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

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.  ...