Spaghetti Squash, Wild Rice, Quinoa, Tomatoes, Chili Peppers #WFPBNO

Here's a straightforward way of preparing spaghetti squash.

Cut the squash lengthwise. Scoop or the seeds. Brush the insides with aquafaba. Place it face down on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone liner.

Bake it at 400F for 50 minutes.

Put 2 cups of quinoa with 2 cups wild rice and 4 cups of water in a pressure cooker with Mrs. Dash saltfree seasoning. Cook it on the brown rice setting and let it vent naturally. 

Use a non stick pan, water with lemon juice to saute and carmelize a diced onion with 3 cloves of garlic and a red chili. Add 3 diced Roma tomatoes and deglaze the pan with more water and lemon juice.

Scoop out one of the halves of the squash. Toss everything together, put it in your nonstick pan. On medium heat cook off most of the water. Pack the mixture back into the empty half of the squash.

Plate and serve.

WFPBNO Personal Pepperoni Pizzas. DIY!! #vegan #healthyfood

How about a do it yourself pizza night wth the family? It's really easy to do. Prego Lower Calorie marinara sauce is compliant and on the shelf at Kroger. Store brand whole wheat pita is just flour, water and salt or make your own pita crust. I cut off the top and used the bottom as crust. You can make cheezy sauce like I did and add your own toppings. In my case, I made beets into a pepperoni substitute.  There are no limits on creativity! 

BEET JERKY PEPPERONI

Roast some beets with the skin on wrapped in foil. Set your mandolin to #2 and slice them. Put them on parchment paper. Season them with 1t fennel seeds, 1t onion salt, 1T dried onion flakes 1T garlic powder and 1/2 t crushed red peppers ground together in a mortar and pestle.

Bake at 375F for 40 min or until they start to get a little crispy. You have to watch them. Those on the top rack were perfect and the whole pan on the bottom rack got burned black.
Here's my cheezy sauce recipe:

CHEEZY SAUCE

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

(If you like, 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.
As pizza topping, pour it hot over your pizza sauce like mozzarella. Add your toppings.

Season with salt, pepper etc. to taste.

Enjoy!

6 years a VEGAN!!!

Vegan for 6 years and 3 days now!  Making it a New Year's resolution made it easy to keep track of the time.

Anyone can do this!  Even the people who aspire to be carnivores but have the dental structure of herbivores.

Here's my dinner tonight. Simple, easy and very filling...

Broccoli with Mrs Dash in the microwave for 2 minutes and a squirt of lemon juice,

Pinto beans with wild rice leftovers and a tossed salad with chickpeas and mild pickled pepper rings. Not complicated, not time consuming but totally delicious. 

Compare my meat eating couch potato self from 2013 to the current version of me. All I did was replace animal products and processed oil with fresh produce, whole grains, seeds and legumes. I'll never go back!

5 Years 11 Months and 13 Days A Vegan! "Chickpea salad" Sandwiches. No processed oil or sugar.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook time: none
Total time: 15 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
2 cups cashews, soaked in water overnight
then drained
4 garlic cloves
4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½  teaspoon salt
½ cup aquafaba

2 cans chickpeas, save the brine (aquafaba)
2 tablespoons capers, drained
3 stalks of celery, diced

3 tablespoons of dill pickle relish
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions
1. Blend the top 6 ingredients (cashews, garlic, vinegar, sea salt, aquafaba) until smooth and creamy.

Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups of garlic spread. Save the extra. It's great on anything!

Directions (Sandwiches):
1. Mix 2/3 cup of the garlic spread and the rest of the ingredients in your food processors. Pulse until it looks like tuna salad.
2. Toast some whole grain bread.

3. Spread the chickpea salad on the bread.

4. Add lettuce and mild peppers..

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