You know when you walk into a space and the vibe is so good you just feel all excited and happy inside?  Yesterday my family and I went for a drive out to Sag Harbor and ended up having lunch at the sweetest little spot called LT Burger…and it gave me that feeling.  The whole town did really.  The design inside was 1950′s meets 70′s color palate meets modern funky hipster.  Loved the design, which I’ll be talking more about on my new lifestyle blog soon! The restaurant is a mixture of light whites and bright orange, with little pops of fabric and vintage flair, like shabby chic benches and the vintage pac-man arcade game right as you walk in. 

The food is delicious and the restaurant itself is completely kid and adult friendly.  Coloring books and mini burgers and chicken for the kids with healthy sides like steamed broccoli on the kids menu (which of course I totally love and appreciate) and the regular menu is comfort food with a funky twist, featuring things like Jerk Chicken, Fried Dill Pickles, Snake River Farms American Wagyu (which is like an American Kobe beef) and classics like Fish and Chips and a variety of different burgers.

LT Burger was opened fairly recently by acclaimed Chef Laurent Tourondel.  I have one of his cookbooks at home called GO Fish which I often sift through for recipe inspiration.  Anyway…the place was totally sweet.  They use local ingredients whenever possible and have a varied menu which has a little something for everyone from carnivores to vegetarians and they were happy to accommodate our Gluten and Egg allergies.   We had the Turkey burger (Gluten Free style with no bun) with a side of sweet potato fries and the Veggie Falafel (also no bun)….and who needs a bun when the burger itself is so freakin delicious?!  Seriously, I didn’t feel like I was missing a thing without the bread.  AND, they have SPIKED MILK SHAKES!!  How awesome is that?  I had to drive so I couldn’t partake…(and I also get super sleepy if I drink in the afternoon!)..but next time I stay out there for the night I’m totally gettin down with one of those spiked milkshakes.  Sounds sooo yummy.   The town of Sag Harbor is also just so inviting and lovely.  We walked on the beach, shopped in the little market, peaked our head into some really cute shops…in short, I loved it there.  So, next time you just wanna take a drive and have an all around delightful destination to look forward to, check out Sag Harbor and LT Burger.  Talk to you next week.  In the meantime, drool over the photo of my delicious Veggie Falafel & please Share The Love by re-tweeting this or sharing this on FB!

xoxo

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We had one of those moments the other day when decided there was “nothing” to eat in the house….and I didn’t want to go out again.  We’ve all been there.  But, what I often find is that we actually do have something to eat and we just need to get a little inventive.  We had a little bit of a bunch of things and some new GF pasta noodles.  In general I think if I can find a protein, some veggies and some sort of grain, then I can make it work.  And most often….even when there “nothing” to eat…I do still have all 3 of these in one form or another.  Some lemon zest and a clove of garlic go a long way in this scenario too.  So we had our King Soba, pumpkin, ginger, rice noodles, we had a little bit of broccoli, a little bit of kale, and some cooked lentils.  So, we made this:  and it was actually totally delicious.  So much so that my food snobby husband came home late that night from work and ate every single bit that was left.

Here are the details:

Ingredients:

• King Soba Gluten Free Pumpkin, Ginger & Rice Noodles
• 1 cup of organic broccoli
• 3-4 kale leaves, de-veined & chopped
• 1 cup of cooked lentils
• lemon
• olive oil
• sea salt
• garlic
  

Directions:

Set your oven to 400 degrees.  Spread your broccoli out on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil, sea salt and finely minced garlic.  Roast until golden brown….SUPER DELISH. (FIY…the broccoli cooks faster if you cut your broccoli up into small pieces.)  Add your noodles to boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes.  This King Soba brand that I used cooked very fast, much faster than normal brown rice pasta.  While your broccoli and pasta are cooking, add your chopped kale to a heated pan with some oil, sea salt and garlic.  Cook until fully wilted and maybe even slightly crispy if you like it that way (I do!).  Once your pasta is done, remove and strain and rinse off with cooler water.  Remove broccoli from the oven.  Add your pasta back to the pot it cooked in, drizzle in some olive oil and sea salt, add your lentils, broccoli, kale and top it all with a little bit of lemon.  Plate, serve, enjoy.

Let me know what you come up with next time there’s “nothing” in your house to eat!

        

Hells yeah.  You heard it right.  Peanut butter banana split.  One that you don’t have to feel guilty about eating.  <<WHAT??!!>>

Have I ever told you that sweets are my thang?  I can do savory….but I LOVE sweets.  In our house my husband rocks the dinners and I rock the desserts.  Last night while we were all enjoying our o-so-delicious dessert, he actually had the gall to challenge me to a dessert challenge.  Pffffffft.  Yeah right, like he’d win?  Jolie said she’ll be the judge.  I’ll let you know how that goes (although we all know I’ll win) in the next few weeks.

Anyway….onto the recipe, cuz I know that’s what you really want.

Here’s the super super simple recipe.  It took me all of about 5 minutes to throw these together.  Sorry I don’t have a picture of the end product….but I wasn’t thinking “camera” when they were done….I was thinking “devour as quickly as possible.”  I’m sure you understand.  After you make yours send me over the pictures of your creations and we’ll have a who has the prettiest peanut butter banana split contest!  :)

Ingredients:

Vanilla Coconut Milk Ice Cream (my favorite brand is Coconut Bliss, but theres’s also the one I used last night, the SO Delicious…both are low glycemic and only sweetened with agave nectar)

Cacao Butter (or virgin coconut oil)

Carob Powder (or Cacao Powder…I used Carob because it’s all I had and it tastes very similar to chocolate)

Organic Peanut Butter (creamy with sea salt is best)

Organic Banana

Directions:

Make your chocolate (or in my case carob) sauce.  Take a hunk of your cacao butter and melt it down on low heat.  Once it’s fully melted, transfer it to a ceramic of glass bowl and whisk in carob or cacao powder and agave nectar until you’ve created a semi-thick chocolate sauce.

In a separate bowl, add 2 or 3 scoops of your coconut milk vanilla ice-cream, top that with a generous drizzle of your peanut butter, top that with slices of your banana and then top the whole thing with your chocolate sauce.  Grab a spoon, dig in, enjoy, lick the bowl clean.

Talk to you next week!

xo

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I’ve been dreaming for a while about starting to interview people who I really think rock.

People who are doing big things in the world,

making a difference

and being the change that they want to see.

I just really love connecting with and chatting with people who inspire me!…and I decided to share because I think you’ll feel just as inspired.

So today I wanted to introduce you to a guy who does just that….

I’m really excited to introduce you to my friend and documentary film maker, Phil Buccellato of Greener Media.

Phil and the team at Greener Media have recently wrapped a short film for Farm Sanctuary called “What to Eat.”

Phil was gracious enough to answer a few questions and also share his favorite healthy & delicious recipe!

So…without further ado, here’s our very first Foodies for Health Q & A!

Q.  Can you tell me a little back story on Greener Media, how it all got started and what your mission is?

Greener Media was founded in 2003 and has evolved quite a bit over the years. In 2008 we really began thinking more seriously about creating work and seeking out clients that we truly felt good about. Whether its work we’re producing independently or the work we’re hired to produce we have become focused on telling stories of social and environmental issues.

While in film school, there definitely wasn’t as much clarity about the type of work we wanted to end up producing after we graduated. But slowly there was a gravitation towards producing non-fiction content because of the great potential to use documentary film as a means to educate and inspire action.

Farm Sanctuary came to us because they were launching a campaign about the environmental impacts of factory farming, and they were looking for a creative team to tell that story. After bouncing around some different ideas we finally arrived at what you see now at www.platetoplanet.org. We were tasked with finding a way to connect what we eat with the health of our environment.

Working with Farm Sanctuary has been a great experience. One of the amazing things about what we do is that we get fully immersed in these different worlds from project to project. Food and the environment were already things we had interest in, so the project was a natural fit. This experience also enabled us to work on Farm Sanctuary’s Just Eats Tour – www.justeatstour.org, a campaign celebrating their 25th anniversary that explores vegan America. We did all the artwork on this and created the tour website.

Working for months with a vegan organization definitely affects what you put into your body. And once you start doing the research and looking into how our food system is set up, its hard not to make some changes. While neither of us have gone vegan, we fully support the growing movement, and we’ve definitely become more responsible eaters.

Farm Sanctuary has an incredible amount of supporters, many of them being celebrities and people in the spotlight. Jason is one of those people and he thankfully was very excited to help out and take part in this project.

You can learn more about what we’re doing by going to our website, www.greenermedia.com and by following us on twitter.

Everyone is capable of affecting positive change no matter how daunting things may seem. For us, creating awareness and planting a seed is the most important thing. Hopefully we can make a convincing argument about the importance of working together to create a better world.

A simple favorite.

Roasted Cauliflower & Red Quinoa

Ingredients:

-cauliflower

-red quinoa

-garlic

-chili powder

-paprika

-cilantro

-olive oil

-balsamic glaze

Set oven to 400. Chop cauliflower down to manageable size florets and place in a roasting pan. Drizzle olive oil so it sufficiently coats the cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper. Stir florets so oil coats the bottom of the pan. Cook until cauliflower begins to crisp. Approximately 25 minutes.

Combine 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water in a small pot. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, cooking covered until water is completely absorbed. Approximately 15 minutes. Set aside.

In another similar sized pot bring a few tablespoons of olive oil to medium-high heat. Add chopped garlic, chili powder, and paprika. Cook until garlic becomes soft. Turn off heat and mix oil mixture with the cooked quinoa, stirring thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper as desired.

Remove cauliflower from oven, and introduce into the quinoa mixture. Garnish with chopped cilantro and drizzle each serving with balsamic glaze for some added sweetness. Enjoy.

Talk to you next week!

ml,

Shannon

        

Pizza is a big thing over here at our house.  Isn’t that a favorite of every kid?  I’ve had to do some reinventing over here in order to make it work for little miss Jolie, but I’ve come up with a slammin’ combo that does the trick.

It’s a gluten free, vegan pizza.  I topped half last night with maitake mushrooms because they’re delicious and powerful cleansers.  

Here are the details for you if you want to try it at home:

Ingredients:

Bob’s Redmill Gluten Free Pizza Crust mixture

Organic Tomato Sauce

Daiya Mozzarella (dairy and soy free)

Organic Maitake mushrooms

Lemon

Garlic

Olive Oil

Will need a pizza stone or a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.  Note:  Greasing the pan and putting the dough straight onto it doesn’t work, it sticks!….so use the parchment paper.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Crust:

Bob’s Redmill gluten free pizza dough mixture.  Follow the instructions on the package, then add 1 tsp lemon zest, 2 tsp finely grated garlic.

Egg subsitution for the pizza crust:

2 tbsp flaxseed meal mixed with 6 tbsp water, mix until it becomes a thick paste.  Add this to the mixture as you would the eggs.

Chop up your maitake mushrooms and sauté for a few minutes on medium heat.  Remove from heat and hold on the side for when you’re ready to add toppings.

Cook your dough in the oven on it’s own for about 10 minutes.  Take it out and add your sauce and your, mushrooms and Daiya cheese.  Cook it all in the oven for an additional 18-20 minutes.  Note:  the Daiya cheese tastes better when it’s slightly over cooked…so leave it in a few minutes beyond the point of it melting.

Serve.  Enjoy!