Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Granola Bar - total time 1 hour

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  I've never been one to skip breakfast, I would never make it to lunch without gnawing my arm off.  So to keep my hunger at bay, I start most mornings with a quick parfait.  I loooove this granola I get from Green Bean delivery.  It is so yummy!  And I have tried a lot of different granolas, definitely all of the ones with chocolate in them.  But this one is definitely the best, peanut butter, nuts, seeds, and a little chocolate.  Perfect way to start the day... top it with some berries and yogurt... even better!

We go through this stuff like crazy, like, a couple bags every week.  It's kind of ridiculous.  But we don't always have time in the morning even for a simple parfait (I easily lose track of time before I have had my coffee... even after sometimes... so mornings can go from a leisurely stroll to a mad dash out the door pretty quickly).  So what's a girl going to eat when she's run so fast out the door that she forgot to brush her hair and her phone is still sitting on the kitchen counter?  Granola bars!  A quick grab and go solution.

You could probably just take premade granola and bake it into bars.  But where is the fun in that?  This way you control everything that goes into the bars and can feel good about what you're eating.  No added sugar and tons of protein and fiber... and so yummy... just like McCabe's granola.

It takes a bit of time from start to finish, but it's mostly hands off time.  I walked my dog while everything was cooling, came back, covered them in chocolate, and then went back out with Snoop to finish our walk.  Probably only spent 15 minutes in the kitchen.  Easy peasy!  

Fried Green Tomatoes - total time 15 minutes

It is Tomato Festival time in my town this weekend.  A little bit of rural fair fun close to the city.  And there is a little bit of history behind it too.  Down the street from where they set up the festival every year is where Alexander W Livingston grew the first hybrid tomatoes through hand selecting which plants to cross pollinate to encourage beneficial traits.  He would select plants based on their disease tolerance, fruit flavor, shape, and color to create the "perfect" tomato plant.  Bees have been cross pollinating flowers since the beginning of time, but this was the first time humans involved themselves in the process.  Just like how some siblings can have a trait, like blue eyes, while the other siblings do not... it took many attempts to get the desirable traits from multiple plants to come through in one plant.

So, as we celebrate tomatoes in the "birthplace" of the commercial hybrid tomato, our tradition is getting fried green tomatoes at the festival (which we did today!).  But some times you have some green tomatoes at home, especially right before the first frost, and it is very simple to fry them up at home too.  If you have some meaty ripe tomatoes, those will fry up just as well.

Veggie Sushi Rolls - total time 15 minutes

I mentioned the other week that my New Years resolution this year was to eat some raw vegetables every day.  I figured that this would help me get some more vegetables on my plate too.  Some nutrients in vegetables become more powerful and nourishing when cooked (like lycopenes in tomatoes).  But there are other nutrients that start to break down, and depending on your cooking method, some of the nutrients could be leeched from the vegetables altogether.  So it is important to have a balance between cooked and raw foods.

It has been much easier than I thought!  Between salads, sandwiches, juices, and things like these veggie sushi rolls there are a lot of options.  Everything is really easy to make and always really quick since it doesn't have to be cooked.  There really isn't a recipe on how to make these sushi rolls.  You can use pretty much whatever vegetables you have on hand, just slice them and put them in some nori (or you can add some rice for a more traditional roll).  There is a little bit of technique to get it right though...

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps - total time 30 minutes

When I was doing my 40 Day Vegetarian Challenge I had some tofu lettuce wraps when we went out to eat for my birthday and Valentine's Day.  I have been meaning to replicate the dish for a while now.  After getting some beautiful green leaf lettuce in my CSA delivery, I decided this week was the week to try!

I don't know what it is about tofu... everyone seems scared of it!  It's just soybeans!  I know I pop soybeans like candy at sushi restaurants as edamame.  And soy is used in so many of our everyday food items as a thickening agent or for added protein.  But even knowing all of this, I was a little nervous about cooking it myself.  I know tofu can be delicious, but I figured it took years of trial and error to be good at cooking tofu.  Turns out, you just need to get it in a pan and it is hard to go wrong!

So I knew for these lettuce wraps, I wanted soy sauce to flavor the tofu, but that would not be enough.  Add some broccoli and cashews and you really got something.  Your carnivores and tofu haters will forget this meal doesn't have meat because they will be gobbling these Asian tacos too quickly to remember!

Veggie Sushi - total time 30 minutes

As soon as you give up something, you start craving it almost immediately.  Giving up meat made me miss sushi.  My husband and I frequently have Friday night sushi at our local sushi place and we haven't been since Lent began (they are probably wondering if we are okay).  So, since I was missing this Friday night tradition (well, not every Friday), I took it into my own hands and made my own sushi!

It is really pretty easy to do.  Great for raw foodies, pregnant ladies, and vegetarians alike.  It is pretty inexpensive too (unlike sushi restaurants, but you are skipping the most expensive, skill-intensive part, the raw fish).  You can go for pretty much any vegetable you can cut into thin slices (asparagus, green beans, sweet potato, bell pepper, etc), but I went pretty traditional.