Pesto on Whole Wheat Pasta #WFPBNOpesto

  

 Someone asked what they could put on pasta noodles other than tomato sauce or olive oil. Challenge accepted! I never made pesto before so I thought I'd give it a try. I never had it before either so I don't know what it's supposed to taste like.  First I had to find out what pesto is. What I do know is what I have on hand and what tastes good to me. So let's start with that.

     The word "pesto" simply means "crushed" usually using a mortar and pestle. I live in an age that includes blenders so let's use that.  I looked up a traditional recipe for pesto. It includes basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and olive oil. But who says that's all you can put in it? 

     Since I'm on a WFPBNO journey through life, focusing on keeping my weight down, I chose to leave out the pine nuts, cheese and oil. It's not that pine nuts are a bad choice. I had already met my limit of nuts and seeds for the day and didn't need them. Parmesan cheese is 64 % saturated fat so that's out. I left out olive oil because ITS OIL!!! Oil is fat and my body has no trouble making all the fat I need so I'm skipping it. 

     Everything goes in the blender together so it only took about 5 minutes to prepare. The whole wheat pasta was boiled for 12 minutes to get it the way I like it. Drain the pasta, put it back in the pot and on low heat stir in the pesto. The heat makes the sauce stick to the noodles.

     

    Pesto! 

3T dried basil, 4 cloves garlic, 1 green onion, a handful of fresh parsley, a handful of kale, a handful of spinach, a 6oz can of drained green olives, 1/4t cayenne pepper, 2T apple cider vinegar, a tomato, 5 mushrooms and 2T nutritional yeast in the blender. Make it into a paste. Add salt to taste. Pour it over whole wheat spaghetti and you have yourself a main dish!  Enjoy!

 

Veggie burgers! Just plants, no oil, lots of flavor!!! #Vegan #WFPBNO #EatToLose #FoodISmedicine

     I like to batch cook on weekends. Usually I make a big pot of brown rice with quinoa and a pot of beans that I can attack all week long. It was pretty hot out all weekend so I started thinking summer thoughts. I hadn't made any veggie burgers for some time so why not throw it all out there and see what sticks to the wall!

     The pressure cooker is ideal for this.  I had already made a pot of red beans, so now all I had to do was come up with something to stick them together and look appetizing. They smell really good too!

If there is anything in the list of seasoning ingredients that you don't like, there is always an alternative. One is to just leave it out! Everything will be fine. Add whatever you like to make it your own. Don't sweat the small stuff!!!

Besides the brown rice, quinoa, corn and beans, I know there are a lot of ingredients, but once you gather them, its just a matter of throwing them in the blender and mashing it all together.

 

Whole Food Plant Based No Oil

Veggie-Burgers

 2 cups brown rice, 1 cup quinoa, 6 cups water, 1T onion powder, 2t smoked paprika in the pressure cooker on multigrain setting.
In the blender:  4 Roma tomatoes, 6 mushrooms, 2 cups kale, 1 medium onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1T yellow mustard, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar,  1/4 t Tabasco sauce, 2T date paste, 1 roasted beet,  and 1/3 cup low sodium tamari blended to a paste.
Put it all in a large mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of cooked red beans, 3 cups of dry quick oats, a pinch of black pepper, 1 cup of roasted corn kernels and mash it all together with a potato masher. (Season to taste with more tamari, salt, smoked paprika, liquid smoke, onion powder or whatever your taste buds choose)
Let it sit for at least an hour. I put it in the fridge covered over night to thicken.
Wet your hands,  make patties,  put them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Bake at 375F for 45 min. Take it out and let it cool for 15 min to release from the paper. Flip them and cook for 15 more minutes.
Baste them with your favorite BBQ sauce and put them on the BBQ grill, medium heat, for about 3min to add grill marks.
Plop them on  a whole wheat bun, add pickles, tomato, onions, catsup, coleslaw, relish, salsa, guacamole, pickled peppers, mustard...... what ever you want!  No guilt!!!

        

Hash Brown Waffles! #vegan #WFPBNO #oilFree

Here's more fun with potatoes!

Peel and cut up some spuds. Boil them for 15 minutes in salt water. Add a little unsweetened almond milk, garlic salt, onion powder to taste. Mash it up, cook it in a non-stick waffle iron until the steam stops. Don't peek or it will fall apart.  BOOM!
Hash brown waffles😲

Black beans! #foodismedicine #healthfood

Just so we are clear, there is no paradox regarding the healthy nature of cooked black beans. They are among the healthiest foods anywhere and are an excellent source of iron, fiber and complete protein, meaning they contain all 9 of the essential amino acids.

Cooked Black Beans Recipe

1 lbs dry black beans

2 TBSP dried onion flakes

1 TBSP garlic salt

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 TBSP of lemon juice

Water to cover 2 inches above the beans.

Soak the beans in hot water for 1 hour. Drain and rinse thoroughly.

Put everything in your pressure cooker.

Set it for 1 hour on the beans setting. Let it vent naturally. Stir it up and serve hot or add to a salad.

I put it in the fridge overnight to absorb the liquids and reheat it or add it cold to a salad. Any way you serve them, they are high in iron, fiber and all 9 of the essential amino acids; the building blocks of protein.
As with all nutrients, it's not the amount of iron you eat but the amount you absorb. Heme iron, found in meat and blood, is better absorbed but it is also associated with higher risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and Type 2 Diabetes due to oxidation of cholesterol and formation of free radicals. Non-heme iron comes from plants and is not associated with the same increased risk.  Just like in green leafy vegetables, the acidic nature of vinegar and Vitamin C from citrus fruit increase iron absorption by 67%. 

"Fakin Bacon" Potato bacon strips #vegan #WFPBNO

I was playing around in the kitchen last night making some Cheese sauce and had a small pile of potato peels just begging me to do something with them. So I made these crispy strips.

Peel some redskin potatoes making the peel as long and wide as you can. Put the peels in water and set aside.
Use a mortar and pestle or small coffee grinder to crush half a teaspoon of fennel seeds and a 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper seeds. Mix in 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt and 1/4 tsp of smoked paprika.  Add about 3 TBSP of water to make a paste.
Brush both sides of the peels with the past. Cook them in an air fryer at 400F for 40 minutes or lay them on parchment paper or aluminum foil and bake them in the oven or toaster oven at 375F for 30 minutes, flip them and bake for another 40 minutes until they are crispy.

Cheezy Sauce #WFPBNO #Vegan

Add roasted red peppers to make it cheddar 

(The Maize and Blue color is not a coincidence!)

Time for some All American comfort food.

How about some guilt free, vegan cheesy potatoes or macaroni and "cheese"? No cheese, oil or nuts involved. I really enjoyed making this. My kids even tried the macaroni. My daughter said it tastes like the famous brand name that comes in a box. That's pretty high praise!

For dinner tonight I had a salad with my

Cheezy Macaroni. Once on my plate, I seasoned it with my favorite Mediterranean spices and sea salt, sliced up some cherry tomatoes and wound up coming back for seconds.

Prep time:  15 minutes

Cooking time:  20 minutes

Total time:  35 minutes

Recipe

3 large redskin potatoes

6 TBSP Nutritional yeast

4 TBSP Tapioca flour

1 TBS lemon juice

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 tsp Tabasco 

1 TBSP salt

1/4 tsp Turmeric

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1 3/4 cups of starchy water from the boiled potatoes.

(Add roasted red peppers to the blender to give it the orange cheddar color)

Peel, cut up and boil the potatoes in at least 2 cups of water with the TBSP of salt. Save the starchy water.

Put 1 3/4 cups of the starchy water from the potatoes and everything else into your blender or food processor and puree it until smooth.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook it on medium low heat stirring constantly until it thickens (about 20 min).

Add a little more water if it's too thick. Let it cool allowing it to thicken a little more and serve warm.

Season with salt, pepper etc. to taste.

Enjoy!

Interviewed! Listen please...

I helped a nice lady get started living a healthy lifestyle.  It worked!  Results are typical and expected.  She did a phone interview with me and put it on her Podcast.  Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.empoweradio.com/home/m/podcasts/813821-Dream-Big-with-Jill-Jack.html