#collegiateveg

[collegiateveg]

Green Buddha Bowl

I hate leftovers. 

I know this makes me an outlier in the college foodie world, where leftover pizza is king, but I don’t want to eat the same dish every day of the week. And I don’t see the appeal of eating food that’s been sitting in a Tupperware container days after I’ve made it. It doesn’t matter how much I LOVE a dish the night before, I absolutely will not eat if for lunch the next day.

But I also don’t have the time or brain power to make a single-serve meal from scratch for lunch and dinner every single day. So I’ve found a method that works for me: planning out meals that have almost identical ingredients.

I know what you’re thinking. “They’re the same damn ingredients! Just eat the same salad a few days in a row!” But I can’t, and I won’t. I'm a grown-ass lady and I do what I want.

Here’s an example.

Last week I shared my spinach salad with quinoa, and the next day I made this buddha bowl by chopping the rest of my spinach finely, adding the same edamame, almonds, avocado, and dried cranberries, and then tossing everything with brown rice. 

Yes, the only ingredient change is adding a lot of rice instead of a little quinoa. 

But that little change (plus chopping the spinach instead of leaving it whole) completely changes the feel of the dish, and keeps my grocery list on the simple and the affordable side.

I’m going to share a few more of these “anti-leftover” dishes over the next couple of weeks, so I hope you like them as much as I do! In the mean time, go make yourself a buddha bowl of not-leftovers.

Ingredients:

1 cup baby spinach, or 1 large handful, chopped finely

1/2 cup shelled edamame (I buy frozen and thaw it)

1/4 cup almonds (I buy dry roasted and salted)

1/4 cup dried cranberries (any dried fruit will work)

1/2 an avocado, cubed

1 cup cooked brown rice

dressing of choice (I use a simple balsamic vinaigrette, or oil and vinegar)

Steps:

Combine warm rice with edamame, finely chopped spinach, and dressing of choice. The spinach will start to wilt.

Top with almonds, cranberries, and cubed avocado.

Note: I make batches of brown rice and freeze them into 1 cup portions to save time. Give it a try!

[collegiateveg]

Spinach Quinoa Salad

It’s summer! Avocados are in season! Farmers markets on every corner! I actually want to eat raw veggies again! I’ve stopped craving mashed potatoes! 

My summer diet is radically different from my winter diet. I’m not trying to eat seasonally on purpose, but the fact is I crave roasted veggies and mounds of mashed potatoes when it’s cold out, but once June rolls around I find myself eating mostly raw fruits and veggies. 

Part of that may be because it’s just too hot in my apartment to cook, and part of it may be that fruits and veggies look 1000% more appealing when they’re being sold at a sunny farmers markets instead of fluorescent grocery stores.

This salad is a combination of “I bought too much spinach at the farmers market” and “I need to clean out my pantry.” Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 cups baby spinach, or several large handfuls

1/2 cup cooked quinoa

1/2 shelled edamame (I buy frozen)

1/4 cup almonds

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/2 avocado, cubed

dressing of choice

Steps:

Cook your quinoa if not already prepared. Quinoa simmers for 15 minutes on the stove, using a 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water ratio. Dry quinoa roughly doubles in volume when cooked, so 1/4 cup dry quinoa makes about 1/2 cup cooked. I like to make a batch on Sunday nights to sprinkle on my salads throughout the week

If using frozen edamame, thaw according to package directions. 

Combine spinach with edamame, quinoa, almonds, and dried cranberries.

Top with avocado cubes, and toss with salad dressing. I usually use a simple balsamic vinaigrette, or oil and vinegar.

Note: I was cleaning out my pantry and wanted to use up my dried cranberries, but this salad would taste amazing with fresh strawberries or any other fruit really.

[collegiateveg]

Simple Taco Salad

I have a lot of non-recipe recipes up my sleeve to make for lunch and dinner when I’m just too tired to be bothered with thinking. Side note, that seems to be happening to me more and more these days, is this what growing up feels like? 

Either way, thinking is exhausting. Preparing this simple taco salad is not. 

Black beans and salsa are always something I have on hand, and no matter what I actually plan to cook for the week, my grocery basket always contains some romaine lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, and red onion. These are the kind of ingredients that go great together in a pinch (like this taco salad obviously) but separately, they can be added to pretty much any dish. The point is, these are the kind of ingredients that won’t go to waste by the end of the week, even if you don’t have a plan for them yet.

Ingredients

Romaine lettuce

Tomato (I like on the vine, or roma tomatoes)

Avocado

Black beans

Red onion

Salsa (I use medium, or peach mango usually)

Steps

I don’t have step-by-step instructions, or ingredient measurements for that matter, because this is a whatever-the-hell-you’re-in-the-mood-for kind of salad. No thinking, remember? But ideally, you’ll wash and shred or tear the lettuce, and combine with chopped tomato, diced red onion, slices of avocado, and then top it off with black beans for protein and salsa to taste.

Serve with tortilla chips, because life is too short to only have salad for dinner.

[collegiateveg]

Chocolate Covered Cherry Smoothie

Chocolate Covered Cherry Smoothie

I’m not much of a dessert person (although I definitely participated in National Donut Day and got a free chocolate glazed donut with my iced coffee from Dunkin this morning) but I always crave ice cream in the summer. 

Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the humidity, maybe it’s because my window AC unit doesn’t actually work on days over 85 degrees, but I have to eat something cold and sweet after dinner from June through August.

As someone who can never choose between fruit flavors and candy flavors (cookie dough ice cream is candy and you all know it) this smoothie lands somewhere in between. 

It’s cherry. It’s chocolate. It’s four ingredients. It has no added sugar. And it hits the spot.

Ingredients:

1 banana

1 cup frozen cherries

2 tablespoons raw cacao (or more, to taste)

1 cup almond milk

Steps:

Blend all ingredients until smooth. If using fresh cherries, use a frozen banana. I don’t recommend adding ice, because it will water down the smoothie.

Note: I always use unflavored, unsweetened almond milk, but if there was ever a time you wanted to  use sweetened vanilla almond milk, this would be it. 

[collegiateveg]

Sweet Potato Apple Sandwich

I have two very important things to tell y’all. The first is that I watched the first season of Broad City last weekend and it healed the TV-shaped hole in my heart left by the Parks and Rec finale. 

The second is that there’s an episode where they go to a vegan sandwich shop, and ignoring the fact that they were making fun of it, it led me to create this sandwich out of the random stuff in my fridge.

It’s savory, it’s sweet, I’ve had it for lunch every day this week. The only thing you really have to do in advance is roast the sweet potato, but you could also microwave it to save time.

Ingredients:

Two slices of your favorite bread (I used Ezekiel sprouted grain)

Hummus

Guacamole or smashed avocado

Arugula

Green apple, sliced

Sweet potato

Steps:

Slice the sweet potato into thick slices, about 1/2 inch, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 400 until soft, about 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Alternatively you can slice them, and then microwave them for five minutes, or until soft.

Toast bread, spreading hummus on one slice and avocado on the other.

Add arugula and a slice of apple.

[collegiateveg]

Hey, could you recommend some other blogs along the same line as yours- aka vegetarian/vegan, relatively low budget/ college accessible, with good clean food. Anything with quick how tos would also be mega appreciated as I'm still new to all of this!

I answered this a while ago here, but I have some new favorites too! Here’s an updated list of my favorite blogs:

Minimalist Baker

Catching Seeds

Oh She Glows

Nom Yourself

Love and Lemons

Oh, Ladycakes

Cookie and Kate

Sprouted Kitchen

My New Roots

This Rawsome Vegan Life

VeganFeast

Our Four Forks

Joy The Baker

The Kitchn

Fit University

Cave Girl in the City

Not all of these blogs are vegetarian/vegan, but a lot of them will still post veggie recipes, or I just really like their cooking style and find it inspires a lot of my own cooking.

[collegiateveg]

This blog is a life saver!!!! I was so worried being vegan and going into college. I lasted the year on dining hall food/cooking myself but this blog is gonna make that all easier!!!! Thanks!

You are so sweet! You can definitely do a lot with a little. Can’t wait to see your cooking creations :)

[collegiateveg]

I'm not quite yet in college but I'm living on a college food budget (like $20 a month) and your blog is giving me so many ideas for how to make some of the food I already have (mushrooms and curry and tofu). I'm looking forward to seeing what else I find here!

It’s funny how limited budgets can either kill or force creativity when it comes to cooking. I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal, so I think it’s really fun to take a few simple ingredients and make something super fresh and delicious. I’m excited you feel that way too. Happy cooking :)