Strawberry Fields Forever

The simplest and tastiest salad ever!  It's the easiest thing to make and bring to a potluck dinner.  Just throw together organic baby spinach, strawberries, slivered almonds, red onion, and toss with a delicious all-natural poppyseed dressing.  Find one without high fructose corn syrup.  You can also use balsamic vinaigrette.  If you like cheese, gorgonzola or feta will compliment this salad without overpowering it.

Heart Healthy Hummus

My mother sent me a food processor and I've been trying to find recipes to make using it.  Of course, the easy one hummus.  Since hummus is one of my go-to foods, I decided it might be cheaper to make it rather than buying it every week.   I found a few similar recipes online that seemed pretty easy.

Ingredients:
1 can of drained organic chickpeas
1/4 cup of liquid from the can of chickpeas
3-5 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons of tahini
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 clove of garlic
salt and pepper

Basically, throw it all in the food processor and viola!  Looks good right?  Looks like hummus you'd buy at the store.  Except, I didn't like it.  It didn't taste good at all!  It was actually quite bland.  I'm trying not to get discouraged by my failed hummus attempt.  Next time. I'm thinking I'm going to try to add in roasted red peppers or sun dried tomatoes.  It needs much more flavor, and oddly enough the garlic didn't help.

Check out this news story about making hummus:
http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=43882&yr=

A Little Bit of a Sweet Tooth

I have a sweet tooth, especially when it comes to chocolate.  I prefer milk chocolate first, white second and dark last-- even though dark chocolate has antioxidants and a variety of health benefits when consumed sparingly.  I'm trying to get more into dark chocolate for those reasons.  But being a naughty vegan when it comes to candy is just so much more fun!

Sometimes after I eat I want to finish it off with something sweet.  But eating cookies and candy and chocolate regularly is something I try not to do.  And for the most part, I keep them out of my house because I know I don't have much willpower.  So, as an alternative to calorie-laden, high-fat treats, I eat Clif Kid Organic Z Bar in Chocolate Brownie or S'mores.  They're chock-full of vitamins and minerals and only have 130 calories per bar.   The secret to making them taste less like a nutrition bar and more like a dessert is to nuke them in the microwave for 25 seconds!!

My other two go-tos are Emerald Cocoa Roast almonds and ZenSoy Chocolate Pudding. Yum!  A tip: buy the almonds in the convenient 100-calorie packs so they're handy, and it prevents you from eating the entire container of them!