Posted on: July 31, 2011 at 6:48 PM

Filed under: Homemade, Recipes

With: 5 comments

Yesterday I ran across this post by Vegansaurus. I took one look at that burger and immediately knew what I was making for dinner. You can find the recipe for the Farmhouse Veggie Burger here. I originally wanted to halve the batch and add some Daiya in one half and quinoa in the other, but got a little lazy and just used the Daiya. I know. Shame on me for being so lazy.

Anyway, it tasted wonderful! I topped my burgers off with some romaine lettuce and spicy brown mustard. I served it alongside some baked onion rings. For the onion rings I mostly followed the recipe from Appetite for Reduction. I left out the olive oil and added 1 teaspoon of cajun seasoning to the breadcrumbs. Then I broiled them because I couldn’t wait that long for them to get crispy in the oven. I told you I was having a lazy day.

It really was an awesome meal. So awesome that I enjoyed it again for lunch earlier today.

Posted on: July 24, 2011 at 1:32 PM

Filed under: Homemade, Recipes

With: 1 comment

One of my go to dishes this summer is this wonderful noodle bowl. I make it at least once a week. The first time I ever had cold sesame noodles was when I ordered it from Veggie Heaven (Montclair, NJ) not even knowing what it was. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. It was fantastic! Of course I can’t find cold sesame noodles in any of the restaurants around these parts. So… I had to make my own. I seriously thought it was way more complicated than it actually was. Which is why it took me so long to get around to making it. As it turns out it’s one of the simplest dishes I’ve ever made. And it keeps well in the fridge for a few days. Actually I think that it tastes way better after a day or two of chilling in the fridge. Not only that the guys LOVE it. I totally got my husband to eat carrots!

This is the recipe that inspired me. I made quite a few changes though. I cut it in half and cut back on a few ingredients and added some extras. Below is the recipe I used to create my new favorite go to summer dish. Nom!

This recipe could also be gluten free if you use 100% buckwheat noodles and wheat free soy sauce. I can’t always get my hands on the gluten free noodles so I mostly use Hakubaku brand. Which is delicious by the way! This dish also dries out a bit in the fridge. Sprinkling a little water over it and mixing it up with two forks takes care of that though. I suppose you could add a little more oil if you wanted, but that would add way more fat. Which brings me to the nutritional information for this dish. It serves 4. Each serving contains 334 calories, 35 g carbs, 17 g fat, 11 g protein, 3 g sugar and 286 mg sodium. Most of the fat comes from the peanut butter and sesame oil. I sometimes cut back on those two to lower the fat content. But truthfully it tastes better as is.

I want to try adding broccoli instead of carrots next time. I bet that would be a cool substitution!

Posted on: July 20, 2011 at 3:36 PM

Filed under: Homemade, Recipes

With: 2 comments

It’s been extremely hot these past few days. I’ve been wanting to cook up some good stuffs, but the idea of being in the kitchen with the oven blaring made me feel a bit queasy. So when my husband asked me that dreaded question ‘Do you know what you’re going to make for dinner?’ panic started to set in. I don’t want to cook. But it’s not like I can order out. And I REALLY wasn’t in a sandwich kind of mood. Now what? I went and browsed Food Gawker for some ideas and came across this wonderful recipe for pasta salad. And it hit me. Today was pasta salad weather. Is there anything quicker and easier than chopping up some veggies and tossing them with some pasta and a simple dressing?

I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand so I went with what I did have. This is what I ended up with.

Ingredients

• 1 box pasta, cooked, rinsed, drained (I used medium shells)
• 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 medium cucumber, diced
• 1 cup broccoli, chopped
• 1/4 cup red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup black olives, sliced

Vinaigrette

• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp oregano
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste

First I whisked all of the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a small bowl. I combined the pasta and chopped veggies in a larger bowl. Then I poured the vinaigrette over the pasta and chilled in the fridge for a bit before serving. You should know that I love me some garlic and onion. So the 1/4 cup/2 clove bit might be too much for some. Just throwing that out there. And the olives don’t really make much of a difference. Feel free to leave them out. I just have a thing for olives. I need them in my salads and on my pizza. There are some things you just can’t explain.

I REALLY wanted to use quinoa instead of pasta for a GF version, but I didn’t have enough on hand. And I really wasn’t trying to leave the house to go hunting some down. Next time around I’m definitely trying this out with quinoa in place of the pasta.

And because I was curious of the nutritional information I entered this recipe in MyFitnessPal and ended up with 292 calories, 44 g carbs, 9 g fat, 8 g protein, 4 g sugar and 109 mg sodium. And this is broken down into 8 servings which is about what I got out of the recipe.