Bryn’s Cookin’ Greens Summer Blog Series:
How I find Inspiration from the Grocery Store Salad Bar
We all have that moment where we look into our fridge and have NO idea what food to prepare at our next meal. We seem to re-make our comfort recipes over and over again, but the change of season begs for some variety and so do our taste buds!
Bryn shares where she likes to get her cooking inspiration from and how easy it is to adapt these ideas into home-made meals.
Hi Cookin’ Greens Fans!
Let me give you one of my recipe creation secrets:
Every time I go into a grocery store, I make a b-line for the salad bar and peruse the rows upon rows of multi-coloured bowls filled with all of my favourite vegetables and grains. I always take pictures of the ingredient lists of the most drool-worthy dishes and go home to try to recreate the recipes for myself, with my own additions and subtractions.
My most recent success with this technique was with lentil cakes I had at a grocery store in Ottawa while out to lunch with my grandmother. They were amazing at the store, but I knew that I could make them even healthier by adding greens – either Cookin’ Greens chopped spinach or kale. I love using the Cookin’ Greens products because all I have to do is microwave them and they’re good to go! I also decided to swap out the lentils for my favourite legume: chickpeas. The other major change I made was excluding the puffed quinoa that the ingredient list said was used.
The first time I experiment with the recipe, I attempted to puff quinoa according to instructions I found online — and it resulted in a pile of black ash at the bottom of my pan and a smoky kitchen. But by adjusting the proportions of other ingredients, it turned out I didn’t need puffed quinoa. That’s what I love about cooking – it’s super easy to make adjustments with the proportions of the other ingredients without ruining the final product. (I wouldn’t recommend such freestyling in baking, though – the chemistry has to be too precise.)
I also loved that I could just throw all of the ingredients into the food processor, form the blended ingredients into small lumps and put them in the oven.
These cakes taste great by themselves (straight from oven to mouth is how most of them went), with hummus as a snack, on a salad, or as a side dish.
They are so easy to make and super healthy, so give them a try!
Cookin’ Greens Kale & Chickpea Cakes:
Makes 6 small cakes
Chickpea Cake Ingredients
- ¾ cup of chickpeas
- ½ cup of Cookin’ Greens Chopped Kale or Spinach (or ¼ cup of each), cooked according to package instructions
- 1/3 cup of cilantro
- ¼ cup of red onion
- ½ large garlic clove (or 1 whole small clove)
- 1 tbsp of almond butter
- 1 tbsp of coconut milk
- 5 tsp plain breadcrumbs
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F
- Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend until well combined
- Form 6 equally sized cakes (1/2 inch height)
- Bake for 30-35 minutes
- Let cool and set for at least 15 minutes before serving
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Summer 2015 is here! This summer we are so excited to have student, vegan blogger, Bryn Ferguson join us for some cooking inspiration with Cookin’ Greens. Frozen vegetables in the summer? You bet and we can’t wait to show you how!
We hope you read along as she shares her foodie experiences, tips & tricks, recipes and photos across her 8 featured blog posts.
Twitter handle: @brynferguson3
Instagram: @veganfoodadventure
