om nom nom

gnocchi with butternut squash and kale

/ Brienna / 2 Comments

I bought a butternut squash at the store last week, and I really didn’t know what to do with it. My inspiration came when I realized we had a LOT of kale, and a quick google search turned up a recipe on the Food Network.

This is my modified, veganized version.

(somehow my picture got lost…..)

Gnocchi with butternut squash and kale

Makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium butternut squash, cubed into bite size pieces
  • 3-5 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 1-2 tbs sage, chopped
  • 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste
  • 2 tbs vegan butter
  • 1 bunch kale, rough chopped
  • 2 – 2.5 cups water or vegetable broth/stock
  • 1 package vegan gnocchi (some have eggs, so if you are vegan, make sure you check!)
  • Parma (vegan parmesan) or nutritional yeast, to taste
  • salt to taste

Directions

  • Melt 1 tbs butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add butternut squash and cook for 8 minutes or until slightly tender (but not fully cooked, because it will be mush at the end if you cook it too much now)
  • Add the sage, garlic and red pepper flakes, cook another 1-2 minutes. Add more vegan butter or olive oil if your pan starts to get dry
  • Add 1 to 1.5 cups water, bring to simmer
  • Add kale and cook 1-2 minutes until kale is slightly wilted
  • Preheat the broiler on your oven
  • Add gnocchi, cover and simmer 5 minutes or until gnocchi are tender (at this point, I moved everything to a large stock pot because my skillet wasn’t big enough. I also added an extra cup of water because everything was very dry)
  • Add Parma to taste, and last tbs of vegan butter (if you want)
  • Add salt and more red pepper to taste
  • Place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes

Notes:  If I were going to make this again, I would modify the instructions quite a bit. I would cook the gnocchi separately in boiling water. It was good, but trying to do it all in one skillet was hard because I had to guess when to move on to the next step and I felt it was all a little mushy in the end. So, cook the squash pretty much all the way, add all the spices and garlic, etc, the kale, and then combine with the gnocchi at the end before broiling. Another interesting thing to try would be using cannellini beans instead of gnocchi.

Lyfe Kitchen – yummylicious

/ Brienna / 3 Comments

David and I finally made it to Lyfe Kitchen in Palo Alto today for the first time. The short review is simple: it’s yummylicous!

 

This is actually my first restaurant review. I am really excited that we finally went here, and can’t wait to go back. I really wanted to try the kale-banana vegan smoothie, but since we were already getting the hummus, I didn’t want to overeat!

I ordered the cucumber mint cooler in place of the smoothie, and it was very refreshing. I just had something similar at El Torito and this was much better! Lyfe Kitchen’s version was more like cucumber juice and El Torito’s was more of a non-alcoholic cocktail style, with sparking water and lots of added sweetness (agave).

David and I shared the edamame hummus appetizer. It was good, but this is actually the only thing I didn’t love. The flax crackers were dry and not very tasty. The hummus itself was also on the bland side. I don’t know that I’ve ever had edamame hummus before, but I think now I might have to make up my own recipe.

Next up was the tofu tacos. These were delish! The menu says these are agave-lime tofu, chayote slaw, avocado, green onion, cilantro, chipotle aioli, and salsa fresca on warm corn tortillas. The tofu was slightly grilled and very tasty. The slaw, avocado, onion, cilantro and chipotle aioli complemented the tofu and were super tasty too. The salsa was just average, and honestly, I didn’t eat much of it. It came on the side, and I was 1/2 way done before I even noticed it.

David had the margherita flatbread. He said it gets a 2-thumbs up from him. He offered me some, but um, yeah, not vegan with that cheese on there!

This quote was on the wall:

“Give your body the right food and it will do the right thing.” – Colin Campbell (author of The China Study)

I think I might go back tomorrow, just to get the kale-banana smoothie. 🙂

day 1 & day 2 + bonus recipe!

/ Brienna / 2 Comments

I decided to start my diet extravaganza yesterday, Monday, June 3rd. Here’s how it’s been so far…

Day 1

Summary: I felt really tired around 4-6 pm, but this is typical for me.  I suspect it has as much to do with how much sleep I get during the week as what I’m eating.  Once I got out of the office, I felt much better.

For breakfast:

  • 1 slice Dave’s Killer 21 grain bread (the skinny ones) + earth balance
  • Sassy Green Smoothie (kale, grapes, orange, banana, coconut milk, flax seeds, cayenne pepper)

Snacks:

  • Water, water, water
  • Mixed nuts
  • A glass of red wine in the evening

Lunch:

  • Vegan french dip
  • Cucumber cocktail
  • French fries

Dinner:

  • Leftover pasta (garlic spaghetti w/ lemon olive oil & roasted Brussels sprouts)

Day 2

Summary: I was sure my salad would not be enough for lunch. I forgot that I put quinoa in it this time, and it turned out to be really filling. I did break down in the afternoon and have a Monster, so I need to figure out a good afternoon pick-me-up snack.

Breakfast:

  • Strawberry banana smoothie with a scoop of Vega protein powder

Lunch:

  • Baby Spinach and Arugula salad with leftover roasted Brussels sprouts, quinoa and pistachios

Snacks:

  • Monster 🙁 + water, water, water

Dinner:

  • Stuffed summer squash (see recipe below)

All in all, not so bad. I drank a lot more water than usual, but I still feel like I’m eating a tad bit too much at dinner.

And my stuffed squash was so good, I decided to share the recipe!  Be warned, I rarely measure anything, so you’ll just have to eyeball it if you make this.

Stuffed Summer Squash

Summer Squash
Squash filling
Stuffed Summer Squash
Stuffed Summer Squash

 

Ingredients

  • 2 summer squash
  • fresh spinach, chopped
  • 1 white or yellow onion, chopped
  • ground soy / soy crumbles
  • quinoa
  • vegan shredded cheese
  • Harissa
  • cooking oil of choice
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375
  2. Cut squash in 1/2 and scoop out seeds and fiber strands from middle
  3. Coat inside of squash with oil of choice (I used sunflower)
  4. Bake squash until browned and tender
  5. Meanwhile, prep the filling as outlined below.  In the end, it should be about 1/3 soy, 1/3 quinoa, and 1/3 veggies but you can adjust this to your liking as well.
    1. Cook the quinoa
    2. Cook ground soy w/ Harissa (you can sub any hot sauce or spicy seasoning, but I really love Harissa)
    3. Sauté onion & spinach in a small amount of oil (here I used grapeseed oil)
    4. Combine cooked quinoa, soy, and veggies
    5. Add in a small handful or two of vegan shredded cheese (I used Follow Your Heart mozzarella shreds)
    6. Salt & pepper to taste and add more Harissa if needed
  6. Add filling to squash, cover and return to oven for 20-40 minutes or until filling is nice and hot

Enjoy!

Brie’s crazy June diet extravaganza

/ Brienna / 1 Comment

A few months ago VegNews had a special section on “cleanses”. Now, I really am not the type to go on a cleanse, but, it got me thinking about how I eat and how I want to eat. Not just for weight loss, but for health and ethical/moral reasons as well.

I started off by looking at each of the 5 cleanses in VegNews. They had one editor try each cleanse and report on how it went. Some seemed easier to do than others. One is just a series of changes over 30 days, with each change being followed for all the days after it’s introduction. Day 1 – drink 8 glasses of water. Day 2 – eat a hearty/healthy breakfast (and drink those glasses of water). Etc. Others were more radical, like a completely raw vegan diet.

Oddly enough, the raw vegan diet (The Raw Food Revolution Diet) seemed the most appealing to me. However, I kept putting off reading the book. I finally realized that I don’t want to cleanse, and that a radical change is a sure way to set myself up for failure. I tend to go into the mode of if I’m going fail, might as well fail big. I could just picture myself having one non-raw meal and then deciding to just abandon the whole idea. It seemed like a more approachable plan was needed.

I was also intrigued by the Crazy Sexy Diet. I did actually buy this one, and I plan on reading it soon. Just not in time for my crazy June diet extravaganza. And by diet I mean the noun (the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats), and not the verb (restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight).

By now, you might be wondering, “Just what IS Brie’s crazy June diet extravaganza??!”

Well here’s what it’s not:

  • soda
  • monster (or any energy drinks)
  • highly processed food

And here’s what I want it to be:

  • vegan
  • “real” food
  • a smoothie a day (or at least a real breakfast of some sort)
  • more raw food (aiming for 5-10 raw meals per week, not counting smoothies)

I’m trying to be flexible and just say “less of the things on the not list” and “more of things on the want list.”

Now, I just have to pick an official start date and a time period. Originally, it was just going to be the month of June, but I might wait until Sunday or Monday to start. My husband has declined to support me in this endeavor (he will not be joining the extravaganza except for home meals that I’m in charge of, and even those he will probably skip in favor of free dinner at Google). We were going to eat out tonight, but might do that this weekend.  Eating out is not going to be easy during the extravaganza.

I’ll keep you posted on when I start and how it’s going!