• 1 red beet (peeled and cubed)
• 2 potatoes (Nicole used a white potato, but a sweet potato would be great too! Cut into cubes, leaving the skin on is optional)
• 1 red onion (sliced thinly)
• 3 large carrots (peeled and cut into slices)
• 1 red cabbage
• 1 package of mushrooms (sliced)
• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

Spices:

• 1 1/2 tsp Chilli powder (or to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp coriander (or to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin (or to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic (or to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp onion (or to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)

Toppings:

Cashew Cheese Sauce 

Cashew Sour Cream

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. In a large bowl, combine carrots, potatoes, oil, chili powder, coriander, cumin, garlic, onion, red pepper flakes and mix well. Spread the veggies evenly onto an 18×13 cookie sheet.
3. Cut up the onion and add 1/2 of it to the pan that you’ve started the other roasted veggies. The other half is going to be cooked with the mushrooms so just set them aside. Add beets last the 18×13 pan.
4. Pop the veggies in the oven and start a timer for about 25-30 minutes.
5. While the veggies are cooking start to sauté mushrooms in a pan for about 5 minutes, then add the onion that you set aside earlier. Continue cooking for about 5 more minutes.
6. Make the Cheese sauce and Cashew Sour Cream to top the “Nacho” with.
7. Start building your Nachos! Your Red Cabbage is your “tortilla chip”. Peel the leaves off and then add the roasted veggies, mushrooms/onions, cashew cheese sauce, and cashew sour cream. Yum!

**Optional- Amy’s Vegan Refried Beans! Add them to the “nacho” 🙂

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For the zoodles, we used zucchini and beets. We spiralized them ourselves, but you can always buy them pre-packaged 🙂

Ingredients:

• 5-6 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 1 yellow onion (chopped)
• Veggie Broth (to sauté veggies in)
• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups water (to boil the quinoa in)
• Oil-Free Hummus recipe
• 4 Zucchini Spiralized
• 1 Beet Spiralized
• 1 Avocado
• Cilantro to taste (optional to top)

1. Bring water and quinoa to a boil. Once you see it start boiling reduce it to a simmer and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water.
2. While the quinoa is cooking, start sautéing onions in veggie broth for about 5 minutes and then add garlic! Cook for another 5 minutes. You will want to just eyeball the amount of veggie broth, start off with about 2-3 tablespoons and keep adding when you see it’s all absorbed so it doesn’t burn. You will have to stir it more often than you would if you were cooking with oil. Add more as needed 🙂
3. Make your hummus while the onions and garlic are cooking.
4. Once your quinoa is cooked combine with onions and garlic.
5. The last step is to make your zoodle bowl! We put quinoa first, then added our zoodles and topped it with avocado and cilantro 🙂 Enjoy!

**Optional Nutritional Yeast or Hot Sauce!

These are a couple of the brands that we like to use for Cooking Day.

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Nicole made this super easy Mexican Quinoa Bowl that is PERFECT for a family Mexican night! One thing Nicole keeps in mind as inspiration for our Cooking Days is thinking about the foods that are common to eat on the go, like Chipotle or Qdoba, and finds a way to make it healthy! Enjoy 🙂

Everything for our cooking day Nicole bought from the Royal Oak Farmers Market. She got organic mushrooms (shitake & cremini), raspberries, steel-cut oats, organic lettuce, sweet leaf kale, cabbage, garlic, green beans, and beautiful flowers! (not all used in this recipe) Check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:

• Lentil Taco “Meat” (click the link for ingredients, or see below to Express Recipes)
• Grapefruit guacamole (click the link for ingredients, or read below to Express Recipes)
• 2 cups cooked quinoa
• 1 red onion chopped
• Splash of veggie broth (to cook your veggies in)
• 1 cup green beans cut in half
• 3 cups kale (or 1 bunch)
• 2 diced peppers (we used red and yellow) 

Directions:

1. Start making your Lentil Taco “Meat”.
2. While the lentils are cooking for your Lentil Taco “Meat”, make your grapefruit guacamole (we substituted the tomatoes for red pepper, this makes it detox friendly!)
3. Next, you’ll start cooking your quinoa in a pan for about 10-15 minutes or until the quinoa has absorbed all of the water.
4. Once the quinoa is done, add your kale! Let that cook just for 1-2 minutes. The base for your Mexican Bowl is now complete. Next move on to cooking the veggies 🙂
5. Add your onion to a pan with some veggie broth and cook for about 13-15 minutes. You want to make sure that you add enough veggie broth so the onions don’t start burning! We want it to caramelize, but not burn.
6. Add green beans to the onions and continue cooking for 3-5 minutes or until the green beans are cooked to the desired texture.
7. Combine quinoa, onions, green beans, lentil meat, grapefruit guacamole to a bowl and top with your peppers!
8. Mix it all together and enjoy 🙂

Express recipes:

Lentil Taco “Meat”

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown lentils
• 2 cups of water
• 1/2 tsp. of cayenne, garlic, red pepper, chili, onion powder, paprika, oregano, and cumin combined to make your own taco seasoning (often store-bought taco seasonings will have added sugar, preservatives, or artificial flavors).
• 1 cup walnuts

Directions:

1.  In a cooking pot combine water and lentils and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer, and cook for about 15 minutes.
2. Once lentils are cooked through (you can taste test), drain out water and place into a saucepan. Heat on medium to toast the lentils for about 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently to ensure that they don’t burn.
3. Place walnuts and spices into a food processor or blender, and do a very light pulse to slightly chop the walnuts. Then add in the toasted lentils. You may have to do this in batches. You should have close to an even amount of lentils and walnuts.

Grapefruit Guacamole

Ingredients:

• 2 Avocados
• Juice of 1/4 grapefruit
• 1 jalapeno chopped fine
• 1/2 yellow onion chopped fine
• 1 tomato chopped fine (we used red pepper to make it detox friendly)
• A handful of cilantro & basil chopped fine

Directions:

• Combine all ingredients and mash with a fork 🙂 

The post Mexican Quinoa Bowl appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 ounce bag Organic Sprouted Quinoa (Tru Roots is our favorite brand)
• 2 tbsp veggie broth (add more as needed)
• 1 sweet onion
• 2 packets mushrooms
• 1/2 lemon
• 4 tbsp Hemp hearts

Directions:

1. Start by adding quinoa to boiling water and reduce to a simmer for 15-20 minutes (cook according to package)
2. While the quinoa is cooking, chop onion and add mushrooms to a pan.
3. Saute mushrooms on medium heat with a splash of vegetable broth. (cover and occasionally stir) After 5 minutes add onion to the mushrooms.
4. After about 10 minutes the onions and mushrooms should be done.
5. Once quinoa is done combine with mushrooms and onions.
6. Add hemp heart seasoning to quinoa or your favorite spices.  

Now you have a big batch of flavorful quinoa! Throughout the week you can heat it up in a pan an add to it. Today we sautéed asparagus and steamed kale to add to our meal. 

For those of you who are working and like hot food for lunch, purchase a steamer and use it to quickly steam a sweet potato, kale, spinach, or any other veggie! This is the steamer we use at our office and it is a lifesaver during times when we didn’t bring a meal with us to work.

We proudly believe our steamer is used more than any other office steamers 🙂    

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Nicole’s Go-To Dinner 

On an average night, this is something Nicole loves to make! In this particular recipe we used asparagus, however, it will vary between any other green vegetable (i.e spinach, broccoli, kale, or brussel sprouts). Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients:

• Splash of veggie broth
• 1 packaged Organic Sprouted Tofu
• 1 package mushrooms
• 1 bunch asparagus
• Red pepper flakes (to taste)
• Nutritional Yeast (to taste)

Directions:

1. Drain water from tofu by wrapping it in a paper towel and letting it sit for about 10 minutes.
2.  In a pan over medium-high heat, add veggie broth.
3. Saute mushrooms, covered, for about 15 minutes.
4. Add asparagus and saute until done. Add more veggie broth as needed.
5. Gently crumble tofu into a fresh pan.
6. Cook tofu for about 10 minutes, adding red pepper flakes and nutritional yeast at the very end.
7. Serve warm and enjoy 🙂

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Soup season is almost among us! If you’re excited like we are, you know that cold weather means warm vegetable soup! We made 2 different kinds this past weekend… Blended Vegetable and Creamy Mushroom. This is something Nicole likes to make often as meal prep and then freezes some for the future. You can find the Blended Veggie below and the Vegan Cream of Mushroom one here. Enjoy!

Ingredients 

• 2, 8 oz packet mushrooms
• 8 large cloves garlic
• 1 large purple onion
• 2 stocks of celery
• 2 large jalapeños (or mild peppers if you don’t prefer spicy)
• 1 head of Kale
• ½ cup Nutritional Yeast
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Rosemary
• 1 tsp Thyme
• 1 tsp Oregano

Directions:

1. Start by adding a splash of water to mushrooms in a large pot on medium heat
2. Chop garlic up, set aside and let sit for 10 minutes
3. Chop up onion and add into mushrooms
4. Add the garlic to the onions and mushrooms
5. Cut up celery, and set aside
6. Cut up Jalapeños (you can take the seeds out of the jalapeños to make it less spicy)
7. After the mushrooms, onions, and garlic have been cooked to your liking add celery and jalapenos
8. Fill up the pot with water (about 60 ounces)
9. Cook for about 45 minutes on medium heat
10. Add Kale to the pot and continue cooking for 15 minutes of cooking
11. Let cool and blend using an immersion blender.
12. While blending, start adding spices (nutritional yeast, paprika, rosemary, thyme, and oregano!)
13. Wa La 🙂

You can use an immersion blender, or put the soup into any high-speed blender that you have 🙂

The post Blended Veggie Soup appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

This weekend for Cooking Day Nicole made 2 different soups, Blended Veggie, and Cream of Mushroom. A lot of times when cooking, it’s easier to make larger batches and freeze part of it for the rest of the week. Soups are great for that! Check out our recipe below:

Ingredients:

• 2, 8-ounce containers sliced cremini Mushrooms
• 4 large cloves of garlic
• 1 Large white onion
• 5 cups Almond Milk (you can make your own)
• Cashew cream sauce (makes about 2 cups)
• ½ tsp Paprika
• ½ tsp Rosemary
• ½ tsp Thyme
• ½ tsp Oregano

Directions:

1. Cut up mushrooms (we used mushrooms that were pre-cut) onion, and add to a large pot with a splash of water.
2. Heat on medium
3. Chop garlic and add to the mushrooms after sitting for 10 minutes
4. Blend all ingredients for the Cashew Cream Sauce and set aside
5. Add 2 cups Almond Milk to the pan after the mushrooms, onion, and garlic is cooked to your liking (about 20 minutes typically)
6. Add cashew cream sauce to the pot.
7. Add remaining almond milk.
8. Let cool, and blend! You can put it in any high-speed blender, or use an immersion blender.
9. Top off with Paprika, Thyme, Rosemary, and Oregano
10. Enjoy!

The post Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

This recipe is super quick and easy, and it uses only 4 ingredients. Simply collect the ingredients and add to any high-speed blender and it’s as easy as that! 

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups cashews
• Lemon juice of 1/2 a lemon
• ¾ cup water
• 2 garlic cloves

Directions:

1) Soak cashews overnight or 6-8 hours in filtered water

2) Drain water

3) Add cashews, lemon juice, water, garlic in a blender and blend until creamy!

We added this cashew cream sauce into our Vegan Cream of Mushroom soup to add some additional texture, creaminess, and flavor!

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This Basil “Ricotta” Sauce is a perfect topper for any dish. This was made in less than 5 minutes, not only is it quick but it’s super easy! Just gather up the ingredients and blend until it’s a creamy sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup basil
•  2 cups cashews
• ¾ cup of water
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• juice of 1 lemon

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to your favorite high-speed blender and blend until it creates a sauce!

We used this Basil “Ricotta” Sauce on our Creamy Coconut Zucchini Casserole as well as our Cream of Zucchini and Mushroom Soup. Enjoy 🙂

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This recipe is not only detox friendly, but it’s delicious too! It’s perfect for the fall weather that’s soon to be here. We topped this with our Basil “Ricotta” Sauce and we used just about the same ingredients for this recipe as we did to make the Creamy Coconut Zucchini Casserole. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Button Mushrooms
• 2 Shallots
• 6 Garlic Cloves
• 5-6 Zucchini
• 3 Raw Banana peppers
• 1 can coconut milk

Directions:

1) Cut up garlic and let it sit for 10 minutes

2) Cut up shallots and mushrooms

3) Add shallots, mushrooms, and garlic in a pan and start to sauté in vegetable broth for 10-15 minutes or until brown

4) Add coconut milk and continue cooking.

5) Cut up zucchini and add it into the pan with mushrooms, shallots, and garlic

5) Cook for about 10-12 minutes

6) Serve as a soup and add toppings like the Basil “Ricotta” sauce. 🙂

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