12 Vegan Recipes to Help Incorporate More Greens into Your Diet

Happy New Year!!!

I feel like it has been so long since I've posted. I've been busy doing the spend-time-with-the-family-during-the-holidays thing. Sam and I arrived back in Texas last night from our 12 day trip to the east coast. Later this week I'll be posting pictures and sharing a bunch of recipes we made over the holidays, but for now let's talk resolutions. It is the new year after all.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that the number one new year's resolution made each year is to be healthier and/ or lose weight. Which is good since our country is in dire need of a health make-over, but bad because no one sticks to it, it's too vague of a goal. So for those of you looking to get healthy or to lose weight this year I encourage you to make more specific and attainable goals such as going on a walk four times a week or eating a healthy breakfast everyday. My get healthy goal this year is to add dark, leafy greens to at least two out of three meals a day. 

Dark, leafy greens are nutrient powerhouses and the simple act of adding them into dishes that you already make will go along way in helping you absorb valuable vitamins and minerals that you may not be getting enough of. You know what happens when your body doesn't get the nutrients it needs? It craves more food. Which means you eat more food which in turn means you most likely gain weight, not to mention your body will still be missing those nutrients causing a whole host of health problems. So if you haven't made a health goal for this year, may I suggest you try adding more greens and just more vegetables in general?

Below I've listed some delicious recipes that incorporate greens to help give you some ideas of how to add them into our own diet. I specifically chose recipes that don't make you feel like your biting into a giant leaf of kale. Whenever I feel like I need an extra boost of nutrition I add some greens to whatever I'm making; I may add shredded spinach to guacamole, ripped kale to pizza or make a hummus wrap on a leaf of chard instead of a tortilla. The important thing is that you still enjoy what you're eating, life's too short not to. I hope the recipes below help you begin your healthiest year yet!

*Please note that the photos below belong to the corresponding blogs, to access them just click the link below the photos. *

-Spinach-

Fresh Start Green Smoothie // For the Love of Leaves

Lemon, Olive Oil and Roasted Garlic Pasta with Spinach and Lentils // Edible Perspective

Creamy Spinach Artichoke Dip // The Detoxinista

Sneaky Green Apple Fruit Leather // Oh My Veggies

-Kale-

Vegan 7 Layer Taco Dip // For the Love of Leaves

Kale and Slivered Brussels Sprout Soba Noodles // Sprouted Kitchen

Eggplant Bruschetta // For the Love of Leaves

Kale Pesto // The Bite Sized Baker

-Chard and Collards-

Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Quinoa Salad // For the Love of Leaves

Coconut Curry with Potatoes, Carrots and Crispy Collards // Edible Perspective

Better than Restaurant Falafel // Minimalist Baker

Chard, Lentil & Potato Slow Cooker Soup // Oh My Veggies

There you have it. What are your favorite ways to sneak extra greens into your diet?

What are your resolutions this year?

Pecan and Craisin Spinach Salad with Balsamic Dijon Dressing (Vegan, Gluten Free)

Can you believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving?! I saw that tomorrow is also the first day of  Hanukkah. I'm not Jewish, but I think it's pretty awesome that those two holidays are falling on the same day and won't again for more than 70, 000 years. Crazy!

I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with Sam's extended family this year and I was asked to bring a salad. I knew I wanted to make something simple because let's be honest, no one counts down the days til Thanksgiving for the salad. I had a rough idea of what exactly I wanted to put in it, but it seemed too simple, incomplete almost. That is until I found this recipe on the Huffington Post's website. It was exactly what I was looking to make, but with the addition of the perfect dressing to tie it all together. Earlier today I prepped the dressing and the pecans so that I could try out the salad to make sure I wasn't bringing something tomorrow that would taste less than delicious. And man, oh man is this good. As soon as I finished eating the salad that I used in these photos I immediately wanted more. You can be sure that I am counting down the hours to when I can eat more of it!

This salad comes together in less than fifteen minutes and features the holiday flavors that we all love while still leaving you with room for the mashed potatoes and stuffing. For the recipe click this link to the Huffington Post's website:

Pecan and Craisin Spinach Salad with Balsamic Dijon Dressing

***Note the recipe on the website is for a lot of salad, so if you're expecting a smaller crowd you may want to minimize the amount. I decided to only go with a pound of spinach and adjust the amounts of the other ingredients from there.

I hope those of you celebrating the holidays this weekend have a wonderful time with family and friends!

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

Do you usually eat salads at holiday meals?

What types of salads do you like to have?

Strawberry Ginger Green Smoothie (Vegan, Gluten-Free)

Today I woke up feeling very defeated. Tired, shaky, foggy, sad and on the verge of sickness. But it's my goal today to stay positive. We can't control everything that happens in our lives, but we can control our reactions. Step one in operation stay positive: focus on things that I am grateful for... my wonderful roommate, an awesome home, new friends, a job I enjoy with friendly co-workers, that it's sunny outside today and for coconut milk lattes from this place:

I am also so incredibly grateful  for the fact that Molly's brother had a small food processor and Magic Bullet that he never uses and said I could keep! I've been whining and complaining about my blender/ food processor-less life for a couple weeks now and these two appliances will be perfect to help me get by until I can afford a Vitamix. Thank you Spencer!

Another wonderful surprise yesterday was discovering I had $150 in my Paypal account left over from my Etsy days! Plus, Beanilla is having a sale on Madagascar vanilla beans 25 for $25! So I used money from my Paypal account to buy the beans so that I can make more vanilla extract since I'm running low! 

*Sigh* Feeling better already :-) Now, onto the smoothie!

Step two of operation stay positive was to make a smoothie. Smoothies are one of my happy foods and I loaded this one with Vitamin C and antioxidants to hopefully kick this oncoming cold in the butt. I also love drinking anything ginger when I'm feeling under the weather. Ginger has been used medicinally for centuries. It helps to settle upset stomachs, it's loaded with essential vitamins and minerals and the spiciness helps clear sinuses and relieve colds. This smoothie doesn't have the most appealing color, but it tastes great!

Strawberry Ginger Green Smoothie

• 1 Heaping Cup Strawberries
• 2 Mandarin Oranges or 1 Large Orange*
• 2 Handfuls of Spinach
• 1/2 Cup Almond Milk
• Approximately 1 inch of Ginger Root, peeled

*If you don't have a high powered blender, the oranges may not fully blend, if that texture bothers you, you can add 1/2 cup orange juice instead and omit the almond milk.

Place all the ingredients in the blender. I find leafy greens are blended more thoroughly when closest to the blades, so in most blenders add the spinach first, in Magic Bullets add it last. Also, if you are using a Magic Bullet you may need to add half the ingredients, blend and then add the rest and blend again to make it all fit. 

How do you make yourself feel better when you're having "one of those days"?

Curried Lentil Salad (Vegan, Gluten Free)

Sometimes you experiment with great results, other times not so much. I am pleased to say that my Curried Lentil Salad was the later.

 When you first move you don't have a lot of food or a lot of spices or a lot of tools to work with. Sometimes you aren't used to your new refrigerator and its frigid temperatures and wake up to find all of your produce frozen. And sometimes you're sick of eating cereal and want to eat something cooked, homemade, something that was cooked with care, not poured out of a box. Insert this salad. This was a concoction derived from saving my produce that had frozen so they didn't taste so good fresh anymore, but hadn't gone bad and also wanting to use what I had in my pantry so I didn't need to buy more food at the grocery store.

The only pot we have (while we wait for the rest of our stuff to show up) is my wok. So that is how I cooked the lentils. I wouldn't recommend it, it's takes a long time, but if that's all you have it works. Plus, that means that's this entire salad was prepared in one pot, that's how simple it is.

Yes, I did use a frosting spatula to stir this salad with. Hey, sometimes you just have to work with what you have. This simple, tasty salad would be great as a side, a light lunch or dinner or just because you want to impress your friends and family with a pretty dish. No one said simple can't be fancy.

This recipe is more of a guideline to recreate the salad yourself. None of the measurements need to be exact. Just play around with it to make it match your taste preferences. Feel free to add some fresh ground pepper if you'd like, I just didn't have any.

Curried Lentil Salad

• 1/4 Cup Lentils
• 1 Red Pepper
• 3 Cups Spinach
• Sea Salt to taste
• Muchi Curry Powder to taste
• 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Splash of Red Wine Vinegar
• A Few Cilantro Sprigs

Makes 1-3 servings.

Cook lentils according to package directions, adding the muchi curry powder and a pinch of sea salt. Slice the red pepper and saute with the olive oil until browned on the outside. Remove from heat and add the spinach, stirring it occasionally, just until the spinach is slightly wilted. Add salt, cilantro and red wine vinegar to taste. Add the lentils. Serve and enjoy!