Tag Archives: plant-based diet

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)

Guest Chef MJ Marti’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 first recipe is a product of a conversation I had with my friend MJ on twitter. I was curious and it lead to chat and here we are… our first guest chef!

MJ Marti’s Breaded Veggie Scallops
Ingredients:
1/4 cup corn meal
1/8 teaspoon adobo
1 can veggie scallops
Oil for frying (I like using olive oil.)

Preparation:
1. Mix the corn meal and adobo in a bowl.
2. Cut the pieces of scallops in half.
3. Dip the scallops in the dry mix until completed covered.
4. Once the oil is hot enough (oil should slightly bubble when you put the first scallop in) put the scallops in the pan for about 2-3 minutes or until golden.  Read more... (242 words, 1 image)

Does Eating Meat Impact the Environment?

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Scientific American was asked “How does meat in the diet impact the environment?”

Here are a couple of points from the article:

Eating too much meat is no good for our health, with overindulgence linked to increasing rates of heart disease, cancer and obesity.

A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms (also called concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs)—whereby pigs and other livestock are contained in tight quarters—can produce as much sewage waste as a small city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Feed Lot

EWG estimates that growing livestock feed in the U.S. alone requires 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer each year across some 149 million acres of cropland. The process generates copious amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, while the output of methane—another potent greenhouse gas—from cattle is estimated to generate some 20 percent of overall U.S. methane emissions.  Read more... (181 words, 1 image)

Required Reading – Or Viewing In This Case

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Spend an hour with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta as he learns how to prevent and reverse heart disease through a plant-based diet.  It is called “The Last Heart Attack.”

The Last Heart Attack from Chadron State College on Vimeo.