A SPINACH MONSTER! The title comes from a discussion I’ve had with a few different people about how Cookie Monster jumped on the “healthy train”  (ridiculous in my mind if this is being considered a legit way to address obesity/health issues amongst kids)…and from the bag of spinach that I dominated tonight. Granted, it was going to go bad, so it had to be used–and my favourite ways are to make spinach chips (a la kale chips) OR to toss it in a smoothie. I had bigger and better plans than a smoothie for dinner, sooo spinach chips it was!

You should eat the whole bag chips

Ingredients:

spinach
olive oil
salt or other seasonings

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Toss spinach with olive oil–all the leaves should get some love but shouldn’t be damp.
On a cookie sheet, bake the spinach in a single layer til it gets a bit crispy.

Enjoy!

I also made a burger—meatless Monday (or lifetime, ) approved! And the tastiest part? The nutritional yeast (nooch, my new fav word) “cheeze” I made. I have so many ideas for this stuff–pasta or maybe macaroni and cheese sauce (a la Oh She Glows), some ideas from Love, Veggies, and Yoga, nachos…I thought I was STUFFED after dinner but I just got hungry.  You should probably try these recipes!

Perfect Portobello “burgers”

Ingredients:

Portobello mushrooms, cleaned with stems removed
olive oil
onions, diced
garlic, diced
Ezekiel bun, toasted
cheeze sauce – see recipe

Directions:

In a frying pan, sauté olive oil, onions, and garlic.
In the microwave, cook mushrooms til tender (about 2 minutes).
In the meantime, toast Ezekiel bun and prepare cheeze sauce.
Spread cheeze sauce on bun, add a mushroom cap, and top with garlic/onion mixture.
Enjoy!

Cheeze sauce
My take on the “How It All Vegan” recipe

Ingredients:

½ cup nutritional yeast
4 tbsp flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup water
1 tsp salt

Directions:

In a saucepan, combine the ingredients.
Heat over medium heat, stirring with a fork constantly ‘til melted.
Remove from heat – “cheeze” will firm up as it sits.

The rest of today’s eats were far less photogenic:

pre swim greek yogurt with a splash of chocolate soy milk and some kamut flakes for crunch

my lunchbox: a spinach/maple/sweet potato/almond butter salad (lunch), an oatmeal/chocolate soy milk/banana/almond mix (breakfast), and an apple (snack) -- the LARA bar survived, mostly because someone brought Hershey Kisses to the office!

I’m just at Starbucks now with Nina (love this girl) about to get down to a bit of writing I have been putting off all day. I’ll blame it on all the love I poured into this morning’s post about my recovery – and that’s not a bad thing. Thanks for all the feedback and love, guys!

Whatdya think about Cookie Monster switching over to Veggie Monster?
How was your Monday?
Did you go meatless today?
Have you ever tried nutritional yeast? Thoughts?