Tags
couscous, kale, mushrooms, plant based, quesadillas, quinoa, sweet potatoes, tofu, tortillas, vegan mac n cheese
For years, my husband took pictures of his food before we ate for his blog. As someone who is always ravenous before each meal, I had a hard time suppressing the automatic motion to feed myself once food was set before me. Now, I am the one torturing my family, taking pictures before we eat. Thankfully, snapping a few pictures takes no more than a minute (and if the little ones sneak in a bite, it’s OK!).
While I do enjoy sharing our dinners with you, I love to have a record of the beautiful, fresh food we are eating which also serves as a resource when meal planning.
Here’s a look into our dining room…I hope you enjoy the feast! All of the food shown below was served to the entire family (no special meal for little ones and they really did enjoy it as much as the adults did).
I can’t take much credit for the beauty you’re about to see…that beauty is all thanks to the colorful foods founds in nature.
A. Kale and tofu (local and organic) over whole wheat couscous
B. Mediterranean pasta (using organic brown rice spirals from Trader Joe’s)
C. Black bean quesadillas (with homemade tortillas I will talk about in a later post) and various accompaniments
E. Red quinoa salad with avocado/tomato side plus marinated portabellos
F. Leafy green salad with mushroom quinoa, homemade popcorn, kimchi and miso soup
G. Summer rolls with peanut/hoisin dipping sauce, brown rice and tahini green beans
H. Leafy green salad with orange cashew dressing, tabouli, hummus, carrot sticks and coconut roasted sweet potatoes
I just love the Michael Pollan quote, “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”
What is your favorite plant-based meal?
mmmm… that all looks delish! I love seeing the healthy meals that others are cooking- it really inspires me to try new things in the kitchen
Thanks, Anna! I am the same…I love seeing what others are cooking. If it wasn’t for blogs, I might still be cooking the old college standby “chicken and rice”!
A lot of these yummies sure look familiar
And, they’ve got my mouth watering!
Jennifer, I wanted to thank you for those kind words you left on my blog last week.(It’s been on my mind to reach you somehow.) When we were doing Heather’s challenge, I felt a connection to you, as well. I frequent your blog consistently and have enjoyed all that you share. The comments you left were so generous and uplifting to me. I’m actually missing the blogging; I’m still figuring the whole thing out. It wouldn’t surprise me if I get back on the bandwagon sometime (probably sooner than later.) We’ll see. Anyway, just sending you loving, grateful thoughts today.
Hi Emily! I’m so excited to hear from you! Yes, we are still cooking many of those 30 Day Vegan meals and loving them.
I wanted to say so much more to you on your blog post, but didn’t want to ramble on. I hope you are working your way to a better place. It’s hard juggling it all every day and I am in awe of how you can make it work. I, too, have had struggles recently. It’s taken some down days to get me to realize that I need to spend some time on myself which has helped (including a new haircut)
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I would be very excited to see you start blogging again – if that makes you happy. You really do have a peaceful and gentle way that is calming to me. Wishing you happiness and sending hugs!
I recognize some of those meals from the 30-day vegan workshop – yum! (I participated also – that’s how I found your blog). What do you put in your quesadillas (am I remembering correctly that you do not eat dairy)? I am trying to cut out dairy in our meals, but my kids love cheese, yogurt, etc. They do like almond milk, and we have been eating some goat cheese, which I thought might be better for us. I noticed that I did not wake up stuffy during the 30-day vegan, so I’d like to see how cutting out dairy affects my kids.
Hi Valerie – how are you? Thank you for stopping by here. Yes, good eyes, some of them are definitely from our workshop. All of Heather’s recipes landed in my “frequently cooked” recipe binder!
Yes, that is correct that we don’t use dairy. We put a bunch of things in our quesadillas including beans, rice, cilantro, peppers, corn, peas, sweet potatoes, onions – and Daiya “cheese”. Like your kids, mine ate cow’s milk cheese (and really loved it) up until Jan of this year so I feel compelled to use a substitute. Since we don’t eat much processed food, and Daiya is soy free, I am OK with using it sparingly. It melts well and we can’t tell the difference.
We use coconut yogurt or almond yogurt in place of cow’s milk yogurt and the kids like those, too.
What helped us tremendously in transitioning away from cut cheese is replacing it with dips – all kinds of hummus and raw dips. Dreena Burton has a cookbook called Eat Drink and Be Vegan that has a ton of awesome hummus recipes in it. Veganomicon by Isa Moskowitz has a delish cashew cucumber dip that I make a lot.
Good luck if you try going dairy free with the kids. I have noticed a decrease in runny noses, which could be coincidental, but I know for sure that my head has never been clearer!
I love that your husband used to take the pics!!!! I would probably die laughing if I saw my husband taking a pic of his food!!!!! LOL BUT, I do it all the time!!!!
Very funny! Is your husband into food as much as you are?
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