Squashed

Spaghetti squash has built itself quite the little reputation as a pasta substitute in the low carb world.

While spaghetti squash might be one of the coolest vegetables out there {what else is round and then magically turns into strings?}, it’s certainly no carb substitute in my mind.

1. I’m a fan of carbs. Carbs are good, not evil. Eat them.

2. A plateful of squash just doesn’t cut it for me.

Also, I prefer zucchini as a pasta substitute if you insist on going that route, not spaghetti squash. It’s not as fun, but it tastes better.

So I’m not a fan of swapping spaghetti squash for actual spaghetti- but I’m a huge fan of using it to bulk up a big plate of pasta by mixing it with whole grain spaghetti.

Perfect Spaghetti Squash

Pop the whole thing in the oven, as is, and roast away at 375 for an hour, or until a knife easily pierces the skin. You can also cut it in half and roast it for half the time, but getting the knife through the squash calls for some serious man power- microwaving it for a few minutes helps soften it enough to cut, but I think it’s easier to throw it in the oven and just let it do it’s thing.}

When it’s done roasting, let it cool for awhile- let me tell you how good burning steam feels coming out of freshly baked squash feels. {Not good. Have patience.}

Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scrap out the seeds and inner squash-y guts. When you get the light yellow part, use a fork to scrap out the squash and watch magic happen: spaghetti-like strands!

While it’s not hard to prepare, spaghetti squash does take a little bit of time to get ready, which makes it the perfect time to make a slower cooking sauce, like Bolognese. Or my preference, lentil Bolognese.

Lentil Bolognese

Bolognese is traditionally a meat sauce, but what I love about it is how hardy and thick it is- easy to replicate in a vegetarian Bolognese with lentils or even veggie crumbles.

Start with the traditional Bolognese base of onion, carrots and celery and let it simmer away while you pull out your squash strands.

Add in some tomato, spices, extra liquid and lentils, and simmer until the lentils are cooked- no soaking, pre-cooking, or separate pots here.

As your sauce boils and toils and fills your kitchen with mouthwatering smells, cook some whole grain spaghetti- I like to use a thin spaghetti or angel hair to mimic the size of the spaghetti squash strands.

Lentil Bolognese

Ingredients

2 medium carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 28oz can whole tomatoes, unsalted
1 cup dry lentils
1 cup water or vegetable broth
Spices: Italian seasoning, oregano, basil, fennel seed, pepper, red pepper flakes

Instructions

Cook carrots, celery, and onion over medium heat until softened, about 15 minutes.
Add in garlic and cook 5 more minutes.
Stir in tomato paste, then tomatoes. Break up tomatoes with spoon or kitchen shears.
Stir in lentils and water or broth.
Add seasonings of choice- be liberal with your spices.
Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove lid for last 5 minutes.
If sauce gets to thick, add a ladle of pasta water at the end and stir.
Serve over spaghetti or other pasta.

https://www.sideofsneakers.com/vegetarian-bolognese/

When everything’s done, put it all together and serve with a nice glass of red wine {or not} and a toasty chunk of garlic bread.

Hello, carbs, nice to see you.

Sloppy Veggies

Recipe

Lentils, lentils, lentils! They’re one of those foods that, if you haven’t had them before, they sound pretty dull, boring, and gross.

For some reason, they always make me think of pea soup, which makes me shudder.

But they’re not dull and boring at all- and certainly not gross. The number of ways to prepare them is endless, but my all time favorite way to use them is for a vegetarian version of sloppy joes.

And let me tell you: this gets husband approval, which is the ultimate judge of a delicious vegan recipe.

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

1 cup dried lentils

1 1/2 cups + 1/2 cup water

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, diced

1/2 can tomato paste

1 canned chile in adobo sauce, diced

oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder to taste

1/2 cup torn spinach leaves

Rinse lentils. Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to boil, then add lentils. Simmer for 20-30 minutes or until tender.

While lentils are cooking, sauté onion and garlic. When onions start to brown, stir in tomato paste. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of water little by little, until the mixture reaches the consistency you want. {You can also wait until the end to do this.} Add in chile in adobo, seasonings, and cooked lentils. Fold in spinach leaves. Let cook until the spinach starts to wilt, then remove from heat.

You can use any kind of bun to serve the sloppy joes, but I rarely have buns on hand when I get a craving for them. It’s pretty easy to whip up your own, although I notoriously start the process without enough time to let the buns rise. I’ve learned to love slightly doughy buns. Winking smile

Spelt Buns

1 cup spelt flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 packet yeast

1 T sugar

1 t salt

1 T canola oil

1 tsp sesame seeds

Mix water, yeast, and sugar. Set aside while preparing other ingredients, then mix all together. Knead until dough comes together and is slightly elastic.

Set the dough mixture in a warm place, loosely covered. Let rise for up to an hour.

After the first rise, punch the dough down & form individual balls. Flatten the balls slightly to make “hamburger-like” buns. Brush tops with water, slice an “X” pattern on top of each bun, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Let prepared buns rise for about 30 minutes on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Let cool slightly before slicing in half to make buns.

Serve the vegan sloppy joes on the spelt buns, or simply on a bed of spinach leaves.

What’s your favorite way to eat lentils?

The Leaning Loaf of Lentils

Recipe

It happens to the best of us. You make a favorite recipe and it doesn’t turn out as good as you remember it.

That was almost the case tonight- only it just turned out different than last time, not worse. 😉

All I know is I wanted some lentils. (Who wants lentils?) I wasn’t feeling baking buns for Veggie Joes, so I went for a classic favorite- meatless meatloaf.

This vegetarian version of meatloaf is just as easy as the regular stuff. Plus you can still mix it with your hands if you really so desire.

The grains get an nice bath (no dirt in this veggie loaf!) and thrown into a pot of boiling water & veggie broth. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30 minutes. While it simmers away, get to chopping some veggies!

Shred some zucchini, chop up some celery, and shred some carrots…

or don’t shred any carrots when you realize you ate the whole bag yesterday. Oops.

Oh well. Through in some extra zucchini.

While that’s all cooking away, it’s time for the fun part: the sauce!

Blend together a can of diced tomatoes, a bunch of garlic cloves, and basil. Set half the sauce aside.

To the rest of the sauce, add in some roasted red peppers, pine nuts, and even more basil. Top with crushed red pepper.

Back to the loaf.

When the lentil/rice/veggie mixture is just about done simmering (the liquid should just about be absorbed), toss in a whole heaping lot of torn baby spinach. Lots. Really lots.

At the last minute throw in the frozen corn.

Spread about half of the mixture in the pan, then spread in the reserved tomato sauce.

Top with the remaining lentil-veggie mixture. And lots of cheese 🙂 I used Daiya mozzarella and regular parmesan. Call me crazy.

Pull it out of the oven and let it cool for a little while. I didn’t. I’m impatient. We’ve established this.

Here’s the evidence that it looked nice and loaf-like to start with.

Here’s what happened when I tried to get fancy and flip it out of the pan. The Leaning Loaf of Lentils.

It still looks kinda pretty right? Umm no…but that’s ok, I can handle it.

I thought maybe I could still slice it in “loaf” form, but that was asking too much. A pile of lentils it was.

But it was topped with the most fabulous red pepper- tomato pesto you could dream of, so it made up for it.

Plus, garlic bread makes everything better.

Meatless Meatloaf v2

2/3 cup green lentils

1 cup short grain brown rice

1 can vegetable broth

1 cup water

1 rib celery, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1+ c zucchini, shredded

1/2 c frozen corn kernels

4 cups spinach, wilted

garlic & onion powder

nutmeg

black pepper

Mozzarella & parmesan cheese

Sauce

1 can Italian style diced tomatoes

4 cloves garlic

1/4 c roasted red pepper

1 T pine nuts

lots of basil

Oops I just looked at the original recipe… mixing the cheese into the lentils must be what holds it together. 😉 Oh well, it still tasted good. Kind of like gussied-up lentil soup…that you could eat with a fork..

Ever mess up a recipe? My mom’s famous for the time she sprinkled cream puffs with corn starch instead of powdered sugar.

Project Food Blog voting continues! Read my entry here. I’d love one or 400 of your votes 😉

Joes on Greens

Dinner

Wow. Thank you isn’t even the write word for what I want to say about all of your beautiful and supportive comments about my mom & our upcoming journey. So, “thanks”, but know that I truly mean more than that.

It feels a little silly to go from cancer talk to trivial things like dinner, but this is a blog about food after all huh?

And dinner was indeed a little silly…

Behold my latest creation:

A lentil, lima bean, Caesar salad.

Think whatever you want. It tasted pretty good. 🙂

It was leftover veggie Joes, lima beans, chopped romaine, and Caesar salad dressing.

Honestly, the only odd factor about it was the Caesar dressing I chose to use. Perhaps I should have thought a little bit more about what I was putting it on instead of just grabbing the first bottle I saw. 😉

Sometimes you just need to get a little creative with leftovers! Now I need to get creative on coming up with some kind of dessert in my almost-barren kitchen…

What’s the oddest (but good) food combo you’ve ever eaten?

Tissue Torture

Injuries, Lunch

Despite indulging in three of my cinnamon rolls this morning, I was starving come lunch time.

I made a veggie quesadilla with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, vegan mozzarella, and veggie joe mix.

I couldn’t fit nearly enough of the lentil combo in the quesadilla, so I piled some along the side.

I think it’s time to put this stuff in the freezer- I seriously have a ton more and I’m not sure how many more days I can eat it.

PT

Today was Round 2 of physical therapy. I was looking forward to going after such a good experience at my first PT session.

I worked with one the athletic trainers today instead of the physical therapist. She started by using the ultrasound machine on my knee to “warm up” the IT band deep down.

Then she did a few minutes of soft tissue massage. Um ‘soft tissue massage’ is a complete misnomer. It is not soft, and I doubt you could classify this as a massage. It felt like a foam roller on steroids. Ouch!!! Even though it hurt, I could feel how well it was working- I wish I could bring her home with me. (Although I’m not sure she appreciated me telling her so…)

Apparently my IT band is well known in the PT gym- for how ridiculously tight it is. Who knew my 5 minutes of fame would be thanks to my tight tissues?! It seems that although the tightest part is around my knee, I also have a pretty big knot further up my leg. Loosening up that knot of tissue should help my knee loosen up. Cool.

Then I graduated to the elliptical!! Woohoo! I was allowed to do 10 minutes, then see how it feels later. Hopefully I’ll get to learn some more exercises & stretches to be doing next time.