A Glimpse at My Food!

Today I thought I would participate in "What I ate Wednesday" where bloggers post what they ate throughout the day (or the preceding day). I got this idea when I read a post this morning by Carrie at Carrie on Vegan. So here we go!

This morning I started out with some Teeccino and a mango berry smoothie!

This is the Mocha variety, apparently when you brew the regular, barley containing variety of Teeccino, it is actually gluten-free. Awesome!

Here in Seattle, our Septembers are normally when we have the hottest weather and this September is no exception! Today temperatures reached over 90 degrees (I believe 93) and so when the heat drove me out of my third floor apartment, I enjoyed lunch outside! 

For my impromptu picnic today I enjoyed a baked potato and a nice salad! Delicious!

A baked potato with organic ketchup, Dijon mustard, green onions, and Himalayan pink salt.

Today my salad featured romaine, spinach, green cabbage, broccoli slaw, cucumber slices, and white beans topped with flax oil and a tahini-nutritional yeast dressing. 

Before having lunch I also visited my University's bookstore and lo and behold found that they carry bags and wallets by Big Buddha! Earlier this week I just got my first Big Buddha bag and so I thought I would get a wallet to match! I'm just so pleased!

Adorable!!!

I had a great afternoon hanging out outside with my picnic and new Big Budda bag and wallet and also had a chance to debut my new Our Hen House tote bag!

Onto dinner! I currently have the Forks Over Knives Cookbook out from the library so today I tried the recipe for Penne with Tomato "Alfredo" Sauce and it was pretty good! I added some kale for a little leafy green kick and had a great dinner! 

I love me some pasta!

I may also enjoy some form of dessert later this evening, perhaps some tea and fruit, but I wanted to get this published before it got way too late!

Well, with that I have a pile of dishes to do! I enjoyed documenting my food and think I may continue participating in "What I ate Wednesday!"

Happy Wednesday!

Monday Love List Number Seven!

Happy Monday all!

As I prepare for a very busy week ahead, I think it is all the more important to remember the things I'm loving right now!

1. Homemade Non-Dairy Milk and "Hippie Vegan Moments"

For my birthday one of my oldest and closest friends made me delicious homemade almond milk and also gifted me my very own nut-milk bag! I had never had homemade almond milk before and man did I love it! It was much creamier than store bought almond milk and was a beautiful bright white color.

Inspired by this wonderful beverage, I decided to use my new nut milk bag and make my own non-dairy milk!

I have been making oat milk myself for a while which gave me the idea of making an almond-oat milk blend! To do so I combined the oat milk recipe and the almond milk recipe from Oh She Glows and the result was amazing!

It was so good it's all gone already!

When I made this, I decided that it would be best to peel my almonds once they had been properly soaked. The original almond milk I had been gifted was made with peeled almonds and that was where the beautiful white color came from. Now, peeling almonds is not as hard as it sounds as the soaked almonds "pop" right out of their skin. However, it does require handling and peeling each individual almond.

As I was doing this, and rather enjoying it, I had a bit of a moment. A moment I self-labeled as a "vegan hippie moment." While I certainly do many things that your average Joe does not, and may not have ever heard of, I don't normally self identify my behavior as that far out or odd. But hand peeling a cup of almonds? I just had to laugh at myself for that one. Nonetheless, I think my almond milk was much better because of that peeling and I thoroughly enjoyed my "hippie vegan moment." I'm quite sure I will have many more in the future!

Now, once my delicious and nutritious almond-oat milk was made, I had left over almond pulp. As I loath wasting food I wanted to find something delicious to do with this pulp, so I made cookies! I used the vanilla almond sugar cookies recipe from Choosing Raw with a few modifications. Namely, I used oat flour instead of almond and sweetened with maple syrup instead of dates. I also baked them for less time than recommended to get more of a cake or macaroon like cookie. They were tasty!

These were gone in less than 12 hours

So, all and all, it's amazing what almonds and oats can do! I especially enjoyed making a combination non-dairy milk as the result tasted much less "oaty" or "almondy" than either milk does alone, instead having a unique and mild yet delicious flavor.

2. So Much Produce!

On most days, my small section of our very small fridge as well as my produce bin are completely stuffed to the brim with fruits and veggies. After my trip to the farmer's market this weekend this is especially true! For six dollars I got all of this produce!

Three different types of kale and one giant zucchini!

Yummy yummy! I have since made multiple kale salads made with all three types of kale! How cool is that?!

3. So Many Desserts to Make!

So many of the blogs I follow have been posting mouth-watering dessert recipes lately! I normally avoid making entire dessert dishes for myself as I will just eat the whole thing immediately, as we saw with the almond cookies. However, these recipes have made me question this decision!

Just today Keepin' It Kind posted adorable double chocolate truffles, along with an inspirational story about keeping things simple. Oh She Glows has also been posting intriguing dessert recipes including raw almond butter cups and dark chocolate pie. Stepping away from all the chocolate (although really when can you have too much chocolate!?), Healthy Bitch Daily just posted a collection of fruit popsicle recipes which look sure to cool down any hot summer day!

My only problem now is deciding which of these many recipes to try first!

Well, it seems I am loving a lot of food this week! But then again, what's wrong with having a love affair with healthy and delicious food?

On that note I should turn to my nutrition assignment and get working on all that stuff I have to do this week!

Happy Monday everyone, I hope you have a lot to love and lots of good food this week!

Massaged Kale Salad

Hi all!

I have yet to post any recipes or specifically food posts, so I thought where better to start than with a kale salad!

Kale can be kind of a scary vegetable. I know I didn't know what to do with it when I first encountered it. However, I have learned to love this leafy green for all its glory!

Behold the beauty of kale!

One of the most important things to do when eating kale, especially raw, is to massage it. What? you say, MASSAGE it? Like a day at the spa? Well almost.

Essentially, all you do is add some sort of dressing on your washed and de-stemmed kale and work it around in your hands for a minute or so, making sure to squeeze the kale and really work the dressing in. Here's a longer post about how to do this and why. 

You can do this with any dressing that you are planning on using on your salad or simply oil, vinegar, or lemon juice. I have also made wonderful massaged kale just by using avocado or hummus. By massaging the kale it takes the bitterness away and makes it much less chewy and dense. It also absorbs the dressing or whatever else you use really nicely, adding a burst of flavor. 

Once you've massaged your kale you are ready to go! Add anything you are in the mood for to make a wonderful salad. Not sure what to add? Try my very meticulous and careful method...

...pull everything out of the fridge and work from there! 

For my salad I added cucumber, onion, mushrooms, kalamata olives, arugula, and parsley. For my dressing as well as what I used to massage my kale I used tahini sauce mixed with some vinegar (I used the vinegar from the olives) to make it a bit more liquidy. 

I ended up with this beautiful salad!

Massaged kale is also great as a side to any entree you are having (steamed kale would be tasty too) and I love adding grains like quinoa to it to make a bulkier salad. Eating salads like this during the summer is awesome. They are quick and easy and don't require any cooking. Since you can make them however you want they are also great when you have a bunch of produce you need to use in your fridge.

There are many many kale salad recipes out there as well as lots of different ways to prepare this awesome vegetable, so if you are looking for inspiration check some of them out! 

Do you have any favorite kale recipes?