I made something really good last weekend! I found a recipe in my clean eating magazine and I made a few changes, but it turned out really good, and it's something I will make again!
There is no pasta in this dish, the recipe called for spiralized zucchini, however my hubby doesn't like them too much so I swapped it for spaghetti squash. I used to use spaghetti squash pretty often instead of pasta, but it's been quite some time since I have done that, so it was great to have in this dish. The recipe for this is: 4 slices of bacon cut into pieces (I may omit next time to keep it meat free for me), and I added that to the pan to start cooking it, then chopped 1 onion, some mushrooms, I used cremini, and I used more than what they called for, they said 8 white mushrooms, but I used about double that, we really do love mushrooms. In the same pan I sauteed the diced onions and mushrooms for a few minutes, then added in 4 garlic cloves, minced, and sauteed that for a minute, then took it all out of the pan. I then added in some shrimp (instead of chicken), I used about 12 shrimps, and I cut them in half unless it was a really large shrimp then in three. I sauteed those a while, they were frozen so I wanted to make sure the water evaporated as well. I added everything back to the pan and added in a small can of tomato sauce, and 1 cup of coconut cream (put a can of coconut milk to the fridge for a while and when you open the can all the cream is on top, so you just scoop the creamy part, and not the coconut water at the bottom). Coconut water is great to add in a smoothie or to just drink like that. I already had some coconut milk in the fridge, so I just added it to that, which I use to make a London fog tea. So I made sure that the coconut cream melted and incorporated into the sauce, and let that cook for a bit while I minced up some parsley, and added that to the pan, then grabbed some fresh basil and roughly chopped that and added it. Oh I also added a touch of salt and a lot of pepper!
For the spaghetti squash, I just cut it in half length wise, and scooped out the seeds, and then added a bit of olive oil and added the squash cut side down to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I put it in the oven at 400 for about 40 minutes. I got that in the oven first while I got things set up for the sauce, so that the squash had some time to cook before I used a fork to scrap out all the spaghetti squash and I added it to the sauce. Spaghetti squash isn't thick so even though I added a full squash, it like disappeared into the sauce. It was still very tasty but it was almost like eating a vegetable tomato sauce lol. Even though, I would still make this again as is, maybe adding a larger squash or two small ones to have more in there, or even just adding some pasta, which we always eat brown rice pasta. I'm thinking a sweet potato spiralized and added to this dish would be delicious as well but like the squash it would probably get lost in the sauce, so maybe two large sweet potatoes would go well and would still be very tasty!
Today I was in the kitchen again and I made a banana bread, and my plan was to make vegetarian burger patties, but in reading the recipe from Joyous Health, she also said you can turn them into balls, like a falafel and bake them, so that's what I decided to do. We don't make as many burgers at home in the winter, and lately I have been in the mood for bento box type lunches, so I thought forming them into balls would be perfect.
They turned out great! This is very easy to make. I first took out my food processor and added in one large carrot and 1/4 onion to get that grated by turning on my food processor for a bit. Then I added in a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed (she says 15 ounces, but mine was 19 oz), and in went some fresh parsley, and basil. I added 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 eggs, a touch of salt and some pepper, and a tsp of chili flakes. I also added in 1/2 cup of almond meal and 1/2 cup of a mix of ground flax and chia seeds, and turned the food processor on until everything was combined. I then used a cookie scoop to get them on a parchment lined cookie sheet and in the oven they went at 350 for 15 minutes. Once cooled, I kept a few in my fridge to enjoy this week, and I put the cookie sheet in my freezer to get them to freeze up before adding them to a Ziploc bag, this will prevent them from sticking together.
It made a lot so when I want some I just have to take them out of the freezer and warm them up to enjoy. These would be great in a salad, eat as is, or even in a wrap.
For bento boxes, I have put two together so far, yesterday and today, but I'll be making more next week as well. I will be making them all different, and hubby is interested in having some as well, he just hasn't had any yet. The mix of foods I have for my bento boxes are: Lentil/cranberry/almond salad, coleslaw, mix of veggies (sweet peppers, snap peas, cucumber, and carrots with humus), kimchi, the vegetarian balls that I have now made, and I plan to boil a few eggs for some hard boiled eggs. I was thinking to also do half sandwiches, with either tuna salad or eggs salad, I also have a few fruits that we can have (prunes, pears, nectarines, blueberries or apples). I also have some healthy seedy crackers that I can put either blueberry goat cheese on them or cashew cheese. We can even enjoy a small slice of banana bread in our bento box. I will see what I'm in the mood for, and just add a few different things and get to enjoy a nice mix of different foods for our lunches.
I haven't been doing so good with exercise this week considering we are fighting off a cold, but I'm almost all better, so I'll be getting back on track. Tonight's supper will either be the sweet potato pad thai, or a vegetarian fried rice, with this cucumber salad that I saw watching Girl meets Farm on the food network. The cucumber is spiralized, and you saute a few veggies, and she added a bit of ground chicken but I will skip that step, I try not to eat to much meat since it causes me endometriosis pain. I may add some shrimp, but then you also make this sauce, I know there's soy sauce to it, but I don't remember what else, but I have the recipe written down. I'll see which once he wants to have, and go from there.
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!
