Category Archives for Recipes
Crispy Herb Fries
This is Bonnie’s idea. She made this today so I had to make myself a batch as well!
Ingredients:
4-5 medium potatoes
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp Italian herb seasoning (oregano/basil) – use more to coat the fries as desired
1 tsp (or more) of dill weed
1 tsp Lawry’s seasoning salt (optional)
Wash 4-5 medium potatoes and cut into strips, enough to cover a long baking tray. Put fries into a bowl and mix with the spices above so everything is coated. The spices will stick to the potatoes since they are a bit wet inside and starchy. Bake at 450 degrees F on a non-stick baking mat no oil or spray for half an hour or more until browning and crispy. If you use parchment paper instead watch the max temperature allowed on the package. I do up to 40 minutes many times to get them really crispy. Cut the potatoes thinner for more crisp fries. It’s possible to get crispier fries by boiling the potatoes a bit first, but who has the time? 🙂
Eat with ketchup and/or no fat brown gravy. If you want veggie burger ideas check out Jeff Novick’s Burger and Fries DVD.
Pizza Dough
Update: I started making quick pizza dough using bread dough and no breadmaker. It’s much lighter and tastier even though it’s not as nutrient-dense as the whole wheat flour.
This is a fairly dense pizza crust because I use mostly whole wheat flour. This recipe comes from my breadmaker with some modifications. I’m not a bread expert but I’m fairly happy with the crunch of the pizza crust. You could try leaving out the salt and sugar but sugar helps activate the yeast.
Ingredients (put all these in order in the breadmaker):
1 1/2 cups of water (80-90 deg. F) – You can heat up some water in the microwave. I just use warm-hot water from my tap (I have a drilled well.)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Last few times I substituted in 2 cups of bread flour to lighten it up.
2 tsp active dry yeast
Instructions:
Start the breadmaker. Mine runs for 1 hr and 20 minutes.
I take the bread of out of the breadmaker, divide in 2 and put on two circular pizza pans, sprinkled with flour. I cover with plastic wrap for about an hour. If you can leave longer that is better but I usually make at the last minute before dinner and am hungry!
Then I spread the dough out to cover each pizza pan, each one is 12″ in diameter and I make a little edge for the crust. Then I bake at 500 deg. F until it gets fairly firm, about 10 minutes. You want the crust to be firm enough so you can put toppings on it and put it back on the rack without breaking, but not fully browned. Remove from oven and put your favourite toppings on (sauce, etc) and bake for 30 minutes. These times are rough guidelines so the first time you do this, take note of what worked or if you needed more time for your oven. I use the upper rack so I don’t usually turn on the broil at the end, but you can do that if you want to make it extra crispy but be sure to watch and don’t let anything burn!
Artichoke pizza photo used with permission by www.plantplate.com
Black Bean Brownies
I know it sounds crazy but these taste great and you can’t tell it’s got beans in it!
1 540 mL (19 fl oz) can no sodium added black beans, drain in strainer and rinse to get rid of foam
3-4 tbsp almond milk
2 flax eggs (2.5 tbsp ground flaxseed and 6 tbsp water)
3/4 cup cocoa powder (vegan)
1/3 cup organic coconut palm sugar (or whatever sugar you’d like to use)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Some chopped walnuts for topping (optional) – I didn’t add
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Put all ingredients into Vitamix or if you have a food processor even better. I pre-mashed the beans in a bowl with a hand masher because the blender sometimes has a bit of trouble with drier thick mixtures.
Blend, adding more almond milk to make it a creamy texture, not too thick something akin to frosting. Add more non-dairy milk if too thick to pour.
Put mixture into a non-stick muffin pan. Optionally add some chopped walnuts on top.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes (or more depending on your oven) until a toothpick comes out clean and it starts to crack and separate from pan.
Let cool for at least half an hour before putting in a container and storing the fridge.
Eat one before putting in the fridge if you want some warm, brownie goodness. 🙂
Baked Nacho Chips No Oil
Preheat oven to 350F and lay down a number of no oil corn tortillas right on the track. When I make my bean dip I use quite a few like 15 or more for 2 people, but for just a plate of rice and beans you can bake 2 or 3 tortillas. Bake until crispy which could be 10 minutes or more/less depending on your oven. Watch carefully. Before getting crispy they will be a little bendy which is not ideal. And too much they can get burned. Then break them up into pieces. I used to cut them beforehand using a pizza cutter into 6 pie shaped pieces, which you could also do and put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Easy Banana Milk Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ripe banana, any size
1/2 cup of cold filtered water (more if required to thin out)
Blend banana with water on high for a few seconds until blended using Vitamix or similar blender. So easy! Add water if it’s too thick and blend again. Most likely doesn’t store well (will oxidize) so use right away as a drink or my favourite on my cereal.
Lentil “Meat” Sauce for Pasta
You can adjust your favourite meat sauce to remove the ground beef/oil and add a can of rinsed lentils, but here’s what I do (leave out anything you don’t like and adjust ingredients to taste):
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, diced
1/2 large green pepper, chopped
1/2 large red pepper, chopped
1 can of red lentils, drained and rinsed
1 packed cup of spinach (or just a big handful or two I don’t measure)
1 can of no/low fat zesty tomato sauce (with no or minimal oil/sugar added) – Note: I now use a can of crushed tomatoes to avoid oil.
1 sprinkle red pepper flakes (as much as you like to make it hot or not)
1 package of whole wheat linguine noodles
Instruction:
Boil the noodles as per instructions
While the water is boiling, saute the chopped red/green pepper in water in a frying pan to soften under medium heat. As it softens add the onion. As the onion softens add the garlic and spinach. The spinach will shrivel up a lot so don’t be shy.
When the ingredients are pretty soft add a can of zesty tomato sauce. Rinse lentils in strainer until the starchy foam is gone. Add the can of rinsed lentils and heat. Turn down heat if it starts to bubble, stirring regularly.
Drain noodles when done. Put noodles on a plate and pour sauce on top. If you like more sauce add a can of tomato paste and water to dilute the lentils/veggies.
Cabbage Soup
Bonnie’s recipe.
We make a huge pot of soup. Put all this in a pot and cook on high until it boils and let simmer for at least half an hour until potatoes/turnip are soft.
(Calories) Ingredients:
(156) 1/2 green cabbage
(100) 4 carrots
(410) 1 can 540 ml black beans
(600) 6 red potatoes
(108) 1 can 540 ml diced tomatoes
(40) 1 onion
(40) seasonings (1 tsp each garlic/onion powder, 1 tbsp vegetable stock powder)
(100) 1 turnip
(0) 4+ cups of water (fill up large pot to almost the top after adding other ingredients)
(54) 1 leek (great flavour and a recent addition)
Total 1608 calories
Per serving 130 calories it make about 12 one cup servings.
Grocery List
Here are most of the things we buy when we go grocery shopping. Not every time of course 🙂 If you have an issue with any of the products, you can find alternatives that works for you on Amazon or elsewhere. If ordering from Amazon you might consider getting a 6-pack or 12-pack for the staples. I couldn’t find all organic or low sodium, etc so if you don’t like one of the links below, Amazon shows similar products or you can search their site for something else.
Black beans (Eden Organic Black Beans)
Lentils (Eden Organic Lentils)
Rolled Oats (Bob’s Red Mill Rolled Oats or Gluten-free)
Ketchup (Heinz No salt added)
Unsweetened almond milk (Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk)
Soy milk (or no fat version)
Diced Tomatoes (Eden Organic Diced Tomatoes)
Chick peas (Eden Organic Garbanzo Beans)
White Kidney beans (Eden Organic Cannellini)
Red Kidney Beans (Eden Organic Kidney Beans)
Brown rice (Bob’s Red Mill Organic Brown Rice)
No fat tomato sauce (Muir Glen Tomato Sauce)
Tomato paste (Muir Glen Organic Tomato Paste)
Whole wheat pasta (fettuccine, linguine, penne, etc)
Vermicelli Bean Noodles
Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
Extra-firm Tofu
Sriracha hot sauce
Tomatoes
Green Pepper
Red Pepper
Yellow onions
Garlic
Spinach
Arugula
Bananas
Oranges
Grapefruit
Blueberries
Turnip
Carrots
Baby Bok Choy
Bean sprouts
Potatoes (Red, Yellow)
Sweet Potatoes
English Cucumber
Whole grain rye bread
Vegetable bouillon stock powder (Watch the sodium)
Chicken-style vegan stock (Watch the sodium)
Pickles (I buy Vlasic like the crunch)
Organic yellow mustard
Shredded Wheat (Post Shredded Wheat)
Grape Nuts (Post Grape Nuts)
Gluten-Free Whole Grain Rice Krispies (for Bonnie)
Fruit spread
Natural organic peanut butter
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Curry Powder
Chili Powder
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Whole Wheat Flour
Whole wheat pastry flour (for pancakes if eaten)
Baking Soda/Powder/Yeast
Nutritional Yeast
Kitchen Gourmet browning sauce
Nutmeg/Cinnamon
Salt/Black Pepper
Brown sugar (for spicy cajun fries)
Vegetable stock (liquid)
Hot Extra Chunky Salsa (I use President’s Choice in Canada)
Yellow corn tortillas (no fat). I order online from http://www.latortilleria.ca
Organic Basmati rice (for curry)
Balsamic vinegar (delicate version)
Frozen organic strawberries
Frozen dark cherries (Bonnie snack)
Frozen corn
Frozen peas
Frozen broccoli
Frozen cauliflower
Frozen brussel sprouts
Milled Flaxseed (Bob’s Red Mill Ground Organic Flaxseed)
Optional:
Low sodium soy sauce
Raw walnuts (nuts not recommended for weight loss, heart disease patients)
Real organic maple syrup (for baking, pancakes)
*if you have issues with any of the above ingredients, don’t buy them 🙂
** I have provided Amazon links for some of the products. If you order any I receive a small commission which will hopefully allow to me help more people rather than work at other jobs 🙂
Banana Muffins
Bonnie eats these banana muffins for breakfast instead of the usual cereal when I make them on occasion. But these are very low fat banana muffins (no oil, margarine, etc). The bananas, maple syrup and non-dairy milk give it the moistness. I used whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour, instead of oat flour.
I use the recipe from Dreena Burton, but I used whole wheat flour instead of oat flour (along with the whole wheat pastry flour) and added a bit more milk to make it a bit thinner for the muffins. The muffins stick to the paper quite a bit but it avoids having to use any oil spray.
