Day 7: Tasty Treats

Spiritual Menu: AM: Psalm 45, PM 47, 48; Deuteronomy 9:4-12; Hebrews 3:1-11; John 2:23 - 3:15

I did a ton of cooking last night!  I won't bombard you with all the recipes (not today!) but here's what we have.  Thanks to my facebook buddies Jai and Heidi for the broth pointers - it turned out great!

The theme of the day is Mushrooms (so far, I've found it easier to manage if I focused on fruit/vegetable since it gives me a place to start).  I love them, they are tasty.  In addition, it is a meat substitution that gives you the same full feeling, which makes me happy.  And there are so many types that you can experiment to see you favorite. I'm a Portobello and shittake fan, but really explore and choose what works for you.

To be honest, I was up late writing and didn't get my breakfast going.  But this is what I've been eating this week - regular Quaker Oats with the fixings (pour the oats, pear chunks, dried cranberries, and pecans into a bowl - as much as you want, then pour boiling water into the bowl and stir.  Let it sit for a few minutes and there you go!).

For lunch, I made a Mushroom Burger.  I cut portobellos and regular mushrooms (the ones you see most often in the stores) and blended them with oats and crushed Jamaican water crackers - my substitute for bread crumbs, since I haven't bought the dairy free bread.  That's the picture you see up top on a leaf of romaine lettuce and blue agava mustard sauce and the vegetables from the broth.

For dinner, I'm making a meal for my family. So far they've been pretty curious about the experiment, so I'm doing Penne with Spinach Pesto and Crusted Portobello Slices.  They are in for a treat!

Two recipes:

Vegetable Broth

4 stalks of celery
1 medium onion
2 carrots (or half a bag of baby carrots)
3 quarts of water
salt (I used vegesel)
pepper

Wash and chop all the vegetables (think big chunks).  Fill a saucepan (a medium sized pot) with water and drop the veggies in.  Add salt and pepper.  Let it cook for about an hour or so. If you taste it as you go, it'll be bland at first.  Once it all simmers together, it'll be fine.  Strain the vegetables and you have a broth. Save the vegetables for another meal!

Mushroom Burger

3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 lb of Mushroom (mixed types)
1 small onion
3 garlic cloves

2 tbsp of oregano
1/2 cup Jamaican water crackers, crumbled
1/2 cup rolled oates (raw oatmeal)
1/4 cup rice milk

Preheat oven to 350. Dice (cut small, but not tiny) mushrooms, onions, and garlic cloves.  With 1 tbsp of olive oil, saute the mushroom, onion, and garlic.  In a large bowl, mix mushroom mixture, oregano, water crackers, rolled oats and rice milk together.  On handful at a time, craft individual patties.  Using rest of olive oil to coat the pan, put patties in oven and bake for about 7 minutes.  Flip them over, then back for another 7 minutes. Serve on a warm tortilla with lettuce and blue agave mustard.

I'm off to make dinner.  Recipe tomorrow!
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Meal Plan:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with pear chunks, dried cranberries, and pecans.
Lunch: Mushroom Burger on a Tortilla with Stewed Vegetables.
Dinner: Penne with Spinach Pesto and Portobello Slices