Thai Cabbage Summer Salad

A couple weekends ago I had the great pleasure of going over to a friend’s house for a ‘smoke’ night, and by smoke I mean smoked meat. Yumm…. Not so much. Haha, not really my thing, but exciting for everyone else there. Our friend just bought a new smoker and he was really anxious to try it out and Devon loves any excuse to eat something smoked.

So what was I going to make, seeing as I was not going to eat what they were having? A wonderful salad! Yup I was going to bring salad to a meat party. Don’t think I cant hear you guys out there quoting the Simpsons “you don’t make friends with salad”. Well I was and I did! Everyone who tried it said it tasted great and some (like myself) even went back for seconds!

I was really excited to make this one too, the ingredients are so colorful, and the Thai peanut sauce was making my mouth water. For me anything with a Thai peanut sauce is golden.
This is a perfect salad to make when you have left over quinoa in your fridge, a) because its one less step in making this salad b) the quinoa is already cold! c) who doesn’t love using leftover food, instead of throwing it out later on that week.  
It is such a fresh, crisp and tasty salad it is now in my repertoire of meals that I can either make at home or bring to family suppers.

If you or someone you know have nut allergies, just sub out the cashews and peanut butter for almonds and sunflower seed butter!

Ingredients  4 - 8 people

½ head purple cabbage

2 cups of cooked quinoa
2 carrots, grated

1 red pepper, diced

1 zucchini, diced

¼ red onion, diced
½ cup cilantro, chopped

½ cup cashews

Thai Peanut Salad Dressing

¼ cup organic peanut butter

1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 dates

1 lime, juiced
Combine all of the dressing ingredients together in a high speed blender and puree until smooth. Pour dressing over salad right before serving and fold in until completely combined. 

Mango Blueberry Salad

I often find myself craving salads, especially in the morning. I guess I have eaten so many salads for breakfast that my body now needs its leafy greens bright and early!! And this morning was no exception. I have been meaning to use up the blueberries in my fridge for a couple days because a couple were going moldy so today I made a mango blueberry salad. It was so fresh and delicious it has quickly become one of my favourites! Technically if you really look at the ingredients this salad is a fruit salad, that is if you count tomatoes as a fruit (I don't, to me they will always be a vegetable). It is super simple to throw together and because the fruit is so juicy there is no need for dressing.

I used my vegetable mandolin to slice up the cucumbers, zucchini and mango but if you don't have a mandolin you could make this a chunky salad, it should all taste the same, right?!

Ingredients for Single Serving

1/2 cucumber

1/2 zucchini

1 tomato

1 mango

1 cup blueberries

The Start of a New Beginning: Becoming Vegan - Post #2

Post #2 – This one is going to be a little long, so I hope you have grabbed some fruit to snack on because I would hate for you to get hungry!

It was in January and February of 2012 that I decided I was going to make another change in my life. I had already cut back on my meat intake to just fish, seafood and occasional bacon but I had remained 150 pounds for 4-5 months and I was sick of it. Ahh to see the 140’s again, that would be awesome. I hadn’t seen that number in about 5 years and I really wanted to reunite with her again. Luckily my mother in law Mary B. was hosting information nights at her house that she called For the Health of It. The topics ranged from reducing meat and dairy intake, body brushing, dental care, to watching a video called Food Matters, which I found to be really informative and inspiring. This was what sparked my interest in becoming vegan but at the time I was not ready to make that big of a life style change. Instead I learned the huge benefits of adding greens to my diet and decided I was going to drastically increase my intake (greens include romaine lettuce, celery, cucumber, kale ect.) They are really high in vitamins, minerals and in dietary fiber which help aid in proper digestion and help reduce your risk of certain health problems.

How was I going to add more leafy greens into my life? By drinking green smoothies! I had first thought that they looked disgusting and was really wary on trying one, but it was so awesome!! I had found a great way to increase my greens intake as well as my fruit intake, plus it tasted good and didn’t take that long to prepare or eat. Through trial and error I came up with my favourite blend of cherries, blackberries, blueberries, bananas, spinach and water. I would drink one for breakfast and lunch almost every other day and did not grow tired of it. I would experiment with other concoctions, like apple, mango, banana, spinach, or blueberry, raspberry, banana, and kale, but the cherry one is by far the best and is something I still make when I need a quick meal. So between January and March I had lost another 5 pounds all, thanks to incorporating the green smoothies and was down to 145. Hello 140’s, it’s very nice to see you.

I can remember looking on Pinterest for recipes at the very beginning of July and coming across a pinner called Regina Vegetarian Society and I immediately clicked on their profile. How cool was this? Out of all of the profiles I could have seen on Pinterest, a vegetarian club from Regina (a city 35 minutes away) comes up on my screen. I instantly started to look through their pins, seeing if I liked any and I started to notice that they also were promoting a vegan lifestyle. That’s when it hit me... I needed to become vegan.... I wanted to become vegan.... I can do this... I WANT to do this! In that moment I realized that being a vegetarian wasn’t enough for me and to be happy I had to make the change. So when Devon got home that night I said to him “I'm going vegan” and his response “okay sounds good, but don’t expect me to, haha”. I was not surprised by his reaction, I knew he would be supportive in my transition but I was not expecting him to change and I still don’t. I just figure I can overload him with every piece of information I come across and let him make his own choices. The way I see it, if you are not informed then how can you make informed decisions?

When people express that they want to lose weight but don’t know what to do, my first suggestion is to cut out all dairy. This is how weighing at 145 pounds, I lost another 14 in just 4 months. The weight seriously fell off of me. By cutting out all dairy products I was so surprised to see just how much dairy I was consuming on a weekly basis. Even though if you would have asked me before I turned (that makes it sounds like a vampire!) I would have said barely ever ate it. I wasn’t just cutting out cheese and milk, I went all the way to not eating anything that contains or even may contains milk (or egg) ingredients. The amount of food I do not consume at our TGIF parties is astounding, which really opened my eyes to how much dairy there is in our snack foods because almost every dish you take to a party contains it. Now I just take vegan dishes (like my Mediterranean Surprise Dip) to every party so I am able to eat snack foods too, and people seem to really like them. Which can be unfortunate because when they don’t, more for me!

When things got difficult for me is when I traveled down in August 2012 to Sturgis, South Dakota for the biker rally. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had high hopes that it would all be okay… It wasn’t, full fledge almost starved. Every restaurant I went to didn’t believe in fruit or vegetables, not even a baked potato, and when they did have something it was cooked in animal fat. So I mainly ate peanut butter and dry toast. What was I going to do, I couldn’t live off of bread and peanut butter for 6 days? So I got groceries! I had Devon ride into town to help me get some food to get through the week. My main staples were apples, cherries, celery, bbq chips, and peanut butter. I am surprised that I didn’t develop an allergy to peanut butter because I ate almost half a jar to myself. Next time we go down I am buy a lot more because I now understand just how much they are not vegan friendly.
My favorite food story from Sturgis was about our last night there. We went out to a sit down restaurant and I was pretty excited because I was sure they would have something for me to eat. That day I had eaten only an apple and a small bag of chips and I was F’IN STARVING and getting angrier by the minute. I feel really bad for those who had to endure the wrath of Nikki that night. We finally got to the restaurant and ordered and I quote “a really big salad, with no diary or dressing”. After 20 minutes everyone got their food but me and Sheldon. “Where the F’ is my salad, how hard is it to make one?! If it comes with cheese on it, I am going to throw it at her!” (Yay, that mad) According to the waitress it did have cheese on it so she sent it back. Insert lots of curse words, and finally I got my salad. Or what I would call a horrible mess of ice berg lettuce and shredded carrots (more curse words), but I shouldn’t have been surprised seeing how every other restaurant didn’t even have ice berg lettuce. So I ate the salad and chased it with triple vodka and waters, and needless to say I was a drunken mess that night. This month we are going to Mexico and I am getting really excited for the fruit selection that will be available to eat. I feel my eating habits will be a lot better than Sturgis and this time when we are on vacation I will be way more prepared so I am not put in that position ever again. 

In September I decided to do a four day mono fruit cleanse where I would only eat one type of fruit per day. I was scared, and now that I think about it I don’t know why because it wasn’t like I would be disappointing someone, just myself. So I talked to my sister Ashley about it because she was doing a banana island at the time (a mono diet of 30 bananas a day for 14 days). She was super thrilled and was my support and coach through it all. She never once complained about my incessant calls, asking question after question. I really couldn’t have done it without her.

Basically this is how the four days went down:

1)     Grapes: This day was really easy, I was happy and excited to do this. I ate 2 pounds of organic grapes per meal and drank about 3 liters of water. I had high energy and felt alert.

2)     This was supposed to be a banana day, but after breakfast my body felt like crap and I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating any more bananas, so I did organic grapes again. This was the hardest day, I felt sluggish, tired, basically like I was detoxifying.

3)     Peaches: I ate around 8-10 peaches per meal and about 3 liters of water. I was really excited about the peaches, so this day went by pretty well. It was around 5 o’clock where I really wanted to give up, but I held strong and didn’t cheat, even though my husband made homemade fries! Now that’s will power.

4)     Grapes: Again 2 pounds of organic grapes per meal and 3 liters of water. I had a rough morning of feeling sluggish and really tired but I felt really good about lasting 4 days. At supper I introduced greens in and had a romaine and cucumber salad. This gave me heartburn for the first time ever in my life and holy crap that hurt! I hope to never go through that again.

I am very proud of myself in what I accomplished in my four day cleanse. I did not experience weight loss but I did notice better digestion and the break I gave my body by only eating raw fresh fruit is awesome! Also not a lot of people can say that they a) ate raw for four days straight b) ate only fruit for four days straight c) ate mono meals for four days straight. This is something that I really would love to do again, but I will have to wait until summer when I can get a better selection and fresher fruit. 

I love my friends, oh so very much. None of them are vegan so I find they are the main ones asking me about being vegan. On New Year’s Eve I was in Saskatoon partying with my university friends, and we got into a discussion about my lifestyle. Spencer started asking a lot of questions (he is kind of a catalyst), mostly the standard like Why did you? How do you? And what about when you have kids? Some people might think that I am offended when they ask me questions but I really love talking about it, so keep on asking because I love answering them. However I am still a newbie so I am not as eloquent in some topics as others but I still like to share my opinion when I can. During our conversation my friend Tara then mentioned that she heard from a nutritionist that eating meat and dairy is really healthy and why would I choose not to eat it if a nutritionist said so. My response is that I know that there are nutritionist and doctors who say that, but you don’t have to believe them. I was that person before, a meat and dairy type of gal, but I looked past the norm and informed myself on both sides and I chose vegan. By me talking to people about this I am NOT trying to convert you to “my side” I am trying to inform you. There is SO much information out there about nutrition that is under played because the meat and dairy companies dominate the media. All you see are pro meat and dairy commercials, never a commercial for the benefits of eating 10 bananas a day. Basically I want people to know is that it’s okay to change your mind on something that you originally thought to be true and to not be afraid to give it a chance. I know I am grateful for taking a chance on doing something different, it has changed my life for the better and I would never go back.

I cannot believe it has almost been three years since I started on this journey, it seems like just last year I was sitting at 171 pounds, unhappy and unfit. Today I am healthier and fitter than I have ever been, but most of all I am happier and I know it can only get better from here. I would like to thank my husband Devon for all of his constant support, and my sisters Ashley and Chelsea for being my biggest cheerleaders. Also, thank you to all of you who are reading this right now, and have been following me from the beginning, I truly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to do so!

Thanks for reading!!!!

Xoxo -Nikki

From April 2010 to December 2012!

Lasagna Inspired Layered Salad with Avocado 'Cheese' Sauce

I thought of this salad while lying in bed Sunday morning. I was surfing Pinterest and saw a couple of recipes for avocado mac and cheese. I have been seeing a lot of this recipe lately so I clicked on the link to check out the ingredient list. The one I looked at was not vegan but it had the great idea to use avocado in the cheese sauce. PING! An idea light bulb popped in my head. An avocado cheese sauce would be great on lasagna! But.... I didn’t want to cook it, so the next best thing came to mind. A salad! Which is perfect because I can use all of the ingredients that my cooked lasagna calls for, I just won’t cook any of it!

This past month or so, I have been addicted to the homey flavours that lasagna provides: I have made it 3 times!! YUMMMMM. So I am not surprised that this idea sprouted from my brain. Now I can satisfy my homey lasagna craving with this and feel a little better about eating something that is traditionally seen as ‘unhealthy’. 

This salad is pretty easy to whip up, its just all about timing! First you have to put the cauliflower on the stove to get it steamed. While this is steaming I cut up all of my veggies for the salad and layer them in the bowl. Then I pop my sauce ingredients in the blender, blend for a couple minutes and pour that into a jar and rinse my blender out. By then the cauliflower is usually done, so I take it off the stove and run it under cold water to cool it off (we don't want hot cauliflower mixed with avocado, yick). When making the avocado sauce in my Magic Bullet Blender I had to stir it quite a bit to get it all mixed together. I just didn’t want to add any more liquid to the mixture because I wanted it to be a thicker sauce. I already had the tomato sauce, which was already watery, so two watery sauces wouldn’t have jived well in the bowl. Totally worth the extra effort!

Tomato Sauce Dressing – For 2- 4 servings

2 tomatoes

1 sun dried tomato

½ clove garlic

1 lemon, juiced

¼ cup of oregano

¼ cup basil

3 dates, soaked in water for ½ hour

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth!

Avocado Sauce – For 2 - 4 servings

1 whole avocado

1 cup of cooked cauliflower

½ clove garlic

1 lime, juiced

¼ cup parsley

¼ cup cilantro

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth!!

Layer spinach, tomatoes, orange bell peppers, mushrooms and zucchini, top with the avocado sauce and tomato dressing!!

I was so excited about this dish I just had to call my sister Ashley over to try it. Luckily she wasn't busy and was able to stop by to sample my latest creation. Her verdict?..... She loved it! and because of that she decided to make this lovely post on Facebook! Thanks Ash for the pretty picture collage! 

Thanks for reading!

xoxo- N

One Hot Brussel Sprout, Quinoa Salad

Lately I have been loving my hot salads. They are the perfect balance between wanting a hot cooked meal and wanting to get my raw fruits and veggies in. This one came to me one night and I thought I would give it a try, not really knowing how it would turn out (this is how most of my meals start out). And Success!! It turned out great. 

Before I met Devon I thought I hated brussel sprouts. I might have tried them once before him, but with the stigma that brussel sprouts were gross I think my mind was already made up that I was not going to like them. Then at one of Devon's family suppers they were placed on the table and Devon made me try them, just to see if I might like them. I didn't just like them, I loved them! They are now a main side dish in our house, usually accompanied by quinoa and salmon for Devon.

Ingredients - Serving for 2-3 people

3 cups of brussel sprouts

1 cup of quinoa

2 cups of water

1 tsp of coconut oil

2 green onions, chopped

1 cup of mushrooms, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 small zucchini, sliced thin

6 cups of romaine lettuce, or any other leafy green
1 lemon, juiced.

Steam your brussel sprouts in a double boiler pot until fork tender. Boil the 2 cups of water and add quinoa, simmer until all of the water is gone (it cooks very similar to rice). Saute the oil, mushrooms, onions, garlic for 5 minutes, then add the cooked brussel sprouts and saute for another 10 minutes.

Arrange your lettuce in a bowl or a plate, top with quinoa, vegetable mixture, fresh zucchini and dress it with the lemon juice!!

Optional ingredients: The other day I made this for the second time and I added fresh tomatoes plus I added 1/4 cup of Daiya cheese into the pan of the sauted veggie mixture, leaving it in there just long enough so it melts. So good! I just forgot to take a picture :(

One Hot Salad feat. Sauteed Mushrooms, Onion and Corn on Kale and Quinoa

We just had a lot of snow here in Moose Jaw, like A LOT. So naturally, on Friday night I felt like staying in because a) it was too cold outside and b) my car was buried under a huge pile of snow. 

Devon was going to the Alice Cooper concert so I was by myself for supper, which meant I could do some experimenting.  I love mixing textures and temperatures with my food. I can eat almost anything hot or cold. I would say that Chili is my favourite food to mix temperatures with, hot chili with fresh zucchini and tomatoes on top. Or topping it with more cold quinoa is really good, becuase you can never have too much quinoa. I also love doing this with salad, yes Salad. Some people (like my husband) do not like doing so, they find the temperature differences a little weird. 

With him being out, I decided to do a warm salad. When I was at work on Friday I was thinking that I could really go for something comforting for supper that night, yet I was craving a kale salad. So my mind got to work on what would taste good for a warm salad. My first thought was sautéed mushrooms, these are one of my favorite things to eat. Back when I was a meat eater, Devon and I would sauté mushrooms and onions to put on top of our steak. These would most likely be done before the steak, so I would just stand by the stove eating them from the pan. Which meant of course there would be barely any left for supper!

So I had my first ingredient, mushrooms. Then of course I would add onions and garlic to the mix because, because to me the dish would have not been complete. But, I didn't just want those three, it need more color and I wanted to add something sweet to the mix. Corn! Perfect! I had some frozen organic in the freezer that would be a great addition to my salad. 
Next I thought, what about quinoa? It would be another hot element to the salad and would be great texture to add to the mix. Finally, I thought to top it off with zucchini, tomatoes, and sprouts and a garlic lemon dressing to finish it off. 

When I was taking the pictures of this dish I actually hadn't tried it yet and I thought to myself..."you might be taking these pictures for no reason because you don't know if its going to work out..." But let me tell you! It was one of the best salads I had ever eaten. There is the perfect balance of hot and cold in this mix as well as sweet and savory. I really hope you like it as much as I do. I told Devon that the next time I make this, he had to try it even though he was a skeptic. And surprisingly he agreed. Looks like I get to make this again sometime really soon!























One Hot Salad
Ingredients

• Kale
• Quinoa
• 1 tsp of Coconut Oil
• Mushrooms
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Zucchini
• Sprouts

Dressing

• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
• 1 clove of Garlic, minced
• 1 Lemon, juiced

Strain and cook your quinoa, then set aside. Saute, mushrooms, onions, corn and garlic just unitl they are browned. Dice up your tomatoes and zucchini. For the dressing I always make more than I need so I can store it in the fridge for later. Just put all of the ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake until well mixed. Then layer your dish like so:

• kale
• sauteed mushrooms, corn, and onions
• quinoa
• tomatoes 
• zucchini 
• sprouts
• top it off with the dressing

There you are done! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -N

Confession of a Salad Eater...

I'm not going to lie to you guys, my confession is I LOVE FOOD. Oh right I already stated that... crap. Well I will say it again. I love food. I love the different combinations, flavours, colors, textures, ect ect ect. It really is something I am constantly thinking about during the day. What can I make for lunch, or supper, or my second supper?? I take a lot of joy in creating great tasting meals for me and Devon, and even greater joy when they turn out.

Some days however my stomach has ADSHD (Attention Defecate Super Hyperactive Disorder). I literally cannot decide what to eat for supper, I want too many things!

Last night was one of those nights...

I started out during the day with cantaloupe for breakfast, a great salad for lunch, a couple apples for a snack at work, then a second snack when I got home of blended apples, grapes, dates and a little bit of spinach, just to tie me over until supper. I guess I should just clarify that my breakfast is at 7am, my ‘lunch’ is at 9:30am my snacks are between noon and 1pm and my second snack is at 3:00pm. It’s a really messed eating schedule, but I have found a way to work around it (‘It’ being my angry, hungry stomach.)

The Raw Vegan Wraps I picked
 up at Alternate Roots

So last night we ended up going to the mall to pick up the new HALO for my husband and we stopped to get some things at Zellers. Unfortunately one of those things was a bag of plain, ripple Ruffles chips. I can see all of your heads shaking, I know I know, chips are bad, but honestly, to me, they taste so good. They are my one craving that will be very hard to crack. I originally thought dairy was going to be the hardest, but sadly no, chips are.  So I sneak them home, from whom, not too sure, but I feel like I should hide them or something. I set them on the table and start to make supper. I have decided I am going to make Raw Vegan Wraps, using these new Coconut Curry wraps I picked up on Tuesday from Alternate Roots. I sliced up tomato, cucumber, zucchini and added some leafy greens, wrapped them up and gave her a try. They were really good!! Unfortunately my ADSHD stomach was like, nope you want something more... so I opened the chips! Yup I did it, eating my super healthy wraps with a side of potato chips. I should have felt the irony, but I just couldn’t muster it up. Maybe it was all the crunching....  After a couple of trips to the bag of chips, I sit down at the computer and get to work on my Harry Potter post. After 20 mins, my stomach literally shouts at me, YOU WANT A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH!! Damn, I thought she was asleep. I already gave her something healthy and something greasy, What more does she want? Apparently she wants a grilled cheese.

So off to the kitchen I go to make myself a vegan grilled cheese. Basically it’s the same thing as a regular grilled chhese, you just use coconut spread, like Earth Balance in place for your butter, Daiya Cheese in place for the cheese and make sure your bread is Vegan. BAM. Grilled Cheese. Which of course turned out quite yummy.

So now I have given my stomach 1 healthy and 2 unhealthy things tonight. She MUST be done now.... NOPE. Not done just yet. Because of the 2 to 1 ratio, she thought it was time to end on a good note. She wants a salad now (recipe at the bottom of the page). One of the really good ones with tomatoes and dates on it.  Fine! FINE! I will make one last meal but that is it! No more..... Haha who am I kidding.

So that is my confession. Yes, I really do love my healthy food, I think it tastes amazing, its satisfying and is better than most junk food out there. But sometimes your crazy ADSHD stomach just won’t shut up and so you give in. And that’s okay. Now, right now is where I would probably say, “as long as its in moderation its okay!” but I won’t. Why? Because my mother in law brought it to my attention that NO not everything is good in moderation “Heroine isn’t good in moderation, Crack isn’t good in moderation, killing people isn’t good in moderation.”
There is one thing that I do believe. If I can continue on this path of eating more Raw food, I know my cravings for the other junk will subside. It’s just a matter of wanting to get there, because if you don’t truly want to do something you will never fully follow through.  

My Go To Meal #3

"The Salad"

6-8 cups of leafy greens, I used Kale and Romanie

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1/2 of a cucumber, shredded

1 small zucchini, shredded

1 yellow pepper, shredded

5 dates, diced

1 lemon, juiced

If you wanted to put other ingredients in it like mushrooms, carrots, beans or even QUINOA (which I do when ever there is left overs) by all means do that. These are just my staples that I always have on hand. Throw it all together and you got yourself a great meal. Yes this is one meal, not to be shared between four people! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo - N