Quinoa Pizza Bites

There are several quinoa pizza bites recipe to be found on pinterest and google, which you can find for actual measurements. For me, I just added what I had on hand to make these guys! I used some kidney bean, cooked quinoa, and Italian herbs and spices and for the dipping I just took some tomato sauce and added spices to it as well. 

I found this adaptation from Elsja Down Under here: http://elsja.com/pinterest-finds/quinoa-pizza-bites

This is how mine turned out!

Quinoa Pizza Bites

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 cup drained, cooked black beans (a can is fine, just rinse well) (I used kidney so I think any beans will work)
• 16 small square inch size pieces of mozzarella (can use cut up string cheese) – about 80g total (leave out for vegan recipe)
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 2 small cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried Italian herbs
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (feel free to use more if you like spice, I did)
• Salt to taste

Again you can find any quinoa pizza bite recipe you prefer and as Elsja did you can adapt it to you liking!

Vegan Taco Bowl

A vegan taco bowl is super easy for a fast lunch! And it's a pretty balanced meal! You've got your rice for carbs, lettuce for vegetables, beans for protein and iron, corn, and tomatoes! All I did was pull apart some lettuce, open and rinse canned corn and black beans, diced a tomato, and heated up some rice (courtesy of my roommate from her recent trip home). 

Take all your ingredients and layer in a bowl!

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Summery Grapefruit Jam

Ohhhh so summery and so yummy! Grapefruit is a current health food fad and it's delicious! So I decided why not try to make a nice citrus-y spread for summer! 

It was extremely easy for someone that has never made a jam before. (That's me.)

All you have to do to make jam is put the fruit you want into a pot, boil, and add sugar to balance the tartiness. 

Boil until it reaches a jam, spreadable consistency. 

(Note my new adorable teapot from the antique store)

Yay summer! Yay grapefruit!

Pumpkin Spice Overnight Oats

If you haven't noticed yet, I have a strange obsession with overnight oats. But how could you not? They are so easy to prepare and ready to go in the morning and not to mention delicious! I really fancy them on days when I workout in the morning and really just want (and feel) that I need to eat immediately when I get back.

 Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup Rolled Oats
• 3/4 Cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
• 1/4 Cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1 Scoop Vanilla Protein Powder (I left this out because I don't like protein powder.)
• 1 Tablespoon Chia Seeds
• 1 Tablespoon Almond Butter
• 1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

This recipe can be found here: http://thesubtlestatement.com/2013/11/05/overnight-pumpkin-pie-oats/

As with any overnight oats, add all ingredients into a container and refrigerate overnight.  

And who says, it has to be fall to indulge in pumpkin. I love pumpkin. Pumpkin is for all times of the year. 

This gif accurately shows my love for pumpkin.

Balsamic Vinegar Brussel Sprouts with Pecans

I never ate brussel sprouts until recently, but when I do I only eat them this way! I saute halved brussel sprouts with some pecans and add some balsamic vinegar in at the end! 

First, cut the bottoms of the sprouts off, but not too much because the sprout's leaves will start falling off and apart. 

Halve the brussel sprouts and put them in a pan with oil to saute.

Add some coarsely chopped pecans once sprouts start to get some color.

To finish it, pour some balsamic vinegar over the sprouts and pecans at the end!

I don't like to pour the vinegar on them until I take them off the hot pan a. because my dorm has a highly sensitive smoke alarm that will set off the whole dorm alarm and b. last time I did that I almost set off the smoke alarm. But do as you please!

Flip sprouts to brown both sides and throughly cook

Add balsamic vinegar and toasted pecans

Vegan Green Smoothie (Banana, Strawberry, Kale, and Spinach)

I've always wanted to try a green smoothie, but always either forgot when making a smoothie and go with the basics or I don't have the greens I want on hand. Today I just threw in kale, spinach, and honey into a usual banana and strawberry smoothie! And despite the weird brownish green tint, it was delicious! 

I tried to sneak in the smallest amount of kale possible without getting the actual taste of kale!

Kale, spinach, frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, honey,  and almond milk

Even if the color is gross, try the smoothie because this one was delicious!

Smoothie making tip: Freeze strawberries and bananas before making in order to skip adding ice and get a stronger and better taste!

Chickpea, Cucumber, Quinoa, and (Feta-Non Vegan or Firm Tofu-Vegan) Salad

Okay, so as I have said before and as this blog's name hints at I am not completely vegan. (Sorry vegans, my body didn't completely agree with it when I was completely vegan.) So for lunch today, I was looking for something to eat, I had some leftover quinoa, a cucumber, a can of chickpeas, and some feta. BUT BEFORE YOU CLOSE THIS RECIPE, VEGANS, I have found a tasty feta cheese alternative to easily make this dish 100% vegan! 

Ingredients: 

• A can of chickpeas
• A cucumber
• Quinoa
• Feta or Firm Tofu

Firm Tofu Alternative:  Okay so for the vegan alternative to this dish, all you have to do is substitute firm tofu for feta cheese. I found a post where someone suggest that to make it a little tastier to just soak the tofu in lemon juice and some minced garlic for added flavor, which sounded pretty delicious to me!

This probably took me 5 minutes to put together with the quinoa already made! So if you live a busy lifestyle and are looking for a quick lunch or meal, just make the quinoa in advance (in actuality it only thats 10-15 minutes for quinoa to cook) and throw the ingredients together when ready to eat!

Cut up the cucumber 

Add everything to the drained and rinsed chickpeas

And mix all together

Quick and easy and extremely easy to adjust for those that want a vegan or dairy free diet!

Vegan Chocolate Almond To-Go Granola Bars

In case you havent' heard or seen on fitness instagram pages, clean eating is one of the best things to do for your body. Processed foods have multiple chemicals to make their shelf life longer and tons of sugar to make them taste "better." Clean eating, however, can be extremely difficult when you don't have much time or have a busy schedule. So what I try to do is minimize my processed food intake to just the occasional granola bar for during or in between class. But this week I tried a new granola bar recipe to take on the go with me to class! 

So I found this Vegan Chocolate Almond Protein Bar recipe PopSugar Fitness. Found here: http://www.fitsugar.com/Vegan-Protein-Bars-33473756

So in this bar recipe, it calls for protein powder, but since I don't use or want to take protein powder, I just left it out and it still tasted great! 

Also in the comments below, people complained about the bar being too dry to stick and stay together after freezing and like one person suggested I added some coconut oil to help it stick together and that fixed the problem. 

I didn't measure any of the ingredients in this and just kind of added to how the mixture was looking, too dry I added more almond butter and coconut oil, too liquid add more oats. (I didn't have enough raw almond on hand (typical), so for the bar itself I just used almond butter from the store and used raw almonds as a topping.)

Food process the oats

Add remaining ingredients INCLUDING coconut oil as a liquid to help the bars mold and stick together and not crumb 

Spread and pat into a baking sheet 

Pat chopped almond and the chocolate drizzle

For my chocolate drizzle, instead of using chocolate chips melted, I made my own chocolate drizzle on the stove with coco powder, sugar, and a little bit of water.

Put in freeze for about 20 minutes and cut into bars

Yay! Vegan homemade granola bars! NO chemicals or preservatives!

Motley Granola: How to Make Homemade Granola

Inspired from my previous granola post! As usual, I didn't plan properly for this weeks "spontaneous I want to make this" urge, which just so happened to be granola. Rather than decide to make something else, I stuck with it and made a mixture of whatever I had on hand granola.

For my granola, I used sunflower seeds, pecans, coconut oil, oats, maple syrup, and at last minute decided to throw in some cinnamon. 

 All you need to make granola is oats (obviously), any kind of nuts or seeds you would like, a sweetener like maple syrup, agave, brown sugar, etc., an oil (coconut, olive, etc.) and anything else you would like say some dried cranberries or the like! 

Throw it in a bowl, mix, spread on a baking sheet, and toast! 

THAT'S AS EASY AS IT GETS FOR HOMEMADE GRANOLA 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right?

Add all ingredients together 

Mix liquids in 

Spread on baking sheet and toast for 15-20 minutes or adjust time to amount of granola at 300 degrees

Yay hodge-podge granola! 

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Kale Chips

Kale is currently a huge health fad, but honestly I hate the taste. With this kale chip recipe, however, I can get the nutritional benefits of kale without having to sacrifice taste. 

1. Wash and dry the kale 

2. Toss in olive oil and any spices you'd like to add (I did black pepper, garlic powder, and cumin) 

3. Lay out kale on aluminum foil covered baking sheet (This also makes clean up really easy)

4. Toast on 300 degrees for about 20 minutes. I turned my baking sheet part way through to try to even out how the kale was being toasted.

Vegan Nutella

Hey, vegan's can have nutella too! I found this recipe off of pinterest! 

Ingredients:
1 cup raw hazelnuts
1/2 almond milk
2 tsp vanilla
3 tablespoons cacao powder
4 tablespoons maple syrup (I used 3 tablespoons of maple syrup, but you can adjust this to how sweet you want it)
1/8 tsp salt
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Grab a cup of hazelnuts

Process the hazelnuts until finely chopped 

Add the coconut oil and mix

Add the remaining ingredients and mix

And there's your vegan nutella!

I eat mine on toast, strawberries, and bananas!