Wednesday Night Dinner - Vegan Pizza and Salad

Wednesday's are Farmer's Market afternoons for me!  Sometimes I am lucky and my friend, Laurie (yes, that's right, another Laurie!) and I go to lunch after yoga class and then hit the Farmer's Market.  We came upon this display on Wednesday.  Look at the beautiful colors of the winter FM - all kinds of squash, baking pumpkins, weird broccoli, and apples.  Sooo pretty.  Just looking at it made me happy so I took a photo. (directions to Laurie's blog are http://laurieslittlekitchen.blogspot.com/)

When I got home from the market I had two overflowing bags filled with spinach, butternut squash, carrots, oranges, collard leaves, red bell peppers, avocados, 3 pounds of broccoli, grapes, pea pods, parsley, celery, lettuce, limes, bok choy, and other delicious vegetables.  The first thing I did was wash and prep the vegetables for fresh juice. Oh, and the second thing I did was take an entire bunch of bok choy out of Lilly's mouth - black dog strikes again and helps herself to produce out of my bag!  Silly bad dog.


Dino kale from our garden, apples from our trees, parsley, carrots, celery, and ginger!

 

 

I made a big jug of fresh juice.  My husband and I swear that we can feel the goodness of fresh juice flowing into our veins within seconds after drinking it.  I'm not sure what really happens but we both believe that the fresh juice we drink has something to do with our glowing good health! I try to make us fresh juice every other day.  It's a lot of cleaning vegetables, pressing the juice through the Green Star juicer and then cleaning everything up afterwards.  Well worth the time and energy.

 

 

 

The next thing I prepared was a vegan romesco sauce from Dreena Burton's cookbook, "Let Them Eat Vegan".  This was a repeat performance of the same recipe I made for a vegan potluck on Sunday.  The recipe follows the photo:

 

 

This romesco sauce uses toasted oats instead of bread.  It is delicious as a dip with bread and crackers.  I actually made it to be the base of our vegan pizza meal and I imagine it could be used on pasta or vegetables, as well.

 

Romesc-oat Sauce

makes about 1 1/2 cups

 

1/2 cup toasted oats

1 1/4 cups roasted red bell pepper (I typically use a bit more)

1 medium to large clove of garlic

1/2 cup toasted almonds

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

  2 - 4 tablespoons water

 

In a food processor, combine all ingredients starting with 2 tablespoons of water, and puree until smooth, adding more water as desired.

 

Toast the oats and almonds in an oven heated to 425degrees for 5 - 7 minutes.  Watch them carefully and toss them once or twice.  I ended up burning my first attempt and almonds are not cheap!

 

 

This photo is crazy and looks upside down.  Not sure what happened but please don't get dizzy looking at it, it's just the oats and almonds on the baking sheet!

 

I bought a bunch of red bell peppers at the Farmer's Market  so I could roast them at home, use them for this sauce, and then freeze the rest for use over the winter months.

 

 

 

I always wash my bell peppers with vegetable wash and then rinse them very very well.

 

 

I placed the bell peppers on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put them in the oven to roast at 450degrees.  I turned them once during the process.  I am not sure how long it took but I watched them carefully and took them out when they began to blacken.

 

 



I let them sit in their own blackened goodness for about 20 minutes and then rinsed them under cold running water to remove the skin and seeds.

What I didn't use for the sauce I put on lined baking sheets and froze overnight.  Stack the  flattened frozen roasted bell peppers in a gallon size plastic bag and store in the freezer for future use.

I used the romesc-oat sauce in place of tomato sauce on the pizza.  It was delicious!  Here is a photo of our whole wheat crust romesco sauce, spinach, green olive and fake pepperoni pizza.  Yum.

Here is my dinner plate.  We really had a salad dinner with a side of pizza.  Our salad consisted of baby lettuces from my fall/winter garden, carrots, cucumber, jicama, fresh pea pods, sunflower seeds, sprouts and an amazing avocado from the FM. (check out the photo of the avo near the end of the blog)  I dress our dinner salads with flax seed oil, balsamic vinegar, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and usually one flavored salt.  We eat a big green salad for dinner at least 4 times a week - maybe more.

And here's the prize winning Reed avocado.  OMG!  This was the most delicious smooth avo.  I used most of the second half on my rice and bean brunch today.  Do not fear the fat in avocado... it is sooooo good for you.

 

I ran into someone at the Farmer's Market who asked me whether I felt like I could "recover" from the weight training and metabolic work outs I participate in regularly.  He asked whether my body could recover without "primary" protein.  I took this to mean animal products.  I explained that I had not eaten meat for over 25 years and had been eating an almost 100% plant based diet for nearly 2.  He asked me if I didn't miss eating animal foods in my diet.  I explained that I eat mainly vegetables, fruit, grains, nuts and seeds.  There is tons of protein in what I eat and my body is nourished with multitudes of phytonutrients on a daily basis.  My body is fueled beautifully by my daily intake of flax seed, chia seed, almonds, cashews, walnuts, sunflower seeds, berries, beans, rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread, tons and tons of green vegetables, fruit, kale, kale, kale, kale, and the rest.  It is a complete myth that these foods do not contain protein.  I have never felt better in my life.  He said, "You've got this dialed in."  I think that's a great way to think about it.  Yes, I've got this dialed in. I'm learning not to roll my eyes when folks ask me about protein.  Instead I explain patiently how it works for me and I am really happy for what works for each of you, too!