Baked Quinoa Falafel

This recipe is easy to follow, pretty much fail proof and freezes soo well.
I make a double or triple batch and freeze them for super quick meals in the future.
Vegan & gluten free

So right to it per my norm.
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Recipe:

• 1 cup cooked quinoa, cooked in veggie broth (because it makes it tastier than just water)
• 1 x 15 oz can chickpeas, drained & rinsed (*see note below)
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, large & minced
• 1 cups parsley, packed
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp chickpea flour (can sub cornstarch here)
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• zest of 1 lemon & 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2-4 tsp avocado oil *add slowly (can sub olive oil or even water here)

**chickpea note. Just being real here. REAL falafel uses dry chickpeas, soaked for 24 hours and then just mushed. I personally never prep that far in advance so I tend to just use canned but if I was actually prepared, I would prefer to just soak my own and it would be cheaper as well

Instructions:

• in a small pan, heat 1 TBSP oil and cook the onions and garlic until onions are translucent 
• In food processor combine chickpeas, parsley, onion and garlic until it looks combined and no larger chunks are visible
• Add in the quinoa, salt, cumin, pepper, sesame oil, flour, turmeric and lemon zest & juice. Mix until forms it looks like dough. *You'll need to use judgement here and add the oil until it is easily shape-able but not too much. It really depends on where you live and how dry your other ingredients were. Sometimes I only need 2 tsp, sometimes the full 4 tsp. Play around with your food here. It should form a ball easily but not be sticky, but you shouldn't have to fight to get it to keep it's shape either....
• Roll into balls and chill in the fridge for about an hour (if you have time. I never do, but it's preferred) Should make about 12-16 balls. I use a cookie dough scoop to keep them even sized.
• Preheat oven to 400F. Pop those balls on a parchment lined cookie tray and bake for 30-40min flipping over 1/2 way through. Remove when they are just starting to brown. 
• Leave on tray for 20 mins to finish (again, if you have time here!)
• Eat or freeze. These are great reheated and freeze amazingly well

I do mine in a wrap with a BUNCH of salad and then peppers and gauc because that's how I run, but feel free to add your favorite tahini sauce.

Chocolate Nutrient Rich Fat Bombs

YESSSS chocolate + healthy fats + your days supply of nutrients in a candy form?
Who would not want to pop these?
They are the perfect thing to feed a sweet tooth without feeling guilty You are actually doing something good for your body (whatttttt/!?! I know it's amazing)

Right to the recipe. I hate blogs that have pages of words and life stories. I literally just want the recipes and scroll thru everything else.
If someone wants to know about my life, please feel free to follow me on Instagram or Facebook

 

Melt 1/2 cup peanut butter (can be chunky or smooth. I just happened to have chunky) with 1/2 cup coconut oil

Allow to cool but still be melted

Add in 1/2 scoop Chocolate Vegan nutrient powder and stir. Taste test for desired sweetness. 1/2 scoop is perfect for me but you might want more

Pour into molds. I couldn't find my old candy molds so I used a mini muffin pan. Which was perfect because they looked like PB cups

It made 12 full mini muffin tins

Put in the freezer until solid. Pop out of the mold and eat and enjoy the rich chocolate nutrients while knowing you are basically eating a salad but it tastes like a candy bar. Double score.

(My eyebrows look craaazzzyyy)

 Tower of Nutrition Power!!

Ingredients. Soooo easy just 3 things!!

1/2 Cup Organic Peanut Butter, no sugar added
1/2 Cup Unrefined Coconut Oil
1/2 scoop Vegan Chocolate Nutrient Dense amazing powder

Gone Vegan

Important announcement.

Last year I was diagnosed with some serious health concerns.I got put on the AIP (auto-immune protocol) diet to really eliminate food allergens and help discover the route of my problems. It was a LOT of meat. Like by a lot, I mean like every meal was meat and you were encouraged to eat organ meats and drink bone broth. I made it about 3 weeks. It was too much to handle. My stomach does not digest meat in that high of quantities and honestly it got me thinking about route causes being food. How is that really possible?? We have been eating food forever, our bodies thrive on food. What could make us need to eliminate everything? It's hard to chew (literally! pun intended)

So long story short, instead of AIP, I flipped it the other way.
I've been really a flex-itatrian since then.
Mostly Vegan 5-6 days a week and maybe a light meat meal on the weekends with the family. But what was holding me back from fully committing? Easy of buying prepared food? Being able to eat out simpler? Making my family commit with me. My husband cooks a lot of the dinners during the week. He gets home earlier than me. By the time I stroll in the door with my son from daycare, it's literally dinner time. It was just easier to have the hubby cook something and his default is pizza to be honest or really easy prepared and just reheat meals.  Not ideal.

I also work with a lot of girls and get to listen to their health issues on a daily basis; stomach issues, diabetes, overweight, underweight. You name the concern, we probably have it at my job. As a leader, I wanted to help them. Leader doesn't just mean in the office, I wanted to help with their personal concerns. Is it my place to do that?? Probably not but that's just who I am.
We started bringing in group lunches and sharing, having meal prep weekends.. In my effort to better their health, I started watching food documentaries to pick up some cool 1 liner quotes to randomly drop.
Flash forward like 6 months, I'm seeing benefits on their side and it's encouraging so I'm taking it to the next level. Vegan but vegan in the right way. Not the prepared, carb loaded, mass produced "food" that is vegan approved. I'm talking about down to the ground, growing your own food, making food type vegan.
I also have another concern... I don't eat gluten. Celiacs. Also I try to avoid soy. It really messes up my hormones and I've already had a lot of thyroid problems I don't want to flare up.
So a Gluten free- soy free vegan it is!!

From now on, you won't see any recipes involving animal products.
Peace to everyone!

Onion Corncakes

1st ingredient is to start with a child who keeps buying huge onions from the farmers market.
Now I don't hate onions, butttttttttt I don't really like them at EVERY meal, which is what we are doing right now.  This is a lesson to me. I gave him an allowance each week to spend on a fresh item at the local farmers market. The onions the size of his head have just been a little too appealing.

For real though.
Just a few ingredients and you get a beautiful green pancake type item.


Start by mixing up all the dry ingredients














Add in the finely chopped onions and peppers and mix up.

 pan fry and cook to a beautiful golden brown. Flip and repeat on the other side.

Little trick, spread the batter out as thin as you can. Helps to cook it evenly and caramelize all the onion up.

That's pretty much it. 

Best when warm. I made a huge batch and frozen them and just take out a couple at a time and toast them up. 

I really enjoy with a dollop of salsa on top :)

***RECIPE***

DRY INGREDIENTS:

3/4 Cup Gluten free flour

1 TBSP Sugar

2 TBSP Cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

WET INGREDIENTS:

3/4 Cup Almond Milk

2 cups diced onions (about 2 small or like 1/2 a giant one!)

1/2 cup diced bell pepper (about 1/2 a good sized pepper. I used a green one

DIRECTIONS:

Mix dry ingredients together

fold in the wet ingredients until well blended

Heat a skillet to Medium heat. If you have a ceramic like me that can burn sugar and not have it stick, feel free to not oil the pan. Otherwise, I'd add a light layer to the bottom.

Pan fry until golden brown, flip and fry the other side. 

Enjoy while warm or let cool, freeze and pull out a couple and toast them up when needed. 

Maple Roasted Veggies

Veggie Candy?? It's 2 words that I never thought I'd hear in the same sentence but that is what my child called my Maple Roasted Veggies. I feel required to make it for him daily because it was probably the easiest thing I've ever convinced him to try.

I'm not going to go crazy with a back story here. Honestly I just had an assortment of things and threw this together so it's not my typical fancy write up (which may be good. No one needs to read a book, you just want the recipe!)

So I started with my veg. On a pan, drizzled with avocado oil

Roasted in Oven @ 350 for 25 mins

Then removed, drizzled a smidge of maple syrup on them, mixed it up and back in the oven for another 10 mins to caramelize up the sugar.

(just adding the photos of drizzling because I was pretty impressed with myself taking a photo while I was pouring and having it be remotely in focus)

Looks like this when it is done. You could potentially caramelize a little more if you'd like. Whatever your preference is. I didn't go crazy b/c my son sees it darker and thinks it's burnt even when it's not! (Kids right)

Here it is. The bite of perfection!

 
Recipe:
5 Brussel Sprouts
5 radishes
1/4 head of broccoli
*it's about 1 cup of each. Or make your own blend of whatever veg you like best (or have on hand!)

Cut into equal sized pieces. I like to cut the sprouts in half and  then make everything that size.
Drizzle with 1 TBSP of Avocado Oil. Mix up. Put on oven :) I like to put the sprouts with the cut side down to get the color.
Roast at 350 degrees F for 25 min (or more/less depending on what size you cut things down to)
After 25 mins, remove pan, drizzle 1 tsp of maple syrup (yes only that little amount! We aren't actually making candy here today) and mix up and pop back in the oven for 10 mins.

Remove and eat (once cooled enough to not burn your mouth)
In my opinion, best eaten that day.

It made enough to be a side dish for my 3 person household.

Dehydrated Fruit Chips

Dehydrated Fruit Chips. 

The options are really limitless in my opinion. 

But some of my personal favorites:

Cantaloupe: 

The important thing is to use a ripe melon. The dehdration process just makes the flavor stronger, so if your melon is still a little tart and unripe, your chips will turn out tart! (yes I did learn that lesson the hard way.)

So you start by slicing the melon into 1/4" thick slices. Remove the rind and place on your trays.

and go. 

I did mine at 130 degrees for about 10 hours. 

They look like this once done. Delicious and crispy

Watermelon Chips:

Same process. Again super important to use a really ripe melon.

If your watermelon has black seeds, you should remove those. The White seeds you can keep, they are ok to eat.

I used a little melon for my chips, so the final chips are little and round instead of slices.

Optional: sprinkle with some sea salt. That is if you like salt on watermelon. I do so I did :)

Then Plum Chips.
I personally love these. You can take them out a little earlier and have some plum jerky if you like. Otherwise you sohuld probably eat these chips a little faster as they don't tend to stay crispy as long as the melon chips do.
I like to soak my slices in orange juice overnight to give it a plum-orangey flavor, but you don't have to. Plums on their own are pretty tasty anyways.
You don't have to remove the skin, as you can eat it. But you can if you want. The skin gets a little hard, but I personally don't have any problem with it.


 

Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

This recipe could not be easier. And the best thing is, if you want to sub an ingrendient, it's so easy. No cooked rice on hand? Use some orzo pasta. Don't have mixed beans? Use a can of black beans, or add more vegetables. Add an onion, add shredded cheese... the options are so limitless.

Here is my basic recipe for vegetarian stuffed peppers. I like to use lentils alot. I feel like they have a meaty flavor and I can typically pass them off as a meat option to my family when I mix them in recipes.

I typically make mine in a crock pot due to the ease of throwing them in and coming home to something cooked and ready to go. An hour for cooking on a weeknight is too much for my son to wait for, so it's nice if it's ready to go.