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  1. HomeFree & Healthy Eats

    April 27, 2012 by adang

    Cashews and Dates: HomeFree & Healthy Staples

     

    Well, hello there dorm room diners! Welcome to another exciting edition of Dorm Room Menu! Today’s going to be a little different than all of my usual posts. Normally, I use this blog to show you how to eat well when you’re confined to a small kitchen space or small living space. That’s all well and good, but what do you do when you’re on the lamb, or on spring break, or you’re just plain home-free.

    Yep. You heard me right. It’s not homeless. It’s homefree. And that’s the situation your dear Dorm Room Menu writer happens to be in right now. I can’t complain. I’m not battling it out for the best urban camping spot or anything. But I am currently floating around without a permanant place to rest my head or a permanant kitchen to rest my spatula.

    It can be a little bit rough for a food blogger to be without a place to prepare her own meals on a constant basis. When my living situation started getting a little unsettled last week (I got the travel itch and was looking for a change of scenery before I left Denver), I started eating out quite a bit. It put a huge dent in my wallet and had a negative impact on my diet. I decided that wasn’t going to work for me and started trying to get a little bit better about how I shop and eat when I’m on the road, or the run, or the journey (or whatever you want to call this nomadic lifestyle). It. Is. Hard.

    I’m trying to do a gluten-free, dairy-free, low-animal protein, no alcohol, no caffeine cleanse and I’m beginning to wonder if this is the best time for that. Perhaps I’ll finish out a week and then see how it goes when I get to the farm.

    Anywho, I’ve found some nutrient dense homefree foods that are just ridiculously delicious and simple to carry along. I’ll just let you know what’s in my pack right now:

    • 2 nanners
    • 1 apple
    • 1 orange
    • 1/2 lb cashews
    • 1/3 lb dates
    • 1/3 lb raw sunflower seeds
    • 1/2 lb green beans
    • 1 avocado
    Calorie wise, and nutrient wise, this is more than enough food to get me by on my most active of days. I sub stuff out depending on what’s on sale. This came out to less than $13 for a day’s worth of food. Not too shabby for some super healthy food stuffs.

    Category Gluten Free, Snacks | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments

  2. Gluten-Free Apple and Nanner Buckwheat Muffins

    April 16, 2012 by adang

    Heyo dorm room diners!

    I have a non-dorm-room-friendly recipe to share with you. Save this one for when the communal oven on your floor is open, or when you make it home for a weekend. Impress moms with your newly found baking skillz. This was one of those gluten-free experiments that turned out amazingly well. I’m still a little shocked at how well they turned out, actually. I know you’re not supposed to say that as a food blogger. You’re suppose to say something like, “I totally knew these things were going to be awesome from the very first moment I thought about becoming a food blogger.” Well, to be honest, it was one of my first times adapting a regular baking recipe to make it gluten free.

    I’ve adapted a ton of cooking recipes, but baking muffins seems like more of a science than throwing together a stir fry. When I started throwing stuff together I realized that we didn’t have a couple of things that the recipe called for. There was no vegetable or canola oil to be found, so I subbed ghee in, which made the muffins really velvety and buttery. We didn’t have any rolled oats, so I added steel cut oats instead. I was worried it would be too crunchy, but they added a nice nutty flavor and provided great texture. I threw in some apple sauce too, in order to balance out how heavy the buckwheat was. And then I crossed my fingers.

    A tiny victory

    I can’t tell you how glad I was that it worked out. There were two small children hanging around the oven like a couple of vultures and I didn’t want to explain to them that Auntie Redwood has no idea what she’s doing when it comes to gluten-free baking.

    Alas! They did work out. They were so good that these kids couldn’t stop eating them. Aha! They had no idea how healthy they were. There’s nothing I love more than tricking children into eating things that are good for them. It’s my dharma.

    Oh and did I mention how cheap these are to make. You wont need to take out any extra financial aid and you’ll have some nutrient dense breakfast and snacks for at least a week, unless you share them all. Then you’re just the sweetest.

    Ingredients:

    • 1 1/2  cups Buckwheat Flower
    • 1/2 cup Steel Cut Oats
    • 2 tsp Baking Powder
    • 1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
    • 1/2 Tsp Salt
    • 1 Tsp Cinnamon
    • 1/2 Tsp Cardamom
    • 3 Tbs Melted Ghee
    • 1/2 Cup Honey or Agave
    • 1 egg
    • 1/2 Cup Rice Milk
    • 2 Mashed Bananas
    • 1 Medium Apple, peeled and grated
    • 1/4 cup Unsweetened Cinnamon  Applesauce
    Method:
    • Preheat oven to 35o degrees
    • Combine the first seven ingredients in a bowl and mix
    • In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients and whisk
    • Slowly add the dry to the wet and stir until combined
    • Grease a muffin tin or line it with muffin cups and fill 3/4 full
    • Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins pass the toothpick test
    • Fool children with their deliciousness/goodforthemness.

    Category Gluten Free | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Coconut-N-Cardamom Steel Cut Oats

    April 4, 2012 by adang

    After a bunch of record breaking spring temperature days in Denver, things have finally gotten a little closer to what I was expecting when I first arrived here. Well, I still haven’t seen a tie died police officer uniform, but there’s still time. There’s snow on the ground, and I suddenly have an excuse to wear the giant winter boots that I’ve been lugging around for the past month. Thank goodness I didn’t take advantage of REI’s super lax return policy last week when I thought that winter was over for good.

    I also finally have an excuse to make a winter-esque breakfast bowl that fills my belly and warms my heart. That statement was extremely cheesy, but I’m going to let it stay there. I’ll be honest when I say that I’m not in a very self-editing mood at the moment. I’m saving my energy for the wintery trek back to my temporary pad.

    I’ll be completely honest when I say that I didn’t even technically make these this morning. Spoiler alert: this blog is not always written in real time. I made them a few weeks ago, didn’t have time to post about them, and thought it would make a great segue to talk about winter weather and warm breakfast. I’m absolutely starving right now and the thought of this recipe could probably drive me to tears. All I want to do is get some food in my belly. Unfortunately, I’m getting back on track with my diet, and there’s nothing at thisDenver coffee shop that I can consume. Can you tell that I get super cranky and whiny when I’m hungry? That shiz is an absolute fact.

    I’m a huge fan of mixing cardamom and coconut any time that the situation calls for it. This steel cut oat situation definitely called for it.


    Ingredients:

    • 3.5 cups water
    • 0.5 cups almond milk
    • 1 cup steel oats
    • 1 t cardamom
    • 2 T coconut flakes
    • 1/4 t cinnamon
    • 2 T Honey/maple syrup
    • 1/4 C raisins or chopped dates
    Method:
    • Bring water to boil
    • Add oats and stir
    • Turn heat down to medium low and simmer for 25 minutes
    • Add almond milk, cardamom, cinnamon, honey, and raisins
    • Stir and simmer for another five-ten minutes

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Home Made Vegan Strawberry Milk… SAY WHA?!?!

    April 1, 2012 by adang

    Yeah. I pulled out a SAY WHA?!?! What of it?

    Did you miss me? You really did, didn’t you? Oh man, I missed you too. I’m not going to lie, I actually thought about this blog a LOT during my yoga teacher training. It was kind of sad.

    But it’s not sad getting back in the swing of things. It’s hard (like, crazy hard… and that’s not what she said). I’m actually really happy about it. I’m so glad to be back! Even though I have a ridiculous amount of work to catch up on in a ridiculously short amount of time (I’m not sure that it’s possible), I’m happy to be out of the yoga room and back in local coffee shops blaaagin about foodstuffs. It’s where I’m meant to be.

    I’m not meant to be cooped up in a room with no windows all day long buzzing up my chakras. While it was totally the most trans-formative, educational, fun and moving process I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing, I’m really more interested in getting back to the serious side of life. Didn’t you know it? Strawberry milk is on the serious side. So serious that pictures like this come out of a S.M. making session…

     

    Such charm. Such grace. Such a pink mustache. I know it’s hard to believe, but society actually considers me an adult. I can even rent a car at this point. Yeah. I’m scared too. There are high school seniors with a much better handle on the whole maturity thing.

    Why am I rambling on and on about nonsense in this post? Because this healthy recipe is so easy that I need to fill up space in order for it to be considered a post at all.

    Here goes almost nothing.

    Vegan Strawberry Milk (2-3 servings)

    • 1 c strawberry sliced
    • 3 c almond milk
    • 3 T honey (not technically vegan) or 1-2 T agave
    • fresh mint (optional)
    Blend!
    I know, right? Well, have fun with that kiddos! I’m so glad to be in your blogosphere again.
    What do you want to add to this homemade wonder-drink recipe?

     

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  5. The Green Smoothie

    March 13, 2012 by adang

    Hola dorm room foodies! I’m smack dab in the middle of my yoga teacher training and I’m finally regaining my footing, resetting my schedule, and getting back to my beloved healthy recipe blog. I really missed blogging last week, but I had to get some things right with my mind, body and spirit before I could get back to posting. I’m finally at a place where I feel like I can do all of the intensives and classes, and still take the time to breathe, work, and prepare all of my food with time and attention.

    Last week, as part of our training to become teachers and healers, we went through a bunch of mental and spiritual processes in order to remove some of the things that we built up and identified with that no longer serve us. Since this isn’t a meditation or yoga blog, I won’t get into all of that. What I will say, is that one of those processes led me to connect with a lovely doctor, and fellow trainee, who passed on this green smoothie recipe to me. I will be forever grateful. I learned that it doesn’t matter how busy I am, with this versatile smoothie recipe, I can always take the time to create something that nourishes my body and that I truly love.

    The doc passed me a book called The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook, and the bones of this recipe is in there along with a ton of other amazing looking recipes that I can’t wait to try.

    This green smoothie recipe makes at least 2 or 3 servings, so you can sip on it right through breakfast and lunch if you’re really on a time crunch while you’re completing your software engineering training.

    The Green Smoothie

    • 1 Apple
    • 1 Pear
    • 1 Banana
    • 1 Handful (5-6 leaves) Kale
    • 1 Handful of mixed greens (Organic Girl Super Greens)
    • 1 Handful of spinach
    • 1/2 lemon juiced
    • 1-2 inch chopped ginger
    • 1/2 cup almond milk (optional)
    • 1-2 cups water
    Method
    Chop everything into small pieces and toss it in the blender. Blend!

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 3 Comments

  6. Five Minute Vegan Snack

    March 1, 2012 by adang

    I ate half of this before I remembered to take pictures of it. It's what we call an "oops I ate my post" in the food blogging industry.

    Sometimes, I get on a snack loop. Here’s how it goes: I make a snack. It’s awesome, and then I can’t stop eating it. So I make the snack again, perhaps I add something. It’s even more awesome. The snack quickly changes ranks from snack food to breakfast food, to lunch food and then to all the time food. I just bump up the portion and pretend it’s an entire meal. Either that or, I just snack on it all day long. That’s what I mean when I say snack loop. It also refers to when I put snacks on a remote control car and make my dog chase it around in circles. But that’s more of a sadistic snack loop.

    Since I’m getting ready for yoga teacher training (just one day until I’m leading circle chants with the best of them!), I’ll almost solely exist on snack foods and small meals. Which is totally okay for this chick. I’m a well known snack enthusiast, just look at how many times I’ve already used the word “snack” in this post. If they had scholarships for women who study the snack, I’d be set.

    So what will I be snacking on this month? Among other things, I’ll be munching on this little wonder. I know it totally doesn’t look like much. It’s a rice cake, almond butter and chopped dates sprinkled with cinnamon and cardamom. As a matter of fact, it  might look a little gross. Dates tend to look a little cockroachy from a distance. But this snack accompanied by my ayurvedic winter drink, will send you straight to heaven. You won’t have to pass go or collect $200, because there’s no monopoly in snack heaven.

    While all of that might not have made any sense, this snack does. It’s filled with protein, but it’s still light enough to munch on throughout the day. It will keep your energy levels up and your taste buds happy. You’ll appease your sweet tooth without forcing any processed sugar down your gullet.

    Ingredients:

    • 1 rice cake
    • 1 T nut butter
    • 3-4 chopped dates
    • 1/4 t cinnamon
    • 1/8 t cardamom
    Method:
    • Layer that shiz on the rice cake. Enjoy!

    What’s your favorite snack?

     

     

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Homemade Potato Wedges

    February 26, 2012 by adang


    So, I’m getting ready to head to Denver for my Forrest Yoga teacher training this Friday. It will be an entire month of yoga, meditation, chanting, and learning how to lead others down the glorious path of yoga.

    That means a few different things to me at this point. First off, it means that I’m going to be the happiest girl on the face of the planet. Secondly, it means that I’m going to meet some of the most amazing people in the world. Thirdly, it means that I’m not going to have a heck of a lot of time to cook. And fourthly, it means that I’m going to be eating a super healthy diet in order to be at my tip top shape during the training.

    While I’m spending these last few weeks before training doing daily yoga and working hard to build my strength, I’m also saying farewell to some of my favorite homemade junk foods. These wedgie potato fries definitely fall under that umbrella. They’re not super junk food, but they’re probably not going to be in line with my light and healthy yoga diet. And even though they only take a few minutes to whip up, I probably wont have the time to talk myself into making them.

    So, here’s to a week of freedom, before I get a lesson on what freedom really means. Here’s to an evening of home made junk food. Even though I call this junk food, it’s still a vegan recipe.


    Ingredients

    • 1 lb red, fingerling or russet potatoes
    • 1 t olive oil or vegetable oil
    • 1/2 t Italian seasoning
    • 1/2 t salt

    Method

    • Set oven to 425 degrees.
    • Clean the potatoes, cut off any sprouts, and slice them into wedges.
    • Place them directly into a high edged pan and drizzle them with the oil.
    • Add seasoning and salt and toss to cover all of the potatoes.
    • Spread around on the pan and put them in the oven for 10 minutes.
    • Turn them over.
    • Put them back in the oven for 5-10 minutes until golden brown.
    If you’re feeling really naughty, you can top them with some chili. I was only feeling kinda naughty, so I topped them with some vegan mango chili. Twas the bomb!
    What do you put on your homemade fries?

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

  8. 4 Ingredient Desert: Peanut Butter and Date Truffles

    February 19, 2012 by adang


    Hey there dorm room diners! Tis the season… No. Wait that season is over. Tis the time… that’s better. Tis the time to finish up your winter the right way, by having a good ole hibernation weekend. Maybe your hibernation weekend hasn’t come yet. Perhaps it’s freakishly nice out this weekend and you want to go play. Go for it. But if you’re in a wintery place, you probably have at least one good blizzard left in the season. Hopefully, there’s one final cold snap that you can take advantage of.

    If that weekend is this weekend for you, you might as well make some sweet and fatty snacks, cuddle up in a blanket and hunker down with a season or two of Breaking Bad or Ru Paul’s Drag Race (there’s something for everyone in this post). I’m hoping that winter unleashes hella fury on me tomorrow, so I can catch up on some sexy meth fueled action (both shows probably qualify) and make another batch of these.

    I chowed down on these little suckers during the last snowfall, and this one shall be no different. Or maybe it will be wholly different. Maybe this weekend, I’ll replace the dates with figs. Maybe I’ll get crazy with it.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself. Instead of talking about future recipes, I should probably focus on these little critters. These treats are a vegan recipe if you use vegan chocolate chips, and they can be gluten free if you sub out the regular oats for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oats.
    They take about 10 minutes to throw together, so they make a great TV break snack. They’re also suitable for a party snack (I’d suggest rolling them in coconut flakes to make them purdy if you’re taking them out of the house). They’re so easy that this isn’t much of a recipe, just a bunch of yummy things tossed in a bowl and rolled into little truffle-esque balls.

    Ingredients:

    • 1/2 cup of Peanut Butter
    • 1/4 cup dates
    • 1/3 cup uncooked oats
    • handful of chocolate chips

    Method:

    • Stir all ingredients together. Depending on the type of peanut butter you use, the texture of the mixture may differ. There’s an easy fix for that. If the mixture is too sticky, add oats. If it’s too dry, add peanut butter.
    • Roll the mixture into 1 inch balls and let them set in the fridge for 30 minutes. If you’re too hungry to mess with the fridge, forget about it. Just pop them right in your mouth while you watch a bald man tell other people what to do in a sassy manner. Wow. I can’t believe I found another way to link those shows together. How about another? I suppose at one point someone eventually dresses up, pretending to be an FBI agent in both shows. Woot woot! That was three!

    Is it going to snow by you this weekend? Will you be making some peanut butter balls as well?

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  9. Messy Chocolate Steel Cut Oats

    February 10, 2012 by adang

    I’ve talked about steel cut oats on this blog before, and there’s no doubt that I’ll talk about them again. But have I ever talked about how messy I am? No? Well, if anyone can whip a mess up, it’s this girl. I really try to work on it, and some days are better than others.

    When I woke up and started to pull things out of the cupboard to create this bowl of steel cut oats, I just new things were going to get messy.

    Okay, I can’t say that I really had that much foresight, but by the time I had a beautiful bowl of sweet chocolate oaty perfection, it was a disaster. While I’d like to think I knew it was going to be that way all along, I’ll be the first to admit that I get a little tunnel vision when I cook and blog. One minute, I’m dreaming about steel cut oats and how to make them chocolaty and sweet. The next minute, well…

    My hands were covered in gooey honey and sticky maple syrup, which attracted a nice dusting of cocoa powder. While I excitedly snapped pictures, I didn’t notice the smudges that I was creating on the focus and the shutter release. By the time I finally took a breath, put down the camera and sat down to eat, I realized that the damage had already been done. The kitchen was a nightmare. There were a billion spoons laying about covered in sticky cocoa sludge and there were puddles of honey and syrup all over the counter tops.

    At first, I started to beat myself up for it. I felt like a huge jerk for making such a big mess that I would have to clean up. I really should be more aware when I’m tossing cocoa and sticky goods around. I really need to be better at… Then I looked down at the warm bowl of steel cut oats that seemed to beckon me to chill out, sit down, and eat and have some tea. The mess could wait, but the oats just couldn’t.

    I had an epiphony. Sometimes, as a blogger, you only want people to see your good bits. You want them to check out the good food you make and you want them to look at your clean house. You don’t want them to see what a mess you can be. I decided to dress up a bowl that really reflects the morning. I slathered some honey on it, dusted it in cocoa and cinnamon and took some shots…

    That’s more like it.

     

    This isn’t so much a recipe since you just pour stuff in until it’s tasty. However, it is a call to get down and dirty. These ingredients create a vegan recipe, but you can add milk or cream to make them more… creamy.

    • 1 cup cooked steel cut oats
    • Maple syrup to taste
    • Honey to taste
    • Cocoa powder (about a teaspoon)
    • Cinnamon to taste
    Do you get dirty in the kitchen?

     

     

     

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

  10. Couscous and Brussel Sprouts… In Your Dorm Room?

    February 2, 2012 by adang



    You might be stuck in an institutional looking 8 foot by 8 foot box, but that doesn’t mean that you have to eat like you’re in prison. Using your dorm room microwave, and investing a tiny amount of money in a toaster oven can open your palette up to unlimited meal possibilities. All you have to do is get creative with it.

    “But I’m broke!” you holler.

    “That’s cool! This recipe is cheap!” I holler back.

    “But I’m trying to be healthy!” you holler in response.

    Why are we yelling at each other? Let’s talk calmly and rationally for the rest of this post… Truce?”That’s also cool,” I holler in response to your response, “This recipe is healthy too!”

    Brussel sprouts, long vilanized in cartoons and shows that used to be on TGIF, are delicious now that you’re grown up. They’re sweet little balls of cabbage.

    Couscous is some sort of pasta ball thing. Who knows? It sounds fancy and it serves it’s purpose of classing up this dish. Plus, the version I used takes less than five minutes… Booyah! Time saving class act!

    This is a simple vegan recipe that will cost you well under $2.00 per serving, depending on how much your brussel sprouts cost and if you go organic. A box of near east is a few bucks and a pound of brussel sprouts are a couple of bucks as well. You’ll probably only eat 1/2 lb of brussel sprouts and one serving of couscous (there are about 6 in a box). Or maybe you’ll eat the whole dang thing. I don’t know how hungry you are. I made the recipe for one person, but it would definitely impress that administrative assistant in the chemistry department that you finally asked out.

     

    Ingredients (1 Serving):

    Method
    • Prep the Brussel sprouts by cutting off the bottoms and removing the outer leaves. You can leave it all on, but that will make them taste bitter. 
    • Place in plastic bag. Add Olive Oil and salt and pepper. Shake to coat sprouts.
    • Toss them on a toaster oven baking sheet.
    • Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes.
    • While your brussel sprouts are baking, prepare your couscous according to the directions.
    • You can chop your brussel sprouts up and layer them on top of your couscous or you can leave them whole. Chef’s choice. 
    Are you a fan of brussel sprouts?

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  11. Sweet Vegan Polenta Breakfast

    January 24, 2012 by adang

    It seems like every post about polenta for breakfast has to make a comment on how cold it is, and how polenta is a great way to kick off a cold morning. That is true. Polenta is a great cold day starter, but I can’t mention the later this morning. Yep, today is another one of those unseasonably warm days.

    Apocalypse now. I’ve never seen that movie but I’m assuming that it’s about what’s going on right now, in Chicago. I mean, it’s still freezing, but just barely. Come on mother nature, what kind of trick are you playing on us here? Are you trying to make Al Gore look good? Isn’t he smug enough, mother nature? Don’t give him a reason to get back on that mechanical lift to show us all what awful human beings we all are.

    It’s late January. It’s supposed to be so cold that it puts you in physical pain to be outside, no matter how many layers you put on. It’s supposed to be so cold that Brandy is sold out in the tri-state area. Hobos are supposed to be dying, mother nature. Are you really going to play final destination with homeless people? I’m going to stop there, for two reasons. First of all, I don’t want to be on mother nature’s/death’s hit list. Secondly, I just ate a crazy huge piece of coffee cake and I have a sugar high that might make me say things to mother nature that I’m going to regret in the morning. Seriously, I’m starting to see things. In twenty years, I’ll be having flashbacks thanks to this coffee cake.

    So that brings us full circle. How? Well, I’ve been rationalizing a lot of things lately. One of those things is that if I spend three hours a day doing yoga and walk five miles a day, that I can have nay, deserve something sweet. I’ve had a crazy insatiable sweet tooth lately and I figure, if you can’t beat it, you might ass well put some incentives behind it.

    So, if I’m going to have a long day of writing for my vegan recipe blog, yoga, and walking ahead of me, I start out with a bowl of this. It’s scrumtrulescent.

    Ingredients:

    1 cup cooked polenta

    1 apple (sliced or diced)

    1 teaspoon cinnamon

    1/2 teaspoon cardemom

    2 teaspoons honey

    1 teaspoon maple syrup

    1 cup almond milk

     

    Method:

    Combine everything except the cooked polenta and maple syrup in a pot and heat over medium until apples are tender.

    Add polenta, reduce heat to low. Stir continuously until polenta is smooth.

    There you have it!

    How’s the weather in your neck of the woods? Does the forecast call for a chance of freaky with some showers of wtf?

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

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