Researching Menu Options for living as a healthy vegan: Recipe Roundup
What is a healthy vegan lifestyle to me? In order of importance:
- Incorporating plenty of raw fruits and vegetables - especially greens!
- Minimizing stress as much as possible
- Having an active lifestyle (while also incorporating yoga/meditation)
- Avoiding too much wheat (thus largely gluten free) and eating good grains like quinoa, brown rice, millet, etc.
- Cutting out high bad fat foods (fried foods, too much olive oil, etc.)
- Cutting out refined sugar and alcohol
I have been working out a plan to make my diet more healthy in line with these ideals in a way that is delicious and easy. Since I also hope to minimize my own personal stress in my diet - and allowing myself to fit in a little more with friends and family at meals - I am incorporating some healthy cooked meals that will have the added benefit of leftovers to make my busy life a little easier. I know that raw desserts are really ideal since they always incorporate low glycemic elements such as fresh fruit, healthy fat nuts, etc. I know that I can never go back to soy ice cream after having raw banana ice cream - it is way more indulgent, creamy and delicious!
We’re also attending a dinner at J’s family’s house on Monday night, so I’m looking for wholesome, delicious recipes to showcase. His family members tend to be scared of the fake meats such as tofu, so I am hoping to incorporate lots of good legume recipes - including the rockstars: chickpeas, beans, and lentils. It’s funny how meat eaters tend to be so frightened of a little tofu. I can understand this perspective since even as a new vegan I avoided tofus and preferred more whole legumes such as straight beans. I only enjoyed tofu when it was cooked the right way - a very important thing about trying it. Tofu is a highly processed food - very different from the original soybean, but in my opinion it’s a big beany improvement on eating the dead body of a tortured animal. “Eat beans, not beings!” Plus, farmed animals can contain many strange additives from their diets and of course growth hormones are common. So it’s not like meat does not contain strange stuff, don’t even get me started on what’s in dairy products! Anyway if I do buy tofu I always buy organic, which I’ve heard usually means that it’s not genetically modified… but of course one can never be sure. Anyway, the point is that a little tofu never hurts anyone - and as a point I usually have it at the minimal bottom level of my food pyramid while I try my best to get in whole legumes in the form of cooked or canned beans, lentils, etc.
I have been scouring all of my vegan cookbooks to find healthy recipes.
From Real Food Daily:
- Curried yellow split pea soup
- Rustic Italian Soup
- Tahini-watercress dressing
- Sesame Tempeh with sauteed collard greens and whole roasted garlic (I love tempeh)
- Sweet and sour tempeh with vegetables (Possible good for Monday night, and J would love this recipe since it resembles Chinese food)
- Tempeh ‘meat’ loaf (looks so good with tempeh mixed with miso and nutritional yeast, among other things - served with with mashed potatoes/parsnips and gravy - J and I have an amazing gravy recipe - and roasted veggies as side dishes - this is ideal for a Christmas party hosted at our place with my family)
From Fat Free Vegan (one of my favourite blogs - a wide range of healthy and delicious recipes):
- Coconut Chai Breakfast cake (For Monday night, since they like a little sugar - or Pineapple Coffee Cake)
- White Bean Pesto
- Basil and Bulgur salad aka Pesto Tabouli
- Tried and true: Asparagus Pesto Pasta Salad
- International Quinoa Salad (can’t wait to try this one!)
- Red Bean Chipotle Burgers
- Quinoa Vegetable Paella (Also good for Monday night)
- Shiny Happy Carrot Hummus
- Chunky Bean Spread
- And many more great recipes to try from this site!
From unknown photocopied recipes from my recipe binder:
- Lemon Cardamom Rice with Green Peas
- Spinach Hummus
- Yellow Split-pea soup with Sweet Potatoes and Kale
- Almond Strawberry Spinach salad
That doesn’t cover everything since I still have 3 more cookbooks to look through! But it’s a great start. I will of course keep you updated with photos and let you know when I’ve found more great recipes. I plan on eating mostly raw all day with the exception of one cooked meal of the healthy, whole grain variety - so these recipes should last a long time. I am also scheming to fit in running once again in between my regular yoga schedule. I recently ran a 10K race which was an amazing experience, since then my running has gone to the wayside and my friend K continues to encourage me to join her in running some more winter races, so I think that I will get back into it. There’s a 5K race on December 1st I will try for, if I can figure out whether to run outside or at a gym… Here’s to constructive healthy planning!
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