Recipes

Garden Cocktail

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On Friday night Neil and I went for our traditional post midwife date night dinner. This week we decided to dine at Kismet Kitchens in Montpelier, a restaurant we used to love to visit for brunch back when we lived in Montpelier. We had an amazing dinner of Veg Carpacio and Vegan Tempeh Club Burgers and Neil tried their Garden Martini (fresh squeezed vegetable juice and gin with a salt and pepper rim).

Well we absolutely loved our meals and Neil loved his drink so much so that we decided recreate our meal at home for Saturday night dinner. Since any good date night in starts with a cocktail we decided to make our own version of the Garden Martini.

Makes 2 Cocktails

Juice Mix:

  • 1 bunch parsley
  • 2-3 large tomatoes
  • 3 celery stalks
  • 4 kale stalks (stems and leaves)
  • 1/4 jalapeno

Juice everything above in your juicer and then comes cocktail time!

  • 2 1/2 oz vodka or gin
  • 1/2 oz dry vermouth
  • wedges of lemon
  • salt and pepper for the rim of the glass
  • celery sticks and jalapeno slices, for garnish

Alcoholic Version: Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add about 1 cup of the veggie juice, the vodka or gin, vermouth and a squeeze of lemon. Shake and then using the strainer pour into a salt and pepper rimmed, ice filled glass and garnish with celery sticks, jalapeno slices and a wedge of lemon.

Non-alcoholic Version:  If you don’t drink alcohol or are pregnant like me you would fill a shaker with ice add 1 and 1/2 cups of the veggie juice a squeeze of lemon and shake.  Then pour into a salt and pepper rimmed glass that is filled with ice and garnish with a celery stick, wedge of lemon and slice of jalapeno.

 

Recipe Of The Week: Curried Quinoa and Cranberry Salad

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Since I am crazy busy with work this week I have invited Mellissa from A Fit and Spicy Life to share one of her recipes.  Enjoy!

Curried Quinoa and Cranberry Salad

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the Salad

  • 1 cup quinoa
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/2 cup slivered almonds
  • Salt/Pepper

Dressing

  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 2 teaspoons agave nectar
  • 1 tbsp curry powder
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard

Instructions

  • Bring the quinoa, broth, and water to a bowl. Add quinoa and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
  • In a small bowl whisk together orange juice, lemon juice, olive, oil, mustard, agave and curry powder.
  • Place cooled quinoa and dressing in a large bowl, top with cranberries and almonds.
  • Season with salt and pepper. Chill for a few hours until cold. Enjoy!

Mellissa is a 30 something girl living in Minneapolis who lives fitness, food, travel and wine. She creates healthy recipes and tries to share her love of food with friends and family 

Guest Recipe: Green Monster Smoothie

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Hi, I’m Alison, a Physical and Massage Therapist, and I write about healthy living, wellness and rehabilitation over at Berry Happy Bodies.  I want to thank Lindsay for letting me guest post today! Lindsay has recently written about her CSA box and using her greens. My husband and I subscribe to one as well. One solution I came up with to utilize all the leafy greens before they take a turn is to make smoothies. When I add a frozen banana it actually satisfies my sweet tooth as well. Win! Here is one of my favorite summer smoothie recipes.

 

Green Monster Smoothie


Serves 2
Ingredients

  • 1 frozen banana
  • ½ cup chopped pineapple
  • 1 Tsp shredded coconut
  • 2 dates without pit***
  • ½ cup spinach or other leafy green
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder (Vega is good for vegans)
  • ¼ Tsp coconut extract
  • ¼ Tsp coconut extract
  • Stevia to taste
  • 6-8 ice cubes

Place in a blender and whirl away.
*** I usually soak my dates overnight in water. But, I have made this without the presoak, the dates are just not as sweet.

Stop by Berry Happy Bodies for more recipes and healthy living tips!

Recipe of The Week: Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

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On Saturday we were at the farmers market and we tired strawberry-rhubarb juice we fell in love. We liked it so much that we ended up purchasing the ingredients at the market to make it again ourselves.

Fast forward to Sunday night. I have had a major craving for a fruit crumble and then it hit me strawberry-rhubarb crumble would be amazing. So our juice ingredients quickly became the ingredients for a crumble. I started on the crumble and sent Neil out to the store to pick up some vanilla coconut milk ice cream- because really how can you have warm crumble without ice cream?

Since this would be my first time ever using rhubarb I searched around the internet until I found what seemed to be a good recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble.  I finally came across this recipe from Willow over at Will Cook For Friends.  Her recipe is vegan and gluten free, but because I was out of gluten free flours I decided to just make mine vegan and used all purpose flour.  I also cut the recipe in half and used coconut sugar instead of granulated sugar, otherwise I followed the recipes ingredient list and directions.

The result was a delicious crumble! It was a little sweet for me but overall it was delicious.  We even had a little extra filling leftover (because we couldn’t finish our bowls) and we used it last night as a topping to our vanilla coconut milk ice cream.

Recipe Of The Week: Tempeh-Brussels Sprout Flatbread

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Ingredients:

  • 1 pizza dough
  • 4-5 Brussels Sprouts, shredded
  • 1 medium red onion, caramelized
  • 1 package temeph bacon or homemade tempeh bacon
  • Garlic Sauce (mix together):
    • 2 tablespoon olive oil
    • 1 tablespoon earth balance
    • 2 garlic cloves, grated
    • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
    • 1/2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
  • Sriracha (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven with a pizza stone to 550F; place pizza stone on the bottom shelf in the oven.  Top the dough with the garlic sauce, caramelized onions, tempeh bacon and shredded Brussels. Bake for 8 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and let sit for 2-3 minutes before cutting. Drizzle with sriracha if desired.

Recipe(s) of the Week: Memorial Day Round-Up

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This upcoming weekend is a big weekend for Memorial Day BBQ’s and Parties so I have rounded up a few of my favorite recipes that would work really well for this weekend!

What are your plans for the weekend? Neil is running  the two person relay of  the Vermont City Marathon and then we are going to spend Monday celebrating our anniversary (a few days early) with massages at The Essex.

 

Recipe of The Week: Arugula Pesto Chickpea Spread

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This past weekend we celebrated Mother’s Day at Shelburne Museum. Since the food choices are limited at the cafe there I made us a picnic lunch which included delicious veggie sandwiches with arugula pesto chickpea spread. I love how it turned out so I am sharing it with you!

  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 1/2 cup raw walnuts
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • 2 cups lightly packed baby arugula
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 15-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 2 heaping tablespoons vegenaise (or you could use more olive oil if you would like)
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Place the garlic, walnut and nutritional yeast in the base of a food processor and process until crumbly, about 20-30 seconds.  Add the arugula and process for 30 seconds and then slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube and process until smooth. Add the chickpeas, vegenaise, salt and pepper to the processor and process just until combined.  If you would like it smoother feel free to process longer, I preferred to make mine a little chunky. 

Serve: spread onto your favorite veggie sandwich (I made ours with roasted mushrooms, zucchini, fresh arugula and slices of tomato), stuff this spread into tomatoes <– amazing, enjoy with veggies, on top of a salad or in a wrap.