I’m mostly vegan (for a lot of reasons), and I often get asked what I eat.
I think sometimes people just picture me eating a bowl of steamed kale (which, honestly, is pretty tasty with some salt and drizzled lemon juice…) or some sunflower seeds. But the truth is, since becoming vegan, I eat a lot healthier-- it’s pretty difficult to find vegan fast food, so that helps… I also eat a range of foods that I hadn’t eaten before (hello, parsnips and rutabaga!).
We have a few go-to recipe books here including Isa Does It and Oh She Glows, but we also make a lot of vegan bowls.
I’m certainly not professing to be a food blogger—I snapped this photo tonight while we were cooking dinner with our 10-month-old daughter underfoot, but I thought I’d share one of our go-to meals.
To make a vegan bowl, we usually start with a base like quinoa, barley, rice, or spelt. Then we add some veggies (usually roasted), a green like spinach or kale (usually steamed), and a protein (often Field Roast vegan sausage) or sometimes just chickpeas or some kind of bean.
Tonight’s bowl included spelt (it’s made just like quinoa or rice and it has a cool texture… it took me a while to start cooking with it, but lately it’s been a staple). Spelt has 15 grams of protein per 100 grams, so it’s a solid base for a vegan bowl.
While the spelt was cooking, we put some veggies in the oven to roast. We happened to have parsnips and beets in the fridge, so that’s what we roasted. All we did was toss them in olive oil and add a little salt and then put them in the oven for about 40 minutes. (I also tossed in some sliced potatoes and carrots to have with breakfast tomorrow since we were already heating up the oven, and I’m not about to roast anything first thing in the morning.)
While the veggies were roasting, we sliced some purple cabbage (good for fiber) in discs and charred them in the cast iron skillet. It's nice to have that crunch since the roasted veggies are soft.
And, since we wanted to give some to our baby who is starting to eat a wider variety of foods, we cubed some firm tofu and fried it to add to the bowl and for her to try (verdict: she liked it!).
We made a quick peanut sauce (even more protein!) to drizzle on the bowl and that was it! The best part about vegan bowls is you can make them with whatever grain, veggies, and other protein you have around.
What are your go-to vegan or vegetarian recipes?