Breakfast is a pretty easy meal to have with no animal products My husband and I are fond of plain oatmeal nuked in the microwave (2 to 1 ratio, 1/2 c. water to 1/4 c. oatmeal) for a minute then with some Splenda, sliced almonds and either banana or dried cherries stirred in. Lucky for me, that's been my breakfast of choice for a few years. Even better, it's perfect for the world we live in now. Hay had a little berry smoothie and a Betty Lou's Almond Butter Ball that my very good friend brought for her to try. She liked it a lot, and once it cools off a bit, we'll be having these babies shipped in bulk.
Lunch was super easy. I made a double batch of the filling for this wrap yesterday, so we'll have plenty for the week and some to freeze for later. This is a recipe based on one that we have used at the really cool kid's cooking school that I teach at. My family has liked it in the past, and even with the modifications to make it work now, they still liked it a lot.
Yummy Sandwich Wraps
1 pkg. Spanish style Rice-a-Roni
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. chopped bell pepper ( we use Cubanelle)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 c. honey mustard
Chipotle Tabasco sauce to taste
Chopped tomato and (optional) black olives
Chopped lettuce
6 large flour tortillas
Brown rice according to package directions. Add onions and peppers, saute just a little. Add water as package directs, but do NOT add tomato/sauce as the box directs. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, then stir in black beans. In a small bowl, mix together honey mustard and Chipotle Tabasco, adjusting the "heat" to your level of comfort. Place roughly 3/4 to 1 c. of rice filling in the center of your tortilla. Top with lettuce, tomatoes and olives, then drizzle with sauce. Fold the top and bottom of tortilla over filling, then wrap the sides. Serve with a little extra sauce for dipping. Can be served warm or cold, and the filling also freezes well.
Guess that brings us to dinner. I love Mexican food just a little too much and cooked just a little too much of it in our almost 20 years of marriage. Effectively, my husband is pretty much over taco night at home. He and our son had football practice this evening so the girls and I took advantage of their absence to have burritos/tacos for dinner. We tried a new product called Fantastic Foods Taco Filling. It came in a box from Publix, inside was the filling in a plastic bag.
Boil some water with a little olive oil, add the filling mix and simmer. 5 minutes later, like magic, this really tasty taco filling appears.
This was not our first meat free taco/burrito night, but it was our first one ever without cheese or sour cream. We love cheese. We love Hay more, so it's gone. Believe it or not, we didn't feel like anything was missing at all. There was homemade salsa (made with lovely local yellow tomatoes), chopped onion, cilantro, olives and avocado along withour favorite sauces and some pinto beans that I pulled out of the freezer. That isn't shredded lettuce, it's baby spinach. Pull the stems off and shred/slice it finely and the pickiest won't know you snuck in a very healthy leafy green. Being sneaky can be fun.
I'll confess now that there were so many tasty trimmings loaded onto my burrito that I really couldn't taste the filling. After tasting a forkful of just the filling I am very happy to report that it was incredibly tasty. The texture was nice too. A big time beef eater would notice the difference if it was eaten alone, but loaded down with other stuff, chances are they would never guess it was something different. The secret is NOT telling them. That's another story though. Back to the taco filling in a box. It was good stuff and we'll be eating it again.
Bet you can sneak a healthier option somewher in your family's diet. It's fun to see if they figure it out.
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