Plant Strong Recipe Friday: Jennifer's Plantastic BBQ Beans and Quinoa Pilaf

Jennifer's Plantastic BBQ Beans and Quinoa Pilaf

Ingredients

• 1 can of rinsed and drained pinto beans (Great Northern or other white beans would work just as well. )
• 1 bag of shredded cabbage slaw mix
• 1 small white onion
• 1/2 C of frozen kale
• 1 Jar of Bone Suckin' Sauce
• 1 Jalapeno (optional)
• 1 C uncooked red Quinoa
• 2 C water

Method:

1. Bring to boil 2 C of water in another pot. Add the 1C of quinoa when ready and cook per directions. I added in the last 5 minutes 1C of frozen kale and 1 chopped white onion.
2. While the Quinoa cooks, Add the drained/rinsed beans in a pot with diced jalapeno (if desired), 1 - 1 1/2 Cups of shredded slaw mix and 1/4 - 1/2 C Bone Suckin' Sauce. I started with 1/4C and added another 2 Tbs only, but use per your preference. Heat over medium heat until completely combined and the slaw mix is soft. Should take about the same time as the Quinoa to cook.
   

To Serve:
I scooped out some quinoa pilaf and topped with a healthy serving of beans. I then topped with additional raw cabbage mix, a few sliced of avocado, some hot sauce and some nutritional yeast.
This dish reminds me of all of the best parts of BBQ with none of the guilt.. you get your BBQ, baked beans and cole-slaw all a top a clean pilaf of quinoa.

An adventure in Seitan and Kale

Tonight I decided to be adventurous and let my Door to Door Organics delivery determine what I would make for dinner.  By adventurous, I do mean being as adventurous as one can be while being relegated to complete rest for at least a week.  Since I am baking chicken and noodles for Mike, once I opened the D2DO box and saw what was inside I knew exactly what to make for myself: greens Italian Style with seitan and kale chips for snacking later.


The greens I am using are kale and rainbow chard, two of my absolute favorite.  Throw in some spinach and I am in heaven.  I use these three leafy veggies at every single meal.  Yes.  Every.  Mm-hm, breakfast included.  And here is what is really going to make you go 'hmmmm"...  I add them to my breakfast smoothie, often with Chocolate Shakeology.  Yumm-o!

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Inspiration struck when I saw the two large bundles sitting proudly atop the organic bounty at my doorstep.  I love Italian dishes centered around veggies with pasta as a side-kick. I also love leafy greens.  When the opportunity arises to combine the two I jump at it.


Kale and Swiss Chard are both powerhouse veggies packing tons of vitamins for very few calories. Chard has an added benefit; the phytonutrient antioxidants in chard act as anti-inflammatory agents. Sometimes they lower risk of chronic, unwanted inflammation which  has repeatedly been shown to increase our risk of obesity, atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and several forms of arthritis. Ew.  


Seitan (vital wheat gluten or wheat gluten) is a great replacement for animal proteins if you are not gluten intolerant and prefer to abstain from consuming copious amounts of soy. 


I happened to have on hand some Italian style canned tomatoes and some Italian style seitan, as well as some odds and ends of veggies that must be consumed pretty quickly else they would find themselves populating my composter come mid-week.  My next adventure will be to make my own seitan, but for now I will happily consume the prepared versions.


On to the recipes!


Verdi stile italiano con Seitan
(Greens Italian Style with Seitan)
You must pardon me - I literally make these up as I cook and never really measure anything too specifically. I believe in cooking from the heart and cooking from the pallet. I think of recipes as guidelines unless it is a more scientific food such as souffles or baked goods. So take inspiration from these recipes and do what will work for your kitchen, your family, and your pallet. 

• 1/2 bunch Swiss Chard
• 1/2 bunch Kale
• 2 cans of Italian style tomatoes plus any additional tomatoes laying around
• 5 large Mushrooms (baby portabella)
• 1 Zucchini
• 1/2 Vidalia onion
• Coconut oil (or any other vegetable oil)
• Italian style seitan (I used Upton's)
• Past or Rice of choice

Cook pasta or rice per directions.  :-)

In a saute pan  heat the coconut oil and then toss in all the vegetables except the canned tomatoes and greens.  Saute until the onions are translucent then  add in the seitan.  Stir to heat through then add the greens and stir to coat.  Lastly add in both cans of tomatoes and heat through.    

Once fully heated serve over rice or pasta. 

Kale Chips To Live For

I am stealing the roasting temp and time from my friend Jaye - Every time that I have made kale chips before they have fallen flat to my expectations: wilted and soggy or burnt... or wilted, soggy AND burnt.   The key here is roasting them at the right temp for the right time. Thank you Jaye! 

• Roasting pan or cookie sheet
• Kale very roughly chopped in to 2-3" sections
• Sea salt (I used Celtic sea salt since it has trace minerals) or you can use any seasoning you like - barbecue or garlic would also be very good. 
• Oil (I actually used grapeseed oil since I was out of olive oil)

Pre-heat your oven to 350*.  Mix in a bowl the rough chopped kale and oil.  Lay out on pan to roast, sprinkle with seasoning or sea salt.   Roast for ~25 or so minutes.  

Be careful when you take out of the oven as they are pretty irresistible!  

Mmmmm indeed. 

Challenge Motivation Week 2, Part 2

Late-week check-in time on the challenge!  If you haven't done anything yet this week - this weekend is the perfect time to go for a walk, get in some treadmill stationary bike or elliptical time, or even get your food preparations done for next week.  We cannot live life looking through a rear-view mirror, so we must keep making forward progress.  This is the jump-start on developing healthy new habits, or reinforcing those which you already have. 

Let's use this weekend as the jumping off point for a very successful week 3, getting ready to feed both our bodies and our souls!  This weekend I am planning on making some homemade soups.  I have included the recipe for my potato-fennel soup below for those interested..

I am also planning on swimming Saturday morning with FAST and then Sunday evening with my friends Anne and Jaye.  I also hope to get in a ride on my bike and a 10-12 mile run although my knee is hurting after last night's run.  I may have to go shorter and see what my knee is telling me.

In addition to all of that, I hope to get some cleaning done, prep for the following week, some headway on my very last graduate research paper and my school work for the week done.  Ahhh... all in the life of Jenn!  5 weeks until the finish line!


Tale from Ironman, Part 2

Susie

When Annelise and I were heading out for the run that was not meant to be, we were seeing a lot of athletes coming in and riding their bikes around before checking them in.  We noticed that there were many road bikes and even a hybrid bike or two.  Interesting.  One of the athletes on a road bike was named Susie and she was from Canada, although living in Holland.  We discussed her race plans, why she was doing the race, and how she felt about it.  This was her first Ironman and told us that she would rather have an ocean swim than a hilly bike.  We saw her and her husband multiple times throughout the day, and come race day I saw her in the swim chute where I was a peeler and then again as she crossed the finish line.  It was so great experiencing her race day through her eyes as it was unfolding.  She stopped in the swim chute and gave me a big hug with a huge smile on her face and then again when I saw her finish I yelled to her and she ran over and gave me another big hug, telling me that she just DID THAT!

I like to take away the lesson that this is a privileged not a given, and if we work hard enough for our goals or rather even when we work hard for our goals, we need to truly enjoy the experience, the journey not just the finish line.  She never said thank goodness I am done, or I am glad that is over.  She simply marveled in what she accomplished that day - wide eyed and smiling all the way.   

If we are working towards a goal, we need to keep in mind what this goal means to us.  If it is for vanity reasons only, we are less likely to accomplish the goal because it has little real meaning to us.

When setting your goals be they short or long term based, we need to attach real meaning to them otherwise we are setting ourselves up for a failure or at best a shallow success.