Sometimes One Just Has to Get Creative When Cooking Plant-Based Dinners!

I had no idea what to cook for dinner last night, so I looked to see what we had both in the pantry and 'fridge and this is what I came up with ;-)

 Chopped...

• a small bunch of parsey
• 1 Persian cucumber
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 2 green onions

Added...

• about 1/4 cup shredded carrots
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• a few dashes of lemon pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of amino acids (instead of salt, but still has some sodium)

Mixed it all together and it's ready to eat! I don't know what it's called but it's good! :)

Even though I say I don't like to eat processed food, we have some emergency foods in the house! :-O Bret's dad, Jim actually gave us this tortilla soup he and his wife like to eat. Jim is very careful in what he chooses to eat, so when he gave us this I trusted him.

 Still, though, I double checked the ingredients and nutrition facts, just to be sure I knew what  exactly I was going to eat. The ingredients list wasn't long: black beans, dehydrated corn and vegetables (don't know what kind!) and good seasoning...Hmm? What seasoning? Salt?

I thought the salt would be high, but it actually wasn't. Each serving only had 190mg of sodium, so that meant I approved it ;-)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), our bodies only need 180mg to 500mg of sodium to function properly. However, the CDC's recommends that the adequate intake of sodium should be 1500mg per day and advises everyone to limit sodium intake to less than 2300 mg-- that is about 1 teaspoon (tsp). 

(Click here to learn more about sodium from the CDC)

 

 I just added water to a pot and all the contents in the packets, brought it to a boil and then let it simmer for 20-25 minutes.

1/2 cup of dry brown rice turned into more almost 2 cups cooked! It tasted yummy because 1) it's already "pre-cooked" (didn't read the labels when I bought it), 2) I added 1 tablespoon of vegan butter, and 3) added 1/2 sliced white onion (like my mami taught me to do when I cook rice :)

 

 This is Bret's dinner plate with just the right portion sizes. We added Brussels sprouts later because we realized we needed more green!  (I know, his soup doesn't look that appetizing; He added Daiya "cheeze" to it, but not me, I don't really like "cheeze".) 

Our dinner didn't have a theme, but that's okay because our tummies got fed. So that was it! Fast, easy to make and it was something different ;-)

Love,

Bea