Midland Downtown Farmer's Market

Summer is here, 100+ embraces us with his warm grip and most excitingly, the Midland, TX Farmers Market has reopened it's green tarps to all of us hungry folk that love eating local.

There are even more fantastic local farmers (and many ORGANIC!!!)

Though we gave being vegan & vegetarian a good try, YT Beef has me buying and cooking meat again. All grass fed, and basically organic!

I can not get enough of their pork & beef! They now offer mesquite smoked brisket and fajita...both are DELICIOUS!

Rachella's is a couple of sisters that make gourmet tortillas. Holy smokes, these are more amazing than any other tortilla I have ever had (and I've eaten a LOT of tortillas). Today, I picked up the staple tortillas I must always have, their Rosemary Garlic. I couldn't put their new flavor in my mouth fast enough...Habanero, and it will now be a staple here too. Amazing flavor with the kick of spice from the habanero. LOVE IT!

Dinner:

Smoked beef fajitas from YT Beef

In a low oven, 325*, keep the meat in the foil and let it cook for a couple of hours.

Warning: your house will have the amazing smell of mesquite smoke...ahhhhh, a touch of heaven.

Salsa:

5 large tomatoes from Marc's tomatoes.

4 jalapeños from Dragonfly's Garden

2 small red onions from garden

Salt & blend

Rachella's tortillas...OMG amazing. The kiddos got their burritos on the garlic & Rosemary tortilla. The Mr & myself ate ours on habanero tortillas.

Yeppers, they were AAAAmazing!!!!

I'll give you a couple of hints of dishes I'll be preparing this week.

I can't wait to stuff the huge zucchini that we picked up today at the market with YT's ground beef, and other goodies I was able to pick up at the market.

Baked Southwest Egg Rolls

Is it possible to not like Southwest egg rolls?  Heaven knows, throughout my life (mostly college), I've eaten my fair share of Southwest egg rolls.  After days of racking my brain, trying to come up with yummy filling vegan dinners...BAM, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Baked vegan Southwest egg rolls.  Oh yah, oh yah!!!
I had egg roll wrappers left over from making my Asian vegan egg rolls, so I went and started a pot of black beans.  Since we only eat organic, I've discovered it's mucho cheaper to buy dried organic beans than buying cans.  I love black beans & have for as long as I can remember.  I simply boil the beans for several hours & only add salt.
Once beans are done (or just open a can, drain & rince), in a skillet combine whatever delicious ingredients you enjoy.  I chose black beans, corn, green onion, bell pepper, garlic.  Oh yah & oodles of cilantro...cause I LOVE it!

Saute long enough to get all the yumminess mixed together & friendly with one another.  Now it's time to start wrappin' up your egg rolls.

Turn the wrapper like a diamond, put a couple of tablespoons of the filling in the middle.  From the bottom, raise to cover the veggies.  Fold the left side over, then the right.

aaah...it looks like a cute little envelope stuffed full of Southwestern egg roll.
Oh yah (go ahead & crank your oven up to around 525*...gonna crisp these rolls up to make them *seem* like they're fried)

After you get them done, spray 'em down with EVOO (I use spray EVOO)
Throw them under the heat & let them start crisping up.

What goes great with Southwestern food?  You got it, some pico or some salsa.
Believe me, I hear you.  What truly goes best with these egg rolls is the avocado/cucumber dipping sauce.  HOWEVER, I was entirely toooo excited about making it, that I totally forgot to take pictures.  And, once it was finished, I started eating...and didn't stop till it was almost too late to share with Dan & the kiddos.  Soooo, here's a picture of the final product with Pico, not delicious dipping sauce.
But I promise, I will blog the sauce very soon.  (I'm craving it again!!!)

Baked Asian Egg Rolls

Lets be honest, I for one have had some good egg rolls in my life and I've also had some that were...nasty.
I've come up with a yummy BAKED vegetarian egg roll!!!

The ingredients to these egg rolls came to me, because they were the only ingredients in my fridge...so feel free to substitute away!

Preheat oven to 450*
Shred 1 carrot (simply use a grader)
1 can of water chestnuts, dice
1 green onion, dice
1 bell pepper (or red, or yellow)
Garlic
Spinach
Sprouts

In your saute pan, throw down a touch of EVOO, add garlic.  Once it starts smelling heavenly, throw in your carrot, water chestnut, green onion, spinach & sprouts.  After a few minutes, add ginger (I prefer fresh ginger but didn't have any on hand, so I used ginger from a tube), soy sauce (low sodium), and a dash of sesame oil.

Once everything has had a chance to mingle & get to know each other, remove from heat.
Grab your egg roll wrappers, and begin to wrap.  Turn the wrapper like it's a diamond (not a square), add several tablespoons of your veggie mixture to the center.  Fold the bottom up, over the veggies, then the left side across, the right side across.  Now it should look like an envelope, bring the top down to cover.

Spray the parchment paper, and the egg rolls with olive oil.
Put into your oven, that's at 450* and bake for 20 minutes, or until crispy.

Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo, one of my first loves.  Oh how I truly love fresh pico, especially on a hot summer day.  There's something about the simplicity of the fresh tomatoes, cilantro and the crispness of the onion and the jalapeno...and of course, the super refreshing hint of lime juice.

It's so easy to make, all that's required is a little bit of cleaning of veggies (then then cleaning of the mess you'll make) and a little bit of dicing.
I always sharpen my knife before I cut tomatoes.  There's nothing like a knife going through a tomato instead of having to saw at your tomato in hopes that you can cut it.

4 Tomatoes
1/4 onion (use more if you like more onion flavor)
2 jalapenos (remove seeds)
2 serrano (remove seeds)  -- with peppers, use less if you want less spicy & more if ya like it hot.  I like it hot, so I used more than what is in the picture
1/4 bunch of cilantro (only use the leaves)
squeeze a lime
Sprinkle with salt

If you prefer salsa that's not as chunky, this is an easy fix.  Simply blend & POOF, you've got yourself some salsa!

Cream of Mushroom--healthy style

Our family drove up to New Mexico just a few weeks ago to visit the mountains & to get out of this West Texas heat!  While we were there, we started talking about the last time we were in Cloudcroft.  We had gone to the Indian Casino and had dinner.  There they served a cream of mushroom soup and it was unlike any I had ever had.  (granted, most--if not ALL memories of cream of mushroom soup are opening a can of Campbell's).  And lets face it, I've never known anybody to open a can of Campbell's and eat it, while thinking it's good.  It's normally used for casseroles.  Now this soup, aaahhhhhhh (that's the sound of angels singing)

Plus, it's simple to make & low fat!  

I used 2 cartons of organic baby bella mushrooms & 1 bucket of King Trumpet mushrooms  

Then dice them all up

Add a Tablespoon of EVOO to your skillet, let it warm & dump in all of your mushrooms.  Let them cook & start to release their own juices.  I diced up 4 cloves of garlic and added it to the cooking mushrooms.

I then roasted a jalapeno & a serrano pepper (simply turn your broiler on high & cook your pepper until the skin is blackened).  Once all sides are blackened, remove from the oven.  Once it's cooled, peel the skin off & remove the seeds.  Dice and add to your mushrooms.  Sprinkle some red wine vinegar to the mushrooms and stir.  Once everything is good and mixed together, add 3-5 Tablespoons of wheat flour to the mushrooms.  Stir.  

Now it's time to add your milk.  We drink unsweetened almond milk, so that's what I used.

The almond milk really gives it an earthiness to it that I really enjoyed!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!  (I'm just hoping I can stop eating it long enough for Dan to get home from work and try it!)

Root Vegetable Stew

The temperature drops and what's the first thing I do?  Make stew!  Oh how I love stew!!!
I must say, this is a take on a beef stew that I used to make, I'm going to do basically the same thing, minus the beef.  I use red wine in this recipe.  If you don't partake in drinking of vino, there's no need to go out and buy a bottle.  Just add more water!  (or veggie stock)

I normally begin this recipe by opening the bottle of wine, to let it breathe (if you believe that, you don't know me).  After pouring myself a glass of vino, I begin the process of getting this stew ready.  Wash everything really well.  Peel the carrots & celery.  Roughly chop the onion, carrots, celery, and I only used the white parts of the leek.

In the above picture, please ignore that my celery is MUCHO larger than all the other vegetables.  I keep my celery large, as to remove it before the hubby gets home.  For some reason he *thinks* he doesn't like celery.  And for some stranger reason, he thinks Pine Sol smells like celery & I can't clean with Pine Sol. Woooah, getting back on task!

In a pot, add EVOO on medium heat.  Once it's warm, add the onion & garlic.  Let it cook for awhile (oh how I LOVE the smell of onion & garlic cooking) then add the carrots, celery & leek, potatoes.  Also 1 cup of barley.  Cover all the vegetables with water, then add 1 bay leaf and some rosemary.  As the barley begins cooking, you'll have to add more water, as it will absorb the broth.

As the stew was cooking, I opened my fridge and had a zucchini, bell pepper, tomato and jalapeno screaming at me!  They were telling me that they wanted to be in the stew too....sooooo, I gladly obliged and diced 'em up & dumped 'em in.

Let cook for several hours.  Don't forget, as the barley cooks, the water will go down, so be sure to make sure you keep adding either water or vegetable broth.

A delicious stew packed full of yummy goodness!
For the toast:  I roasted a head of garlic (cut the top off & drizzle with EVOO.  Wrap in foil, put under your broiler on high for 20 min).  Dice up the garlic cloves, add a dab of EVOO and a touch of salt.
Amazing bread to sop up all that yumminess!!!

Been Awhile!

Helllooooo friend!  It has been a long while since I've blogged.  It's not that I haven't wanted to, it's that our way of eating (which means, my way of cooking) has dramatically changed over the past few months.  It all started when we discovered that we could stream Netflix from our TV and watch unlimited movies.  We seem to get on a huge documentary kick and we watched a food documentary after food documentary.  I HIGHLY recommend watching a few:  The Future of Food (which talks about Monsanto, amongst other things) & Forks Over Knives (discusses the benefits of eating a plant based diet)
Because of the things we have learned, we have cut out cow's milk and switched 100% to organic Almond milk, Organic Rice milk & Organic Coconut milk.  We also have switched to eating 100% organic foods.

We have also decided to remove meat products from our diets.  I'm not sure how long this will last, but we are now on week 2 of our plant based diet.
I have made some really terrific meals, and I've made some meals that need some help.
I thought I'd let you guys along on our new adventure of the Garrison's Plant Based Diet!  Enjoy!!!