When I cook, I rarely follow a recipe. I mean… why should I? I find I have way too much fun being creative and doing my own thing!

This past Sunday, I decided to make a dish specifically with my daughter in mind.

She’s not vegan, although for the first six years of her life, she was. And yes, I prepare non-vegan food in our house. As she became older she was interested in trying other things. I let her. She still mainly eats vegetarian/vegan but she likes to mix it up with other things too…

Preparing non-veggie meals shows her that even if she isn’t veggie she can make healthy choices.  You just need to make smart food choices. That rule applies to vegetarians/vegan too! Don’t get me started about the number of unhealthy veggies I’ve met.

 

I started with boneless chicken breasts, and cut it into small pieces.  This was set aside in the refrigerator to marinate with a variety of herbs/spices. Hours later I brought it out so I could prepare the meal.

But what to prepare? Hmm…

Initially, I was only going add vegetables directly to the chicken dish, but I realized that I hadn’t made noodles  in a while (my daughter loves noodles) and so I decided to prepare penne.

 

I was going to simple add lightly buttered garlic penne w/herbs to the chicken dish, but I thought it would be much tastier (and richer) if I made a white sauce to compliment the chicken. So… I grabbed some flour, milk, herbal tea, tomatoes, herbs and spices. I combined everything together and let it cook until it had thickened into a rich and thick sauce. My did it smell good!

 

I served the meal; the chicken was set atop the penne pasta (sorry I forgot to take a picture of that.) The results? My daughter loved it so much that she got a second helping immediately after consuming the first.

Food for dad

Since my mother was working, I made enough to share with my father. Although a man of few words (when it comes to giving compliments about food) he said it was really good!

Just because I don’t eat meat, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to prepare it. I do… 🙂 Although I didn’t eat the chicken, I did have some of the noodles and I must say it was delicious. The next time I prepare penne this way, I believe I’ll add mushrooms, grated carrots, and thinly sliced broccoli.

I was planning on posting pictures of the red bean burgers I’d made. But, I believe I’ll save those for another post. 😉

A few days ago, I cooked about four cups of dried kidney beans.  Some of it was made into the red kidney beans with brown rice dish, and the rest was packed away into my Pyrex glass storage containers and put into our deep freezer for a later time.

 

 

This morning I decided to cook some of the kidney beans, but I realized there weren’t too much left, What to do?

 

No worries, to the leftover kidney beans, I added pole beans, zucchini and garlic… fresh from the garden! We haven’t pulled up our onions from the garden (yet) so I used store bought onions. I added some seasonings like curry, cumin, and cayenne.

What happened to all those kidney beans?

So why didn’t I have many kidneys left? Last evening, my ten-year old daughter had prepared her very own meal with some of the kidney beans. She ate her meal and offered me some, which I politely refused since I wasn’t hungry. I will try some today. Bottom line, she was proud of her dish that she made it without my help. It smelled delicious. I’m looking forward to trying it later today.

What do you eat when your “cleansing”?

Occasionally, I’ll have people ask me what foods I eat when I’m on a cleanse. I really don’t deviate unless I’m juicing everything. I simply eat what I always eat, which is whole foods with minimal processed foods. I guess you could say,  the “extra cleansing” aspect is the herbs that I use in addition to my healthy eating lifestyle.

Being a vegetarian/vegan doesn’t automatically mean you’re healthy…

You don’t have to be vegetarian or vegan to eat healthy. Truth be told, I’ve encountered a lot of vegetarians/vegans who made extremely unhealthy choices. The key is making healthy food choices, regardless of your eating preferences.

This past Monday, I received the nori sheets that I’d ordered.

It was a surprise for my daughter. She loves nori! My daughter immediately started snacking on a plain sheet of nori.

 

And I made stuffed nori rolls.

 

I used the leftover stir fried black bean and veggies as the filling. It turned out very nice. I think next time, I’ll add sliced sweet peppers and grated carrots.