Amy's Kitchen California Veggie Burger

Amy's California Veggie Burger... it rocks :)

I've been eating Amy's California Veggie Burger for a few years years now, and I figured that I should mention them on my blog because I just think that these totally ROCK :)

I'm allergic to soy and tofu and most of the commercial 'veggie' products on the market contain both or at least one of these two ingredients, so I have to be very careful with the choices I make when it comes to commercial food items.

I stumbled upon Amy's California Veggie Burgers (which contains a savory blend of grains, organic vegetables, mushrooms, and walnuts) at some point while purchasing organic foods at a local grocery store, and they are so tasty, and the texture is really great - they make for a wonderful and filling meal.

I could make something similar from scratch, but I don't usually have the time, so these are great to keep in the freezer, and like today when I'm in a bit of a rush, to quick heat up and eat in a homemade bun with a bit of ketchup, mustard, onions, lettuce and sliced tomatoes for a healthy light lunch :-)

Amy's products are sold in Canada, in the US, and other countries. Check out the Amy's Kitchen website to see all their great Vegetarian & Vegan food products, and find out which ones are available where you live.

I've always eaten them simply because they really taste great (especially pan-fryed in a bit of canola oil), and now they're going to be a part of my action plan - my New Year's Pledge to go Veg for 30 days :-)

Super easy vegan & vegetarian recipe - Cooking as natural as possible

One of my problems is that my body is extremely sensitive. I have various environmental allergies (very allergic to the pollens of various plants, grasses and trees), I have food allergies (soy, tofu, bananas, mint, etc), and the list goes on.

Over the years, I have eliminated a lot of things that cause me allergic reactions (it ain't pretty, so I'll spare you the details) and I've found that the more often I cook meals from scratch using natural ingredients, the better I feel.

So in our home, we cook a lot of things from scratch, but since I'm not allergic to chips, it seems that in the past year, I've had them for a snack nearly every single night (ahem.... and I wonder why I gained so much weight in this past year.............).

So, last night, instead of inhaling countless chips for my evening snack, I took the time to make myself one of the most delicious snacks/meal in my cooking arsenal. It's so quick, easy and delicious, I can't figure out why I haven't made this for myself for a snack every night. MUCH healthier, less or the same amount of calories, but more importantly, the QUALITY of those calories is what makes a huge difference. It's actual nutrition for the body instead of empty calories coming from deep fried chips.

My Ultra Quick Ultra Tasty Homemade Refried Beans!!! YUMMO!

Here's what you do:

• A dash of olive oil (or canola or other)
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
• Leftover cooked beans of your choice (I used leftover lentils)
• Half to a whole fresh tomato, remove the seeds and juice as much as you can, diced - if you don't have lots of beans leftover, just use half a tomato, and reserve the rest for decoration.
• 6 or more large black olives, no pitts, sliced

In a small pot, put in a dash of oil on medium-high heat, and cook up the onions until they become translucent. Toss in the rest of the ingredients, and turn the heat to medium. Stir everything so that it all warms up evenly, then add Salt & Pepper to taste, and remove from the heat. Mash it all up in the small pot with a potato masher to turn everything into a paste.

Then, you can put that vegan fresh homemade refried beans mixture into what ever you like! You can do a lettuce wrap, tortilla wrap, spread it on some cooked leftover heated rice, etc...I find that the olives give it a lovely taste.

Last night, I heated a large whole wheat flour tortilla (basic ingredients, no preservatives or additives, and uses veg oil, no animal products), and added in some lettuce, the rest of my diced tomato, and I added in some light sour cream* and a sprinkle of light shredded cheddar cheese*.

(* those aren't vegan, I know, I'm aiming for Lacto-ovo-vegetarian at this point, and I'm highly allergic to soy and tofu, but you can replace those products for things that you can eat, since there's so many alternatives out there, or remove them of course).

I wrapped up everything in a nice little bundle, and really enjoyed my much healthier snack (compared to the chips I would have otherwise eaten). I didn't have time to take a picture. The camera was upstairs and I was hungry... there was not a crumb left after a minute...LOL, sorry!

You'll have to make your own if you want to see it :)

Natural ingredients, made from scratch at home, no preservatives, no chemicals, high fiber, high nutrition, good oils (olive oil)... and so quick, it took less than 5 minutes to do this from start to finish.

That's MUCH better than grabbing a bag of chips, don't you think? :-)

I'm taking the New Year's Pledge! Want to join me?

As I posted earlier today, since I've decided that 2009 was the year to put my health as The No. 1 Priority, and I want to hold myself accountable to it, what better place to put it out there than on my blog. Eek!!!

I know you can all help me keep my goals in check (and I do thank you in advance for your support.....), and I hope that by the same token, you will all make your health a priority this coming year. We can do this together!

I was browsing around on the web this afternoon, and I went to the VegCooking website, and saw this little green button that called my name. It said: "Take the Veg Pledge!" - and I know I can't change everything over night, but for the past few weeks, a lot has changed in my level of awareness in matters of the treatments of animals raised for consumption, even the 'free-range' ones, and my heart just aches and I cannot turn a blind eye.

So, as part of eating healthier and working on losing a lot of the excess weight that currently adorns my body, I've rejoined Weight Watchers online, and I will be using their brand new "Momentum - Simply Filling" program (a better version of the old CORE - no point counting plan).

I used to be on the Weight Watchers Flex Points before and I couldn't stand counting points and I got really obsessed by it (I'm sure that I'm obsessive-compulsive to a large degree), and it was taking over my life and it wasn't working. I was miserable. But, at the time, I didn't feel like I could handle the 'Core' way of doing WW, so I just gave up.

But I got an email this morning (Thanks Weight Watchers!) with this new Momentum plan and I could re-enroll and they would waive the sign-up fee. So I checked it out, and my gosh, it looks like something I can actually do and succeed at :-)

And, as a matter of fact, the Simply Filling way of doing the Momentum plan certainly favors a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle, eating filling (high fiber, highly nutritional food items, mainly vegetable, grains, legumes), and so I figured, why not combine the two and take the New Year's 30 day pledge to go veg , and really focus on eating healthy while also putting my mind at ease, because let me tell you, it hasn't been easy for me to eat much meat this month. It upsets me a lot, and in order to feel good with myself, I have to eat more vegetarian and vegan meals, so this pledge will certainly help me in many ways.

It's part of what I had been thinking of doing as I had mentionned to my girlfriend Susmitha a few weeks back... I just said that I had an idea for a plan and that I was going to do it on my blog (I was planning on doing a weekly blog feature about my journey to becoming veg). So, this pledge is the start of a very enlightning journey.

I'm sure there will be plenty of challenges along the way (including my allergies to soy, tofu, etc), but there's lots of things to eat and one can modify recipes too.

I hope you will join me. I know that it's not for everybody, but most people think that they need to lose a bit of weight, so paying attention to what we eat for 30 days, and also incorporating more legumes, vegetables and whole grains in our diets can only benefit all of us in the end.

If you're reading this and you decide to take the pledge starting as of January 1st (we still have time to grab some healthy foods/groceries to get started on the right foot!) - Leave me a comment on this post, and come back to let me know how you're doing.

I'd sure love to hear from you, and know that we're doing this together and that we can support eachother and exchange some cool recipes :)

For those that are wondering, there's some great info here in the VegCooking website about transitioning.

Here's to better health and less cruelty to animals...

My Vegan Lentil Stew Recipe

After answering my "Year End" questions yesterday (see my previous blog post below), there is one thing that stood out loud and clear. I did a lot of things, learned a lot of things, and I was happy, etc, but when it came to 'What could I have done differently' - the same problem seem to creep up all the time:

I do not take the time to take care of my health.
I have a few bad eating habits, as healthy as I like to cook, chips are my downfall and well, I eat some every night - which is not good.
I put everything else and every body else first most of the time and I don't put my foot down about what I want and need to do to improve my health.

The result, on top of being peri-menopausal, is weight gain and other associated health issues that arise. So, deep breath, this is going to be my priority for the coming year, and since there is no better time than the present to get started, I'm sharing with you what I made myself for lunch today. It's healthy, balanced nutrition, filling and good for you.

Nathalie's Vegan Lentil Stew

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 Teaspoons of vegetable oil

1/2 cup of onions, chopped in chunks

1 cup of mushrooms, sliced

2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth (I like the all-natural Knorr veg broth)

1/4 cup of dried lentils (or about 1 1/2 cups of canned lentils)

2 large potatoes, cubed

1 cup of carrots, finely chopped/sliced

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 Bay leaf

1 fresh garlic clove, or about 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/2 Tablespoon of dried parsley

Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

In a medium pot, add in the oil, and heat it up. Toss in the onions and mushrooms and let cook until the onions and mushrooms start to brown a bit.

Add in (gently) the 2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth, the lentils, the potatoes, the carrots, the celery, the bay leaf, the garlic, the parsley and a some salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil on high heat, then cover and reduce the heat to medium. Cook for about 25-30 min. Until the lentils, potatoes and carrots are cooked.

Taste the stew and adjust the salt & pepper to your liking.

* * * * * *

I didn't have any mushrooms in the house today, so I couldn't put any in, so I didn't stir-fry the onions first, I just dumped everything in the pot with the broth and skipped the oil. I prefer to sautee the onions and mushrooms first in a bit of oil as it adds a lot more flavor in my opinion. I'm a big fan of mushrooms and onions, so together they really add a lot of flavor and texture to the stew.

Try it and let me know what you think :)

How was your 2008?

Here we stand, Boxing Day.... and in a few days, 2008 will be over with.

At the end of every year, I like to ask myself a few questions:

• How was my year?
• Did I learn something new?
• What could I have done differently?
• Did I realise some of my dreams?
• Have I been happy?

As I answer these questions, it helps me set the path for the New Year and see the steps that I will take to move forward.

It's good to stop for a few minutes and think about those things, then we can move forward in the right direction.

Ever day that we have on this planet is a blessing. Let's use every minute wisely :-)

I wish you all a very happy holiday season and all the best for 2009!

Recipe: Indian Style Vegan Stew

I was feeling quite a bit under the weather after the Christmas show (I caught some sort of bug), so I haven't been cooking much since a fever and feeling ultra lousy just aren't conducive to wanting to cook, at least in my books.

So I've been eating what my mom has been cooking - which is always nice, she's an excellent cook, but with the new information I recently learned from Tamara about the treatment of so called "free-range" animals, I really don't feel great about eating meats and my mom's cooking is, well, the old traditional way of cooking in North America.

But bless her heart, she is open to trying new things, and with my 5 year stint living in the Caribbean, I have learned to appreciate legumes a lot, as meats are quite expensive over there since most of it (except for chicken and black belly lamb) is imported in. So over the years I've spent in the Islands, I've learned and enjoyed various recipes and some have become my favorites.

I'm not claiming to become Vegetarian or even Vegan over night or anything like that, but I definitely want to incorporate more Vegetarian and Vegan meals into my diet. I'll talk more about this in a separate post.

I'm a big fan of black eyed peas, lentils and chickpeas, so today I'm sharing what I made last night for dinner. Mom ate it and enjoyed it, but the guys (my husband and my dad) had something else that my mom had made instead. Vegan and Vegetarian cooking is not their thing (well, not yet anyway... )

This recipe is so quick and so easy to make. It's delicious and very filling... and dang, I think it looks super awesome on my plate, don't you?

Feel free to try it and let me know what you think!

Indian Style Vegan Stew

serves 3-4

2 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp curry powder (I use 'medium')
1/3 tsp ground ginger (or more if you like, I'm not a huge fan of ginger)
1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce*
1 can (15-19 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 tbsp lime juice (optional)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Serve on a bed of rice (in this picture, I served it on some leftover vegetable rice that we had in the fridge from the night before).

Directions:

Take a large non-stick frying pan and heat up the vegetable oil on medium heat. Add in the chopped onions and a bit of salt & pepper, and cook them, stirring frequently. Once the onion starts to become a bit translucent (3-4 minutes), add in the chopped garlic cloves, and cook 1-2 minutes longer.

Add in the curry powder and ginger, mix well in the onions and garlic, and cook until the flavors come alive, about 1 minute.

Add in the pan the tomato sauce* (I make my own tomato sauce and I always have some on hand, but you can use a 15-19 fl.oz can of puréed tomatoes and just pour it in, or purée a can of diced or whole tomatoes using a hand blender), the chickpeas, and the water. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat to 'low' to let the stew simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened up to your liking, about 15-20 minutes.

I don't use lime juice in mine, but if you want it, you can add it in at the end, then season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve on top of a bed of warm rice.

Enjoy!

New pre-holiday goodies!

Well, the Christmas Show I attended last weekend was pretty much a bust in terms of attendance, and the only vendors that did better than the rest were food vendors (and yes, I bought a couple of sweet treats to bring home to my hubby of course) :-)

Since I had made a good number of pieces especially for the show, I have a fair number of new items to list, so I'll be listing a few each day over the next couple of weeks. I'm feeling a bit under the weather at the moment, so I'm trying not to over do anything.

The above pendant is one of the items I made, and believe you me when I say that this amazing borosilicate lampwork focal bead is just drop-dead gorgeous.

It's up for sale here in my Etsy Shop, and I will add it to my Ruby Lane and my own website too shortly.

Remember, on my own website, I offer a very low FLAT RATE shipping to USA and Canada per order. No matter how many items you add to your shopping cart, you will not pay more than $1.95 in total for shipping. That's cheaper than paying for the gas to get to your nearest mall!