that are shady and those grow tons of ferns all those pretty shade plants.  This one to the right looks kind of lilypad like, it felt a bit on the rubbery side. Then when you get into the sunny parts of the hike the plants change.  There is alot of water coming down from those mountains. 

Before heading up the mountain.

This is a view from the highest point we hiked to.  We want to go to the top which is probably an hour longer to get to.

There are california poppies everywhere right now!

The beginning of a pine cone.

There were a few of these pretty blue butterflies in this certain area. 

I must finish the post with a tasty quinoa salad.  The ingredients are listed below.

In a small bowl mix together

2 C. quinoa, cooked

1 small red bell pepper, diced,

3 scallions, chopped

1/2 C. celery, diced

black olives, chopped

1/2 C. sprouted firm tofu, diced

then pour the vinegarette over and mix well

vinegarette:

extra virgin oilive oil

rice vinegar

agave

s&p

Eat at room temp or cold.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Grilled Vegetable Salad

We love grilling vegetables on the bbq when the warm weather hits. We kind of bbq all year long but since the move it gets a tad bit colder here so we didn't bbq as much this past year during the winter. Freezing while you grill isn't too much fun. You can grill any vegetables you want and then toss them in a salad. Here are the vegetables and dressing I used for our salad.

First, in a medium bowl I added a nice mixed green lettuce, with tomato and green onion, then put back in the refridger to stay cold.

Vegetables: 2 lg portobello mushroom(kept whole),
1 lg zucchini, sliced long ways
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 lg sweet potato, sliced
2 lg red potatoes, slice 1/4 inch thick
1 lg carrot(grilled carrots rock
1/2 bunch of asparagus
In a small bowl mix olive oil, 3 garlic cloves ( or more)minced, balsamic, salt and pepper. Brush portobello with marinade then toss together the rest of the vegetables with the marinade and set aside.
While the veggies are marinadeing and the grill is heating up, prepare dressing.

Balsamic dressing: Whisk together extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, 1 garlic clove, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. You can add a bit of sugar or agave to sweeten up more if you wish.

I also thinly sliced some organic rustic french bread and brushed with some olive oil on both sides.

When the grill is at a medium heat, grill vegetables until done then grill the french bread on both sides.

Chop up vegetables, slice up an avocado. To prepare plates add lettuce, vegetables, avocado, then drizzle balsamic dressing and serve with grilled french bread. I broke up my bread and tossed it in my salad, it was like croutons but so much better!

Garden Loaf with Sweet Potato Salad

Garden Loaf

Sweet Potato Salad

I'm back again! It's the end of the school year and we've been busy, busy, busy!

We have a couple of favorite veggie loaves that we really like but it's always nice to try something new. As you have noticed I posted and will continue to post recipes from Karina's Kitchen and especially now that we are trying to eliminate more wheat from our diet. You can get the recipe for this very tasty Garden Loaf with Apricot Glaze at Karina's Kitchen. The only change I made was to this recipe was that I added more spinach and since it needed to stick together more, I added extra ketchup and agave. That was it! This is so delicious!!! I love the use of Quinoa and the apricot glaze is perfect on top. It's kind of sweet but the flavors are just so......lovely. It was a bit soft to plate but once it's cooler it slices really nice and it made some great sandwich's and lettuce wraps the follwing day. You really need to give this a try!

Now for the sweet potato salad... this was so good! My mother-in-law, son and I were ordering lunch at the local health food store and we saw this wonderful potato salad sitting behind the glass that the gal let us try and it ROCKED!!! We had to get some to go and I will be making this on my own because we wrote down the ingredients that were listed...hee hee. Since the salad is already sweet and the dressing has agave in it, I don't think they used very much. The dressing on here is very, very light, just enough to coat it and you can taste just a hint of dijon, but not too strong. Here are the ingredients if you would like to try this one out.

Sweet potatoes, olive oil, dijon, agave, red onions-very thinly sliced, parsley, salt to taste. I'm not sure if there was any vinegar, if so there not alot.

Barbecued Vegetable Salad with Seitan Ribz

Warm days, lot's of salads. My husband is a fan of the barbecued salads. You get the flavor of bbq and then use ranch dressing and then drizzle on the bbq sauce. We like the Follow Your Heart Garlic Ranch or something like that, it's the vegan one. We then bbq extra firm tofu or Seitan Ribz, recipe from Susan at http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/ fatfree kitchen. I usually don't use iceberg, but for this one I add it to mixed green lettuce. This picture doesn't show the avocado or tortilla chips. I took the picture too soon and then my camera was acting up. Also the Real Food Daily cookbook has a really good cilantro dressing that goes well with this also.

Recipe:
Add as much as you want of the following this is what I used.

Vegan Ranch
Barbecue Sauce
Mixed Lettuce Greens w/iceberg
1/4 c.cilantro(optional)
1 red onion, diced
3 tomatoes
2 fresh corn, I boil for 15 min. then grill it.
2 zucchini, sliced
2 yellow crookneck squash, sliced
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed
2 bell pepper, slice
2 carrots,(I love grill carrots)
1 can 15 oz. black beans, drained
1 avocado
tortilla chips, broken up
tofu or seitan ribz(optional)

If you are grilling tofu, I smother it in bbq sauce and let it sit for about an hour. I grill the tofu or Seitan ribz last. Slice the zucchini, bell pepper, yellow squash about 1/4 inch thick, and carrot,
put in large bowl or casserole dish. Trim asparagus and add to bowl. Mix with some olive oil and salt and you are ready for the grill. I like to grill the vegetables until they have that grilled look to them. When you are done boiling the corn you can brush on some olive oil and salt and add to vegetables. In a large bowl I mix the lettuce, red onion and tomatoes. Crush tortilla chips for topping. When everything is done grilling. Chop the vegetables and tofu or seitan. In the lettuce bowl add the vegetables, black beans. Plate the salad,add avocado, dressing, drizzle with barbecue sauce and top with tortilla chips. Wallah! SO GOOD!