Cheap, filling, and ready in minutes. During college, ramen noodles, were a welcome addition, when I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on food.
My parents sent me care package throughout the years, and noodles were something they thoughtfully included.
Getting creative with Ramen noodles
Even as a college kid, I was interested in delicious, healthy, and filling meals, and so a variety of vegetables were added to my noodles. If I had the money to make it healthier, if not the plain noodles would suffice, it just wasn’t as tasty.
These days, I don’t eat a lot of ramen noodles or your traditional pasta…
The majority of the pasta I make is made from vegetables; I use a vegetable pasta maker. Its much healthier than the traditional noodles, and during harvest time I have more than enough vegetables to satisfy my noodle craving.
Vegetable pasta maker
I first learned about vegetable pasta when I became interested in raw foods, I’d eaten raw foods throughout my life, and was fascinated that some ate this exclusively. Naturally, I was even more intrigued, when I saw vegetables like made from vegetables! I’ve tried a few vegetable pasta noodle machines, but my favorite is the plastic spiral vegetable slicer. I’ve had mine for five years.
The above photo was taken last evening, the main ingredient is ramen noodles, to which I added broccoli, tomato, egg, and garlic. My daughter helped prepare this dish, and thought it was delicious.
I love Indian food, over the years I’ve created numerous vegan and non-vegan dishes. When prepared for others, I don’t have any complaints. Earlier today I prepared this wonderful dhal. The brown rice and the honey garlic and ginger sauce that was made yesterday, was added to the dish. It was simple, delicious, and nutritious.
Dhal is a thick soup usually prepared from lentils. However, I’ve also seen it made from peas or other dried beans. I make mine with lentils. Dhal makes a delicious base for the numerous types of dhal that I prepare. Dhal is commonly served with flatbread and over rice.
Today, I didn’t make any chapati (Indian flat bread which is quite simple to make) but I did add a twist (to the way I normally prepare this dish) I added a sauce. I have leftover dhal and rice, so perhaps I’ll make some chapati tomorrow?
With my old site, VeganMomma, dhal was one of the most popular dishes I’d make. Those posts received a lot of hits! It also brought about some interesting discussions from the various food bloggers that would stop by and comment about the types of dhal they prepared ( a few were from India) or eaten at restaurants. On that site, when it came to food I only wrote about vegan food. However the majority of my commentators were non-vegan.
I place Dhal in the ‘comfort food‘ category, simple, flavorful, and oh so satisfying.
Yesterday afternoon I prepared this simple dish; noodles and vegetables in a spicy garlic sauce.
The next few weeks will be extremely busy, and so just tossing a few extra ingredients to foods I’ve already prepared; rice, beans, and pasta… will be common.
My vegetable pasta is actually made from vegetables but yesterday I used the traditional pasta noodle. Since I already had pasta noodles from a few days ago, the only thing I needed to add was vegetables and prepare the garlic sauce. Besides the obvious garlic, I added finely chopped onions (which I’d sauteed) and I coarsely chopped broccoli and tomato, and marinated tofu — which I’d crumbled. I didn’t make too much of this perhaps three servings, my daughter ate hers quickly and asked for more.
This meal was quick, delicious, and nutritious, and more important it was served in minutes.
Pardon the blur on this picture. Yesterday, I snapped a few pizza shots, before putting it on the table. Perhaps I should have tweaked it in Aperture 3.
Yesterday, was the day to satisfy my craving, and so homemade pizza(s) were on the menu.I made two; cheese and veggie with no cheese. Years ago, I stumbled upon a truly delightful cheese-less pizza. The vegetables included introduced a mild sweetness which worked wonderfully with the tangy pizza sauce. I fell in love with cheese-less pizzas, and immediately wanted to run home and try to duplicate it in my own kitchen.
Over the years, I’ve tested quite a few veggies on my cheese-less pizzas. My favorite ways to prepare them are with oven roasted vegetable; Sweet onions, oven roasted garlic, Red bell pepper, shitake mushrooms… Those vegetables work so well together, and make a pizza that’s bursting with flavor.
Pizza is normally made once per month in our household. Because I make a variety, my daughter gets to sample a lot of different pizzas, but I think her favorite is the cheese pizza. She still scarfs down the cheese-less pizzas too.
Bonding at mealtime
I’d put the pizzas in the oven about an hour before it was time to get my daughter, so they were still hot when we arrived home from her school. Pizza smells greeted us, upon opening the house door. “Pizza!” was my daughters happy cry. She put her schoolbooks away, and quickly returned so we could eat our meal.
The kitchen is one of my places to get creative; mealtimes are a time for both of us to unplug. She gets a break from the demands of school, and she has my full attention. She quickly filled me in on the days events at school, while she quickly demolished several pieces of both pizzas (cheese and veggie). That girl can eat! I guess she’s a lot like myself, her metabolism is high — so she can eat anything.
Colorful pizza crusts
We both like flavorful crusts, and I’ll add a variety of things (usually seasonings) to the crust. Nothing overpowering, more like a nice complement to the toppings on the pizza.
Occasionally, my daughter asks me to color the pizza crust. I’ll ‘dye’ the crusts with the appropriate colored vegetable juice. One time my daughter wanted an orange crust. I added a bit if carrot juice to the dough. Then she wanted a cranberry colored crust. I added beet juice. Green was another request, juiced greens were added. You get the picture… Although some of the ingredients might sound weird, and not too appealing at all (if you aren’t big on those vegetables) but the crusts are delicious. The flavor doesn’t overpower the pizza crust. Also, the seasonings added (to the crust) complement the pizza. )
These days, I rarely order a pizza, because my daughter is used to the freshness of our homemade pizzas, and it can be hard to find a restaurant that duplicates that.
Ok, so now my pizza craving has been satisfied but now I’m craving hummus with Creamy Dhal or a Dry Chana Masala.;)
We all experience cravings, right? The past few days my daughter has been craving dark leafy greens. Raw or cooked? It doesn’t matter; my eight-year old daughter loves eating dark leafy greens.
I’m an early riser (usually awake by 4:00 am — today I was awake at 2:30 am). After a few hours of work, I decided to make her some homemade hash browns. What began as hash browns turned into a completely different dish. By the time, I was through I had prepared a lightly sauteed vegetable dish. It was delicious, nutritious, and simple to make.
What’s in this dish? Kale, carrots, onion, tomato, carrots, ginger, curry, and a sprinkle of sea salt all make an appearance in this dish. The kale was especially tender since I’d picked them from our garden this morning. I’m happy that dark leafy greens can be planted/harvested during the cooler months. It means that my daughter and I eat fresh greens for most of the year.
It’s interesting to see how my daughters taste buds have developed (as she’s gotten older). If I’d have prepared this a few years ago, the added ginger and curry would have been too spicy for her, but now she quite enjoys the extra kick.
Because the kale leaves were huge, I used only about two leaves in the above dish. The rest has been set aside to include into a smoothie.
My daughters cravings for greens had been satisfied, and she went off to school happy that I’d remembered her request. I’ll eat greens anytime, but recently I’ve been craving a homemade pizza. I’m thinking about making one later today.
Question: Recently, have you had any food cravings? If so share in the comment section.
I tend to eat a lot of fiber in my daily intake. I love dark leafy greens, and prepare them in a variety of ways. For those who’re not used to dark greens, there are other ways you can incorporate them into ones daily intake.
Adding greens to raw juices or smoothies is an excellent way to increase your fiber, along with many other nutrients that the greens provide. Because you’re adding the greens to a fruit smoothie, it will mask the taste of the greens.
I love dark leafy greens, and often eat them raw. I tend to add a bit more greens than what I’ve suggested below.
Green Energy Drink
4 cups unsweetened apple juice
1 cup cubed pineapple
2 cups collards (or other greens like lettuce, kale, or collards)
1″ ginger root
*If you want a thinner smoothie, add more apple juice.Directions
In a blender add all ingredients
Blend until smooth
Drink and enjoy
This post was written in advance, since I’m away for the Thanksgiving holidays. I won’t be checking my personal mail. My holidays are spent taking a break from everything technology related. I’ll be back soon, and will respond to comments, and visit your virtual homes.
A few moments ago, I made this dish of stir fried vegetables and rice.
It’s a simple meal that can be prepared in minutes. Occasionally, you’ll see me preparing meals that do take a while to make, however in this household it’s rare. I love good food, the majority of my daughter and my meals are home cooked.
Color (besides taste and nutrition) is something I look for in a meal. I enjoy seeing a variety of hues displayed within a dish, and so you’ll usually see some type of vegetable (or fruit) playing a starring role in the meals I prepare. Not only does it add a bit of food bling, it also supplies us with the nutrients that our bodies needs. I’ll write more on the importance of food nutrition in a later post.
I’m a whole foods lady, meaning I eat foods as close to its natural source as possible. If you were to open our freezer you wouldn’t find too many pre-packaged meals. Wait… I take that back! You would, but they’ve been prepared by myself. Occasionally, I’ll prepare meals in advance and freeze them for the times when I just want to heat something up for us.
Meal Preparation
I’m vegan, but these days my eight-year old daughter isn’t and so you’ll see non-veggie dishes that I’ve prepared for her. While she does eat non-veggie dishes she still prefers vegetarian or vegan cuisine.
If you’d ask me a few years ago, if I’d have let her make such a decision (this early) I would have told you no. Back in the day, I never prepared non-veggie dishes either, but now I do for loved ones. Of course, they get a nice mix of veggie cuisine, and those dishes have been devoured by them. WIth some, they were surprised that they actually liked the dish. To which my response is, it’s all in the preparation.
Bonding with family
In recent years I’ve made several non-vegan meals for family and friends. However, even though they weren’t vegan they all had a few things in common; they were nutritious, delicious, and quite simple to make. Who wants to spend time in the kitchen, when you have loved ones to hang out with?
Although my life is fairly busy, I still think it’s important to share meals together, and so you’ll find me taking my dinner time with my daughter. It’s a great chance to see what happened during her day, and because I listen it’s one way she knows that I care about what’s going on in her world. At times, we all need to be quiet and listen to what others have to say. After I pick her up from school, I usually let her help me prepare something for our evening meal. However since I have a few surprises in store for my little princess today, I decided to prepare our meal early.
The cookbook
Those who’ve followed me from my old site, VeganMomma, might remember me mentioning a cookbook I was writing. Creating a cookbook is challenging for me. Why you ask? It forces me to actually measure ingredients. That’s something I don’t (normally) do. I just know what amount works well with a dish. I guess that comes from cooking for a while. I made my first meal when I was four years old, thirty-seven years later I still enjoy cooking.
Anyway, while writing the book I realized there were a lot of stories to tell — some have been tied to various dishes I’ve made over the years, and so I went back and included stories. Crescent Dragonwagon’s Passionate Vegetarian and Yumana Devi’s Lord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking did an excellent job of applying that technique into their cookbooks.
If you’re a fan of those types of cookbooks, you’ll find plenty of stories mixed in with many of the recipes they share. I read cookbooks like a novel, I enjoy them because the passion that is apparent with the one who’s writing them, but along the way I’ve learned additional cooking tips from some very talented chefs.
Next year, I’m taking a few cooking classes. I’m looking forward to them, and will most likely share bits of what I learn here.
Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to actively participate, I didn’t add my name to the list. However throughout the month of October I’ll try to post at least one recipe per week. For those looking to cut a few calories, or simply add more plant based items into their daily lifestyle.
Please stop by the Vegan Mofo Blogroll, there’s over 700 bloggers on that list.
I was a raw vegan for a little over a year. Gradually I started adding some cooked foods into my diet, and I find that I have similar results as when I was completely raw consuming about 75% raw food. My diet is a whole food diet, which means I eat foods as close to its natural food source as possible. You won’t find me eating junk food or over processed foods. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy treats. I do, I just make sure that the treats consumed not only are delicious but are healthy too. Healthy snacks are an excellent alternative to the empty calorie junk foods that are so common in Westernized cultures.
One thing to remember, just because an item is vegetarian or vegan doesn’t automatically mean it’s healthy. You can be a very unhealthy vegetarian/vegan if you make wrong choices. There’s plenty of veggie junk food available, some people regularly consume theses products thinking they’re eating health simply because it’s plant based. Guess what? You can eat a meat based diet, and still be healthy. It’s all about the decisions you make. Educate yourself!
One of my favorite foods is a raw vegetable wrap, and so I’ve decided to include a simple recipe below. Dark leafy greens (like collards or kale) are nutrient dense powerhouses and they also make excellent raw sandwich wrappers. Raw nori is another wrapper that can be used in place of a traditional sandwich wrapper. My daughter loves nori, and requests it often. Nori can usually be found in your local health food store — or it can be purchased online.
In the article Health Benefits and nutritional properties of nori, Hiroyuki Noda said…
A sulfated galactan, similar to agar, occurs in relatively large quantities; this is a water-soluble dietary fiber that has important functional activities such as an antiblood coagulant, antihypercholesterolemia and shows antitumor activity. Minerals which occur at relatively high levels in nori include Zn, Cu, Mn and Se. It is concluded that nori is a valuable health food in human diets.
I’ve always had a lot of energy, but have found that my energy levels increased depending on the amount of raw foods I consumed.
Raw Vegetable Wrap
5 large leaves of green leafy lettuce, coarsely chopped
Apparently, October is Vegan Month of Food. Did you know that?
I was clueless about this until I stumbled upon the Tofu Cottage. The owner had the banner (which I’ve added below) proudly displayed within their posts. I’ve bookmarked their site so I can refer to it this weekend.
What is VeganMofo?
According to the VeganMofo website…
VeganMoFo was originally created on the Post Punk Kitchen, as an homage to NaNoWriMo. Because we do want to write novels, but sometimes cooking gets in the way. So why not combine them!
I can support that!
Let’s see…
I’ve been Vegan since 1992. It definitely wasn’t a sacrifice to make the switch. There are numerous delicious options available for an adventurous Vegan — like myself. I love to cook, and experiment with various flavors/textures while I’m in the kitchen too. My only requirement is that the meal preparation time has to be quick, and on the table in minutes. Healthy, delicious, and nutritious, sure that’s a goal I can easily complete (with many dishes) in less than fifteen minutes.
A few years ago I had a cooking site that was focused on everything Vegan (raw and cooked) and although I most likely won’t be reviving that site, you most likely will see a few recipes making their way to this page.
Stay tuned, I’ll definitely be posting some Vegan Mofo for the month of October.
I was never fond of the traditional pasta noodles; It was simply too much flour for my taste. Imagine my happiness when I stumbled upon real veggie pasta…
Now granted, I’d made my own veggie pasta over the years. I have a manual Atlas Pasta machine. Over the years, I’ve cranked out many sheets of traditional spaghetti and pasta noodles. To make it healthier, I would add real veggies to my ingredients. I enjoyed the taste, not to mention the added vegetables brightened up my pasta too.
I started researching raw foods a few years ago. I didn’t have any health related issues, and I didn’t need to lose weight. As a whole food vegan, I was very healthy. In fact, according to my health care provider I was in phenomenal health! However, I noticed when I upped my intake of raw foods even more, I felt even better, and I no longer needed to wear glasses.
Up until that time, I didn’t think feeling better than I already felt was possible. I thought I was at the top healthwise. During my quest to learn more about raw foods, and the creative ways things you could make with raw food dishes I stumbled upon pasta made from vegetables and the traditional methods I used to make pasta, was history.
Fresh from the garden
I’m truly blessed all the ingredients that went into my above photo of my raw vegetable pasta came straight from our vegetable garden; yellow squash, yellow onions, garlic, red bell peppers, and the lemon balm and oregano that were added as a garnish (after I took this picture.)
What kitchen appliance do I need to make the raw vegetable pasta?
Finding the right kitchen gadget to make the raw vegetable pasta wasn’t too difficult. I bought the Saladacco,but didn’t like it at all. It only made angel hair pasta. I wanted more options. However, I did additional research and found a great raw pasta noodle maker that made the traditional pasta, angel hair pasta, and made the flat pasta too! That was perfect for raw lasagna! These days, the spiral vegetable slicer I use exclusively is the Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer. Thanks to this slicer, I can make vegetable pasta in minutes. The time is a lot shorter than cooking the pasta, and it tastes a lot like your “traditional pasta”.
Plastic spiral vegetable slicer
The only difference its made from vegetables. Compared to some of my other kitchen gadgets, the plastic spiral vegetable slicer is simple to use. However I do think it’s a must have tool for not only a raw food kitchen, but those who are looking for additional ways to spice up traditional pasta. If you’re trying to sneak in additional vegetables into your daily intake you might want to consider this approach.
Sharing raw foods with others
My daughter occasionally has play dates; a favorite food for her friends is spaghetti. I tend to make traditional homemade pastas when her friends come to visit. They love my homemade vegan pizzas, and vegan eggless eggrolls too but I think pasta has to be their favorite. It has everything to do with the amount of slurping they can do with the noodles. Her friends are so easy to please.
When I prepare pasta for my daughter and myself, the pasta is all raw, however, when serving it for the guest’s I’ll make traditional pasta. Their pasta is half and half; I serve 1/2 traditional pasta, and the other 1/2 veggie pasta. I combine the two and they gobble it up. I always tell their parents before I’m doing it, and they have been very happy since it’s a great way to sneak more veggies into their children’s diet. A few of their parents have purchased the spiralizer for themselves. Although they aren’t Vegan, let alone veggie, it’s a simple way they can include more vegetables into their dietary requirements, the added bonus is they all love it.
My daughter’s friends help me make the pasta. Since it’s something they obviously enjoy I continue to include their help in our meal preparations. Naturally, their “help” can leave a lot of work for myself, but that’s ok. It’s great to get children involved in cooking, and it’s nice to see them eager about including healthy choices into their eating routine.
At times, they argue about whose turn it is to make the raw veggie pasta. I make them all take turns, but at times It’s hard for them to share. I tend to make extra. This way, they can take some of the fresh veggie pasta home to share with their families too. The longest I’ve kept my veggie pasta was five days, it’s usually gone before that time.
Regarding the pasta I’ve sent home with my daughter’s friends, I’ve received positive reviews from their families. I really enjoy that, since I know I’m not preaching to the choir. When it comes to my food habits, we’re in the minority. We’re Vegan, they’re not and that’s ok! I don’t try to force my view onto others, however occasionally you’ll see me entice them with some healthy alternatives to processed foods.
Realizing the importance of nutrition, those times we spend in the kitchen always have a simple nutritional lesson too. Children are like sponges, and tend to absorb whatever they receive, so it makes sense to provide them with helpful information. Those discussions conducted in our home, has prodded their parents to ask me for additional information focused on health.
As I mentioned earlier, I tend to include my daughter in a lot of my vegan food adventures. It’s another way to bond with her, and it’s a great chance to educate her about the variety of foods available and the effects food can have on our health. I’m raising her to be nutritionally smart. As my daughter gets older, I hope she continues to make sound nutritional choices and enjoys having fun in the kitchen.
Raw food video: How to make raw pasta with Jennifer Cornbleet
If you’d like to see a how to tutorial for making raw pasta please check out the above. I really like Jennifer Cornbleet’s bubbly personality. You can learn more about her by visiting her raw food website. Eventually I’ll start adding food videos on my site. I definitely have the equipment, and I use the truly amazing Final Cut Studio for my video editing. I simply need to find the time to make videos for my personal sites.
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Pardon the blur on this picture. Yesterday, I snapped a few pizza shots, before putting it on the table. Perhaps I should have tweaked it in Aperture 3.
and Yumana Devi’s 
astic Spiral Vegetable Slicer
