Butter & cream are overrated

Hope everyone had a great weekend! The hubby & I are decompressing now that "Rumors" run has finally ended. I really wanted something quick & easy for dinner tonight so I am doing tortellini with zucchini "cream" sauce. I used to make my own alfredo with tons of cream & butter, but alas those days are over :) We are cheating just a bit with the tortellini, but I think it's ok to gradually wean yourself off of things so you don't risk feeling deprived & pig out on something really bad.

Tonight's dinner was a bit involved, so to save time I made the sauce ahead of time which really made dinner a lot quicker getting to the table :) Not counting the sauce, dinner only took around 15-20 min. The cream sauce was inspired from a recipe found on Vegweb.com & the pasta is just made up from whatever veggies I have on hand.

Vegetable "cream" sauce
1 1/2 medium zucchinis-grated
2 large carrots-grated
3 garlic cloves-minced
1 med-large onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
2-3 Tbsp of nutritional yeast
2 tsp of earth balance
1-2 oz water
Italian seasoning to taste
Basil to taste

For the sauce chop onion, mince garlic, grate carrots & zucchini. Heat olive oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add onion & carrots cooking until onion is opaque. Add zucchini & garlic. Cook for 5-7 min more. Add salt & pepper. Put mixture into blender or food processor. Purée until smooth adding small amounts of water as necessary. Add nutritional yeast, earth balance, basil, & Italian seasoning. Blend again. Set aside until ready for use; or if making ahead refrigerate until needed.


Veggie Pasta
8oz box of any pasta you like
1 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 small summer squash- diced
1 1/2 zucchini- diced
1 can or 1 large fresh diced tomato
5-7 cups of baby spinach
Italian seasoning

I add vegetables such as squash (summer), spinach, tomatoes, onions, & zucchini to give the pasta a bit more substance. Certainly feel free to add any vegetables you like though :)

First chop squash & zucchini into small cubes. Then sprinkle with Italian seasoning. In the mean time bring water to boil for the pasta and begin cooking. Heat olive oil in a large skillet and add vegetables. Cook, stirring frequently until vegetables are tender over medium high heat. Add tomatoes & cook for 2 minutes more. Then add baby spinach and cover until wilted. Stir a few more times and turn heat to low. Drain pasta and add to skillet with vegetables. Add sauce and stir to coat all evenly heating through. Serve, topping with nutritional yeast if desired.

So that's it! It really was a quick dinner & everyone wanted seconds :)

Getting started

Hello blog world! I'm a newbie to this whole blogging experience, but I am excited. Here because I was convinced by a friend of mine that I should start a blog. My purpose for this blog is to share the info I've found on eating a plant-based diet. I think all of us want the best for our families, but I think there's a lot of bad information out there as well as a society which pushes processed junk at us everywhere we turn. Let's face it, most of us don't cook like our grandmothers, and it shows! Our children's generation now has a shorter life span than we do. Something is obviously wrong, and all the pills don't seem to be making it better. In November I would have had no idea on how to prepare a fresh, nutrient rich meal for my family. Everything I cooked had meat, came from a can or a box, etc. I don't want you to think we didn't eat vegetables, of course we did, just not enough. So I really hope you'll get some ideas from this blog. I hope you'll be inspired to use fresh ingredients when you cook. And don't worry about finding complicated dinners that take 3 hours to cook. I'm a working wife & mother so there's no way I'm going to be spending that much time in the kitchen either!

At the beginning of January, the hubby & I decided to give the plant-based diet a try. We've also got the babe on board, but he didn't put up much of a fight :) We came to this decision after watching the documentary "Forks over Knives" (which I recommend watching) and doing some research on our own. I also read "The Kind Diet." I was shocked at the amount of info there was supporting this diet (or rather, lifestyle) and how unhealthy animal products are for our bodies. What did we have to lose? It couldn't hurt to try right? We decided to give it a test run for 4 weeks. That 4 weeks has now ended & we're still going. Some recipes I've tried have been icky, but most have been awesome!

A few sites that have helped me:
Thekindlife.com
Vegweb.com
Thehappyherbivore.com

Next week I'll post my dinner menus with pictures so you all can see what a delicious plant based meal looks like :)