Category: Vegetarian

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Lutein, found in leafy greens, may counter cognitive aging — ScienceDaily

Spinach and kale are favorites of those looking to stay physically fit, but they also could keep consumers cognitively fit, according to a new study. The study, which included 60 adults aged 25 to 45, found that middle-aged participants with higher levels of lutein — a nutrient found in green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale, as well as avocados and eggs — had neural responses that were more on par with younger individuals than with their peers.

Source: Lutein, found in leafy greens, may counter cognitive aging — ScienceDaily

Today I made a warehouse club run.  I needed mineral water, coffee, and…spinach.  Seriously, I just bought a huge tub of organic spinach.  I have no clue what I’m going to use the spinach for but at least I’ll be improving my neural responses.

Kale?  No thanks.

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Potato Crusted Spinach Quiche

It’s been two months since I posted a recipe.  Too many interesting research articles, bunnies, work…the list is endless.  Well the drought is over.  I had leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge and told myself “I am not going to waste perfectly fine leftover mashed potatoes”.  I hopped online to find  a decent potato pancake recipe.  But instead, I stumbled on a quiche recipe that used instant mashed potatoes for the crust.  One of my go to recipes is frittata that has plenty of potatoes in it.  So why not quiche?

Trigger Warning for Easily Offended Militant Vegans

Stop reading now.  This recipe has eggs and dairy.

You’ll need:

3 tablespoons EVO

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups leftover mashed potatoes

1 small (or half a large) sweet onion, chopped

2 cups frozen organic chopped spinach, thawed & drained

2 large mushrooms (white button or baby bella) sliced thin

4 large eggs

1 cup organic half and half

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Two dashes nutmeg

salt & pepper

Directions

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease a 9″ pie pan with 1 T of the olive oil.  Press the mashed potatoes into the pie pan to form a crust.
  3. Bake the potato pie crust for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes turn the oven off and leave the potato crust in the oven for another 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and set aside.  Cool thoroughly.
  4. Heat up the oven again, this time to 425 degrees.
  5. In a large pan saute onion and mushroom for approximately 10 minutes in 1T olive oil and 2T of butter.  Add defrosted and drained spinach and continue to saute until the mixture is somewhat dry.  Add a dash of nutmeg. You don’t want any visible liquid.  Set aside.  Cool thoroughly.
  6. In a small mixing bowl whisk the eggs & half and half.  Add the other dash of nutmeg, and a dash apiece of salt and pepper.
  7. Spread vegetable mixture evenly on your potato pie crust.
  8. Sprinkle Parmesan and cheddar cheeses over the spinach mixture.
  9. Pour egg mixture over the spinach and cheeses.
  10. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Turn oven heat down to 350 degrees and continue baking for approximately 30 more minutes or until golden brown.

Slice & serve.

 

Tips

Why yes, of course you can add cooked diced bacon at step 8.5.  Swiss instead of cheddar would be an excellent substitute.  If you don’t have any leftover mashed potatoes by all means use one of those deep dish frozen pie shells.  If you add bacon and use a frozen pie crust this recipe becomes my world famous spinach quiche that I’ve been making for years.  But as I move along the spectrum to more of a WFPB diet I’ve been leaving the bacon out.

I’m not quite sure how I would make this pie palatable for my easily offended militant vegan readers.  I need to think about this a little more.

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Google’s Quest To Develop A Plant-Based “Power Dish” More Popular Than Meat

“It’s moving people along a continuum, whether people are eating red meat every day and you ask them to start eating a little more white meat, or they’re already on a white meat kick and it’s a little bit more seafood, or moving even further along to alternative proteins or produce. You can’t expect everyone to start loving lentils day one,” Giambastiani says. “Some do, most don’t. What you’re trying to do instead is get people to think about that continuum.”

Source: Google’s Quest To Develop A Plant-Based “Power Dish” More Popular Than Meat

Google?  Wow.

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Semi-Organic Vegetarian Vegetable Soup

  • 1 T minced sweet onion
  • 1 T extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and diced
  • 1 stalk celery, diced
  • 2 small red potatoes, diced, skin on
  • 1 medium yellow squash, diced
  • 1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes with juice
  • 1 15.5 ounce can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
  • 3 handfuls fresh baby spinach leaves
  • garlic powder, to taste
  • pinch dried parsley
  • pinch dried thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 quart vegetable stock or broth
  • Salt and white pepper, to taste

Makes about four healthy servings.

  1. In a small stockpot heat olive oil until hot.  Add the carrot, celery and onion.  Reduce heat to medium and saute for several minutes.
  2. Add salt, white pepper, garlic powder, and thyme.
  3. Add the potatoes and continue sauteing for 1-2 minutes.
  4. Add the yellow squash and saute for another 1-2 minutes.
  5. Add vegetable stock and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer.
  6. Add the beans, tomatoes, and spinach.
  7. Simmer until the vegetables are soft.
  8. Adjust your seasonings.  Add parsley.
  9. Serve this soup with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

I typing this as fast as I can.  Before I forget.

The Boss is sick.  Last night I made chicken soup.  When you’re sick you have to have chicken soup.  There was enough leftover for lunch.  So we’ve had chicken soup, raisin bran, chicken soup for the last three meals.  The Boss has a sore throat.  As I’m typing I hear coughing.  Well, time for soup again.

A high quality vegetable soup is the end result of the ingredients you have on hand.  The other key issue is balance, hence the small amount of spinach leaves and just a half cup of diced tomatoes.  This recipe is semi-organic because most of the ingredients were organic but some were not.

Tips

I kind of tossed this together and surprisingly, it tasted fine.  Next time mushrooms.  I used low sodium organic broth.  The Boss didn’t add any additional salt but I added a dash and it really helped.  Use vegetables you have on hand.  I bought a green squash but didn’t use it.  I also decided to leave out peas and corn.  Try different beans.  Chickpeas or kidneys would work well.

A salad on the side and crusty bread would make this a meal.

But so would a nice ribeye.

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Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Source: Zannie’s Black-Eyed Pea Dip | The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

  • 2 to 3 cups cooked Black-eyed Peas
  • 1/4 whole sweet onion, chopped
  • 1/4 cup Sour Cream
  • 8 slices Jalapenos
  • 1 cup Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • 1/2 cup Salsa
  • Hot Sauce (optional)
  • Garlic powder, a dash or two
  • Salt And Black Pepper To Taste

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Drain black-eyed peas and mash, leaving some whole.

Add all other ingredients, stirring to combine.

Spread into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

Serve warm with tortilla chips.

I stole this recipe.  I did the usual change one or two things but refuse to claim this recipe as an original.  Instead of canned beans I prepared my own from dried beans.  The hot sauce is optional because I forgot to add it and when we started to chow down the dip didn’t really need any more heat.  As far as bean dips go this recipe is a keeper.  There were only six people at the gathering and we ate it all.  So the recipe serves six.

The stuffed mushrooms all got eaten too but that’s another recipe for another day.

Helpful Hints –  This is a Texas thing, black eyed peas for good luck at New Year’s.  So here are a few hints.  Salsa is not optional and I think I used a half cup but since I tossed and didn’t measure it might have been a little less or a little more. Hell on the Red from Telephone Texas.  Use a different salsa but the dip won’t taste the same.  If you like your dip spicy add more jalapenos.  Add hot sauce too but it better be a good Tex-Mexican hot sauce.  Don’t do the sriracha thing that everyone else does or it won’t taste the same.  

 

 

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Texas Corn Bread

  • 1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
  • 8 tablespoons margarine, melted and cooled
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Mix together dry ingredients.
  3. Beat eggs.  Add butter, margarine, and milk.
  4. Add wet to dry and mix until smooth.
  5. Pour into an 8 x 12 greased baking dish.
  6. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown on top and/or the sides are brown.

 

Adapted from a recipe in Delicioso! a cookbook from the Corpus Christi Junior League original copyright date December 1982.  The only change I’ve made over the years was to substitute light brown sugar for white sugar.  This is the family’s go to corn bread recipe.

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Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagne

  • 10-12 lasagne noodles (more if you’re making a big pan of lasagne)
  • one big butternut squash, halved, seeded and baked
  • a bunch of fresh spinach leaves, 8 ounces minimum
  • one large sweet onion, sliced, caramelized
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 cups bechamel sauce
  •  dash of nutmeg
  • salt and peppers (black and white)
  • grated parmesan
  • shredded mozzarella
  • 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Take the squash halves, lightly grease the cut sides with olive oil, and place cut side down on a baking sheet.  Bake for approximately one hour.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.
  3. Once cooled, scoop the squash into a mixing bowl.  Smash with a fork and season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  Set aside.
  4. Caramelize your onion and set aside.  No salt or pepper at this step.
  5. Wilt the spinach in a pan over medium heat.  Cool, chop, season with salt, black pepper, nutmeg and set aside.
  6. Prepare your bechamel sauce (half stick of butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup parmesan, 3 cups milk, salt, white pepper).  Set aside.
  7. Cook the noodles until al dente.  Use more or less noodles, depending on how big you want your tray of lasagne to be.
  8. In a baking dish large enough for the desired dish of lasagne, cover the bottom with several spoonfuls of bechamel sauce.
  9. Arrange a layer of lasagne noodles in the baking dish. Spread prepared squash evenly over the noodles.  Sprinkle parmesan and mozzarella.
  10. Fold the spinach and onions into the ricotta.   Add another layer of noodles.  Spread some sauce, the spinach/onion/ricotta mixture, and cheeses evenly.
  11. Keep layering, alternating the vegetable layers, and ending with a plain noodle top.
  12. Cover the top with bechamel and cheeses.
  13. Bake uncovered for for 30-45 minutes or until bubbly.
  14. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

I had forgotten how much time it takes to make lasagne.  This recipe in particular takes hours due to the vegetable prep.  The next time I make this I’ll prepare the vegetables the night before and assemble/bake the next day.  There are a billion of these squash and spinach lasagne recipes on the internet.  I bet virtually none of them tell you how long this sucker takes to make.

But it was worth it!  If you like butternut squash and you like spinach you will like this veggie pasta bake.  But in the effort of full disclosure I thought I’d screwed up this lasagne because when I got to the final naked noodle layer I realized I had left out a few steps.

I forgot to put any parmesan or mozzarella on any of my layers.  I forgot to add parmesan to the spinach/onion/ricotta mixture.  Too late to deconstruct so I put the dish in the oven and hoped for the best.  To my surprise I didn’t miss the missing cheeses.  The lasagne turned out OK.  Less cheese allowed the flavors of the vegetables to shine.

I guess this recipe is a keeper.

 

 

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Banana Oat Pancakes

I took some vacation days in a valiant “use ’em or lose ’em” effort.  Today is the first day of an extended weekend in which I have nothing planned.  So without any work to be done I did what most people would do with plenty of time on their hands.

Make pancakes.

When The Architect and The Doctor were kids I made pancakes all the time.  Nowadays with just two in the house and one a non-pancake lover I don’t make pancakes that often anymore.  But I had time, two very ripe bananas, and buttermilk in the fridge.  And I was getting tired of banana muffins so…

Banana Oat Buttermilk Pancakes

  • 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose white flour
  • 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 1/3 cup low fat milk
  • 2 ripe bananas, smashed
  • Dash cinnamon

In a medium mixing bowl stir together flours, rolled oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate mixing bowl combine eggs, buttermilk, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture to flour mixture all at once. Stir batter just till blended.  Add two smashed bananas and fold gently into the batter.  Allow the batter to sit for 15 – 30 minutes before frying.
For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup of the batter onto a lightly greased preheated griddle or heavy skillet. Cook several pancakes at a time over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, or till the tops are evenly bubbled and the edges are dry, then turn and cook until golden brown on the second side.

TIPS

The banana in the batter will burn easily so cook these cakes at a lower temperature than you normally use for pancakes.  I finally figured out medium was a good temperature.  The pancakes will take a little longer to cook but they won’t turn out dark brown.  These pancakes are pretty sweet by themselves but knock yourself out if you want to eat them with real maple syrup.  Fresh fruit would be better.  And peanut butter would be the best.

Peanut butter and banana pancakes.  Yup.

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What About Just a Little Meat?

 

Followed over time, vegetarian diets were associated with a substantially lower incidence of diabetes, indicating the potential of these diets to stem the current diabetes epidemic.

We see the same step-wise drop in rates of another leading killer, high blood pressure. The greater the proportion of plant foods, the lower the rates of hypertension, and the same with excess body fat. The only dietary group not on average overweight were those eating diets composed exclusively of plant foods, but again there was the same incremental drop with fewer and fewer animal products. This suggests that it’s not black and white, not all or nothing, any steps we can make along this spectrum of eating healthier may accrue significant benefits.

Source: What About Eating Just a Little Meat? | NutritionFacts.org

Source: PLOS ONE: Taiwanese Vegetarians and Omnivores: Dietary Composition, Prevalence of Diabetes and IFG

Source: Millennials and A Plant-Based Diet. Better Food, Better Choices.

Each and every meal is a choice.  Make good choices.  In my 20’s I pursued a vegetarian lifestyle for about two years.  Towards the end of that period I was eschewing dairy and eggs.  Then I stopped my veggie ways.  The reason?  I missed pizza.  The lessons learned however were not lost.  I thoroughly enjoy meatless meals now but if I want a piece of dead cow, I’ll eat dead cow.

Try not to get caught up in right vs. wrong.  Use your common sense.  Do not become the woman who fed her 11 month old nuts and fruit.  Just nuts and fruit!

Make wise, informed choices.  Understand as I have your need for calories decrease with age.  You have to eat less the older you are.  Strive towards more plant based meals and you’ll be OK.  Just don’t get too fruity or nutty about it all.

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