Noshtopia

Dinner Idea: Stir-fry Chicken and Chard With Beet Red Quinoa

2013-06-12T11:00:30-07:00

After eating the beet red quinoa at Source, I was inspired to make some at home coupled with a chicken and chard stir-fry. I like the yin yang symbolism in the plate. Instead of white and black, I have red and green going on representing a plant flow of energy. See how metaphysical I go there for a sec?

Making the red quinoa is easy. Simply mix in pureed red beets with plain quinoa and voila! I did 1/2 cup pureed beets for 1 cup of cooked quinoa. The quinoa turns into a gorgeous deep red color. No artificial food coloring here.

Chard comes in all kinds of colors and shapes, so have fun with it! I saw this ginormous bowl of chard at the farmers market, and seriously wanted to jump in and gorge.

The chicken and chard stir-fry is very simple to make and will take less than 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped uncooked chicken (in my dish I used Beyond Meat chicken to make it vegan)
2 cups chopped chard
1/2 cup sliced red onion
olive oil
sea salt and black pepper

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a wok or saute pan on medium.

Add the onion in the pan and cook until the onion is soft. Add in the chicken and season with some salt and pepper.* Cook until the chicken is browned.

Add in the chard and continue to stir with the chicken and onion until the chard softens.

*If you want to add a little more flavor to your stir-fry, add in 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, black bean sauce, or teriyaki sauce, or whatever sauce fits your craving.

The Plant Cafe Happy Appies: English Pea Crostini, Portobella Carpaccio, and Hodo Spring Rolls

2013-06-11T12:55:12-07:00

Phoenix bestie @ElizabethHannan was in town visiting. After taking a loop around the Ferry Building to enjoy delectable Blue Bottle lattes, we walked over to The Plant Cafe at Pier 3, an organic cafe, to enjoy happy hour with a couple of appetizers and glasses of wine.

I LOVE this place! The food is gorgeous...and tastes incredible. The Plant is a great place to take meat eaters who want to try more plant-based foods.

We started off with this Chef Palate's special platter (in the photo above) consisting of:

A porcini and almond milk mousse with crostini, red wine reduction and sliced apples.
Hodo Soy tofu Spring Rolls in rice wrappers
Roasted portobella mushroom and avocado carpaccio with lemon thyme oil.
Sauteed greens in Moroccan spices with sunflower sprouts and crunchy seeds.

I ordered a second order of the Spring Rolls because they were so good! Hodo Soy tofu is organic and gluten-free and one of the best tofus made in the Bay Area. Their Five-Spice tofu nuggets are incredible in this Fried Rice dish.

Elizabeth got a plate of the seasonal crostini made with mashed English peas and a layer of soft cheese. Forgive me, I forgot to get the name. English peas are crisp and sweet. I'd love to make a vegan version of this crostini.

When in SF, nosh at The Plant Cafe!

Sweet & Spicy Summer Salad Idea: Peaches, Avocado, Zucchini, and Jalapeno With Arugula

2013-06-10T12:57:54-07:00

To add some fiery excitement to my daily green salads, I've started adding chopped jalapeno. I call them my little rings of fire on greens.

In this salad is a bed of organic arugula, with chopped avocado, peaches, red onion, shaved zucchini and slices of jalapeno. I got most of the ingredients from the farmers market. Play around with the fruit. The jalapeno goes really well with the cool sweetness of summer fruit like peaches, plums or nectarines.

To add some protein, toss on some almond slivers or pistachios.

Simple Dinner Dish: Sauteed Turkey Keilbasa With Red and Orange Peppers Plus Onions

2013-06-06T19:41:53-07:00

This dish is real simple to cook, and makes for a fun dinner. You can pair it with some Quinoa and kale salad. All the ingredients come from Trader Joes.

Use as much of the sausage you like. In the photo, I used half of the keilbasa which can feed twi people. I cut up enough peppers and onions to make up the other half of the dish. Again, use how much you like. There's no restrictions here.

Ingredients:

Turkey Kelibasa cut into slices
Red and Orange peppers sliced into strips
Red onion sliced into slivers
Olive Oil

In a saute pan, heat some olive oil on medium heat.

Brown the turkey keilbasa. Remove the cooked keilbasa from pan and put on a plate to the side for a moment.

Saute the peppers and onions until soft.

Add back in the browned turkey keilbasa with the peppers and onion. Mix for about a minute.

Place in serving dish and enjoy!

The Vegan, Gluten-free Blueberry Banana Walnut Bread Experiment

2013-06-04T12:09:21-07:00

Well, my first time bread experiment turned out pretty looking if I do say so. I had yet to make a gluten-free bread, so last week when I was stocking up at Costco, I got a bag of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour and decided to experiment.

I didn't write up a recipe to share for this one because although the bread came out nice looking and did taste good, soft but not gummy, for a first time try, it's not at Steph level yet :-) More tweaking needs to be done. I just wanted to start sharing some of the things I do behind the scenes.

Not every blog post has to be about a beautiful end product I'm learning. This is a good way for me to learn from you all as well, and for us to learn from each other. Eating healthier takes a village, yes?

I looked at a bunch of vegan and gluten-free banana bread recipes including the one on the back of the baking flour bag. Next time, I want to try mixing in a different flour too maybe coconut or almond meal. Instead of using gums like Xanthan or Guar for thickener, I used Arrowroot. I like Arrowroot because I learned from Dr. Andrew Weil that it's easier to digest than the gums.

Have you made a vegan, gluten-free banana bread? What flours did you use?

Brunch: Egg Salad Smoky Maple Bacon Taco Sliders

2013-06-02T13:16:18-07:00

Recently at Whole Foods, I discovered Mi Rancho Organic Corn Taco Slider Tortillas. They are 4" in diameter and are the cutest things. I've been on a taco slider creative binge lately. For brunch, imagine all the creative fun taco sliders you could make. The kids will LOVE these sliders!

When you are plant-based it is challenging to find breakfast and brunch foods that don't have eggs, cheese, or meats in them. The egg salad bacon taco sliders I've made above are actually entirely plant-based - yes, even the bacon.

You could easily use your own real egg salad recipe and real bacon. I wanted to show a fun plant-based version.

Here's what I used in my brunch taco sliders:

Hodo Soy v-EGG-an Salad which is made with organic tofu making it GMO-free as well. Better yet, this egg salad has 13g of protein per serving. Hodo's egg salad is one of the best vegan egg salads I've ever tried.
Turtle Island Foods Tempeh Smoky Maple Bacon made with organic soybeans. It's not gluten-free because it has soy sauce in the ingredients. Like the Hodo Soy egg salad, this bacon is packed with protein at 12g per serving. I've been wanting to try this vegan for a long time, and finally bought some. For vegan bacon, it's pretty tasty and better if you fry it in a little olive oil. I also used the bacon in this BLT Pink Bean Salad.
Chopped ripe vine tomato
Arugula
Chopped Green Onions
Hot sauce

Enjoy! So what kind of fun brunch taco sliders would you make?

Try This Fresh Herb To Jazz Up Your Dishes: Lemon Basil

2013-05-28T14:01:15-07:00

Imagine the rich smell of fresh basil and now add in a spritz of soothing lemony fragrance and you have lemon basil. Oh yes, it is divine.

Lemon basil is a popular herb used in Arabic, Indonesian, Lao, Persian and Thai cuisine. You can find it at farmers markets, Asian markets, or you can grow your own. I found this bunch at the SF Ferry Building farmers market this weekend, and I just stood there for awhile inhaling the lemony basil smell like I was getting a dose of aromatherapy.

Some ideas where you could use lemon basil: a summery bruschetta with heirloom tomato, caprese salad, strawberry lemon basil lemonade, or in pesto sauce.

Pasta Seafood Fest: Lobster, Mussels, Clams and Shrimp With Linguine

2013-05-23T12:40:24-07:00

I had brunch with the family recently, and dad got one of the specials which was this linguine pasta dish with lobster, mussels, clams, and shrimp. The dish was big enough food to feed three adults. I had to take a photo of dad's dish just because I was so fascinated with the seafood.

This dish reminded me of the East Coast and visions of fisherman coming into the harbor with their catch before most of us are out of bed.

What kind of pasta seafood combinations have you created or eaten?

w00t! We Are Content Partners With Keas Helping Employees Eat Well

2013-05-22T09:45:45-07:00

I'm very excited to share with you all today that Noshtopia is a new healthy eating content partner with Keas , an Employee Wellness Program that combines the best of social media and online games to create happier, healthier, more engaged employees.

If your company uses Keas, you will start seeing our delicious healthy food ideas on the Keas platform. I'm very excited to be able to spread more of our plant-loving noshiness over into the workplace.

We're keeping it real - real food eating!

What Is Eating Flexitarian?

2013-05-22T03:50:29-07:00

Looks yum huh?! Before I get to esplaining what Flexitarian is, let me share that the blueberry, granola parfait and the Grilled Garlic Jalapeno Havarti with Roasted Tomato and Basil sandwich is dairy and egg free. The yogurt in the parfait is coconut milk Greek-style yogurt. The dinner plate is ground turkey with chard, roasted cauliflower and red Quinoa. The green salad has flowering radishes, purple curly kale, and English Peas, and for dessert we have a vegan hot fudge sundae.

Eating healthier just got a bit more fun didn't it? Welcome to eating Flexitarian!

Philosophically, I practice "eating wellness" here which is basically as Hippocrates said, "let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." I believe in the Farmacy before the need for the Pharmacy. Farm over Pharma.

Credit: Bizarro Comic

Flexitarian is eating mostly plant-based with occasional meat, dairy, eggs and seafood. Flexible is the key word. It's essentially going vegetarian with the ability to eat the incidental cheeseburger, chicken tikka masala or tuna sandwich without getting the evil eye from others or you feeling guilty for being a bad, cheating vegetarian. I know so much judgement sometimes. So, we are trying to vanquish the judginess.

I also like the concept of flexible to represent mostly healthy for your body with the occasional vice eating that allows room for the junk, decadent, and processed foods. I am realistic. Healthier eating does not mean perfect eating. There is a difference between eating a candy bar once in awhile versus three times a week every week. Healthier eating means balance and flexibility - incorporating both health and fun! If plants and animals can co-mingle, so can kale and Quinoa with donuts and fried chicken. Again, the key is flexible so your psyche knows that there is no deprivation. Nothing is forbidden.

According to Wikipedia, "in 2003, the American Dialect Society voted flexitarian as the year's most useful word and defined it as "a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat". In 2012, the term was listed for the first time in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary."

More recently in 2013, Mark Bittman came out with a book called, "VB6" meaning Vegan Before 6pm which is his version of being Flexitarian. His new column in the NY Times is called, "The Flexitarian." I first read about Bittman's VB6 philosophy in 2009 when he was embarking on a new health journey. That column inspired my version of Flexitarianism which I was calling, "80/20 Plant-based Eating" which incorporated eating 80% plant-based/vegan and 20% meat and seafood.

I started eating more plant-based in the early 2,000's after I was forced to change my eating habits because I discovered that I was allergic to dairy and eggs. Initially, I couldn't imagine my life without pizza, ice cream, and mac and cheese, but fortunately because food producers are getting more creative and there is more customer demand, there are many options for dairy-free, and egg-free eating.

To make things easier, and since the NY Times has now essentially socially validated the term Flexitarian, I'm going to go with Flexitarian instead of 80/20 Plant-based eating. I envision the Flexitarian style of eating becoming the next big trend because it gives people the ability to eat healthier by eating more plants and yet being able to still eat things like cheese and chicken on occasion. There is no living without nor cheating because we get the flexibility.

Flexitarian is different than being an Omnivore, in that Omnivores eat everything, where Flexitarians are more conscious and mindful of the type and quantity of animal and seafood products they eat. Flexitarian eating is also more plant-based versus vegan in that the emphasis is more on eating plants versus just eating animal-free.

You can eat vegan an entire day and actually not eat a single vegetable or fruit. Kellogg's Unfrosted Pop-Tarts, Bisquick biscuits made with soy milk coupled with peanut butter, French fries, and Kool-Aid are vegan, and for some people that is breakfast and lunch. And while we're at it, Crisco and high fructose corn syrup are vegan too.

For the time being, I will intermittently use both the terms plant-based and vegan because although the word vegan can be a polarizing word for some people, it's still a good descriptor nutritionally for foods that are dairy, egg, and honey free for those of us who have food allergies. It still sounds odd to me to call a vegan muffin a plant-based muffin. Plus, saying vegan muffin is shorter than saying, "It's a dairy, egg, and honey free muffin." I'm thinking Twitter 140 limitations.

You don't have to be vegan to eat vegan foods. But I get it. I've had the vegan food police come after me before when I've mingled beef meatloaf posts with vegan enchiladas.

Going Flexitarian is a great way to transition into vegetarian or vegan eating, or to cut down on your consumption of animal products for health, environmental, or monetary reasons. Flexitarian is pro-plant and not anti-meat.

I LOVE. love, did I mention love, farmers markets. In fact, there is a whole category on Noshtopia dedicated to the cool foods I find at farmers markets. It's my fruit and veggie inspiration for you all!

I do my best to eat meat that is humanely raised, grass-fed, free of antibiotics and hormones, and for seafood, I eat wild versus farm-raised. I like to buy seafood that has the Marine Stewardship Council ecolabel because it means that brand has made a commitment to seafood sustainability. I do eat cheese and meat alternatives that are GMO-free which I also lump in the "on occasion" category. A couple of my favorites include, Beyond Meat plant-protein chicken-free strips, and Daiya dairy-free cheese.

I eat real foods and as much organic and GMO-free as much as possible looking for the USDA organic and Non-GMO Project Verified symbols. If the ingredient list sounds like a chemistry project, I don't eat it.

Going Flexitarian not only helped me feel better, it helped me get back in and healthily stay in my skinny jeans - 40lbs gone and stayed off for over five years now!

And unlike most weight loss diets, there is no cheating or dieting here. There is no more worrying or obsessing like I used to. I just eat!

Along with being Flexitarian, I am also gluten-little and soy-little meaning I have cut my gluten and soy consumption way down like 80% down. Although I am not allergic or intolerant to gluten, I started going gluten-little because I noticed I just felt better with less gluten in my daily eating. I only eat organic soy because I know it's GMO-free.

I am also avoidant of High Fructose Corn Syrup, Artificial Sweeteners, Sugar Alcohols, Artificial Food Coloring & Food Dyes, MSG, and Preservatives. We're keeping it real!

For sugars, the American Heart Association recommends that women consume around 25 grams of added sugar per day, and for men 37 grams. I try and stick to that guideline +/- 10%. Cutting down on the sugars was and still is one of my personal eating challenges because oh how I love donuts, cookies, and sugary drinks. But the more my body gets used to the healthier eating, the easier it becomes to not want the sugars.

At Noshtopia, my intention is to help you eat your way to a life full of healthiness and have fun along the way! If you are new to eating Flexitarian, I welcome you and please let me know in what ways I can make eating more of a pleasure.