TGIF

I’m taking it easy today and just doing a quick post about the wraps I made for dinner last night and then I thought I’d just do one of the Vegan MoFo memes that’s been floating around the vegan blogosphere.

Sticking to my meal plan, last night I made the Meditteranean Hummus Wraps from The 30-Minute Vegan (henceforth referred to as 30MV).  If I hadn’t elected to make my own flatbread (recipe here (minus the thyme)) for the wraps, this meal (thanks mostly in part to the wonder that is the VitaMix) would have taken maybe 15 minutes to get on the table.

We loaded our wraps with hummus and cashew cheese (both recipes from 30MV), olives, cucumber slices, lettuce, shredded carrot, and balsamic vinaigrette (recipe also from 30MV).  I ate two, my husband ate 3 (and said he could have gone for a fourth), and my daughter, “J”, said “I don’t like cashew cheese” and then followed up with “What’s cashew cheese?”.  In short, these were great, the flatbread was soft and warm and, without a doubt, I will make these again.

A major reason why I really enjoy the vegan blogger community is because everyone is incredibly creative and supportive.  My friend, Maida, over at Mission: Vegan left a comment on my last meal plan post asking if I’d ever thought of writing a leftovers night into my meal plan.  I have to really thank Maida for that reality check.  No, I hadn’t done that, but, yes, I really need to!  When I was growing up, my Mom would have these nights every once in a while, but she called them “fend for yourself” nights (love it!).  So, when I sit down this weekend to do my meal plan for next week, I’m going to include a “fend for yourself” night (obviously, I’ll still get the girls their dinner.  If they were left to fend for themselves they’d dine on a meal solely consisting of M&Ms).  I did take immediate heed of Maida’s advice, though, and cut myself some slack for tonight’s meal and decided to cook up some Luna Burgers instead of making my own veggie burgers.

I hope you all enjoy your respective weekends.  We’re taking the girls’ Christmas pictures this weekend and hopefully purging some old toys to donate before St. Nick drops off some new ones in a few weeks (let’s hope we donate more than we get!).  If you want to keep reading, below is my vegan MoFo meme offering and, if you feel like sharing, cut, paste, write in your own answers, and post on your own blog, too!
______________________________________

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?

I’m going to change this up to “what is one food you didn’t think you’d miss when you went vegan, but do?” and answer marshmallows.  I know there are vegan marshmallows out there, but they cost a pretty penny.  My friends have been having s’mores parties almost every weekend recently and I get a little bummed over not having a s’more of my own.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?
Maybe olives?  I’ll eat them now, but I still can’t say I looooove them.

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t?
TEMPEH!!!

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?
Coffee

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?
Cake

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?
Nope

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?
Granola.  I will eat it non-stop if I don’t really watch myself.  This isn’t a terrible crime, but some granola is incredibly sugary and, yeah, maybe shouldn’t be consumed in mass quantities.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?
Tortillas

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?
Wine, although I almost never do spend the extra money.

Are you much of a snacker?  What are your favorite snacks?
HUGE snacker!  This is why I always keep rice cakes close by.  Who knows what I would snack on if I didn’t snack on those?  Vending machines can get pretty tempting when the 3 o’clock growlies set in if you don’t have a stash of “safe” snacks.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?
Just Daiya and maybe some pineapple.

What is your favorite vegetable?  Fruit?
Veg – Brussels sprouts; Fruit – bananas.

What is the best salad dressing?
Olive oil and lemon

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?
Peanut butter

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?
Lentil, maybe?  I’m not really sure because I don’t usually turn to soup for comfort when I’m not feeling well.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?
I’ll keep it simple with yellow cake and chocolate frosting.

What is your favorite kind of cookie?
The thumbprints I made the other day.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?
We had some rockin’ burritos earlier this week, so I’ll say those!  I don’t have a meal that I make at least once during a given work week.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?
Kombucha!

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?
1; 2 if I’m lucky.

How many fingers am I holding up?
I’m guessing none because you were using them at the time to type the questions out for this meme.

What kind of things are you doing for VeganMofo?
Trying to spend more time in the kitchen and trying to visit as many blogs as possible (which, with over 700 bloggers participating, is no small task!).

Meal Planning Update

So I’m now five days into my first week of trying to plan dinners ahead of time so as to avoid the dinnertime crazies.  I’d had enough of trying to watch two young kids while trying to figure out what to make for dinner and then trying to actually make that dinner (I work so I don’t get to start dinner until it’s actually dinnertime; there’s no chance for me to do any prep earlier in the day since I’m not home at naptime (my oldest gave up napping a long, long time ago anyway!)).

I posted my first meal plan this past Sunday and, besides forgetting a few things at the grocery store, everything went really well.  I followed through with my plan and made…

…Tortilla soup on Sunday…

…Pasta Florentine on Monday (no picture, but it was a very good meal and took MAYBE 20 minutes to make)…

…and burritos on Tuesday.  I had a lot of fun making the tortillas for the burritos.  I rolled them out on our dining room table while the girls played with playdoh. “J” kept asking if she could add some playdoh to the tortilla dough and “I” just ate the playdoh as if it was tortilla dough.  Blech.  These burritos (from The 30-Minute Vegan) were awesome.  The cilantro is really what tied it all together; I wish I would have realized that years ago so I could have had awesome burritos all along!  Live and learn?  Also, when Columbus’ first Whole Foods opened 5 or so years ago, they had a fabulous burrito bar that my husband and I went to quite often.  For reasons still unknown, they got rid of that burrito bar and replaced it with a grill-type food counter that my husband and I never eat at.  The burritos I made reminded us instantly of those Whole Foods burritos and I am so glad to have been reminded. 

My meal-planning strategy also includes planning 3 days at a time rather than the whole week.  I shop on either Saturday or Sunday for meals to be made on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  I shop on Tuesday for meals to be made on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Saturday meals will either be eaten out (or more likely taken out) or will be planned that day since I have a lot more wiggle room on Saturday for getting meals prepared.  I did follow through with my Tuesday grocery trip and planned these meals for yesterday, today, and tomorrow:

Wednesday – Mom’s Veggie Chili from La Vida Veggie with this no yeast bread recipe from Veg Bon Vivant

Thursday – Meditteranean Hummus Wraps from The 30-Minute Vegan

Friday – Seeded Edamame Burgers from Veggie Burgers Every Which Way and Spicy Frites from 500 Vegan Recipes

I had a great time making Sarah’s Mom’s Veggie Chili last night.

Loads of delicious, chunky veggies!

It is definitely the most veg-packed chili I’ve ever made and it was delicious – in fact, I just finished another bowl for lunch!  The no yeast bread could not have been any easier and it has this salty quality that is so satisfying.  This bread was reminiscent of focaccia, but was as close to zero effort as any bread recipe I’ve ever made.

I’m really glad that my meal-planning is going well; my dinnertime stress-level is significantly less this week.  I like, too, knowing ahead of time what I’m going to make because I like having good food to look forward to.  For instance, I can’t wait to get home tonight both to see my kids AND to get started on making the hummus wraps!

If you feel like sharing, what is your favorite chili recipe?  I usually don’t make chili from a recipe, so making Sarah’s Mom’s recipe was a happy departure from the normal for me.  Do you use a recipe or just make it up as you go along?

 

Cooking School – Part 1 – Apple Crisp

Happy Wednesday!

I set a couple of personal goals for Vegan MoFo:

1) find ways to spend more time cooking and baking
2) regain some of my cooking mojo that’s been lost over the past couple of years
3) come up with a successful, original recipe

I’m doing quite well at numbers 1 and 2 and this post, which is the first in a series I’m calling “Cooking School”, begins chronicling my attempts at #3 – coming up with an original recipe that results in a successful dish.  For this first installment, I chose to try to make an apple crisp.

To start, I had these apples that were just about on their last legs:

Naturally, my first step was to peel them:

Keeping me company in the kitchen was my trusty iPad:

And this guy:

Isn’t he cute?  He was hanging out in my fridge with nothing to do, so he volunteered to help me with this project.

Next, I chopped up the apples and Mr. Happy Pear and put them in a bowl with 1/4 cup or so dried figs that I had reconstituted and diced:

I tossed everything with a few teaspoons of apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon or so of agave nectar.

Then, I added in 2 tablespoons of flour and a 1/2 teaspoon or so of cinnamon and tossed around the apples/pears/figs some more:

Now that the apple mixture was done, I got to work on the crisp.  I neglected to take pictures of this process, but here’s what I did:

1) To a large mixing bowl, I added 4 cups of oats, 1/2 cup of flour, 2 tablespoons of liquefied coconut oil, 2 tablespoons of apple juice concentrate, 1 teaspoon of ground flax seed, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons agave, 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and mixed it all together.

FIRST PROBLEM – the mixture wasn’t wet enough, but I proceeded anyway.

2) I spread the apple mixture on the bottom of my 9″ round pan and spread the crisp mixture over top of the apples.

SECOND PROBLEM – Wait!!  Those are instant oats!!!!  How did I not realize this before??!!

Still, I carried on and put the aluminum foil-covered crisp in the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  I checked it after 20 minutes and it had been warmed through, but didn’t look cooked.  So I put it in for 5 more minutes.  At this point, it looked a little more cooked, but the oats on top hadn’t browned at all.  The good news, at this point, is that the smell from my oven was incredible.  Warm apple, cinnamon, and vanilla scents wafted out when I opened the oven door.  But, I wanted those oats browned a little more, so I put them under the broiler for a minute.  That did nothing, so I put the crisp back under the broiler for 2 minutes.  This is what happened:

They’re brown now, alright. 

Luckily, and due in part to the fact that the oats mixture wasn’t wet enough to begin with, I was able to just slough off some of the burnt oats and salvage the crisp.

Here’s a side view:

It looks okay, but…

After the crisp cooled a bit, I cut out a piece and the oat mixture was so loose and crumbly.  There were no clusters to be found.  Even though I was off on the construction of the dish, the ingredients all married well together and tasted really good.

So, I learned a few lessons from this first cooking school project:

1) use more fat when making the crisp part
2) maybe just bake the crisp for longer rather than putting it under the broiler OR don’t walk away and leave the crisp under the broiler unattended (duh)
3) even though I didn’t come up with a successful apple crisp recipe, I came up with a rocking OATMEAL recipe!

That is one big bowl of YUM!!!!

If you feel like sharing, what is the most successful original recipe you’ve ever created and did you get it right the first time?

We have our winners!

It’s now time to announce the winners of the blog party giveaway!

I assigned each commenter a number according in the order in which their respective comment was made.  The list looked like this:

1. Jeni Treehugger
2. shellyfish
3. kimberly
4. Jordan P
5. dN
6. Sarah
7. Momo
8. bitt
9. Bittersweet

Then, I went to random.org to get my integers:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

6
5

Timestamp: 2010-11-17 15:57:15 UTC
So, without further ado, the winners of the blog party sample product sets from Health Child, Healthy World are….

Sarah and dN!

Congratulations!  I’ll send e-mails to both of you to get your mailing addresses.

HOWEVER!!!!

I still have tons of coupons to give away!  I will also send e-mails to all of you whom didn’t win the sample sets and you can reply to let me know if you want some awesome coupons for earth-friendly products and I’ll mail those out to you.

Thanks for participating!  I had a lot of fun reading all the comments and learning some new changes I can make to help keep myself, my family and the earth happy!

Stay tuned later today for a new MoFo food post!

Weekend Recap

I’m going to start with a reminder today that my blog party is still going on until 11:59PM EST tonight!  I have two cool sets of sample products to give away.  Check out the goody bag items here and go here to enter.

Also, I saw earlier today that Healthy Child, Healthy World, the good folks sponsoring the blog party, will get 100% of the proceeds from all sales of these holiday cards:

Very cute!  Go here to learn more.

Now, onto the MoFo!

The weather this weekend was amazing.  Seriously, some of the most beautiful fall weather ever.  The girls and I had a lot of fun being outside in the middle of November with our short-sleeve shirts on.  It’s hard to believe next week is Thanksgiving!  Have you thought about what you’re making yet?  I haven’t a clue.  I have to come up with something to contribute for my veggie family or else we’ll likely not eat on Thanksgiving! Maybe in a few years when the girls are older, I’ll host Thanksgiving at my house and do it up vegan style!  Sweet!

Here’s what we ate this weekend when we needed to refuel from all our outdoors activities:

Best. Pancakes. EVER!

These pancakes were a recipe I tested for Carla at The Year of the Vegan.  These were, without argument, the best pancakes I’ve ever had.  Just look at them – gorgeous!  When Carla’s cookbook comes out, you should buy it just for this recipe.

While my littlest, “I”,  napped on Saturday, my oldest, “J”, and I made thumbprint cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  Check out the photos of our baking adventure and then my lower-fat, lower-sugar adaptation of the recipe:

J whisking

Ready for the oven

J taking her first bite

J isn't sure what she thinks

Trying them again...

There's a little smile!

J & J’s low(er) fat, low(er) sugar, strawberry jam thumbprint cookies

6T canola oil
2T applesauce
3T brown sugar
1⁄4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup nondairy milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2⁄3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup strawberry jam, stirred until smooth

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line one baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, brown sugar, nondairy milk, and vanilla extract. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to form a thick, stiff dough. If the dough seems too dry, add a tablespoon or so of nondairy milk.

3. Scoop the dough with an ice cream scoop and drop them on the baking sheet, about 1 inch apart. Using the back of a spoon, gently flatten the cookie a bit and make a shallow well in the center of each cookie. (Hold the ball as you do this, as the dough may be fragile.) Spoon a generous teaspoon of strawberry jam into each center. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes until the strawberry jam seems mostly dry and cookies are firm. Allow the cookies to cool at least 5 minutes before carefully moving them to wire racks to complete cooling.

Out of the oven, these were the best cookies I’ve ever made.  They had the perfect amount of sweetness and such a lovely strawberry and vanilla fragrance.

I made some more tortillas later that day, but they weren’t as good as the ones I made last weekend.  I don’t know why I thought I’d mess with perfection, except that maybe I needed to try another recipe to convince myself for good that these are the best homemade tortillas.

We took a walk to our local coffee shop on Sunday morning and the girls enjoyed their bagels while I sipped coffee and ate my favorite muffin, the banana walnut muffin from Pattycake Bakery:

Big bagel, little hands

Making funny faces at the coffee shop

Coffee and a muffin from Pattycake

I've tried to recreate this banana walnut muffin at home based on this ingredient list, but mine didn't come close to being as good as the real thing.

I went out shopping by myself in the afternoon and I came home and made an incredible tortilla soup for dinner:

Tortilla Soup from The 30-Minute Vegan

I stuck to my meal plan and managed to get the soup and quesadillas (daiya and soyrizo for me) on the table in, yes, 30 minutes.  I can’t wait to make this soup again – I could hardly stop eating it last night!  The perfect amount of acidity and heat and such incredible flavor.

So, that was my weekend in which I had fun and ate good food.  If you feel like sharing, what was the best food you ate this past weekend?

Planning meals for the week

 

This is not my actual grocery list, but it's a nice picture of one that I found here: http://tinyurl.com/yhohuso

In last week’s Weekend Recap, I asked all of you to leave comments sharing how you plan your meals for the week.  To this point, I’ve not had a meal-planning method and often found myself in the kitchen at 4:30PM on any given night with absolutely no idea what I was going to make (which is weird because I pretty much think about food all day).  So, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and plan meals in advance.  I’m taking baby steps, though, and only planned tonight’s dinner through Tuesday’s, with the intention that I’ll go to the grocery again on Tuesday to get food for Wednesday’s-Friday’s meals.  I felt like planning the whole week was overwhelming and I worried, too, that any produce purchased for a meal planned for later in the week would go bad by then.

To get started, I sat down with a few cookbooks and started looking through them to find recipes that I know I can handle making on a busy weeknight and that might please all four of us in my family (I could write a whole other blog about my kids (especially my oldest) and their eating habits, so I didn’t put too much emphasis on this aspect).  I settled on these three meals (all ended up being from The 30-Minute Vegan, but that’s not a huge surprise at this point (side note: Dear Library, I’m sorry that this book, that was in perfect condition when I checked it out less than one week ago, now has pages that are curled at the edges and is splattered with tortilla soup on page 162.)):

Sunday
Tortilla Soup

Monday
Pasta Florentine

Tuesday
Burritos

I selected the easiest meal for Monday since I work a little later on that day.  I had ample time for making dinner tonight and should have a good amount on Tuesday, too, so I chose meals that require a little more prep – and more ingredients, in general – for these nights.  My grocery list looked like this:

canned diced tomatoes, canned black beans, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, avocado, cilantro, frozen spinach, frozen broccoli, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, red onion, silken tofu, extra firm tofu, almond milk, bananas, apples, bread, spelt flour, chickpea flour, whole wheat pastry flour, chickpeas, tahini, zucchini, bok choy, bell peppers (I left with much more than this (a new rolling pin, a big tub of coconut oil for only $5, a bag of Pirate’s Booty for the girls, et al), but these were the items of highest priority.)

Thanks to having my list handy and being able to just focus on the meals I’d selected to make, my trip to the grocery was efficient, with exception to back-tracking to get the red onion and not being able to find silken tofu in the aseptic container (I just got the water packed kind instead).  The items I left without purchasing were:

spelt flour (too expensive)
chickpea flour (store didn’t carry)
whole wheat pastry flour (store didn’t carry; I just went to Kroger because I was in a semi-hurry.  Both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s locations in Columbus are a bit too far away for making just a quick trip.)
tahini (forgot to look for it)
bok choy (also just forgot to look for it (even though I know right where it is and selected peppers from the shelf directly above it.  argh.)

I came home and was able to put together a dinner for four in 30 minutes; I’ll tell more about that in tomorrow’s weekend recap.

So far, so good for my menu planning; I’m going to try to post about it weekly as a way to hold myself accountable.  I’m going to take some time tomorrow to plan the menus for Wednesday-Friday and make my grocery list for Tuesday’s shopping trip.  Where I live, it seems as though most people will make one big grocery trip each week and then will just pop over to the store as needed to pick up forgotten items and the like.  However, when I lived in San Francisco, it was much more common to stop at a market or Safeway on the way home from work and just buy enough groceries for the next day or two.  I really liked that shopping culture, but it’s not realistic for me and my family at this point.  If you feel like sharing, please leave a comment and let other readers and me know your personal grocery shopping culture.

Also, my blog party is still going on!  Please stop by because I have some items to give away!

I’m having a blog party and you’re all invited

*UPDATE: Contest deadline extended until 11:59PM EST on Tuesday, November 16, 2010*

Several months ago, I made a donation to Healthy Child, Healthy World and, in return, I was sent two big boxes of samples and coupons for pet- and people-friendly products (all vegan; I checked).  What I was supposed to do was invite some folks to a party at which they could sample these products and learn more about how to make the world a healthier place for our children (well, everyone, really).  I signed up for this with good intentions, but we know what they say about good intentions – the road to you-know-where is paved with them.  As you might be figuring out right about now, I still haven’t had that party and just can’t see getting one together with the holidays upon us, but I have an idea that I think might work even better.  So, I am officially inviting all of you to my Healthy Child, Healthy World Blog Party.  There won’t be any food served (unless you’re eating while reading this (which, obviously, I recommend)) and there won’t be any dancing (unless you’re dancing while reading this (which, obviously, is fine, too!), but there will be lots of information, some opportunities to share and, best of all – GIVEAWAYS (I’ll let you know in advance that the info about the giveaways is at the very end of this rather lengthy post, so, although I hope you will read the information within and show some love to HCHW, please feel free to proceed to the end if you’re interested in checking out the swag).   The best thing, too, is this party lasts for the next 72 hours, so there’s plenty of time to stop by and still have ample time leftover for your respective MoFo’ing and/or regularly scheduled activities.  So, let’s get this party started right!

Let’s share some recipes, shall we?  Here are a few vegan recipes from HCHW’s “Healthy Eating Experts“:

Catherine McCord’s Spookie Smoothie
Have you ever visited Catherine McCord’s web site “Weelicious“?  I recently made some awesome pumpkin pancakes and I got the recipe from her site.  My kids loved them and I think they’d like this smoothie, too.  I’ll take advantage of any opportunity to get some greens into my bread-lovin’ kids!

Put 2 cups vanilla rice milk, 4 cups fresh (organic, if possible) spinach, 2 large bananas, and 1 T agave in your blender and whirr until it’s as smooth as you like it.

Stacie Billis‘ Coconut Chickpea Soup with Lemongrass (in 35 minutes!)
I LOOOOOOOOVE coconut milk and this soup sounds Uh.May.ZING!  Also, wouldn’t it be great for kids to get all that good protein and fiber from the chickpeas and immunity boost from the coconut milk?

Mmmm!

Coconut Chickpea Soup with Lemongrass, serves 2-3 as a main, 3-4 as a starter
(can be served to kids 8+ mos)

3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/4 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
3 Tbsp chopped fresh lemongrass*
1 15.5 oz can chickpeas
2 tsp salt
1 c coconut milk
1 c vegetable broth
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice**

1. Heat oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high flame. Add onions, curry powder, coriander and lemongrass. Saute until the onions are soft and the herbs and spices fragrant, 5-7 minutes. Add chickpeas and salt; cook for another 5 minutes.

2. Add coconut milk and broth. Allow the liquid to just barely come to a boil before lowering the heat to medium. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

3. Take off heat and and blend until as smooth as possible. Strain to remove the lemongrass fibers and chickpea skins. If you’ve got them, use a chinois and pestle. Otherwise, a strainer and spatula work just fine!

4. Stir fresh lemon juice into the soup and top with fried shallots, croutons or anything else that suits your fancy. Serve!

*Note: Cut the lower bulb off of the lemongrass stalk and remove the tough, outer leaves. Chop thin slices off of the main stalk (the yellow section). The green part can be thrown whole into curries and soups—including this one—for extra flavor. Just fish it out before pureeing.

**Note: Some recommend holding off on citrus until 12+ mos. You can always separate out your little one’s portion before step 4.

Earthbound Farm’s Soba Noodle Salad with Peanut Dressing
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love to slurp up some noodles and peanut sauce.  In fact, it’s one of the meals I make that my oldest (and pickiest) daughter actually eats!  Peanut butter, as many of you know, is a good source of fiber and unsaturated fat!  Plus, it just tastes really, really good.

Peanut Dressing: (makes 1-1/2 cups)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons peeled, chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice or unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lime
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil, divided

Salad:
Salt
8 ounces soba (buckwheat) noodles or other dry pasta
3 ounces (about 1-1/4 cups) snow peas, cut diagonally into 3 pieces each
1 small red bell pepper, seeded and cut into small strips (about 1/2 cup)
3 scallions, finely sliced
2 heads baby bok choy, cored and thinly sliced crosswise
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1/4 cup fresh chopped mint or cilantro
1/3 cup salted peanuts
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Place the orange juice, peanut butter, ginger, lime juice, tamari, chili sauce, grated citrus zests, and garlic in a blender and process until smooth. With the machine running, slowly add the canola oil and 1 tablespoon of the sesame oil. Season to taste with salt. Set aside or refrigerate, covered, for up to 1 week.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Break the noodles in half and add them to the boiling water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until just tender, about 8 minutes, or according to package instructions. Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Drain completely and transfer the noodles to a large bowl. Toss with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sesame oil to keep the noodles from getting sticky.

Add the snow peas, peppers, scallions, bok choy, carrot, and mint to the noodles and toss to combine. Add 3/4 cup of the dressing and toss to coat; taste and add more dressing as desired. Garnish with the sesame seeds and peanuts and serve.

If you’re making this salad in advance, add the peanuts just before serving so they keep their crunch. In a lunchbox, you can pack them separately.

IF YOU FEEL LIKE SHARING, please leave a comment about your favorite vegan, kid-friendly recipe.

***********

Now that our virtual tummies are full, let’s share a few things we can do to promote a healthy lifestyle for our children.

*Buy organic fruits and veggies.* I must admit, I don’t always buy organic fruits and veggies.  My husband lays down the law at apples, but I can feel my debit card gasping for breath inside my wallet as I peruse the organic strawberries at the grocery store.  However, I aspire to be an organic-only consumer and I take heed of this list of 10 fruits and vegetables to buy organic.  IF YOU FEEL LIKE SHARING, please leave a comment and let everyone know what fruit and/or veggie will you absolutely not eat unless it’s organic.

*Keep our children lead-free.* This topic hits really, really close to home for me.  Our house was built in 1938 and the builders might as well have just dropped a gigantic lead block on our plot of land.  The lead issue was not one that came up at all when my husband (who was just my boyfriend at the time (yes, we did things a little backward)) and I bought the house.  However, the issue became HOT, HOT, HOT when I got pregnant with my first daughter and even more so after she was born.  My husband has spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars de-leading our house.  The good news is that it seems to have worked because both of our girls passed their lead screenings with flying colors.  If you’re curious how to reduce your own or your children’s exposure to lead, check out these tips.

In case you’re a person whom likes their information short, sweet, and to the point, HCHW has put together this slide show highlighting “The 5 Easy Steps” you can take to promote a safer and healthier environment.

***********

I must say, this party is going fantastically!  Now, though, let’s take a look at the products Healthy Child, Healthy World sent for us to sample:

Free stuff!

Whoa!  That is some cool stuff!  That klean kanteen is so cute and I could totally use a soak tonight in a tub full of that Yes to Carrots bubble bath.  Would you like a chance to win this stuff?  You would?  How about you?  Oh, you would, too?  Well, that’s great because I don’t just have one of these sample sets to give away – I have TWO!  ALSO, I have loads of coupon packets to give away with savings on products from Organic Valley, Earth Friendly Products, Revolution Foods, Plum Organics, CleanWell, and more!.  If you want the deets on the items pictured above, I’ve listed the contents here.  Here’s what you have to do to get in on the giveaway action:

1) Visit the HCHW web site, click on Live Healthy, and then on “Quick Tips“.  Search through the tips until you find some information that piques your interest.  Come back to this blog and leave a comment about it.

OR

2) Look through the gallery of HCHW Trusted Partners and leave a comment here letting all of us know if you use (and like) one of their respective products.

OR

3) Leave a comment sharing your favorite tip on how to promote a healthy environment.  For example, a good tip is, of course, to eat vegan!

That’s it!  This party ends at 11:59PM EST on Tuesday, November 16th, so please leave your comment before then.  I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday, November 17th.

Thanks for coming to my blog party!  I hope you enjoyed yourself and learned something new about creating a healthier environment!