Not to be a tease, but I will get to the “date” in just a moment!
You may have noticed that I added a blog post to my schedule this week. Angie Hammond and I have been chatting on Twitter for a few weeks and I was so anxious to share her story about growing up on a factory farm and ultimately living a vegan lifestyle. Be sure to check it out. I would love to hear about your own vegan / vegetarian / considering story on the JLgoesVegan Facebook page.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m slowing down my training in July. I’m enjoying short and easy morning runs a couple of days a week and one or two leisurely bike rides. And yoga! Yoga is back in my life. Ahhhhh downtime. I tend to focus my cooking / food prep on the weekend, but less time on the roads training = more time in the kitchen. Thursday morning I was getting my lunch together for work and decided that rather than pull together yet another big salad, I would try my hand at a quick, cold soup, using what I could grab off the counter. The result was a very tasty gazpacho!
JL’s SUPER-QUICK GAZPACHO
- Toss into the blender: diced garlic, diced onion, diced celery, diced carrot and fresh cilantro. Add olive oil and pulse.
- Add diced tomatoes and half of a diced Kirby cucumber. Pulse and add water for desired consistency. Pulse some more.
- Add chili powder, Louisiana hot sauce and s+p to taste. Pulse again.
- Finish by adding one more small tomato, diced, and the other half of the cucumber, also diced. Just one quick final pulse on the blender leaving those last two items chunky. Voila!
(Not so great iPhone picture, from my desk at work)
I decided to add a couple spoonfuls of Garlic-Saffron Quinoa, from Cook.Vegan.Lover, to the soup. Such an easy, light, filling lunch!
I recently made a very delicious bean burger which I modified by using flax meal and water as an egg substitute, salsa-style refried beans and gluten-free bread crumbs from PureNRG. Last time I used a food processor but this time I mashed the black beans with a potato masher and, just before rolling the patties, I added whole sunflower seeds, an idea this week from Oh She Glows. I decided to try my hand at dehydrating the burgers.
I set the dehydrator on high (153 degrees) for one hour. I then reduced the temperature to 105 degrees for two hours, flipping them at mid-point.
(Dehydrated vegan bean burger on toasted spelt bread with avocado and vegenaise; massaged kale salad with veggies)
The burger were so good and so easy!
I volunteered to test Happy Herbivore’s new line of Herbisport recovery food and drinks for the plant-based athlete. Her recipes are top-secret, but I’m allowed to show photos! I tried three this weekend:
The Chocolate Recovery Pudding is so, so good!
I’m not a fan of sports drinks; I refuse them during short races and begrudgingly grab a Gatorade during a half-marathon or longer. The Herbivore Lemon Sports Drink is so delicious.
It was easy on my stomach and incredibly refreshing on a very hot bike ride Sunday.
But I have to say, the Popeye Recovery Smoothie is the winner of the three.
I feel an addiction coming on! Happy Herbivore, thank you so much for letting me test your recipes!
Now, finally to the “date.” Saturday I tried my hand at a lentil salad using much of this week’s farmer’s market haul. I like to use maple syrup with lentils but remembered that I had just received my Organics for Life Date Syrup, which I learned about on JulieMorris.Net. Why not try date syrup with lentils?
JL’s “DATE” WITH A VERY VEGGIE LENTIL SALAD
Mix in a large bowl:
- 8 oz steamed lentils (cold)
- Dice:1 Kirby cucumber,4 Japanese turnips,1 garlic scape,1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery and 1/4 cup of red onion
- Add: 1T Organics Are For Everyone Date Syrup, 2T sesame oil, 3T brown rice vinegar and 2T sesame seeds
- S+P to taste
Lentil salad in progress
It is very versatile! Lunch Saturday:
I served it with grilled romaine and fresh basil. Mmm Mmm.
And lunch Sunday:
in a brown rice wrap, over a bed of massaged collards and with a dollop of Miss V’s Cashew Tamari Dressing.
I love lentil salads because lentils are so good for you and I love the crunch of fresh veggies. I also love sweet and savory so the date syrup made perfect sense in a vegetable salad. Do you have a favorite sweet and savory recipe?
Finally, if you haven’t yet, please check out a few additions to the blog: recipes, vegan wine and a reading list (which includes my current library of vegan cookbooks).
See you next week!
