My MM: Lola’s Meatless Monday Menu
Meet the lovely Lola, a Brooklynite with a taste for good sustainable, whole foods. Yes, there’s some tuna in this almost-meatless menu… but we didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Name: Lola
Hometown: Brooklyn
My dietary leanings: almost 100% whole, non-processed foods. Veggie and fruit-heavy with lots of fish, occasional meat and (very good) cheese.
My favorite vegetable: kale (I am SUCH a cliche!)
This morning I ate…
Coffee with hemp milk (my fave non-dairy milk: tastes awesome and has a load of omegas) and a very large green juice. This time it had kale, collard greens, parsley, celery, baby spinach, broccoli, ginger, a lime and a green apple. All organic, of course.
Then for lunch it was…
I don’t like too big of a lunch – they make me sleepy. So I had my usual: raw, soaked almonds (the soaking “wakes them up” and helps get rid of the enzymes that make them bloat-y) and fruit: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, pineapple…
Finally for dinner I had…
My ”Papa Hemingway Tuna Salad”. I was reading The Sun Also Rises a while back and was really taken with the description of Spaniards eating a simple salad of tuna, tomato and onions. It sounded so good and wholesome and it is! I use American, pole-caught tuna (much more sustainable), greenmarket tomatoes, (lots of) vidalia onions, good Spanish EVO and Bragg’s apple sides vinegar. We also had leftover beluga lentils with a dijon, vinegar and garlic dressing that I made over the weekend.
Last, but not least, dessert…
I am too excited because People’s Pops opened a shop in my neighborhood. They make delicious popsicles out seasonal and local fruit. I had the plum cherry and the blueberry apricot.
Thanks Lola! Does anyone else soak their almonds? I’ve never tried this and wondering how it affects taste and texture…
That salad sounds so good!
My only qualm here is with hemp milk in coffee…to me, it tastes like fish oil just floating around in my cup. I don’t know how or why, but I was so repulsed by hemp milk in coffee that I gave it up completely. Nothing like almond milk to me!
No, I never soaked my almonds but the mention of it brought back something I read about soaked walnuts…. It said something about making them really nice and so much better.. I planned on trying but forgot about it;) Will try .
Yep, I soak my nuts! I use the water to make almond milk or almond water for smoothies or hot cereal. It softens them up, but it does take some of the nutrients out.
Nuts should be soaked overnight, and rinsed off in the morning. Just like you do with beans, although beans should soak a bit longer. It makes them easier to digest.
I soak my almonds to make almond milk. As Lola mentions, it’s needed to make them more digestible. The soaking deactivates the enzyme inhibitor that prevents the seed from sprouting before it has what it needs from the environment. So if you have trouble digesting nuts, you can soak (and even sprout) them. As far as eating soaked nuts, they just have more moisture, but are still crunchy. When I’m going to eat whole nuts, I prefer sprouted, but then dried. They are sweeter and have a nice smooth texture compared to unsprouted, plus crunch. I love the raw ones I get at Whole Foods (can’t recall the brand) that are sprouted in orange juice.
Soaking almonds is very common in India. You soak them overnight and eat them with the skin next morning. The reason is that almonds create heat and soaking makes sure their ‘Sirat’ or effect is ‘cool’ on your body, if that makes sense to anyone. I have tried explaining the concept of hot and cold foods (in terms of effect) to people before but they merely stare at me blankly.
The food you eat matters a lot in India because it is so hot!
So we have always heard things like ….Use garlic sparingly, Tea is much better than water because heat kills heat if you are close to passing out from the heat, and Tap water is much better than cold icy water at quenching thirst, and so forth.
@Rebecca, I have a question for you. I recently decided to try your lightening/brightening serum hoping it would fade sun damage on my face and chest…if it does I’m trying it everywhere! Can I add some essential oils to the mix for fragrance?
@Impi Thanks for the wonderful explanation! I think you’re speaking to the right audience here. :)
@ Impi, just as Alexandra mentioned.. You have an audience here.
Keep your comments ( and knowledge) coming, please.
Really? We have a “Meatless Monday” menu with tuna on it? Come on.
I definitely try to soak my nuts before using them because this helps to neutralize their phytic acid, which can inhibit absorption of nutrients. I’m lucky because I have a dehydrator at home and so I can dry them and make them crispy again after they’ve been soaked. Do I do this every single time I want to use nuts? Nope. But I try to remember to do it ahead of time when I bring them home from the store.
@Jennifer, I think you could probably add EOs. Maybe avoid photosensitizing oils like citrus (I think), and use oils that are supposed to be good for skin, like lavender or helichrysum. Good luck with the DIY, I hope it works as well for you as it does for me!
I love your blog and all I learn here but Meatless Monday should be well, duh meatless. Please be true to the movement and your own integrity if you proceed with this.
I get the not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but I do agree with the others commenting on this being inappropriate for a Meatless Monday post. This menu sounds great, but if these posts are about Meatless, and not just about delicious healthy food, then it ought to be meatless. To me that means nothing you have to kill the animal to eat. I think it’s appropriate to do vegetarian, and not necessarily vegan, for these posts. To me, the point of Meatless Monday is to show other people how to eat great without the ethical and environmental conundrums they may feel from eating animals every day. I do think it’s valid/useful to do posts on delicious, healthy meals, regardless of meat. I just think Meatless Monday should be what it sounds like.
Hey guys, message heard and in retrospect I completely agree. I guess I just got excited about the soaked almonds :)
In defense of the post: nous ne sommes pas parfaits, but holy crap do we try. Thanks for weighing in everyone. I, too, am excited about almonds.
Let us take a moment of silence for the tuna who stopped swimming the Mother Goddess’ waters so that this selfish post could be written
For shame