Veggie Staples

dairy free, gluten free, refined sugar free, plant based recipes

Perfect Summer Salad

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Summer is officially here! (well, it has been for a while). What is your favorite summer activity? It’s never officially ‘summer’ for me until we’ve headed to the cape at the end of June, and we stay the entire month of July. It’s been cool, but we’re having a great time so far!

Also FYI for anyone living around Marylou’s, they now carry stevia and almond milk!! Yahoo! Anyways….

This is the perfect summer salad - and my go to when I’m hosting dinner, or I need to bring something over to a party! Easy, simple, and a very light dressing to accompany it. You can make it this way, or make it your perfect summer salad by adding (or subtracting) whatever ingredients you like. Mine incorporates red onion, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, avocado and carrots. Sometimes it’s nice to have a lettuce free salad! What is your favorite salad ingredient?

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Perfect Summer Salad
Author: 
Recipe type: salad
Prep time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 1 avocado, sliced and cubed
  • 2 large tomatoes, washed and cubed
  • 1 cucumber, washed and cubed
  • ½ cup shredded carrots
  • 1 peppers, washed and cubed
  • ½ cup red onion, washed and chopped
for the dressing
  • 2 lemons, juiced
  • 2 tablespoons organic italian seasoning
Instructions
  1. Wash and chop all vegetables as needed or desired
  2. Place all ingredients in a bowl and toss with lemon juice and italian seasoning
  3. Serve immediately

perfect summer salad

Vegan Lentil & Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

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IMG_2694Do you meal prep? I try my best to every Sunday. It just makes life easier. Lunches & Snacks! I always have a smoothie for breakfast and dinners are always planned on Saturday for the week, so I know I have all the ingredients on hand to make any one of the meals I’ve chosen for the week. Sometimes this poses an issue just because Jake eats meat and I don’t (i.e. I’m making him pot roast tonight and I’ll probably just end up making myself a green smoothie).

I made these last week and ate them every day for lunch. It was a good change to my normal go to salad, even though every week I add different mix in’s. I don’t think you can really go wrong with stuffed anything, stuffed peppers, stuffed mushrooms…. double stuffed oreos… (kidding, unless they are homemade)! These are really easy to make, and can be quick to make if you buy the pre cooked quinoa, quick rice, and beans. These stuffed pepper are vegan, gluten free, full of flavor and full of protein and fiber from all those beans! They also last the week in the fridge, are easy to freeze and the variations of beans/grains can be mixed up! Does it get better than this?!

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5.0 from 1 reviews
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Vegan Lentil & Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
Author: 
Recipe type: Vegan Stuffed Peppers
Cuisine: Entree
Serves: 8 servings
 
Ingredients
  • 8 peppers (any colors) washed, and cut in half (top to bottom)
  • 1 cup of quinoa, cooked
  • 1 cup lentils, cooked
  • 1 cup black beans, cooked
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 2 medium tomatoes, washed and chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 2-3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • ½ teaspoon paprika
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • handful of cilantro (or more) washed and chopped + more for garnish
Instructions
  1. Make the lentils, quinoa and black beans as directed (or use precooked items)
  2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
  3. Wash and chop yellow onion, and saute until clear in 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  4. Add tomatoes and cook until soft
  5. Remove from heat and add in all other ingredients
  6. Stuff peppers with bean & quinoa mixture, ¼ to ½ cup fit into my peppers each time
  7. Place peppers in a deep enough baking dish to place ½ inch of water into as well
  8. Add ½ inch of water to the baking dish, making sure not to add the water into the peppers
  9. Cover dish(es) with tin foil and place peppers into the oven for 30-35 minutes or until soft
  10. Serve Immediately & Enjoy!

Nutrition per 2 pepper halves:

calories: 198 fat: 1.6g  sodium: 132g  carbs: 36g  fiber: 11g  protein: 11g

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Epic Cookbook Giveaway

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Do you have plans to start a new, healthy way of living and eating in 2015? How about entering to win a contest that consists of over $500 in books to do so? Here is an Epic Cookbook Giveaway to start your year off right! You do not want to miss out on a chance to win this!

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Some of the following include:

Eat the Yolks by Liz Wolfe

Against All Grain by Danielle Walker

Mediterranean Paleo Cooking by Caitlin Weeks & Diane Sanfilippo

It Starts With Food by Melissa Hartwig

The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf

ZenBelly by Simone Miller

Dairy Free Ice Cream by Kelly Broznyna

Every Last Crumb by Brittany Angell

& lots more!

Enter below via the Rafflecopter!

Disclosures: Giveaway ends January 5th at 9:00 PM PST. Open to Legal Residents (18 years of age or older) of the US only. Prizes cannot be shipped to PO Boxes. Winner will be selected by Random.org and be notified by email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected. No Purchase is necessary to enter to win.

Winning entries will be verified.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Butternut Squash Kale Soup

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Soup season is definitely upon us! It was 75 degrees on Saturday, and yesterday it was only 47! Talk about temperature change! Soup is on the menu multiple times this week! I made this one last week, and I’m really kind of regretting not making a lot more of this at the same time to freeze for later! A friend gave me an abundance of butternut squash that probably would have cost me a small fortune at the store, I really need to get on that garden thing next summer!! Squash is one of my favorite fall foods, and I love that with any variety you always have those awesome seeds to roast!

This is soup is really awesome because after boiling the squash, you throw everything in a blender and heat it back up in a pot, easy peasy! It has a lot of cilantro, which helps remove heavy metals in the body, and of course all those awesome greens from the kale! And maybe you could talk your kids into eating it by telling them the color is for Halloween? Either way, make a big batch of this, you’ll end up regretting it if you don’t!!

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Butternut Squash Cilantro Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 butternut squash, washed, peeled and chopped
  • 1 bunch of kale (or an entire box of prewashed, boxed kale)
  • 1 whole bunch of cilantro, washed
  • 1 onion, peeled and chopped
  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 2 tablespoons of minced garlic
  • 2-3 tablespoons curry powder (to taste)
  • salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Wash, peel and chop butternut squash
  2. Place squash in large pot and fill pot with enough water to just barely cover the squash, heat on medium/high heat until the squash can be easily pierced with a fork
  3. Once the squash is cooked until it is soft, drain squash and place the squash in a blender
  4. Place all other ingredients in the blender with the squash
  5. Blend soup ingredients until smooth
  6. Add the blended soup back in the pot the squash was cooked in
  7. Heat soup until the desired temperature is reached
  8. Enjoy!
http://veggiestaples.com/butternut-squash-kale-soup/

 

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Spinach Potato Pancakes

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A few weeks ago I stopped by my local grocery store and was hungry (always a mistake, as you know) and found Dr. Praeger’s Spinach Pancakes on sale in the health food section (paleo, gluten free and dairy free). I ate them for an afternoon snack all week and then thought to myself ‘why not make my own?’… This is pretty much the same thought I’ve had with veggie burgers for a long time, but I have yet to whip up a batch of those either! (Hopefully once summer comes).

Either way, the ingredient list is on the box and I knew I could easily figure out how to throw some of these together and then be able to stock pile and eat them whenever I wanted! I used regular white potato, but you could easily use sweet potato, add cheese (if you can tolerate it, or even add some nutritional yeast), omit the onion, add carrots or zucchini, etc. There are a ton of possibilities to mixing it up to suit your taste buds! Either way, these spinach potato pancakes are a winner in my book & I know you will love them too! Kid friendly!

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Spinach Potato Pancakes

Ingredients

  • 1 medium potato, washed, peeled, boiled and chopped
  • 1 medium onion, washed, peeled and chopped
  • 1 cup spinach, washed and chopped
  • 3 tablespoons almond flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1-2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • coconut oil for frying

Instructions

  1. Peel and boil the potato until soft
  2. Remove potato from heat and allow to cool
  3. Wash, peel and chop onion
  4. Wash and chop spinach
  5. Chop potato
  6. In a small bowl, mix all ingredients until well combined.
  7. Heat frying pan on medium heat, adding enough coconut oil to coat pan
  8. Measure out 1/4 cup of mixture for each pancake (mixture should make 6 small pancakes)
  9. Flatten into a small patty (3 should fit on the pan)
  10. Flip patties when slightly brown on one side (3-4 minutes)
  11. Eat warm or cold as lunch, dinner or a on the go snack!
http://veggiestaples.com/spinach-potato-pancakes/

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