Category Archives: Recipes

Meatless Monday Guest Chef Mary Rose Roberts’ Rice Crust Healthful Garden Pizza Recipe

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Who doesn’t freakin’ love Pizza? Right? How about an awesome pizza for Meatless Monday? I’m a vegan so this one isn’t for me (with all that cheese), but I’m trying to be inclusive in promoting Meatless Monday so this one is for all of you!

I’m excited to introduce another wonderful guest chef, Mary Rose Roberts. I love the detail she gives on her blog, the breadth of green topics and how fantastic her food looks. Mary Rose has been a professional journalist for 15 years writing about green technology and communications, among other topics, for Penton Media–one of the largest business-to-business companies in the U.S. She also is the editor of a green news, product and lifestyle blog: Next-Gen Green. Follow her on twitter @NextGenGreen and if you still use Facebook she’s on there, too! 

Here is the story and recipe for Mary Rose Robert’s Rice Crust Healthful Garden Pizza:  Read more... (776 words, 4 images)

Guest Chef Jessica Nazarali’s Sushi Recipe for Meatless Monday

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We’ve had requests for vegan sushi from some of our readers and I’m a massive sushi fan myself, so I’m incredibly excited to share our vegan guest chef Jessica Nazarali’s recipe for sushi. Making sushi is a blast and Jessica’s recipe is easy to follow and wonderful tasting. What better way to start the week than with a fun and healthy dinner on Meatless Monday? 

I have featured Jessica before and love the recipes she has on her site, Live Healthy Simply. I challenge you to find a recipe on her site that you aren’t excited to try! You can keep up to date by following her on twitter @JessicaNazarali.

Sushi is a little fiddly to make; but every time you make it it gets a little quicker and easier. What I like about sushi is how impressive it looks – How many people that you know, have homemade sushi every Wednesday night? Probably none..unless they’re Japanese!

So here is my take on sushi – brown rice and vegan style.

Vegan Chef Jessica's Sushi

Ingredients  Read more... (323 words, 4 images)

Meatless Monday Guest Chef Shana Robinson’s It’s Thyme for Israeli Cous Cous Salad Recipe

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Welcome to our series of Meatless Monday guest chef recipes!

I’m excited to introduce chef Shana Robinson. Shana is a natural foods chef who lives and works in New York City and the surrounding boroughs.  She attended the full time health supportive chef’s training program at the Natural Gourmet Institute after a twelve year career in the trenches of a digital media career.  A braised short rib and bacon lover upon starting her culinary education, emerged from the curriculum at the end of 2009 hungry for and enamored by the creativity involved in cooking for a satiating plant based life style.

When not cooking, she’s baking vegan cupcakes.  You can follow her on twitter @ChefShanaRachel and get more healthy recipes and tips at Knifestyles of the Fit and Fabulous.

I hope you enjoy her ‘It’s Thyme for Israelis Cous Cous Salad’ recipe!

A friend and I hopped on a train from Grand Central for the for the just over one hour journey along the Hudson up to Beacon, New York.    We made our way to the DIA:Beacon, which is a short walk from the train station.  Throughout the ten minute journey, we gulped down the clean air like a cold beer on a hot day.  Read more... (450 words, 1 image)

Guest Chef Jessica Nazarali’s Wake Up Smoothie for Meatless Monday

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Here is another wonderful vegan chef that I’m excited to introduce you to, Jessica Nazarali from Live Healthy Simply. Jessica has loads of great recipes on her site and I encourage you to follow her on twitter @JessicaNazarali. Once you’ve been through her site and have seen the food (and the wonderful photography) I’m sure you’ll be hooked!

Jessica grew up on a farm in the Hunter Valley and was raised vegetarian. Today she’s ditched the junk food and the ice cream and gone vegan. She feels it has done wonders for her skin, her digestion and helped her lose some weight. Now she calls Sydney, Australia home.

She has contributed a wonderful, healthy breakfast smoothie to our series. I hope you enjoy it!

Here is a Quick Way to Eat Breakfast in the Morning  Read more... (294 words, 1 image)

Jen’s Awesome Vegan Moussaka Recipe for Meatless Monday

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This is a wonderful dish that my fabulous bride, Jen, made for us and some meat eating friends recently. It was a huge hit and we wanted to share it for our Meatless Monday series!

Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream
Adapted from Veganomicon
 
Veggies:  Read more... (565 words, 2 images)

Guest Chef Professor Vegetable’s Vegan Southern-Style Collard Greens for Meatless Monday

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Please welcome my friend Adam, aka Professor Vegetable. He has a fantastic blog and offers great ideas for veggie meals on a budget. A vegan that occasionally goes vegetarian (he’ll eat eggs once in a while), Adam also loves sign language. A geek at heart he’s also a sci-fi fan and into reading fantasy books. A lot of Adam’s recipes reflect the Asian food that he grew up with. Give him a follow on twitter and quiz his sci-fi knowledge @professorveg. 

I hope you enjoy his collard greens!

I’m participating in a sort of group blogging exercise for meatless Monday. The theme I was given: Soul Food. My first thought was collard greens. I’ve been cooking these things for years. I’ve always done them in a meatless way. I do not claim that my recipe for collard greens is traditional. Like, I said, I do them meatless and traditionally they’d be done with ham or ham fat and butter. Traditional or not, my recipe is good and I’m technically a southerner. I was born and raised in Virginia. Though when I say Virginia what I really mean is a suburb of DC in Northern Virginia and it’s not the most southern place but I do like to think that I know a thing or two about greens.  Read more... (533 words, 2 images)

Guest Chef Alyson Blair’s Meatless Monday Caramelized Sweet Potatoes

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Another wonderful chef that I’m excited to know and feature is Alyson Blair. Alyson has been vegan for four months and has this to say about her recent transition:

 

Within 30 days, I lost 10 pounds, my skin texture improved, a chronic illness seemed to disappear and more than anything, my ability to connect with the earth and those around me went into hyperdrive.  What was once cloudy was clear, what seemed right before proved itself to be wrong.  My shift to veganism has been life changing in many ways. 

 

In addition to her alternative diet, she is a single mother to a very handsome toddler, a Marketing Advocate for Pin-Up Promotions, an avid reader, pretty much hilarious and a great cook. You can follow her funky tweets @PinUpAltPromos. 

 

I hope you enjoy her recipe!

 

Caramelized Sweet Potatoes 

 

This is an ideal holiday dish, but I serve it throughout the year as a side-dish, breakfast and even dessert alternative.

   Read more... (328 words)

Guest Chef Leiann’s Chili Recipe for Meatless Monday

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I am excited to introduce Lei from Southern Maine Living and I am grateful to her for contributing to our series of Guest Chefs for Meatless Monday. Lei is a mom from Maine who is an avid cyclist, swimmer and runner. On the food front she describes herself as vegetarian most of the time. When she isn’t exercising she’s usually exploring Maine with her family or baking up a storm! You can follow her on twitter @TheBakingBiker. Here is her wonderful vegan recipe for Chili. What better to keep you warm on a winter night? Enjoy your Meatless Monday!
Being a vegetarian makes it difficult to enjoy the foods that you loved in your “meat eatin’ days.  Chili is one of the dishes that I did not want to live without.  It is my go to menu item for many different occasions – I usually whip up a potful of it whenever I am going to feed a crowd, whether it is for the Superbowl or a neighborhood block party.  This recipe is everything that I love about chili – it is super hearty, has a lot of heat and it makes enough to feed a small island nation – without the ground beef!   I used five different vegetables and three kinds of beans to ensure that it is going to be a complete meal for me.  I ate the chili and did not even miss the meat! The big test of any vegetarian recipe is my husband.  He is a card carrying member of the carnivore society and really loved this chili – he even ate the left overs for lunch the day after I made it!   Try it out!
Ingredients:
1/4 C olive oil
1 onion – diced
1 green pepper- chopped
2 stalks celery – chopped (about 3/4′s cup)
1 C carrots – chopped
3/4 C corn
2-3 tbsp chili powder (depending on how much heat you like!)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
3 cans beans – used 1 dark red kidney, 1 pinto, 1 black – drain liquid in can, wash beans
3 cans tomato (I used 2 small cans and 1 large can- some diced, some crushed – personal preference!)
In a large pot, heat olive oil and garlic over medium high heat. Add in the green peppers and onions and saute for 2 minutes.  Add the remaining veggies- except for the corn – and let cook together in the garlic and oil for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add in the tomatoes, beans and spices.  Cover and simmer over low heat for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.  Add the corn and continue to cook over low heat for thirty more minutes. Enjoy!

Southern Maine Living's Chili

Guest Chef Shelley Langenhorst’s Recipe for Meatless Monday

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Ready for Plan B is kicking off a new series where we will feature guest chefs each Monday. The goal is to help our readers to find great recipes to have success with their Meatless Mondays (and beyond!). There are so many great vegan chefs and bloggers out there and I’ve been fortunate to link up with many through twitter and the blog. I am very grateful to them for helping me pull this off and we hope you find this series helpful!

The second recipe in the series comes from a blog that I am a fan of, Shelley Langenhorst’s milehighhealthy.com. Shelley is a great chef and her food looks incredible. I’m very grateful to have her involved in the series!

Without further adieu, Chef Shelley:  Read more... (565 words, 2 images)