WIAW

WIAW: Vegan

March 28, 2012

After posting about my attempt at Meal Planning, this week I have not planned very well. Monday night I hadn’t planned dinner, and found myself frustrated because I decided one thing, and we didn’t have a couple ingredients, then I changed my mind and we still didn’t have an ingredient, so I gave up and made brown rice pasta with pasta sauce from TJ’s and salad. It was ok, and did the job. That’s why I like meal planning, no last minute figuring out, no getting mad, and no eating whatever is at hand even if it’s not the healthiest because, hey, it is the easiest. Once in a while it’s ok, but I’d much rather be prepared, especially when I don’t get home from class until 6/6:30 and have to think about dinner.

The weekend was spent finishing projects and presentations that were due Sunday evening and Monday. Adam and I also went to our nieces first baby shower! It was so beautifully sunny this weekend, that the rain Monday morning was not welcomed. In a way I’d rather have sunny weather on the weekend and save the not-so pleasant weather for during the week when we are all indoors working/at school anyways.

Spring semester is hard because just as the weather is turning nice, finals and exams begin. It’s tough making yourself stay indoors sitting down, studying or writing an essay while the sun is shining through the window, begging you to come out and play. If the rain wants to stick around to help me study that’s fine, but come April 19th, my freedom, I expect a heat wave.

Speaking of indoors, Adam and I hardly ever go out to the movies. We’ve been dating just over two years and have probably seen no more than five movies in the theatre. 2.5 a year. I think I even fell asleep once or twice during the movie. We’d rather watch it at home, warm (I always find movie theatres are freezing) and in our own living room. Even if we do decide to go to a movie we always find ourselves complaining about the people in front of us, knocking their seats into us, the incredibly long and boring previews and commercials they make you watch, and if the movie ends up sucking, you wasted 22$ on it.

Monday night after dinner we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple things, like conditioner (even though when we got home I accidentally bought the Shampoo. D’oh). Adam had been hinting about going to see Hunger Games. He has read the first book, and I have yet to tackle it. As an English student I have enough novels and articles to read each week, and I can’t squeeze in another novel on top of that right now. I told him we can either wait a month, until I’m finished my last exam and can read the book and then see the movie, or, if he was fine with ruining the book for me, we could go tonight. He was fine with that haha. And since the movie theatre is directly beside Wal-Mart, Hunger Games won. It was pretty spontaneous for us, since we hardly go out for ‘dates’ right now. I was fine with it, I didn’t read the first Twilight book before seeing the movie, but once I did see it I was sucked in and read all of the books within a couple weeks. Seriously. I felt the Hunger Games trailers gave away a lot of the movie anyways, so It really wasn’t that spoiled. I did like the movie and Adam said it was pretty true to the book.

Breakfast: Rice Krispies, Almond Milk, Banana and Cinnamon. I usually add cinnamon to all my breakfast cereals, hot/cold. It’s a great alternative to sugary cereals because it gives it flavour. Cinnamon is also a great antioxidant. I also add it to smoothies!

Nutritional Content of Cinnamon.Cinnamon is high in polyphenols, proanthocyanidins, antioxidant activity, and is a great source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium.

Nutrients in Cinnamon
2.00 tsp (5.20 grams)
Nutrient % Daily Value
manganese 45.5%
fiber 11%
calcium 5.2%
Calories (12) 0%
Cinnamon has lots of health benefits as well:

Cinnamon Health Benefits include a variety of health disorders, including diarrhea, arthritis, menstrual cramps, yeast infections, colds, flu, rheumatism and digestive problems. Cinnamon has been used for centuries and in many cultures. It has found a prominent position in traditional healing medicines, especially Ayurveda (the traditional Indian medicinal system).

Today, the use of cinnamon has expanded to treating a variety of health disorders, including respiratory problems, skin infections, blood impurity, heart disorders, and diabetes. Cinnamon has also been used to treat diarrhea and other problems of the digestive system.

 Blood Sugar Control
Seasoning a high carb food with cinnamon can help lessen its impact on your blood sugar levels. Cinnamon slows the rate at which the stomach empties after meals, reducing the rise in blood sugar after eating
Cinnamon Supplements. If you want to use cinnamon to treat a health problem, you might have to eat more cinnamon than you’d like in order to get a beneficial effect. In that case, cinnamon is available as a nutritional supplement in capsule form.
Lunch pre-workout meal: Leftover Brown Rice Pasta with Celery sticks
 
Not pictured, some dark chocolate covered almonds leftover from our movie night, that we bought at Wal Mart.
Dinner: Vegan Enchiladas (Click for Recipe)
If you haven’t checked out Angela Liddon’s site Oh She Glows, I suggest you do! I have  been following her blog for about a year or so and have probably been drooling over this recipe since I first saw it.
I used her recipe as the base, and made a few changes
– I didn’t use a enchilada sauce/pasta sauce, these are more like fajitas, no baking required once assembled
– I roasted the sweet potato, because I thought that’s what she did but re-read and saw she boiled hers. But I really love roasted sweet potato and this was perfect. I mixed it with oil and the cumin and roasted at 400 for about 20 minutes or so
– I left out the spinach

Next, I threw the oil, onion, garlic, bell peppers and beans to the pan and sauteed until soft with some more cumin, pepper, lime juice and chili powder.

The avocado sauce was the best. Adam doesn’t like Cilantro, so I just used one large avocado, lemon/lime juice, garlic and salt/pepper and whipped it up in the food processor. It was creamy and dreamy.

Once the filling was done, I just thawed some TJ’s brown rice tortillas, filled them with the bean/pepper/sweet potato filling and rolled it up. I topped mine with salsa, the avocado sauce and some green and red onions.

I ate one and it was so filling! Adam had two, and added some cheese to his & ate it with his hands, putting the avocado and salsa in the wrap instead of on top. We both really loved them. You seriously do not miss the cheese, dairy or meat one bit. They are so filling, and you don’t feel like you’ve eaten a heavy, greasy enchilada/fajita afterwards. I will definitely be making these again. I totally had leftovers for lunch today.

Now that I think about it, the entire day was Vegan. And the night before, because there was no meat in our pasta sauce. I feel like a meal doesn’t have to include meat, to be a meal. Many nights we’ll have non-meat meals and Adam won’t even notice because veggie chili, tomato sauce pasta and vegetable soup are all filling without including meat. Tonight I think I might make Angela’s Roasted tomato, onion and basil pesto pizza, except use spinach pesto and add some shredded chicken for protein.

Do you make Vegan meals once in a while? what are your favourite recipes? 

 

 

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2 Comments

  • Reply aliciafashionista April 3, 2012 at 12:32 PM

    Great ideas, that breakfast looks amazing! Adam and I (haha still weird, right?) had a similar dinner last night but in a salad instead of a burrito. The trick to my taco salad is that I still fry onions, peppers, corn, and jalapeno to mix hot and cold 🙂

    • Reply Alicia April 4, 2012 at 8:23 AM

      Thanks Alicia! I LOVE mixing hot and cold together, Adam (haha my Adam!) hates it! He’ll eat all of one thing first, like the salad, and then he’ll eat the hot portion of the dinner. What a weirdo 😉

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