Tofu, I'm Not Scared of You!

My camera has no batteries because it evidently takes a LOT of power to take 30 pictures.

Since I'm going to the beach this weekend and Iowa for the Livestrong Presidential Cancer Forum, I wanted to use up my produce. I purchased some portabellas on a whim this week, and I had some green beans. I needed some protein, though, so I decided to throw in some tofu, too.

I pan-fried the firm tofu I'd cubed in a light layer of olive oil spray. I actually didn't touch it, so it got nice and brown. But I didn't feel like browning all four sides so I browned 2 sides and threw in the green beans with some red wine vinegar. When those were almost done, I added strips of the shroom. Meanwhile, I cooked some couscous and topped it with the veggies. A pretty easy and tasty dish. I had no onions so next time I'll make it like I usually do my caramalizing some onions first. Yum.

Chickpeas and Barley

In need of an easy meal, I cooked .5cup barley (my favorite grain) and mixed in .5cup chickpeas, 2 cloves of roasted garlic (threw them in the oven with the paper on for 15 minutes or so on 400ish degrees until soft), .5TB olive oil, and some dried basil. It was good.

Smoothie Greatness

Smoothies are pretty easy to make, but I've come up with the tastiest combination ever.

• Fruit- banana, berries, peach, etc. (I generally use 1 banana and a handful
  of berries)
• Soy milk or silken tofu (the latter works great, I'd use maybe .5 block or
  1 cup of soymilk)
• Unsweentened, non Dutch processed cocoa (1-2 TB will do)
• Nut butter (1 TB is fine but you might need 2TB to get a really strong
  flavor)
• Coffee (mix up a couple teaspoons/tablesoons in small amount of
  water)
• Cinamon
  

Today I got smart and decided to put the soymilk and coffee in ice cube trays in the freezer for about an hour along with the banana (peeled) and raspberries. I love my smoothies thick and almost frozen, but adding ice cubes dilutes the flavor...

Save the Vegetables! Soup

Evidently I overpurchased on veggies last week, which means that I didn't need to buy much this week, but I had to come up with a way to use them up because the thought of throwing out food makes me want to cry. So I did what I love to do- threw it all in a pot to make a soup.



On hand:

1 medium onion

6 cloves garlic (I had to buy a giant pack of garlic becuase I needed it one day and the only nearby place tht had it sold it in 6 bulb packages)

3 large yellow squashes

4 plum tomatoes

4 cups of green beans

1 medium head of cauliflower

1 cup frozen corn



1 can light kidney beans



.5 cup barley (my favorite grain)

.25 cup each quinoa and bulgur



Simply seasoned with seasalt and pepper. If it was topped with avocado, it would contain all essential food groups! It's a nice summery soup and should feed me the rest of the week- it made 5 gigantic servings.

All Chili-d Out

Hello, my name is Jennilicious, and I'm a badbloggeroholic. I haven't posted in ages because, let's face it, I'm a lazy-good-for-nothing. I decided to go ahead and post this short and to-the-point blog to get myself back in the habit.

I got paid yesterday, so I made a beeline to the store after work. Despite the fact that I was starving, I managed to stay fairly focused and made good food choices. I walked through the produce section and saw all that veggie stuff and thought I'd try something new. I saw the Lightlife stuff and decided on the Smart Chili.
Once home, I debated how best to use my chili. I had some sour cream left after making spinach dip for a barbecue at work (at least it was light sour cream, right?), so I thought chili nachos would hit the spot.

I heated up the chili, which just meant opening the pouch it comes in and throwing it in the microwave, dumped it on some tortilla chips, and slapped some sour cream and jalapenos on top.

I was starving, so I managed to down the whole plate in no time. But, the chili was pretty disappointing. It tasted rather like ketchup, and I hate ketchup. It was way too sweet.

Looking at the Web site, it seems Lightlife is headquartered in Massachusetts, which could explain this flavor scheme (sorry Veganne!). Any chili I've had here in Texas has had at least a modicum of spicy heat. This had zilch. What gives?