In a Wrap or on a Bed

My husband loves things to be wrapped, sandwiched, covered with some sort of carbohydrate goodness. While I'm not afraid of carbs, I prefer that they be a separate entity (like muffins). So its become a trend that when I make tacos, or burritos, or anything that could be a wrap or sandwich, I end up eating it on a bed of greens.

Yesterday, our wrap vs. bed meal was BBQ Seitan Tacos.

This weekend I used this recipe for Seitan Cutlets.

I chopped up three cutlets and mixed with half an onion, sliced thin, and enough BBQ sauce to coat. I let it marinate while I cut up some avocado, tomato, and cilantro. After that, the seitan and onion went into a medium-hot pan coated with cooking spray, and it was covered, and cooked for about 15 minutes, stirring periodically (but not too often, so you get those nice brown spots).

Then the raging debate began.

On a wrap?

Or on a bed?

Then the debate ended because our mouths were too full. This was so easy and so yummy. Plus I had no idea how happy avocado makes my husband!

Anyone else for the wrap? Or the bed? I'm a supporter of greens wherever I can get them!

I am now off to a yoga class! We started at a new gym and I am quite pleased.

Fiesta Oats

Pesonally, I think this is delicious, but my husband thinks its gross and a complete disgrace to oatmeal.

I love it. I think its fun, its colorful, its got veggies and whole grains. How could you go wrong. Well, decide for yourself, but I present you with one of my most favorite meals, that I probably have at least 3 times a week:

Fiesta Oats!

The consistently ugly pictures are what has kept me from posting about this...bear with me.

The ingredients are as simple as you'd think:

1/2 cup oatmeal

1 1/2 cups frozen broccoli

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup salsa

1/3 cup frozen corn.

Its the method though, that makes it perfect:

First, cook the broccoli (I just use the "frozen veg" option on my microwave)

Add the oatmeal, salsa, and water, stir until combined.

Cook at 50% power for 5 minutes.

(You should cover with a paper towel or something, it splatters)

Remove, stir in corn, cook an additional 30 seconds on 100% power.

Then, enjoy!

Keep in mind that it just finished being in the microwave for well over 5 minutes. That sucker is HOT. Sometimes I use oven mitts, but since I never eat in close proximity to my microwave, I always put the bowl onto a hot plate for transport

Today, I am eating in front of my computer, love Mac's Photo Booth.

I highly suggest you try it, the salsa makes the oats even more creamy, plus it gives them a little bit of a kick. Some pep. Something totally yummy and awesome. Oh, plus it is versatile; I've usually have it for breakfast but it is now also my default for lunch or dinner. I have added some black beans for a more substantial meal, Trader Joe's soy nuggets or tofu scramble for an extra boost of protein, and yesterday when I was out of frozen broccoli, I used frozen peppers and onions instead (for something I like to call, Fajita Oats). Any of those things get added in with the corn.

So there you have it. Weird but amazing and satisfying. Yummy way to start the day!

Hawaii Part 2 - The Food

While I was a vegetarian for part of time that I was in Hawaii, I still had to really start exploring food like I do now.  So, I was really looking forward to trying a few new places, visiting a few new favorites, and picking up as much cool foodstuffs as I could.  

Oh, and I was successful.  Note to self, next time, bring a bigger bag.

I knew exactly where I wanted to go for dinner when I got into Honolulu:  The Big City Diner.  This place is about as vegan as it sounds, but I knew that they had a stir fry with tofu that I love.  One of the good things about Hawaii is that they have a really heavy Asian  influence (a lot of Japanese immigrants, specifically), so they tend to offer tofu more than some other places, where it is purely thought of as a vegetarian food option.  Sadly, I was in too much of a rush to even think about finding my camera and taking a picture, but I had the Mamasan's Vegetable Stir Fry, which is broccoli, bamboo shoots, peppers, carrots, onions, and tofu, over brown rice, with a little sprinkle of some kind of seaweed topping.  

After that, we walked to the grocery store, because my husband is sick, and needed some sinus relief.  For some reason....I seemed to think I had much more time in Hawaii than I thought.  I spent awhile in the "ethnic" food aisle, which had tons of stuff that I wanted to get, but I wanted to go back when we weren't rushed (we were on our way to the turtles).  That never happened, I didn't have an ounce of room for more stuff come Saturday!

I know, I know, no pictures yet!  But chill out, relax...this is a post about Hawaii, remember?

Okay, for breakfast, we stayed on the North Shore.  I knew I'd be able to create myself a filling vegan breakfast at Cafe Hale'iwa.  I had sauteed veggies, vegetarian pinto beans, and half an avocado.  If you ever happen to go here, and are vegan, be sure to ask for no cheese on the beans.    

Across from Cafe Hale'iwa is a natural foods store called Celestial Foods.  They had a pretty nice selection of stuff, some that you see at every natural food store, some that I have never seen before.  A good bit of it was local too, like the fruit that I bought, so that was awesome!  

Next was the Dole Plantation.  I know, ::cringes:: this is horribly touristy, and I have honestly never been there before without visitors.  However, since I have been there with visitors, I knew that they have lots of cool food stuffs.  

The loot from both places:

Organic baby pears, local bananas and tangerines

A stash of bars, of course.  I had never seen the Vega bars before, and tried them, even though I'm not a huge fan of the Vega powder.  They were both really good!  The Raw Organic Chocolately Chip I had already tried, when Heather sent me one on my Perfect Day, and I had to buy it again.  I was also super excited to try the Glenny's Marshmallow Treat, but I thought it was just okay...but it may have been the warm weather.  

These are both locally made.  The Spirulina Popcorn was really interesting, made with spirulina and nutritional yeast.  The raw crackers are made on Maui, and they had a mediterranean flavor, sun-dried tomatoes and whatnot.

Artisana raw Cacao Bliss.  This stuff is amazing.  If you ever find it, you should buy it!  The Mini Sesame Crepes are awesome also.  They are made of sesame seeds, brown rice syrup, pineapple, salt, etc, all good(ish) stuff.  The bag on the right is a mix of taro, purple sweet potato, and orange sweet potato sticks.    

After all that, we decided some relaxing on the beach would be nice.  We went to our favorite beach, Lanikai (which I posted pictures of yesterday), but stopped in Kailua for lunch beforehand.  Even though we shopped and then took the scenic route, I was still pretty held over from lunch.  So I stopped at Lanikai Juice and got a Da Kine smoothie:  Oranges, Bananas, Papaya, Pineapple, and Lilikoi (which is akin to passionfruit).  We also went to Maui Tacos, because my husband wanted something more substantial.  I just got a bean taco.  We ate on the beach!

Unfortunately, they kind of duped us.  They must have run out of beans or something, because my bean taco...was a tomato taco.  Yes, I asked for the to put tomatoes on it ALSO, but not instead.  This was later confirmed when my husband realized his burrito was beanless also.  Usually Maui Tacos is one of my favorite places, the Paia Burrito is my favorite, with beans, avocado, tomatoes, and rice.

We had dinner back up in Hale'iwa (the North Shore).  Hale'iwa Eats is a popular little Thai place, that I had been to once, back in 2006, before I really started to appreciate food.  I figured I had to try it again.  My dinner, a Panang Curry (of course) was fantastic!  It was really really good, and my husband had a Pineapple Shrimp Curry that was also good.  The lighting in there was really low, and I didn't get any sharing-worthy pictures.  

Sunday morning I was already excited for.  We got up early and I had some fruit and a Sesame Mini Crepe to tide me over until "lunch" (in quotes because we got up at 7, so "lunch" was at like, 10:30).  

We went to the Paradise Found Cafe, which is behind the Celestial Foods store.  They are really popular for their smoothies, which my husband tried:

I'm not sure what it was.  It tasted apple-y, and it was really good.  

I wanted "real" food though.  As far as I know, this is the only purely vegetarian restaurant on the island.  The downside is that it is DEFINITELY vegetarian, not vegan, there is a lot of egg and cheese on the menu, but it is a totally awesome, kind of hole-in-the-wall sort of place...and exact atmosphere you would expect on the North Shore.  The owner does all the cooking, and he is really friendly.  

As for what I had...well, if you've been to Hawaii, you may be familiar with "Drive-Ins" and the plate lunch.  Drive-Ins...well you don't drive in to them, drive up to them, anything like that.  You drive TO them, then park and walk to them, like almost any other restaurant.  Its weird.  Anyway, they are famous for the plate lunch, which is meat, white rice, and mac salad.  Its really gross..my husband loves it.  One of the sections on Paradise Found's menu was plate lunches, and I was hungry, so I went for it.  I had the Garlic Walnut Tempeh, which was such a nice change of pace after all the beans and tofu I had been rotating through.  

    

Marinated Tempeh with Sauteed Veggies (broccoli, peppers, carrots) and walnuts.  Brown rice instead of white, and a light green salad with sprouts, and some cilantro lime dressing on the side.  

Okay, this was fantastic.  I can't wait to go back for Spring Break so that I can eat there again.  My husband had a huge chili burrito, that he didn't believe was vegetarian until I pointed out to him on the menu that it was a "vegetarian cafe".  Silly guy.  On my way out, of course, I had to stop at Celestial Foods again, and I picked up something I hadn't seen the first time around...vegan gummy bears!

I just realized I photographed the French side!

Have I ever mentioned that in my pre-vegan, pre-healthy, days, I LOVED stuff like this?  I loved gummy bears, jelly beans, lemon heads, etc.  In high school, I would go to the candy store and buy a big bag of Jelly Bellies, and eat them throughout the day.  Oh to be young and have a metabolism that doesn't care.  It caught up in college, I gained 30 pounds.  Oops.  

The rest of the day, as I mentioned yesterday, was boring.  We got him a cell phone, we went to Borders, etc.  At the recommendation of the chef at Paradise Found, we stopped at Down to Earth, an all vegetarian, natural food store in Honolulu, to pick up some prepared stuff to bring on the plane.  While we were there we had some pizza (even my husband had vegan pizza, he is trying to stop eating dairy).    

I also found some sweet & sara marshmallows while I was there.  I found it odd that I haven't seen these in any stores near me (in MY, where the company is based), but I found it in Hawaii.  All in all...I think they're okay.  You may guess that, in my love of sugar, I loved marshmallows.  Well, you would be correct.  I was possibly Peeps' biggest fan.  No more.  So, these didn't live up to that, they were too dense, and just tasted like sugar to me.  I dunno.  I'll probably eat them anyway.   

For the plane, I had initially bought a bunch of fruit, but soon remembered that you can't bring fruit through the agricultural inspection.  Crap.  I got food from the prepared food bar.  I did take a picture, but I am lazy and didn't upload it yet.  I got some "Chik'n" style tofu, curries quinoa with currants, and a really awesome sweet and spicy veggie salad.  I soon learned that you also can't bring tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers in prepared food (I asked).  I didn't know this, so I had to eat it all out of the veggies before I went through, but they didn't even check it.

And then...I flew home.  I actually slept on the first flight, for almost all of it.  And I feel like I've been half-asleep ever since.  

I'm sorry I haven't caught up on everyone's blogs, but I'm at least caught up on the last few days!  And for those of you who asked for a CD, I *am* still sending it, I promise, I'm just a little backlogged :)   

Corn Pasta Fritters

Corn Pasta Fritters with Cheesey Black Beans and 2 Minute Guacamole

...what a mouthful...

Corn Pasta Fritters

6 oz corn pasta

9 oz silken tofu (3 slices of Mori-Nu)

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup chopped scallions

2 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1/4 cup spelt flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

season to taste

Cheesey Black Beans

1 1/2 cans black beans

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup canned diced tomatoes (or fresh if you want to be fancy)

2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder

3/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp vegan cream cheese

season to taste

2 Minute Guac

1 1/2 avocado 

1/3 cup chopped onion

1/3 cup canned diced tomatoes

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

season to taste

 

1.  Set oven to warm

2.  Blend the tofu with everything but the pasta and scallions.  Mix in scallions and allow to sit so that the cornmeal can soften.

3.  Boil a pot of water, and cook the pasta until tender.

4.  While the pasta is cooking, sautee the onions and garlic in a pan, until tender.  Add tomatoes, black beans, spices, and cream cheese, stirring until warmed through.  Remove from heat, and keep covered.  

5.  Coat a pan with cooking spray.  Divide the pasta into 6 portions, and add one portion to the pan.  Add 1/6th of the tofu and cornmeal mixture, mixing the pasta into it, and spreading it out into an even layer.  Cook until browned and firm, then flip (I used a plate, slid it onto that, then flipped), cooking the other side until it is cooked through.  

6.  Keep finished pasta fritters on a baking sheet in the warm oven.  

7.  While the fritters are cooking, combine all the ingredients for the guacamole in a bowl and mash.  

8.  Garnish with sliced scallions.

Serves 6

Nutrition Information:  440.0 Calories;  11.7g Total Fat;  2.0g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  70.0g Carbohydrates;  15.5g Fiber;  17.8g Protein

I bought corn pasta at the Asian grocery near my friend's house a few weeks ago, and with all the driving I've been doing lately, I've had lots of time to think about food, just not a lot of time to cook it!  Well, I seem to have finally gotten my act together.  I got to school perfectly on time, I left and went straight to the gym, and then stopped at the grocery store, and was home by 6.  This left me plenty of time to make dinner for my family tonight, and I had been thinking about making some kind fritter with these noodles for about a week.  It all came out so well, my whole family really liked it.  

If you don't have the pasta, could probably make smaller fritters with actual corn.  And if you don't have vegan cream cheese, it isn't really necessary.  Separately and all together it is really yummy, and really filling.  While it makes a pretty picture all piled, as shown above, but it tastes the best if you smoosh it all over the fritter and eat it together!  

Student teaching is going so well...it looks like we'll probably have a snow day tomorrow and I think it is the first time in my life that I have ever wished that school wouldn't be cancelled!  The teacher next door is giving a mid-term lab, and I really want to help.  It is Regents week, so it was a pretty slow day, but I spent a long time talking with my cooperating teacher.  I know I've said this before, but he is awesome.  

Oh, and my husband is officially home from Iraq.  I may have said that earlier, but you're not really supposed to give exact dates or discuss troop movement, so instead of saying he was in Kuwait, or Germany, or leaving tomorrow, etc, it was just easier to say he was done.  But he called me from Hawaii this morning and...I can tell you that, since the deployment is over!

I am so pumped to send out some CDs too, I love sharing music.  I posted about it on Sunday, and if anyone else is interested, leave me a comment or send an email by tomorrow night.   

This has been such a busy time for me, but I am so happy.  I really love being able to come on here and I want to thank you all for staying with me!