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Tag: mushrooms

Harissa Quinoa with Zucchini and Mushrooms

I was in the mood to add a little kick to my quinoa bowl tonight and I choose the Moroccan sauce harissa to help me out. I love the spiciness level of the “Spicy” Mina brand that I buy because it has the perfect amount of heat, but there is still a depth of flavor to it. You aren’t simply setting your mouth on fire for the kick of it. I like to make a batch of a couple of different grains throughout the week and then I portion them into single servings so I can mix and match flavors everyday. Grain bowls can get boring and I like to have some variation, but I don’t always have the desire to make a sauce or dressing. Recently, some of the pepper sauces from other countries have been really amazing at keeping things fresh. I get really excited when I find a new product to try.
Of course, I don’t typically just eat the grains and the sauce. Tonight’s starring vegetables were zucchini and mushrooms, plus I had a little parsley left over, so I threw that in. The mushrooms went in raw, but the zucchini was sauteed during meal prep and reheated with everything else in a small pan. Is it technically a one pot meal if everything is already prepped? Who cares… Bowl meals reign supreme around my life. May I never tire of them.

Black Soybean Noodles, Carrots, Zucchini, and Mushrooms

Dinner was another “pasta” plate, this time black soybean spaghetti. Now that I have leaned into the single ingredient alternative noodles, you can expect to see lots more of them in my rotations. I do this with most new ingredients that I get into…potentially eat it too often…but I’m reminded why so many people are drawn to making and eating pasta. Obviously, actual, real, good pasta is also amazing, but pulling a meal together with a base of pasta is SO easy and fast. The bonus with the alternatives is that you get the plant protein you want, the downside is that none of them are pasta.

The packaging is a little deceptive on this one in that it says black bean on the front, but the black beans that come to mind don’t have the protein content this product boasts about. It’s because the noodle are actually made from organic black soybeans, so be wary if you are sensitive to soy. I’ll say it a little louder for the people in the back…ALWAYS READ THE INGREDIENTS! Sorry, I don’t mean to be so aggressive about it. Anyway, at the end of this month long challenge, I will do a whole taste test comparison of a few varieties to actual pasta. The soybean ones have a little chew to them versus the chickpea noodles, but I really like most of the varieties that I have tried.


Tonight’s plate had the noodles, carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, sea salt, and dried thyme. I cooked the noodles in salted water, drained them, and mixed them in a small bowl with 1tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. I heated a sauté pan over medium heat and added 1/2tbsp avocado oil to it. Once that was hot, I added the sliced raw mushrooms. I let them get a bit dark and wilty and then I added the carrots and gave it a stir. I cooked them for a bit and then added the zucchini, salt, and thyme. You can obviously add whatever you have a taste for or whatever needs using from your fridge drawer and then cook each veggie as much or as little as you like. Once everything was cooked the way I wanted it…I enjoy it really crunchy, so just a few minutes later…I added the EVOO coated noodles, stirred everything to bring it together while reheating the noodles, and then it went onto the plate. I love the texture variation on this one.

“Cheesy” Chickpea Linguine with Cauliflower, Arugula, and Mushrooms

Endless variations, tons of plant based protein…I’m a big fan of the Chickapea brand of alternative pasta. The ingredients are chickpea flour, red lentil flour, and yellow lentil flour. Flours in general are highly processed but these pay the tax with extra protein. 23g and 220 calories per 2 ounce serving. The “pasta” cooks in 7 minutes and I heat up whatever veggies I want to cook in the very salted cooking water for the last couple of minutes. Sometimes, it’s green beans or peas, but tonight, it was just the cauliflower. I don’t put the greens or mushrooms in at the same time because they would get slimy, so they go in at the end. I put a small bowl underneath the strainer to catch some of the cooking water when I drain the pot, but everything in the strainer goes immediately back into the pan. I don’t rinse or shake the excess water out because I am going to use that as well.

From there, I added whatever ingredients didn’t want a bath. In this case, it was the mushrooms, arugula, nutritional yeast, and EVOO. They all went into the pan with the noodles and the cauliflower. I turned the burner to low and returned the pan to the heat. After I mixed everything together, I added as much of the reserved cooking water as I needed, probably 1/4 cup, to loosen everything up and make it kind of saucy. Mac and cheese it is not, but it is not trying to be that. It is, however, in my opinion, a yummy and filling meal that I am recently obsessed with.

Coconut Curry Shrimp over Arugula and Coconut Buckwheat

Ingredients: Shrimp, Yellow Onion, Green Beans, Carrot, Mushrooms, Red Bell Pepper, Serrano Pepper, Coconut Curry Sauce (coconut milk, cashews, garlic, curry powder, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, sea salt)
For Serving: Arugula, Coconut Buckwheat

I made a recipe that I found on Dr. Mark Hyman’s blog, https://drhyman.com/blog/2016/10/25/coconut-curry-shrimp/, but I used the veggies that I had on hand in my fridge. Apparently, the recipe is actually from a book titled, Always Hungry written by Dr. David Ludwig. I love how recipes do that, don’t you? Travel from person to person and everyone has a chance to make it there own. I didn’t have any cabbage, snow peas, or spinach, so I threw in some mushrooms, green beans, and arugula. Not because I think that mushrooms are a good substitution for cabbage, but because, in this recipe, they aren’t a BAD substitution. Besides, they were on there way to becoming fridge dried mushrooms, so they went in the pot.

It sounds like a lot of coconut, but it’s really not a crazy, over powering flavor, I promise. It does make this dish super creamy and delicious, though. It’s fat on top of fat because you get a lot of healthy fat from the cashews that help make the sauce, as well.

Besides being a ranking contender as a “veggie drawer clean out” dish, I also had some pretty good success freezing two portions of this dish. Meal prepping seafood can be tricky for a single lady because I don’t really like to keep it in the fridge for longer then a day. Next time I make it, I might try prepping the sauce as a separate component. Shrimp is so awesome because you can keep a bag in the freezer and just pull out what you like. Living in Atlantic Beach, FL, I have the luxury of very easy access to amazing locally caught, reasonably priced shrimp. Don’t like shrimp or it’s out of budget right now? Sub chicken, tofu, or just double down on the veggies. You can serve it over quinoa for a plant based protein boost.

Neither one of these doctors are into grains so much, but right or wrong, I love my carbs. I served it with a some buckwheat that I had soaked overnight. Then, after rinsing, I cook it in coconut milk. Never one to miss out on greens, I mixed everything in with my favorite spicy arugula and let the sauce become like a dressing for the greens. This was so delicious!!