Split pea-stuffed tomatoes

After a long hiatus from blogging, I’m feeling particularly inspired by the combination of cool fall weather and the mountains of summer’s fresh produce that are still piled on farmer’s market tables. I’ve been cooking up a bit of a storm. This weekend, I just couldn’t leave without a big box of field tomatoes, and while I planned to slice one up to go with some beet black bean burgers (recipe coming soon), I had four others that needed to be eaten sooner rather than later.

Some searching led me to this straightforward recipe for veggie stuffed tomatoes. Preferring something that packs a bit more protein and cuts some of the refined carbs, I modified it to include yellow split peas and oats (and skipped the parmesan cheese, although if I make it again for company, I’d add some as a treat and extra touch). Here’s what I came up with:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup yellow split peas, dry
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1 small carrot
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1/4 tsp basil (or 3-4 fresh leaves, thinly sliced)
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp white wine (or veggie broth)
• 2 tbsp large flake oats
• 1 tbsp milled flax seed

Instructions

1. Cook the split peas – rinse them and then boil them for about half an hour.
2. In the meantime, cut a thin slice off the top of each tomato. Reserve the tops. Scoop out the innards and put them in a bowl, leaving about a half inch shell.
3. Grate the carrot and onion, and crush the garlic. Saute the mixture along with the spices in the oil until tender. Add the white wine (or broth) and let simmer for a few minutes, until some of the liquid has evaporated.
4. Remove from the heat and add the drained split peas once cooked. Stir in the oats and flax seed.
5. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Fill the tomato shells with the split pea mixture and put the top back. (I accidentally threw my tops out, and they weren’t nice-looking anyways, so I topped mine with a slice of onion, which was a nice addition.)
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Simplify, substitute, make it your own!

I liked the yellow split peas to make for a nice, autumn-y colour combination, but green split peas, red lentils, or possibly green lentils could also work well. These would make for a nice side dish or an appetizer.

High protein snacks (from nothing but plants): A round-up

Including good sources of protein in snacks helps you feel full without eating too much while contributing to meeting your daily protein needs. When it comes to plant-based high protein snacks, aside from the obvious handful of plain nuts or seeds, here are a few ideas to mix it up– some from Eating Greener, and a couple from some other great plant-based food bloggers.

Lemon Dill Sunflower Seed Spread

This recipe from Becca’s Kitchen has a subtle dill flavour that works well as a veggie dip. She has other yummy serving ideas, so check out her post! The recipe is very simple; just remember to soak the seeds over night in advance.

Roasted Chickpeas

Eating Greener‘s most popular post (and pin!) to date–one additional factor that led me to think people are on the hunt for high protein plant-based snacks! You can roast these on their own without oil and play with the spices as you like, or roast some nuts along with them.

Jam-Candied Walnuts

These are a great way to add a hint of sweetness to your snack. All you need: a bit of your favourite jam and some walnuts (other nuts would likely be good, too). I used hibiscus jam that I brought back from travels in Senegal. See how it’s done over at Elle’s Vegan Food Diary.

Colourful Hummus

Hummus is a vegetarian staple, but it doesn’t have to be boring. Here are recipes for a pink beet hummus and an orange sweet potato hummus. There are so many other flavourful and colourful variations–try adding roasted red pepper, or cooked edamame, or substituting black beans for chickpeas.

Do you have other ideas for plant-based, high protein snacks? I’d love to hear about them, and I’ll be sure to keep posting as I come across others!

PS: Just a reminder that Eating Greener is now on Facebook— come on over and get updates right on your newsfeed!

Spilling the beans: A cook book review

“Nobody’s perfect, but in the food world, beans are about as close as you can get.”

As perfect as beans may be, and as important as they may be in cuisines around the globe, they are conspicuously absent in standard North American cooking. I imagine this at least partly explains why omnivores are so easily baffled by the concept of a plant-based diet. As authors Julie Van Rosendaal and Sue Duncan point out in their cook book, Spilling the Beans: Cooking and Baking With Beans and Grains Every Day, one of the reasons for this is likely the fact that most people simply don’t know how to cook with legumes.

My aunt excitedly gave me a copy of this book and has been cooking up a storm with beans since she came across it– and she’s not a vegetarian or vegan. While some of the recipes include meat, many are vegetarian or offer instructions on how to make the recipe without meat. Perhaps writing a cook book about legumes without using a label like vegetarian is a good inclusive strategy. The likelihood that everyone will suddenly commit to vegetarianism is probably slim, but the chances that people will cook with less meat if they learn about the alternatives seem more likely. Perhaps a great gift idea for omnivores who like to cook?

“Cream” of tomato and fennel soup (with white beans)

I know, I know… it’s spring, but as far as I’m concerned, a good soup never goes out of season. Plus, I came up with this neat concoction that I really want to share. Not only is this a hearty, meal-in-itself kind of soup, but I’ve found a way to make it “creamy” without adding cream (ie: without the animal product and unhealthy fats).

Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• approximately 1/2-3/4 of a fennel bulb, chopped
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• approximately 1 3/4 cups white navy beans, measured cooked (or 1 can)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried basil

Instructions

1. Sauté the onions, garlic, and fennel for about five to ten minutes, until soft.
2. In a large pot, combine the vegetable stock and can of tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add the onion and fennel mixture, the white beans, and the dried herbs. Simmer for about ten minutes.
3. Purée the soup with your hand blender or in a food processor.

Simplify, Substitute, Make it Your Own!

You could likely go without the fennel and just make a “creamy” tomato soup if you wanted, but I haven’t tried it. You can play with the spices, too, as always. I’ll likely be experimenting with other types of “creamy” white bean soups, too, and will share some recipes when I do!

Sh*t omnivores say: “I’m practically vegetarian; I just eat chicken.”

Granted, the labelling of different types and levels of commitments to plant-based eating can be confusing–some vegetarians eat milk and/or eggs, a lot of vegetarians seem to eat seafood (a topic for a later post, perhaps),vegans eat none of the above–but if there’s one thing I think we can all agree, it’s that chicken is not a part of a vegetarian diet.

Why is this important? First, let me say that I commend those who reduce the amount of red meat in their diets for the health benefits that this purportedly brings (the details of which aren’t the focus of this post). However, to declare oneself a “vegetarian” when doing so completely ignores the negative health and environmental impacts of producing chicken for food. As I addressed in a recent post, chicken is the most consumed meat in Canada, and its production is far from harmless. Claims to be vegetarian while eating chicken undermines efforts to communicate to restaurants and the food industry that, for example, soups and other foods cooked with chicken stock are not, in fact, vegetarian. And the little things like this do matter– how can we reduce our dependence on animal products when we aren’t willing to make the simplest, most basic substitution of veggie stock for chicken stock?

Again, awesome if you’ve reduced the red meat in your diet, but please don’t add unnecessary confusion to an already confusing labelling situation. Say it as it is: “I don’t eat red meat,” or if you feel the clarification is necessary, “I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat red meat,” NOT “I’m practically/almost/ basically/etc. a vegetarian; I just eat chicken.”

*Image © www.vegancooking.com. Used with permission.

Welcoming picnic season on Earth Day: Simple dijon-chickpea sandwiches

Buying bread is a rare occasion for me because a) I’m not much of a sandwich fan, nor do I own a toaster, and b) I’m a bit of a bread snob, so I generally prefer to go without bread rather than surrender to my bank account’s limitations and buy affordable bread. Picnics, though, are a different story entirely: I feel like they require sandwiches. Egg salad used to be my favourite, but since I’ve been aiming for plant-based whenever possible, I wanted to come up with a new type of sandwich filler that would meet all the same standards as egg salad (including being a protein source, relatively simple, and delicious), but without any animal products. I’ve found it, and it couldn’t be simpler: mashed chickpeas with Dijon mustard. Since I was out on my first picnic of the year today (to celebrate Earth Day!), I was reminded to share this with you all.

Here’s what you’ll need to fill one sandwich:

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup chickpeas (measured cooked)
• 1 generous teaspoon dijon mustard (give or take depending on your taste)

Instructions

Mash up the chickpeas (canned if you’re in a hurry, or soak and cook dried ones  if you have time) with a fork, then stir in the dijon mustard. Leafy greens (spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, whatever) give the sandwich pleasant crunch and moisture, and I added a couple slices of avocado. Divine!

Migrant labour in organic farming: A greener eating equity issue

As I’ve said before, while I think eating more plants and less animals is a worthwhile goal for environmental, social, and health reasons, it’s equally important to continue thinking about issues of inequality and privilege that persist outside of livestock production.

So, since I haven’t had time to write much this week, I thought I’d point out some alternative reading in the form of an interesting article on the issue of using migrant labour in Canada’s organic  agriculture industry.

“Propping up a localized food system with a broken, exploitative and imbalanced labour system is simply not sustainable, nor is it just.”

Check out the full article over at This Magazine, and while you’re at it, This publishes lots of interesting pieces on the politics of what we eat, so you might want to browse around– it’s a great publication!

Beet and quinoa salad with alfalfa sprouts

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty conflicted (pun intended) about quinoa consumption. Given that it’s a pretty pricey ingredient, it’s not something I eat very regularly to begin with. In light of recent news about the effects that increased consumption of the “super-grain” is having in Bolivia, I’m trying to cut back even more. Nonetheless, there was still about half a pack of quinoa in my cupboard when I made this decision, so in case you are in a similar position of looking for a worthwhile way of using up some quinoa, here is by far my favourite quinoa salad recipe. I’m also looking for potential complete protein substitutions for the quinoa in the recipe, too (lentils and millet, perhaps?), since it’s just so darn delicious.

I started from this recipe, but made quite a few modifications. Considering how well the salad turned out, I’d highly recommend following them. The alfalfa sprouts go perfectly, and you really don’t need to add cheese– it’s so, so good without.

Ingredients

• 4 beets
• 1 cup quinoa (measured uncooked)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon agave nectar OR sugar (optional… I did without)
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 green onions, chopped (optional)
• 75 grams alfalfa sprouts (just over one cup or so)
• one head/bag of leafy greens of your choice

Instructions

1. Roast or steam your beats. I roasted mine– to do this, you need to chop off the ends, wrap them in tinfoil, and put them in the oven at 400F for about an hour, then remove the skins once cool enough to handle. If you prefer, you can find instructions for steaming here. Once the beets are cooked and peeled, dice them up into bite-sized pieces.
2. Cook the quinoa by adding it to 2 cups water and bringing it to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender and the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.
3. While the quinoa is cooking, whisk olive oil, red wine vinegar, agave nectar/sugar, garlic, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl.
4. Once cooked, remove the quinoa from the stove and immediately add half of the vinaigrette while fluffing the quinoa with a fork. Set the remaining dressing aside. Cover and refrigerate the quinoa for at least one hour, until cool.
5. Stir the alfalfa sprouts into the cooled quinoa–separate the sprouts with your fingers as much as you can before adding them so that they distribute evenly. Then add your beets and green onions as well as the remaining vinaigrette and toss the salad. Serve it over a bed of your leafy greens. Enjoy your yummy and vibrantly colourful dish!

Simplify, Substitute, Make it Your Own!

I’d say the staples for this are the beets and the alfalfa sprouts. As I mentioned, I will probably try using a combination of lentils and millet in place of quinoa next time. Do you have other ideas?

Canada copes: More antibiotic-resistant bacteria on meat + less food inspection agents

An extra post this week, because I wanted to highlight a missed connection for the Globe and Mail in light of two issues it has reported on separately in the past week or so.

The context: Under Canada’s most recent federal budget, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture Canada will be undergoing serious cutbacks, including layoffs of “veterinarians and other inspectors responsible for food recalls and ensuring the safety of Canadian meat”. As the Globe and Mail reports, this is after the Conservative government promised to increase the number of food inspectors following a 2008 listeriosis outbreak. Lots of antibiotic resistant bacteria on our meat, and less officers to check its safety. Sounds like a good mix– all in a week’s reporting at the Globe and Mail. I’m happy to connect the dots for them.

If antibiotic resistance is a crisis, so is livestock production (in Canada, too)

Last week, The Globe and Mail ran a two-part feature (here and here)  on the crisis of antibiotic resistance. I read both pieces with an eye to whether the author would give due attention to antibiotic use in raising livestock. While both pieces mentioned the issue (in a brief paragraph, late in each piece), “due attention” might be a stretch…

Part 1:

Part 2:

Yep, that’s pretty much all she wrote, and (unlike the earlier sections of the articles) these paragraphs don’t make suggestions on how people might address this issue (ie: decrease meat consumption, maybe?). Reading even this brief mention in the Canadian press, though, made me realize that most of the information I’ve read about antibiotic use in agriculture has been American-focused. So, I thought I would seize on this as an opportunity to get a Canadian perspective on the issue– and share my quick findings and thoughts.

The food sciences department at the University of Guelph (a leading Canadian university in the field of agriculture) states that antibiotics are not only used on food-producing animals when they are sick, but also when:

1. Animals aren’t yet sick but are susceptible to illness– in this case, animals will briefly be given high doses of anti-bitoics, or
2. When low-level doses are added to animals’ feed on an ongoing bases to ensure the growth and survival of the animal.

“This practice provides ideal conditions for bacteria to develop resistance over time.”

In further searches, I came across a CBC special called Superbugs in the Supermarket. The episode focuses on antibiotic resistance to bacteria on chicken, the most regularly consumed type of meat in Canada. While I take issue with a number of aspects of this special, it does go a lot more in depth than the Globe and Mail articles cited above.

Although this documentary goes further than the Globe and Mail pieces by trying to find ways to address the problem, not once does it mention the option of decreasing meat consumption. Despite debunking claims about the benefits of paying premiums for “organic” and “anti-biotic free” chicken and eggs (apparently there is no longer a single anti-biotic free chick available on the market!?), the documentary clings to the idea that we need to keep producing current levels of meat and animal food products.

I’ve referred to this idea before, and I’m sure I’ll refer to it again: Our current levels of consumption have led to and require our current systems of production. As long as we want to raise so many animals for food that we have to keep them in unhealthy, overcrowded conditions, antibiotics will likely be an essential part of the system. Those with the money and privilege to “shop differently” (ie: organic) can do so to their heart’s content, but when it comes down to it, we will have to overcome our society’s unnecessary but deeply engrained attachment to meat and animal food products to change these circumstances.