It Doesn’t Have to Be All or Nothing

Happy Monday! This week’s newsletter is a stream of consciousness.  While I was making portobello mushroom “asada” tacos on Instagram live last week, I touched on the topic of “all or nothing” with respect to cooking and nutrition.  I do NOT fall into the all or nothing camp.  I do not avoid entire food groups or macronutrients, instead I favor a balanced, diverse approach to eating and cooking.  I extended that thought further by suggesting that you can use a recipe like mushroom tacos to complement steak tacos.  Instead of removing meat entirely, reduce the meat and supplement with some mushrooms.  There are so many foods I see people going out of their way to avoid and ultimately we may not feel satisfied with the substitute.  I am the first to admit there are foods that I can overeat such as pasta, rice, sugar, chips.  So I like to bulk up pasta with other things like vegetables, even zucchini noodles, or add cauliflower rice to rice, rather than omit something I like completely.  This Rice Chopped Salad executes this concept perfectly.

Speaking of riced vegetables, cauliflower rice may be the easiest to weave into recipes because it has a mild flavor and no color and does resemble rice, but I “rice” (i.e. pulse in a food processor until it resembles rice) broccoli stems, carrots, sweet potatoes, cabbage, butternut squash, mushrooms and zucchini.

I also don’t like to look at a promising recipe and discount it because there is an ingredient or more that I don’t eat or don’t have.  THERE IS ALWAYS A SWAP!

For example, I personally don’t love the flavor of beef or lamb, so I swap.  Some of my favorite subs for ground meat are ground poultry, cooked lentils, cooked chickpeas pulsed in a food processor, pulsed mushrooms and vice-versa.

If you guys haven’t tried Sadaf organic chickpeas in a jar, they are the best.  They are often sold out of them on their website.  This is of course totally not sponsored, but Sadaf is a company that is under the radar and their products are so good and such high quality.  I buy from their website or my local Ralph’s has a decent selection of Sadaf products in their “international” aisle. Favorites include their jarred sour cherries, teas, spices and spice mixes.

I also keep cooked lentils on hand all the time.  Melissa’s Produce has great  lentils in a box in the produce section.  Trader Joe’s does too.  I used to make my son pasta with “lentil bolognese” by simply adding cooked lentils to tomato sauce.  Sometimes I added Calabrian chilies if he wanted it spicy and I usually threw in a few handfuls of spinach.

My newsletter is a sponsor-free zone and is fully supported by readers.  Consider being a paid subscriber to get Even More Musings!  Today I am sharing an easy and delicious AND FLEXIBLE recipe for Lentil and Artichoke Stuffed Peppers with Pesto! This is exactly the type of recipe that I look at and see multiple possibilities for making it Vegan or Whole30 or Vegetarian or the filling in a different vegetable etc.  I made this on a whim and we loved it so much I made it again a week later! You can watch the video for this recipe on Instagram. :)