Thursday, August 25, 2011

some vegan meals and a recipe for plum syrup

vegan dinner for one
I have not been completely on-track with the vegan program this time around. I think I grossly underestimated how stressful this transition back to work would be and I just have not been able to do it. On the last 30 day vegan, I was very serious about it and remained almost entirely vegan the whole program, but this time I have not. I do hope to get back on track soon. In the meantime, I have eaten vegan when I can. I thought I'd share a few noteworthy meals with you.

A few nights ago I was home alone for dinner (very rare) so I made myself toast with mashed avocado, sea salt, and sliced heirloom tomatoes. Basically, the best thing I've ever eaten, or so it felt at the time. Yum! The heirloom tomatoes are home grown Cherokee Purples and they are so very yummy.

vegan lunch
(Sorry, the photo here shows the lunch halfway eaten--I didn't think to snap a picture until partway through). This was not a very creative or inspiring lunch, but it was notable for me because I was going into work that day (I'm not officially back yet, but have had to go in a few days this week), and had to pack a quick vegan lunch, and it just turned out to be so satisfying. I borrowed one of the boys' Planet Boxes* and it just made it so easy to put in lots of little healthy sides. In addition to a pb&j, I took sliced cucumbers and radishes, plums, and cherry tomatoes--all from the garden. I loved being able to take so much home grown produce, even though the garden is small this year. I put a square of dark chocolate in there, but didn't even eat it because the meal was so delicious and filling on its own.

vegan plum syrup
Over the weekend I made this plum syrup and it was just so good! I got the recipe from a vegan cookbook I've had for years--Teany. I'll share it with you at the end of this post.

vegan pancakes with plum syrup
To go with the syrup I made vegan pancakes from Susan's blog (I used the second recipe, using regular whole wheat flour and a little white spelt flour and instead of agave I dissolved some succanat into the wet ingredients). I was really impressed with these pancakes. Super yummy, nutritious, and easy to whip up on a Saturday morning.


Here's the recipe for plum syrup:

Plum Syrup from Teany

3 plums
2/3 cup maple syrup
2/3 cup pear or apple juice
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. vanilla extract
a pinch of black pepper (I omitted this)

Stem and pit the plums and cut into quarters. Mix everything together (plums through pepper) in a food processor until the plums are thoroughly pureed. Place mixture in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes or until syrup is thick. Strain through a fine mesh strainer and serve warm.

*By the way, I have NO connection to the Planet Box company--I just really like their product. It seems like I'm always raving about the Planet Box and leaving comments on other's blogs about them and such. Maybe it's just because I'm a lazy person, but I hate dealing with a lot of little containers or plastic bags in a lunchbox, so having a divided tray just seems like such a revelation for me. Sorry if I seem to go on and on about it!


4 comments:

Sian said...

hello! i'm vegan and to write about a few things that i eat on my blog. i really love avocado on toast like you!

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

banana peanut butter wraps just posted, might be a nice change from p&j.

I'm always so jealous of your tasty looking meals :)

Kory said...

Thanks for the recipe, I was wondering how to make flavored syrups but hadn't gotten around to researching it yet. I'm totally jealous of the avacado, I think I'd live on them if I didn't react to them :(

English Muse said...

this looks so delicious!