Archives for healthy

Whole Foods Cooking Class Part 4

My whole foods cooking class came to an end this evening… but the good news is the RAW foods class starts up next Monday! WOO HOO! Raw food is an area I’d love to learn more about, so I’m looking forward to that class. But today, I was still cooking in the kitchen. I decided to try a 3-bean hummus that contained garbanzo beans, northern beans and kidney beans! We LOVE traditional hummus in this house and we make it quite often, but whenever I’ve tried other hummus’, I’ve never really been a big fan. I was hoping my experiment with this new hummus would be a positive one, and it was, after a little tweaking of the original recipe. (The original recipe was modified from one of my favorite cookbooks, 1,000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson.)

This was extraordinarily easy – which I loved since I was short on time today. (In addition to making this recipe, I also had to make a dish to bring to class! That will be posted tomorrow! 🙂

I simply combined all of the below ingredients into the food processor in order listed and processed until smooth. So beans first, etc, etc.

1 cup canned white beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup canned garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup canned kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 tbsp green onions, chopped
1/3 cup of your favorite, fresh salsa
1 tbsp Kirkland brand, Organic No-Salt Seasoning (or something similar)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp Pink Himalayan salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt
Freshly ground black pepper – to taste
A little water to keep things moving if needed…

The slideshow below also gives a good visual of how I prepared this. 🙂 When I followed the recipe to a T, it was quite bland so I had to add some things to spruce it up! Once I did, I really enjoyed it! It was fun to experiment with a new hummus, using beans I don’t typically use… and that Kirkland organic spice was new too! I can see myself making this again, and I think it would be a great addition for any summer BBQ. Have you tried anything new yet in the past 4 weeks?

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Rainbow “Rice”

Do you ever have those days where you stare into the fridge, hoping it will tell you what to make for dinner? Well, that is kinda how this recipe became reality. We’ve been trying to expand our food horizons and while cauliflower used to hate me, we’ve now come to a mutual understanding. By the time this dish was hitting our taste buds, we were both pleasantly surprised by the delicious and light flavor! I’m excited to keep experimenting with different cauliflower rice flavors! It’s so nice having a new versatile veggie to work with.

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What you’ll need:
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
4 large green onions, diced OR 1/2 a brown onion, diced
3 cloves garlic

1 head of cauliflower, reduced to rice size bits in a food processor
3 small carrots, diced
1/8-1/4 head purple cabbage, diced
4 kale leaves (no stems), diced (you can also add or use fresh spinach, chopped)
1 large bok choy leaf, diced (optional, just add the flavors you like! load it with veggies and color, get creative!)
1/4 c. water

2 tsp Parsley
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Basil
1/4 tsp Rosemary
1/4 tsp Sage
1/8 tsp Thyme
Pink Himalayan Salt – a few dashes

Heat a very large skillet with the coconut oil on medium to low heat for about 1-2 minutes. Add the onions and stir, cooking for about 3-5 minutes or until they start to become translucent. Add the garlic and stir. Now you can add all the veggies that have already been chopped and are ready to go. Mix well to combine. Add half the water, and cover with a lid (if you can) and steam for about 5 minutes. Make sure you don’t brown or burn the veggies, you just want them cooked with a little crunch. While the veggies are cooking, you can prepare your spices in a small dish.

Remove the lid and stir again. Sprinkle all the spices on top, add the remaining water and stir well to combine. If necessary, you can add a little more water for steaming, but don’t add too much to make it soggy. Replace with lid and cook for another 5-7 minutes until veggies are desired tenderness.

This was a great side dish, or in our case, we used it as a light dinner which was later supplemented with some heavier foods. (Sometimes this is necessary with evening workouts or sports!) The most important part of this recipe is to just enjoy and add the flavors you like best – have fun with different veggies and spices!

The below slide show is the second batch of this same recipe that I made. Follow the instructions above regarding the onion; both times I forgot to add the onion first! Also, I think I used way more cabbage on the second batch and I food processed it versus chopping it up, which made the cauliflower purple; not as pretty as the first batch!

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