Meals on the Road: Pressure Cooker Quinoa Buddha Bowl

For tonight's dinner, I wanted to make something fast, simple, colorful, and filling. I settled on a Buddha bowl - a bowl full of colorful grains and greens of various textures and flavors. In this case, the primary grain is quinoa; it's accompanied by sides of broccoli, tomatoes, and mini sweet potatoes. We made it using a combination of our Instant Pot IP-LUX50 6-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cooker and the microwave.

Ingredients needed (serves 2-4 people):

*1.5 cups dry quinoa (I used the tri-color quinoa from Trader Joe's)

*1 large carrot, chopped into small pieces

*1 cup chopped spinach

*1/4 cup chopped mushrooms

*2 cloves garlic, chopped

*2.5 cups water

*1.5 cups broccoli florets

*Handful of grape tomatoes

*Six small sweet potatoes (TJs sells bags of mini ones that cook fast in the microwave)

Cooking Instructions:

1. Pour dry quinoa into your Instant Pot bowl.

2. To the same bowl, add the chopped carrots, mushrooms, spinach, and garlic. Season with 1-2 tsp seasoning (I like TJs Everyday Seasoning). Add the water.

3. Close the lid, press "Manual" button, set the time to 5 minutes, and make sure the valve is closed.

Note: I used 2.5 cups of water instead of 3 cups (for the typical 1:2 quinoa to water ratio) because the veggies themselves contain a lot of water.

4. While the quinoa is cooking, place the sweet potatoes in the microwave (yes, we use the microwave a lot in the RV). I microwaved all of these together on high for 5-6 minutes and they were good to go, but it depends on the size of the potatoes you use and the specs of your microwave oven. Be sure to pierce each potato 2-3 times before microwaving.

5. Place the broccoli and tomatoes in a microwave-safe bowl. Add a sprinkling of seasoning and 1 inch of water. Cover. Microwave on high for 3.5 - 4 minutes.

6. Now assemble your Buddha bowls, like so (or not like so... You can arrange however you like.)

7. Season with hot sauce or other dressing of your choice and enjoy.

Meals on the Road: RV Oatmeal

A really kind person on Instagram (yes, we have an Instagram account! Follow us!) asked me if I would post recipes for some of the vegan/plant-based meals that I prepare. I thought I'd start with one of my current breakfast staples: RV oatmeal! It's sweet. It's tasty. It will keep you full until - if you are anything like me - second breakfast rolls around.

Keep in mind that all of these recipes are meant to be super simple, mostly unprocessed, and easy to make on the road. Many of them rely on, yes, the microwave. I like tasty, healthy, pretty food... but I'm not very good at preparing complicated meals. You'll have to look elsewhere for those. ;-) 

Ingredients required for 1 serving of RV oatmeal:

-1/2 cup old-fashioned oatmeal (not the quick-cooking kind)

-1/2 cup milk of your choice - I recommend almond or soy milk

-1/4 cup water

-Fruit of your choice! I like to select 2-3 types of whatever is in season; I usually include a banana.

-2 tbsp nuts or seeds of your choice

-Sweetener of your choice: drizzle of honey or agave or a sprinkle of sugar

Instructions:

1. In a microwave-safe glass container, stir together the oatmeal, milk, and water.

2. Place the container in the microwave and heat on high for 2 1/2 minutes. Keep an eye on it and stop the microwave if the mixture threatens to spill over.

3. Take the oatmeal out of the microwave and let it sit for a couple of minutes. This will allow it to thicken a bit. Then pour it into a bowl.

4. Top with cut fruit, seeds, and a small bit of sweetener (if you have ripe fruit in season, you won't need much additional sweetener).

5. Enjoy while admiring the view!

RV Vegan?

Yes we are! 😜

Get it? 

It was a joke. A bad one. I blame the influence of Trent's side of the family. They have the best bad jokes ever.

Anyway, in a previous post I mentioned that we've adopted a vegan lifestyle. A "plant-based" lifestyle is a more accurate way to describe it, as a) we are currently using honey, b) I'm guessing we have some leather somewhere amongst our belongings, and c) our child is still eating some meat and cheese.

Back in the day - before we moved to the middle of nowhere in Montana and before we had Sam - Trent and I were vegetarians. If I recall correctly, Trent's reasons were primarily ethical, whereas my reasons were... Trent. He identified as vegetarian and so I wanted to do the same. The truth was, I could watch those horrible videos of animals being hurt and tortured and still think, "Hmm, if I weren't vegetarian, I could totally go for a hamburger."

In Montana we went back to eating meat. Finding fresh veggies and fruits in our tiny town was difficult, whereas finding fresh meat was easy. Everyone hunted. Everyone grilled. The meat was usually top quality. It smelled good. I got pregnant and hot dogs tasted divine (whereas vegetables were nausea-inducing). 

So for the past nine years, we've been omnivores, and to be quite honest, we didn't give a lot of thought to it. Sometimes we purchased grass-fed beef; sometimes we purchased whatever was on sale at Kroger. Sometimes we bought organic eggs; sometimes we didn't. It really varied. We ate a fairly healthy diet and had a "We're doing our best" mentality.

So what changed?

People usually adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for one of three reasons: ethics (by questioning whether we have a right to raise and kill other animals for food), health (because plant based diets have been shown time and time again to be much healthier than meat based diets), or environment. For me, it was the environmental considerations that did it.

During the winter term that started in January of this year, I taught an Environmental Geology class. For every course I facilitate, I try to identify one or two themes that connect key concepts throughout the semester. This time the theme focused on individual actions: what can one person do to help cultivate a healthier planet?

I had my students use the Ecological Footprint Calculator to determine the number of Earths needed to support their habits and lifestyles as well as the tones of CO2 they produced each year. Most of them ended up with 4-5 planet earths and somewhere between 16 and 22 tones of CO2. 

Then we talked about what we could do to narrow the footprint.

Honestly, I thought I knew the answer already. I talked about reducing electricity use, conserving water, recycling, and walking or biking versus driving. I talked about the role that technology has started to play in conserving resources - the development of Energy Star appliances, for example. 

But when I sat down to put numbers to those calculations, I discovered that for kids living in rural mid-America, who don't travel that much and aren't driving enormous distances to work and school, whose water usage is a literal drop in the bucket compared to what's used for agriculture, none of those things made much of a dent. Even if my students were to make massive changes in these areas, their footprints would decrease by only a small percentage. Not to say that the efforts wouldn't be worthwhile... But I felt discouraged. I didn't want them to finish the class feeling hopeless about the future of the planet. 

Then I stumbled upon some articles about vegetarianism and veganism, and in reading them, I found out that adopting a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways for an individual to ease up on the Earth. So much of our land is used to grow crops for animal agriculture, so much forest is cleared for said animal agriculture, and so much pollution is produced as a result of animal agriculture that I felt like I, especially as an earth scientist who loves and appreciates the earth and its resources and history, had the responsibility to change my own habits.

 

So on Earth day, we did. We officially went plant based (or plant powered, as I like to put it!) Trent has decided to eat vegan at home but will eat whatever strikes his tastebuds when we are out. As for Sam, he's never eaten a whole lot of meat, but he definitely likes cheese and yogurt. He's nine. He's old enough to make his own decisions about what he will and will not eat, and I don't want to force any ideas on him, especially because I don't want him to develop any issues around food. We will set an example and he can follow suit when and if he is ready.

Cooking vegan meals in the RV has been pretty easy so far. Breakfast is usually cereal, fruit, oatmeal, and/or smoothies. For lunch, we have sandwiches, veggies, hummus and carrots, wraps, or leftovers. Dinner has included spicy baked tofu, beans and rice with fixings (avocado, peppers, etc.), roasted eggplant and peppers, stews, veggie burgers, big salads, and stir fry. It's nice not having to worry about making room for and storing meat in our tiny fridge.

I feel really passionate about this issue, so I'll probably write about it periodically. I don't want to be annoying or fanatical. That said, if this issue is of any interest to you, I encourage you to watch the documentary Cowspiracy. It's currently available on Netflix and does a great job of presenting the facts.