Posts tagged as:

sweet potato

Hummus and Avocado Cakes- The Best Snack of Summer 2010

by Eating Bird Food on July 28, 2010

I had the best dinner tonight! It was pieced together with two very interesting items (note that Isaac wasn’t home for this dinner), but it’s way too good not to share with you all.

1.) Baked sweet potato with cottage cheese and ketchup.

I know it sounds odd, but if you’ve been reading EBF for a while you’ll know I really like this combo and if you’ve tried it for yourself, you’ll know that despite how crazy it sounds/looks, it’s quite delicious.

I have the lovely Jenn from Eating Bender to thank for introducing me to it!

2.) Hummus and Avocado Cake

I told you it was an interesting dinner…

Although I would love to, I can’t take the credit for coming up with this delicious treat – my friend Laurel actually told me about this little combo, and I can’t be completely positive, but it might just be the “it” snack for summer 2010!

Hummus and Avocado Cakes (2 cakes)

2 brown rice cakes (I used Lundberg)
2 tbsp. garlic hummus (Sabra is my fav)
1/2 of an avocado, sliced
cayenne pepper, to taste

Spread an even amount of hummus over the rice cakes, top each with 3 slices of avocado (about 1/4 of an avocado on each cake) and smash it a little to spread it out, sprinkle on the cayenne pepper ( I like it HOTT) and enjoy!

In other exciting news, the Candy Valley Cake Pops winner is #33, Anna!

Congrats lady. Shoot me an email (eatingbirdfood at gmail dot com) and your dozen Cake Pops will be on their way!

While Anna jumps up and down after finding out she’s won, I think I’ll do Somersaults.

And by do, I mean eat them. Actually, I’ve been snacking on these a lot today- after both lunch and dinner. They are small baked treats made with toasted whole grains and sunflower seeds. I like the not-too-sweet chocolate flavor of the chez cocoa variety and the crunch factor. With the first ingredient being sunflower seeds, they’re different than any other snack item I’ve ever tried. If I had to describe what the chez cocoa somersaults are most similar to, I’d say mini cookies- only they are better because the ingredient list is short and they provide a good amount of both protein and fiber.

I haven’t tried the other flavors yet – s.s. sea salt, salty pepper, and santa fe salsa, but you can bet I’ll be digging into those later this week.

The Somersault Snack Co. sent me these to review, but just so you know, I only state my true feelings about the products I review. In addition, I only accept products for review that I would be interested in buying myself if I saw them in the store. Speaking of which, I’ve seen these snacks at my local Whole Foods and you can always “like” Somersault Snack Co. on facebook for a possible chance to win a summertime snack giveaway.

Alrighty, I’m off to bed folks. It’s been a long day – we moved offices at work so I actually did more than sit on tush for 8 hours. It felt great to move a bit while at work, but now I’m sleepy.

Sweet dreams (of hummus and avocado cakes) to you!

-Brittany

{ 24 comments }

Kashi’s Mayan Harvest Bake Recipe!

by Eating Bird Food on February 17, 2010

One of the best frozen meals on the market right now, in my humble opinion, is Kashi’s Mayan Harvest Bake.

Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake

This delicious vegan meal combines plantains, roasted sweet potatoes, black beans and kale with a spicy ancho sauce and pumpkin seed garnish – all the served over Kashi’s seven whole grain polenta and amaranth. It’s got a kick to it, but not overly spicy and the flavors of the sweet potato, plantain, and ancho sauce go so well together.

After falling in love at first bite and buying the harvest bake multiple times I decided I should try my hand at creating it at home. After a visit to my local Latino market the plantains I did a little online research and drew inspiration from others who have also come up with their own versions of this tasty meal.

Mayan Harvest Backe

It may not taste exactly like the frozen meal, however it turned out quite close and it tastes absolutely fabulous so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Homemade Mayan Harvest Bake

serves 4

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes, washed and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 ripe plantain**, quartered and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 bunch of kale, cleaned, destemed and chopped
1 15 oz. can organic black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup pepitas

Sauce:

1 tbsp. coconut oil (divided)
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves or garlic
1 15 oz. can tomato puree
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp. ancho chili powder
3 drops of liquid stevia (or other sweetener of choice)
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Grains:

1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup bulgur wheat
2 cups of water with a vegetarian bouillon cube -or- 2 cups vegetable broth

** The plantain should be very ripe – yellow, not green and covered with large black spots. Mine was completely black and worked perfect.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Toss sweet potatoes in 1/2 tbsp. oil and roast for 20 minutes in a square glass baking dish/pan, stirring once.
While the potatoes are roasting, heat 1/2 tbsp. oil on medium high in a large skillet and saute the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant. Add tomato puree, water, and spices (chili powder, stevia, paprika, sea salt) into the skillet and let simmer for 10 minutes. The sauce should be on the thicker side, but add more water if you want to thin it out. Stir in black beans.
Heat another skillet over medium, add chopped kale, a few tbsp. of water and a bit of sea salt. Let the kale wilt and toss for 5-7 minutes.
Pull roasted sweet potatoes out of the oven and top with cooked kale, sliced plantains, and black bean sauce. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
While it’s baking prepare the grains by putting the quinoa, bulgur wheat, and 2 cups of liquid into a small pot. Bring mixture to a boil, then cover and let simmer for 15-20 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
Portion out the grains on each plate, top with the harvest bake, sprinkle with pepitas and eat immediately. Enjoy!

I hope you’ll try the recipe – I know the preparation process sounds a little taxing, but I promise it’s not that bad and the results are totally worth it.

Edited to add: I know many people are interested in the nutrition facts for this recipe and the ones listed on Food.com are incorrect. I put the ingredients into the Livestrong recipe nutrition fact calculator to find the accurate information based on 4 servings:

-Brittany

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Wet Weekend

February 6, 2010

How are you this Saturday morning? Well- I hope! Me? I’m just dealing with another weekend winter wonderland- full of snow, sleet, rain, and everything in between. However, I haven’t seen any other intriguing icicles worth noting so we’ll just go straight to the food. Plain Chobani, raw cinnamon raisin granola, and fresh mango. This [...]

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Dinner, Delish

January 11, 2010

Sunday I woke up ready and raring to take on the day. I hit up the gym for a quick treadmill session and to WMM, stopped by the Asian market and came home for breakfast. There was also a visit to Starbucks in there for a Green Tea Soy Latte with no syrup. I finished [...]

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Getting Back in the Groove

November 2, 2009

And I’m not talking Monday, work related stuff. I’m talking back to healthy eating and working out. Over the past few weeks I’ve been eating whatever I want, whenever I want and not really challenging myself at the gym. I was on twitter last night chatting with a couple ladies and we all decided to [...]

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You Asked For It

July 10, 2009

My lunch time salad yesterday just so happened to finish off the last of the HUGE container of spring mix from Costco! Hooray for not wasting one leaf and for eating an entire large tub of Earthbound Farms Spring Mix in less than 1 week. Oh yea! The salad had yell bells, cuc, cado, tomats, [...]