71 Months A Vegan!!! Zoodles aka spiralized zucchini #eatyourveggies

Eating this last night made me feel guilty and really stuffed. I kept mentally slapping myself to hammer in that this is NOT pasta. It's fresh zucchini noodles I made using a $10.00 "Zoodle maker" or "spiralizer" with mixed veggies and oil free marinara sauce. This morning it all left me 💩.

Recipe:

Take 3 medium sized yellow zucchini squash and make zoodles. Set aside In a bowl of water. 

In a non stick skillet on medium high heat with 1/2 of cup of water, carmelize a large sweet onion, 4 finely chopped cloves of garlic, 3 large chopped mushrooms, the red stalks of some Swiss chard for color with a little salt. Stir until all the water is about gone and the carmel color is all over the pan. Deglaze the pan with the juice of 1/2 a lemon mixed with 1/4 cup of water. Stir some more to get the color on the veggies.

Drain the zoodles and add them to the pan.  Cook them down until they look like limp spaghetti and most of the water is gone. 

Add 2 cups of oil free marinara sauce. I used "Prego Light Smart". It has no oil and is available at Wal-Mart and Kroger. Keep stirring and cooking again until most of the water is gone. Add a TBSP of nutritional yeast. Give it a final stir. Serve hot.

You're welcome!!

Oil-free air fried potatoes! #WFPBNO #vegan

Here's my quick and easy recipe for air fried potatoes.  I used my convection toaster oven and it worked perfectly. Mine is the Cuisinart Air Fryer Convection Oven which happens to be on sale !!!

Preheat the oven to 450F. Wash 2 medium size yukon gold potatoes, leave the skin on and wrap them in moist paper towels. Microwave them for 4 minutes or 2 minutes per potato for a bigger batch. Slice them into wedges. Brush on a little water so the seasoning sticks. Sprinkle on your seasoning of choice. I used rosemary and garlic powder. Place them on the rack in the oven, skin down. Let them cook for 375F for 15 minutes until they brown. Remove them from the rack. Drizzle with Sraracha sauce or ketchup or both. Serve hot.

Jalapeno Spinach Quinoa Casserole

Jalapeno Spinach Quinoa Casserole

2 lbs fresh spinach wilted and chopped

1 large onion chopped

3 cloves garlic chopped

15 oz extra firm tofu (optional. I like it!)

10 dates
2 Roma tomatoes chopped

4 TBSP lemon juice

2 TBSP cumin

1 TBSP low Sodium soy sauce
½ tsp smoked paprika

2 TBSP dried parsley

2 TBSP dried basil

½ cup nutritional yeast

3 jalapeno peppers

1 can chickpeas rinsed, drained and fork crushed

1 cup cooked quinoa

    Put the tofu, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and peppers in a blender. Blend until creamy. You may need to scrape down the sides more than once.

    Put the spinach in a pot and pour boiling water over it until it is wilted. Strain out most of the water. Chop it up.

    Mix everything together thoroughly in a large bowl. Pour it into a 9 x 9 x 2 inch pain. Bake it at 375F for 90 minutes. Serve hot.

Dr. Allan Kalmus 01Reluctantvegan.blogspot.com

Vegan Creamy Garlic Dressing. #WFPBNO #EATtoLOSE

I made a lunch with veggie burgers, Russian dressing and a kale salad with pickled banana peppers and creamy garlic dressing. All oil free and nut free with no processed sugar.  I posted this picture on Facebook:

The only thing anyone asked for was my recipe for creamy garlic dressing.

OK, Robert!  Here's my recipe...

CREAMY GARLIC DRESSING

1 cup silken tofu drained not pressed
3 garlic cloves lightly toasted
2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½  teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon onion powder

¼ cup aquafaba

Toast the garlic until soft but not brown.

Add all ingredients to a blender.

Blend until creamy.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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😲