Leafy Vegetarian Chili

When I first begin to transitions to a whole foods life style, I used to try to substitute any meat type recipe with spinach or broccoli.  From rice to pasta if one of the ingredient consisted of meats  I would throw in spinach instead. It worked great for a while but I still lacked the daily amount of iron needed. So I decided I needed to switch things up  and add natural iron- rich  foods to my meals. The easiest food that came to mind after dark leafy greens were beans . I probably said it before on this blog but I really dislike beans.  So it was pretty hard for me to go along with the idea of making a meal around beans when i pretty much grew up eating around the beans on my plate , but with some research I decided to do vegetarian chili.  Its so easy and simple to make that i make it about every other week with a different special ingredient each time. This week was spinach and kale , check out the recipe below:

Leafy  Vegetarian Chili

• 1 can of No Salt Added Organic Black Beans drained and rinsed
• 1 can of  No Salt Added Organic Kidney Beans drained and rinsed
•  2 cans of No Salt Added  Organic diced tomatoes
• 1/2 a bag of  Organic Frozen Corn
• 1/2 a bag of Organic Frozen or Fresh Spinach
• 1/2 a bag of Organic Frozen or Fresh Kale
•  Organic Spicy Chili powder seasoning
• 1/2 of an onion
• 2 cloves of  garlic
• red pepper flakes (optional)

Dice the onions and garlic and put in a  hot pan with a little bit of olive oil, when softened add the beans and corn. Stir-fry the beans, corn and onions and garlic till they appear tender, than add the diced tomatoes and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the Spicy Chilli powder packet and stir evenly through the pot and let simmer for another 5 minutes. Mix in the spinach, kale and red pepper flakes and stir,  simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve alone or with tortilla chip, over rice or sprinkled with cheese.

FYI : Adding a small can of  tomato sauce will make this chili more of a soup type chili , you can also add vegetable broth for a richer taste if you don’t mind the sodium.

Happy Cooking!

Home-made Gourmet Pizza

I’ve blogged about my love for Whole Foods Pizza and also Papa Johns veggie pizza  at one point since I started this blog, but lately they weren’t  the same. In the past weeks my family and I have tried different pizzas from various local pizza shops and they all seemed to be lackluster and blasé.  So my sister and I decided to make our own pizza for a change, and boy was it amazing! The pizza was so easy to make , yet tasted  gourmet and cost nearly half the amount it would cost delivered. I took a short cut and used a pre-package Whole Foods wheat pizza crust that comes with 2 medium to large size crusts. The taste was very similar to Whole Foods pizza crust served at their pizza station and not sour doughy like most pre-made crusts.  The ingredients added where pretty simple and basic, but we added a few simple ingredients that made the pizza taste fancier than your ordinary cheese pizza. We topped the pizza with sliced provolone cheese  in addition to the shredded mozzarella , as well as fresh spinach. We than sprinkle dried basil, red pepper flakes, cracked black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder sparingly over the pizza and voilà : Homemade Gourmet Pizza! One bite out of this, and you’ll wonder why you never made your own pizza.

Happy Baking!

 

 

Whole Foods Caprese Pizza

You ever had those days where , you are so hungry but you can’t decide what you want to eat. Well that happens to me just about everyday , Ive always been a picky eater but since transitioning I’ve gotten a little bit more pickier.  One place I love to go when I can’t make up my mind on what to eat is Whole Foods. I love their hot bar, salad bar , pizza station , bakery and just about anything in the store that you can eat on the go. One of the best hidden gem in Whole Foods though is their pizza station. I love them for the fact that their pizza is made with whole wheat flour instead of white , and they flavor the pizza with herbs along with a garlic  crust that makes  the cheese pizza such a great treat.  On this particular day I had to pass up on the cheese pizza and try this beauty of a pizza that caught my eye. Not every Whole Foods is the same in how they make their pizza but this particular Whole Foods I frequent warms up your pizza in the pizza oven , so this took this Caprese pizza to a whole another level.  Who can pass up on a pizza that is a essentially a caprese  salad on a pizza slice. Its pricey at $3.50 a slice but it was so worth it! If you’re ever in a Whole Foods , and they have this on display I urge you to try it. You wont regret it.

 

Kale and lentil tabbouleh salad

 

Tis the season to catch the flu, and boy did it catch me. With a new semester beginning I really didn’t have the time to get sick. So I upped my vitamin C intake to battle the symptoms but my body just wasn’t having it. So I raised the white flag and gave my body some rest.  For days I had no appetite and longed for my green smoothies , but soup and tea was the only thing on the menu. When I finally had some relief  and an appetite I decided to make me a big salad mixed with kale and lentil tabbouleh. This was my first time using baby kale, which in my opinion is very bitter compared to whole leaf kale but it was nutritious nonetheless. This is definitely  going to be a staple salad  for me,its nutritious and tasty and only took five minutes to make. I’ve attached the recipe below:

3 handful of Kale

2 Hass avocados diced

2 Tomatoes diced

1/2 cup of any brand Lentil tabbouleh salad

Enjoy!

Salads Galore

Oh how i miss you guys!!! These past few weeks have been hectic but I’m so glad that its coming to an end. Piled with projects after project i’ finally have some down time to update you guys.

Lately I’ve been trying to eat more vegan type foods. I really want to get use to eating raw foods in its naturalness where the ingredients in the product is just a few things i am able to pronounce. So one day for lunch, i stopped by whole foods and decided to try out the salad bar,and picked out anything that looked good and satiating. So i made a big bowl of Lentil Tabbouleh, Cranberry Couscous salad and a Savory Quinoa salad. They all were a bit different but surprisingly not bad. I’ve noticed most of these salads are about flavors and the common ingredients is ONIONS, if you don’t like onions its pretty much unbearable but if you do then this is a great choice. I got to say though it was nice trying something new and experimenting, i wouldn’t switch out to eat these salads everyday but every now and than with some salmon would be great.

Have your tried Tabbouleh or any Grain Salads before? What are your thoughts?

Afternoon delight

After church Sunday afternoon my sisters and i decided to grab lunch and a matinee. Its not everyday we decide on going to the movie theaters but when Denzel Washington is starring, you just cant pass it up. Unless its that train movie that he did, because that my friends was an utter disappointment… but i digress. We hopped in the car and head over to  the mall, knowing we wanted some time to grab some lunch we ordered our tickets first and than headed to Grand Lux.We’ve been to Grand Lux plenty of times as you can see if you follow the blog, but that day I decided to try something new instead of my usual and ordered up the Veggie Burger. This wasn’t your usual frozen Morning star Burger, this was a made from scratch veggie burger. This particular burger had rice,beans and beets and for an extra two bucks avocado.I read the description and thought if anything its going to be a rice and bean flavored sandwich but to be on the safe side i decided to add the avocado and pepper jack cheese.  When our food came out , you couldn’t even tell the difference which burger was which. This sandwich was massive and tasted great, it had a  rice/ bean flavor  which was a bit dry but the avocado really helped with that. I actually preferred this burger compared to others veggie burgers I’ve had, for the mere fact that it tasted like rice and beans and not some flavored “beef” Burger. As weird as it may sound, i find soy products that are meant to taste like meat, have more of a meatier taste or gamey taste than real meat itself. So a veggie burger that taste like veggies/grains  is always a plus in my book. To make a long story short , we enjoyed lunch but  missed the movie due to overcrowding. But with a lunch like that, it really didn’t matter to us. 🙂

 

 

 

Whole Foods pizza run

The other day, i was in the mood for some pizza. So for my lunch break i decided to head over to Whole Foods to see if they offered any. Let me be the first to tell you that I love Whole foods, its literally like a new adventure every time i go there. I could spend hours looking at products and sampling new things, to me its like a library, grocery store and cafeteria all in one. I freaking love that place lol!…  I usually try keep a budget of five dollars for lunch a day, whether its fruit salad, salads, veggies , parfaits i try my best to keep it at 5 or under. Sometimes i master it sometime i don’t, usually when dealing with whole foods i don’t. On this particular day i was able to keep it under 5 with 2 slices of  cheese pizza at $1.99 a slice. But me wanting something more than cheese, i decided to try one of their specialty pizza which was a Blue Walnut Pizza.  This particular pizza had blue cheese, walnuts, caramelized onions , spinach and the usual mozzarella cheese . All in all To me  it tasted like a salad but at $3.50 a slice, its kinda of pricey. But if you fancy “fancy” pizza than this might spark your interest, but for me I’ll stick to the basics.

FYI: Not sure if it applies to all, Whole foods cheese pizza are made with Whole wheat dough. So technically their good for you , right? lol

Grand Lux’n

Over the weekend, Me and my sis decided to head over to the mall to do some light shopping. We worked up an appetite and  decided to stop at Grand Lux for lunch.  Instead of getting the usual lunch items we decided to order a bunch of things off the Mini bites/ Tapas menu. I ordered the Warm Goat Salad, Macaroni and cheese skillet and  Fried Pickles. While my sis had Avocado and Heirloom Tomato salad, Fried Calamari and Spanish Chorizo and cheese croquettes. It is known that we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths, and this my friends was nothing short of both.    Good Food, Good People, Good Times!

Mediterranean style quesadillas

On my weekly stops at the farmers market, i saw that they had these huge pita breads on sale. Not knowing what i would do with it, i threw it in the basket along with some greens. I than headed over to Whole Foods for some spirulina tablets and decided to grab some cheese. I bought a mozzarella cheese ball and pre- diced goat cheddar. This was my first time trying Goat cheddar but for those who haven’t tried it before , i would say it taste like  a mixture of  goat cheese and sharp cheddar.  Its pretty good but this is coming from a person who likes goat cheese lol, but if you want to try something different this is great to try.

Any-who when i got home i just threw in anything i had in the kitchen and created this Mediterranean style quesadilla. First you spread some pesto sauce on half the pita bread and sliced the mozzarella cheese and goat cheddar. Warm it up for about a minute in the microwave until the cheese is evenly melted. Add sliced tomatoes and fresh spinach followed by a couple splashes of balsamic vinaigrette and dried basil. Fold over the pita bread and cut into 2 to 4 pieces.  🙂

Fancy Smancy Grilled Cheese sandwich

The other day Publix had a sale on the Ezekiel bread, never having tried  it before i figured why not. I ate it with almond butter and coffee one morning , and it was the driest thing i ever tasted. So I contemplated on what i should do with this, cause i wasn’t going to throw away $3.50 just like that. So i looked up sandwich recipes, and came across this Tyler Florence grilled cheese recipe. It asked for  Tomatoes, Mozzarella , Pesto and bread of course. I never had Pesto, so instead of making it the way he did. I used a store bought pesto which was pretty good. Any-who,  I defrosted the Ezekiel bread while i sliced up the tomato and mozzarella. I then proceeded to spread pesto on each slice of bread and layer the tomato and cheese  and closed it up with another slice of  pesto covered  bread. Instead of butter he suggested olive oil to grill the sandwich, i thought it was going to make the sandwich soggy but surprisingly it did not. The Ezekiel bread took the grilling great, it didn’t fall apart or stick to the pan at all .I had my family test it out for me, and they loved it. Little did they know they were eating the driest bread known to  man lol.

FYI: If you have a panini maker it would make thing easier but laying a piece of foil while putting a skillet on top worked out for me.