Healthy Homestyle

We had our Sunday dinner on Saturday so Chase could devote all of Sunday to studying for a big Monday exam. I wanted to fill him up with good food and have plenty of leftovers for him to stay fortified while he studied. Although it was a sunny day, it was 55 degrees and the wind was gusting to 40 mph – a perfect day for staying in the kitchen. Oh, yeh, I cooked up lots of food.

I have never had much luck with “meat” loaves, but this month’s Veg Times featured a recipe, and dgmgv made it and posted her good results on her blog, so I decided to try it. The recipe was actually for sandwiches, but I served mine warm so we could have it plain or as a sandwich. The only diversion from the recipe I made was to leave out the celery because Chase and I both hate it. The loaf turned out great, just as dgmgv described. The taste was excellent and so was the texture - it didn’t fall apart.




Jess posted her lower calorie version of Mac ‘n Cheez from the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook which I happen to have. That recipe needed some serious fat reduction! I decided to try Jess’s recipe instead of making the usual mashed potatoes and gravy to go with “meat” loaf. I followed her recipe exactly, which allowed for some add-ins, so I went for a texmex version. I added in tomatoes, onions, green chilies, and spinach, and spiced it with chili powder and red pepper. I admit Chase and I hadn’t had mac ‘n cheez in a very long time, but we both thought this recipe was fabulous! Thanks to Jess for sharing her recipe. Here’s a pic without the topping.

I also made a black bean, corn, and red pepper salad.

Roasted veggies – broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash, onions, green beans, carrots, mushrooms. It would have been perfect if I had remembered the red bell pepper!

Chase thought cornbread would go well with our homestyle meal, but I told him I was going to try a new recipe from Real Food Daily – Multigrain Quick Bread. Well, it’s not very quick. It has cornmeal, millet, quinoa, oatmeal, and brown rice in it, and I had to prepare the millet, quinoa, and rice the night before so it could be mixed in cold. I baked it for 90 minutes and I’m not sure it was completely cooked. I really did like the bread, but it was unusual. The only liquid in it is apple juice – 3 cups! I used half juice and half cider and it was still very sweet – like a very sweet cornbread. In fact it was so sweet we decided to have it with dessert instead of dinner.

Dessert was to be just fresh fruit – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, apples, grapes, and pineapple (canned). No sweetener except the pineapple juice from the can.

Oh, yeh, I felt bad about not making the requisite mashed potatoes, so I made sweet potato fries. Here’s my plate and the table.

I bought a pint of vanilla soy dream to have with the fruit salad, and also toasted some almonds and coconut for a topping. Now we had “cake” too, so here’s how we revamped dessert. We pan fried some of the bread in a dry skillet, then plated it.

Put the fruit on top of the cake.

Then added the toasted goodies and a side of ice cream. Of course my camera battery died as soon as I put the ice cream on the plate, so it melted a bit. But oh yum! It was so good we had seconds.

So make the loaf, try the bread, eat your fruits and veggies, and definitely make the mac ‘n cheez!