Eat your veggies

Amazing Vegan Ranch Dressing

2012-02-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

It's a stock photo, but this is what mine looked like. See salad below.

I was inspired to find a way to veganize ranch dressing for the super bowl party with my vegan buffalo chicken wings. I made this and it was amazing, and then I forgot it when we left for Lisa and Brent's house. Alas, we didn't have it for the celery sticks and buffalo wings at the super bowl party, but Will and I used it for salads the rest of the week! This stuff is seriously so good, I was practically eating it with a spoon.

Here's what I did:

3/4 cup Vegenaise
2 tablespoons rice milk
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Blend everything together and promptly dip your carrots and celery into it! Warning: it's a little runny, so I added soft tofu until it thickened up a bit.

Here's a picture of a salad with my amazing vegan ranch dressing:

French Onion Soup

2012-02-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

I love, love, love soup. I would eat soup every day if there only weren't hundreds of other foods I want to keep trying. The other night I referred to a cookbook I've had for years and years, but have never actually ever cooked anything from it. It was one of those bargain books at Barnes and Noble, and I think I bought it when I lived in Utah -- NINE years ago. It's about time I checked it out.

One of the first recipes I turned to in this book was the Classic French Onion Soup. I used to love French Onion Soup, but at restaurants it's most likely always going to be made with chicken or beef broth. This recipe actually called for vegetable broth, but I went one step further and found a vegan beef broth instead! YUM!

I also added three garlic cloves to give it a little extra kick. Here is the official recipe, adapted from the Vegetarian Cookbook by Linda Fraser.

Ingredients:
3 large onions (I used one white, one yellow, and one red)
2 tablespoons safflower oil
2 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan butter spread
3 3/4 cups No Beef Base (see above)
Salt and pepper to taste
French bread

Directions:
Slice the onions into small slices and chunks.

Heat the oil and buttery spread in a deep saucepan.

Saute the onions on high heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly

Reduce the heat and cook the onions for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally at first, but as they begin to soften and turn darker, stir more often. They should be a dark golden color when they're ready to add to the soup.

Meanwhile, in a large soup pot, prepare the No Beef Base and water.

When the onions are ready, add them to the "beef' broth and add a little salt and pepper. Simmer for around thirty minutes.

Toast or grill the French bread and eat with the soup when ready!

This soup is so good you'll never be able to eat the stuff at restaurants again. Will and I polished off the entire pot and licked the bowls clean.

Super bowl Sunday

2012-02-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

I know this is a little late, but it was a busy week! You know, I watched a lot of movies and stuff... No, but seriously it was a super exhausting week and all I really felt like doing when I got home was watch movies. Therefore -- not much writing.

Anyway, this is what I made (or prepared from a package) for the Super bowl party we went to last Sunday:

Spinach/artichoke dip

(See recipe below)

(Gardein) Buffalo chicken wings and (Gardein) Chipotle lime crispy chicken tenders

(When one meat-eating boy came back from a snack run to the kitchen he proclaimed, "Who's been holding out on that fake meat stuff?! It's really good!" Thankyouverymuch.)

Israeli Cous Cous Salad

And Lisa provided this super yummy vegan dip from Whole Foods!

Michele's Vegan Super Bowl Spinach-Artichoke Dip
This is what I did, but these kind of things are all about throwing stuff together and making it "to taste."

10 baby artichokes, steamed, peeled, hearts extracted chopped into small pieces
1 bag fresh spinach, chopped and steamed
1/2 cup Tofutti Sour Cream
1/2 cup Tofutti Cream Cheese
1 tablespoon Vegenaise
1/2 teaspoon nutritional yeast flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Daiya cheese shreds to sprinkle on top (optional)

Mix everything together well, except the Daiya cheese. Put the dip into an oven-safe dish, sprinkle the cheese on top and bake in oven for about 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Serve with French bread or chips! Delicious! The guys were too busy eating their real chicken wings (puh-lease) to thoroughly enjoy the amazingness of this vegan dip, but I'm sure deep down inside they loved it. As for the us girls, well, the more for us!

It was a good meal and a good game.

Creamy Polenta and Mushroom Ragout

2012-02-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

The other day a friend called for ideas on making a veggie meal for a guest who was vegan. After I told her about an easy dinner to make which includes polenta and roasted vegetables, I realized that it sounded really good and I was craving this favorite meal again!

You can't actually see the polenta in this picture, but what I ended up making was creamy polenta with a mushroom ragout and roasted brussel sprouts and onions.

It was delicious! Here's what I did.

(Recipe adapted from epicurious.com)

For the polenta:

2 cups water
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Boil the water first. When it is boiling, whisk in the cornmeal and turn heat to low. Add salt and pepper, stir to mix well, and cover with a lid for 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat.

For the mushroom ragout:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon safflower oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 cups mushrooms, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 roma tomatoes, halved, seeded, and chopped (about 1 1/4 cups)
1 cup canned corn
1/2 cup vegan chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Heat the oil and butter in a large pan. Add the onions and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until they start to exude their juices and become soft. Finally, add the rest of the ingredients, except for the chives, and cook on medium heat for ten minutes. If the mixture is too watery, boil until most of the liquid is reduced.

To serve, heap a generous serving of the polenta on your plate, cover it with the ragout and add the roasted veggies (in this case it was brussel sprouts) on the side. Sprinkle the chives over everything.

Sit back and enjoy!

Korean Food

2012-01-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend with G in Grover Beach because both of our husbands were out of town and we thought it would be fun to catch up and have a girl's weekend. One thing we love to do when we are together is eat! I especially like to request that G makes me Korean food because she is such a good cook and her food is so amazing!

This is what she made this time:

I forget what this meal is called, but it consists of buckwheat noodles and lots of fresh veggies with a special soy sauce marinade.

SOOO good.

Rosa's Pismo Beach

2012-01-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm spending the weekend with G in Pismo Beach and we went to Rosa's last night for yummy Italian food. They had a lot of veggie options on the menu, but I chose the Summer Pasta without chicken. It had mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil in it and it came out to the table steaming hot -- just how I like it!

I was very pleased with my meal it and I would recommend this restaurant to anyone interested in authentic Italian cuisine.

Italian Night

2012-01-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight was pasta night and I didn't make it! I was so pleased to come home to a house smelling of garlic and spices and to see my husband whipping up an Italian feast in the kitchen!

He loves bringing out his Italian roots and making a good pasta dinner for us, and I am more than happy to oblige.

Tonight he made tomato sauce from scratch and we poured generous servings of it over corn spaghetti from Trader Joe's. It had big chunks of tomato, onion and garlic in it, as well as fresh basil, thyme and oregano. These are just the things I could pick out, because he won't share is secret recipe. :)

This stuff is amazing an gluten-free. I think it tastes just like regular pasta, if not better. I like it better than rice pasta because it doesn't get mushy.

He also made fresh garlic bread by slicing a loaf of French bread, spreading it with Earth Balance and slices of fresh garlic! How yummy and delicious! I love when The Husband makes Italian food! He is amazing!

The "I'm-just-too-tired-to-cook" Week

2012-01-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

It was one of those weeks where I was so busy and so tired at night that I just really didn't want to cook. The first half of the week looked like this:

Monday: Leftover Pink Beans and Rice
Tuesday: Chinese Food take-out
Wednesday: Bowling Alley food (which means a packed salad and veggies for me)

For lunches:
Annie Chun's soups or Dr. Mcdougall's soups. These are the best microwavable soup cups EVER.

And that's that. I hope I can cook something more exciting next week.

Game Day Food

2012-01-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Although I've never lived in San Francisco, I was a huge San Francisco 49ers fan growing up. I had a 49ers jacket, a 49ers blanket, and even posters of Steve Young and Jerry Rice on my bedroom wall. Let's not forget the red and gold bands on my braces.

As childhood phases go, I grew up, went away to boarding school and forgot all about my football-loving days. However, I have always held a fondness in my heart for my childhood team and am super excited to see them in the championship this year!

I haven't watched a football game all season, but today I made a smorgasbord feast and settled in with The Husband to see if my old team will make it to the Superbowl for the first time in eighteen years.

It is half-time as we speak so I can take a few minutes to show some of the vegan items on the game-day menu:

Pretzel Crisps with dijon mustard

Chips and salsa and spicy hummus

Guacamole, freshly homemade!

Green olives

And the main entree:
Pink Beans and Rice

The recipe is straight from the back of the can! I always see those recipes on packaged goods, but always wonder who actually follows them. You know, I usually already have a recipe in mind when I buy a product, but this time, I actually bought the can of beans BECAUSE of the recipe on it! Ha!

Here it is! It was quite delicious and game-worthy.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. Olive oil
1/2 cup ham, chopped (I used vegan ham)
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/4 cup green pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup canned tomato sauce
1/4 tsp. oregano
3/4 cup water
1 can Goya Pink Beans, undrained
1 packet Sazon Goya con Culantro y Achiote
(I'm not sure exactly what that last ingredient is, but I actually a packet of it in my pantry!)

Directions:
Heat oild in large skillet over medium heat. Add vegan ham, onions, pepper and garlic; cook for 10 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Serve over hot white rice. Serves 4.

Baked Potatoes, finally!

2012-01-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

If you remember this post about baked potatoes, we've never seemed to have luck with this seemingly simple dinner.

The other night, we finally did it. I texted W right before leaving work so he could put the spuds in the over and have plenty of time for them to bake. Apparently it takes an hour and twenty minutes at 400 in our oven.

Meanwhile, I sauteed some mushrooms and onions, and we topped everything with imitation bacon bits. (Technically Baco's are vegan, although maybe not the healthiest thing in the world...) I made a salad with my secret lemony dressing and it was a filling, yummy dinner.

Chili

2012-01-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

I think this might be the best chili I've ever made, and my husband said the key is to let it sit for twenty-four hours. Because that's exactly what I did and it was amazing.

I made this chili yesterday. As in, ALL DAY yesterday. First you have to soak and drain the beans, and then simmer the beans, and then add all the ingredients and cook it for two hours. And then let it sit overnight. I'm not joking when I say it's an all day project.

It was well worth it.

Here's the original recipe from Oh She Glows:

The only thing I did differently was not add the last six ingredients (just because I didn't have them.)
And I didn't make the cornbread.

Other than that, it turned out great. This is a great recipe!

Yield: 5 cups
Ingredients:

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 sweet onion, peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (optional)
2.5 tbsp chili powder, or to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or crushed red pepper flakes)
1/2 cup dry/uncooked black eyed peas
3/4 cup dry/uncooked black beans
6 cups vegetable broth
1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes, liquid drained
2 tbsp tomato paste, to thicken
1 tbsp chia seeds (or ground flax), to thicken
1 cup frozen corn
2 tbsp your fav BBQ sauce
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
couple handfuls of chopped spinach, or other greens like collard, kale, etc

1. Soak the beans in water overnight or for at least 3-4 hours. This part is optional, but it helps reduce cook time and makes the beans more digestible. Rinse and drain beans before using. In a large pot, add the oil and sauté the onion and garlic over medium-low heat for about 5-6 minutes, until translucent.
2. Add in the pepper and optional jalapeno and sauté for another 3-5 minutes.
3. Stir in the spices (chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne) and sauté on low another couple minutes. If you want, you can add just a bit for now and then add the rest to taste after it has cooked.
4. Add the dry black beans and black eyed peas, broth, and drained diced tomatoes. Stir well. Now stir in the tomato paste. Simmer on low with the lid ajar for about 2.5 hours, checking often to make sure it doesn’t dry out. If it does, add a bit more broth to thin out.
5. About 15 minutes before it’s done cooking, stir in the chia seeds, corn, and chopped greens. The chia helps thicken the chili. Also stir in the BBQ sauce, starting with 1 tbsp at a time and tasting as you go. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Can be made 2-3 days in advance and frozen if preferred.
Note: You can probably use canned beans, but you won’t need as much broth. I would add it slowly.

This is what happens when it's a long weekend:

2012-01-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

I get to cook a lot and make a mess out of the kitchen.

This was after breakfast by the way.

BBQ Chicken-less Pizza

2012-01-16T15:10:00.000-08:00

This is super easy to make, and extremely delicious.

I used the pre-made pizza dough and chicken-less strips from Trader Joes and my husband's favorite barbecue sauce -- Sweet Baby Ray's.

Other ingredients:
1/4 red onion, cut into thin slivers
1 tsp garlic powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/8 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup Daiya mozzarella cheese (optional)

Roll out the dough according to the package.

On top of the dough spread the olive oil, garlic and tomato paste.

In a large bowl, mix enough bbq sauce to thickly coat the chicken-less strips. Add the onions and garlic powder and mix well.

Spread the BBQ chicken-less strip mixture on top of the dough. You can leave it like this or sprinkle the Daiya mozzarella cheese on it like I did. I'm sure it would be good either way.

Bake at 450 for 18-20 minutes.

This thing was pretty big -- about the size of a large at a pizza restaurant -- and let me just say that by the time I ate the slice pictured below, my husband had completely devoured an entire half of the pizza.

Barley Risotto and Roasted Potatoes

2012-01-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

Here's another one from Angela over at ohsheglows.com. She adapted it from vegan yum yum, which is another one of my all time favorite vegan cookbooks/website.

This recipe is amazing because -- 1. I love barley and am always looking for recipes in which I can use it, and -- 2. I also love risotto and anything with tomatoes in it, so I was destined to make this.

Here it is:

"Yield: ~2 cups
Ingredients:

1 cup dry pot barley
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 large garlic clove, minced
1.5 cups canned pureed/diced tomatoes (15 oz can)
1 cup almond milk (or other milk)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (provides the cheesy/creamy taste)
1/2 tbsp Miso, mixed with 1/2 tbsp water
1/4-1/2 tsp kosher salt, to taste

Directions: Rinse pot barley in a strainer and place into medium sized pot that has a lid. Add olive oil, basil, and oregano and stir well until barley is coated with oil. Turn heat to medium until barley begins to sizzle.
Once the barley sizzles, add in the minced garlic and reduce heat to low-medium. Cook for 1 minute and then add in the tomatoes, milk, water, nutritional yeast, miso, and salt. Stir well and bring to a gentle boil and then cover and reduce heat to low.
Cook, covered (with a bit of air escaping) for 30-35 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, being careful not to burn the barley on the bottom of the pot.
The mixture should be creamy, but not soupy, and the barley will be very chewy and not mushy. Serve immediately. Serves 4 side dishes and makes 2 cups worth."

Notes:

I added 1/4 cup of okra to the tomatoes, pureed it and it came out to only 1 cup.

The milk I used was rice milk.

I only used 1/8 cup nutritional yeast.

Also I roasted some potatoes with whole cloves of garlic and chunks of onion. Yum.

Creamy Avocado Pasta

2012-01-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

I came across a fun vegan blog the other day called www.ohsheglows.com

The author is Angela, and she shares delightful stories of her life and some amazing vegan recipes. So far I've tried two of them, the first one being this Creamy Avocado Pasta. Any time I see a way to change up a pasta dish, I'm eager to try it out.

Here it is:

Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients:

1 medium sized ripe Avocado, pitted
1/2 lemon, juiced + lemon zest to garnish
2-3 garlic cloves, to taste (I used 3 and it was quite garlicky, but if you are not a big fan of garlic use 1 clove)
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
~1/4 cup Fresh Basil, (probably optional)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 servings/6 oz of your choice of pasta (I used 3oz of spelt and 3 oz of Kamut spaghetti)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
1. Bring several cups of water to a boil in a medium sized pot. Add in your pasta, reduce heat to medium, and cook until Al Dente, about 8-10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the sauce by placing the garlic cloves, lemon juice, and olive oil into a food processor. Process until smooth. Now add in the pitted avocado, basil, and salt. Process until smooth and creamy.
3. When pasta is done cooking, drain and rinse in a strainer and place pasta into a large bowl. Pour on sauce and toss until fully combined. Garnish with lemon zest and black pepper. Serve immediately. Makes 2 servings.
Please note: This dish does not reheat well due to the avocado in the sauce. Please serve immediately.

(Note: I used rice pasta spirals)

Enchiladas

2012-01-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

I was inspired to make enchiladas when I was visiting my brother and his in-laws in Australia. They were all talking about how good the enchilada's are that M makes and I wished we had had time to have her make them for us. I vowed that when I got back home I would try my own hand at enchiladas.

Three weeks later, and I finally had time to make them. Thank you M for the inspiration! I made up my own recipe and these were well worth the wait! Delicious!

Basically you can put anything inside the tortillas, but you just need a good enchilada sauce. I used the Sprouts brand, and it was great.

Here's what else I did:

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 zucchini, chopped into small pieces
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup chunky salsa
1/2 can refried beans (vegetarian)
1 cup fresh spinach
Package of small corn tortillas (I used the Mission Artisan kind, see below.)
1 cup mozzarella and cheddar flavored Daiya, mixed
2 cups enchilada sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Directions
Pre-heat over to 350.

First, saute the onions and garlic over medium-high heat in the olive for about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and pepper, cook for another 4-5 minutes until everything is soft. Add the salsa and beans. Stir well and turn heat down to low.

Spread about 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of a casserole dish.

Add the spinach to the beans and stir well.

Now it's time to assemble the enchiladas!

Take a tortilla and put it on a clean plate. Spread about two tablespoons of the bean mixture on the tortilla. Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of the the cheese mixture on top of the bean spread. Carefully roll the tortilla into a slim roll and place in the casserole dish. Do this with as many tortillas as needed until the casserole dish is full. Cover the enchiladas with the rest of the enchilada sauce. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of the sauce-covered tortillas. Sprinkle the cayenne pepper over everything.

Bake for 30 minutes.

When finished, eat immediately and enjoy!

I served them with my fresh guacamole which was a great addition. W ate four of them and said they tasted better than a restaurant's! I mean, he might always says that, but still... I'll take it! :)

Mac and Cheese 2012 Update

2012-01-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes after a long week at work, you just want some good old fashioned comfort food. On Friday, I wanted mac and cheese and nothing else would do. I pulled out my trusty vegan mac and cheese recipe and decided to give it a new twist for the new year. I know I say this every time, but this stuff never fails! My meat and cheese-eating husband even loves this stuff! He says it tastes better than the "real" thing.

Ingredients:
1 package of quinoa pasta (8-12 ounces)

Cheesy Sauce:
1 cup rice milk
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon earth balance
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper to taste

1 cup chedder Daiya vegan cheese
1/4 cup mozzarella Daiya vegan cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs
red pepper flakes to taste

Directions:
Make the pasta according to the instructions on the package.

In the meantime, make the cheesy sauce:

In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, flour, nutritional yeast, tomato paste and smoked paprika.

In a small saucepan on the stove, melt the butter and saute the garlic in the butter (about 3 minutes.)

Before the butter starts to burn, add the rice milk mixture. Stir well for about 5 minutes until it gets nice and thick and creamy.

When the pasta is done, add the sauce to the pasta. Add most of the Daiya vegan cheese, but leave a little for sprinkling on top. Mix the pasta, sauce, and cheese all together until everything is blended nicely. Pour into a casserole dish.

Sprinkle the bread crumbs, remaining cheese and red pepper flakes on top.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Check to see if it's bubbling and put on the top rack to broil for 2 minutes.

As always, we pretty much demolished the entire casserole dish of this stuff. Not too shabby for being dairy free!

Creamy Sauces

2012-01-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

I've been obsessed with vegan "cheese" and "creamy" sauces lately. It's not like I'm trying to replicate cheese or cream exactly, but sometimes it's nice to have just a little bit of that creaminess in dressings or dips or anything else. At Native Foods in LA a couple months ago I had the nachos with a white "cheesy" sauce that tasted like it was made from cashews. Of course it doesn't really taste like cheese at all, but like I said, it just adds some richness and texture to a dish.

Of course I use Daiya vegan cheese all the time. It's the best replacement cheese I've discovered for things like mac and cheese, pizza, nachos, or burritos. But how bout some kind of dip or creamy dressing? I decided to experiment and this is what I came up with:

Cashew Creamy Sauce
(To be used alone as a dip or added to anything as a thick, creamy base, such as salad dressing or guacamole)

2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
5 tablespoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed
3 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed
6 tablespoons safflower oil
1 cup raw cashews, soaked beforehand for at least 2 hours
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tablespoons rice milk
1/2 cup water

Throw everything in a blender and blend until smooth and thick. You can play around with the amounts of water and rice milk depending on how thick or runny you want it. I drizzled it over chips as an appetizer sort of thing, but also used it as a base for guacamole, and as a base for my special secret salad dressing I make.

It has a very light, lemony flavor and is good alone or for anything you want add a little creaminess! I took one cup of it and blended it separately with one California avocado to make a creamy avocado sauce. I then mixed that with salsa and dipped my blue corn tortilla chips in for a spicy, creamy snack by the campfire at a friends campsite! I think everyone else was skeptical to taste it, but that's fine with me -- the more for me the better!

Creamy Avocado Dip

Creamy Cashew Sauce

Spicy Tempeh and just a bunch of Veggie Goodness

2012-01-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

So this was new. I have never made any dishes at home using tempeh. To be honest, I think I've actually only ever had the stuff twice before and the first time I did NOT like it. The second time it was okay, and I thought I would be willing to try it again. Well, I bought a package of the stuff at Sprouts and tried it out tonight. It was actually really good! I think homemade food is always the best though.

This meal was inspired from a recipe in the cookbook, Veganomicon. I followed their recipe for the spicy tempeh sauce and then did my own thing for the veggies. It all topped a plate of corn pasta and was a delicious, filling dinner! The Husband ate like it was his last meal or something, and went back for seconds, so that's always a good sign. So far, the meals in 2012 have not failed! I'm looking forward to a new year in veggie cooking!

Spicy Tempeh and Veggie Goodness over Corn Pasta

Spicy Tempeh (adapted from Veganomicon)
1 (8-ounce) package tempeh, cubed
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

Place the tempeh in a large pan on stove. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vegetable broth, tomato paste, soy sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes and oregano. Pour over the tempeh, stir to coat, and cook over medium heat until it starts to simmer, lower heat, cover and let cook until most of the liquid is absorbed and the tempeh is tender.

Veggie Goodness to go with Tempeh
In a separate pan, saute the following ingredients:

(First...)
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 shallot, sliced
(after five minutes, add..)
6 shitake mushrooms
5 sundried tomatoes, chopped
1/2 head of broccoli, chopped into bite-size pieces
(stir and finally add...)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
(Let all simmer for about 8 minutes)

Broccoli-Almond Pesto

2012-01-01T17:42:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012! It's New Year's Day and time for another amazing meal from the January issue of Whole Living! Seriously, this magazine has given me so many great recipes over the last few days! Also, after tonight's dinner I have decided I'm going to use rice noodles way more often now! They are so good and just as good, if not better, than regular wheaty pasta! Maybe I'll be more gluten-free in 2012 since that seems to be a big trend right now, whether you have allergies or not. We shall see...

Here is the recipe for this dish from Whole Living Magazine:

The only thing I did differently was add a little bit more basil, but that turned out fine. This was easy to make and really delicious, so you need to make this for yourself ASAP. Happy New Year!

Ingredients

1 head broccoli, florets and sliced stems
6 tablespoons sliced toasted almonds
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons olive oil
Coarse salt and pepper
8 ounces medium rice noodles

Directions

Bring a medium pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook broccoli florets and stems until bright green and just tender, about 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and let cool slightly. (Reserve water.) Roughly chop 1 cup cooked florets; set aside. In a blender, puree remaining florets, almonds, basil, garlic, and lemon juice. Add olive oil. Season with salt and pepper; set aside.
Return water to a boil and cook rice noodles according to package instructions. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, drain noodles, and return to pot. Toss with pesto, adding reserved pasta water until creamy. Top each bowl with chopped florets, small basil leaves, and remaining almonds. Season with pepper.

New Years Eve Dinner

2012-01-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

On the menu for our New Years Eve Dinner:

Mashed Potatoes
Chick-Pea Patties
Shitakes En Papillote
Steamed Artichokes

Last year we had tried to go to a fancy, romantic dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants and it was a disaster; even though we had a reservation, we still had to wait over an hour and by the time we sat down we felt rushed because of all the people hovering in the entrance waiting for us to finish. Eventually we packed up our food and took it home to finish our New Years Eve in comfort!

This year we just decided to start at home and never even deal with the madness of restaurants on NYE.

It was! relaxing and amazing to have a fancy, romantic dinner at home with The Husband! While we were cooking, he priced out everything as if we were ordering these items at a restaurant and it came out to be quite a lot of money we saved by staying in! :)

Anyway, for the chick-pea patties and shitakes "en papillote," I used recipes from Whole Living Magazine. Click here and here for those recipes and note that I used an egg replacer for the chick-pea patties, therefore it did not stick together very well but was still delicious. As you can see I placed it on top of a Romaine leaf and added a roasted yellow pepper and some red onion slivers. Yum.

W made these and he added smoked paprika! BTW, it was amazing.

Shitakes "en papillote." It literally means, wrapped in paper.

And then you open up the paper and eat!

Baby Bok Choy, Vegetable-Miso Soup and Orange-Avocado Salsa

2011-12-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

My husband said, "This is restaurant quality. If I had this at a restaurant, I'd be super excited."

Hmmm... maybe I should start a vegan restaurant?

Anyway, here's what inspired that very nice comment:

This gourmet and healthy dinner was easy to make and didn't take much time at all! I love Whole Living magazine because they have amazing recipes each month and this meal was, once again, from Whole Living.

Click the following titles for the original recipes:

Baby Bok Choy

I didn't make the salmon, but I followed the recipe for everything else. The orange-avocado salsa was amazing; I added just a dash of soy-sauce for an extra kick. Yum. Also, I threw in a handful of shelled edamame just for the fun of it.

Vegetable-Miso Soup

The magazine classifies this as a breakfast soup, but I made it for dinner with the baby bok choy and the two made a perfect combination.

It's been a very busy two weeks with traveling and the holidays and everything, so tonight was a much needed celebration of relaxation and good food. Happy New Years Eve Eve!

More Vegan Christmas Cookies

2011-12-23T11:17:00.000-08:00


Shortbread

Czech Cream Cheese Cookies

Made with Tofutti Cream Cheese!

Plane food

2011-12-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

I never know what kind of food or snacks are going to be available on flights, so I always try to bring my own. The "vegetarian, non-dairy" meals on Air Pacific were actually not that bad, but before my long flight back to America from Australia I was craving some sweets. We stopped at a grocery store before the airport and I found a great little natural food section.

These are the two delightful packets of sweets I picked up and they definitely saved me on the 24+ hours of travel I had after that:

Vegan Australia

2011-12-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

On my last day in Australia, my brother's new sister-in-law took me and Mom and Dad sight-seeing in Brisbane.

For lunch with O and her mom, she took us to Loving Hut. These restaurants area all over the place in the states, yet I've never been to one. How ironic that the first time I actually try a Loving Hut it's in a completely different continent! I was so excited to finally try the place.

We ordered five dishes and shared everything. It was all so vegan and delicious! My favorite was definitely the lasagne. Any time there's something on a vegan menu that's normally supposed to have cheese in it, I have to try it. This "cheesy" lasagne did not fail. It was so flavorful and creamy and amazing! We also had the Crispy Chow Mein which the server recommended to my dad because as a guy he would like this the best. Okaaaayyy... that was odd. We couldn't figure out what she meant by that because we all enjoyed it. In addition, we tried the Spaghetti Bolognese, Heavenly Salad, and Northern Pan bread. All were equally amazing. That's it. That's all I can say about this food -- it was just amazing!

Lasagne

Heavenly Salad

Crispy Chow Mein

Spaghetti Bolognese

Northern Pan Bread

For dessert, we tried four of the raw-vegan cakes and I can't even believe they were vegan, or raw for that matter. They tasted so creamy and wonderful, it was like eating cheesecake or something. I only got pictures of two of the cakes, because we were all too busy devouring these things to take many pics!

I know there's a couple Loving Hut's in the SD area, and I need to go to them ASAP. This place has a great variety of vegan food--it's like my dream come true!-- and everything is lovingly homemade so that it tastes extra special and yummy.

Thank you, O, for taking us here!

Classic Sugared Pecan Balls

2011-12-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

I mean, who doesn't love these class holiday cookies? They're amazing! I followed the recipe from Real Simple, but veganized it by just using Earth Balance buttery spread.

Click here for the recipe and make these ASAP. So good.

Also, here it is:

Ingredients

2 cups pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Heat oven to 350° F. Spread the pecans on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in oven, tossing occasionally, until fragrant, 6 to 8 minutes; let cool. In a food processor, process the pecans until finely ground.
In a large bowl, whisk together the ground pecans, flour, and salt; set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and ⅓ cup of the sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla.
Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just combined (do not overmix).
Shape the dough into balls (about 1 tablespoon each) and place 2 inches apart on baking sheets.
Bake, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until just beginning to brown, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool slightly on the baking sheets, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Place the remaining ⅓ cup of sugar on a plate. A few at a time, roll the cookies in the sugar to coat.

Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup

2011-12-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

This was so amazing, it tasted better than any hot and sour soup I ever had in a Chinese restaurant.

The recipe is from Vegan Yum Yum.

Click below!

http://veganyumyum.com/2007/10/hot-and-sour-cabbage-soup/

White Bean and Mushroom Soup

2011-12-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

From Whole Living magazine.

Recipe to follow soon. Sorry, not much time to post right now, but it was really good and a perfect fresh-tasting, winter soup.

Veggie Lover's Tortilla Soup

2011-12-04T20:09:00.001-08:00

I know there are million recipes out there for Tortilla Soup, but this is my version. The idea came to me today when I wanted to make vegan quesadillas, but wanted something else to go with them. It turned out to be a great match and The Husband said that he felt like he was eating at an authentic Mexican restaurant! Ahhhhhh.

So here goes -- no recipes followed this time; it's my own creation:

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/2 can diced tomatoes (I used Trader Joe's organic, no salted)
1/2 can vegetarian refried beans
1 cup black beans
1/2 jalepeno pepper, finely chopped
1/2 serrano pepper, finely chopped (I used the Tupperware chop n prep)
2 cups "chicken" broth (I used McKay's Chicken Seasoning)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste

Saute the garlic and onions in the olive oil.

After about 5 minutes, add the peppers. Stir well and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes and simmer mixture for 5 minutes.

Add the two kinds of beans, "chicken" broth, and spices. Mix well. Bring to a low boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes while you make the quesadillas!

To make the tortilla strips for the soup, cut a tortilla into 1/4 inch strips. Spread strips on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 375 for 6 minutes or until they look brown and crispy.

So I already explained the reaction of W, and I think I'd have to agree. Seriously, who needs to go out to eat when we can make this amazing restaurant-style food at home?!

The quesadilla's are self-explanatory, but here is my version -- with tomatoes, avocado's and the chili peppers inside with Daiya vegan cheese. Also, I used Trader Joe's whole wheat tortillas.

Homemade Pho

2011-12-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

We love Pho San Marcos so much that we pretty much go there at least once a week.

They have the absolute best Pho noodle soup. Ever. And they have a vegetarian option for me, which is perfect.

This week, however, I decided to try making pho at home. I got the idea when I saw this soup base for vegetarian pho at Sprouts.

I made the rice noodles and got all the ingredients ready for adding to the top of the soup: Sriracha, Hoisin sauce, Garlic sauce, bean sprouts, basil, sage, and an anaheim long green pepper.

Into the soup broth I added mushrooms, carrots, celery, broccoli and tofu.

Ta da! Pho at home.

P.S. As fun and delicious as this was, I think I'm going to stick to going to Pho San Marcos for my favorite Vietnemese noodle soup.

Artichokes and Brussel Sprouts

2011-11-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Yes, this week I am doing a raw food diet, and I went two whole days eating only fruits, veggies and nuts. However, tonight I still stuck with the fruits and veggies-only theme, but decided to heat them up. So technically this was not a raw-food meal, but it still consisted of only produce.

And it was amazing.

1 -- Boil the artichokes for about fifteen minutes.

2 -- Slice the brussel sprouts in half and blanch in boiling water for two minutes.

3 -- Slice half an onion and add to a bowl with the brussel sprouts and handful of red grapes.

4 -- Add to the veggies 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 pinch of dried thyme, 1 pinch of dried oregano. Mix well.

5 -- Roast the vegetables on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

Voila. In less than half an hour we had an amazing dinner of simply veggies (and grapes). My husband even got into this one enthusiastically. He says that artichokes are like the lobsters of vegetables. Okay! Sounds good to me!

And don't worry, tomorrow I'm still eating salads and fresh fruit.

Fruits and Veggies For Life!

2011-11-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

I have mixed feelings about the whole raw food movement. Every time I try it I just end up getting massive headaches and feeling like the grumpiest person in the world. I know, I know, this is what is SUPPOSED to happen. I've read all the articles. They all encourage me that I just have to get over this hump and then I'll feel energized and light and fresh and amazing! Okay, so I kind of believe that, but I also believe in eating good food, and after two days of eating the entire produce aisle I'm ready to hit the cookbooks again.

This week I decided to try out the raw food diet again. I wasn't going to go all crazy and make all these fancy raw recipes like I did last time with marinated mushrooms and cabbage and such nonsense. That was a little too much for me. And also, I might actually incorporate some cooked vegetables, gasp! The idea is to do two meals raw and one meal still veggies and fruit, but cooked or steamed. In other words, I'm keeping it simple and am not going to kill myself if I want to cook a vegetable instead of chomping on it like a goat.

Here we go: grapefruit, apples, grapes and bananas for breakfast; cashews and almonds for snacks; gigantic salads for lunch and dinner. The salads could be any variation of the following vegetables:

Baby lettuce-herb mix
Romaine lettuce
Baby spinach
Roma tomatoes
Mini heirloom tomatoes
Carrots
Celery
Bell peppers
Green cabbage
Kale
Cauliflower
Hot house cucumber
Avocado

As you can see, there are many options of salads to be made from this garden of goodness! It's not like I even have to have the same salad for lunch and dinner. Talk about mixing things up, I know.

For dressings, I concocted the following mixtures:

Lemon-Soy Dressing
1 freshly squeezed lemon
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil

Lemon-Avocado Dressing
1 freshly squeezed lemon
1 avocado, peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Braggs liquid aminos
Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy

So far I'm feeling very satisfied and full after each meal, but I AM suffering from the headaches and grouchiness. Alas, I shall carry on.

Apples at Cold Hollow Cider Mill in Vermont, 11-4-11

Squash...Butternut and Spaghetti

2011-11-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

First of all, I had an untouched butternut squash that never made it to Thanksgiving dinner. Second of all, it's now Sunday, and we need to finish up the leftovers.

I used this recipe from the Follow Your Heart cookbook to make the homemade butternut squash soup.

Butternut Squash Soup

3 pounds butternut squash
4 tablespoons margarine
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
4 cups mushroom stock (see recipe below)
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Cut squash into four to six large pieces. Remove the seeds and peel off the skin. Cut squash into 1-inch pieces and set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed 3- to 4-quart soup pot, melt the margarine. Add the onion and sauté for five minutes over low heat, stirring frequently until onion is barely translucent. Add the squash pieces and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Add mushroom stock and bring the soup to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes, or until squash is very tender.

Puree soup in a food processor or blender. Return soup to pot and reheat slightly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve, garnished with parsley.

Makes four to six servings.

Mushroom Stock

8 cups water

2 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion

2 pounds mushrooms, minced (use food processor)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 teaspoons sea salt

In a large stock pot, combine water, onions, mushrooms, lemon juice, and salt. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 1 1/4 hours, partially covered. Allow to cool. Strain through a fine sieve. Store, refrigerated, for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

Finally, we finished up the last of Thanksgiving dinner: mashed potatoes, spaghetti squash, and Grandma's relish and gluten-free patties. I should mention at this point that this food is W's favorite food ever. Not only has he been eating it every day since Thanksgiving last Thursday, but tonight he happily piled his plate high with the last of everything and scraped it all clean! We didn't have any more gravy (much to his chagrin) so he drizzled the butternut squash soup over everything and then I didn't hear him speak for about ten minutes while he chowed down.

Also, I am very proud of my butternut squash soup -- totally from scratch, stock and all! Very delicious. Thank you, Follow Your Heart!

Tom Yum Soup

2011-11-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

I found this soup packet a couple months ago at the Asian market by my office. If you just don't add the suggested seafood and fish sauce, it's totally vegan! Talk about "yum" indeed!

All I did was add the packet of sauce to boiling water and threw in some cubes of tofu and several sliced cremini mushrooms. In addition, I made a pot of Cal Rose rice because we should all know by now that I love me some rice with my soup. And, yes, I got to enjoy this all to myself because The Husband insisted on eating his leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Whatever, meat-eater.

Vegan Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

We hosted Thanksgiving this year, so I had the perfect excuse to make all these delicious holiday foods -- vegan style!

There were some non-vegan entrees for the non-vegans, but here is the veggie-goodness I made for Thanksgiving dinner:

Green bean casserole
Spaghetti Squash
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Whole Wheat, Whole Grain homemade bread

And the veggie-goodness Grandma made:
Cranberry relish
Gluten-free, vegan patties and gravy
Stuffing with carrots and celery

Plus some veggie-goodness that Aunt M made:
Salad with vegenaise dressing

Some items aren't pictured because we were all starving by the time all the food was ready and I barely had a second to take these photos!

Spaghetti Squash, a tradition in my family

Fluffy, mashed potatoes made with soy milk and Earth Balance

Chopped salad with vegenaise dressing

Whole Grain, Whole Wheat bread freshly made in the bread maker

Stuffing!

The best green bean casserole ever

Finally it was time to eat, and everything was amazing! I (and I think everyone else) especially loved the green bean casserole, but I'm just saying...

FYI, here is the recipe for the green bean casserole from www.fatfreevegan.com. I've made it three times since last Thanksgiving, and it never fails. It's amazing; so creamy and mushroomy and delicious.

Ingredients:

Beans

2 quarts water

1 tablespoon table salt (Alanna says it's essential)

1 1/2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces

Sauce

10 ounces mushrooms (I used a combination of regular button mushrooms and shiitake)

3 cloves garlic, minced

generous pinch cayenne pepper (had to add it for the New Orleanians)

Salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper to taste

2 tablespoons flour

3/4 cup vegetable broth (I used Imagine's No-Chicken)

1 tablespoon dry sherry (Alanna's brilliant addition)

3/4 cup soy creamer (or try full-fat unsweetened soymilk)

Topping

1 1/2 slices whole grain bread

1 tablespoon Earth Balance margarine (the best tasting margarine in the world and no trans-fat)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/16 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 3-ounce can of French fried onions

Instructions:

Beans

Bring the water to boil in a large pot. While its heating, cut up the beans. Add the salt and beans to the boiling water. Cover and cook for 6 minutes. Drain beans in a colander, and then spray for a minute with cold water to stop the cooking. Let them drain in the colander, shaking every now and then to get off all the water.

Sauce

Trim and discard the mushroom stems and chop the mushrooms into pieces. Spray a non-stick pan with canola oil and heat it. Add the mushrooms, garlic, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Cook until mushrooms are very soft and exude their juices. Whisk the flour into the vegetable broth and add to the mushrooms along with the sherry. Simmer, stirring, until mixture thickens. Add the soy creamer and simmer until thick, about 5 to 10 minutes. Adjust the seasonings and stir in the beans.

Topping

Put the bread, margarine, salt, and pepper into a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Pour into a bowl and add the onions. Stir to combine.

To assemble:

Put the green beans into an oiled casserole dish and top with the onion mixture. Bake at 425 F for about 15 minutes. If you are not serving this right away, refrigerate the topping separately; bring to room temperature before sprinkling the topping on the casserole and baking for about 20 minutes or until hot throughout.

Servings: 8

Vegan Old-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies

2011-11-23T15:33:00.000-08:00

These are so good, I had to put the pictures up and write about them immediately...while I'm still eating them...fresh out of the oven and with Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice Coffee! I'm also watching the Friends Thanksgiving episode where they all play football. Can I BE any happier right now?

This is all sorts of pumpkin goodness. I brought some to W while he was working in the garage and he had to take a break to come inside and enjoy more with me, they're so good!

Here is the recipe from food.com:

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegan margarine, softened
2 cups Libby's canned pumpkin
1 tablespoon applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease baking sheets.
COMBINE flours, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove and salt in medium bowl.
Beat sugar and vegan margarine or butter in large mixer bowl until well blended.
Beat in pumpkin, applesauce and vanilla extract until smooth.
Gradually beat in flour mixture.
Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.
BAKE for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are firm.
Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes;
Remove to wire racks to cool completely. (I started eating them after about 5 minutes, I just couldn't help myself!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Cheesy" Pasta Casserole

2011-11-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

There was some leftover pasta salad from the American party yesterday and since LS (who made it) had to leave before the end of the party, I took it upon myself to take home the leftovers! Thanks LS! This morning, an idea came to me of something I could try with the leftover pasta salad, and I actually have Ace to thank for that. He commented on one of my blog posts awhile ago about a pasta salad I made and said he's made a pasta casserole with leftover pasta salad. I wanted to try this!

I googled "Cheesy Pasta Casserole" and clicked on the first link. This is the recipe upon which I based my own vegan version: Cheryl's Spinach Cheesy Pasta Casserole

It looked like a pretty good recipe, so I replaced the cheese with Daiya vegan cheese and the eggs with Ener G, egg replacer. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe and it turned out to be really, really good. I broiled it for about four minutes at the end of the baking period to make it nice and crispy on top and, hello... yum.

Some other things I added to make it my own: 1/4 cup chopped onions and 3 garlic cloves, crushed. I'm coming to realize that I use onions and garlic in most recipes. They add such delicious flavor!

I'd say if you want to try this recipe, make it your own. Follow the basic guidelines, but add whatever you want! The pasta salad had carrots and olives in it, as well as some other veggies, and it added perfectly to the whole casserole! The Husband agreed wholeheartedly that this was an amazing dish, and he was even more excited he would have leftovers for lunch the whole week.

Fourth of July Celebration in November

2011-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

One of my good friends just became a citizen of this country, so I threw her an American themed party to celebrate her accomplishment. She was sworn in on October 25, and shortly after, received her American passport. This is super exciting and I am so happy for her! Equally excited L and B were gracious enough to open their home for the party and it was a beautiful, sunny day in Southern California. If we didn't know any better it could have been the 4th of July!

The meal wasn't all vegan since another friend, LS, and I were the only vegans, but between the salads the two of us made and some delicious fruit from G, there were plenty veg options.

I made a potato salad from The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook. I've made this salad several times before and it's a delicious classic. Follow along! ...

Potatoes:
2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrots
4 baby pickles, chopped

Dressing:
1/2 cup Vegenaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon soy milk
1 tablespoon dried Italian herb seasonings
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Black pepper to taste

"Place the potatoes in a pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook over medium heat until just tender, about [15] minutes. (Don't let them get too soft.)

"Meanwhile, combine all ingredients for the dressing in a bowl. Set aside." Mix in onions and carrots.

"When the potatoes are done, remove from heat and drain." Let cool completely.

When the potatoes are cooled, pour the dressing with the carrots and onions over the potatoes and mix well. Refrigerate over night to allow flavors to set. If serving at a 4th of July party, stick in a couple flag toothpicks!

Potato salad at a bbq is always a hit, and I must admit, this one didn't fail!

LS brought a Southwest corn and black bean salad which was AMAZING, and also a delicious pasta salad.

Yum! Lot's of vegan salads!

In addition, G provided the fruit salad and fresh blackberries and grapes! So perfect for this American feast!

Oh, and I just have to add this picture of the olives...

Welcome to the America, G! Congratulations on your huge accomplisment!

Vegan Sushi

2011-11-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

I love Japanese food. Whenever I suggest going to sushi or Japanese food, everyone looks at me like I've lost my mind. "What can you eat there?!" They ask incredulously. Well, there is actually a lot of options for me at Japanese restaurants. For one, there's rice. Need I say more? For another, you can always ask the sushi chef to make any kind of veggie roll you want. I usually get a cucumber roll and an avocado roll, or I'll mix it up and get cucumber AND avocado together in one roll! Not only that, most Japanese places have several vegetarian rolls listed on their menu now! There are so many choices!

The other night on a work trip with W, we found a sushi place in Scotts Valley called Rumble Fish. I was eagerly anticipating my usual cucumber and avocado goodness, but when I looked at the menu they had something called "Vegan Roll." I mean, I had to get it -- it said VEGAN in the name of the sushi roll! Right?

Basically it was the cucumber, avocado roll with shitake mushrooms added. Yum. It was exactly what I wanted after a day of traveling. 4 stars for Rumble Fish.

Polish Night

2011-11-17T18:26:00.001-08:00

I was visiting Mom and Dad last week and they mentioned that they just had perogies for dinner a few nights earlier. "Perogies!" I exclaimed enviously. I have been looking EVERYWHERE in North County SD for these Eastern European potato-pasta delights. There German market we went to for our German-theme day didn't even have them. My father explained that perogies aren't German, they're Polish.

Okay.

Well, wherever they're from, they're delicious and I've been wanting to eat them for months.

Apparently Mom and Dad's local grocery story caters to a Polish community in Boston, because the store had at least eight different perogi options in their freezer section. It was like a beam of light shone down from heaven accompanied by a chorus of angels. I didn't care that I had seven hours of airplane travel the next day -- I was taking some with me!

A couple days later we had Polish Day, and my craving for perogies was finally satisfied.

The perogies were pretty easy; I just followed the directions on the package.

For the sauerkraut, I followed the same recipe I used on German Day, but added some Tofurkey sausage and all topped witha dollop of Tofutti Sour Cream.

All I can say is that it was everything I dreamd it would be and more. The soft, potato-pilled perogies practically melted in my mouth with the sauerkraut and sour cream... mmm delicious.

Linguini with Tomatoes and Artichokes

2011-11-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

I love when The Husband willingly takes over in the kitchen and makes dinner! He makes an amazing pasta sauce -- which I just recently found out is a recipe passed down from his father -- and tonight was no exception. He made Linguini with a red sauce that was full of all sorts of veggie goodness. I mean, look at this thing. In the title of this post I just called it Linguini with tomatoes and artichokes, because they were the main components, but there was also some sauteed onions and garlic, and of course the marinara base. Talk about YUM! Who needs to go out for Italian food when the Italian Husband can make it better than any restaurant ever could!

My contribution to this meal was salad (not pictured.)

Travel Dinner

2011-11-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

After another long drive to my next work assignment, I was craving more hot soup and some fresh produce. After googling “Panera” and “health food stores” in this tiny upstate New York town and not finding one match, I decided to just check out the grocery store. This was actually a really nice grocery store for a small town and they had a huge natural health food section. My hotel room had a microwave in it so I devised my own soup dinner using two different McDougal’s soups. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these soups. They are all organic and made from ingredients I actually recognize. They’re also perfect for airport travel because you can take them on the plane and just ask the flight attendant to fill it up with hot water.

Anyway, back at the hotel, I mixed these two soups together into one big delicious bowl o’ soup. It could have used maybe a drop of soy sauce and sriracha, but in a pinch it worked out fine.

I also purchased a pint of organic grape tomatoes, an Empire Apple, and a single serving packet of peanut butter. My dad had sent me with a packet of popcorn, so I was pretty much set for the evening! Not bad for this travel dinner.

Delicious Stuffed Red Peppers

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to be able to visit my parents this past week while I was traveling for work. On Monday, I got in after a long day of work and driving and was happy to see a huge pot of homemade broccoli potato soup on the stove. Yum! Soup was exactly what I wanted! I had just been through an early winter storm and was so happy to just be home with Mom and Dad and Mom’s soup.

The next day, I offered to make dinner. Mom couldn’t have been more excited to take me up on that offer. I surveyed what was available in her fridge and pantry and decided to make stuffed peppers. Mom also requested “triangle tofu,” referring to a recipe I made several months ago that called for tofu cut into triangles and then dry-fried with a chili-lime sauce.

I found an amazing recipe from the Vegetarian Times website for stuffed peppers and followed it pretty closely. The only thing I did differently was use garbanzo beans instead of black beans and vegan cheese instead of real cheese! It was so good! Seriously, these are the best stuffed peppers I’ve ever had, I can’t believe it! While they were baking I prepared the chili lime sauce and started to dry-fry the tofu. Click here for my original post on this tofu recipe.

Go to this website for the stuffed pepper recipe from Vegetarian Times. Some people have commented on that website that they’ve used the leftover stuffing for other things like casseroles or quesadillas and it all sounds like great ideas! This is a really good recipe and I recommend you to try it ASAP! Mom and Dad will heartily agree. Also, I think they were just excited to have their daughter home and willing to cook for them! I don’t mind; I love cooking for my friends and family!

Trader Joe's Potsicker Soup

2011-10-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

If you go to the Trader Joe's website they have a ton of recipes using only ingredients from their store! I love Trader Joes and I frequently make all T.J's recipes.

Since it is officially fall, I can start making soups a lot more now (in case you haven't noticed already.) This was a soup that looked really good, and it included some things we already conveniently had in our freezer and pantry!

Click here for the recipe on the Trader Joe's website or follow along below.

" Potsticker Soup's On!"

    * TJ's Grape Seed or TJ's Olive Oil
    * 1 package TJ's Gyoza (I used the vegetable ones)
    * 1 container TJ's Mirepoix (This is just finely chopped onions, celery and carrot, which is what I used from the ingredients I already had)
    * 2 packages TJ's Low Sodium Chicken Broth (To make it vegan, use veggie broth of course!)
    * 1 bag TJ's Baby Spinach
    * 1 tablespoon TJ's Soy Sauce
    * 1 tablespoon TJ's Joe’s Sesame Oil
    * TJ's Cilantro, for garnish (optional) (Instead of this, I added 1 teaspoon of Chili Garlic sauce!)
    * TJ's Salt, to taste

Coat the bottom of a large frying pan with oil (about 2-3 tablespoons) and lightly fry the gyoza over medium-high heat until they get some nice browning on both sides (about 10 minutes). In a large soup pot (about 6 qt.), pour a couple tablespoons of oil and add the mirepoix. Saute the vegetables in the pot until the onions start to appear translucent. Add the broth to the pot and bring to a slow simmer. When the soup gets some energy, toss in the spinach and add the soy sauce and sesame oil. When the soup is officially simmering, add the potstickers. Serve it up in bowls and garnish with cilantro. (Make sure you have extra spoons on hand… never underestimate the charisma of Trader Joe's Potsticker Soup's On!)

Serves: 6 - 8
Cooking Time: 30 - 40 Minutes

To complete the meal, I made some rice topped with fresh avocado and Sriracha. (The artistic swirl of the Sriracha is compliments of my husband.) It was quite delicious and spicy! And, by the way, there were no leftovers. We loved it so much we just ate it all in one sitting.

The Weekend of the Pumpkin

2011-10-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

This was definitely a pumpkin-themed weekend in our house. We took pictures in two different pumpkin patches, carved pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, made pumpkin shaped cookies, and had pumpkin pasta. Not to mentiont there were two different candles burning and one was called "Pumpkin Patch" while the other one was called "Autumn."

If you remember that story about our German-themed weekend, you will know that we really like to celebrate any kind of holiday or theme. It's only going to get better from here on out. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up! Talk about getting crazy with the themes.

Anyway, here are some pumpkin pictures from the weekend:

Can you guess which one is mine?

A festive fall lunch!

I used this recipe from "Your Daily Vegan" for the sugar cookies and they turned out wonderfully! I even got The Husband to frost and decorate them using vegan frosting I made from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. (I just replaced non-vegan ingredients with vegan ones like Tofutti cream cheese instead of cream cheese.)

I made some apple shaped cookies too.

For the Pumpkin Pasta, I referred to a recipe from last October's Whole Living magazine. You can click here for the recipe, but here are a few things I did differently:

--Instead of anchovies, I used capers.
--I forgot to get fresh parsely at the store today, so I used a few sprinkles of dried Italian seasoning instead and it seemed to work well.
--I left out the Parmesan cheese.

Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe and it was really good. A perfect dish for our pumpkin filled weekend!

Black-eyed Peas and Greens Soup

2011-10-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Even if it doesn't look or feel like fall outside in Southern California, we can make it feel like it inside! This is my favorite time of the year, but it also makes me really homesick for the East Coast; the crisp air, the changing leaves, pumpkins and apples and cozy nights inside with apple cider and donuts. Okay, so maybe I don't eat donuts anymore, but I really do miss an East Coast fall. At least we can still have cozy nights inside with yummy soup like the one I made tonight!

It was supposed to be "Great Northern Beans and Greens Soup," but I forgot to prepare the dry beans ahead of time and had to use a can of whatever beans I had in the pantry -- black-eyed peas! It actually turned out really well. Black-eyed peas have a really hearty taste that adds well to soups like this. I referred to a recipe in the Follow Your Heart cookbook by Janice Cook Knight, but I'll just go ahead and tell you how I made it. (It's slightly different than the actual recipe.)

1 can black-eyed peas
4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 pound Swiss chard (from my garden still! yay!)
Sea salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
6 medium cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
4 ounces tiny shell pasta
1/2 tablespoon Bragg's Liquid Aminos

Wash and trim chard and place in large pot with about half a cup of water. Sprinkle some salt in the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender, about 4-5 minutes. Drain chard over a bowl in order to save the liquid for the soup stock. Let chard cool in strainer.

Start the broth to simmer.

Saute the onion, garlic and rosemary in oil over medium heat until they are softened.

Drain can of beans, rinse, and add to simmering broth on stove.

Add onion and garlic mixture to broth.

Add the reserve liquid from the chard.

Bring soup to boil, add pasta and cook until it is al dente.

Add Swiss chard and Bragg's.

Serve immediately and enjoy! We also had a fresh spinach salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. Very nutritious and delicious. The soup is flavorful without any salt needed. The black-eyed peas and Swiss chard both have very strong flavors which would make any soup extremely flavorful, I imagine. Our first homemade soup of the fall is wonderful!

Stir-Fried Broccoli with Mushrooms, Red Onion, and Seasoned Tofu

2011-10-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Another successful night back in my kitchen! Hooray! This time I followed a recipe from the Follow Your Heart cookbook by Janice Cook Knight. Follow Your Heart is a brand that makes such wonderful vegan staples as vegenaise and cheese substitutes. The Follow Your Heart headquarters and restaurant is in Canoga Park, CA, which is conveniently located right along one of my work-travel routes. I've eaten there only once, but it was delicious!

Here is the recipe straight from the book because I followed it (mostly) exactly.

"1 large bunch broccoli (about 1 1/2 pounds)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small red onion, sliced in thin half circles (about 1 cup)
8 ounces mushrooms, thinly sliced (I used cremini)
2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce (I just used regular soy sauce)
1 tablespoon water
8 ounces seasoned firm tofu or 1/2 recipe Marinated Tofu on page 139 (included below), cut into [rectangular pieces]
2 to 3 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
A few splashes of ume plum vinegar (optional) (I didn't have this)

"Wash broccoli and remove touch stems. Cut off broccoli florets, dividing them into bite-sized pieces, and cut remaining stem pieces into thin slices about 1/4 by 3 inches. Set aside, keeping stems and florets separate.

In a 12-inch saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Oil should be quite hot, but not smoking. Add onion and saute, stirring oten, until onion is a little tender, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms release their liquid and begin to brown, about 8 minutes. Push onions and mushrooms to the edges of pan.

Add remaining tablespoon olive oil to the middle of the pan, and let it get hot. Add broccoli stems and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Add broccoli florets and stir-fry another two minutes, browning florets slightly. Add [soy sauce] and 1 tablespoon water. Cover and steam, lifting the lid to stir all together occasionally, for 5-8 minutes over medium heat, or until broccoli florets are just tender (al dente). Add tofu. Remove from heat. Add sesame oil and toss gentlyl adjust seasonings. If a more piquant flavor is desired, sprinkly on a little ume plum vinegar, to taste. Serve immediately" (136-137). [Serves 4]

As I was typing this, I realized that I forgot to add the sesame oil! That would have been good too... but I did add the rest of the marinade that the tofu had been sitting in, so I guess that counts for something.

Here it is! We ate it with Cal Rose rice and a few drops of Sriracha (these two things are practically daily staples in our house.) Also we had some edamame on the side. Yum. The husband gobbled his generous serving down before I could barely even start, so I guess that's a good sign!

Chickpea-Spinach Curry

2011-10-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

It feels like it has been a very long time since I followed a recipe and cooked in my own kitchen. Oh, how I've missed it!

Last night I happily made a recipe from this month's Real Simple magazine. The cover of the magazine boasted something about a month of easy dinner's so of course I had to check it out.

They had a recipe for Chickpea-Spinach Curry with Cucumber-Yogurt sauce, but of course I made it my way. For starters, I skipped the yogurt part and made a chopped salad and served it all with naan. This is how I did it:

2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, chopped
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 cups chickpeas, cooked (I used dry beans and soaked and cooked them the day before)
1 1/2 cups frozen spinach, thawed
Sea Salt and Black pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, and ginger and cook until softened. Add the curry powder and cumin and stir until well blended.

Add the chickpeas and stir to blend all ingredients. Transfer to a large cooking pot. Add spinach, two cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Stir everything together. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 12 minutes. Stir every so often.

For the salad, I chopped a half of a green pepper, a hothouse cucumber, and a large tomato. Add a handful of fresh spinach, finely chopped.

I also made this dressing for the salad:
1/2 lime, freshly squeezed
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon Braggs liquid aminos
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Drizzle the dressing over the chopped fresh veggies and blend well.

W was excited about the naan since we didn't have any a couple weeks ago with out Trader Joe's Indian food. I used Kontos Tandoori Naan which is vegan and tastes delicious!

I served it all up with jasmine rice and we feasted! It tasted very authentic, if I don't mind saying so. In addition, it was all made from scratch (except the naan) which makes everything just so much better.

Anniversary Weekend!

2011-10-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary this past weekend and I was surprisingly lucky with some pretty amazing vegan dishes!

First stop: Catalina Island
We wanted a quick snack when we first got off the fairy and happened to find grilled artichokes at one of the restaurants. It was so amazing and covered with fresh garlic – yes!

For lunch later, we at a Avalon Grill which had two vegan options: carrot soup and grilled veggies with quinoa. I almost ordered both of them because they both looked so good. In the end I just went with the grilled veggies. This was pretty much my dream meal. Veggies and quinoa? How can you go wrong? It had some kind of sauce on it, which was amazing.

For dinner we ate at the restaurant in our hotel back on the mainland and there were tons of veggie options. After much deliberation of the menu, I finally decided on the noodle stir-fry with veggies and tofu. The menu clarified that this was a vegetarian option, but when it arrived, there was chicken in it! I took the picture before I noticed the poultry, so unfortunately, this is not a vegan picture. However, I did send the dish back and they brought out another one that was chicken-free. It was a good dish, but I think the whole experience was tainted by the whole chicken debacle. I did enjoy the vegetarian kim chee that I ordered as a side dish.

The next day we had a few snacks at the Getty Museum before eating a huge lunch at Native Foods in Westwood. This restaurant is completely vegan, so I was free to choose absolutely anything I wanted to from the menu! YES! I chose the nachos and W got the Scorpion tempeh burger.

Native foods uses a mixture of cashews, seeds and grains to make their “cheese,” and it was amazing. I loved it. I really can’t express how good it was, because I am pretty much in heaven with any kind of meal that includes, chips, rice, beans, guacamole, and tons of fresh veggies.

W said his “burger” was amazing and he’d it something like this every day. I don’t make this stuff up, people. The meat eater has spoken: he loves the tempeh burger.

There were several other meals of course on our trip, but none were as exciting as these that I have mentioned. Let’s just say I was pretty much a happy vegan on our anniversary.

Trader Joe's Serves us Dinner

2011-10-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been traveling for work a lot lately. When I’m at home, I’m either too busy doing laundry, packing and unpacking; or just too tired and lazy to whip up a big dinner.

I checked out three vegan cookbooks from the library and am dying to try out some of the recipes, but when? When will I have time and energy to do this? I don’t know.

In the meantime, I’ve been relying a lot on pre-packaged meals from Trader Joe’s. (And of course, rice, beans, and salad.)

Here are two examples of tasty, vegan dinners we had last week.

First of all, I have truly become a huge fan of these Tom Yum Soups. I LOVE THEM! They come with little packets of spices and fresh ginger slices to add for flavor, AND they come with five little spinach and mushroom dumplings. All together in the big bowl of soup, everything about this soup is delicious and satisfying. I also made some Cal Rose rice and served it with wasabi flavored seaweed strips, which are also from Trader Joe’s.

Tom “YUM” soup indeed!

________________________

The Trader Joe’s Indian Fare dinners are always an easy, delicious dinner when paired with Jasmine rice and a fresh cucumber/tomato salad. We used to get the garlic naan from Trader Joe’s as well, but it’s not vegan, so no more of that!
It was still a pretty good dinner for a quick meal during the week.

Das ist köstlich

2011-10-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

With accordian music and yodeling in the background we sat down to dine on a scrumptuous German feast.

If there's one thing we do good in our household, it's celebrating different cultures, countries, and basically any kind of holiday with food. We've had sushi nights, Mexican fiesta nights, Paella nights, Czech nights, Italian nights, and we even made Irish food one time. Sometimes these revolved around a holiday or theme (the Irish food was for St. Patrick's Day) but a lot of times we just feel like having a theme night.

Last week it was Germany Day.

First we went to Tip Top Meats in Carlsbad, which I know does not sound like a place where a vegan should be going to shop. However! This is a German supermarket and besides their selection of bratwurst they also had shelves and shelves of food imported straight from Germany! I love these kind of places! Things I purchased for Germany Day:

Four bags of German candy
Three jars of German mustard
One jar of German Kosher dill pickles
One jar of German jam (in a mystery flavor since the label was only in German)
One package of German potato dumpling mix
One carton of red cabbage from the deli

Earlier in the day I had bought Tofuky bratwurst, a jar of sauerkraut red potatoes from Whole Foods.

Thus our feast was ready to be prepared.

W made the warm German potato salad, so I don't have the recipe for that. It was AMAZING! Good job husband!

We had a nice pretzel and mustard spread to snack on while we prepared the rest of the food. Delicious. We love mustard.

I followed this recipe from German Recipes Online to make the sauerkraut and it was so good it tasted just like how my grandmother makes it. (She's Czech, but the countries are very similar in their foods.)

18 Ounces of sauerkraut
1 Tbsp olive oil
½ Tsp crushed black pepper
2.5 Cups water
1 Tsp corn flour

Sauté the onions, until light brown. Add pepper, sauerkraut and 2 cups of water. Reduce the flame and stir frequently for 45-60 minutes. Make a corn flour paste and add to the dish. Allow it to simmer for couple of minutes. However, remember never to boil the sauerkraut dish.

I then followed the instructions on the box for the potato dumplings which were incredibly easy to make.

We grilled the bratwurst, opened the jar of pickles, warmed up the red cabbage, added it all to the sauerkraut, potato salad, and dumplings and Köstliche Speisen! (I think that means something like bon appetit.)

Of course we may be biased because we slaved over this feast ourselves, but we seriously felt like we could have been in the middle of Germany with this meal! Everything tasted so good and authentic, we loved it!

Chipotle Style Burrito Bowls

2011-10-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Isn't there just something about the burritos (or in my case the burrito bowls) at Chipotle? They are so good! My love of the Chipotle burrito bowl goes way back to when I lived in Philly and could only eat at this place when I visited my friend KL in Washington DC (Philly didn't have any Chipotle's at that time.) One time the two of us met another friend, JB, at our favorite Chipotle spot in Silver Spring. We all got our foil-covered tubes of wonderfulness and sat down at a table to enjoy. Twenty minutes later, JB exclaimed "How are you still eating that?!" Indeed, while the other two had long since finished their burrito's, I was still sawing away with a plastic knife and fork at my tortilla filled with all the veggie-goodness. "It's too messy! I have to eat it like this, and besides we're laughing and talking so much, I'm getting too distracted; now let me finish." Ever since then, I automatically just ask for the burrito bowl and skip the whole mess of trying to eat a tortilla wrapped burrito with a knife and fork. It's much easier this way.

Last week, I had a Chipotle burrito bowl for lunch on one of my trips, but by the end of the week I was already craving it again! Time to make it at home.

I gathered and prepared all the ingredients to replicate what I get in Chipotle's Vegetarian burrito bowl:
cilantro rice
black beans
fajita-style peppers and onions
corn relish
fire-roasted salsa
pico de gallo
shredded romaine lettuce
guacamole
And chips on the side, of course.

"This is how they do it Chipotle, but you can do it however you want, I'm just saying..." I instructed my husband. "First you put the rice in a bowl. Next, add the beans. Then, the fajita veggies. Then everything else followed by a whopping dollup of guac." Voila! A Chipotle Style Burrito Bowl in the comfort of your own home!

Veggie Goodness on Work Trips

2011-09-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

If you wonder why I've been eating out so much, it's because I'm basically traveling non-stop for work right now. Traveling always makes eating more interesting for me, since I really have to search out vegan food. I also bring a lot of applesauce cups, rice cakes, Larabars, dried mango, etc., to supplement eating out, which can get costly after awhile.

Last week I found three amazing restaurants in Northern California that cater to vegans and vegetarians. I always love seeing actual vegan options on menus, and especially love ENTIRE vegan menus! It's so wonderfully overwhelming.

Goji Kitchen: Santa Rosa, California
The menu classifies this restaurant as Asian Fusion. It features Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine which are two of my favorite types of foods ever. I stuck with the no-fail option of vegetable pho. The menu even called it "Vegan Vietnamese Noodle Soup." I mean, how can you go wrong with that? Not only were the vegan items specified on the menu, the whole restaurant was organic! Love, love, love this place. The pho was amazing. Exactly what I wanted, even though it was practically a hundred degrees outside and not really soup weather. That's okay.

East West Restaurant: Santa Rosa, California
This was a fun dinner with Aunt K and Grammy at another great restaurant in Santa Rosa that features vegetarian food! I seriously love this town! Again, there were so many vegan options at East West, and I was torn between the Thai Tofu Salad and the Tostada Delight. In the end, I got the Tostada and Aunt K got the Thai Tofu Salad. When the dish came out, I was happily shocked when an entire serving tray of fresh veggie goodness was placed before me! WOW!

Cafe Gratitude: San Rafael, California
This one was perhaps the most interesting vegan dining experience I had that week. I really don't know where to start with describing this place. Here, just read this description from their website:

"Café Gratitude is our expression of a world of plenty. Our food and people are a celebration of our aliveness. We select the finest organic ingredients to honor the earth and ourselves, as we are one and the same. We support local farmers, sustainable agriculture, and environmentally-friendly products. Our food is prepared with love. We invite you to step inside and enjoy being someone who chooses: loving your life, adoring yourself, accepting the world, being generous and grateful every day, and experiencing being provided for. Have fun and enjoy being nourished."

My vegan black bean tacos with homemade cashew cheese were good and all, but I don't think I really fit into the whole hippie "life affirmation" vibe of this place. All the menu items were entitled with catchy little phrases like "I am transformed" (which was my bean tacos) or "I am joyful," "I am rejuvenated," "I am enlightened," etc. I guess we are supposed to feel like whatever the title says if we order that dish? When I ordered my entree and wheatgrass-ginger-lemon drink, the organic cotton wearing waitress practically bowed and said "You are Transformed and You are Effervescent."

Um, okay. Thanks?

While I waited for my transformative and effervescent meal, I reminded myself that pulling out my smart-phone in a place like this must certainly be frowned upon. Afterall, wasn't I waiting to be transformed? Instead, I thumbed through the stack of affirmation cards that conveniently rested in a basket on the table.

"What do you have an abundance of that you are not committed to or don't enjoy? For example: worry, concern, debt, wanting more, etc?"

How bout all of the above! How is this supposed to be affirming?

"Being grateful always shifts your attention to what you have already been given."

Wow! That's a wonderful thought!

"Albert Einstein once said, 'Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistant one.'"

Huh?

Thank goodness my food came and it was very tasty. The vegan cashew cheese was so creamy and good! How do they do that?

Did I feel transformed or effervescent afterwards? Actually, I was kinda in a rush to get to the airport...

Whole Foods Love

2011-09-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Can I just live at Whole Foods and eat every single meal here? I love this place so much. It has provided so many a veggie-goodness meal for me while on my weary travels.

Let's just talk about the salad bar, which is my favorite thing in the whole store. I usually go crazy here and load up on all the fresh veggies, cous cous salads, tofu, rice, etc. By the time I'm done filling my little bio-degradable brown carton, the salad ends up costing around the same as a tank of gas for my car. Costly, yes, but it is indeed fuel for my body. (Get it?)

Today, by some miracle I managed to stay under a pound at the salad bar. Sadly, I did have to pass up some yummy looking items, which I knew only added weight (such as the artichoke hearts, garbanzo beans, and grilled tofu squares.) I did however opt for the addition yellow beets and heirloom tomatoes, hello yum! I partnered the salad with an organic sourdough baguette and a piece of Lake Champlain dark chocolate! Perfect lunch satisfaction. Have I mentioned that I love this store?

Forks Over Knives

2011-09-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we found out that Jimbo’s was hosting the movie Forks over Knives and then, partnered with a new vegetarian restaurant in town, serving free vegan samples after the movie! The whole thing was free, and I’ve been wanting to see this movie, so we went.

There was a crowd of about 350 when we arrived right on the dot, which made me very happy that so many people were about to be enlightened. I was especially glad to see that one in attendance was a very overweight man guzzling a barrel of soda. He definitely should be seeing this movie.

The premise of Forks over Knives is a study conducted on about four individuals suffering from chronic/terminal diseases such as diabetes and cancer. These people worked with Dr. Letterman and Dr. Pulde who both specialize in the idea of healing by food not medicine. They advocate a whole food, plant based diet. Needless to say, by the end of the study (and the movie) these four, sick individual’s had completely reversed their diseases and were now living completely healthy lives, free of all pain and medication.

Need I say more?

A vegan diet is life changing and LIFE SAVING.

This two-hour movie of course contained shocking statistics and focused on studies conducted in other countries that eat more fruits and vegetables than do Americans. In one clip, Katie Couric announces, “Western diet is taking a toll. The only thing that is growing – is us.”

Furthermore, it has now been proven that heart disease and cancer are the two biggest killers in America, and this could change if we simply changed our eating habits.

Hippocrates said over 2000 years ago, “Let food by thy medicine.” The doctors in this movie proved that, indeed, food can be more healing than any medicine prescribed by a doctor. Healing foods include vegetables, fruits, and grains. After all, the cholesterol that causes high blood pressure and heart disease is only found in meat, eggs and dairy.

I don’t know why, but towards the end of the movie, I was actually feeling a bit emotional. Okay, I’m a sucker for shock value and totally fell for it with this movie, but it’s only because it’s something in which I so strongly believe!

“People who switch diets lose weight, beat cancer, lower cholesterol drastically,” the narrator said as they showed a vegan firefighter climbing UP the pole in the firehouse. With each higher grasp of his hand he chanted: “Real. Men. Eat. Plants.”
I appreciated this little segment in the fire station because it just shows that the vegan diet isn’t just for trendy girlie-girls who want to be skinny. Everyone can benefit from eating more plant-based foods!

I’m not going to argue with die-hard meat eaters, but all I have to say is that if you’re going to eat meat, eggs, or dairy – fine. These food items should just be treated as something “special.” Like ice cream or cake. Something you only eat once in awhile for a special treat, like on your birthday or on vacation.

Hooray for veggies!

The free samples after the movie were delicious too.

Cabbage Salad and Soy Chicken Drumstick


Lemon Sesame Kale Salad

Vegan Dining In and Out

2011-09-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

This is a busy time of the year for me due to my job which requires a lot of travel. I haven't had a lot of time to cook any "fancy" recipes at home; but when I do cook, here are some of the meals we have been enjoying lately: (Sorry, no pictures.)

--Rice and beans
--Rice and stir-fried veggies
--Rice and grilled tofu
--Rice and vegetable salad
--Rice and avocado with soy sauce
--Rice and garden tomatoes with Tapa Tio

Okay, so you get the idea. We eat a lot of rice. It's the quickest, easiest thing to make and still manages to taste good!

Other popular meals lately include some kind of pasta with Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara Sauce and artichokes. Oh and salad. A lot of salad.

Anyway. When we're not eating rice, beans, tomatoes or pasta, we are eating at vegan-friendly restaurants. Here are just a few of the fun places we've gone lately and what a vegan can eat there:

Le Papagayo: Leucadia, California

W looked at the menu ahead of time and excitedly announced that they had a vegan option of Pasta Primavera. Yes! That's exactly what I was craving! However, when we arrived at the restaurant for a birthday dinner, the menu said "Vegetable lasagne and veggie wrap with hummus." Um, not vegan, hun, but thanks for looking out. I instead asked for a gnocci that was made in one dish with the putanesca sauce made in another. It turned out to be really delicious!

Meals by Genet: Los Angeles, California

I had never been to an Ethiopian restaurant, but after this experience I am hooked! I love this food! There was another veggie lover at this meal, so we shared the vegetarian combination dinner. I don't really know how to describe it other than it's a huge plate covered with Injera bread and tofu and about a dozen vegetable "dips" or relishes. You rip off pieces of injera bread and use that to grab some of the relish. It is sooo good. I want to go back. There are a bunch of Ethiopian places here in San Diego, so I'm anxious to try them.

Cosmic Cafe: Dallas, Texas

I have a long story about finding a vegan restaurant in Dallas, but I won't go there right now. Fortunately, I finally found this place and ravenously devoured this entire plate in under fifteen minutes. This was an exclusively vegetarian restaurant and only a few items on the menu had dairy in them, so I was happy to see I could eat almost anything! I ordered the Buddha's Delight which pretty much covered everything: curried vegetables, dahl, samosa, pappadam, rice & naan. Even the naan was vegan! Yum to everything! Thank you Cosmic Cafe!

Don Carlos Taco Shop: La Jolla, California

Okay, so yes this place is just a little hole-in-the-wall taco shop, but it has an amazing menu with tons of vegan options. It's advertised on all the vegan websites for good places to eat in San Diego, so of course I had to check it out. W was a little skeptical and insisted we could just go to the taco shop down the street from our house. "But that place doesn't have tofu and soyrizo and guaranteed lard-free beans and tortillas!" So to La Jolla we went. And it was GOOD. I got the soyrizo and potato burrito which was packed full of veggie goodness and smothered in guacamole. Delicious.

Of course at places like this I always get overwhelmed with so many vegan options! There were mushroom tofu tamales, veggie burrito bowls, tofu burritos, and basically anything on the menu without cheese and sour cream!! I am going to have to go back. La Jolla is a pretty fun place too. See below:

Cups: La Jolla, California

Vegan Cupcakes. That's all I have to say here... but I'll say more. This was a cute little loungy-type place that looked served only CUPCAKES!! I love cupcakes so much we had them instead of a traditional cake at our wedding. The week before my birthday I bought all the ingredients to make my own vegan cupcakes, but then it turned out to be the heatwave of the summer and then we had that blackout and so cupcakes were never made. One week later, we went to Cups to get my vegan cupcake fix and it was everything I dreamed it would be. Mmmmmmmmm...

P.F. Chang's: Riverside, California

Okay, so this is a chain restaurant, but it's not so bad. P.F. Chang's has always offered a ton of vegetarian options and is always a good choice. We went here with the family for a joint birthday dinner (mine and Grandma's!) and it was really good! The table shared two orders of the vegetarian lettuce wraps which are always amazing. The dish I ordered for myself was Ma Po Tofu. It's my favorite at Chang's and what I always order, so I was satisfied. Funny how everyone else at the table at first poo-pooed my choice and then when they all tried it they loved it. Hmm. You know, tofu really isn't that bad if it's made with the right ingredients.

That's pretty much been what's been happening in my vegan life lately: easy, quick meals at home and lots of vegan eating out. Maybe once I'm done traveling (in December) I'll look at some of my cookbooks again. Sigh... oh cookbooks, how I miss you.

Mac and Cheese Once Again

2011-09-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

I think I've blogged about this at least three times already, but only because it's a really, really good dish and one of our favorite things to eat! Therefore, I don't really have any new praises or self-adorations to declare! :) I just followed my original recipe from this post and used tri-color quinoa pasta this time.

I mean, seriously if you're reading this blog and haven't tried this recipe yet, you need to. Now.

Mac and Cheese, September 2011 version

A smorgasbord of salads

2011-09-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Over Labor Day Weekend, which was also the weekend before my birthday, we went sailing with some friends. Everyone was supposed to bring some food to share with the rest of the boat, so of course I made a variety of salads, and brought chips and salsa, and carrots and hummus.

Salad 1:
Citrus Soy Quinoa Salad. In case you forgot, I made this just a few weeks ago for my book club. It is so delicious I wanted to make it again. Even The Husband likes this salad, and he normally isn't a fan of anything with the words "quinoa" or "cous cous" in them. (Although, I am pretty sneaky with quinoa pasta... but that's another story for another time.) Click here for the original post and recipe for this yummy quinoa salad.

Salad 2:
Star Pasta Salad. I've also made a version of this before, and it's very similar to Israeli cous cous salad but with star pasta instead of the cous cous.

Ingredients:
1 package Goya star pasta cooked according to package
1 tablespoon vegenaise
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup sliced green olives
1/2 can artichoke hearts, quartered
2 teaspoons lemon/pepper seasoning
Salt to taste

Cook the pasta first, drain and then mix all the ingredients together with the pasta. Let it chill overnight and taste the next day. Add any additional seasonings as needed. I think I added a little bit more salt.

Salad 3:
Tri-Color Italian Pasta Salad. Another classic salad, perfect for a vegan picnic. You can really make this however you like, but this is my favorite way.

Ingredients:
1 package tri-color pasta
1/2 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/4 cup peppercini peppers, cut into pieces
1/2 cup sliced black olives
1/2 cup Tuscan Italian dressing (Trader Joes)
2 tablespoons Goddess dressing
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all together and enjoy!

These salads really make a filling meal on their own or are great additions to any picnic or potluck. The added bonus is that you get leftovers for lunches during the week too!

Street Tacos

2011-09-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

There's a popular type of food around this area called "Street Tacos." At least that's what my husband calls them and they are these little open-faced tacos usually made with grilled meat and served from a street cart in Baja California, Mexico. Living within miles of the border, you can understand why they would be popular around here. Apparently they're really good, but I wouldn't know...

Since we had all those leftover corn tortillas from the "Huevos" Rancheros, I decided I wanted street tacos and I was going to make them, vegan-style.

I had a block of grilled tofu from a BBQ the night before so I chopped it up into thin rectangular pieces. In a pan, I sauteed some chopped onions in olive oil and added some salsa and chili powder, salt and pepper.

Sorry, there are no exact measurements here. With things like this you kinda just have to go with what you feel like is the right amount of ingredients. Isn't that what makes cooking so much fun anyway?

I threw the tofu in the pan and mixed everything all together and let it simmer for about ten minutes.

Meanwhile I heated up some Cuban-style black beans and a black bean soup from Trader Joes.

Made some rice and chopped up an avocado and tomato. Added a salad on the side.

Finally I put it all together with the corn tortillas and sprinkled Tapa Tio over everything.

Street Tacos are amazing.

I Heart Vinh Loi Tofu!

2011-09-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

Even though my work territory has changed a little bit, I will occasioanly still have to travel on the 101 through The Valley. Much to my delight, this still brings me within only two miles from the best Vietnamese place ever! Last week I happily detoured down Reseda Boulevard to enjoy lunch at Vinh Loi. I wrote about this place back in April when I first discovered it and I've been dreaming of it ever since. It's all vegan! I mean, hello, can you blame me? It's my dream restaurant!

This time I ordered the Seaweed Roll and BBQ Duck with Sesame and brown rice.

This place is amazing and I want to eat there every day. I am salivating just thinking about it. Can I go there for my birthday in two days?

Side note: As I was driving away after my meal, the car shook violently at a stoplight. I worried that my car was breaking down, but once I started to go forward I didn't notice the shaking anymore. Later I found out there was a 4.2 earthquake in Reseda! Craziness! Good thing Vinh Loi Tofu is okay.

Tuscan Style Pizza

2011-09-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

According to The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen cookbook, Tuscan style pizza means a pizza made with beans. I had never heard of anything like this and researched if this is really a traditional dish of the Tuscany region of Italy. I wanted it to be true since this pizza was so good, but, alas, I found no recipes involving bean spread on pizza. Oh well. This was still a really good recipe and I will definitely try it again. I am just going to assume that cannellini beans are what makes it Tuscan Style.

I have to admit I didn't make the pizza dough from scratch or even pounded out a pie from a pre-made dough. Nope, I have bad luck with dough. I'm just gonna stick with my Pizza Parlor Crusts that advertise "5 Pizzas in 5 Minutes!"

Anyway, here's the recipe as I made it:

2 Pizza Parlor Crusts
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
6 tablespoons vegetable broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
3-4 ripe Roma tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

Preheat over to 450.

In a saucepan, heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring for two minutes. Add the beans, brother, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally until mixture is thickened and very creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in half of the basil and take off heat.

Carefully spoon the bean mixture into a food processor or Tupperware Chop N Prep. Blend together for just a few seconds so that the beans are mushed but not completely soupy. You want them to form a thick, lumpy paste.

Spread the bean paste evenly on the pizza dough. Place the tomato slices on top of the bean mixture, sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle the remaining oil over everything.

Bake for about 7 minutes.

This pizza is so good you don't even miss the cheese! Especially when you eat the Tuscan Pizzas outside in what some people have called the Mediterranean of California. (By some people, I mean me.)

(Tofu) "Huevos" Rancheros

2011-08-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

Yes! I did it! I made vegan Huevos Rancheros for breakfast and used my own recipe! I'm sure there are other vegan recipes out there for this, but for once I didn't look up any of them. This is totally created and executed by me! I'm very excited.

It all came to me when I was making scrambled tofu one morning and thought "If I'm using tofu as a replacement for scrambled eggs, why couldn't I use tofu to replace the eggs in Huevos Rancheros?" The scrambled tofu is always really good and sometimes we can even forget we're not even eating real eggs! So let's try out the "egg" theory with tofu in another dish...

...Huevos Rancheros:

You will need:

Corn tortillas
Vegetarian refried beans
Daiya Mozzarella

Sauce:
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 can stewed tomatoes, fire roasted kind
2 tablespoons salsa
2 tablespoons Tapa Tio
First, soften the onions in a little oil in a skillet. Next, add the tomatoes, salsa and Tapa Tio and let the sauce simmer on medium-low heat while you prepare the "fried eggs."

Tofu "fried eggs:"
Cut two 1/4-inch thick slices, lengthwise.
Use a juice glass to measure circles in the strips.
Cover the bottom of a pan with oil to fry the tofu circles.
Fry on medium-high heat, flipping occasionally until both sides look semi-crispy and golden. Sprinkle with salt and pepper while frying.

For the yellow "yolk" center, make a mixture of 1 tsp nutritional yeast, 1 tsp McKay's chicken season, 1 tsp olive oil. Mix well and put in the center of each tofu circle. (This is mainly for looks; you can just mix the "yolk" mixture in the pan while they are frying for added taste to the tofu circles.)

Meanwhile, remember to heat the refried beans and corn tortillas.

On a plate, lay out two tortillas and spread the beans on them. Next, put the tofu circles on top of the beans and cover the whole thing with the sauce. Sprinkle the Daiya on top of that, add some Mexican rice and fried potatoes* on the side and there you have it! Vegan Huevos Rancheros!

*Credit is owed to my husband for making the amazing potatoes using red potatoes, salt, pepper, and paprika.

Soba Noodles

2011-08-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

This idea for a meal has been with me for almost two weeks and I kept getting too lazy to actually make it. Finally, last night I threw it together. It's based off a recipe from the Skinny B* In the Kitch cookbook, but I changed a few things so I will just tell you how I did it.

First of all, a little back story. Back in July I made a sesame udon noodle dish that W loved! (Read about it here.) While he was noshing down the noodles he made a little comment about how he liked it so much better than the usual, and apparently blase, stir-fry I make. Okay mister, well noted. I have not made stir-fry ever again. However, to keep with the theme, I have discovered that anything stir-fryish with noodles goes over extremely well.

Therefore I bring you today's meal, Japanese soba noodles with steamed (not stir-fried) veggies and tofu.

Ingredients:

Sauce
4 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons sesame oil

Steamed Veggies and Tofu
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/2 eggplant, cubed
2 stalks celery, chunked
1/4 onion, cut into chunks
2 stalks chives, chopped
1/2 block tofu, cubed
1/4 teaspoon salt

Noodles
1/2 package buckwheat soba noodles

Directions:

In a large bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for the sauce; set aside.

For steaming the veggies and tofu, I used the steamer attachment for one of my pots. Add the rice vinegar to about one inch of water in the pot. First, steam the eggplant alone for about five minutes. Add the onions and celery next for about three minutes. Finally add the tofu and chives. The salt is for sprinkling over the veggies while they're steaming.

Cook the noodles according to the package, rinse, drain and put in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle half of the sauce mixture over the noodles and mix well.

When the veggies and tofu are down, put them in a separate mixing bowl and drizzle the other half of the sauce over them; mix well.

To serve, place the veggies and tofu on top of the noodles on a plate. I made some bok choy for a side dish, but edamame would go well with this too.

As with the previous noodle dish in July, this one was a huge hit! He couldn't stop raving about it and asking for seconds. Alright, alright, I get the point! Not that I've tried, but now I definitely won't try to bring stir-fry back.

Citrus Soy Quinoa Salad

2011-08-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is a salad I invented for my book club potluck! It is quite delicious and nutritious!

Citrus Soy Quinoa Salad

Quinoa:
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 lime zest

Dressing:
1 tsp lemon juice
Juice from 1 freshly squeezed lime
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 garlic clove crushed

Salad:
1 carrot slivers
half cucumber cubed
five shitake mushrooms, cut and steamed
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup edamame

Mix everything together.

Share and enjoy!

Chickpea Spread

2011-08-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

I normally just call them garbanzo beans, and I love them. I love them in (or on) salad, soup, pasta, rice, by themselves, and of course, hummus! However, for this recipe we shall call them "chickpeas."

This is another dish I brought to my book club last night and it seemed to go over well. Recipe is from Vegan Yum Yum.

Ingredients:
2 cups garbanzo beans (I used dry beans, but if you want to use canned, it's one 15 oz can)
3-4 tablespoons vegenaise
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste

VYY says to "mash all the ingredients to form a chunky spread."

I used my Tupperware Chop N Prep (the most amazing appliance in my kitchen) and mashed up everything that way.

Add a mint for garnish and dig in. Mmm, yum.

Gnocchi Two Ways

2011-08-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

This looks good right? Yeah, not so much.

First I tried to make the gnocchi with a homemade pesto sauce. The recipe is from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I've made this pesto before and it's turned out wonderfully. Something happened this time and it was a disaster. I followed the recipe exactly, but I should have known it wouldn't turn out right when I started pinching the basil leaves from my patio basil plant and they just looked really yellow and puny. Do you know what I mean? Basil leaves are supposed to be nice and healthy, large and green.

Sure enough, the pesto sauce was terrible. I won't go into any more detail about what went wrong, but I was the lucky one to take the bite and instantly realize that it was just plain bad. I warned W and he tentatively took a bite to find out what I was talking about. Yup, bad.

To at least save the gnocchi, I just rinsed the pesto off each of the gnocchi balls and saved it for later. W got out the popcorn popper and guess what we ended up having for dinner? Good thing we love popcorn and practically eat it every day anyway.

*****

The next day my husband started rustling around in the kitchen while I read a book in the living room. This always makes me suspicious.
Me: "What are you doing?"
W: Don't worry about it. I'm fixing something."
Me: "Hmmm."

Ten minutes later...

Me: "Wow! This looks amazing!"
W: "Of course it’s amazing. I’m Italian and I can cook!”
(I grab a fork as fast as possible.)
W: "You can put this in your blog. I call it Rescue Gnocchi."
(We both take big bites and chew in satisfaction.)
W: "Here's the instructions -- Skillet. Olive Oil. Garlic. Tomatoes. Whatever those chivey things are. Medium Heat. Gnocchi...add gnocchi half-way through the cooking process. Serve."

I mean, the man can cook. Simple as that.

Chili Lime Tofu and Quinoa

2011-08-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Not only was this another great recipe from Vegan Yum Yum, it was fun to make. There are a lot of steps to the dish but after being away from my kitchen for so long, I was happy to take on the task of cooking this delicious meal (click here for the originial recipe from Vegan Yum Yum.)

As with all recipes, I tend to make minor modifications. Here is what I did:

Ingredients:

1 Block Tofu, Extra firm 14 oz

Chili Lime Sauce

3 Tbs reduced sodium soy sauce

2 Tbs fresh lime juice

1/2 tsp red chili flakes

2 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp salt

4 mint leaves, chiffonaded (long, thin strips)

Quinoa

3/4 cup dry quinoa

1/2 zest of lime

1/4 salt

1 1/3 cup water

The original recipe calls for steamed collards, but I used what was in my patio garden instead -- steamed chard. This is just a side dish, so feel free to steam what ever vegetable you like.

Directions:

I started with the quinoa. "Combine all the ingredients for the quinoa in a pot that has a tight fitting lid. Bring to boil, then cover and reduce heat to loaw. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn off heat. Do not open lid. Let steam for 10 minutes before serving. (VYY)"

At this point I also started a pot of rice in the rice cooker and used the steamer attachement to steam the chard. The rice was just in case quinoa was too "hippie" for The Husband; more on that later.

While the quinoa, rice and chard was all cooking/steaming away I quickly prepared the chili lime sauce before starting on the tofu. For the sauce, just whisk everything together in a bowl and set aside. The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of sugar, but I left that out. (It turns out the lime juice made it just sweet enough to not be overpowering.)

For the tofu, I drained it and sliced it horizontally into strips. I had about 10 rectangle tofu strips. I then cut those strips into little triangles, but you can cut it however you wish. I used my electric skillet because you need something the tofu won't stick to without oil. My stainless steel pans would not have worked for this at all.

"Spread the tofu out in one layer in the pan. Using a spatula, press the tofu. The liquid will squeeze out and boil away, and the tofu will behin to turn golden. After several minutes, flip the tofu over and press the other side (VYY)."

Once the tofu was nice and golden on both sides I turned down the heat to medium-low and added the chili lime sauce. It evaporates quickly so make sure all your tofu triangles are nice and covered with the sauce.

The quinoa and rice and chard was done by this time so it was time to eat!

I just have to say that W was super impressed by this gourmet meal and couldn't stop raving about how much time and effort I had put into it. I guess when I was preparing everything it looked more complicated than it really was, but I didn't argue with him. He also claimed that the tofu was perfectly prepared and the sauce was amazing. (Why, thank you very much!) I assured him there was rice in case he didn't want the quinoa, "but you really should try it, it's really good." And it was! The lime made it very zesty and delicious. W did indeed try the quinoa in addition to his rice and he happily ate the whole thing. I practically scarfed everything down in one sitting, but managed to save just enough for lunch tomorrow!

Baked Sundried Tomato Risotto

2011-08-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

It feels like forever since I've actually been in my kitchen to make a vegan meal for myself and the husband. On July 28, we left for a thirteen-day trip to the East Coast and once we returned home, we left again two days later for a family reunion in Colorado. Therefore, it has been a very long time since I cooked. I guess there was that one time when we were at my parent's house that I made the dinner for everyone, but it was just my usual pasta and red sauce with artichoke hearts. At the family reunion, I was able to eat plenty of vegan food, since most of my family is vegetarian and always made a non-dairy option for me if something had cheese or eggs in it.

Anyway.

We finally returned home yesterday morning, which gave me a whole day to plan menus and meal plans, and go grocery shopping! Hoorah!

On the menu for this week:

Baked Sundried Tomato Risotto With Grilled Veggies and Balsamic Reduction

Sweet Chili Lime Tofu with Steamed Chard and Quinoa

Japanese Buckwheat Udon Noodle and Vegetable Stir-fry

Something with red potatoes and brown rice

Sprouted 7-grain bread for breakfast

Lots of fruit for breakfast

Lots of veggies for salads

Chips and salsa for snacks

*********************

Last night I made the Baked Sundried Tomato Risotto. The recipe comes from my Vegan Yum Yum app and goes something like this: (I just wrote how I made it, but click here for the original recipe from vegan yum yum.)

Ingredients:

1 Garlic Clove, minced

3-4 shallots, finely chopped

2 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Cup Arborio Rice

1/3 Cup Oil Packed Sundried Tomatoes, chopped

1 tsp Dried Italian Herbs, your choice

1/2 Cup Cooking Sherry (I used a replacement of half water, half apple juice)

2 Cups hot vegetable stock

1/2 tsp Salt

1 Small Eggplant

1/2 Can water packed artichoke hearts, quartered

1 Red Bell Pepper

Balsamic Vinegar for reduction (at least 1/2 cup)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 450.

Saute the garlic and onion in olive oil in an oven safe pan that has high sides and a tight fitting lid.

Meanwhile, chop bell pepper and half the eggplant into bite-sized chunks. Mix with artichoke hearts in a large bowl. Sprinkle olive oil, salt and pepper over veggies and mix together so that veggies are evenly coated. Cut the rest of the eggplant into thick slices. Coat with oil and salt and pepper. Put aside to grill.

Once the onion has softened, add the rice and stir to coat with the oil. Saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the sundried tomatoes and herbs, and mix everything well. Add the cooking sherry and stir until absorbed by the rice, about 2 minutes. Add the vegetable stock, stir, cover and bake for 25-30 minutes.

While the risotto is baking, it is time to grill the veggies. My husband is Grill Master in our house, so he took over this task. He placed a flat, cast-iron grill on top of the actual grill outside so that the veggies wouldn't fall through the grates. However, you can grill the veggies in any manner you wish.

To make the balsamic reduction, simply heat the vinegar in a pan until it becomes syrupy. Add half the amount first, and gradually add to it while stirring and heating gently. Be careful not to burn or carmelize the vinegar. It should take only a few minutes for it to become the perfect consistency.

Once the risotto is done, put everything on a plate (side by side like I did, or all together in a big pile W did) and drizzle the balsamic vinegar reduction over it.

Enjoy!

This is some of the best risotto I've ever had, and I think I'm going to bake it like this every time. It was so delicious! The balsamic vinegar was a delicious addition to this dish, which I wasn't expecting. We both ate so much, I had to make sure to specifically save a separate dish for my lunch the next day!

It's nice to be back home and cooking again.

UPDATE: Whoops! I had originally added something here at the end about lime. Well, that was for a different recipe so disregard anything about lime or sugar in this risotte recipe!

Whirlwind East Coast Trip

2011-08-06T07:32:00.000-07:00

We are celebrating W’s birthday on this trip, so most of places we went for food were especially for him. This means places that don't exactly specialize in vegan food. That’s okay. I’m a good wife that supports my husband and his wishes, and it’s fun to see him try all the authentic food from each city. Meanwhile, I’m grabbing salads here and there, veggie sandwiches, Chinese noodles, French fries or whatever else I can find. On our last night in Philly, at the Oyster House (where I had some very delicious soup and salad) he promised that for my birthday in a month, we will go all out vegan! Woo hoo!

Since it was a kind of grab-and-go food adventure, I'm not going to write about what I ate for every single meal on every single day of this trip like I did for my 27-day trip in March, but here are few notable meals:

Katz's Deli
New York City

This famous New York eatery is probably best known for its role in the movie When Harry Met Sally. In one classic movie scene, Meg Ryan demonstrates just how much men don’t know about women…I’ll just put it that way.

We decided to go here since we had just watched the movie, and because my meat-eating husband, whom I love very much despite our dietary differences, really wanted to eat a Reuben with pastrami at a true Jewish deli.

Vegans, do not fear this place! As soon as we were seated, the waitress brought a huge plate of pickles and pickled tomatoes to our table.

This was like my dream come true; I love pickles! I don’t know if I’ve ever had a pickled green tomato, but it was amazing, and I even asked for a second round. The two different kinds of pickles were pretty amazing too, and I could have just gobbled the entire plate and have been satisfied. However, I did order a side salad to eat while W noshed on his meat sandwich.

Despite the salad consisting mostly of iceberg lettuce, the fresh celery, tomatoes, and carrots actually made it a pretty good little salad for a deli! I was pleased with the entire situation. Pickles, tomatoes, salad… you pretty much can’t go wrong with something like that.

The Coffee Shop
New York City

For breakfast one morning in New York, T and D took us to a place they like to go in Union Square. It looked like it was supposed to be an old diner, but was remodeled to be a trendy New York eatery. Fun! They actually had some vegan breakfast items on the menu, but once I saw that they had a side order of black beans and rice, and another side order of tomatoes, that’s all I could think about. I feel like if there’s something on the menu that actually says Vegan next to it, I should get it, but I really wasn’t feeling the summer veggie/tofu wrap or whatever it was. All I wanted was the beans and rice! Is that so wrong? W commented that I was in breakfast heaven when my side orders arrived, but I think the others couldn’t believe I was eating beans and rice for breakfast. I mean, at 11:00am it was more like brunch anyway, practically lunch time for me on a normal work day!

With a little salt and pepper and tobasco sauce sprinkled on top, it was true -- I was in breakfast heaven. Simple pleasures. What can I say?

Sabrina's Cafe
Philadelphia, PA

Seitan/Chickpea scramble with fresh fruit. Good, but nothing to write home about. I think I was just more excited about the fact that there was a vegan option on the menu here. However, the rice and beans at The Coffee Shop in NYC were just as good, if not more satisfying.

Reading Terminal Market
Philadelphia, PA

In a place with a million amazing, fresh and delicious options, I chose the veggie-lean "steak" sandwich. BORING.

Made by a very mean and angry looking man on the same skillet on which he just made a real steak sandwich, I know I shouldn’t have eaten it. But I was starving and had just paid and ridiculous ten dollars for the stupid thing! Call me a bad vegan, oh well. To make matters worse, it wasn’t even that great. I mean, it was just an okay sandwich, but I think the bad-attitude chef and meat-covered skillet kind of ruined the whole thing for me. Sad, because it looked like there were so many other way better places I could have grabbed something to eat in Reading Terminal Market. Ah man… next time, next time.

Philly Pretzel Factory
Philadelphia, PA

Finally! A food that the city is known for and I can eat it! Hooray! These pretzels were fresh and delicious, and the best part? They were only sixty-five cents!

Home Sweet Home
Wilmington, MA

After two big cities, we made it home to Mom and Dad's house, north of Boston. Mom had a nice home-cooked meal for us, which was a much needed change from the restaurants and hole-in-the-wall's we had been frequenting.

Veggie-cheese quesadillas, Mexican rice, and nectarine salsa. Yum! Thank you Mom!

Vermont
I keep forgetting to take pictures, but now we are relaxing at the end of our trip with W's parents. There have been lots of fresh cucumber sandwiches, colorful salads, and delicious pasta salads. Last night I had a grilled Dr. Praeger's patty which is always good -- I love those things and for some reason never buy them at home! That is now going on the shopping list...

I will update soon with more pictures of Vermont meals.

Brown Sugar and Peach muffins

2011-07-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I browsed through my Vegan Yum Yum app and saw a recipe for peach muffins. All I needed were the peaches! After buying five very hard peaches, I put them in a paper bag to ripen and hoped they’d be soft by Sunday so I could bake muffins for the week. Sunday rolled around and we had a lazy day at the beach followed by a baby shower we hadn’t heard about until the last minute. We got home around 7:30pm and I remembered the muffins. “If I don’t make them now I’ll never make them and the peaches will just go to waste, I know it.”

So, instead of going about my usual Sunday night routine of getting ready for the week, I set forth on baking muffins. It was actually a pretty easy recipe and within no time they were baking away.

They were delicious and perfectly summery. We ate them for breakfast (and snacks, and dessert) the rest of the week.

Click here for the recipe from veganyumyum.com

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

2011-07-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

We were trying not to buy a ton of groceries for the week since we were leaving town on Thursday and wouldn’t be back for ten days. However, I always make sure we have some kind of vegetable, bread and tofu in the fridge. These are important staples to have in the kitchen at all times. Coincidentally these are also components of our favorite breakfast meals. We are not sweet breakfast people. Instead we tend to lean more towards the savory-style breakfasts like potatoes and scrambled tofu.

For Sunday’s breakfast, we didn’t have potatoes, but like I said before we had plenty of tofu, veggies and toast. My tofu scrambles vary each time I make them, so it’s hard to nail down an actual recipe. This time I used McKay’s Vegan Chicken seasoning, which I’ve never actually done before but learned the idea from G when I was visiting her last month. In addition to McKay’s I still added the cumin and tumeric as well as sea salt and black pepper. I also sautéed some zucchini and onions to add to the scramble. Delicious! Let that simmer for a bit, add some toast and sliced tomatoes; some mango on the side, and you have the perfect Sunday breakfast of champions!

National Hot Dog Day

2011-07-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

It was National Hot Dog Day on July 23. Did anyone else know about or observer this spectacular holiday? I didn’t know a day like this was nationally recognized until some of the student workers in my office posted it on the workroom calendar. I love hot dogs so much that as soon as I saw them writing this on the calendar I posted a reminder in my own personal planner, and immediately went to the store to buy my favorite vegan dogs, “Big Franks.”

Let me just tell you how much I love hot dogs and why I was so excited to find out there is a day designated to them. Last year I turned 30. What did I want for my 30th birthday celebration? To just have a bunch of friends over and grill hot dogs! I’m not even joking. We had everyone over and made hot dogs with all the fixings; sauerkraut, baked beans, relish (sweet and dill), ketchup, French’s mustard, onions, sport peppers, chopped tomatoes, and probably more that I can’t think of at the moment. I’ll put anything on a hot dog, but the aforementioned toppings are pretty much the basics.

So here it is, almost a year later and I wanted another hot dog feast to celebrate National Hot Dog Day. We had almost everything except the baked beans and sport peppers, but that’s okay. I made one dog with the dill relish, onions and chopped tomatoes and topped with mustard as you can see. The other I only topped with sauerkraut, onions and Tabasco sauce. I was too busy creating my own masterpiece dogs to see what The Husband did with his, but I’m sure it was some other variations of the same ingredients. Both of us were pretty excited about Hot Dog Day and enjoyed it to the fullest.

How difficult is it to make a baked potato?

2011-07-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

For some reason, every time we try to make baked potatoes it doesn't work. I don't get it. Isn't a baked potato supposed to be the easiest thing in the world to make? All you do is stick it the oven and let it bake.

The problem is that we expect the potato to be baked after an hour in the over at 425 degrees, but it never is! Are we missing something? Is it supposed to bake for two hours? That seems a little excessive.

We decided to try our hand at this mysterious baked potato business and I even followed what my Better Homes and Garden cookbook told me to do: wrap in tinfoil and bake at 425 for sixty minutes.

At the 60 minute mark the potato was still raw. I was so frustrated! How could this be possible?! Not only was the potato not even close to being done, I had prepared all the sides and toppings and everything was ready to go... sigh. We just needed a potato to put it all on.

W was determined to get a baked potato, but I was impatient. I took one out of the oven and sliced it up to fry in the skillet -- breakfast hash style. W put another fifteen minutes on the clock and we waited. I occasionally flipped my frying potatoes while his potato still baked.

In the end, W's potato came out perfectly baked, and I had hashbrowns. Apparently it takes way over an hour to bake a potato. No matter; we both just piled up our different potatoes with the same toppings and it all turned out.

Toppings included:
sauteed mushrooms, onions, and zucchini
steamed green beans
brussel sprouts
spinach
corn

Black Bean, Corn, and Orzo Pasta

2011-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

We're still kinda refusing to go to the grocery store again this week. Our fridge and pantry is stocked well enough, let's try to use it up before buying more stuff, you know?

With a can of black beans, some frozen corn, and a bag of orzo pasta I came up with this dish. I also googled recipes with those three ingredients and found a Rice, Bean, and Corn Salad on epicurious.com. It looked great! I used it as a guideline for my own creation and this is what came of it. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

Ingredients
1 garlic clove
1 onion
3/4 cup frozen corn
2 Tablespoons green olives, sliced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
Half a bag of Trader Joe's orzo pasta
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1 Tablespoon vegenaise
Half a lemon squeezed in at the end

--Prepare the orzo according to the package.
--In the meantime:
1. Mince garlic an onion.
2. Saute garlic and onion in a medium saucepan. I'm getting into the habit of using safflower oil, but use whatever method you want for sauteing.
3. Add, corn, cumin, coriander and salt. Stir on low-medium heat.
4. Add olives and beans
5. Simmer on low while orzo is cooking.

When orzo is finished, drain and transfer it to a large mixing bowl. Add the bean and corn mixture, cilantro and vegenaise. Don't forget to squeeze the lemon over everything. Mix it all together very well.

This can work as a pasta salad, but we ate it warm as a pasta dish. To make it interesting, I cut up an avocado and added that on top. For sides I steamed some frozen spinach and green beans.

Voila!

It was quite delicious and the husband agreed wholeheartedly.

A Favorite Dish

2011-07-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Back in May I made this dish from a recipe I found at quarry.com.

This is Golden Curry Tomokazu, a recipe created from a visit to Tomokazu in SFO airport. (I happened to see that place when I had a layover at SFO in May, but didn't get a chance to eat there.) Click here for my original post about it. I remember it was really tasty and delicious, and I had some of the curry mix leftover, so I decided to try it again.

This time I just used cauliflower instead of broccoli and I have to admit it wasn't quite the same. Cauliflower definitely did not go with this dish. Luckly it was steamed separately and just added on top, so for seconds we didn't even add the white vegetable.

I also toned down the spiciness by only adding two blocks of the golden curry mix. That stuff is HOT! Even with only two blocks instead of three, it was still pretty spicy. I kept everything else the same and the whole thing turned out to be just as delicious! (Minus the cauliflower.)

I have to emphasize again how easy this dish is to make. It's perfect for a quick meal during the week; it's so simple to whip all the ingredients up in a jiffy and get to eating it as soon as possible when you're starving after work! Enjoy!

In this picture I didn't add enough of the actual curry sauce. For actual serving purposes, you want to make sure you fill up the bowl with lots of the liquid. That's the good stuff. (See the original picture and post above.)

Easy Pasta Dinners

2011-07-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

After a busy weekend of babysitting, we were pretty much too exhausted to make anything other than the go-to pasta, vegetable, and salad dinner.

That's okay, because it's a very delicious meal. Ingredients are simple, and preparation is easy:
Rice pasta
Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara Sauce
Trader Joe's frozen artichokes
Frozen brussel sprouts
Chopped onions and garlic
Fresh basil from garden

That's just the pasta and sauce.

For the vegetable side dish and salad, everything was straight from the garden! I'm always excited when half of the meal was grown by us! On the back patio!

Sauteed chard, with a little bit of Earth Balance butter and crushed garlic. Mmm, yum.

Salad of baby lettuce, salad bowl lettuce, green pepper, and cherry tomato. So fresh and delicious. The dressing was simply a squeeze of fresh lemon a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of black pepper.

After doing parent duty for two little boys under the age of 3 all weekend I realized that as a parent it might be impossible most of the time to make elaborate dinners like I sometimes do. With all those ingredients and everything taking up space and time. When we were babysitting, we either ate at the counter while feeding the kids simultaneously, or were too exhausted after they went to bed to cook anything. We definitely want our own kids someday, don't get me wrong, and I love those little boys like they were my own; but in the meantime... I think I will relish the time we have in the kitchen to cook, and follow recipes, and make up my own, and sit down at a table to eat dinner. And when the time comes for us to have kids, I will cherish every moment of that too.

Vegan Week in Review

2011-07-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Due to an extremely busy week, I didn't have much time to make any fancy dinners this week. Also, I decided I'm not buying any groceries until next Friday so it's a "eat-whatever-is-in-the-pantry-fridge-and-freezer" time. However, that doesn't mean we didn't still love our veggies. This is what a busy, grocery-store-free week looks like for the Veggielover:

Monday:
Lunch = Leftover Red Beans and Rice
Dinner = Alphabet and star pasta with homemade tomato, basil, and garlic sauce. And steamed broccoli. Yum! This last minute pantry and fridge throw-together meal turned out to be delicious!

Tuesday:
Lunch = Free lunch at the School of Business. It was build your own taco salad, nice! ("Haystacks" for those in the know.)
Dinner = I had a hair appointment after work which I correctly anticipated would last until 9:30 at night, so I packed a salad that quickly I ate in the car before heading into the salon at 6:30.

Wednesday:
Lunch = National French Fry Day! I celebrated with the never-ending basket of fries at Red Robin. They're vegan, I checked. (Fried in a separate fryer.)

Dinner = Wednesday nights are bowling league, so I always pack a brown bag dinner to eat at the alley if I don't have time to make something quick before. This time it was an avocado sandwich on sprouted wheat bread with Vegenaise. Mmmm, delicious. However, I was gently scolded by the bowling alley worker, B, that we're technically not allowed to bring outside food in. Loving husband, W, stood up for me and protested that since I'm vegan I can't eat the "free" pizza that comes with our weekly game, and therefore have to bring my own food. B took compassion and said to just keep it on the DL from now on. Yeah, last week when I brought in the huge bag from Panera you didn't say anything, so I think I'm good. Thanks.

Thursday:
Lunch = Salad from home at 11:30 and three vegan hot dogs (no buns) at the office picnic at 2pm. Also, a few tortilla chips with salsa. I was too busy organizing the picnic to eat much.
Dinner = The husband took over this meal, hoorah! Fresh corn on the cob, grilled, and rice seasoned with our new favorite seasoning, Zatarain's. Chopped avocado and cilantro on the side.

Hey, I think we did pretty good for busy week! Not too shabby for this vegan household.

Lousiana Red Beans and Rice

2011-07-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

It's Creole Night in our household! Lately we've been a little bit obsessed with anything Louisiana. It seems like every food show that W watches has featured Cajun cuisine on one of their episodes lately, and both of us have been following another TV show that takes place near Shreveport (Bon Temps to be exact.) Not to mention, I've been reading a series of books that are centered in Louisiana! Neither of us have been there and we're itching to go visit now. In the meantime, we decided to bring the French-influenced Southern state to us!

One of the most traditional dishes of Louisiana is Red Beans and Rice. A typical recipe calls for things like smoked sausage, ham, and bacon. Yuck! Not in my kitchen! Luckily, fatfreevegan.com had a totally vegan recipe for this Creole dish! I was super excited to try this, especially since we should all know by now how much I love anything to do with rice and beans; and of course because I'm obsessed with Louisiana lately.

I didn't know exactly when I was going to have time to make this dish since we've been kinda busy lately, so I just kept a couple cans of red beans on hand even though the recipe calls for dried beans. That was pretty much the only change I made to the recipe, so here it is:

Real Louisiana Red Beans and Rice From Fatfree.vegan.com

1 pound dry red kidney beans (if you're in Louisiana, only Camellia brand will do)
4 cloves garlic
1 very large onion (about 2 cups chopped)
4 ribs celery
1 large bell pepper (about 1 1/2 cups chopped)
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4-1 teaspoon red pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoons chopped chipotle pepper, in adobo (this is not traditional but lends a smoky taste; substitute another tsp. of Liquid Smoke seasoning if you prefer)
1/2-1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke
salt, to taste
cooked rice, to serve

It's pretty easy to make if you're using canned beans like I did:

-In a pot, cover beans with water with about an extra inch of water above bean line.
-Finely chop the veggies and add to the pot.
-Add the rest of the ingredients except for salt and rice.
-Bring to a boil.
-Lower heat and let simmer for up to an hour. The longer you simmer the better.
-I added some dehydrated vegan pork slices to try to make it more authentic, but it is fine without this. The beans are amazing as they are with no meat or meat substitutes!

In the rice cooker I added a few sprinkles of Zatarain's Creole Seasoning.

The Red Beans and Rice were delicious! It was a true Cajun experience. We had successfully brought Louisiana to Southern California. W's comments were mumbled grunts of approval as he shoveled his food down. That's always a good sign. I think he was mostly exited that we finally have Tobasco sauce and liquid smoke in the house now.

The Meal That Almost Wasn't

2011-07-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a tale of the night I made Sloppy Joe's...

It all started when I was in the grocery store last week and passed the section that contained packets of Sloppy Joe mixtures. Hmm, I haven't had Sloppy Joe's in FOREVER! That sounds like it might be interesting. I checked the ingredients, and it was vegan. Next, I needed vegan beef crumbles. The Lightlife Gimme Lean Ground Beef style looked like it would work.

I had a grand idea to make a lovely garden salad and fresh guacamole with the Sloppy Joe's, and that is what I did!

I picked two different kinds of lettuce, baby spinach and chard out of my little patio garden, and mixed up the guac with my handy chop n press. I knew the Sloppy Joe mixture wouldn't take long to cook, so I saved that for last. Everything was going so wonderfully. I even chopped up some kale, celery, fresh tomatoes, and onion to enhance the Joe's and make them "fancy" (in my opinion.)

Then it all went downhill. I misread the directions, and miscalculated the amounts of ingredients, and everything got all messed up and it wasn't sloppy enough or red enough and I didn't know what to do!

W came in and informed me that I had only read the amount for the serving size, when in fact the entire tube of veggie beef was 16 ounces, which is close enough to the amount that the packet of Sloppy Joe mixture needed. (I was trying to figure out how much of the packet should go with only two ounces of beef mixture... sigh.)

Of course, I was embarrassed that I hadn't read the package correctly and became very frustrated with the whole process. I thought the whole dinner was ruined, and I felt like I failed myself! Luckily my kind husband took over and finished the Sloppy Joe's while I sobbed in the corner. Yes, quite dramatic am I when something goes amiss in my kitchen.

Finally we were both content with the final results. The Joe's were now sloppy and red enough, and our taste-tests confirmed that it was delicious! "Do you want me to toast your buns?" W said, referring to the bread, of course. And just when I thought the worst had passed, everything went back downhill again. The bread was moldy! It had been in the refrigerator, and it was still moldy! I could not believe this. This meal was a disaster. Nothing was going as planned; I was so upset.

A quick trip was made to the Albertson's down the street, and ten minutes later, we had fresh buns for our Sloppy Joe's. All was well with the world again. Phew. That was quite an ordeal, and now we know what happens when my perfectly planned meal doesn't go so perfectly. Also, it had been a really long week at work, and maybe I was a bit too frazzled.

ANY-way, here it is, the meal that almost wasnt: Sloppy Joe's with kale and a fresh salad straight from my garden!

Sesame Noodles with Kale

2011-07-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Kale seems to be all the rage right now, so I decided to try it out. Kale is a form of cabbage and is apparently one of the healthiest vegetables in the world! I'll go for that! It's about time I mix things up in the veggie department anyway.

I found this recipe on another blog called The Vegan Diet. It looks like she got it from "Vegetarian Times." No matter where it's from, here is my version of it, and it turned out to be amazing.

I used:

9.5 ounce package of Japanese Udon noodles

3 hefty stalks of kale, washed thoroughly and chopped

2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce

Sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

I did this:

Boiled the noodles and kale together in the same pot for five minutes.

Drained

Mixed noodles and kale with rest of ingredients in a big mixing bowl

Served with an Asian cucumber salad and avocados

I heard this from the husband:

"This is the best Asian dish you've ever made!"

It seriously was really, really good. It wasn't heavy like stir-fry can be, and it was very flavorful with just the perfect amount of spiciness. As you can see, we did add a little extra spice with Sriracha. The kale added a nice cabbagey touch to the noodles. Since it was so easy to make, I almost couldn't believe how tasty it was!

As for the Asian Cucumber Salad, it was super simple to make. I found this on myrecipes.com and followed it exactly.

Ingredients

3/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon lite soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 large cucumbers, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

Preparation

1. Stir together first 7 ingredients in a large bowl. Add cucumbers, tossing to coat. Cover and chill 1 hour. Add sesame seeds, and toss; serve immediately.

It's just all so yummy and delicious...

Cool as a Cucumber

2011-07-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

I went to the library the other day to pick up my requested copy of the cookbook Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. I'm always excited about new cookbooks and wanted to make something from this one right away. I told myself I'd open it to a random page and make whatever recipe was on that page. (I was going to Sprouts next, so I could pick up any necessary ingredients.)

Lucky me, I opened it up to "Cool Cucumber Soup with Cilantro and Lime." I know, I know. I just said I wasn't going to make anymore soups for awhile, but this one is a COLD soup -- perfect for summer! W had even suggested a gazpacho type soup the other day after our too-hot-for-summer Italian Wedding Soup, so I thought a cucumber soup would be a sufficient and tasty, cool soupy treat.

It was pretty easy to make. I just blended all the ingredients in the blender and let it chill in the fridge for a couple hours before dinner time. In the meantime I also made McDougal's Potato Salad (of which I wrote on June 6) and let that chill as well.

Finally it was time to try to cold summer soup! I love gazpacho, so I was excited for this, especially since I also love cucumbers.

"Mmmm, it is delicious!" (Me.)

"Wow, it's...very garlicky..." (Husband.)

"It's kinda like gazpacho, I love it." (Me.)

"Very cucumbery..." (Husband.)

Okay, so W was being nice. Unfortunately, he didn't quite go for my super-cool cucumber summer soup. It was actually quite hilarious watching his facial expressions as tried to get his (very small) serving down. I finally rescued him and said he didn't have to finish it if he didn't like it. With a barely noticeable sigh of relief, he kindly commented that it was "very gourmet." I'll take that, thank you very much! Also, more for me! Yum.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, the husband loves my vegan dishes and scarfs them down as if it were his last meal, so I can't really complain that he didn't like this one. I'll let him slide this time. Besides, the potato salad was still a big hit, and I barely salvaged a serving myself before he demolished it (and ate it for breakfast the next morning!)

Anyway, back to the cucumber soup: I give it 4 out of 5, and W gives it a 2. Why don't you try it and decide for yourself! If you're like me, you won't be disappointed! But don't let me bias your opinion or anything...

Ingredients
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
2 large cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 cups vegetable stock
14 ounces coconut milk
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro leaves
8 thin cucumber slices for garnish
Whole fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

1. Place the garlic and salt in a food processor and process to form a paste. Add the chopped cucumbers and process until smooth. Add the stock, coconut milk, lime juice, and minced cilantro ad process until smooth. (I just did this all in a blender.)
2. Transfer the soup to a container and refrigerate, covered, for a few hours to blend the flavors.
3. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the cucumber slices and whole cilantro leaves.

Serves 4

Fakin' Bacon

2011-07-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

My husband sent me an email while I was at work yesterday. I think we should make vegan BLT's.

Okay, I replied. Where did that come from? I didn't question him though. If he was actually requesting something vegan, I was happy to oblige.

Now as we know, the B in BLT stands for bacon, so I needed to find a vegan substitute for that. Most fake bacon's actually have egg and milk in them, so you have to do a little bit more searching for an actual vegan bacon. The only kind I have found are the Lightlife brand. They don't look as cool as the Morning Star brand, but they taste pretty good, and of course they are egg and dairy free.

W advised that, "crispiness is the key," so I fried them for about six minutes on a skillet.

Next up, you have the L (lettuce) and T (tomato). We used romaine and hot house.

Spread some bread with Vegenaise, and pile up the BLT. I used whole wheat bagel thins, and W used just regular whole grain bread. The result was a delicious, filling, healthy sandwich! The husband nodded his approval with stuffed cheeks, and I suggested we need to eat sandwiches more often. This was such an easy, yummy lunch, can we have more please?

Trader Joe's Meal #2: Italian Wedding Soup

2011-06-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

As much as I love soups, and as delicious as this soup was, I think it's officially non-soup season. It's been so chilly and "June Gloomy" here, I've just kept right on souping it up. The other night, it was finally hot and felt like summer. However, I had already been intent on making this soup, so I went for it.

It was really good! I had always wanted to try Italian Wedding Soup, but since it's full of meatballs, I could never eat it! I found a healthy-looking recipe and veganized by using the Meatless Meat balls from Trader Joes. I modified the rest of the recipe too, so I'll just go ahead and tell you how I did it! And remember, this is a mostly Trader Joe's recipe. Just saying.

Ingredients:

8 frozen Meatless Meatballs from Trader Joe's
4 cups vegan chicken broth
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/8 cup chopped red onion
1 cup fresh spinach
salt, pepper, and lemon pepper to taste

7 oz acine de pepe, or tiny pasta

Combine all the ingredients except the pasta and let it simmer over medium heat for at least one hour.

Around the one hour time mark, start the pasta in a separate pot. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and keep it in the separate pot.

To serve, ladle the soup into a deep bowl, and add a serving of pasta on top of the soup. It will settle quickly and mix with the rest of the soup, which is the desired reaction.

W was the one to comment on it being past soup season, and I had to agree. I was sweating while eating this hot soup! However, this fact did not stop us from eating the entire pot of soup, so it must have been good.

Trader Joe's Meal #1: Pasta and Salad

2011-06-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

No fancy recipe here... This is just a great, easy meal to put together. It's one of our favorites, and most of the ingredients are from Trader Joe's! I've always loved Trader Joe's, but haven't been going there much lately. This week, I decided to do all my grocery shopping and TJ's and so this is Trader Joe's week.

The first meal W made for me when we first started dating was a version of this; pasta from Trader Joe's. We had gone to the store together and picked out all the items. He then prepared it all for me at his home. However, at that time it was not vegan. Now, I've replaced those non-vegan items and used artichokes instead! It is just as tasty and good for you too!

This is what you need: some Brown Rice pasta, the Traditional Marinara Sauce, frozen artichokes, and one garlic clove (not pictured here).

First, I start making the sauce by sauteeing the crushed garlic in about 1 teaspoon of olive oil. If you want, you can add some chopped onions. This time I used red onions. Very tasty. Only sautee for about a minute, making sure not to burn the garlic. Next, pour the jar of sauce into the same pot as the garlic and onions. Stir in 3/4 cup of the frozen artichokes. Let it simmer over low heat until the rest of the meal is ready!

Once the sauce is simmering, I start the pasta and salad, and side dish of sauteed chard. Pretty straight forward there. However, the exciting news in this case is that half of the salad and all of the Swiss chard came right out of our little patio garden!

I just went outside and snip-snipped my dinner! Well, part of it at least. The rest of the salad was composed of veggies from Trader Joes, including beets, which I know might sound odd, but it is really good! Look at all this veggie-goodness: romaine lettuce, garden lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, baby spinach, artichoke hearts and beets!

Finally, I sauteed the Swiss chard until it was dark green and slightly soft in 1 tablespoon of oil, 2 tablespoons of water, garlic, and red onions. Mmmm, it was so yummy...

At last it is time to eat this delicious feast: Rice pasta! Artichoke marinara sauce! Fresh salad from the garden! Swiss chard from the garden! Everything just went together so well, and it was so healthy and refreshing. It's finally warm enough in the evenings to eat on our patio, so to make the dinner even better that's what we did! We enjoyed it all outside, with a nice view of the San Elijo Hills, and of course our garden.

Sojouner Cafe in Santa Barbara

2011-06-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I was happy to find a very vegan-friendly restaurant in Santa Barbara. The friends I was with were very obliging in accommodating my eating preferences, and they even found this place for me! Thanks S!

Ever since I had tempeh stir-fry at Stone awhile back, I have been craving it again. In case you're wondering what tempeh is, I always tell people it's "very grainy and nutty, but very good and spicey!" Sojourner Cafe had tempeh tacos, which I spotted on the menu right away and was pretty much convinced that's what I was going to get. However, as with all vegetarian/vegan restaurants, I want to try everything! I wavered between those tacos and the Mediterranean Torta ("a tower of eggplant, hummus, pesto, balsamic-marinated onion, roasted bell pepper, tabbouleh and sprouts, served with pita points and tahini dressing"), but finally stuck with my first instinct and went with the Tempeh Tacos. This is how the menu describe them:

CHILI TEMPEH TACOS one taco 8 | two tacos 11
Our spicy tempeh blend in warm corn tortillas, with rice, black beans and guacamole and veggies, with a side of horseradish sour cream.

I asked if it was vegan without the sour cream, and yes it was, so I ordered it up asap.

It was amazing and delicious. I'm so glad I went with my first choice. I really have to start using this tempeh stuff at home! It has a more hearty texture and taste than soy or tofu products, and it's naturally spicy, so it was great in these tacos. Everything was very fresh and light, and I felt perfectly satisfied after the meal -- not stuffed and overfed like you feel sometimes after eating Mexican food.

For dessert I ordered a vegan carob-mint cookie. I was expecting it to taste a lot more like carob, but was disappointed with the overwhelming mint flavor instead. However, a cookie is a cookie, and it was still delicious.

I definitely recommend Sojourner Cafe to anyone looking for a light, healthy meal. You will not be disappointed. There is something for everyone here, and I wish I lived closer to Santa Barbara so I could go back and try all the other vegan dishes!

Amazing Food Cooked by G

2011-06-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

I'm visiting my close friend of almost fifteen years this weekend and she has made the most amazing vegan food for me! G is the one that introduced me to Korean food way back when we were roommates in boarding school even before college! In our tiny little dorm room, we had a rice cooker and hot pot so we could make raman and rice and eat it all with seaweed. Mmm, seaweed... We roomed together again in college and continued our tradition of rice, ramen and seaweed in the dorm. It was a nice break from cafeteria food, and a fun thing to do together when we were in desperate need of a study break.

Many years later, we are still cooking food together, but this time in her and her husband's new home! Actually, it was more like G cooking food, while I just followed instructions as her sous chef.

She made fried tofu with Thai basil, Korean vegetarian meat, peppers, and snow peas all sauteed in a mushroom sauce with garlic and basil.

G's amazing stir-fry

Korean Vegemeat

For the side dishes, G served steamed yellow string beans and Chinese broccoli; along with vegetable dumplings.

Of course there was rice and seaweed as well.

It was all so good, I literally could not stop eating! I felt myself getting very full, but I wanted to eat more and more! I practically demolished the entire tofu/vegetable stir-fry dish it was so amazing and delicious.

Thank you G for the wonderful dinner!

Make-Your-Own-Burrito Night

2011-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is how we make our own burritos in our house:

1. Make a pot of beans.

Depending on how far ahead I've planned this meal depends on whether or not I use dry beans or canned beans. This time, I thought of it only on my way home from work, so canned beans it was. I added some soy-beef-bits, onion, chili powder and cayenne to spice it all up a little bit.

2. Chop of a bunch of burrito-worthy veggies.

Here, you see I have provided lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapenos, and onions. Oh, and some green olives still in the jar. Some people in our house like to make two burritos at a time (it's not me) so they mix and match from all the toppings to make two uniquely different "little burros." (They also like to make the burritos "wet" style and smother them with salsa and Daiya cheese, but that's another story.)

3. Pile everything -- bean, veggies, salsa, Daiya cheese, etc. -- onto a flour tortilla. Try to roll tortilla into a burrito.

I tend to get excited with the filling, which makes actually rolling it into a burrito a little difficult. The fun part is just digging in and eating it as fast as possible before it unrolls and drips out the bottom of the burrito!

Mm, Mm, Good!

A New Recipe for Vegan Stuffed Shells

2011-06-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

Back in January, I wrote about my own vegan stuffed shells that I've been making since college. That recipe has been pretty fail-proof and seems to get better every time I make it.

Well, I decided to switch things up a bit and actually follow someone else's recipe for vegan stuffed shells (gasp!) I saw that the recipe in Skinny B called for tofu ricotta (for which they also include a recipe) and this intrigued me. I love their tofu feta, and tofu egg salad recipes, so why not try this?

Their stuffed shells recipe, including the tofu ricotta, was very similar to my own, but I wanted to see how different it would actually taste. For instance, the Skinny B recipe doesn't call for vegan cheese shreds like I use, but only the tofu ricotta and a couple tablespoons of vegan parmesan. (See recipe below.) I didn't follow it exactly because I didn't have vegan parmesan, but this is what I did:

Tofu Ricotta

Ingredients

* 14 ounce extra firm tofu, crumbled
* 3 clove garlic, minced
* 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano

I added some fresh basil from my garden because it's extremely abundant right now and I need to use it!

1. To crumble the tofu: cut the tofu into squares and press each square between your hands over a sink to drain excess liquid. Then, crumble it into a large bowl.
2. Add the garlic, olive oil, oregano, and salt. Puree in a food processor or mix until nearly smooth with a fork.

Stuffed Shells

* 2 teaspoons sea salt
* 8 ounce jumbo pasta shells (22 to 24 shells)
* 1 tablespoon refined coconut oil or other cooking oil
* 1/2 whole onion, finely diced
* 1 package frozen chopped spinach (10 oz), thawed & drained
* 2 tablespoons grated vegan parmesan cheese
* 2 tablespoons whole wheat bread crumbs
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 2 clove garlic, minced
* 2 cups of your favorite pasta sauce

I just used two tablespoons of Daiya mozzarella shreds instead of the vegan parmesan, and I left out the bread crumbs.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a 4-6 quart pot, bring 3 quarts of water and 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt to a boil.
3. Add the shells and cook according to the package instructions (about 12 minutes).
4. While the shells are cooking, heat the coconut oil in an 8-10 inch skillet over medium heat.
5. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (4-6 minutes).
6. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute.
7. Remove from heat. Add this mixture to the tofu ricotta mixture.
8. To the tofu ricotta, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, spinach, vegan cheese, bread crumbs, and pepper.
9. Coat the bottom of a 13×19″ pan with pasta sauce.
10. Drain the cooked pasta shells and rinse until the shells are cool enough to handle.
11. Stuff each shell with about 2 tablespoons of the tofu ricotta mixture.
12. Place each shell seam side down into the pan.
13. Cover the shells with the remaining sauce.
14. Cover the pan with foil and bake 30 minutes at 350F.

Okay, so they looked exactly the same as the ones I make, but there was a subtle difference in the taste. Not necessarily bad, but different. I actually loved them, but W said he likes my recipe better, and to never change it (ahhhhhhh!!) However, that didn't stop him from scarfing down an entire row of shells, going back for seconds, and claiming that I'd better get some while they last because he's going to eat them for lunch tomorrow too.

I give the Skinny B recipe an A, but as my husband requested, I will go back to my own cherished recipe from now on.

Totally Vegan Quesadillas

2011-06-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

The other night, I felt too lazy to put together the type of grand feast I usually do, so I assessed what was in the fridge.

"We're having quesadillas for dinner!" I announced to W, who was also rummaging around the pantry for ideas. I had spotted a half-full bag of Daiya cheddar shreds and a brand new package of tortillas. W found a can of vegetarian refried beans from Trader Joes and with some homemade salsa, we could have a pretty decent last-minute meal on our hands!

While W sauteed some onions and peppers, I buttered the tortillas, one at a time, with Earth Balance and put them on the skillet at medium-high heat. While the tortilla warmed up, I quickly layered it with the Daiya cheese and some salsa. Folded one side of the tortilla on top of the other and let it sizzle. Flipped it a couple times to get both sides brown and to make sure the cheese melted.

Is your mouth watering yet, because by this point in the process mine was!

To go with these melty, cheesey quesadillas, we made a little bean dip and added the sauteed veggies on the side. Total preparation time? 20 minutes max.

From idea conception to first drool-worthy bite. Just when you think there's nothing to eat, a little teamwork and cooperative brainstorming can result in a simple but wonderful mealtime experience! Every once in awhile it's just plain necessary to have some comfort food with your loved one a cozy Friday night anyway.

2011-06-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have been asking me what Daiya is, or what I use as my cheese substitute. I know I make a lot of recipes that might look like they're full of cheese, but of course they're not! (This is a totally vegan blog after all.) There is this amazing new product out there called Daiya, and it is truly wonderful! Even before I was vegan, I have always been lactose intolerant. Therefore, my dairy intake was already very minimal.

Now, I have found Daiya, and it is the greatest thing since... well, since not being able to eat real cheese.

As their website says, "It shreds, melts, stretches, and tastes delicious." This is very true. I have been able to make any recipe with Daiya that calls for traditionally melty cheese. It actually melts and gets all nice and gooey, like how you want cheese to get on Pizza for instance.

And it's completely vegan!! Not to mention it's also soy-free and gluten-free for anyone who has those limitations as well. It comes in three flavors: cheddar, mozzarella and pepperjack; so you're pretty much covered in any kind of recipe that calls for cheese. My favorite is using it for pizza and macaroni and cheese. Click on the links below for my versions of the two:

Vegan Cheesy Pizza!

Vegan Mac and Cheese!

Even those are my favorite Daiya meals, I've also used it to make other amazingly delicious cheesey meals like:

jalapeno poppers,

stuffed shells,

tostadas,

AND burritos, and quesadillas!

It's a super healthy, vegan option if you still want something to be "cheesey."
Look! Here's the list of ingredients for the cheddar flavor:

Filtered water, tapioca and /or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and /or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, inactive yeast, vegan natural flavors, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, citric acid (for flavor), annatto, titanium dioxide (a naturally occurring mineral).

Not too scary right? I know it's a lot of ingredients, but they are mostly all natural ingredients, and in my opinion, I'd rather eat some tapioca powder and coconut oil than cultured cow enzymes. I'm just saying. And as with all processed food, moderation is the key! Obviously, you wouldn't eat the stuff for every single meal, but if you're jonesing for some cheesey pizza than by all means, get some Daiya and have some pizza!