Category Archives: Our Toddlers LOVE This!

No-Buffalo Nuggets

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These are so easy to make and really good! I love the taste of spicy buffalo sauce so when I saw these I had to try them! My hubby wanted a “football watching snack” too so the timing was perfect. Our toddler loved these too! I didn’t add any Frank’s Hot Sauce to hers, she’s not to that level of spice yet! Serve these with a side of Vegan Ranch Dressing.

No-Buffalo Nuggets

I found the nugget recipe on Babble.

3 Ingredient Vegan Buffalo Nuggets
vegan, makes 15 bites/nuggets

1 1/4 cups of GimmeLean Vegan Sausage (comes in a tube – fridge section of grocery store)
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
2 Tbsp hot sauce — I like Frank’s Hot Sauce
for saute: 2 Tbsp safflower oil

swap spicy for sweet: substitute sweet BBQ sauce or ketchup for the hot sauce if you don’t want the bites too hot!

Directions:

1. Gather your ingredients. Heat the safflower oil in a sauté pan over med-high heat.
2. Tear your sausage into tiny nuggets – they don’t have to be evenly shaped (unless you’d like to roll them into nice balls or pound into nugget shapes).
3. When the oil is hot, quickly roll each sausage nugget in the Panko and place in the sizzling hot oil. Continue doing this until the pan is filled. Allow each nugget to sauté for about 2 minutes on each side. You want the Panko crumb to crisp and brown and saturate with the oil so that they are no longer a white color — but now a caramel brown.
4. When your nuggets are evenly cooked, and the oil mostly absorbed/cooked off. Turn the heat off and add in your hot sauce in a casual ‘splashy’ way. You want a nice splash of sauce to accent ( but not overly saturate) each of the bites. Toss the nuggets in the still hot pan with the sauce as they sizzle and cook.
5. Serve hot.

Easy ingredients!

Cut up or tear bite sized pieces of Gimme Lean Sausage

Coat each piece with panko breadcrumbs

Cook until brown on both sides

Okay, so a few of them are a little TOO brown but they were still good!

Add hot sauce and toss

Serve with Vegan Ranch Dressing

Healthy Breakfast Tacos

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The original recipe is featured in the film The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue with Rip Esselstyn . I added extra veggies to ours, it turned out great! We’ve been trying to cut down (and eventually cut out) all added oils in our diet, this recipe was perfect! My toddler also loved this!

Healthy Breakfast Tacos

We really enjoyed this movie! (You can buy it here) My hubby requested I make these breakfast tacos, he loves anything with hash brown potatoes!

Ingredients:

1 large onion, diced

2-4 cloves garlic, minced

1 can fat-free refried beans

1 12oz package organic tofu, drained and pressed

1 package sliced mushrooms (I used baby portobellos)

2 bunches of spinach

1 16oz package frozen hash brown potatoes (fat-free, no salt added) – I used Cascadia Farms Organic Potatoes

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cumin

1 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

Black pepper, to taste

Salsa, to top

Avocado, to top tacos

Tortillas of your choice (I used Ezekiel Sprouted Tortillas)

Sliced limes, to top

Directions:

1. Drain, press, and mash tofu. Saute the onion and garlic in a skillet on medium heat until translucent.

2. Add tofu, turmeric, cumin, and nutritional yeast. Mix together and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute until soft.

3. Add spinach, cover pan with lid so spinach can wilt. Once wilted and bright green, add black pepper to taste.

3. Heat potatoes in a separate skillet, on medium heat. Stir continuously to prevent potatoes from sticking to pan. Add a bit of water to help.

4. Heat refried beans in another pan.

5. Warm tortillas and assemble tacos.

6. Garnish with salsa, avocado and lime wedges.

Saute onion and garlic

Add crumbled tofu and spices

Add mushrooms and saute

Add spinach and cover until wilted and bright green

Season with black pepper

Cook hash browns in a separate pan

Assemble tacos and enjoy!

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Kale Lemon Sandwiches

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My hubby and I both agreed that these are one of the best veggie sandwiches we’ve ever had!

Kale Lemon Sandwiches

This recipe is from the online movie Planeat. We REALLY enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it to anyone who likes food movies.

Kale Lemon Sandwiches

Ingredients:

  • 4 slices Mestemacher of Feldcamp (Whole Foods) or any whole grain bread – I’ve used squaw bread from Sprouts or Ezekiel sprouted bread
  • 1 bunch of kale, chopped in bite sized pieces (remove thick stem) or Swiss Chard or greens of choice (4 cups or more) – I use kale (Lacinato)
  • hummus without tahini (easy to make blending  a base of chick peas, lemon and garlic then adding to taste cumin, vinegar, red peppers, parsley or cilantro
  • Green onions chopped  (1 per slice of bread) – Red onion is good too!!
  • 1/2 to 1 bunch cilantro or parsley, chopped – I use cilantro
  • 1/2- 1 lemon, center part VERY, VERY thinly sliced and the ends squeezed and zested – I love lemon so I use extra
  • 1 large tomato, sliced in 4 thick slices (optional)
  • Broccoli sprouts (optional but good!)
  • Black pepper, to taste
  1. Toast bread well.  If using Mestemacher or a rye or pumpernickel double or even triple toast. Make it almost cracker-like. (I double toast the squaw or sprouted bread)
  2. Put kale in a pot with about 3-4 inches of water in the bottom.  Bring to a boil, cover and cook until kale is tender, 3-5 minutes. Check frequently. Kale is good when cooked almost spinach-like. (STEAMING KALE FOR A FEW MINUTES WORKS TOO!)
  3. Spread toast thickly with hummus, sprinkle green onions on the hummus, pile cilantro on top of the green onions and then place a few thinly sliced lemons pieces on the cilantro.
  4. When Kale is tender, drain well.  Shake the strainer so all water is gone, sprinkle the kale in the strainer with lemon zest and remaining lemon juice.  LOTS of lemon makes this good!
  5. Then put a big handful of lemon filled kale on top of each piece of bread.  It is delicious just like that or top with a tomato slice and/or sprouts. Season with pepper.

And there you have health in a bite!  A bit of a messy one at that!

Chop up your toppings

Steam or boil kale and drain, add lemon juice and zest

Double toast bread, top with hummus and onion

Add cilantro

Add sprouts (optional) and lemon slices

Top with kale, tomatoes and season with pepper

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Spicy Sweet Cranberry Chutney (Great on oatmeal!)

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Just in time for your holiday meal! This cranberry chutney is really good and would be an excellent addition to any holiday dish – any dish for that matter! This recipe was written to go with seitan. We ordered Indian food last night and added it to that, it was delish! I don’t make things like this often so this was a real treat! (Trying to reduce the amount of sugar I use in my recipes.) This freezes well too.

*UPDATE* I recently made a batch of this with 1/4 tsp Stevia instead of sugar and it turned out great! I’ve been adding it to my daughter’s oatmeal. She loves it!

Spicy Sweet Cranberry Chutney

This is another awesome recipe from Melomeals, of course! 🙂

Cranberry Chutney

  1. 2 c cranberries
  2. 2 apples – I used organic Gala apples 
  3. 2 Serrano chilies – I deseeded mine
  4. 1 T chopped fresh ginger – I love ginger so I added 1 extra Tbsp
  5. Juice of 2 oranges
  6. 2 3 inch pieces of orange zest
  7. 1/2 c apple cider vinegar
  8. 1 t cinnamon
  9. 1 1/4 c sugar – Use 1 cup of raw sugar OR use 1/4-1/2 tsp Stevia 
  10. 1/2 t salt
Instructions:
  1. Place in saucepan and cover. Cook over medium heat for 30 minutes or so. Stir often.
  2. If you want to tone it down, remove the serrano chilies and reduce ginger to 1 teaspoon.  If you don’t have oranges you can use water or any fruit juice you have around.

Place all ingredients into saucepan and cover. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes

Stir often

All done!

Banana Walnut Pancakes

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These are really good and easy to make, plus this batch makes a bunch of leftovers – great when you’ve been up all night with your 4-month old and you need a quick breakfast for your toddler! That’s my story lately so I really appreciate these kind of easy recipes. My toddler loves these pancakes! I top them with peanut butter and bananas for her… pure maple syrup for me. I put the leftovers in the fridge and toast them the next day.

Banana Walnut Pancakes

This is another… wait for it… Melomeals recipe! I used applesauce instead of oil because I’m really trying to cut down on my oil consumption, you can use oil if you wish.

Banana Walnut Pancakes 
* 2 c white whole wheat flour

* 1 T baking powder

* 1 t cinnamon

* 1/4 c brown sugar

* pinch salt

* 2 c soymilk – I used my homemade hemp milk

* 1 T vinegar

* 1/3 c olive oil – I used about 1/2 cup applesauce instead

* 1 t vanilla

* 1 large banana, mashed

* 1/2 c walnuts 

Method:

  1. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl
  2. Mix wet ingredients together along with the walnuts and add to the dry
  3. Cook in a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat for around 3 minutes a side 

Mix dry ingredients together

Mix wet ingredients together

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients with walnuts

Spoon out batter, cook until brown on each side. Enjoy with maple syrup!

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Easy 3-Ingredient Burgers

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You’ve recently learned how to make burgers out of leftover soup, but how about burgers with only 3 ingredients!?! These are so easy to make and hold together really well, ready for whatever toppings you enjoy most. We like sautéed or raw spinach/collard greens, avocado, red onion, pickle relish and Southwestern Chipotle Sauce or Habanero Sauce (our latest favorite!) served with a side of Sweet Potato Fries.

This recipe calls for HOT beans – I usually cook a pound of beans in my electric pressure cooker and once they are done I assemble these burgers (and save the leftover beans for other things). You can also cook beans in a crock pot, make sure to soak them overnight before you cook them. Make sure to save the water you cooked the beans in when you drain them, helps the burgers stick together better!

3-Ingredient Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries

This is another awesome Melomeals recipe – A.K.A. “The Food Genius” 🙂 I make about 9-10 average sized burgers from this one recipe, enough for leftovers for a few days!

3-Ingredient Burgers

Ingredients:

  • 3 C HOT Beans (HOT means TEMPERATURE) 
  • 2 C old fashioned oats (rolled oats, uncooked) – I’ve used quick oats or rolled oats
  • 1 envelope onion soup mix – I use Lipton or the Sprouts brand packet
  • Hot bean liquid if needed to bring the mixture together – I use about 1/3 cup of bean liquid for a batch of burgers

Method:

  1. Mix everything together
  2. Let mixture cool
  3. form into patties and cook over medium heat in a cast iron skillet for 5 minutes a side

3 Ingredients!

Mix HOT beans with oatmeal and onion soup mix - form patties

5 minutes on each side - use a cast iron skillet if you have one

This one is topped with Habanero Sauce... Yum!

This one topped with Follow Your Heart Nacho Cheese and Habanero Sauce

Chickpea Burger on top of kale and mushrooms