Woman in Real Life

Each January I put a renewed focus on healthy eating, primarily by increasing my intake of fruit and vegetables. For the most part, though, I try to eat healthy foods all year round, and I don't like to create stress around eating. I believe that nutritious food can go hand in hand with delicious food. Take this easy, yummy sandwich wrap, for example. This recipe makes for a simple-to-prepare, healthy lunch or dinner option.

This easy quinoa wrap requires only a handful of ingredients - the key to its delicious flavour is caramelized onions. Truth be told, I use onions in almost every dinner recipe I make. In fact, my son says my hands always smell like onions. I’m not offended - onions make every meal better. (You can always dip your fingers in lemon juice if the smell bothers you.) This month, I'm bringing you two ideas for simple, healthy meals to make with Idaho-Eastern Oregon Spanish Sweet Onions, beginning with this tortilla sandwich wrap. I'll have another delicious recipe for you soon.

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Happy Wednesday folks! I hope you are having a good week. I believe some of you are on spring break. Enjoy!

We have some sunshine here, and that's about all I can ask for. Some of the snow has not melted yet, but the withered grass in our backyard is completely exposed, along with some things the dog left behind over the winter. But perhaps that's not appropriate to discuss when talking about food.

I called my last What I Ate Wednesday the "sweet tooth edition." I could just as easily give this week's edition the same name. I guess my sweet tooth has a hold on me lately. More on that later.

I had a couple more of my usual toast-for-breakfast days this week. At least I made my own spelt bread in the breadmaker this time. It's so much better than the dry stuff you buy at the stores.

Can you believe it's Wednesday already? That means What I Ate Wednesday...to me anyway. I'm into stuff like that.

We had an unseasonably warm day a couple of days ago. Well, in the morning anyway. In the afternoon, it turned cold and rainy. All of that is to say that normally, from September to...oh, about May, we have good soup weather around here.

As the day goes on, my enthusiasm for cooking generally wanes. That's why I love the slow cooker. Throw a simple soup together when my energy is high in the morning, add bread and a salad in the evening, and dinner's on the table! On this particular night, pictured above, I paired the soup with a corn muffin, made from a recipe in How it All Vegan. This black bean sweet potato slow cooker soup is based on a recipe in Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, a book I highly recommend. I have mixed black beans and kidney beans and added some sweet potato. I also reduced the amount of thyme, because I don't like a strong flavour of thyme. The recipe follows. If endorsements might convince you to try making this, you should know that my kids actually said this soup was good. That kind of high praise doesn't often come from those two...when it comes to healthy meals anyway.

For this edition of What I Ate Wednesday, I am exploring some of my food choices over the past week.

Despite the warmer weather, I was clearly in the mood to bake.

I made a few old favourites, including these Scottish Scones. I ran out of white sugar though and had to use brown. I also had no shortening and used margarine instead. I found that the substitution made them shorter in height than usual. They weren’t as good, but they were still yummy.

I am happy to be participating in another What I Ate Wednesday with the party gang at Peas & Crayons.

Rather than looking at one day of eating, I am sharing some highlights from the week. Highlights here basically means those times I thought to grab the camera.


In keeping with the April Veg Pledge Challenge, I ate a big salad for lunch one day, and topped it with strawberries, grated beets, pears, craisins and walnuts. Kind of sweet (and red) but that’s how I like it!

I am not normally a salad for lunch kind of gal. I like lots of warm food.


Another day’s lunch was some leftover pasta with homemade marinara sauce. I cooked some carrots in the sauce like my Italian mother-in-law does. Yummy!


My husband made some vegan blueberry pancakes for Easter Sunday breakfast.


We followed the pancakes up with some fruit salad.


Easter Monday dinner was baked tofu, steamed broccoli, roasted beets and quinoa with peas and mushrooms. I liked the beets best of all.


Yesterday, I was in the mood to bake once again, so I veganized a cake recipe from Edna Staebler.

She was a bold woman, not afraid of sugar and oil!

I chose an apple cake recipe, because I keep getting apples in my organic produce deliveries.

The family is getting tired of eating them, but I figured they wouldn’t mind eating some more apples via a nice cake.

This cake reminds me of an apple fritter donut. It is a little crispy on the outside and softer in the middle.

It is on the sweeter side so you will probably want to serve smaller pieces. Or maybe not! Maybe, like my husband, you will want to add some ice cream too!


Linking to Two Yellow Birds Decor's Thursday's Temptation and Under the Table and Dreaming and I heart Nap Time and Lil' Luna

After our recent trip to Niagara Falls, my mom and I both developed colds. My son had a bit of a nasty cold first, and we all shared a hotel room. Hard to avoid picking up those icky germs.

Anyway, I think it is the time of year for colds, with the seasonal changes and all. I really can’t complain, because it could be (a lot) worse.

There is one problem though. I really don’t like cooking when I’m feeling under the weather. Thankfully, my husband came through for me last night with this delicious chickpea quinoa soup.

This hot and hearty vegetarian soup is great for those times you need a bit of comfort. It is a meal in a bowl, with healthy chickpeas and quinoa for fibre and protein and veggies for vitamins and all that other good stuff. If you have some quinoa cooked ahead of time, it is super quick to prepare, but the tamari makes it seem as if you cooked it much longer.

Happy spring!

My husband and I enjoyed seeing the whole gang, and, of course, eating Nonna’s food. We only told her we were coming a few hours before dinner time, so we offered to pick up some take-out. But, she would have none of that. I don’t know how she does it, but she had a whole big meal waiting for us. You can see in the pictures the ravioli and spaghetti that the others so enjoyed, the kamut penne that I had, and a dinner plate of: breaded and fried tofu, salad, cauliflower, asparagus and roasted potatoes. Nonna finished with a lovely fruit platter. We later had espresso or tea and a platter of chocolate chip bars that I made from a recipe in How it all Vegan.


On Tuesday, we had fun watching my son and his friends participate in a dribble, jump and shoot competition.


I also made Hannah’s delicious Coconut Vodka Sauce and served it on penne with sides of baked tofu and broccoli with garlic, olive oil and salt.


You know I had to have some sweets too! Besides making my favourite banana bread and some yummy berry oat bars, I also made these berry muffins from a recipe in Vegan Brunch.

When all of this eating occasionally upsets my tummy, I turn to my tea drawer. (It was once a tea chest, but the increased varieties necessitated a tea drawer.) For real tummy emergencies, my go-to brand is this Traditional Medicinals Eater’s Digest tea. It just works somehow.

Have a great weekend!

Linking up to:

In search of better health and wellness, I continue with my gentle cleansing routine.

My breakfast is still mainly quick quinoa flakes or quick cooking steel cut oats with fresh blueberries, sliced banana, 1 tbsp ground flax and vanilla almond milk.

Because, as we know, one of life’s essential pleasures is food, I am still enjoying little treats along the way:














By the way, I did throw in a couple of rum and ginger ales on Sunday. Apparently that’s a gluten-free combo!

Okay, I admit it. Christmas is over.

I am not totally giving up sugar—don’t get crazy now. And, I am not doing any fasting—what joy is there in a life without food? I am simply staying away from wheat and dairy. I am not going totally gluten-free—I am still enjoying spelt and kamut flours and pastas. I, like many people, find they are easier to tolerate than regular wheat products.

Here’s a look at the menu I enjoyed on the first day of my cleanse. It was really easy and didn’t require more work than usual.

My breakfast is basically the same every day, either oats or quick quinoa flakes (pictured).

1 tsp Natural Calm magnesium supplement dissolved in warm water

1 tsp apple cider vinegar (to calm my stomach)

Buckwheat sweet potato noodles with gluten-free teriyaki sauce
Sol Original veggie burger with organic ketchup (no bun)
Corn

Dinner

Spelt flour banana blueberry flax pancakes with Earth Balance margarine and maple syrup
Scrambled eggs

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Lundberg Farms Sante Fe Barbecue rice chips
Traditional Medicinals Eater’s Digest tea (the best tea ever for digestive issues)

Anybody else cleansing? I’d love to hear your plan.