A Tale of 2 Tabouleh salads

So I think in America people call this salad Tabouli but Arabs call it Tabouleh, so that's what we call it around here. I love the tabouleh salad my husband's mom used to make. My first attempt making it was a nightmare but I eventually figured it out. Then I found a tabouleh recipe in one of my raw food recipe books  that used quinoa (but I cook the quinoa) instead of wheat bulgar. Lately I have made that version more but I will give you both versions.

Traditional Tabouleh
1 cup of wheat bulgur ( I used fine- soak bulgur in hot water until soft about 20-30 minutes, then drain excess water - I used a clean smaller bowl to push the water out, the bulgur would fall through a strainer)
1 bunch parsley - chopped
1 bunch green onions - chopped - green parts too
4 roma tomatoes - chopped
2 1/2 cucumbers - chopped
(some people add 1/2 green pepper - chopped)
Salt to taste (don't over do it)
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil


Mix everything in a big bowl. 

*My husband likes his with a little more lemon juice. Taste it and add more if you like.

Quinoa Tabouleh (adapted from Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow )

1 cup uncooked quinoa (cook according to package)
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 cup diced cucumber
1 cup chopped roma tomato
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Toss all ingredients together

* I never measure the amount of veggies. I just put in as much as I like. I like a lot of parsley so I put in more.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

I stole these pics off my sister's blog but I was the one who gave her the recipe in the first place so I don't feel bad... I originally got this recipe from greensmoothiegirl.com

The salad:

Fresh Baby Spinach 4-6 oz.

Fresh Strawberries, about 15, sliced

1/4-1/2 cup pecans, chopped

The dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/8 cup honey

1/2 Tbl poppy seeds

dash of paprika

Combine all the ingredients and serve or refrigerate until ready to eat!

** This salad is great for summer and you can mix this dressing up for any green/fruit combination you can think of.

Sprout Love

I'm back... (Cue screaming) So I have been kind of dead to the Internet lately. We had family visiting from out of town (more on that later) and I just didn't feel like I would be a great hostess if I was on the computer a ton doing my blog. So that is my excuse. But I really don't feel like I need excuses. I mean I will blog when I feel like it, okay??? If I sound a little bit snippy it is because my husband is out of town and I get kind of grouchy when he is gone. Yet another excuse. ANYWAY...

The good news is I finally started using my sprouter that my wonderful sister-in-law bought me a couple of years ago. Remember the one that has been sitting on my counter for forever?? Anyhow, wouldn't you know it, it really isn't that hard to sprout. So we can just add sprouting to my list of easy things that I needlessly procrastinate doing.

So here is the low down on sprouting... You can sprout seeds, nuts, legumes, beans, etc... Just soak what you want to sprout overnight in filtered water. I just did it in a regular bowl. The next day drain and rinse them using a fine mesh strainer. Then if you have a sprouter (which I suggest getting) you just lay them out on the tray and rinse them morning and night for a few days until they have nice long sprouts. Different things take different times to sprout. You can find this information in your sprouting kit instructions or online.

I have this sprouter,

which I recommend for a couple of reasons. 1. It's the only one I have ever used. 2. The tray drains easily with it's built in holes and then when you are done sprouting you can just stick the tray in the fridge with the lid on and they will keep for a while that way.

You can stick the sprouts in salads, wraps, and even smoothies. A loves them so much she just eats them plain. But she is a little weird. I mean that kid inhales salads.

contest winner and strawberry and date vinaigrette

And the winner is ... Toni!Way to go girls. I am glad you guys found a way to fit in your exercise. There weren't a ton of entries so this tells me a couple of things.

1. It IS really hard to fit in exercise.
2. You can't really motivate other people to exercise, even if you offer them money.

Even with the pressure of not sounding like a hypocrite on my blog was not enough motivation to overcome the busyness of life. So somehow we have to make the time and make exercise a priority. It takes a lot of discipline. When you find out the secret, let me know!!

So here is a recipe...

strawberry and date vinaigrette

Little less than 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Little less than 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
3 medjool dates
5 frozen strawberries

Blend in blender till smooth.

** This is great with a fruit/green salad. Some possible combinations:

1. spinach, pecans, strawberries
2. romaine, apples, raisins, walnuts, thinly sliced red onion
3. mixed baby greens, pear, almonds


Here is how we had it last night:
mixed baby greens, apples, raw pumpkin seeds

Baptism Review and how to get more veggies in your salad

So E's baptism was awesome. It was a really great experience. We had a lot of friends and neighbors come and share that special day with us. It was really nice.

 I realized too late that I should have taken a picture of the food. But here is a run down of what we ended up serving:

veggie tray (from Costco)
Homemade vegan ranch dressing
Hummus
Wheat pitas
Spinach artichoke dip (From Costco)
Organic tortilla chips
store bought peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies (gag!)
Homemade peanut butter oatmeal chocolate cookies
Raw coconut balls
Pink Lemonade

Even at the baptism I was pushing my healthy recipes on people. I got good reviews of the hummus, ranch dip, and coconut balls.

Anyhow, today I don't have a recipe so much as a tip. I got this idea from the blog Whole Food for the Whole family. In this post she talks about using a mandolin to slice her veggies to give them a good "mouth-feel." It will make more sense if you read her post. Plus she has some good picks. But the gist of it is that you shred your veggies into your salad they are a lot more enjoyable to eat than knife sliced veggies. (Cue clouds dispersing, sun shining, and birds singing!)

This was such an easy concept but I had never thought of it before but it is so true. Now I don't have a mandolin so I just started using my old trusty cheese grater to grate up raw carrots, zucchini, beats, etc.. into our salads. We were never eating these in our salads before. And let's face it I just don't enjoy biting into a big chunk of raw zucchini but if you shred that zucchini up and can eat the whole thing.

So try it and see if you can't get your kids, and yourself, to eat some veggies on your salad you never did before.

Meatless Wednesday? Barley Risotto and another way to eat falafel

Last night there was a tornado that touched down about 25 miles from here and it was possibly heading our way. Of course this was right at dinner time. So I turned off the stove and the fam headed down to our basement. We spent almost 2 hours down there and it was SO fun, I tell you. Now some of my real fancy friends were probably living it up down in their finished basements but we were hunkered down amongst our boxes in what were lovingly refer to as "the dungeon." As tornado season approaches we decide after last night that we need to create a tornado retreat down there with some seating, treats, and entertainment.

Anyhow, we all survived and then we headed up to eat a new recipe I tried with millet, white beans, and cauliflower. It was not a big hit. So it was basically a great end to a fun filled night.

Anyhow, I missed my meatless Monday post so here is a recipe for a meatless Wednesday. You can do meatless more than one day a week, you know!! I go this recipe from ohsheglows.com.

Easy Creamy Tomato Barley Risotto

Here is the risotto with a side of steamed broccoli and a salad with the vegan ranch dressing.

Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum Cookbook.
Yield: ~2 cups
Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry pot barley
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1.5 cups canned pureed/diced tomatoes (15 oz can)
• 1 cup almond milk (or other milk)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (provides the cheesy/creamy taste)
• 1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt, to taste

Directions: Rinse pot barley in a strainer and place into medium sized pot that has a lid. Add olive oil, basil, and oregano and stir well until barley is coated with oil. Turn heat to medium until barley begins to sizzle.
Once the barley sizzles, add in the minced garlic and reduce heat to low-medium. Cook for 1 minute and then add in the tomatoes, milk, water, nutritional yeast,  and salt. Stir well and bring to a gentle boil and then cover and reduce heat to low.

Cook, covered (with a bit of air escaping) for 30-35 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, being careful not to burn the barley on the bottom of the pot.

The mixture should be creamy, but not soupy, and the barley will be very chewy and not mushy. Serve immediately. Serves 4 side dishes and makes 2 cups worth.

** This recipe originally called for miso, which I don't have so I just added a bit more salt. Start low on salt and then add more if it needs it.

** The kids did not love this but it was something different and my husband and I enjoyed it. But it is pretty rich to me. I could not eat a tone of it.

Here is another fun way to eat falafel... on a salad. I just dropped falafel on a bed of romaine lettuce with cucumbers, tomatoes, some drops of hummus, and then drizzled it with tahini dressing. It was yummy!!

** Check out this commercial. Doesn't it make you want a Big Mac??

Weigh in and Ceasar Salad

So Fridays are my days to weigh myself and I am happy to report that I have lost another 3.8 pounds!! Yay!! So far that it is 6.8 pounds weight loss. And the best part is I am feeling great. Last night I taught a green smoothie class at my friends church and I bought myself a new pair of jeans so I wouldn't have to wear my yoga pants. Sometimes I am so resistant to buying bigger sizes but it feels good to have something else to wear and hopefully in the next month or so they will be too big for me. But it won't be wasted money.


So I haven't really changed my eating that much. When you do weight watchers you have 2 options - you can keep track of everything you eat and their points or you can follow their "simply filling" plan and eat mostly "power foods" and then only count the points of things you eat that are not on the power foods list. I chose the simply feeling option because I hate having to keep track of all those points and because I mostly only eat power foods anyway. Power foods would be whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, and for those that eat these things: lean cut meats and fat free dairy.


So my eating hasn't changed dramatically but I have cut back on the nuts and treats. I have also been cutting back on the coconut oil and sweeteners that are called for in my healthy treat recipes. I have found that most raw desserts only need half or less of the sweetener it calls for in the recipe, the same can be said for the coconut oil.


But I have started exercising again and that has been awesome. So far I can only really speed walk on the treadmill but it is a far cry better than the exercise I was getting walking to the bathroom!!


Now on to a recipe. We eat a lot of salads and let's face it. That can get boring. So it is nice to change them up a bit. Here is a great recipe I got from Whole foods for the Whole Family. I love the croutons! It have never occurred to me to make my own. My kids love them and it helps them gobble up even more salad.

Caesar Salad

Dressing
2 T almond butter or blanched almonds
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 T Dijon mustard
3 T fresh lemon juice
1T tahini
2 T olive oil
Salt to taste

** I added about 1/2 cup of water to this because I thought the Dijon mustard taste was just too strong. So if you aren't a big Dijon mustard fan you could maybe start with half the mustard and then add more if it needs it or add water like I did to dilute it some.

Romaine lettuce, spinach, shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, shredded zucchini - whatever you have!


Croutons
4 slices whole wheat bread, cut into cubes
1/2 t dried rosemary
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t Celtic salt

I coat the bread with extra virgin olive oil with my silicone pastry brush - a wonderful kitchen gadget to have!!

Then I sprinkle the herb mixture and cut them up with a pizza cutter.

 Bake in 325 degree oven until crisp, 15-20 minutes.