{Meatless Monday} Soaked Oats!

Stay up to date on the latest posts. Subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Hiya happy people!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Can’t believe how quickly summer is flying.

I can already feel autumn whipping threw the air. How about you?

Summer is not over yet though! For us here in the desert of SoCal were still experiencing triple digit weather. It’s crazy but true.

Enough about the weather already….

it’s time to get meatless!

This week I’m sharing a tried and true brekkie (breakfast) recipe.

I get a lot a questions about my soaked oats brekkie from friends and on twitter.

It wasn’t until a couple summer’s ago that I learned about soaking methods through a book by Sally Fallon known as Nourishing Traditions.

Without getting to involved on the soaking topic;

basically by soaking the oats it allows the phytic acid to break down making it easier to digest and increasing nutrition as vitamins and minerals can absorb into the body easier.

Once the oats are soaked they can be eaten as is or gently warmed as they have already been “cooked” overnight while soaking.

There’s nothing better than starting your day out with a great brekkie (see pic above).

We have soaked oats about 3-4x a week.

It’s an easy and quick meal and the boys absolutely love it!!!

It will truly change what you thought about a bowl of oatmeal. I promise!

Lot’s of fruit and nut combos to be made and eaten.

The best part of all —- > SUPER SIMPLE to do!

… simple, healthy & YUM- O’s …

So many different variations can be done from this basic but classic recipe.

Classic Soaked Oats

To prepare soaked oatmeal recipe, you’ll need:

• 1 Cup Rolled Oats
• 1-2 Tablespoons Raw Cider Vinegar or  Lemon Juice
• 1 Cup Organic Nut Milk of Choice (normally use Almond or Coconut Milk)
• 2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
• ¼ Cup Nuts and Seeds of choice
• ¼ Cup Dried Fruit of choice

Directions for Preparing Soaked Oatmeal:

1. Soak rolled oats, seeds and nuts overnight in enough water to cover – adding lemon juice or cider vinegar to the water.
2. In the morning, drain oats and rinse them well.
3. Add milk to large glass bowl and add in remaining ingredients.
4. If you want to warm it… simply place milk into a pot and gently warm and thicken to your preference.
5. Be sure to stir frequently and simmer on low.
6. Serve with natural sweetener of your choice – we always use honey & occasionally Grade B maple syrup.

We usually eat the soaked oats without warming & leave the oats covered on the kitchen counter top.

You can soaks oats overnight in the refrigerator too but we’ve always done it this way.

Our normal toppings include but are not limited to raisins, cinnamon, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, with a drizzle of honey and oh  some vanilla…maybe 1/2 tsp!

Mmmm!

We’re out of raisins and sunflower seeds, so, this AM I topped my soaked oats with blackberries, cinnamon, honey and walnut and  it was delish ;P

If it’s not soaked oats… we also have a favorite soaked pancake recipe which I’ve “veganized” & only use gluten free grains since writing this post!

I’ve been meaning to try out a fun new recipe by Angela at the Happy Raw Kitchen… so, this morning I started soaking some oat groats! wheeeeeee….

….enjoy!!!!!

Have a great week!

{Meatless Monday} Cucumber & Zucchini Pasta Salad

Hi everyone!!

Hope you all had a fantastic fourth of July! Ours was quiet and nice. We picked more cherries yesterday; only a pound though because it was their last day and the cherries trees were pretty much picked out. I also scored another jar of fresh local wildflower honey  -straight from the hive into the jar. YUM!

Last week, I made a wonderful quinoa pasta salad using the cucumbers red onions, tomato and zucchini  from our CSA crate and basil from our garden. It was super simple, quick and easy! I thought I snapped a photo of it with my camera phone but I guess not! Party foul! wah!

We love this brand (Ancient Harvest)- Gluten free!

Just visualize this…

Ingredients:

1 Box of Quinoa pasta

1 med  cucumber chopped

1 med zuchinni sliced into half moons

1/2 red onion chopped

5-6 basil leaves or more depending your taste!

(I roll these up and chop into thin strips)

1 med tomato chopped

1/3-1/4 cup of pepitas

1/2- 3/4 Oil & Vinegar dressing  (we used a homemade version)

2 tbsp Nutritional Yeast

Directions:

Boil pasta as directed on box, approx. 6-9 minutes. After pasta is cooked, rinse and drain. Next, dump pasta into a fun serving bowl and add in your fresh veggies, basil, pepitas and Nutritional Yeast (nooch). Pour in oil and vinegar dressing and mix well. Serve and enjoy! **Make this ahead of time and let the flavors marinate for a tastier dish!

Meatless Monday in the bloggy blog interwebs…

First! Here’s 10 GOOD reasons to STOP eating meating!

Caprese Salad by the Healthnut Foodie

Enchiladas at Moms Going Green

Article at the Huffington Post: Going (GMO’S) to Seed with Gado Gado Recipe!

Stop GMO’s!!

Maple Nutty Scones at The Blissful Chef

Garden meal ideas from the Green Phone Booth

& this weeks Meatless Monday’s recipes = YUM!

Hope you enjoy the links and the recipe!

Let me know, if you try any of these or mine out. 

What  have you been cooking or uncooking in the kitchie?

Would love to hear from you.

Peace, Love and Green Happiness!

Later!!!

{Meatless Monday} Raw Vegan Goodies & Meals

Happy Meatless Monday!

Hope you had a great weekend!!  It sure went by fast. There’s always so much I want to share with you but so little time… !!!

The case of Baby C teething is still plaguing my nights… especially, last night, as I could not get him to sleep until after 10pm.

Which meant that any chance of blogging, flew quickly out the window. Gah!

I’m gettin’ really pumped about eating more raw foods and have seem to found a little groove goin’ on. I’m really feelin’ it, physically and emotionally. I’ve only started to feel this way within the past couple of weeks. I’m sure it has a little something to do with the season change but maybe not.  Happy Summer, by the way!

This so called “groove” has me planning and preparing like no other. Let’s just say that preparing raw foods and eating them makes me super happy. Ha!

I’ve been doing a little dabbling lately… recipes from here and recipes from there …basically just getting and idea and experience.

Feeling out different techniques, ways, version…etc.

So much to learn… *sigh*

Besides the usual juices, smoothies and salads on our  menu… here’s some fun raw vegan fare we really enjoyed last week…

Cookies? Did somebody say, cookies? <said in my best Cookie Monster voice>

These cookies are absolutely tasty! I used sprouted buckwheat and chocolate covered cacao nibs for mine!

A couple Meatless Monday’s ago,  I mentioned the e-book The Magically Mysterious Raw Recipe Book.…

well, I’m thoroughly enjoying it…these chic-un-nugget had all the flavor of the real deal except no chickens were killed for this version. YAY!

Seriously? Hummus with no beans… what? Yeah, NO BEAN HUMMUS…it’s definitely among us and I’m SOLD!!!

What, what!! RAISE THE ROOF…these Dorito knockoff’s deliver!  BELIEVE. Crunchy & flavorful AND healthy!!!

We had an abundance of plums so I HAD to make “fruit roll ups” for the tots! YUM, yum, YUM!

(recipe for fruit leathers, comin’ your way, later this week)

This little prize was something I came up with in a snap or on a whim, if you will…

Gluten free english muffin (Food For Life), with daiya mozarella, homemade sun dried tomato & fresh sage sauce + veggie dogs on top!

any guesses, on tonights din-din?

BTW- i’ve been using my oven on the lowest temp setting (170) with oven door cracked …experimenting with it vs. the outdated Mr. Foods Dehydrator we have.

What meatless meals have you been cooking or uncooking up in the kitchie?

{Meatless Monday} Food Porn…

Okay, so maybe not really….

but it’s just an easy post with pics using the stainless steel plates we bought a few weeks back!

I’m not very good at remembering to take pictures before… I keep forgetting to take them until after . Ooops!

So, I don’t have many to show you but I figure you’ll get the gist of the idea…

We’re still doing pretty well on staying meatless. It feels great. I’ve upped my green smoothie intake to twice a day and really feel a difference in energy at night. I’m starting to crave more and more green salads (greens in general) at meal times and really feel different (sluggish) when I miss having a green smoothie.

It feels good to know that were getting more nutrients from the greens into our bodies. Baby C  LOVES green smoothies and Tristan (the eco tot)  is warming up to them.  He’s very partial and I have to be careful not to let it taste to green. What’s weird though, is he’ll eat greens (Swiss Chard, Spinach and Red Leaf Lettuce) straight from the garden. Go figure!

Tristan is a picky one that’s for sure. He definitely has three year old eating habits, there’s no doubt about it!  Which is one of the reasons the stainless steel plates work for us. He hates having some of his foods mixed together or even touching… yeah, he’s one of those… and don’t even ask me where he got that!!! I have no idea, seriously! LOL!

{Anyhoo}

Tristan (the eco tot) feels really special when we serve his meals up this way! He seems to eat all of it, if not most. I’m still getting used to serving things up this way. I enjoy filling up the plates and getting creative with food.

Plate One: all organic foods, of course!

… Homemade PB on celery with mandarin oranges, walnuts, Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies (this was a splurge for the eco tot  at the store the other day when we needed to run in for raw honey!), Sugar Snap Peas,  Red Pepper Hummus, Avocado burrito

Guacamole in a burrito! Simple and easy!

Plate 2:

Pine nut and roasted garlic hummus, snap peas, salsa, a pickle (Bubbies no HFCS!), corn tortilla chips, homemade black beans on spelt wrap.

Oh! and so you know, he consumed all the fruit I placed on the plate before I took the pic! It was orange slices.

Tristan has always LOVED fruit… he can eat a basketful if I let him.  He eats fruit before, after and during meals.

These plates are perfect for dipping and the eco tot loves it when I fill a compartment in with syrup or ketchup… whatever the dip… he’ll enjoy it and ask for more usually. lol!

French toast on homemade oat bread, Mandarin, raisins, walnuts, blueberries, and Grade B Maple syrup (the real deal!).

Oh! and I wanted to point out that even though we may be giving up dairy and meat … we do not plan to give up eating eggs. We raise our own hens and they live on an organic vegetarian diet. Eggs are very nutritious and also a great source of  B-12. If we didn’t have our own… it might be a different story. 

Spring fever always gets in me in the mood to fill up my BPA free popsicle molds …

so last week, I tossed in raspberries, pineapples, 1 strawberry (lol!) 2 frozen bananas and about a handful of spinach….

AND… viola’

it was instant fro yo in a cup (still have leftover cups from the party and they’re actually serving cup style)!  I added in unsweetened coconut flakes, walnuts, & cocao nibs.

Nummers!

UPDATE: I almost forgot to mention:

were steaming up an artichoke for din-din and having a nice big green salad on the side served with hummus and pita bread. Mmm! ;p

Next week, look for a recipe. I’m going to get back into sharing recipes with you, promise!!!

Check out this ginormous artichoke!

Also, did you see this weeks CSA Goods?

What are you up to in the kitch for Meatless Monday or otherwise??

{Meatless Monday} Less Meat = Less Heat

Welcome to another edition of Meatless Monday at RYD…

Last weeks CSA portions were used up but none of our meals were really all that gourmet or fancy … they were simple, pure, yummy, organic meals. Satisfying nonetheless.

This weeks feature is the VegWeb.com

it’s one of my go to sites for meatless dishes.

With all the  great veggie/raw food websites out there… I love learning new ideas and ways to eat healthy and sharing them with you each week.

Meatless Monday’s are all about that. Now, that we are officially in the month of April and celebrating EARTH month, I propose a challenge!

Eating healthy, means healthy spirit, healthy mind, healthy body & soul… it also means healthy planet!!!

The challenge

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22, 2010)… so let’s make it special and spare the animals we normally enjoy eating. I know it sounds hardcore… but the truth is out there, people! Factory farming is getting out of hand. Animals and people are suffering. If you have not watched Food Inc. yet, I highly recommend the documentary.

It’s an eye opener for sure.

In celebration of Mother Nature, go meatless for the next 25 days!!!

Less meat equals less heat!

Why go Meatless?

If the challenge isn’t for you,  Monday’s are perfectly fine!

I’ve been meat free with a few exceptions since 2010 began…

I’m willing to kick it up a notch and go dairy free for 25 days, if you’ll join me! 

Before, I leave you on this groovy Monday afternoon…

I finally figured out how to get Mr. Linky working again.

so, please, feel free to share, jump in and join the Meatless Monday movement!!!

Next Page »