What is that lunch?

Last week was a busy one and I found myself taking this for lunch twice last week. You are looking at brown rice, dill pickles, red beets, white sweet potato slices, a crushed walnut, and nutritional yeast. It looks iffy, but tasted really good!

Baked Potatoes With Chili

I made baked potatoes with leftover chili for dinner this evening. I have also learned a quick way to make potatoes without baking them in the oven for 90 minutes. Put them into a pressure cooker for 20 minutes once the cooker has reached pressure; then put them into a 500-degree F oven for another 20 minutes. They have that fluffy texture you get when you bake them in the oven, but are much faster!

Quinoa Pot

This amazing quinoa dish was prepared by my oldest daughter for the families dinner tonight. It was wonderful! You cannot see the fresh lime juice or the cilantro, but it was amazing. Just quinoa, vegetable broth, black beans, frozen corn kernels, salt, and at the very end stir in lime juice and cilantro to taste. She added diced avocado to hers and said it was amazing!

Hash Browns

Nothing fancy here, just my lunch. I fixed hash browns, frozen from the store, with a sprinkle of ancho chili pepper and a side of salsa. Mmmm…

It was a bit annoying to have to read so many labels to find a hash brown without added oil, but I did it!

Tomato Onion Pasta

Last night I decided to remake an old family favorite as a new family favorite without any meat. This is the result: whole wheat pasta with a sauce that burst with flavor!

2 cans diced tomatoes, do not drain
1 yellow onion, diced
1 rounded teaspoon diced garlic
1 vegetable bullion cube
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon smokey paprika
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 large bay leaves

Heat a cast iron pan as hot as possible. Saute the onions without any liquid in the pan until you see a few black spots on the onions, then turn the heat down to medium and cook for about 3 more minutes. Transfer to a small pot and add the tomatoes and liquid from them. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir, then simmer for half an hour. Check every few minutes, give it a stir, and add small amounts of water if needed. You want to have some sauce to go with the tomatoes and onions. After 30 minutes, taste and add salt if needed. Serve over hot pasta.

My children used to love this dish because it had bacon in it. I was very pleased to hear them tell me that they could not believe there was no bacon in it and it tasted just as good! I tried fixing this without meat a couple of years ago, but did not think it was as good as the original then. I am improving in my use of spices and getting better results than I did in the past. Give this one a try, your carnivore guests should like it.

Smoky Oat Bean Burger

I bought the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook by Ann Crile Esselstyn and Jane Esselstyn and made the Smoky, Oat, Bean Burgers on pg. 223.  They are wonderful! With a side of dill pickle spears it made for a great dinner. I have never made a bean burger before, though I know several people who swear by them, so this was my first time.  Yummy!

They have navy beans, old-fashioned oats, brown rice, and a bunch of spices. Even my pickiest teenager likes these! I have mine with dijon mustard, lots of it. This cookbook is definitely a winner! I met Mrs. Esselstyn a few years ago at a potluck hosted by her son, Rip, at Whole Foods in Austin, Texas. She brought an appetizer that I just loved--half of a boiled baby potato with a swirl of homemade hummus on top. I liked it enough that I wanted to get this cookbook; I am glad that I did.