Indoor Herbs & Vegan Skillet

My husband has an awesome sense of humor, he created a “ribbon cutting” for my site’s new look while I was in the gym yesterday. Hilarious, right? Actually it was a sweet, funny surprise.

He also picked up a fun gift that was on clearance at Target – two Smith & Hawken indoor herb growing kits for about $7 each. They included pots, little dirt pods, a mini glass house and seeds for cilantro, basil and parsley.

The little boxes fit nicely on a window sill and hopefully great for indoor fresh herbs in our frigid winter weather. Or an apartment and office. I’m especially looking forward to fresh basil because the dry stuff just doesn’t cut it and I can never get the cut, store bought fresh stuff to last more than a few days.

For a fast lunch yesterday, I created wraps using broccoli hummus leftovers, collard greens, jicama, red cabbage, carrots and sprouts. But, as usual, I over-stuffed them to the point that they’d barely closed!

More like collard green tacos, but still easy to pick up and eat. The hummus goes well in wraps adding a nice, mild flavor and complementing texture to the crunchy, raw veggies. But just about any savory sauce could be used, hemp nacho sauce, raw dressings, etc. Like traditional wraps, there are tons of possibilities. These wraps would be an easy throw-together for office lunches, collard greens are tough enough to hold the load without tearing, much tougher than tissue-paper thin nori wraps and cheaper.

For dinner last night, I did a test run on a new product I grabbed at Whole Foods, Yves Meatless Ground Turkey, a vegan meat alternative product.

Typically I avoid fake meat products, but the ingredient list wasn’t too scary and I was thinking it could be a product my non-vegan hubby and I could enjoy together on quick meal nights. I grabbed more romanesco broccoli, cilantro, tomatoes and Pasta Slim noodles to make a skillet dish seasoned with chili powder, garlic and cayenne for a little flair.

And topped with Daiya Cheddar Shreds for serving.

The Yves “turkey” was simple and quick to cook in a skillet, just open and crumble the product over a heated olive oil drizzle. I couldn’t tell you how much it tasted like ground turkey because it’s been that long since I’ve had ground turkey, but the texture sure seemed close and it was easier to cook requiring less time. It also has a good shelf life, it can be stored in the fridge for up to a month, so no freezing and defrosting complications. The flavor was very nice, like a mildly seasoned and peppered firm bean curd that could be used in a variety of recipes. During the cooking process, it did break down in to small crumbles which were a little messy, but a ground meat product would do the same thing. I could see using it vegan tacos, quesadillas, casseroles – a lot of possibilities. I would buy this again and think it’s a good product for anyone transitioning into a vegan or high-vegan diet.

Since we still had a little sparkling wine left from New Year’s, I poured it over a glass full of frozen grapes for dessert and eating the wine saturated grapes is a treat – yum!