Friday Vegetarian Potluck LinkUp & Easy Cheesy Julienne Potatoes (Vegan)

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Several months ago, I bought four cases of Follow Your Heart vegan cheese.

You read that right: FOUR CASES.

So, I have been trying to use the cheese whenever I can.  My husband isn't crazy for it, so usually I give him and my son regular cheese.  I make my own enchiladas, tacos, pizza, etc. with vegan cheese, using it when the guys have real cheese.

Never had I thought of using Follow Your Heart vegan cheese to make cheese sauce.

One of my husband's favorite dishes is julienne potatoes.  I no longer make them since I ditched the prepackaged foods.  I didn't want to make the effort to make a real cheese sauce, plus I knew all of the cholesterol wasn't doing any of us any favors.

After I came up with this cheese sauce, I immediately decided to make cheesy potatoes for my husband.  When I was finished with the sauce, I used thawed, frozen hash browns and mixed them together, then baked them in the oven for 45 min.

They got rave reviews from my husband and son!

Here is what I'm bringing to Friday Vegetarian Potluck:

[Print this Recipe]

EASY CHEESY JULIENNE POTATOES

Ingredients:

*10 oz. pkg. Follow Your Heart vegan cheddar cheese
*10 oz. pkg. Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella cheese
*1/2 c. unsweetened almond milk
*1/2 tsp. garlic powder
*1 Tb. dried minced onion
*16 oz. thawed, frozen hash browns

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Grate cheese or cut into small pieces.  Combine cheese, almond milk, garlic powder, and onion in medium saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring often until cheese is melted.
3. Lightly coat medium baking dish with non-stick spray. Add potatoes and cheese sauce. Mix thoroughly.
4. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid or foil and bake an additional 15 minutes until potatoes are bubbly and edges begin to brown.

Do you have a dish that you have cut out of your diet because it isn't healthy?  Have you made a healthier alternative that satisfies you?

In the spirit of a delicious potluck dinner, I’m hosting Friday Vegetarian Potluck. Mix up a batch of your favorite recipe and bring it over for supper. You can bring a main dish, a salad, bread, a dessert, any food you want to share.We do have a few rules for our meal.

1. Your recipe needs to be vegetarian, but it can also be dairy-free, vegan, or gluten-free. Any recipe made without meat will do.

2. Your blog does not have to be about vegetarian food recipes. If you regularly write about gardening, that’s fine. If you usually post recipes with pork and poultry, you are welcome, too.

3. This doesn’t have to be a new recipe post, but I ask that you bring it to the blog only once.

4. Since potlucks are all about sharing, I ask that you post this invite on your blog post. It fits nicely into your html.
<center> <a href=" http://thewaybyelle.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src=" http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7576556030_011284ffe4_m.jpg "/></a></center>
(For help adding the html code above, click here)

WIAW: Let Us Eat Cake!

As you may have read in my last post, we now have a young woman living with us, trying to get on her feet.

We are very glad to have her with us.  She helps me make dinner or cleans up after we eat.  My sons love her and she gives them lots of attention.  She is thoughtful and keeps her things gathered up.

She also already landed two jobs the first day after she moved here!

Sunday, the day I use for my WIAW pictures, was her 21st birthday.  I had fun making her a cake while she was at work.  It wasn't my best cake, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

Felicia on her birthday

It was actually the second cake I made over the weekend.  Friday was my five year-old's "half-birthday," so I made him half of a chocolate cake.  I used one 9" round, cut in half, and stacked it on the other half.  (I only iced between the layer and on the outside round part of the cake, so it looked like a whole cake had been cut in half.)

Since I knew I was eating cake after supper, I didn't eat much during the day. 

 

Breakfast:

Nature's Path Flax Plus Cereal

with dried cranberries,

unsweetened almond milk,

and a little Sevita.

 

Lunch:

Ezekiel Bread toast

with homemade peach preserves

and a slice of Follow Your Heart

vegan mozzarella cheese.

 

Supper:

Romaine lettuce salad

with croutons

and sliced tomato from my garden.

3 pieces of Archer Farms pizza with eggplant

(I was too excited for cake and forgot a picture!)

 

Dessert:

A big piece of birthday cake!

 

Even though I had that big piece of cake, I still planned the rest of my meals ahead of time and was able to keep my calories below 1500 for the day.

 

If you would like to see some of my other cakes, click here.

 

Be sure to come back for Friday Vegetarian Potluck Link-up

and see what everyone is bringing! 

I will bring my recipe for Easy-Cheesy Julienne Potatoes. 

They are gluten-free and dairy-free!

 

 

Also, check out the rest of What I Ate Wednesday at Peas and Crayons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fit-spiration of the day

My five year-old ran 1 mile this morning with the Mileage Club at his elementary school.

As you probably know, he's a vegetarian who has never eaten meat.  He also eats very few processed foods (if any).

Who says you need meat to be healthy??

Just had to brag.  That is all.

Friday Vegetarian Potluck & Italian Vegetarian Meatballs

Today, we picked up another young person from Northwest Missouri and moved her into our home.

This is the third time we have moved someone in with us since we moved here.  I come up with these ideas and my husband goes along with me.  What a guy!

Why do we keep "rescuing" people from Northwest Missouri?

First of all, Northwest Missouri is filled with some great people.  I lived there for 5 years and my husband for 10 years.  I met some of my best friends while living there.  Five years after we moved away, we still miss the people we saw in the store, worked with, and had for neighbors.

Unfortunately, having good people in a region isn't enough.  Northwest Missouri (at least where we lived and these young adults lived), there are no jobs.  The economy wasn't good before the economic downturn, now it is really bad.  They have also had three floods in the past five years.  For these kids, there isn't much hope of a better life.

My husband and I were blessed to be born to the right parents in the right part of the country.  Here, jobs are plentiful.  Even in the drought, the irrigated fields above the Ogalala Aquifer receive moisture through pivots and irrigation pipes.  The company my husband works for is expanding.  Many places are hiring in town where the unemployment rate is only 3.3%.  A quarter section of land (1/4 of a mile, squared) sells for over a million and a half dollars.

My husband and I have experienced first-hand the sad truth that many people were not given the opportunities we were.  These are young adults we know and trust, who just needed someone to give them a shot, a ticket out of the poverty they were living in.  We gave them a place to live until they could afford their own apartment.  The living quarters are tight, since now we have two little boys in one bedroom, Mike and I in our room, and Felicia on the couch in our two bedroom house.

The two young men who stayed with us previously are doing well on their own now.  They work hard at the same jobs they started when they were with us.  They never wanted a handout.  They wanted opportunity to work. Now, we are happy to let Felicia have that chance. 

Okay, sorry for the diversion.

Friday Vegetarian Potluck!

This week, I made Italian Vegetarian Meatballs.  These will please any meat-eater (or carnivore, like my 5 year-old calls them). 

(I haven't reloaded the program yet which allows me to make PDF printable recipes. Sorry!)

Italian Vegetarian Meatball with pesto and penne pasta.

For step by step pictures, click here.

Italian Vegetarian Meatballs

by Elle@thewaybyelle

Prep Time: 15 min.

Cook Time: 1 hr.

Keywords: bake entree vegetarian Italian

6050526

Ingredients

• 8 oz. shredded mozzarella
• 1 diced onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 5 eggs
• 1 sleeve crushed crackers
• 1 jar pasta sauce (about 2 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 cup red or blush wine (optional)

Instructions

1. Combine shredded mozzarella, onion, garlic, oregano, eggs, and crushed crackers in mixer. Mix thoroughly. Preheat oven to 350 F. Allow mixture to set for 5 min.

2. Spray medium baking dish with non-stick spray. Use ice cream scoop to drop equal-sized balls of mixture into baking dish.

3. Mix wine with pasta sauce, if desired. Cover meatballs with pasta sauce. Cover baking dish and bake for 1 hour.

Powered by Recipage

Have you ever let someone stay in your home for an extended amount of time?  Why?  How did it go?

In the spirit of a delicious potluck dinner, I’m hosting Friday Vegetarian Potluck. Mix up a batch of your favorite recipe and bring it over for supper. You can bring a main dish, a salad, bread, a dessert, any food you want to share.We do have a few rules for our meal.

1. Your recipe needs to be vegetarian, but it can also be dairy-free, vegan, or gluten-free. Any recipe made without meat will do.

2. Your blog does not have to be about vegetarian food recipes. If you regularly write about gardening, that’s fine. If you usually post recipes with pork and poultry, you are welcome, too.

3. This doesn’t have to be a new recipe post, but I ask that you bring it to the blog only once.

4. Since potlucks are all about sharing, I ask that you post this invite on your blog post. It fits nicely into your html.
<center> <a href=" http://thewaybyelle.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src=" http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7576556030_011284ffe4_m.jpg "/></a></center>
(For help adding the html code above, click here)




What recipe are you going to share?<

Week 3: Lazyman Triathlon

I'm back online!

With the help of Tom Lanham of PC Medic, I have a new hard drive on my computer.  Apparently, 1 out of every 10 hard drives crash within the first few years.  It seems criminal to me that they don't last longer, but oh well.

Tom did a great job, fixing it within a few days.  The repair price was reasonable and he even delivered it back early to my house before I had to pick up my son from Kindergarten.  I highly recommend his services if you are in Central Nebraska. His number is (308) 999-0300.

I'm also now in the middle of week 3 of the YMCA of the Prairie's Lazyman Triathlon. 

Since my new swim cap and goggles came in the mail today, I did my first day in the pool.  I haven't really swam since college, so I had no idea how much swimming I could do in an hour.  After a few laps, everything I learned about swimming at Union College came back to me.  I remembered all of those mornings I would swim before classes, trying to get the PE credits done.  After 45 min. in the pool, I had completed 24 laps and still felt great!

To complete the triathlon, I have 6 weeks (Aug. 8 to Sept. 16) to

1. Swim 2.4 miles (84.5 laps)

The YMCA pool. We have a really nice Y in town!

2. Bike 112 miles
3. Run 26.2 miles

As of today I have:

1. Swam 24 laps
2. Biked 57.3 miles
3. Ran 17.75 miles

In the next 3 1/2 weeks, I need to

1. Swim 60.5 laps
2. Bike 54.7 miles
3. Run 8.45 miles

I really want that T-Shirt!

Have you ever done a triathlon or other exercise challenge?  This is my second.  The first was Hold It For the Holidays a few years ago, when I joined the challenge to not gain weight over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.  I actually lost weight during the challege!

I'm doing my best to get a Friday Vegetarian Potluck post done this week! Come back and share your favorite recipe and see what others bring!

 

 

Thanks for hosting the link up, Jill!

It's so hard without a hard drive

I've been without a computer all week. We are pretty sure that I need a new hard drive.
Hopefully, I will have it back by next Tuesday.
I'm still tweeting on my phone though! You can find me @thewaybyelle or by clicking the twitter button on the right column.

Thanks for reading!

Friday Vegetarian Potluck LinkUp & Cardamom Knots Recipe

This week, I am making Cardamom Knots for potluck.

No, the recipe isn't mine, but you can find Tomas's recipe here.

Before you freak out because the referenced recipe blog is in Swedish, let me tell you that there are instructions in English also.

These are easy to make, but they look terribly impressive.

<center> <a href=" http://thewaybyelle.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src=" http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7576556030_011284ffe4_m.jpg "/></a></center>
(For help adding the html code above, click here)




What recipe are you going to share?

Friday Vegetarian Potluck Link Up
 




 

WIAW: To Wean or Not To Wean

My baby turned 1 year-old last week.

I haven't been exclusively breastfeeding for a long time; at six months, we introduced his baby cereal with 1 oz. of formula.  Now, he eats every 2-3 hours and nurses about that often during the day.  He also drinks goats' milk from a cup.

With my other son, I nursed him until he was 15 months old.  I have to admit, I'm feeling a little guilt about ending breastfeeding while the youngest is only 12 months old.

But I have 8 good reasons to stop, 8 sharp, pearly whites that bite.

Granted, he only bites me every few days.  I don't think he even means to most of the time.  The bites are bad, but the constant contact of those teeth on me is killer. 

I am storing up breastmilk in the freezer.  In case he gets sick, I can give it him, boosting his immunities and helping him recover sooner. I decided that when I have six bags of milk in the freezer, I will stop.  I'm at 5 1/2 right now.

So, we are almost ready.

Here is what I ate:

After getting home from the gym, I ate my usual, a bowl of Nature's Path Flaxseed Plus with an extra tablespoon of ground flax.  I changed up my almond milk to unsweetened and now add 1 tsp. of Stevita to my cereal.

Although I nearly always have a wrap for lunch, I decided to eat something different for WIAW.  I made a Follow Your Heart vegan cheddar cheese sandwich with lettuce, sliced tomato from the farmers market, and a smear of Vegenaise on Ezekiel bread toast.

In the late afternoon, I accidentally ate a 90 calorie Fiber One Brownie.  I meant to put it in my husband's lunch, but opened it instead.  I went ahead and enjoyed it.

For my afternoon snack, I drank a protein shake made with soy protein, unsweetened almond milk, and a 2 tsp. of Stevita.

I made eggplant parmesan for supper for my family.  The eggplant is from my garden and I baked the breaded slices on a baking sheet for 30 min. instead of frying them.  After they cooked, I layered them with tomato sauce and shredded Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella cheese.  I topped it with minced garlic from my garden and basil and oregano that is growing in my windowsill.  I also ate a romaine lettuce salad.

I ate 5 pieces of Dove Dark Chocolate Swirled with Raspberry for dessert.  YUMMY!

Working Out

After taking last week off due to a nasty cold, I started working out again this week.  My intention was to just use the elliptical on Monday morning, but since I felt so good when I arrived at the gym, I went ahead and ran 15 out of 30 minutes on the treadmill. 

The woman beside me, someone whom I see often at the Y, asked me, "Are you doing the triathlon?"

"No, I'm just trying to get through today after having a bad cold last week," I replied.

"You should do the triathlon.  I am and you are here as much as I am," She continued.

So, I went home and signed up for the Lazy(wo)man Triathlon.  I've never done one before.

I'm starting off slowly, but I know I will have to increase my daily totals (and get up earlier) to get it done in time.

1. How are your workouts going? Have you tried anything new lately?

2. If you are a mother, did you breastfeed?  Did you feel guilty when you stopped?

Be sure to come back for Friday Vegetarian Potluck and add a link to your recipe!

Friday Vegetarian Potluck

So,
I'm still not feeling up to par.  I hope you don't mind if I miss potluck this week.

Come back next week and link up your recipe!

Elle

WIAW: As I Lay Dying

Achoo!

Cough-cough-cough!

Moan.

I'm recovering from one of those awful summer colds.  I only get a cold, or any kind of sickness for that matter, about once a year.  Since I get ill so rarely, I feel like I'm dying.

This one seemed pretty bad, though it isn't lasting very long.

It started on Friday night, causing me to take "a sick day" on Saturday (something I don't get as a stay-at-home mom).  My husband was home, so he me sleep until 1:00pm. 

The scratchy throat and congestion made everything taste bland, so I ate the only thing that tasted good.

Here is what I ate:

Yep.  That's all I ate.  Lots  of ramen noodles with cayenne pepper. 

Here is what I should have eaten:






Green Smoothies

Frozen cherry "ice cream" with almond milk

Ezekiel wraps with fresh fruit

And once I started eating these foods

and drinking lots of green tea with lemon

and broth with cayenne pepper,

I started feeling much better.

I'm still not working out this week.  Although the congestion, fatigue, and scratchy throat are gone, I still have gunk in my lungs I'm trying to cough up.

Be sure to come back on Friday for Vegetarian Potluck and link up your favorite recipe.

It can be a main dish, a bread recipe, a salad, a soup, or a dessert.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you bring!

  Thanks to Jenn at Peas and Crayons for hosting!