Plant Powered!

 When we first started our journey towards following a more plant based diet, I discovered Isa Chandra's website The Post Punk Kitchen and it's the best!  She has great recipes for some all time favorite "comfort foods" that you can easily be made at home without any animal products.  Now that the way we eat has become a way of life, we find that our cupboards are always full with delicious staple foods that help us make delicious meals.  I often look in the fridge and think "we don't have anything to make for dinner" only to discover that whole, plant based meals are at our fingertips!  A few days ago I made Mushroom Stroganoff and one of my go to "we have nothing to eat" meals is Stir Fried Quinoa and Eggplant.


I'm blogging tonight because that's exactly what happened for dinner today. We like to take the time to soak and cook dried beans over our weekends so that when the work week comes along we have fresh beans that are not from a can stocked in our fridge.  So, tonight I went to Isa's website and typed "black beans" in the search and that's how we found tonight's Black Bean & Quinoa Soup recipe!  It's been unusually chilly and rainy (even for Portland!) the past few days, so this recipe was a perfect find.  Once you get in the habit of eating good food you can always whip up something tasty.  Paired with french bread and Earth Balance butter, our soup tonight is going to be a treat! An extra bonus is getting fresh herbs and veggies from the garden...nothing beats fresh cilantro (well tomatoes are pretty great but that's for another post!)! But what about dessert?  We buy bananas by the bunches, and when they're close to being overripe chop them up and freeze them.  When we want a sweet treat we throw them in a blender with almond or coconut milk, cocoa powder and peanut butter and viola!  Ice cream!  It's an especially great snack when I come back from a run because I'm basically just eating frozen bananas!  Bon Apetite!

Drying fresh oregano!!