I took an unplanned break from the vegan mean plan book.
I got the flu. Ugh.
But, long story short, I’m starting to feel like myself again – yay! My husband took me out for some veggie sushi. There’s a place here that’s $20 for all you can eat sushi, probably not the best idea for someone who’d just spent the last week not eating, but it worked out in my favor. And it was so good!
We’re going back on the vegan meal plan so expect more posts on the soon.
It’s day three in the meal plan book and things are going good. Tonight we finally tried the black bean and butternut squash chili – its so good!! As you can see above, i ate most of it before i remembered to snap a picture. Here’s the recipe, we modified it to make it more child friendly and had the babies taste test it and they liked it too.
Black bean and butternut squash chili*
Ingredients:
1 chopped onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium butternut squash
2 (15 oz) cans black beans, drained
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
3/4 cup water or veg broth
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp paprika
Black pepper to taste
Directions
1. In a large stockpot, sauté the onion and garlic in oil until soft.
2. Reduce heat and add the remaining ingredients.
3. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Uncover and summer for another 5 minutes. (I’m going to note here that it took a bit longer than 25 minutes for our squash to be cooked).
* adapted from the daily vegan planner
Today was the first day that my husband and I would be using the vegan meal plan book that he’d gotten me. It’s always easy to eat vegan on the first day. But, with the meal plans given in the book, it’s way more food than I normally eat in a day.
Breakfast was a bagel with peanut butter and a banana. And, no, I didn’t give up my coffee.
Lunch was a veggie burger on whole wheat bread with lettuce, sprouts, mustard, ketchup, and a slice of fake cheeze. And a cup of vegetarian baked beans.
Dinner, pictured above, should’ve been pasta and sauce with a giant salad. I didn’t want straight up pasta so I made a thick pasta soup. I combined sliced red onion, chopped carrots, celery, some leftover mini pasta stars, and chick peas. I then added some tomato sauce, and lots of spices. It turned out pretty good. Our salad was romaine hearts, cucumber, orange, sunflower seeds, sprouts and a strawberry vinegarette. The drink is a (hot) black cherry tea, it is cold tonight! Oh, for dessert I had a small cup of applesauce that was an apple/pineapple/passion fruit blend, it was really good.
But yeah, the meal plan book had a snack of raw veggies an hummus planned out and my husband and I never ate them. Maybe as a snack during baby-less tv time?
My husband bought me a vegan meal planning book for Christmas. I think because I struggle with what to make for us and the babies that we’d all eat. In this book, which covers 12 weeks, each meal and snack is covered for the day. We’re starting it this coming Monday. We’ve already gone through next weeks recipes and figured out things we definitely wouldn’t eat – like the sun-dried tomato risotto (I never eat tomatoes). I’m pretty excited to start and I’ll definitely be posting about it along the way, along with what recipes are keepers (I suspect the butternut squash and black bean chili will be a keeper).
How do you plan your meals? Do you even plan or do you just decide on what sounds good when your hungry?
As part of my plan to make homemade Christmas gifts this year, I made some red onion marmalade. It was kind of a pain because it didn’t set properly the first time and I had to open up all the jars to re-cook and add more pectin. The result is a sweet and kind of vinegary jam. My husband and I like it, a lot, but feel that a little bit goes a long way. We think it would be good on a bagel with cream cheeze (the fake stuff).
Here’s the recipe I used:
ingredients :
1.5 cups thinly sliced red onion (I used 3 onions)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 pack of powdered pectin (I used 2 packs)
2 teaspoons of orange zest
4 cups of unsweetened apple juice
directions:
1. Put the onions, dried cranberries, brown sugar, and cider vinegar in a skillet over med-high heat. Cook until the onions are clear.
2. Combine the onion mixture with the pectin, apple juice, and orange peel in a large stockpot.
3. Bring to a boil over med-high heat.
4. Add the sugar gradually while stirring. Return to a rolling boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Keep stirring.
5. Remove from heat and ladle into jars. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
(this recipe was in the ball blue book guide to preserving)
I made some cranberry infused vinegar tonight. Well, two are cranberry-orange, and two are plain cranberry. I’m excited to taste them.
Here’s how I did it (my recipe is based on the one in the Ball canning guide):
Ingredients:
- 1 cup cranberry juice (the recipe had directions on how to make your own, but I just bought the unsweetened cranberry juice at the grocery store)
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 cups white wine vinegar (we didn’t have any, so I used 2.5 cups of red wine vinegar and .5 cups of regular vinegar because that’s what we had)
- .5 cup cranberries
- an orange
Note: the original recipe also called for a spice bag with cinnamon and clove but I don’t like either of those spices, so I didn’t add them.
Directions:
In a saucepan add the sugar and cranberry juice. Stir and bring to a boil, keep stirring until the sugar dissolves. If you’re adding the spice bags, this would be the time to do it.
Add in the vinegar and cranberries. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for 10 minutes.
Take out the spice bag.
Put on slice of orange in each jar. Then ladle the hot vinegar over it.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
Note #2: keep in mind I haven’t tasted it yet. It sounded good, but I’ll report back after I’ve tasted it.
I may not have mentioned this yet, but I love love Indian food. I decided a while back that I was going to cook my way through a couple of our Indian cookbooks. I’ve successfully made tofu palak, aloo gobi, various lentil dishes, channa masala, and basmati rice pudding. I think I’m pretty good at making meals, but I’ve had a problem with breads.
The other day while we were at the local Indian grocery, I asked the owner for help on making dosas. He sold me the dosa mix pictured above. About a week or so later, I went in and he asked me how they turned out. I had to confess that I hadn’t tried to make them yet. Long story short, his mom offered to make us some dosas. Turns out, she made us a bunch of dosas, stuffed with spicy potatoes, and two homemade chutneys (corriander-coconut and something spicier).
Holy cow, they were amazing!
It gave me a better idea of how they should look and taste. I finally tried it. The mix was a bit waterier than pancake mix. They told me to use lots of butter, I’m guessing they meant ghee, but I used earth balance. As you can see in the picture, mine came out smaller than usual and a bit thicker than usual dosas. But they taste so good! I just made the outer part to see if it would come out, now that I know I can do it, I’m thinking of making some veggies for the filling and using up some of the leftover chutney from the other night.
I’m so excited that I can now make dosas!
Do you have a favorite Indian food?
It isn’t food, but it is vegan…
When we moved to Scranton this summer, we were pretty excited that we would be living about 5 minutes from a vegan restaurant (the Eden-a Cafe), but what we didn’t know then is that two doors down from the restaurant was a vegan soap shop. The Fanciful Fox is owned by a mother & daughter who are always super nice when I’ve gone in – which is awesome because sometimes, when their (cute) dog is there my son gets a bit too excited (he loves dogs) and won’t stop trying to pet it. I also think they’re super nice because when dreamgeek was visiting me this summer, he asked them if they were on team birkinstock and they were cool about it. Basically I want them to be my Scranton friends…Anyway…
We went in the other day because my kids’ skin needs to lots of moisturizing, especially in winter, and I had been buying them hair stuff and lotion from a (non-vegan) place that’s based out of Baltimore (and really, is awesome for their hair – it’s Oyin, they have some vegan stuff – if you need good hair stuffs for African American hair, I can’t recommend them enough), and I thought maybe buying local would be good. I’ve really only tried their glittery lipgloss and loved it, so I was hoping they’d have something good for the babies’ skin. I was right.
I picked up this body butter bar, which is actually what I was hoping they’d have. It’s a solid bar, and when you rub it on your skin it melts and moisturizes. I tried it on myself and the babies. I found that on me, my skin stayed really moisturized all day and overnight. On the babies, usually lotions will leave them ashy again the next morning – with this, they weren’t ashy in this morning, which is awesome. (I put more on them anyway,though)
This particular bar I got had a fairly strong scent when I opened the package and first put it on, but it lightened up fairly quickly (which I liked). As a disclaimer, I like scents that are fruity, vanilla or honey – so I guess this means I like for my children to smell like baked goods. This bar didn’t smell like a baked good, but it had an earthy scent that was kind of nice. I didn’t think to smell it at the store, which is weird as I normal do that.
So, yes, I would totally buy this again. We’re really happy with it. You should also know that if you know me in real life and come visit that Fanciful Fox is where I take anyone who visits (except my mom, because she wasn’t interested in either the vegan restaurant or the soap place, she missed out).
I made some maple almond butter today. I googled a bunch of recipes and ended up winging it. It came out pretty tasty.
Here’s how I did it:
I took what was I took what was left of a bag of raw almonds we’d bought a while ago, maybe 2 cups, and dumped it into a pyrex baking dish (loaf sized). I then mixed in about 3 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then I put it in the over at 350 for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, let it cool.
Once cooled, I threw it all in the food processor until it made a smooth paste. I ended up adding a bit of oil to help it blend, less than 2 tsp. And I also added a bit more maple syrup.
I then stuck it in the fridge. My only problem is that I got too excited when it started coming together that I jarred it too early. I should’ve let it mix some more. What ended up happening with mine is that it hardened slightly. I don’t think this is a bit deal because now it’s more like a maple almond candy – but…I think next time I’ll leave it a bit longer, but this is good. My husband and I have been eating it by the spoonful and feeding to the kids that way. So, I guess the verdict, at my house, is that it’s good.
Have you ever made a nut butter? How did it turn out?
Welcome to WTF?! Wednesday, a weekly feature here at Dos Veganos where we will highlight the absurd, humorous, and downright “DUH!” moments in the realm of nutrition and health.
My husband noticed the other day that the dye I bought was labeled vegan. Good to know in case we run out of food.
R.J. de Rossi
Chantal
