Which is why I’m finally posting this very, very special recipe. A recipe so special that it is, hands down, the most loved and the most commonly eaten food ’round these parts. Waits loves it because it’s quick, always at the ready, and totally delicious. And I love it because it’s a super nutritional powerhouse, packed full of protein and healthy fats and lots of essential vitamins and minerals.

Honestly? I think it’s sort of the perfect food for growing vegan children.

Protein is so important for growing bodies, and healthy fats provide calories, energy and form the foundation of nervous tissue. Fats are also essential for proper brain development and hormone function. So … kiddos need those fats!

Each kind of bean provides it’s own unique micronutrient profile, but most all beans are high in iron, magnesium, folic acid, and B-vitamins (not B12).

And perhaps the best part of all about Magic Beans, is that they require no cooking, no forethought, and only about 2 minutes to prepare from start to serving. You can’t beat that!

Here’s what you do:




Magic Beans have just 4 ingredients: beans (drained and rinsed), nutritional yeast, olive oil (or hemp oil or avocado oil or macadamia oil or another healthy oil of your choice), and tamari/Braggs/soy sauce (or just salt if you prefer).

To prepare, place 1 can of rinsed beans (or equivalent lentils) in a bowl. Drizzle with oil, I use probably 1-2 tablespoons but really it’s up to you. Add the nutritional yeast, somewhere between 1-3 tablespoons. Then drizzle or spray with tamari/Braggs/soy sauce, to taste.

Like so:




And then toss well to combine:





Finally, feed the resulting goodness to your favorite weegan — or wee non-vegan, they love Magic Beans too! In fact, we’ve pretty much gotten our entire preschool hooked on the stuff, because it’s just so dang tasty, and so dang healthy!

And around the house, we eat Magic Beans as a snack food, as an “appetizer” (you know –> “MoooOOooom I’m hungry now!” <-- while you're making dinner? This is great to hold them over, because even if they fill up on it, they've eaten something totally well-rounded and meal-worthy), and often as a main component of our meals (both lunch and dinner) (and okay, sometimes breakfast too - the cold leftovers are great in the morning!).

For example, a common dinner is Magic Beans, homemade mac and cheeze, and a raw veggie plate. Or an example lunch might be Magic Beans, coconut yogurt, fresh red peppers, snap pea crisps, and a few strawberries for dessert (Other sample lunches with magic beans, here and here). Yes, we eat a lot of them.

What can we say? We LOVE our Magic Beans!




And now, I want YOU to tell ME! What’s your simple + easy superstar recipe for vegan kids? Let’s help each other out, and share in the comments below!

Cheers guys!

♥ ♥ ♥

Yes, between the kiddo, grad school, and Jeremy’s new business, we’re pretty busy ’round these parts. And you know what? I’m willing to bet that you’re pretty busy too. Because I mean really, who isn’t?

But if you’re like me, eating healthfully is incredibly important to you, no matter how busy you are. This is something I ran into time and again when I was working with my clients: trying to balance eating healthy with cooking quickly. And so today, I’m going to share my top 3 go-to busy weeknight meals. These are client tested and client approved, but they’re also just what genuinely works for me. I eat some version of *each* of these meals pretty much every week. These are my week night standards. And they are quick and they are healthy and most of all – they are delicious.

Eating like this is just a matter of changing a few habits. That’s all! A little mindful shifting, and a little bit of planning.

For example, I always tell clients to grocery shop on the weekend so that they start the week off right, fully stocked. And I recommend that they make a big vat of grain (quinoa, wild rice, etc) and a few fun sauces on Sunday evening (or whenever is convenient for them), so that those are already good to go come cooking time. And I’ve found that truly, if they can just do that, then they are well on their way to eating real, wholesome, nourishing food for dinner every night.

Alright, so here’s my top 3 template meals:

1) Bean / Green / Grain Bowl

I’m sure this isn’t news to you, as “hippie bowls” have been floating around the blogosphere for ages. And yet, it always surprises me to hear from clients that they’re just not making them.

YOU GUYS!! Bowls are the best. Like, the actual best. They are hearty and warm and comforting and endlessly customizable. This is where your big vat of grain comes in, and it make it so easy when you’ve got it all pre-cooked and hanging out in the fridge already. A scoop of grain (quinoa, wild or brown rice, millet, barley, whatever you like) – heated up of course. Then a scoop of a legume, like black or white beans, pre-cooked lentils (available at Trader Joe’s and most health food stores – I LIVE ON THESE), lima beans, etc – again heated of course. And finally, the only real cooking portion of the meal, some sort of steamed green. I like broccoli, brussels sprouts, and swiss chard the best, but many people are fond of good ol’ kale.

My most frequent and most favorite combo is white quinoa, brown lentils, and steamed rainbow chard.

And in case you’re thinking that it all sounds rather bland and boring, well you’re forgetting about the sauce! A divine, delectable, finger-lickin’ fine sauce to tie it all together. My absolute favorite for bowls is my old stand-by, the raw tahini sauce that done stoled my heart. It just never gets old.

But sometimes I like to mix it up, and I always want to give my clients lots of yummy options. So, other saucy stars include hummus (thinned out with a little water or stock), pesto or chimichurri or green herb dressing if you’re feeling like something herbaceous, butternut alfredo sauce if you’re wanting something rich, or piquant cilantro peanut sauce for a bit of Asian fusion. YUM.

And I don’t usually stop there. If you’re like me and you love some healthy fat, you’ve gotta top your bowl with some healthy, heavenly avocado.

Plus kimchi or sauerkraut or pickled veggies.

Plus a sprinkling of green onions.

Okay, NOW I’m done.

2) Spicy Sesame Noodle Bowl

This is another bowl type of meal, but this one features ramen or soba noodles tossed in a bit of toasted sesame oil, then topped with tofu and steamed broccoli, seasoned with tamari or soy sauce, and finished with sriracha. Because sriracha.

It’s all incredibly simple, but completely delicious. And it takes as long to prepare as it takes to boil noodles and steam broccoli. So like – under 10 minutes right? I often just steam the tofu as well, and I really love it this way. But if you’re feeling creative and have a little extra time, you can also do what I did in the picture above, which is tofu tossed in tamari/soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and garlic powder, then browned in a cast iron skillet (obviously you don’t have to use cast iron, but it’s my cooking vessel of choice) until crispy on all sides.

This is one of Jeremy’s favorite meals, and it’s really grown on me as well.

You can use any noodles you like, but our faves are these gluten-free jade pearl rice ramen noodles and these totally gluten free buckwheat soba noodles (both organic!)

Also, you can find healthier, organic sriracha at health food stores and online. Or, you can make your own raw fermented sriracha at home. (No but seriously, you should make that recipe – it is amazing)

3) High-Protein Pasta With Steamed Greens

3-ingredient meal, y’all. Thanks goodness for high-protein pasta!

Vegan high-protein pastas are made from any number of legumes (black beans, chickpeas, etc), and usually just have two ingredients: dried legume + water. They are amazingly unprocessed and insanely convenient, because they function both as a “filler” and also as the protein. All you need to do is add sauce (an organic marinara for me, please) and a side of steamed greens, and you’re good to go. It could hardly be any easier.

And high-protein pastas aren’t messing around when they say “high protein.” For example, a serving of tofu typically runs you about 10 grams of protein. A serving of your average high-protein pasta? 21 grams. TWENTY ONE GRAMS YOU GUYS.

I’m telling you, this is good stuff. It’ll fill you up for reals.

But beware! There are a growing number of alternative pastas on the market, and you can’t just look at the front of the box and make assumptions about the nutritional stats. You have to really look at the back of the box. For example, you’d think that “quinoa pasta” would be made out of quinoa, and would be pretty high in protein, right? But no, most “quinoa pasta” is actually composed primarily of corn, and incredibly low in protein. So make sure you read those labels!

My two top protein pastas are these mung bean fettuccine and these red lentil rotini. And remember, high-protein pasta runs pretty pricey, but it’s also a just-add-sauce situation. It balances out in the end!

Alright my dears, now I want to hear from you guys. What are your super quick and easy – but healthy – week night go-tos? Please share! I’m always looking for new ideas for me – and hopefully in the future, after grad school – for my clients. So let us know in the comments below!

Thanks!

♥

Butternut, heirloom acorn, and even pumpkins are overflowing on my kitchen counter. And my oven had been in nonstop roasting mode.

A few weeks back I Instagrammed the following pic:

But anyway, enough about pasta. Let’s talk about sauce! This is an incredibly easy, quick, and nutritious recipe that I’ve developed in the past few busy busy weeks. And I’ve made it a number of times, using a couple different kinds of squashes: butternut, acorn, pumpkin, and an unidentified heirloom variety. The recipe has worked beautifully with every squash, and we’ve happily spooned it onto our high-protein pasta, paired with something green on the side. Quick. Simple. PERFECT!

Here’s how it goes:

(Just a note, I roast the squash whenever I have a chance – when the oven is already on. It will keep for a week or so in the fridge, so roast ahead to have it on-hand!)

Ingredients
2 cups roasted winter squash, packed (butternut, acorn, kabocha, pumpkin, etc)
1 cup unsweetened plant milk (I use almond)
1/3 cup cashew butter (I use Trader Joe’s brand. If you have a Vitamix, Blendtec, or other high-speed blender, you can also throw in a heaping 1/2 cup of raw cashews. But the butter is better)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon agave or maple syrup
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 teaspoons of 3 “Italian” herbs (so 3 teaspoons total, 1 of each), such as oregano, basil, marjoram, savory, thyme, etc. I use whatever’s around.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg




Instructions
Place all ingredients in blender. Blend until smooth. Done!


This makes a big batch, and you’ll only need about half of it for a box of pasta. But save the rest! It’s epic on macro bowls, like greens-beans-grains bowls. We also love it on quinoa, and even thinned out as salad dressing! And Jeremy’s dying to try it biscuits-and-gravy style, mmmm.

I hope you enjoy this quick + easy autumn recipe as much as we have. I swear, I’ve been making it once a week and using the extra sauce in all my lunch leftovers. Paired with the high-protein pasta, it really is a perfectly delicious, perfectly nutritious, and perfectly balanced seasonal meal!




Enjoy!
♥ ♥ ♥

That’s rare.

More often things progress very slowly, churning around in the back of my mind, little pieces falling into place. I’ll take a photo that I know will work in the final blog post, even though that post, and the associated project, won’t actually happen for years to come. Or I’ll pick up a prop/tool/tchotchke at the thrift shop, knowing it will fit in . . . later. I mean, sometimes it’s literally years! (This extended timeline becomes problematic with product reviews, which is part of the reason I do so few of them, but that’s a discussion for another day.) I’d guess at any given time I probably have 15-25 potential projects cooking on a burner in the back of my brain.




Anyway, that’s just a little insight into my creative process, and has nothing to do with this particular post. This post is about salsa! And more specifically, lacto-fermented salsa that is brimming with happy healthy beasties! Fermenting the salsa adds beneficial probiotic bacteria, increased nutrients, a longer lifespan, and of course, that delightful salty tang.

Last week I found myself facing an abundance of late season tomatoes, and since I was leaving town for 10 days, I had to find a way to use them up – and quickly. And thus, after many years of plotting and planning, a fermented salsa recipe finally came to life in my little kitchen.

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to have a go at it in yours:

** A note – all of these measurements are approximations, and can be modified to suit your taste or depending on your access to produce. The only thing you’ll need to keep constant is the salt, because otherwise it won’t ferment and you’ll end up with a big ‘ol bowl of rotten tomatoes. And of course it follows, if you add a bunch of additional ingredients without subtracting anything, you’ll need to up the salt to compensate. Make sense?


Ingredients
2-3 pounds tomatoes, any type – chopped
1 medium white or yellow onion – diced
2-4 cloves of garlic – crushed or minced
1-3 jalapeños (depending on how spicy you like it) – minced
small bunch cilantro – chopped
2 tablespoons raw unfiltered unpasteurized apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons sea salt





Place all the ingredients in a big bowl. Toss everything to mix it up thoroughly.

Portion the salsa into clean canning jars or glass containers. Make sure there is enough liquid to cover the top of the solid salsa (just use your fingertips to pack it down if you need), then cover with a lid and set the jars out for 48(ish) hours.




As it ferments you may see a little foam forming on top – this is totally normal. After 48 hours, screw on the caps and transfer the jars to the fridge.

You’re done! Your salsa will last many months in the fridge, but you probably won’t need that long. This stuff is delicious!

♥ ♥ ♥

But the reason I’ve never posted it is because 1. It’s super ridiculously easy, and for some reason I have a mental block around posting recipes that seem “too easy” (it feels like cheating), and 2. There are already like, a gazillion and one (precise figure, true story) recipes for red lentil dahl on the internets.

And the reason I’m actually posting it now, finally, is because 1. Everyone who’s ever tasted it has been like OMG HOW DID YOU WHAT IN THE THIS IS AMAZING!!!1 (precise quote, true story), and 2. I have made it every single week, for the past few months, at Jeremy’s request. And anything that’s so good as to be eaten so regularly, deserves to be shared. Don’t you think?




This recipe is disarmingly simple. 10-15 minutes prep, with ~30 minutes simmering, and it’s ready to serve, no fuss. You’re probably skeptical. But seriously, just try it. Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients
2 cups red lentils
1 large onion, diced
3-4 carrots, diced
3-4 ribs of celery, diced
a few cloves of garlic, minced (to taste)
a knob of fresh ginger, minced (or not, this is pretty optional but I personally love it)
2-4 tablespoons curry powder, store-bought or homemade, divided (to taste, I err on the side of “more”, but start small and add as you like)
6-8 cups broth, either veggie or “better than chicken”/”better than beef” (all of these work but obviously, each one changes the flavor)
salt to taste

1 14-oz can full-fat coconut milk

–> my favorite optional spices for playing with the flavor = turmeric, smoked paprika, & cumin




Obviously, this is a very forgiving recipe. I make it a little bit differently each time, which is just the way it should be. Sometimes I load it up with fresh ginger, and other times I pile on the smoked paprika. Whatever suits my mood.

So! To start, put a stock pot/soup pot over a medium flame, and spray with a bit of oil – I like the coconut oil spray. Dice your onion, add to the pot, and give a good stir.

Dice your carrots. Add to the pot and stir.

Dice your celery. Add to the pot and stir. Mmmmmmire poix!




Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the fresh ginger. When the onions are glassy and the carrots and celery have softened, add the garlic and ginger. Give a good stir and continue to cook for a minute or two.




Add the lentils. Yes, dry.

Add the spices (2 tablespoons curry powder + whatever other spices you want to add, if you’re adding others). Stir well to combine.




This dry sauté really allows the flavors to develope. After 30-60 seconds (about the time it takes to get it and measure it out, really), add the broth.




Bring the pot up to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer. Allow the soup to simmer for 30 minutes or so, checking in every so often to stir. You may have to add more broth, which is fine.

Do not add the coconut milk! Not while it simmers.

Just wait, as the aroma of mouthwatering amazingness completely infiltrates your home. Try occupying yourself with something adorable . . .




When the lentils are tender and could be served, taste the soup and adjust the flavor for curry intensity (you may want to add another tablespoon or 2 of spice, depending on how you like it) and salt.

Juuuuust before you serve, stir in the entire can of full-fat coconut milk.




And that’s it! Serve it up!

Jeremy and I almost always eat this over a bed of steamed kale or rainbow chard – of course the one time we didn’t is the one time I was taking pics. Rice or quinoa would be nice as well.

And we almost always serve it with gluten-free bread + coconut oil. And here’s the weird thing that we discovered and you’re going to be like “WHAT?! You’re crazy, that doesn’t even make any sense.” And you’re right, it doesn’t Except! It’s just sooooo good.

Pumpernickel.

I KNOW.




Pictured here, pumpernickel bagels, because they were out of the loaves at our favorite gluten-free bakery.

This dahl hits the spot, always and forever, no matter what. But IF you can get your hands on some pumpernickel, I highly recommend it. Don’t ask me to try and explain the flavor-genius that arises from this unlikely pairing, because I certainly couldn’t tell you. You’ll just have to trust me.

Enjoy!

♥

I kid! Seriously please don’t sue me.

I just really, really adore that coconut peanut butter in a really really addiction-level way. Sweet and smooth and oh-so-rich, it’s a perfect balance of peanut buttery goodness and coconuty awesome-sauce. It. is. amazing.

But man that stuff is pricey! Also palm oil, oof.




So I set out to make a dupe . . . and I did! Only three ingredients too.

This recipe tastes fantastic, but it’s also inexpensive and devoid of any moral quandaries. Win – Win – Win!

Here’s how it goes:




Open a 16-oz package of roasted, salted peanuts and empty the entire thing into the food processor. Then process the peanuts into a paste – not all the way until butter, but past the powdery, clumpy stage. Like so:




Next, add half a cup of coconut butter.




Coconut butter =/= coconut oil. They are different! Coconut oil is just that – oil, which is extracted from the coconut meat via pressing. Coconut butter, on the other hand, is made from blending up the meat into a smooth paste. So the butter has a thicker texture, and includes more nutrients – it’s a more “whole” food.




There are a number of brands of coconut butter out there, but my favorite by far is Nutiva’s Coconut Manna. The richness? Ridiculous!

So anyway, add 1/2 a cup of coconut butter along with 2 tablespoons of agave syrup, like so:



Now you’re going to blend like a mofo. I mean it, making homemade nut butters is serious business. You’ll need to let that food processor just keep on working. The butter will move through a variety of textural phases, like a crumbly stage, and that stage where it all clumps up in a big ball that circles the bowl on the blade. Keep going. And then you’ll be like SERIOUSLY THIS IS TAKING FOREVER IT HAS TO BE DONE ALREADY but nope, keep going after that.

At some point the butter will relax. Just like that, in an instant, the whole thing will sort of melt and the blade will run smoothly through and it won’t be changing consistency anymore – it’ll look like gooey creamy smooth butter. You’ll know it when you see it. Trust me.




So congrats! That’s when it’s done. Taste test it and see if you want to add another tablespoon or so of agave – that’s just a preference thing. When you’ve got it adjusted how you like it, transfer the whole shebang into a big glass jar. Make sure you eat plenty of the sticky sweet goodness along the way. You’ve been working hard, after all. You deserve a treat!





Coconut butter will keep in the fridge for ages. Enjoy it on oatmeal or overnight oats, on pancakes or sweet pudla, on toast or fruit, mixed up with chocolate chips or hey – just off the spoon! That’s how I usually do it . . .

Enjoy!

♥

When I lived in Portland and I was a wife, I was lucky to have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. Waits was younger so he napped more, and then in the evenings Damian would take him so that I could make us elaborate dinners.

Um, life is different now.

But I digress. Let’s talk about salad.

So like my clients, I just want to eat healthy, wholesome foods. But I don’t have a lot of time and I don’t even have much energy to put towards thinking about food. Which is why, I guess, I stumbled onto this strange creation: “leftovers salad”. And it may look really odd, and you may be like “Wait, what does that even taste like?”, and you may be thinking “Seriously Sayward? You put spaghetti on top of salad?”

Oh yes I do.

So that’s what I do. I open a bag of greens, dump it into a bowl, and plop my leftovers on top. If I have time (and I usually do, because it literally takes like 2 minutes) I’ll dress the greens before adding the leftovers. My standard go-to dressing that meshes well with pretty much anything I’m putting on top, is a splash of red wine vinegar, a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a clove of garlic (crushed), and a liberal sprinkling of nutritional yeast. No need to pre-mix, just throw it all on top of the lettuce and then toss it all up.

I really like shredded carrots in my salads, so I often grate one up real quick (30 seconds? maybe 60?). And avocado makes everything better (another 60 seconds to slice and dice).

So even with accouterments, this is like a 4 minute meal. 5 tops. And that, my friends, is a life-saver.

So what do you think? Am I crazy? Will you try it?

♥

But Waits adores them and so they became a staple in our lives. That is, until we moved back to SB, and the purse strings got a whole lot tighter. That’s when I decided to finally put together my own Larabar recipe – but these would be even BETTER than Larabars, because they would be organic, more nutrient-dense, higher in protein, and of course, homemade with love! ♥




Waits and I like to make these together. He mans the food processor while I measure ingredients. It’s such a simple process, and he takes pride in food that he helps to prepare.

Here’s our basic recipe . . .



Ingredients:
* 1 1/4 cups raw almonds
* 1 cup pitted dates – we use these honey dates from our Farmer’s Market because we score them for a song, but you can use any kind you have around, like medjool or bahri
* 1 cup other dried fruit – I like cranberries, cherries, or apricots
* 1 scoop protein powder (I use Sun Warrior vanilla)
* 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses (for extra iron and calcium)




Add all the ingredients to your food processor and blend until they’re fully combined. The mixture will start out crumbly and then get stickier and stickier. It’s done when it begins to move around the blade as a ball.




Transfer the “dough” ball from the food processor to an 8×8 baking dish (or equivalent vessel, it doesn’t really matter) and use your fingers to press it down flat. Try to spread it as evenly as possible and press it down to get it as dense as you can.

You can keep them in the pan, in the fridge, for a few weeks. You can also store them individually wrapped in saran wrap or waxed paper. I like to store them in the pan and then send them for lunches in small mason jars (like this).




Enjoy!


♥

You know you’re crunchy when you tuck your overnight oats to bed in between your oatstraw infusion (left) and your homemade kombucha (right).

You know what I adore? Nut butters! Mmmm, yeah.

But you know what sucks? That inevitable end-of-the-jar, desperate-attempt-to-get-every-last-lick-out-so-as-not-to-waste-one-single-molecule of the delicious goodness. A girl could drive herself crazy just scraping away . . .

Enter “Jar Oats” to the rescue! I can’t think of a better way to turn lemons into lemonade, so to speak. This recipe is resourceful, super easy (no cooking at all!), and it’s great for a morning on the go (very portable!) Best of all it tastes great – and it’s great for your body, too!

Begin with your ‘finished’ jar of nut butter.

Add your ingredients. The general rule is 1 part oats to 2 parts liquid, plus extras. In this batch I did 1/3 cup oats + 1/3 cup coconut milk + 1/3 cup coconut yogurt, then added 2 tbsp flax seed meal, a splash of water kefir, and a handful of raisins. For liquid you can use any alt milk, any alt yogurt, any probiotic drink (kombucha or kefir), or even water. Great add-ins are any dried fruit, any nuts, mashed or sliced bananas, fresh berries, shredded dried coconut, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp oil . . . I could go on!

Shake it up!

No need to get it uniformly mixed, just give it a good sloshing and then screw the cap back on. Stick it in the refrigerator to soak overnight.

The next morning, all you’ll need to do is grab the jar, grab a spoon, give it a stir and dig in! Om nom nom, brekkies!

Every year my friends and I have a Summer Solstice BBQ because we are crunchy hippie types, and every year I bring something funky because I am a freaky food geek type (last year was mezcal grilled pineapple). Lately I’ve been really into cultured foods and I’m currently sort of obsessed with all things fermented. But I won’t launch into my love-lecture on gut flora, we’ll save that for another time . . .

Miso is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented rice or soy bean paste. There are many varieties with endless flavor profiles, but all tend to add a certain salty quality. Besides its benefits to the belly, miso is high in protein and many vitamins and minerals (specifically the B vitamins). But mostly, it just tastes great!





Ingredients:

Corn on the cob (I recommend buying only organic corn and corn-containing products, as virtually all conventional corn has been compromised by GMO)

White Miso paste


Instructions:





Take an ear of corn and gently peel back the husk, being careful that it doesn’t detach from the stalk. Remove the silk strands.





Spoon out a dollop of miso, maybe a 1/2 teaspoon or so, and use your fingers to rub it into the kernels. Fold the husks back up and you’re good to go. Grill until just barely charred (see top photo).

That’s it! The miso imparts a very subtle flavor, but it’s delicious. No need for ‘butter’ or salt or pepper – the miso takes care of it all!





Happy Summer!!!