Quick, Healthy, Vegan Meal

Excuse the tear in the oven mitt. I’ve had these oven mitts for years and absolutely love them! Don’t replace something that still works!

So this is a post, different than anything I’ve ever done before. I don’t consider myself a cook or a chef by any means. I normally feel like I just “throw” stuff together or follow/modify recipes sometimes. Unfortunately, I’m much too busy (I know I need to fix this) and faster food just becomes efficient for my time. So here’s a healthy recipe for those in the same boat as I am.

Quick Pasta Ingredients:

2 cups (measure dry) of Eden’s Organic Vegetable Spiral Noodles
3/4 cup of Kirkland Organic Marinara Sauce
1 tsp. of Nutritional Yeast

Boil pasta according to box. Add the sauce and heat up in the same pot. Pour in a bowl and sprinkle with nutritional yeast.

Super yummy, healthy and organic!

Now, as always, I sit back and look at my food and wonder what could be better or what I could have done differently. So here are some swaps below.

Swaps:

1. Create your own marinara sauce if you have the time. This sauce has higher fat than I would prefer, and homemade sauces mean that you are in control of the ingredients!

2. Add some peas, corn, broccoli, etc. The vegetables will add extra nutrients!

Hope you enjoy this recipe! Organic and vegan are two of the most important words you need to find on food. Eat what your body runs optimally on!

Vegan on a Trip

Hello everyone, I’m back! Unfortunately I’m back with a bit of a head cold, but regardless, I’m back!

So as I wrote before I left, I would give you a quick summary of what it was like for food on this trip. As I said, everything was vegetarian to begin with, so meat would never be an issue. But vegetarians also consume dairy and often eggs. So this is what I encountered:

For many of the meals, there were vegan options. At times, they would make salads or pasta salads both with dairy and some specifically set out as vegan. Most of the time this was ok, except a few times when the vegan options tasted horrible. I guess there must be an art to figuring out vegan alternatives.

Many of the meals, such as breakfast, would be items such as pancakes, french toast, or egg breakfast sandwiches. However, they did offer oatmeal and cereal options with soy milk. So if you picked what you ate carefully, the weekend probably could have been done vegan. That would sometimes mean eating a lot of vegetables (especially on the macaroni and cheese night), but if you could stomach large amounts of simple things, you could do it.

Now, many of you know that I try to eat raw until four, particularly with lots of fruit. I believe this could have been made possible IF I had made arrangements ahead of time. However, without contacting the head cook and giving them a specific shopping list for me, it was impossible. I think we had fresh fruit two or three times out of the 10 meals we had. So that was a bummer.

I also packed a few vegan snacks, just incase. I took some fruit and nut bars, trail mix, chocolate almond milk, some seaweed, some kale chips, and some vegan jerky to try. So I didn’t go hungry, that’s for sure.

So I guess my biggest lesson is to plan ahead. If I do this trip again in the future, I will try to contact the head cook and ask for the large fruit breakfast. I think if the chef is assured that she doesn’t have to cut it up or do any extra work for it, I can’t see it being a problem. The vegan snacks were an awesome idea to bring, just to ensure that you have some of your own vegan foods, just incase.

Day 8

Today was a different day. Today was a busy morning, getting my husband’s clothes ready for his new job that he’s currently stressed about (in school this week, doesn’t have a chance to start making money until next week), as well as making sure I had everything and was ready for my students’ PAT today.

I did not eat breakfast, and pretty much snacked on bananas, apples, Bolthouse Vanilla Chai (which is vegan!), apple juice, and other school-approved snacks that I had bought. I snacked pretty much for the first 5 hours of the day. Oh boy… not the best food, but not necessarily the worst.

Because my students missed their gym time and morning recess, I gave them a 45-minute recess after lunch. They were such troopers, and I was proud of them. After all, they were writing for 2-3 hours straight. It gave me an opportunity to not only get some fresh air, but also to soak up some good vitamin D!

When I came home, I was so happy to find my new Organic Box! It’s like opening a present every time to find these beautiful organic fruits and vegetables. This time, I also ordered some organic seaweed chips for my husband and I to try. They were DELISH! We ate the whole bag (my husband ate more than I did, but I still had a fair share!).

Before heading to the gym, I had two pieces of Silver Hills Squirrely bread with peanut butter and peach jam made with xylitol. I also had some rainbow carrots with a vegan ranch dip I also ordered in my Organic Box. The dip was ok, but I have to be honest when I say the rainbow carrots are not particularly my favourite. Maybe I’ve become so out-of-touch with the taste of real carrots again. We’ll see.

At the gym, I was on the treadmill for 30 minutes, then did some lunges, walking high kicks, some stretches, and my chiropractor exercises. I felt so good and energized the whole time.

When I came home, I took a look at those mangos I still have done nothing with (should have done something with them yesterday. They are really going to go bad soon!) So tonight, I took out the blender, cut all of the good flesh off of them, and pureed it with a little vanilla and macadamia oil. I then took out a bowl and mixed some flour with baking soda, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. I then mixed the two together, put it in a shallow baking dish, and waited for my fresh mango cake to cook.

While I was waiting, for tonight’s supper (really need to fix my whole eating raw until 4, cooked after 4), I blended 4 bananas (also need to be used asap) with some unsweetened vanilla almond milk and 5 medjool dates.Talk about filling!

Week 7 Day 3

It was nice to wake up back in my own bed. But I was still tired from the weekend’s activities. Nevertheless, I had picked up my food from the gym last night so I at least didn’t have to cook anything. It did hit me that this was my last week to have Fresh Fit Foods supply my meals! I’ll have to look at meal ideas later…

The day went alright. We had a presenter come in and show us replicas of Roman armour and related it to the Armour of God. It was an excellent presentation done by a man named Dick Stenbakken. You should really look him up. He created all of the pieces himself, and they’re amazing.

Of course, today the kids had so many questions about so many things, and I feel as if we did very little curriculum work. But when their questions are for good reasons, I really don’t mind.

I took a nap when I came home. I was just too tired. But my husband and I did make ourselves get up and go to the gym. Tonight was a mix of three circuits focussing on my shoulders, triceps and abs. I finished the workout with 25 minutes of steady state cardio. And when I came home, I very quickly headed back to bed.