I made this for an easy and quick Sunday night dinner. We were all feeling tired and worn out so I needed a recipe that wasn’t going to take a lot of chopping power or concentration. Emmy (my 15 month old) really liked having the beans and rice separate on her plate. This is also another very inexpensive meal that can feed lots of people! Yea for feeding 4 people for less than 4 dollars! Gluten-free and Vegan is a great way to save some hard earned cash.
Dinner 9/27/2009:
Mexican Brown Rice with Pinto Beans
Ingredients:
Directions:
Heat oil in a 2-quart pot. Add cumin and chili powder and saute for a few seconds. Add onion and salt and continue cooking until onion is soft. Add rice and stir well to coat. Now add water and tomato paste and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, until all the water is absorbed (about 4 minutes). Serve next to hot pinto beans.
From Cynthia Lair’s Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods (Best cookbook I have ever had!)
Alternative if you already have rice cooked: Add cooked rice without any water but an extra tablespoon of tomato paste. Also – if you like onions (we love them) add an extra sauted onion to the pinto beans, less finely chopped for more flavor. This is a very mild meal which is great for kiddos but can sometime need an extra boost at the table. I also served this alongside a dry green lettuce salad (you can pile the rice and beans on top for dressing or make lettuce wraps at the table) and hard corn tortilla’s so that rice and beans taco’s could be made. Yum!
Last Tuesday I decided that I was tired of gluten-free rolled oats and needed a change of pace. So I decided that we needed to try something new. Corn Grits? It doesn’t sound great but they are very delicious. You can serve them with fresh raw honey(or Agave Juice) and rice milk or soy milk for extra tastyness. You could add regular milk if you are not vegan.
I recommend Bob’s Red Mill Corn Grits which can also be used to make polenta (I haven’t tried it yet but it’s on my list!). I served a half of Banana in each bowl to add a serving of fruit in the morning. Nuts could also be a good option but I’m not a huge fan of nuts in the early morning. I should say, to be fair, that my husband does not care for this meal. He grew up eating corn grits and now won’t eat them anymore. He doesn’t have to eat gluten-free so he had Cheerios instead.
Tonight I made one of our new favorites! We looked at the total cost of the meal and it is about $6.50 to feed 4 people! I hope you enjoy it – gluten-free and vegan and yummy. My daughter LOVES this meal and literally was squealing while eating it – talk about kid-friendly. Everything is gluten-free and vegan and could easily be make as a ‘camp’ meal without much fuss or even clean up.
Dinner 9/24/2009:
Black Bean Tacos with Green Salad
For 4 People:
Directions:
Saute chopped onion until soft, add black beans to heat. Chop tomatoes and set aside. Cut avocados into long strips. Rinse and rip lettuce. Heat hard corn taco shells in oven (350 degrees for a few minutes). Put lettuce on plates with basil leaves on top. Make tacos using lettuce, basal, black beans mixed with onions, tomatoes, avocados. Once everyone has a ‘hard taco’ with fixings encourage people to make taco salads with remaining ingredients – no dressing necessary!
I just picked up the book Feeding the Whole Family. I have been getting recipe’s from the book off the internet but I figured I should probably own the cookbook if I liked it so much. supposedly it i has great kid-friendly recipe’s and can be gluten-free and vegan or easily modified. I guess we will have to see – I haven’t even gotten to open it yet! I don’t normally buy cookbooks and if I do I buy Gluten-Free emphasis cookbooks so this is a whole new adventure for me. I am really excited to start reading it this next week. Bastyr’s Website pulls a lot of recipe’s from her book and I have liked everyone that I have tried thus far. More reviews to come of future delicious meals!
Another Gluten-Free, Vegan, Kid-Friendly meal that will fill your families tummy and save you lots at the grocery store! Yea for bargain meals!
I made this recipe last Sunday night for my family and it was surprisingly good! My husband was super skeptical coming to the table and wasn’t sure about the ‘combination’ of ingredients but they all went very well together. The best part is that this is a super fast and easy recipe that can be a good last minute dinner if you have run out of time. The brown rice can be made far in advance and everything else just takes a few minutes. I also made a Green Bean and Sesame Salad recipe to go with the meal (gotta get your vegetables in) but it was terrible, so I won’t share that really bad recipe. To the credit of the recipe it called for rice miso which I wasn’t able to add because it is not gluten-free (or I couldn’t find a gluten-free version) so I had to try to substitute and I think it went badly. Steamed Green beans next to the Brown Rice and Kidney Beans would be delicious and will fix the need for a green something at the table.
Last night, Wednesday night, I served this as left overs but added an extra can of black beans so that it was very heavy on the beans. I really like it when there are more beans rather than less so that is another option. The black beans with the kidney beans also looks really good together. We ate a green salad next to it last night to get in the veggies.
Dinner 9/20/2009:
Dilled Kidney Beans and Brown Rice
Salad:
Dressing:
Directions:
1.) Mix oil, vinegar and dill with whisk or shake in small jar
2.) Pour dressing over rice, beans and onion, toss gently.
If possible, let sit an hour or tow as flavors mellows with time.
From Feeding the Whole Family, by Cynthia Lair. Moon Smile Press, Seattle, WA.
Today I felt like I needed to cut costs even more and so I have decided to make my Hummus instead of buying it at Costco! It is actually one of the easiest and most delicious little dishes I have ever made. Who knew Hummus had just a few ingredients? I would warn you that this makes A LOT of Hummus. I like to leave out Hummus as an O’rderve with Rice Chips or Carrots and Celery or as an afternoon snack or lunch treat. Enjoy!
This Middle Eastern dip is traditionally made with chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil. Prepare and refrigerate it a day ahead; let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with a lemon wedge and fresh parsley sprig, and serve with Rice Chips or Vegetables.
White Bean and Roasted Garlic Hummus
Ingrediants:
preparation:
Remove white papery skin from 2 whole garlic heads (do not peel or separate the cloves). Wrap each head separately in foil. Bake at 350° for 1 hour; cool 10 minutes. Separate cloves; squeeze to extract garlic pulp. Discard skins.
Place garlic pulp, Traditional Hummus, and 1 (15-ounce) can rinsed and drained cannellini beans (or other white beans) in a food processor; pulse 5 times or until chopped (I used my blender). Add all other ingredients; process until smooth, scraping down sides as needed. Stir in chopped fresh rosemary.
CALORIES 45 (40% from fat); FAT 2g (sat 0.3g, mono 1g, poly 0.6g); PROTEIN 1.8g; CARB 5.3g; FIBER 1.2g; CHOL 0mg; IRON 0.4mg; SODIUM 81mg; CALC 16mg.
Laura Zapalowski, Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2008
Dinner 9/19/2009:
Last night I made a great Vegan and Gluten Free Chili. It had a bit of spice so keep that in mind when adding the jalapeno if you have an audience that doesn’t like spice. My one year old didn’t mind the spice so it might be OK for most people. It definitely feeds 8 people so feel free to make half or be ready for left-overs.
Black Bean and Quinoa Chili
Ingrediants:
Directions:
Combine quinoa and water in saucepan, cover and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until liquid is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a large, non-stick pan; add onion, bell pepper, celery and jalapeno. Saute 7 minutes over medium heat. Stir in fresh tomatoes and carrots; saute 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in beans, crushed tomatoes, and seasonings; cook about 25 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in quinoa; cook 5 minutes more.
Ladle chili into bowls and top with green onions if desired.
Yields: 8 servings.
After a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and peaches yesterday, just about everything went downhill. I had a Mom’s group to be at by 10am and ambitiously thought maybe I would walk there with the kids (about an hour walk) but then Emmy’s nap went long and that went out the door. Then I thought to be economical and take the bus and walk back but we missed the bus too. So then we are in the car, being your typical consumer, when with a little planning and forethought I could have actually made my morning goals. Uhg.
We arrive at the Mom’s group and everyone was supposed to bring something ‘brunchy’ and I thought to myself to bring sausages, not because I was going to eat them but because they were still in my freezer and I am trying to find creative ways to work the meats and dairy out of the kitchen/our home. So I cooked up those once-tasty little guys and brought them with me. They were very well received but by the end of group – while Emmy is screaming and I am desperately trying to get out the door – the sausages are not finished off. So there we are in the car, again, with those smelly, amazingly smelly, little buggers. I down 4 sausages and hand the 5th to my daughter who is making hungry clucking noises at me.
I immediately feel guilty and ashamed at my inability to control myself. I had packed snacks! Why didn’t I eat them? Being a Gluten-Free Vegan makes you very hungry a lot more often (eating about 5-6 times per day vs. 3 times if you are eating meat and dairy with high protein counts). We all got home, took a nap and felt a lot better. It was a very discouraging moment but I learned I need to bring a Gluten-Free Vegan option to the Mommy deals because it is not likely that anyone else will and I do like feeling included instead of having to dig out my personal baggy of nuts. We’re human and we like to fellowship over food, good food, mine just needs to be Gluten-Free and Vegan. More inspiration for next time – two weeks to plan till the next Mom’s Brunch.
Breakfast 9/18/2009:
We had our first Gluten-Free/Vegan breakfast this morning! I went to Manna Mills in Mountlake Terrace yesterday to buy bulk Bob’s Red Mill GF Oats. I was able to purchase them for $2.99/lb which I was pretty happy with considering how expensive GF alternatives are ! Looking at the Bob’s Red Mill website I can actually purchase them cheaper but then I have to pay for shipping – if you get them in a case though you can get a %10 discount!
We have used Agave Juice before as a natural sweetener and I really like how it tastes, we do get the light kind to reduce the sugar content even further. Peach season is here right now and I picked up a beautiful flat of peaches at Costco yesterday (bad me for not supporting my local market last weekend). Super delicious anyway.
So we had big bowls of GF Oats, Rice Milk on top with a little Agave juice and some sliced peaches. It was so refreshing! We have a house guest staying with us right now and he seemed very pleased with breakfast as well! Tonight I am going to make Black Bean and Quinoa Chili for dinner. Off to the local market for me today!
Dinner 9/17/2009:
la Carta de Oaxaca has been our favorite restaurant in Seattle for the past 4 years or so. It is located in downtown Ballard (where we live) and has great night life around it. We have gone there on many if not most date nights and have eaten almost the same meal every time. This week, being our first Vegan week, we had to change things up a bit!
Caleb, tried and true to his meal, ordered the same thing: Tacos Carne Asada and Quesadilla Fritas. I decided to branch out and get my seafood for the week. I ordered the Cocktail de Camarones and their Halibut (not listed on the online menu). It was all amazing. I didn’t eat Caleb’s at all but have been eating that dish for the last 4 years so I know it was very tasty. It is gluten-free but is in no way vegan as the tacos have beef and the Quesadilla’s are made with cheese. So really, he cheated big time.
My dinner, since I allow seafood, was amazing. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this restaurant if you don’t eat at least seafood as I think the substitutions might be more difficult but it is certainly a talented kitchen! The Halibut Tacos were truly the tastiest halibut tacos I have ever had and more than enough to fill one’s tummy. The Cocktail de Camarones is not my favorite but was in no way not good, I’m just not a huge shrimp person. No cheese on anything which was nice not have to omit things that were supposed to be in the dish – I hate doing that.
Overall I give this restaurant a 5 out of 5 if you can eat Seafood and a 3 out of 5 if you are a strict vegan. I also highly recommend their Margarita’s or any mixed drink for that matter – the bartender is fabulous!
