doing the macrobiotic/vegan lifestyle for over two months now has been really great and surprisingly easy. i've found that the most important thing about making this lifestyle work is to have a love affair with cooking and getting creative with flavors. i was raised on home-cooked meals, so i would say that all my cooking skills are pretty instinctual from my mom's healthy cooking and my Sicilian grandmother's garlic and olive oil in everything! i usually make every meal from toast for breakfast, grains and greens for lunch and then some other grain, bean and vegetable meal for dinner. the most important thing for me is that things are flavorful! so many people think of "health food" as bland, but nothing tastes bland with a healthy dose of garlic, onions, olive oil, sea salt or shoyu (soy sauce). i have been throughly enjoying every meal i've made and haven't craved meat or dairy once!
in my effort to make new, easy, creative, and of course tasty vegan/macrobiotic food, here's a recipe for PEANUT NOODLES i made up today for lunch:
- 1 package of udon or soba noodles (soba are better because they're more whole grain) - 3/4 cup to 1 cup of unsweetened/unsalted peanut butter - 2 cloves of minced garlic - a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil or more to unstick noodles - soy sauce to taste - a sploosh of brown rice vinegar about a teaspoon - cayenne pepper (if you like spicy) to taste - 1/4 teaspoon of maple sugar - sprinkle of ginger powder - 3 to 4 chives chopped
combine everything, except the noodles and the chives, in a saucepan and heat on medium low to melt all the goodness together. cook the noodles to al dente and mix in the peanut sauce, garnish with chives and eat! serves two. cooking time about 10 minutes.
also, i am obsessed with the Circle E Candle brand of aromatherapy candle in the Buttery French Vanilla scent (not real butter silly!). it is the best aromatherapy candle i've ever had and this size burns for 220 hours, and scents up our entire place with the most delicious smell! it's so worth it to get high quality candles and enjoy their comforting and warming effects, i totally recommend ordering one. this candle smells so good it made me want cookies really bad, so awesome Joey just made the oatmeal chocolate chip ones from The Kind Diet... yummmmmmm! going to eat and watch Project Runway now. ttyl!
