27 Jul 2014
by marisashealthykitchen
in Cooking With Kids, Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: avocado pasta, avocado pesto, avocados, basil, cherry tomatoes, cooking with kids, dairy free, dairy free sauce, Flax seed oil, garlic, gluten-free, grape tomatoes, green, ground black pepper, healthy eating, healthy meals, healthykids, healthymeals, kids, lemon, lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, pasta, quick and easy, raw sauce, sauce, Super Fast Avocado Pasta, trader joes, Trader Joes Fresh Rice Pasta, vegan, vegetarian
I am all about cooking with the kiddos whenever possible 🙂 Today for lunch we made our Avocado Pasta, similar to This One that I make for them normally that they love, but this time we did it all in one bowl (and a pot) 🙂 They loved it and were even super happy to take turns mashing (and tasting!) Lunch was deelish but cooking together and smiles around (and green mouths!) makes it that much sweeter!
Super Fast Avocado Pasta
2-3 servings
Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Vegan, no cook/raw sauce
2 avocados
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried Basil
1/2 teaspoon dried Oregano
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Flax seed oil
12 ounces- 1 lb of pasta (we used Trader Joes Fresh Rice Pasta – made it even faster, cooks in 2 minutes!)
ground black pepper, to taste
cherry or grape tomatoes, cut
- Boil water and cook pasta in a large pot
- In a bowl combine avocado, garlic, lemon juice, oils, salt, basil, pepper and oregano. Mash with a fork till creamy.
- When pasta is done, drain and mix with sauce. Garnish with tomatoes. Serve immediately. YUM!
14 Jul 2014
by marisashealthykitchen
in Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: quickmeals, vegetarian, baby carrots, Cashews, cauliflower, cauliflower cheese sauce, cauliflower florets, Cauliflower Mac & Cheese, comfort food, dinner ideas, dinnerideas, Fresh parsley, garlic powder, gf, GF penne pasta, gluten-free, glutenfree, healthy kids, healthy meals, Healthy Vegan Cheese Sauce, healthykids, healthymeals, kids, kids vegetables, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, nuts, onion powder, pasta, penne pasta, pepper, sauces, Sea Salt, vegan, vegan mac & cheese, vegetarian
So this was awesome!!! We are lucky that our kids eat a ton of veggies but this was still an awesome way to serve them! Everyone loved it! Enjoy this tasty and super healthy dish!
Cauliflower Mac & Cheese – Healthy Vegan Cheese Sauce Yum!
Gluten-free, Vegan
1 cauliflower, cut into florets
handful of baby carrots
1/4 cup cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or to taste
1/4-1/2 teaspoon pepper, to taste
pasta of choice (we used GF penne pasta)
Fresh parsley, for garnish
- Add cauliflower & carrots in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a low boil. Once boiling, cook for another 8-9 minutes until super tender. Drain.
- At the same time boil water for pasta and cook as instructed by package. Drain when done.
- In a high-speed blender (we use a Vitamix) blend the cashews and a 1/4 cup of water for 30 seconds. Then add the cooked and drained cauliflower & carrots, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Blend until a super smooth.
- Add sauce & pasta into a pot and stir, till just combined. Salt, to taste
- Serve with parsley sprinkled on top
08 May 2014
by marisashealthykitchen
in Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: breakfast, comfort food, cooking with kids, entertaining, h'orderves, jewish, kid-friendly, kids, Mayim Bialik, Mayim Bialik passover, Mayim Bialik vegan, Mayim Bialik's recipes, Mini Potato Kugels, olive oil, onion, paprika, Passover, Potato Kugel, potato starch, potatoes, quick and easy, sides, vegan, vegetarian
I love that all the food we cooked for this year’s Passover Sedar, we cooked as a family! Such a sweet day with the four of us! Most of the recipes we made were also great for year round.
In searching for some kiddo & adult friendly Passover recipes I found this one for Mini Potato Kugels. They are perfect little cups of fried onions and potatoes, so really yummy handheld hash browns 🙂 My kids really liked them (even raw as we were making them) and pressing them into the muffin tins! Plus it was super fun for both of the kiddos to take turns pressing the on/off switch on the food processor to grate these.
I was also inspired because this is one of Mayim Bialik’s recipes and LOVE all things Mayim! True to form it was great 🙂
Mini Potato Kugels
5 medium potatoes, grated
1 large onion, grated
3 Tablespoons olive oil, separated
1 teaspoon paprika
1 Tablespoon potato starch
Salt, to taste (somehow I missed that this was not in the recipe, so notice the salt I sprinkled on top 🙂 but best to add to the mixture first!)
- Grate the potatoes, and then drain the liquid from them.
- Saute the grated onion in 2 Tablespoons of the olive oil until soft but not brown. Add paprika.
- Mix onions into the potatoes and add potato starch and 1 more Tablespoon olive oil.
- Push into greased muffin tins, filling each muffin space all the way to the top, and spritz with a little more oil.
- Bake at 400F for 40 minutes.
18 Mar 2014
by marisashealthykitchen
in Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: celery, chickpeas, crock-pot, diced tomatoes, Freezer Cook, freezer cooking, garam masala, garlic, gluten-free, healthyslowcooking.com, Kathy Hester, kids, meal planning, not-chicken bouillon, one-pot meal, organizing meals, quinoa, Quinoa Stew, red lentils, slow cooker, Slow Cooker Indian Spiced Chickpea Quinoa Stew, soy-free, sweet potato, turmeric, turnip, vegan freezer cook, vegan freezer cooking, vegan meal planning, vegetable bouillon
Here is a super simple deelish slow cooker meal! We LOVE a great one-pot meal! I like Kathy’s suggestions to add any veggies you have on hand or use yellow lentils instead of red, potato in place of turnip and even carrots.
A while ago I spent a day doing a Huge Freezer Cook aka cooking/assembling meals and freezing then for later use! Brilliant idea but makes for one super crazy cooking day plus another whole afternoon to shop! But I made 26 meals to freeze!! Some meals required cooking and storing in tins to be later defrosted and cooked or reheated. Some meals, like this one, I cut and prepped all the ingredients/spices and put in a food saver bag so it was ready to go in the slow-cooker 🙂 We Love having a freezer full of meals for when we need a prepared meal and don’t feel like or have time for cooking!
This was PERFECT after we came home from vacation recently. We woke up in the morning and I just tossed the bag of ingredients & the 4 cups of water, in the slow-cooker and 8.5 hours later we had a wonderful & hot dinner. Which after coming back to the cold, snowy NY from hot and sunny Mexico was much needed to warm us up! Plus always so nice when the kids love the meal you prepared! Yeah!
Slow Cooker Indian Spiced Chickpea Quinoa Stew
Recipe from Kathy Hester at healthyslowcooking.com
serves 4 to 6
- 4 to 5 cups water
- 1 can diced tomatoes (or 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen)
- 1 can chickpeas, rinsed (or 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen)
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
- 1 cup peeled turnip, chopped
- 1 cup sweet potato, chopped
- 1/2 cup celery, chopped (about 1 stalk)
- 1 tablespoon not-chicken bouillon
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 2 teaspoons garam masala
- salt, to taste
Put everything in the slow cooker and cook on low 6 to 9 hours. Taste, re-season if needed (you may not even need the salt if your bouillon is salty.)
* If you plan to prep & freeze for another time, add the water at the time of cooking.
23 Jan 2013
by marisashealthykitchen
in Raw Desserts and Treats, Raw Vegan Recipes, Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: almond milk, baby, baby food, banana, breakfast, cinnamon, date, dates, kids, oatmeal, oats, quick and easy, raw, smoothie, vegan, vegetarian
This recipe started off as me making the kiddos’ food which is funny because often they are eating what we make for us. But as I was making this (and tasted it!) I really wanted some too 🙂
So the babies had the oatmeal version and I had the smoothies (although I am sure they and I would have loved both!)
Banana Date Smoothie & Oatmeal
- 10 or so dried dates (I steamed them to make them extra soft, but not really necesary)
- 3 bananas
- dash of cinnamon
- 1 cup of almond milk (less for oatmeal, more for smoothie)
Super simple, just blend and either combine with cooked oatmeal or add extra almond milk for a smoothie.
17 Jan 2013
by marisashealthykitchen
in Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes
Tags: agave, almond, almond flour, almond meal, almond milk, baby, baby food, banana, breakfast, chia, date, dates, kids, maple syrup, mlyk, mylk, pudding, quick and easy, vanilla, vegan, vegetarian
With traditional almond milk, you soak the almonds overnight and then blend and strain the next day. (not hard but not instant) We were all out of almond milk and my kiddos have a new LOVE for Chia Pudding (Banana Date Chia Pudding) so I needed to fix some up Fast!! This was so delicious! We were so happy that there was extra for us as well 🙂
This really helped me out in a pinch but it is something you can make all the time and so much better than almond milk from a carton!!
Super Fast Emergency Almond Milk
- 1 cup of almond flour
- 4 cups of water
- small handful of dates (you could use agave or maple syrup as well)
- teaspoon of vanilla
- dash of salt
Blend & Enjoy!
Marisa's Healthy Kitchen 