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Posts Tagged ‘lunch’

Chickpea and Wheatberries Salad

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on November 9, 2011| 4 Comments »

Sunday, I may have stayed up until about 2:30 am making 5 dozen cupcakes and my lunch for the week. And then I may have had to wake up at 6:30am…

And then Monday, I may have worked 7:30am-9:30pm between both my jobs and I may not have gotten to bed until 10:30, which may not have helped me recover from my 4 hours of sleep the night before…

And then I may have come home from work on Tuesday with every intention of going to my dance class, which I love to pieces, but I may have been so tired from Sunday and Monday, that I crawled into bed at 6, caught up on all my TV shows I’ve been missing out on (I’m so addicted to Once Upon a Time), snacked on some Cafe Indigo Vegan Chocolate cake and went to bed early…instead of going to dance class.

You know…that may have happened…

Good thing I had this yummy salad for lunch. Makes me feel less guilty about that whole crawl-into-bed-and-do-nothing thing…

“Back on Track” Wheatberry and Bean Salad
  from Oh She Glows

Yield: 7.5-8 cups

Salad Ingredients:

  • 1 cup dry wheatberries, cooked and drained
  • 2 cups chickpeas
  • 1 English cucumber, diced
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • 1 large tomato, diced
  • 2 large garlic cloves, minced
  • 4 green onions, diced
  • Kosher salt + pepper, to taste

Dressing (or sub in your favourite dressing)

  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp water
  • 1 tsp pure maple syrup
  • Kosher salt, ground black pepper, & Herbamare, to taste

Prepare wheatberries according to package. I could not find mine in the bulk section of Whole Foods so I had to buy it in the bag from the grain section. To prepare, I added 1 cup of wheatberries to 1 1/2 c. of boiling water and let sit for one hour. Drain excess water (if you have any).

In a large bowl, mix together the diced vegetables (cucumber, red pepper, tomato, minced garlic, green onions). Add in chickpeas and stir.

In a small bowl whisk together the dressing ingredients. Set aside.

When the wheatberries are ready, stir into the salad. Add the dressing just before serving and stir well. Now season with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley if desired.


I can’t say I loved the wheatberry, though, in fairness, mine look nothing like the ones on Oh She Glows so it may have been the type I bought. I think next go around, I’d substitute some brown basmati rice or try a different type of wheatberries.

Also, this recipe called for 1 cup of fresh, chopped parsley but I couldn’t find it anywhere at the grocery store. They were all sold out. It still has a good flavor without it.

It’s appropriate this salad is called “Back on Track” because after being a lazy bum all Tuesday evening, I’m seriously going to have to get back on track today!!

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Butternut Squash-Apple Soup

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on November 2, 2011| 3 Comments »

Do you know what I slept in last night? Are you ready for this? I’m going to tell you in the order they would have to be put on:

-black tights

-knee high socks

-fleece boot slippers

-legwarmers

-leggings

-flannel PJ bottoms

-tshirt

-long sleeve shirt

-hoodie

-scarf

-fingerless gloves

Ridiculous? Yes. Was I warm and toasty in bed? Yes!

I told you my apartment was cold. I wasn’t joking!!

Because my roommates and I have not turned on the heat yet (its suppose to get up to the 60s at the end of the week and we are waiting to plastic our windows so we aren’t heating the outside), all I can think of is hot things like:

-blankets

-hoodies

-hot showers

-hot tea

-hot coffee

-hot soup

-Ryan Gosling without a shirt on

Hey, Whatever works!

I was actually planning on giving you guys a homemade peanut butter cup recipe today but really, I should have posted that last week so that you were all prepared for the Halloween onslaught of non-vegan candy. If you are anything like me, you’ve shoved your face with seen so much candy the last few days that having more presented to you would simply be over kill. Plus, peanut butter cups are best served cold and I can’t even think of going near my refrigerator.

So here’s more soup. This is approximately my 100th soup recipe since I started this a month ago. I’m probably the worst blogger ever. But its cold outside (or inside, if your me). And our bodies want to hibernate.  And soup is so good for that! Plus, you can pack it in nice to-go containers and bring it to lunch so it saves you time AND warms you up AND its stuffed with good stuff.

Butternut Squash-Apple Soup
courtesy of my friend, Melissa Constantine

makes 3-5 servings

2 bags of frozen butternut squash or 2-3 fresh butternut squash, depending on the size, cut into 1″ cubes (I used frozen)
3 apples (not red delicious), peeled and chopped
1/2 an onion
1 large container of veggie broth
1 stick of vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)
1 tsp of Pumpkin Pie Spice
Brown sugar- optional
Cream (such as the cashew cream I made for the Mushroom Onion Soup)- optional
Sunflower seeds/pecans- optional

Melt the butter slowly, and add the onion. Cook the onion just a bit, then add in apples. Cook for a few minutes over medium heat. Add in butternut squash. It cooks faster, so add it last. Stir. Add broth. Let bubble, stirring every once in while for an hour, or until the squash has completely fallen apart and the apples are easily squashed with a spoon.

Add about a tsp of pumpkin pie spice, then blend with an Immersion blender. Don’t have an Immersion blender? A Regular blender works just as well. Puree until consistently smooth.

Taste it and decide if you would like to add the optional ingredients such as brown sugar, if you want it sweeter, or a few tablespoons of cashew cream, if you want it thicker.

I opted not to add these ingredients. I think the apple made the soup sweet enough and I was planning on having the soup for lunch so wanted it to be on the lighter side, so opted out of the cream. If I was serving this for dinner or wanted an extra kick of protein, I would most likely add the cashew cream.

I did sprinkle with sunflower seeds and pecans, though. I love smooth soups for lunch but I like adding that little bit of crunch. It helps me from feeling like I’m not eating hot baby food.

Lunch for the week. Yeah!

Do you think Ryan Gosling is single? I bet he has his heat on. Or, you know, enough body heat for two…

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oh, Hello Cold

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on October 19, 2011| 3 Comments »

So here’s the thing with being a 20-something at an entry-level job living in a city- you don’t have a ton of money. At least not with a degree in english and art history and a nasty Starbucks habit you can’t kick.

This means that I have to be stingy- I can’t purchase that studded Burberry purse that I’ve been drooling over for over a year. (Ms. Lindsey-I-have-no-job-but-800-outstanding-lawsuits-Lohan gets one though. WHATEVER!) That trip to Disney World so I can go to the halloween night 5 days in a row and wear 5 different costumes ain’t happening. Decorating my kitchen with gadgets from Crate and Barrel will have to wait…until I’m married…and they are purchased for me.

This frugal attitude also extends to my apartment. My very drafty apartment. The roommates and I do our best to keep the heat down low. Which means from mid-October until May my house is cold. Sometimes very cold. Like, sleep-in-multiple-layers-and-gloves cold.  Though no one will come visit us and we walk around in full length sleeping bag/body suit things, it does helps us save money so we aren’t eating only Ramen Noodles (and I can save for a trip to Italy).

Though we avoid the Ramen, soup does helps fight off the chill, which is already starting to creep into the apartment. This mushroom onion soup is definitely going to be in rotation this winter. PLUS, it may give me a legitimate excuse to buy an immersion blender. Yeah! one gadget I don’t have to wait for my wedding day for!

Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup with Cashew Cream

from JoytheBaker.com

2 TBS olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound of cremini mushrooms. cleaned and sliced

1 TBS soy sauce

1 TBS vegan Worcestershire sauce

about 1 tsp course ground black pepper

3 cups vegetable broth

salt to taste

For the Cashew Cream*:

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup water

*you may substitute the Cashew Cream with 3/4 cup half and half or 8 oz. of silken tofu

Cream from just cashews and water. How cool is that?!

In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add onions to hot oil and saute until translucent and slightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic, stir, and cook for 1 minute more.  Add the mushrooms, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and cook until mushrooms are cooked and broken down, about 5 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  Add cracked pepper and  vegetable stock and cook at a simmer until mushrooms are completely soft.  This took me about 10 to 15 minutes.

While the soup simmers, prepare the cashew cream.  In a blender, combine raw cashews and water.  Blend on high until smooth.  Pour into a measuring cup and set aside.  Don’t worry about washing the blender… we’re going to use it to blend the soup.

When mushrooms are cooked through, add about one third of the soup to the blender.  Hot soup rises high in the blender so definitely be careful how high you fill the blender.  Blend soup on low, increasing the speed to high, until no large mushroom chunks remain.  Pour blended soup into a clean pot or large bowl.  Blend the remaining soup in batches.  *If using silken tofu instead of cashew cream.  Blend the silken tofu in with the mushrooms and broth.

Add the cashew cream to the blended soup and stir to incorporate.

Place a fine mesh strainer over the pot that you cooked the soup in.  In batches, pour the blended soup into the fine mesh strainer and work the soup through the strainer with a rubber spatula.  Don’t use a wooden spoon… you could get splinters in your soup… seriously.  Heat and serve the strained soup.  Or place in a freezer safe container for a few weeks down the road.

This recipe was delicious! And how cool is the cashew cream thing?! Cashew’s have such a subtle taste to them that it didn’t overwhelm the onion and mushroom taste. Also, I didn’t bother straining it. The blender did a good enough job and, honestly, I don’t have a strainer that fine. If you don’t have a blender or aren’t into soup that sort of resembles baby food, that’s cool. I tried a bite of the soup before it went into the blender, with just the onions, mushrooms and broth all cooked together, and it was amazing! It was sort of a different twist on a french onion soup.

So, technically, this soup recipe could actually be considered two soup recipes- a vegan cream of mushroom AND a French Onion Mushroom soup, depending on how you prepare it. Don’t you just love this blog =)

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