Day 55

Hello World!

I am sitting in my 1/4 of a cube intensely bored so I figrured I would say hello. The flexitarian challenge has gone by pretty well so far. I know of at least 3 bets going on as to how long i’ll last before I crack and eat meat. Well they can all just wait forever as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to make it one whole year and all your doubt only makes me want to last that much longer. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Thanks to blogger WhileHeWasOut for being the first one to like my post! I hope you all enjoy the mini pot pies and find your own unique things to add to them. What’s also cool about them is that you can pretty much stuff these pies with anything you want. My roommate had the idea that breakfast ones would be pretty tasty. I’m thinking my next adventure will be to make pizza ones with mozzarella and marinara sauce mmmmm….

In other news I’m thinking of adopting a rescue dog!  I have to wait until I move come this may but the anticipation is driving me nuts gahhhhh.  Perhaps my next blogging fiasco will be about making homemade nutritious dog food. I’ll keep you updated!

xoxo

Emily

Mini Pot Pies

Hello everybody,

I have another recipe that worked out really well! I have to give some credit however to my cousins roommate. I saw him making these this past Thanksgiving and they looked so cute and yummy that I had to try them.

To make 4 servings:

Ingredients:

Two cans of your favorite buttermilk biscuits

8 small to medium sized red potatoes

8 cups of water

Half of a red onion (chopped)

4 large carrots (chopped or shaved)

4 stalks of celery

.5 to 1 cups of corn

.5 to 1 cup of peas (I hate peas so I left this ingredient out but if you like them go for it!)

Meat eaters can add 1 to 1.5 cups of diced PRECOOKED chicken

2  to 3 cups of chicken stalk

1 to 1.5 cups of all purpose wheat flower

A few dashes of oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Begin by boiling your 8 cups of water in a large pot.

 Chop up the potatoes into about dime sized pieces and then add them to the water to boil.

Chop up your veggies and add them to a large pan and begin sauteing.

While the veggies are cooking lay down some parchment paper (or if your poor like me you can just use a sheet of tin foil) And sprinkle it with some flower.

Break into your cans of buttermilk buscuits and separate each biscuit in half. I prefer to use the Pilsbury “flaky” buscuits because they are already sort of separated into layers for you which makes it easier.

Once you pull apart your buscuits flaten out each half until its about the size of your plam. You are making the top and bottom crust for your mini pot pies.

Pam up a muffin pan and place one of the flattened buscuit halves into each tin like you were making the bottom crust for a pie.

By the time you get all this done your potatoes should be just soft enough to stick a fork in them. You dont want to make them too soft because then they will turn into mashed potatoes inside the pot pies while they are baking.

Add the potatoes to the sauteing veggies and then slowly add your chicken broth. (strict vegitarians can use vegtable stalk instead).

Let that simmer down for a couple minites and then slowly add your flour all the while stiring to prevent it from getting clumpy.

The mixture will start to thicken and then you can add as much flour or chicken broth as you would like to get it to your desired consistensy.

Add the oregano, salt, and pepper

Fill each tin with the mixture

Take the other halves of your flattened biscuits and create the top crust to your mini pot pies. Pinch the edges down into the bottom crust to prevent any overflows while cooking.

Lightly butter the tops to improve browning and then bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.

Let them cool for about 5 to 10 minutes, eat, and enjoy!

Day 51

Hi everyone!

So I’m a little late in commenting about the stuffed peppers recipe but I hope you try them and tell me how they turn out! They were kinda my first experiment with actually making a meal flexitarian style. First thing to know about my recipes are that I live and breath at Trader Joes. I love their produce and all the fun snacks they sell. Another great thing is that they label their pre-made meals with symbols that let you know if its vegetarian, low sodium, or vegan. Obviously no one has the time to make a delicious flexitarian meal all the time so TJ’s frozen meals are a great, quick option for one person or your whole family.

The story behind the peppers:

So I work for the Department of the Interior and most of the time that involves me sitting at my 1/4 of a cubical with my lap top and a luke warm cup of coffee. Needless to say I get bored. My boyfriend was coming to vist me that weekend and he to this day swears that I can’t cook. So to prove him wrong I decided that I was going to make dinner one night and stuffed peppers seemed like a good idea.  So I went to TJ’s and picked up some ingredients. My boyfriend is an insane health freak, but me not so much. I’m not unhealthy necessarily and I try to make good decisions when it comes to what I eat but I have a weakness for all things sweet. So to please him I decided to tweak the recipe a little that I had got off line to make it a bit healthier and flexitarian. So walking around TJ’s I found the rice and discovered that they have basmati brown rice. I love basmati rice but have always had the white rice version so I was stoked when I found it in brown. TJ’s also sells a 3 pack of peppers (red, yellow, and orange), that I got my hands on. I bought a frozen pack of edamame and corn but you can always use fresh or canned. I thought the edamame would be an interesting twist to the mix and help to add color and texture . After getting all the other ingredients I went home and he and I prepared the stuffing for the peppers together. They take awhile to cook so once we placed them on the heat I got two of those week free trial vouchers for our local core power yoga. Neither of us had ever been before so we decided to give it a try. The class was an hr long and the peppers take about an hr 15 to an hr 30 to cook so it was perfect. We got home after the class, starving and sore (Yoga is a lot harder than it looks, but it was HILARIOUS to see him try to do the flying crow pose), and the peppers were done. They turned out great!

Please feel free to add other ingredients and experiment and tell me how they turn out! I would love to hear from you and try some of your recipes.

enjoy!

xoxo

Emily

Stuffed Peppers with Marinara

To make 4 servings

Ingredients:

4 peppers (Red, Yellow, Orange, or Green)

1 cup of basmati brown rice

1/4 cup of Soy Beans

1/4 cop of Corn

1/4 cup of black olives

1/2 cup of Pepper jack cheese

1/4 cup of Black beans

1/2 a lb of ground meatless beef

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1/4 cup of chopped red onion

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 jar of marinara sauce

1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup H2O

Chopped cilantro to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Directions:

Begin by cooking the brown rice according to the directions on your box/package etc.

Next chop the tops off of each of your peppers  and scoop out the seeds making a nice little cup

-Save your tops!

Brown your meatless beef in a pan

– Meat eaters can use ground beef or turkey instead of meatless ground beef  if you would like

Chop the onion, cilantro, pepper tops, and garlic and combine with the soy beans, corn, black olives, and black beans in a large mixing bowl

Add the brown rice to the mix along with the pepper jack cheese and meatless beef and fold everything together until you get teird of doing it or think its all blended pretty well.

Salt and pepper to your desired amount

Stuff the heck out of those peppers

In a large sauce pot pour in your marinara sauce and water. Stand the peppers up inside the pot and spoon some of the marinara over the top.

Sprinkle with parmesan cheese

Cook on low for 1.5 hours or until peppers are soft and delicious!

Post 1: Day 48

Hi everyone!

So I am a little late in starting this considering I’m already 48 days into my challenge but better late than never. So I guess I should start by saying what prompted me to take this daring challenge…

Every year, as most of us do come around Dec 26th, I decide on a new years resolution. Usually its something along the lines of go to the gym more, eat better, make more time to do things I’ve never done, yadda yadda yadda. And every year  around the end of January I realize that my new years resolutions have gone no where. Well with the start of 2012 and a good chunk of people believing this may be our last year on earth, I decided that this would be the year that I stuck to my new years resolution. I couldn’t do the typical go to the gym and lose weight because realistically, knowing myself very well, I would never go through with it. I needed something that I could track and  see results from rather than just waiting and hoping changes would eventually come. So I decided that I was going to become a vegetarian. After spending some time looking into it I realized that there were so many ridiculous debates on what is considered actually “vegetarian”, so I decided to come up with some of my own rules that were easy to follow, practical, and after awhile I discovered, tasty. I haven’t lost any weight really, and haven’t seen any significant changes in the way I look, but my diet thus far has had a dramatic effect on the way I feel. I don’t get stomach aches after eating meals, I don’t get bloated as often, and my overall digestive system works 1,000x better than it did before 2012. I find that my energy level stays more constant throughout the day, and I have an overall more positive outlook on life because of it. I firmly believe that having a positive attitude begins with feeling good on the inside, and if this blog helps anyone else out there feel that way too than I consider this blog a success!

Keep checking back for more posts and recipes! Once I get some up if anyone tries them please let me know what you think and of any changes you made!

xoxo

Emily