pasta and vegetables

This is based loosely on Cathy's Pizza Pasta recipe, but I don't really think of it as pizza and I used different vegetables.  I think of it more like a pasta primavera or ratatouille.  I liked the idea of fresh basil and nutritional yeast--that worked really well.

Here are the vegetables I used, which is just what was in the fridge:
onion
red fry pepper (like a red bell pepper)
celery
a little leftover mushrooms
a little leftover green bell pepper
eggplant
zucchini
broccoli

I fried up the onions, bell pepper and celery (the cajun trinity), added the others as I chopped them, added a little water when needed.   then added

1 can of tomatoes

simmered for about 10 minutes.  then added

some frozen corn
basil leaves (mine were frozen and I just crumpled them, about 1/4 cup)
1 tsp nutritional yeast

cooked for another 10 minutes.

I cooked up some organic einkorn whole wheat rigatoni pasta.   I like it.  It's very hearty.  I think I'm a little sensitive to wheat or gluten, but I understand if you only have slight sensitivities, these "ancient" versions of wheat (this has not been hybridized) might not be a problem.  So I thought I'd experiment and see.  So far so good.

I ate half tonight and will have the rest for lunch tomorrow.   Yum!

Veggies for the week

Last week by about Thursday I decided I was tired of eating so many salads.  Fortunately that feeling only lasted a couple of days and by today I was desiring one again.  I'm planning a better balance this week between cooked and raw so I don't get tired of salads by Thursday.  Yesterday I made my bean soup like I usually do.  Today I made a giant batch of cooked veggies.  Actually after cooking it was not so giant, and just filled 7 bowls.  My veggie choices were inspired by this clip from Dr. Gregor.  His video clips are awesome.  They only last a couple of minutes and are very informative.  So this clip showed some recent studies that maybe did a better job of measuring antioxidant values in vegetables (I'm not going to try to explain, see the video).   I was surprised by the results.  I grabbed a screen shot of the result (hope he doesn't mind!):

So guess what I put in my two big pots of veggies:  beets, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, mushrooms, and garlic.  And I threw in some herbs du provence, and some fines herbs and some cinnamon.  Note that red bell pepper is really high on the list but Dr. Gregor says it loses too many nutrients when cooked.   So I added that to my salad.  I love red bell peppers!   Here are the veggies are ready to cook up in 2 large pressure cookers:

Here they are after cooking and cooling and dished out into bowls to freeze for the week:

I still tend to overcook veggies in my pressure cookers, so they are soft but they taste delicious.  I am not sure there is a cooked veggie I don't like.  I doubt you even need the seasonings.  Speaking of those, Dr. Gregor talks about spices with huge health benefits but I can't remember it all.  I seem to recall cinnamon and cloves and marjoram?  oregano is pretty good too.  It's in one of the recent videos. 

Another cooked veggie I plan to eat this week is baked sweet potatoes.  My absolute favorite are the oriental yams.  They have purple skin and yellow flesh.  They are so sweet I wonder if they are even healthy.

cooked veggies

I don't use recipes much, so this is just an example of what I made today from food in my fridge.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium eggplant, peeled and chopped

1 small (or bigger) onion, chopped

1 16-oz can tomatoes

4-8 oz shitake mushrooms

1 bunch kale, chopped

brussels sprouts, 12 oz in this case

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped

1 Tbsp sunflower seeds + 1 Tbsp sesame seeds, ground

1/4 cup raisins (I'm guessing--I added an unripe white peach instead and didn't like it, so next time I will try raisins or an apple)

1 cup beans

1/2 tsp each of some spices--I tried cumin, garam masala, and curry (felt like an Indian flavor)

fresh herbs if you have them--right now, it's cilantro, chives, and dill

1 Tbsp flavored vinegar (e.g., spicy pecan, or pomegranate balsamic)

Combine everything in the pressure cooker except the raisins, beans, ground seeds, and tomatoes. Cook for 2 minutes at high pressure, let set for a few minutes before letting out pressure (cooks them longer). Then add the raisins, beans, and tomatoes--also helps cool it down. It's pretty good. I'm not sure what spices work best, was just experimenting.