I’ve been awful with writing and posting lately. Ok – I haven’t posted in FOREVER. But you know how the end of summer and back to life story goes. Its HARD! I always mourn the “loss” of summer. Its my favourite time of year. To be with family. The warm weather. Biking, hiking, lake life and all the fun. I never really look forward to the cooler weather and the back to school routine. Especially this year, with my youngest doing distance learning (which I’ve learned is NOT home schooling) – I’ll save that for later.
I’ve decided to embrace fall this year. Its been a hell of a tough year up until now. I just want to continue to forge ahead with a positive attitude and a ton of gratitude. The blessings in each day are many. I’m really encouraging my youngest to do the same. Find all the amazing things each day to be grateful for and be positive. Life is good. It really is.
So one of my new experiments for this new school year is to incorporate plant based dinners twice a week. This is not hard for myself and my daughters. Not sure my husband loves it so much, but when he comes home to dinner on his plate, he never ever complains.
So the first thing I tried was lentil burgers. I am a massive falafel fan and these kind of remind me of them. Wow they were so good. I’m curious to try them again because the carrots that I had for this were SOOOO sweet! Like insanely sweet. I ate the “patty” cut up on a salad. The rest of the family made them into actual burgers. I am going to as usual steal a picture from the website and also post the recipe HERE.
These were a hit – even Chris really liked them. Will be making these again. They are a bit labour intensive – of course this is coming from me – the non-lover of cooking. But overall – definitely worth the effort!
One thing to note is the lentil cooking. Remember, I’m a lazy cook. So I always look for shortcuts! Cooking lentils seemed like chore. But I found THIS website that was so awesome and the lentils cooked like a charm! Get your INSTANT pots ready!
The second recipe I did was also really good. However, I didn’t have basmati rice. Big mistake. Although very tasty, I know that the texture of the rice is supposed to be “fluffy” and not “sticky”. I also love dates – like love love them – so I added more. This one was a hit too – make sure you spend the time crisping up the chickpeas – that crunch is really good – but again, we have leftovers, so they will obviously soften even more with sticky rice vs. basmati.
Again, here is a picture stolen from the Real Simple website. I am noticing in the picture that the shallots are not finely chopped. I finely chopped mine. The ones I had also burned my eyes like crazy – with contacts in! So I don’t think I would want a huge hunk of that in my mouth. My Mom and Grandma always taught me to FINELY chop everything. It really does make a difference. This will also be going on the “make again” list. But, with the proper rice. Not super labour intensive either. HERE is the recipe!
Tell me, do you eat plant based once in a while? Drop me a comment and let me know what your favourite recipes are!