Even though it’s the dead of winter and all I want to do is crawl under the blankets with some hot cocoa and a chocolate bar, I’ve been making an extra effort to increase my veggie intake. The more veggies I eat, the more chocolate I can have, after all. It’s simple math. Some days it’s easy to forget how great I feel when I’m fueling my body with a rainbow of plants; they keep me sane during the cold, dreary days of winter. Food has this amazing power to influence my mood (much like exercise) and I often tell myself that feeling better is only a meal (or workout) away. It really is true! So keep this in mind if you are feeling the effects of a long winter like I am. Healthy eating begins with the very next meal…
I go through vegetable phases all the time. Right, now I’m hooked on cauliflower (enough to turn it into creamy alfredo which you seem to be enjoying a lot!), cabbage (via sauerkraut…lol), and sweet potatoes. Always sweet potatoes. This tasty lunch is something I threw together recently and I loved the combo so much I decided to share with you. The main event is an energizing black bean and sweet potato quinoa salad. The only thing I missed was a sliced avocado (I opened it up and it was all bruised…sigh), so if you have some around definitely throw it in.
In addition to the salad, I added roasted sweet potato rounds (because you can never have too much sweet potato on a cold winter day), roasted cauliflower, hemp hearts. and a big ‘ol scoop of hummus for good measure. Since I already had the salad made in advance, all I had to do was throw the veggies into the oven to roast while I tended to other things. It came together quite fast! Three cheers for leftovers.
This isn’t so much an exact recipe I’m sharing today, but more of a show and tell to hopefully inspire you to create your own. I lightly adapted one of my favourite quinoa salads from last year (see link below), and then added in other things to create a filling and feel-good lunch bowl! Oh by the way, as my sister discovered last weekend, this quinoa salad is also fantastic in a wrap with hummus and other veggies. A very good idea, I’d say!
For the bowl:
– Black Bean & Quinoa Salad (I made it with roasted sweet potato instead of carrots – loved this variation so much!)
– 1-2 cups chopped roasted cauliflower
– 1 sweet potato, sliced into rounds and roasted
– hummus, as needed to get your daily quota (the salad is so good mixed with some hummus, FYI)
– hemp hearts, for garnish (adds more protein and healthy fats…and let’s not forget edible confetti)
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So there you have it. A mood-booster-in-a-bowl.
Is it spring yet?
I can not wait to try this!!
This is a great way to help one eat more baggies during the winter. I know I have to make an effort to do that, and salad just doesn’t float my boat unless it has a grounding aspect to ti, which this does! Thanks!
Oh Yum!! My kind of lunch or dinner!! ;)
xoxo ella
i LOVE YOUR RECIPES. Keep up the good work.
I LOVE your bowls!!! I look forward to seeing more updates!!!
p.s. I totally understand that exercise helps mood – it raises your endorphins!
I was wondering where you got your twig cutlery from
they are so pretty
Hi Kate, It’s from West Elm :)
thanks so much…for the recipes to I am actually making it right now
my daughter and I love it sooooo yummy!!
This looks so good, and so filling. Yum!
brightsidefilms.com/
This looks amazing! So healthy yet it looks incredibly delicious! I will have to make this for my family! I also make vegan recipes if you’d ever like to check out my website. XOXO
Hi! First, I want to say this looks AMAZING. This blog inspired me to go vegan and learn how to cook. I am a teenager so my parents were really against me going vegan at first, but I learned how to cook so my mom wouldn’t have to make extra meals for me, and now I cook and bake for them all the time. If it weren’t for OhSheGlows I would probably have given up. So thanks Angela! :)
I also have a question… I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask but maybe someone could direct me to a better place? I eat a lot of really healthy food like this – whole grains, legumes, fruit and veggies, nuts and seeds – and I exercise daily. I don’t eat huge meals that make me over-full. Despite this, I get severe stomach aches and bloating at least one day almost every week. I was wondering if this was something that all vegans experience because we eat such high-fiber foods? Or maybe we are deficient in healthy bacteria that other people get from yogurt? (I know someone is going to mention gluten but I don’t eat many things with gluten anyway and I don’t think that’s the problem.)
Sorry for posting this here but everyone seems so friendly and I don’t know where else to ask. Thanks!
I started taking a probiotic a while ago and it’s helped a lot with digestion! I also eat lots of fermented foods (like sauerkraut) several times per week as those have healthy gut bacteria too. Just a couple ideas you might want to try. :)
Thanks for the advice. Where do you get your probiotics from?
We think I might have a nut intolerance but we’re approaching this cautiously because a vegan diet is already relatively limited when it comes to protein and right now I think I get half of my calories from peanut butter :)
Wasn’t I supposed to do something with my receipt for my pre-order? I read it in the newsletter, but I’m so efficient that I deleted it after reading it to keep my inbox clean. Now I have my pre-order receipt (ordered 2 copies!) and can’t remember what the offer was.
This looks like a big ol’ bowl of greatness. What a wonderfully balanced meal!
Great recipe! By the way, what do you have under your iPhone? Is it a binder, a coaster? It looks so beautiful, where did you get it? : )
Thank you, it’s a notebook from Indigo :)
I could eat a different “bowl” like this every single day without getting tired. They’re just so filling, energizing, and delicious! It really shows you how good fresh and simple food can taste and make you feel.
Thank you so much for this amazing looking recipe! I love healthy recipes and I will look forward to trying it out and sharing it with my followers at TianaGustafson.com. As Arnold says “I’ll be back” :) Thanks again!
This looks delicious!!!
I am in LOVE with roasted veggies! I know what I’m having for lunch today;)
I recently discovered the amazing combination of sweet potatoes with tangerines. It would make a great addition to this bowl. (Also try tangerines with avocado – in tacos, burritos or bowls with beans, greens and peppers – sprinkled with cumin, coriander and ground ginger – yummmmy!)
The feel good lunch bowl turned into a fabulous dinner. This was absolutely deelicious!!! I added cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. SO yummy…will make this ALL the time. Thank you :)
What do you mean, “enough hummus to meet your daily quota”? I should be eating hummus everyday? Please embellish.
Much Love,
Beginner among beginners,
Toni
haha nope, that was just a joke! ;)
We just had this for dinner a few days ago and it was so good. We had roasted curry cauliflower on the side as well as the sweet potato rounds. We ended up with a giant sweet potato to go in the salad and added chickpeas to go with the black beans. It was very tasty, but the added material meant it could’ve used more dressing. I think I would put the dressing on when eating it, I found that the dressing (which was really good) kind of disappeared after the salad had sat in the fridge for a day.