Tag: Veggies

Baba Ghanoush

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you’re all spending a great day with your families🥰 Surprisingly I don’t have a super fall recipe today, but this Baba Ghanoush might go well with you’re turkey😂 You never know.

I feel like lots of people have heard about Baba Ghanoush but they probably don’t know what it is- when I found out it was an eggplant dip I was like oh. Ok. But then I made a version of it a while back and I was like. OH. OK. It’s pretty darn delicious. So I got my mom to by me an eggplant the next time she was at the store so I could make an even more luxurious Ghanoush, now that I have tahini.

The first step to this dip is roasting the eggplant and the garlic. I cut my eggplant in to four wedges, rubbed em with a bit of oil, and threw them in the oven in a pan with a packet of garlic. You want to get the inside of the eggplant nice and soft, because you’re going to scoop it out and blend it with the garlic, some tahini, lemon juice and salt and pepper to make a REALLY creamy dip/spread. The eggplant skin gets kind of tough and fibrous when you roast it but I ate most of it after anyways😂 Can’t waste food, you know?

This Baba Ghanoush is great with salads, veggies, crackers, bowls, everything. I like to spread it on my toast and then mash some avocado on top- heaven😍 Make sure to try it out ASAP! Might be the new cranberry sauce🙌 (Jk I love cranberry sauce but maybe you can do a combo).

Baba Ghanoush

Serves: 4

Total Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 large eggplant
  • About 4 tsp + 1/2 tsp olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, skins on
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Cut off the top of the egg plant and cut it vertically into quarters. Place the wedges on a parchment and rub 1 tsp of olive oil onto each.
  3. Grab a small square of tinfoil and place the cloves of garlic in the centre, as well as the 1/2 tsp of olive oil. Fold it into a little packet, making sure the shiny side is facing in, and place it on the baking sheet.
  4. Put the baking sheet in the oven and let the eggplant and garlic roast for 20 minutes.
  5. Remove the pan from the oven, and take off the garlic packet. Poke some holes in each eggplant wedge with a fork and then place the pan back into the oven for another 20-25 minutes, until soft and slightly caramelized.
  6. Take out the pan, and scoop out the inside of the eggplant from the skins using a spoon or fork. Place it into a blender or food processor, along with the tahini, lemon juice, and some salt and pepper. Blend until smooth and creamy.
  7. Enjoy!

Hope you love this Mediterranean dip! Have a great day and an awesome week🥰🥰

Yours Truly,

Olivia:)))

Veggie Fried Quinoa

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I ate the whole pan of this fried quinoa. It’s seriously so good because of all of the flavour and all of the veggies. I don’t know, there’s just something about a big plate of sauteed veggies, beans and quinoa that’s just so comforting and simple and homey. And it’s true that it doesn’t get much simpler than this- basically all you need to do is toss some stuff around in a pan, add a bit of other stuff, and you get delicious stuff.

In the ingredients list, I’m going to put down all the veg as “roughly chopped”, because I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into making it look nice. It’s all about flavour and ease here, people. This dish is also a great fridge cleaner. You know, when you have those week old carrots, that half an onion in a ziploc bag, and some tomatoes that are looking just the teeniest bit questionable. In my case, I also had some black beans in a tupperware container. Usually I have some leftover quinoa lying around, but I didn’t so I made some right before. But yeah, just toss all of these forgotten but beautiful things into a pan with some olive oil, then add your flavour boosters. Namely soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and maple syrup. Yes, I put maple syrup in a take on fried rice. Trust me, it works.

Since, if you’re a speedy chef, you could whip this up in about 7.5 minutes, this Veggie Fried Quinoa could be made in the morning before school, or as a really quick dinner. I would say a more accurate timeline for making this quinoa would be about 10-15 minutes, which is still pretty fast. Just make sure you have your quinoa cooked before hand, cause that’s really a game changer. If you don’t need it to be vegan, you could add some egg or chicken for some extra protein. However or whenever you make it, this Veggie Fried Quinoa is definitely a winner because of it’s quick, easy, and really tasty. Hope you enjoy!!

Veggie Fried Quinoa

Serves: 2 (or 1 really hungry person aka me;)

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 cup cooked quinoa
  • 1/2 a tomato, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 a red onion, roughly diced
  • 1 large carrot, roughly chopped
  • about 1/4 cup of sliced mushrooms
  • 2/3 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp maple syrup
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • Pepper, to taste

Directions:

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add in the tomatoes, onions, carrots, black beans and mushrooms and cook for about 3 minutes, until starting to get soft.
  2. Add the quinoa to the pan and stir, continuing to cook for another 5 minutes, until most of the water from the veggies has evaporated.
  3. Next, add the soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and maple syrup, and stir to combine. Cook for a few more minutes, allowing the carrots to become tender.
  4. Remove from the heat and enjoy!

One of my favourite quick and easy recipes:) I’ll see you guys on Friday!!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

Zucchini and Olive Pasta Bake

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It’s SUMMA TIME and there’s an abundance of zucchini! Zucchini is delicious fried, roasted, in a fritter, and in salad, but today we’re using it in a Pasta Bake. Our guest star is the olive, which adds so much dang flavour into the sauce. If you’re not a fan of olives you can leave them out, but you don’t know what you’re missing. Don’t be a party pooper and just throw them in there!

We’re using my fave kitchen tool again- the amazing veggie peeler- to create little zucchini rolls for the bake.

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The pasta that I used was Go Go Quinoa brand macaroni, and it usually takes about 4 minutes on the stove top to cook. I baked it in the oven for 10 minutes, and it was just slightly past al dente. So if you’re using just regular wheat macaroni or small shells (you don’t want to go any bigger with your pasta selection) that normally take 7-9 minutes to cook in boiling water, I bake them for 10-15 minutes for an al dente texture. My recipe below doesn’t account for that, so just keep in mind what kind of pasta you’re using when baking this bake.

And that concludes my Ted Talk about how great this pasta bake is! DEFINITELY try it out and let me know what you think because it is now officially one of my favourite recipes. Here it is!

Zucchini and Olive Pasta Bake

Serves: 3-4

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 large zucchini
  • 1/2 a red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 1 can of diced tomatoes
  • 1 can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 200 ml can of sliced black olives, drained and rinsed
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
  • 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 cup Go Go Quinoa Macaroni **see note above if using a different pasta**
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add in the sliced onions and cook until translucent, about 6 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes, then add the beans, olives, tomatoes, basil, oregano, balsamic vinegar, chilli flakes, and some salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and then turn the heat to low and cook for 25 minutes.
  2. While the sauce is simmering, use the veggie peeler to create as many zucchini ribbons as you can. The centre part of the zucchini, where the seeds are, won’t make nice ribbons, so you can dice it up at toss it in the sauce, making sure it has at least 10 minutes to cook in there.
  3. Add the macaroni into a small glass loaf pan or baking dish. Roll up each zucchini ribbon into a little rosette and place evenly spaced out in the pasta, like this:
  4. Once the sauce is done simmering, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Add the 1/2 cup of water to the sauce and bring it to a hard simmer before removing it from the heat. Scoop enough of it into the baking dish so that the pasta and zucchini are fully covered, about 2-3 cups of sauce. You may have some sauce leftover that you can eat with the pasta after it’s baked or save for later.
  5. Cover the glass dish with foil (shiny side down) and bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and enjoy!

Hope you like this pasta dish! See you Wednesday;))

Yours Truly,

Olivia;)

Creamy Avocado Balsamic Dressing

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Hi there! Today I have a delicious and creamy dressing recipe for you guys. It may not be a looker but it’s sure packed with flavour and goes great with any salad combo! I used some delicious fresh basil from my plant (throwback to last year when I did Herb Month) and it adds so much!

This dressing takes five minutes to whip up, and has all of the taste of a balsamic dressing, but is much creamier and has that extra basil in there. It’s the consistency of a good ranch dressing. I like it because oftentimes I’ll make vinaigrettes, and it’s nice to have something more unctuous. Isn’t that a great word? When something is unctuous you know you want to eat it.

For lunch lately I’ve just been roasting a bunch of veggies (including sweet potatoes, of course) and tossing them with some lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and a sick dressing like this one. It just ties everything together and still tastes so light and fresh! Some other things you could slap this on would be sandwiches, wraps, and bowls. It’s so good! Here’s the recipe;))

Creamy Avocado and Balsamic Dressing

Serves: 4

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 a ripe avocado
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 4 small leaves of fresh basil, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 2 tbsp water
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Mash the avocado very well in a small bowl. You want as few lumps as possible.
  2. Whisk in the rest of the ingredients, then serves in salads, wraps, bowls or sandwiches.

Hope you like this dressing! It’s great for summer;))

Yours Truly,

MyDayIsBooked

2 Summer Smoothie Bowls

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Smoothie bowls are my ABSOLUTE favourite breakfast! They’re so refreshing, and make me feel like I’m having a treat on vacation somewhere. You can pack a bunch of veggies in there without even noticing, and the topping combos are endless. ENDLESS!

It took me a while to get the perfect smoothie bowl thickness, but I think I’ve finally cracked the code. You want to have the ingredients as cold as possible, and limit the amount of watery fruits that you put in your smoothie. The base of all of my smoothies is a frozen banana, because that’s what makes them thick and creamy. If you don’t like banana you can try using mango, because I’ve found it has a similar effect. The ingredients might take a little while to come together in the blender, but eventually they’ll form a mixture that’s almost like soft serve in texture. Using a tamper is critical here, because you can continually push the ingredients towards the blender blades.

In this post, I’ve included two different recipes for summer smoothie bowls, because I couldn’t decide which one to pick! One has banana, berries, and spinach, and the other has banana, spinach, kale, and watermelon. Yum! My watermelon didn’t get completely frozen, and so the result was a slightly more watery smoothie bowl. Make sure that you leave it in the freezer at least overnight! These recipes are definitely some of my favourites though, because they TASTE LIKE SUMMER and allow you to get some greens in!

Lets talk toppings. Really anything goes when you’re topping your smoothie bowl, but some ideas are more fruit, granola, dates, nut, seeds, and nut butters. I like a few different toppings on my bowl because it keeps things interesting. Some granola recipes that go GREAT on smoothie bowls are my Nutty Granola and Chocolate Coconut Granola. I’ve also been known to top my bowls with a Seedy Energy Square or two….. it’s so good!

I hope that these recipes get you hooked on smoothie bowls!

Berry and Spinach Smoothie Bowl

Serves: 1

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Bowl:

  • 1 frozen banana (sliced)
  • 3/4 cup frozen blueberries
  • 3/4 cup spinach (not packed)
  • 2 tbsp water

For the Toppings:

Directions:

  1. Add all of the smoothie ingredients to a powerful blender and blend on low, using the tamper to push the ingredients down.
  2. Once the ingredients are starting to come together, turn the speed to medium and continue using the tamper. It may seem like you need to add more water, but continue until a thick, soft-serve like mixture forms. This can take a few minutes.
  3. Scoop the smoothie into a bowl and top with the strawberries, granola, and peanut butter.
  4. Enjoy!

Greens and Watermelon Smoothie Bowl

Serves: 1

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Bowl:

  • 1 frozen banana (sliced)
  • 3/4 cup frozen water melon chunks
  • 1/2 cup kale leaves (loosely packed)
  • 1/2 cup spinach (loosely packed)
  • 1 tbsp water

For the Toppings:

Directions:

  1. Add all of the smoothie ingredients to a powerful blender and blend on low, using the tamper to push the ingredients down.
  2. Once the ingredients are starting to come together, turn the speed to medium and continue using the tamper. It may seem like you need to add more water, but continue until a thick, soft-serve like mixture forms. This can take a few minutes.
  3. Scoop the smoothie into a bowl and top with the chopped dates, granola, and peanut butter.
  4. Enjoy!

I know I’ll be enjoying these bowls all summer long! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you Wednesday:))

Yours Truly,

Olivia