What Is Left To Eat? -- a Food Journal by Laura Bracken

This first mention isn't the recipe... I'm just sharing about the lovely breakfast I had first.  I just peel and cut up some sweet potato or yam, drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil and mix them up (yes, there was a wee bit of oil in the breakfast... but that's not the recipe we're here for.... the oil free recipe is below... breakfast was just so yummy I wanted to mention it). Then I roast them at 400 degrees until done (30-40 mins depending on your oven).    No need for salt because… When they’re done, I remove the pan from the oven and spoon a lot of sauerkraut over them and then pop them back into the oven for about 5 more minutes. That keeps the cold sauerkraut from cooling off the potatoes, like if you just mixed them together without heating up the kraut. The sauerkraut provides more than enough salt. Mmmmm! Okay, but here’s why we’re really here today. I made these lettuce boats and they turned out so yummy I had to share. Lettuce Boats Ingredients 1 cup of ...

There isn't much more I need to say because the title said it all, but I'll give you the details of my version. First of all, I always assumed sauerkraut was cabbage in salt and vinegar because... I dunno... it seemed to go along with pickled items like capers and pickles.   But today I was perusing the ingredients of various brands of sauerkraut and I was pleasantly surprised to see there was no vinegar.  Quick segue for those who don't know... I avoid distilled white vinegar because it's corn-based and I am corn-intolerant.  There is no shortage of processed foods that have distilled white vinegar as an ingredient. Anyway, I look at the ingredients of Clausen brand sauerkraut: Cabbage, Salt, Water, Sodium Benzoate and Sodium Metabisulfite I'm not keen on things that sound like chemicals or that I'm not familiar with even when they say they are from some natural source in parenthesis afterward. Next I looked at Silver Floss brand: Cabbage, water, salt, sodium b...

These are not part of a healthy whole-foods plant based diet.  They are, however, something I can make/have on occasion or for company.   I do use Miyoko's vegan butter in the recipe.  I will revisit this recipe and try it with water rather than vegan butter, but for now, this is it. Click here for a printable version of this recipe. Garlic Almond Crackers 1 cup almond pulp (the leftover stuff after you make almond milk) 3 tablespoons vegan butter 3 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon flax meal 1 tablespoon chia seed 1 teaspoon dried parsley 1 teaspoon onion powder ½ teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon salt 5-6 garlic cloves smashed or minced Mix everything in a bowl and divide in half.  Roll half of it out between two piece of wax paper to about 1/8th of an inch.  The more evenly you can make the thickness, the less likely you will have some burnt and some raw crackers at the end. Remove the top wax paper, cut lightly with a sharp knife into cracker-sized pieces ...

For breakfast, I wanted sweet potato toast with hummus, but I didn't feel like hauling out the big food processor so I decided to experiment and see if I could make a small batch of hummus using my mini food processor . Here's what I threw into the food processor: 1 cup cooked (or canned) chickpeas ¼ cup tahini 3 garlic cloves, smashed Juice of one lemon 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar 1/8 cup water Salt  It came out great! For lunch, then, I wanted to use up the rest of my chickpeas so I made a salad with stuff I had in the fridge (red leaf lettuce, cucumber, carrot, celery, and the chickpeas).  Then I decided to make a hummus salad dressing. ¼ cup hummus 1 tablespoon honey (you can use maple syrup for vegan option) 1½ teaspoons dijon mustard 1½ sesame oil (you can try without for oil-free version) 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1/8 cup water I put all the ingredients into one of my awesome plastic containers and shake the heck out of it. Then I drizzled a little over the prepa...

In keeping with my meal plan ( see previous post ) I started work on the Moroccan Shepherd’s Pie because I was having company for dinner.  I am a huge fan of shepherd’s pie… traditional sheperd’s pie… MY homemade shepherd’s pie.  I had to go into this knowing it was going to be nothing like my shepherd’s pie, so I dismissed those expectations immediately.  I decided to think of it in terms of the fact that “sheperd’s pie” traditionally represents peasant food… a mash-up, so to speak, of simple maybe even leftover, inexpensive ingredients.  So I was going to make and serve Moroccan flavored peasant food (in the end I ended up referring to it as “casserole”). This recipe is adapted from a  Forks of Knives cookbook  (which I highly recommend… they also have a lot of  great recipes on their website ). So here’s how *I* ended up doing the recipe: Moroccan Flavors Lentil, Spinach, and Sweet Potato Casserole Click here fo...

I have been NOT taking care of my health and hit another one of those “I have to do this!” marks.   So… here we go again.   I know full well that aside from craving fat, sugar, and salt… my biggest problem areas are in not planning. You see, when I have a day filled to the brim with projects that must get done, it’s hard for me to think about what is involved in healthy eating… because usually for me it would be: do dishes, go grocery shopping, do food prep, then cook.   That’s just WAY too much work when I can instead just slather some peanut butter and honey on top of a banana or toast and be done with a “meal” in 10 minutes flat, from creating to eating. Cleaning, prepping, and cooking can take hours if not all day.   Been there, done that.   So how do I resolve this?   A plan.   I have to have a plan and I have to plan ahead. Step 1: Meal plan. Pick 2 or 3 basic meals that I can mix and match for 3-4 days. Step 2: Use Instacar...

Today I made a vegan, no oil ranch dressing without yeast.   As someone who can’t have yeast, I gotta tell ya it’s an ingredient in a TON of yummy sounding WFPB recipes so I face lots of disappointment when I find recipes for foods I like only to find yeast is a significant part of the flavor profile. And while there isn’t anything that can really sub for yeast, I sometimes just omit it and other times I try to replace it with something… anything… that at least has flavor. Here’s the original recipe for this great ranch dressing.   I changed a few ingredients so here is my version. Ingredients 1 cup of raw cashews that have been soaked (4 hrs) then drained and rinsed 1 cup of cashew milk (or milk alternate of your choice) 2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar 2 Tablespoons lemon juice 2 teaspoons coconut aminos 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons onion powder (add after mixing) 1 Tablespoon dill (add after mixing) 2 teaspoons parsley ...

  I wasn't sure what I was going to make but I found some really thin whole wheat tortillas at the store and suddenly I was craving a big ol' burrito.  I toyed with the idea of vegan cheese and/or vegan sour cream, but I'm really trying to not use processed foods so I decided to go without (and I didn't miss them!). Went home and started some brown rice in the Instant Pot.  While the rice was cooking I put a bit of water into a non-stick frying pan on the stove on high and threw in half a chopped onion, then a very large, minced garlic clove, then maybe two tablespoons of my Mexican seasoning (see below).  I added more water only to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pan while I opened a can of low-sodium pinto beans.  I drained the beans then dumped them into the frying pan and used a potato masher to mash them into the other ingredients while continuing to cook.   I may have lowered the heat a bit, I don't recall.  T...

Soup and salad is a good meal to transition from winter to summer.  Here in California, spring can be short.  We kind of leap right into summer. So I'm taking advantage of our short spring to enjoy this light and hearty meal (oxymoron?). I made the zucchini soup in my Pampered Chef blender.  I recently saw an article about the top blenders.  So I was looking at the one they deemed the best, and honestly, I like my Pampered Chef better.  Not only is my blender less expensive, but mine actually COOKS the food (if I choose) whereas the other blender merely heats the food up from the friction of the blade. Click this link if you are interested in seeing more.   This link is from my Pampered Chef friend, Hillary.  There are always all kinds of deals and specials.  (I also use the blender to make all my nut milks, nut butters, and nut flours... there's still many things I have to try.) Anyway, I found a zucchini soup recipe online but then chan...

Wow, this was good.  Just finished lunch and so glad I took notes while making it! I can't call this "whole foods" because I did use some processed foods, but they were minimal and they were still "good ones" (as far as I'm concerned)... so I'm fine with this. I made the rice first.  I did something different this time and it worked.  Yay! Rice Ingredients 1 cup whole grain brown rice 1¼ cup water 1-2 inches of finely grated ginger 5 twists of salt 4 small garlic cloves smashed or minced ½ teaspoon turmeric powder Sauce Ingredients ¼ cup unsweetened peanut butter 1/8 cup coconut aminos (or soy sauce if you swing that way) 1/8 cup rice vinegar 1½ tablespoons coconut aminos gochujang sauce 1 large garlic clove crushed or minced ¼ cup water Juice of one lime Toppings Green cabbage, sliced into bite size pieces Purple cabbage, sliced into bite size pieces Carrot, sliced into bite size pieces Scallion, sliced Mung bea...

To me, whole foods plant based means eating minimally processed foods very infrequently.  Today was one of those days. The processed foods that I used were Siete Gluten Free Cassava and Coconut Tortillas .  Ignore the price on this page... that's for 6 packs of them from the manufacturer.  I'm just showing you the link so you can see the product and the ingredients.  While coconut oil is one of the ingredients, two tortillas is only 3 grams of fat.  These things are NOT dripping in oil/fat. The other one is Well Your World's Asian Everything Sauce .  No sugar or oil (and by the taste of it, no salt either). So here's the fixin's: Gluten free tortillas 1 can of no/low salt black beans  Some leftover brown rice (probably under a cup) Two broken up (homemade) veggie burgers Some of the Asian sauce (maybe a couple tablespoons) Shredded cabbage 1 carrot cut into matchsticks Hummus (homemade) Lime juice So I popped the frozen tortillas...

Apparently today was cooking day.  You know how sometimes when you're on the internet and you're looking at something like Pinterest and then you click on something cool and then that leads to another article and then that leads to a DIY project and then that leads to....  yeah, and the next thing you know you're down the rabbit hole and three hours have disappeared. That's what today was like, but it was in the kitchen. This morning I started by making veggie broth (click here for my recipe on that... which you'll pretty much need if you want to make THIS recipe). So there were a ton of awesomely healthy organic veggies that I had no use for after I strained the stock and put it into the freezer. No way could I just put all that goodness into the compost.  Well, I put a little of the celery into the compost because I didn't feel all that celery was necessary in my upcoming experiment. I strained all the veggies and measured them... six cups.  ...

I made this before but apparently didn't write the recipe down in any kind of useful place.  D'oh!  NOW you see why I keep this blog... it's the best place for me to keep track of my recipes! Anyway, I know there's probably some kind of technical difference between "stock" and "broth" but I use the words interchangeably.  Shrug. Veggie broth is a total staple in my kitchen and for two reasons, I prefer to make my own.  The first reason is that it's probably cheaper and healthier (it gets frozen and used up within months if not weeks).  The second reason is that I have a hard time finding a "Laura-approved" ingredients list.  No corn, no potatoes, no bell pepper, no cayenne, no yeast, no tomatoes.  (I already know I can't have corn or yeast, but I'm looking into nightshades now.)  Oh, I guess there's a third reason too... that is they almost always say "spices".  I get the need for secrecy but what if one of you...

My friend Mary shared this recipe with me yesterday.  Looking over the ingredients, I decided I could make a variation of it without having to go grocery shopping, which is saying a lot because my fridge is pretty bare at the moment. I'm going to post the link to the original recipe because my version (below) has some pretty significant changes. The original recipe called for a pound of small white beans.  I only had half a pound so right off the bat I decided to half the recipe... sort of.  I altered things based on my likes, dislikes, and the availability of my ingredients. I used quinoa rather than farro.  I used homemade veggie broth rather than water and bouillon.  I used more carrots, celery, onion, diced tomatoes, and garlic than the original recipe.  I do not like rosemary in my food so I left that out.  Did not use kale or yeast.  But did add a sweet potato, liquid smoke, and mushroom powder. So here's my version: Ingredients ...

This recipe intrigued me originally because the title is "Awesome Beet Burgers"... and being someone who doesn't like beets but feel they're important, I wanted to give it a try. I'll tell you right now, despite the fact this burger has in it two foods I really hate (beets and mushrooms), in the end I could taste neither. So I made these and served them at a small dinner get together at my house.  Although I served the meal "hamburger style", one of my guests suggested these might be good broken up over a salad.  I agreed (especially since I'm always looking to jazz up my salads). She did try this with the leftovers and said it was better than the "hamburger style" dinner.  I will try it like this shortly too.  If you smell the burger all by itself it has a wonderful aroma... spicy and earthy.  But when you burger it up with mustard and tomatoes and avocado, etc... the flavor gets a little lost. I've frozen all my leftovers (as ...

Sometimes I don't like telling people I eat whole foods plant based because they look at me, and seeing an overweight person, must wonder just how healthy an eating style that can be if I look like I do.  What I'd like to tell them is that.. A: I only started recently B: I have years of unhealthy body to make up for C: I have little to no will power which means that while I definitely eat some very healthy meals I also eat plenty of things I know I shouldn't... until now Last night was a perfect example of something that sabotages my efforts to be healthy.  I had a great healthy lunch of homemade split pea soup, brown rice, and fresh veggies. As usual, I got behind in my daily tasks and by the time I had to go to the gallery to take new jewelry it was pretty much my usual dinner time. I was at the gallery longer than I thought and by the time I was leaving I was "first world starving".  It is precisely at times like this when the bad things happen.  ...

I won't refer to these as WFPB (whole food plant based) because I am using a (gluten-free) flour mix and chocolate chips. Anyway, once in a while I want dessert.  I also like sweet muffins because they are a good "travel" food for when I'm going to be out of the house all day. Ingredients 1 mashed banana 2 shredded zucchini 1 tsp vanilla 2 chia eggs (2 T chia seeds & 6 T water, let sit for 5 mins) 1/3 to ½ maple syrup 2 cups Bob's Red Mill Pancake & Waffle mix  1/3 cup oats ½ cup chocolate chips (or carob chips, or dried cranberries, etc) ½ to 3/4 cup chopped walnuts I mix all the wet ingredients (the first five) first, then add the flour and mix, then the oats and mix, then the chips and nuts and fold/mix. There is some coconut sugar in the flour mix so you can cut back on the maple syrup if you don't like your muffins too sweet. I put the mix into these cupcake liners in a muffin tin and back at 350 for about 30 minutes. ...

I owe this recipe to my son and his wife.  They were here recently and made a fantastic spaghetti dinner for us for New Year's Eve.  I took what I learned from watching them prepare that meal and made a few tweaks.  Hope you like! Ingredients: 1 eggplant 1 onion, chopped 2 zucchini, large chops 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 jar no-oil and no-sugar marinara sauce (DeLallo makes one) or you can make your own sauce from tomato paste, water, and spices. Potatoes, peeled and quartered (or cooked rice) Mushroom powder (optional) I start by making fork holes in the eggplant and roasting it in the (toaster) oven on 400 for 40-60 minutes, turning it once in while. Then I get the potatoes started.  I have two instant pots, the 8 quart and the 5 quart.  For steamed potatoes or rice, I usually use the smaller pot.  Put 1 cup of water in it, some salt, a steamer basker, then quartered potatoes (I like mine peeled... and I usually use Russett, but I don't ...