Browsing Tag

Summer

Produce Picks, Recipes

I Dream of Zucchini: Recipe Round-up

Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash

Zucchini and yellow summer squash have an almost identical flavor and texture. They’re also in season right now!

Earlier this week, I declared my love for cucumber. Today, it’s time to show some love to an equally worthy veggie: the zucchini! I love how versatile zucchini is. There are so many ways to prepare zucchini that it’s really hard to get tired of eating it. Here are a few of our favorite ways to prepare zucchini:

So Many Ways to Prepare Zucchini!

  • Sauté it! With a little veggie broth, garlic, and spices (we like basil, oregano, and crushed red pepper for a Mediterranean flair)–this is a perfect side dish for almost any meal.
  • Roast it! With some cherry tomatoes and a few whole cloves of garlic, and salt and pepper. Place the roasted veg atop a bed of quinoa and arugula, then drizzle with balsamic vinegar for an easy and delicious salad.
  • Bake it! In some muffins or bread; zucchini makes a sweet treat, too!
  • Spiralize it! Make zucchini noodles or “zoodles” and eat them the same way you would ordinary pasta. How fun is it to say “zoodles”?! (Recipe found on One Green Planet.)
  • Steam it! With an assortment of other veggies, zucchini often makes it way into many of our Buddha Bowls.

But, wait– there’s even more ways to eat zucchini!

Zucchini Recipe Round-up:

(Some of the recipes below call for oil.  Since we eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet, we avoid processed ingredients like oil and always omit it. It’s really easy to leave the oil out and not have any impact on the taste of the final product.)

We eat zucchini year-round, but peak time is right now. Zucchini is in season mid- to late summer and can be picked up at grocery stores and farmers market for a great price. I find that you can also substitute yellow summer squash for zucchini in any recipe that calls for it. When we go to our farmers market, we like to buy from the growers that have the half zucchini/half summer squash trays to get a variety of color onto our plates.

Do you have a surplus of zucchini to go through this summer? What are your favorite plant-based recipes that feature zucchini? Let us know in the comments!

August 5, 2016 by
Produce Picks, Recipes

Crazy ‘Bout Cucumbers: Recipe Round-up

 

Kirby cucumbers

Just a handful of our cucumber haul from the farmers market.

Cucumbers are in abundance right now. So much so that many vendors at our local farmers market have been selling them by the bucket!

This is great news for me. Cucumbers have always been my favorite vegetable ever since I was a little kid. I was a picky eater then, and not a huge fan of veggies in general, but I was always in the mood for some sweet, crunchy cucumber. I would often ask for an entire cuke to myself and try to eat it whole like an apple!

I still enjoy just snacking on a plain cucumber. I also add them to almost every salad I make, and it’s my primary vehicle to transport hummus to my mouth. Last night I took some thinly sliced cucumbers, tossed them with some rice vinegar, salt and pepper, for a super easy salad that took literally a minute to make.

Since it’s prime time for cucumbers, we decided to pick up 10 lbs. of them at the farmers market last Saturday. What are you going to do with 10 lbs. of cucumbers?! I’ve got plenty of ideas, but I wanted to try something new. Here’s a list of some great plant-based recipes I found featuring cucumbers as the star ingredient.

Cucumber Recipe Round-up:

Cucumbers are at their peak flavor right now. You’ll also find them cheaper in the summer than any other time of year, especially if you pick them up at your farmers market.  Last year, Josh and I joked that we ate our body weight in cucumbers over the summer.

What are your favorite ways to prepare cucumber? Let us know in the comments!

August 2, 2016 by
Dining Out, Lifestyle

Finding Plant-Based Street Food in Summer

We spent the afternoon looking for plant-based street food at Open Streets Minneapolis Lake Street.

Looking east on Lake Street during Open Streets Minneapolis festival.

People often think you can’t find plant-based street food options at summer festivals.

Just last year I mentioned to a coworker that I was going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She asked why I’d even bother, since I wouldn’t eat anything there anyway. It got me thinking: Too often people just assume that events like these aren’t going to be fun for you if you’re not eating the food. For us that simply isn’t the case. We are there to enjoy the experience, surroundings, and people, not the food. To paraphrase Joel Fuhrman (who himself is paraphrasing multiple historic figures) we would rather eat to live than live to eat.

Thankfully, we are finding that over time there are more and more food options available for plant-based eaters at local and regional festivals. Although the selection can be limited, it’s heartening to see the improvements.

Take for example Minneapolis Open Streets on Lake Street this past Sunday. We went up and down the entire length of the festival at least twice and managed to find multiple vendors offering foods friendly to plant-based eaters. While it may not seem like much, it’s a big improvement over previous years.

Minneapolis Hydration Station

The City of Minneapolis sets up portable drinking fountains with bottle-filling attachments to keep thirsty revelers hydrated.

Plant-Based Street Food Highlights from Sunday

  • Free organic sweet corn courtesy of the Midtown Farmers Market.
  • Free fruit-infused water courtesy of the Minneapolis Health Department.
  • Multiple vendors selling fresh fruits, including mangoes, pineapple and watermelon.
  • Plain grilled corn with nothing added.
  • Fruit-based ice lollies from Frio Frio that are plant-based friendly.
Grabbing a quick mango is a great plant-based street food option in summer.

In Minnesota it’s not real street food until you put it on a stick!

Besides the plant-based food, there was live music, dancing, free bike tune-ups, art and artists working in real time, and just the excitement of being able to use a normally busy thoroughfare as a pedestrian zone. This is the only time I would ever consider riding my bike down Lake Street.

In addition to scoping out food at the festival, we also packed a snack just in case we weren’t able to find anything. Generally speaking this is a really good idea, because you just never know what to expect. We’re looking forward to the next Open Streets event to see what other plant-based offerings we might find.

What do you do to get through summer festival season and maintain your plant-based diet? Let us know in the comments!

July 25, 2016 by
Budget-friendly, Recipes

Farmers Market Stir-Fry with Sugar Snap Peas

Shredded cabbage gives this dish an extra bit of freshness and crunch.

Shredded cabbage gives this dish an extra bit of freshness and crunch.

This stir-fry was an absolute joy to make. Nearly everything in it came from a farmers market visit earlier in the week.

The real star here is the sugar snap peas. Be sure to strip off the stem and string from the sugar snap peas before you begin! Our sugar snap peas were very large and firm so we steamed them a bit first before adding the softer ingredients. This works best in a high-sided, covered sauté pan, but it would work equally well in a wok.

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp vegetable broth or water
  • 1 red onion, diced
  • 1 lb. sugar snap peas, stems removed and strings stripped
  • 2 summer squash, medium, cut into coins and then quartered (we used light green and yellow)
  • ½ lb. broccoli, chopped
  • 8 oz. mushrooms, stems removed, sliced
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • One package tofu, crumbled
  • 1 tbsp powdered turmeric
  • 1 thumb of ginger, minced
  • 3-5 cloves garlic, minced
  • Green onions, chopped, for serving
  • Green cabbage, raw, shredded, for serving
  • Soy sauce, for serving
  • Sriracha sauce, for serving
  • Miso paste, for serving (optional)

The tofu scramble adds an egg-like texture just like a traditional stir-fry.

Method

Drain tofu by gently squeezing between paper towels. After most of the water is drained, crumble it by hand into a medium-sized bowl. Add the turmeric. Mix with your hands until incorporated. The tofu will turn bright yellow.

In a large, high-sided sauté pan, cook the onion over medium-high heat in a small amount of vegetable broth or water for five minutes. If it sticks, add a little more vegetable broth or water and deglaze with a wooden spoon.

Add the sugar snap peas and stir well. Make sure there is still some water or vegetable broth on the bottom of the pan and cover it. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes to soften the sugar snap peas. If your sugar snap peas are not too thick or firm, you may omit this step.

Add the summer squash, broccoli, red pepper, and mushrooms. Continue to cook over high heat, stirring occasionally but not too much. They will release a lot of water. Cook most of it off, which should take about 7-10 minutes.

Add garlic and ginger and incorporate well. Continue to cook on high until especially fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add tofu scramble and continue to cook until the tofu is hot, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Serving

To serve, put a layer of rice on a plate. Cover the rice with a layer of shredded cabbage, then add the stir-fry. Top with green onions, and season with sriracha and/or soy sauce.

Alternatively, you can mix miso paste into your rice first. When I use miso, I don’t add soy sauce or sriracha. I prefer miso, while Theresa typically uses soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos.

What do you like to do with your farmers market produce? Let us know in the comments!

July 15, 2016 by
Pretty Quick Plant-Based Recipe Pick, Recipes

Our Plant-Based Play on a Classic French Salad

Salade Nicoise

Oui, s’il vous plaît!

Summer weather means spending time outdoors, not in the kitchen.  When we’re planning our meals on warmer days, we look for recipes that require little use of the oven and have a quick prep time.  Salads are the perfect solution.

One of our favorite recipes to make this time of year is our plant-based Salade Niçoise.  We have adapted this recipe from the classic French version; ours does not include the fish or egg, but it still has all the flavor!  There is very little cooking required– you just need to steam some vegetables for a few minutes and let them cool (or prep them ahead of time).  For this recipe, you will need:

  • Mix of spring greens
  • Cucumber
  • Steamed green beans (or haricots verts, if you wanna be fancy)
  • Steamed white potatoes (red or yellow varieties with thin skins taste best in this dish)
  • Kalamata olives (black are good, too)
  • One can of cannellini beans
  • Cherry or grape tomatoes
  • Additionally, you can add a few special ingredients like radishes, hearts of palm, shredded carrots or artichoke hearts

We don’t follow a hard and fast recipe for this dish- we just make enough to feed the two of us.  To dress this salad, we whip up a super simple oil-free dressing consisting of grainy Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, a few cloves of chopped garlic, and some salt and pepper.  We haven’t bought salad dressing in years and prefer to make our own.  This link will provide you with a few more oil-free examples that are easy to make on the fly!

This really is a tried and true recipe for us, as we will often make it once a week during the summertime.  We used to eat this dish when we still ate meat and when we switched to a plant-based diet, we knew we wanted to keep this one in our repertoire.  The next time you’re feeling like dishing up some French cuisine, try it sans poisson!

July 7, 2016 by