Breakfast and Lunch Ideas

LUNCH
We have really been trying to find more things we can send in our son's lunch. Here are a few things that have worked for us:

Main Dish:
* Grilled cheese (made at home in morning and eaten cold at lunch) made from Daiya cheddar style shreds and the Earth Balance Soy-free Buttery Spread
* Banana, peanut butter and honey sandwich
* Hummus sandwich
* Hummus and crackers
* Peanut butter and honey cracker sandwiches
* Sandwich with Quorn Turkey Roast

Sides:
* Black bean chips bought at Whole Foods (he likes it served with hummus)
* Grapes
* Apple slices
* Strawberries

Desserts:
*WhoNu cookies (variety of types) - these have a lot of calcium, fiber and vitamin C per serving with no milk in it! :)


Breakfast:
We finally found a protein powder for smoothies that is not dairy or soy, so we have been doing fruit and veggie smoothies with breakfast in addition to peanut butter and honey toast. The protein powder is Vega Energizing Smoothie.

Easy and Tasty Vegan Drop Biscuit

We have typically been eating these biscuits with scrambled eggs for breakfast or a "breakfast dinner" and that works out very well.  It is good as a side to other dishes too though.  I told my husband when he suggested these with omelets for dinner tonight that I am really trying to get away from eggs again and slowly go back vegan as much as possible, so at some point I'll post other dishes we've found they go really well with (or am open to suggestions from anyone else who tries them).

EASY VEGAN DROP BISCUIT RECIPE
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the following ingredients together to create "Mixture A":
* 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1 cup all purpose flour
* 1 Tablespoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt

In a separate bowl, mix the following ingredients together to create "Mixture b":
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 3/4 cup rice milk (you could use soy milk or almond milk, if you prefer)

Now mix "Mixture A" and "Mixture B" together to create the biscuit dough.

Drop spoonfuls of the biscuit dough onto a cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes.

I'm Back!

Alright, I'm back. :)

I haven't been blogging lately and, although we do eat vegetarian at home with all three kids, I haven't been doing great about veggies and fruits lately.  We do get a lot of beans, lentils, etc. which are great and cheap sources of protein that are much better for you than meat.  And all of the kids eat great!

But I've been inspired lately by two other blogs I follow (newmomnewcancer.blogspot.com and myfamilyhascancerx2.blogspot.com) to be better about the fruits and veggies too.  I'm a vegetarian but I eat way too much junk along with the "good stuff."

Today was a day that it was just the three of us (my husband, my 23-month-old daughter, and me).

For breakfast, we had one scrambled egg, homemade tempeh "sausage" (didn't turn out too well - I'm going to experiment one more time and then I'll post the recipe if it turns out well :) LOL), and blueberries.

For lunch, we had black turtle beans (made from dried beans, not canned beans), spinach (cooked in a skillet with little bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar -- next time we need to have pine nuts in the house for that, but it still tasted great), strawberries, and bananas.

For dinner, we had bean soup and homemade banana ice cream.

Bean Soup
Put all this stuff in the pot and cook for an hour (bring to a boil and then put down to low heat and cook covered):
* one package of Trader Joe's 17 Bean and Barley Mix (have to soak this overnight; it was baby lima beans, black turtle beans, blackeye peas, dark red kidney beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, green lentils, green split peas, large lima beans, light red kidney beans, navy beans, pink beans, pinto beans, red lentils, small red beans, small white beans, yellow split peas, and pearl barley)
* one 32 oz. container of vegetable broth
* two big cups of water
* carrots (my husband sliced them and sauteed them beforehand with some garlic and oil for about 10 minutes)
* you could add whatever veggies you like
* salt to taste
NOTE: This is something you have to plan for ahead of time as the beans need to soak overnight (after sorting to make sure there are no rocks in the bag) and then take about an hour to cook once everything is mixed together.

Banana Ice Cream
* cut up bananas (two bananas gave us enough for three small servings)
* place the bananas in the freezer on a plate for 1-2 hours
* put the banana slices in a blender and blend on high (will need to stop often at first to push it down as it gets stuck at first - at first it's going to seem like it's not working and then all of a sudden it will be creamy like ice cream)
* blend until creamy texture
* will be like soft serve ice cream - can put in the freezer again to get a more ice cream like texture
* you can experiment with adding items to the ice cream - we added a tiny bit of fair trade cocoa powder (not enough to taste it though - if we want to add that again, we will need to add more) and a tiny bit of peanut butter.  Some people add honey.

Almonds and Almond Meal

Raw Almonds – Serving Size: 1/4 cup

Calories: 160

Calcium: 8% Daily Value (based on 2,000 calorie diet)

Protein: 6 grams

Almond Meal – Serving Size: 1/4 cup

Calories: 180

Calcium: 8% Daily Value (based on 2,000 calorie diet)

Protein: 7 grams

My son doesn’t like eating almonds, so we’ve found some good ways to “hide” almond meal in food:

Oatmeal

A good breakfast to hide almond meal in is oatmeal.  We use steel-cut oatmeal.  I make it according to the directions on the packaging.  Before removing it from the stove, I stir in some butter (Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread, Soy-Free), brown sugar, and almond meal.

Pancakes

Pancakes are another easy way to hide almond meal.  You can substitute up to 50% of the volume of flour called for in any recipe. (Example: If the recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, you can use 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of almond meal.)

My husband is the pancake-maker in our family.  He makes a great Vegan pancake using wheat flour that the kids love for breakfast or dinner.  Whenever we eat it for dinner, we typically serve scrambled eggs, fruit, and Calcium-fortified orange juice for a more complete meal.  Since his pancake recipe (below) uses whole wheat flour, he only substitutes almond meal for 1/4 flour.

My Husband’s Pancake Recipe:

Mix the following ingredients together:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup almond meal

2 Tbsp. sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Add in:

2 cups of rice milk

4 Tbsp. vegetable oil

He uses a big electric griddle to cook them on.

Any Baked Good

You can use the same substitution equation from the pancake section for any baked good.  I’d love to hear some other recipes that worked really well with the almond meal substitution!  So, please let me know if you figure out some other good ones.

Where to Get Calcium

One concern for those on an MSPI diet (both vegetarian and non-vegetarian) is where to get calcium without dairy or soy.  For this post, I’m going to provide a list of foods that can be calcium sources (in alphabetical order).   The list comes from books and various websites - not all of them are ones we've tried to incorporate yet and, in all honesty, there are a few I don't know much about.

In future posts, I’ll provide more information about some of the foods, such as:

• in-depth information regarding calcium content by serving size,
• how we incorporate them into our diet,
• ways to “trick” kids into eating them (when needed), and
• other dietary information about each food.

Calcium Rich Foods List:

1. Acorn squash, cooked
2. Almonds
3. Agar-agar
4. Beans
5. Blackstrap molasses
6. Bok choy, cooked
7. Broccoli, cooked
8. Cereal, calcium-fortified
9. Chard, cooked
10. Collards, cooked
11. Dandelion greens, cooked
12. Figs, dried, uncooked
13. Hazelnuts (filbert)
14. Hummus
15. Kale, cooked
16. Kiwi, raw
17. Kombu
18. Lentils, boiled
19. Mustard greens, cooked
20. Nori
21. Ocra, cooked
22. OJ, calcium fortified
23. Parsley
24. Quinoa, cooked
25. Raisins
26. Rice milk, fortified
27. Rice milk cheese
28. Sesame seeds, whole roasted
29. Spinach, cooked
30. Sunflower seeds, dried
31. Tapioca (dried)
32. Tortillas, corn, calcium fortified
33. Turnip greens, cooked
34. Wakame
35. Walnuts

Black Bean Burger

This recipe is one we found in the book "The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged."  We couldn't find any leeks, so we don't put them in our black bean burgers.  We serve them in Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Rounds (NOTE: these buns contain soybean oil, because our son can have soybean oil - just not soy protein.) and the boys have done really well eating them.

Black Bean Burger
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients -
1 cup of black beans, rinsed, drained and mashed
1 cup of cooked brown rice
1 clove of garlic, passed through a garlic press (NOTE: we used 1/2 tsp of minced garlic instead)
2 Tbsp leeks, whites only, finely chopped (NOTE: we do not include this in the recipe)
2 Tbsp cooked and mashed sweet potato or pumpkin (NOTE: we use sweet potato)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil


Step 1. Mix all ingredients except the olive oil and bus in a large bowl.  Coat clean hands with olive oil to mix.

Step 2. Divide mixture into equal fourths.  Shape into patties.

Step 3. Heat grill pan over medium flame and coat lightly with oil.  Add patties and cook five minutes per side or until the patties are golden and crispy.


We typically serve this with baked sweet potatoes as a side - we cook them with the one to mash for the recipe (wash them, poke holes in them, sprinkle sea salt on them over tin foil, wrap them each up in the tin foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees).  The ones we don't use for the mashed sweet potatoes get sliced for the side.

Once we did kale chips - the boys liked them (dipped in ketchup), but the after taste was too bitter for me.  My brother-in-law suggested soaking the kale before making the chips - if that works out better, then I'll put the recipe on here for that.

Why I'm Starting This Blog (a.k.a the "Hello World" post)

"You have to eat your chicken ...  eat your chicken ... just two more bites of chicken and then you can be done."

I've been a vegetarian for 9 years now, so I was starting to feel like a real hypocrite after repeating these words to my sons throughout my first year as their stepmom (esp. since they knew I was vegetarian because I didn't want to eat animals).

My husband and I ate vegetarian when we didn't have the two boys.  But we had gotten into a rut of pasta or chicken nuggets during the nights we had them - we wanted to get them eating better and trying new foods (it was always an ordeal whenever we had them try a new food).   We also wanted to get everyone eating vegetarian at home, but we were concerned about how to ensure our youngest son got the protein and nutrients he needed since he has Milk Soy Protein Intolerance (MSPI).  We had searched the internet for vegetarian and MSPI without much luck, so we weren't sure exactly how to do kid-friendly vegetarian meals that adhered to the MSPI diet.

But with the new year, we made a goal to all eat vegetarian at home and to have the boys try at least one new food per week.  We're also working on ensuring we all eat healthy in general.  For the most part, the goals have been going really well - we've added some new staples to our diet and found that eating vegetarian with MSPI is actually a lot easier than it looks.  And, that's the reason for this blog - my hope is that other parents who want to continue being vegetarians but have a child with MSPI don't come up empty-handed when they search for advice on products and recipes for their family.