Dill Zucchini Pancaks from Serious Eats

Here is another interesting veggie dish from Serious Eats. For me I would have to substitute almond flour for the regular and coconut milk yogurt for the regular, but I think it would be good. Serious Eats has been on a roll lately, I guess because it's zucchini is seasonal.

Linda

Grilled Zucchini by Serious Eats

Another great veggie article by Serious Eats saw it on Pinterest. It's how to grill zucchini but has some great recipes for using it. I've been wanting to make a grilled veggie plate. I'm just juicing today, but tomorrow will give it a try.

Linda

Vegetable Platter From Serious Eats

Photo from Serious Eats. I found this great article about how to assemble an awesome veggie platter here on Serious Eats.

Sorry I haven't been around much lately. I'm focused on the juicing and eating my veggies. But I said I would post any great recipes I ran across so here it is.

Linda

Coconut Curried Sweet Potato and Forks over Knives

I made Coconut Curried Sweet Potato last night. I would like to try it another time with the Moroccan spice mixture in the chicken recipe I tried here.

Coconut Curried Sweet Potato
 1 medium sweet potato, washed
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 small clove garlic, finely minced
1/4 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1/8 tsp. ginger (or 1/4 tsp fresh minced) I used the dry ginger powder
1/8 tsp. turmeric
1/8 tsp. cilantro (coriander)-I used coriander
1/8 tsp. cumin

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Wash potato. Pierce with fork.
Bake potato 45-60 minutes or until tender
Scoop out potato into a bowl and add coconut milk and spices.
Mash well and stir. I used a food processor. I also added salt.

I watched this video Forks over Knives. It about eating a plant based diet and it was very interesting. It has given me the boost I needed to continue with the juicing and veggies and to really consider if I want to go back to eating meat. I always felt with the diabetes I had to eat low carb, but a couple of people on this video reversed there diabetes with this plant based diet, no animal products.

Linda

Green Vegetable Soup

Last night I made Green Vegetable Soup. I decided to add eggs back into my diet, so I garnished with a hard boiled egg. It had a nice flavor but was very light. The eggs gave it a bit more to fill me up.

Green Vegetable Soup

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
3 cloves Garlic, minced
1 head Broccoli, trimmed to small florets (I assumed they meant 1 piece of Broccoli)
2 medium Zucchini, cut into half moons
1 head Spinach, roughly chopped (I used baby spinach so I just did a couple of cups and I didn't bother to chop it.)
4 leaves Basil
1 tsp. Sea Salt (I just threw some in and added some after cook, to taste)
1/2 tsp. fresh ground Pepper (same as salt, to taste)
6 cups water
3 Tbsp. fresh Basil, chopped

In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the leeks and garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Add the broccoli, zucchini, spinach, basil, salt and pepper. Stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped basil.

Makes 4-6 servings

Per serving
Calories 128
Protein 5g
Fiber 4g

This recipe from Reboot Your Life.

By the way as for as a weight loss diet it's not doing much for me, but other people have had good luck with it. I'm doing it mainly now for health reasons.

 I'm going to go down to 1 juice a day and I plan to get a Vitamix so I will switch to that which will keep in the fiber although you can strain it out. I think the fiber will be better for me, but I can't do all the veggies with my Bullet. It works pretty well with the kale and other greens, but I want to be able to do harder veggies like celery, carrot or fennel. My Costco is getting the Vitamix in the end of July so I'm getting one this time.

Linda

Vegetable Platter with Honey Soy Dressing

This is what I had for dinner last night. The dressing made the dish. I've been wanting to know how to make some Asian sauces and this one is really easy and good. I held back a little on the fresh ginger and garlic because I know they can be hot but it was not hot at all so next time I'll add more. Here is the recipe from Reboot You Life for the dressing.

Ginger Honey Soy Dressing

2 Tbsp. Minced Fresh Ginger
2 Tbsp. Minced Fresh Garlic
2 Tbsp. Raw Honey (I used Agave)
4 Tbsp. Tamari (I used soy sauce)
4 Tbsp. Olive Oil (I was thinking a dash of sesame oil would be good too)

Puree the first four ingredients in a blender. With the blinder running slowly add the oil until the dressing is emulsified. Keep up to 1 week in the refrigerator.

Makes 5-6 servings
Per serving

Calories 133
Protein 0.5 g
Fiber 0 g

I had left over veggies and I plan to put them into a salad and use the left over sauce for the salad dressing.

Tonight I'm making a green soup.

Linda

Veggie Meals

Well I ended my juice fast a little early, because of some issues I was having, but I'm going to transition now into veggie meals for a while. Reboot Your Life has some great recipes. There are a lot of juices, of course, but near the end of that list are veggie meals, salads and veggie soups. So there is lots to try.

I plan to continue to juice daily, one or two times. I'm going to start off with juice for breakfast. I didn't feel very well while I was juicing, but they say if you stick with it you will get over that. I think with my diabetes and intestinal issues I'm better off with less juice and some food.

Here is one of their salad recipes-

Arugula Spinach Salad and Mustard Vinaigrette Dressing

1 cups Arugula
1 cup Spinach
1/3 Avocado
!/2 cup thinly sliced red Onion
1/2 cup chopped Tomato
1/2 cup Jicama

Mustard Vinaigrette

1/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp. Grain mustard
2/3 cups Cold Pressed Olive Oil
Sea Salt & fresh ground Pepper to taste

I made the vinaigrette and it was good.

Linda

Juice Fasting

I'm on my second day of a 3 day juice fast. Passionate Homemaker did a post on her morning juice with a link to this site Reboot Your Life. I watched the video and was motivated and inspired to give it a try. I've been wanting to do more with juicing because I like the fresh taste. I found out that the idea behind juicing as apposed to smoothies is you can't drink that much produce and therefore nutrients in a smoothie because of all the fiber. Now smoothies are good too because of the fiber. It just depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I think making both a part of my diet would be very good.

I was concerned about it being too much fruit but they have a forum and one of the threads is for diabetics. I just am using less fruit and more veggies. They actually say 70/30. On the site there are several plans including some where you eat part of your veggies and fruit.

I think after I finish the three days I will eat some vegan meals and see how it goes. I may try again one of the longer fasts in a few weeks. Right now I don't think I can do more than 3 days.

My doctor said at my last apt. that if I can lose the weight I gained recently that we would try reducing my diabetes meds. so that is my motivation. What I was trying to do wasn't working so fingers crossed.

Linda

Mediterranean Style Veggies

Last night I made these Mediterranean style veggies. I saw this article on Keeper of the Home about this cooking style. I love the flavors of Mediterranean foods. I had some left over canned fire roasted tomatoes in my frig. and some of those baby zucchini, to that I added some frozen thin green beans and artichoke hearts. I par boiled the artichokes but the rest cooked together with the tomatoes and onions. I also added 1 fresh plum tomato. It was delicious. I have always liked crookneck squash with tomatoes and onion. My mother use to make it and I guess it must have come from her Portuguese roots so when I saw this article I knew I had to try this. I served it with almond flour crusted sole, fried in olive oil.

Linda