I’m a winner! April 16, 2012

So, the other day I entered a giveaway on Happy Herbivore and won! The prize was a copy of each of Lindsay’s books and a super cute elephant necklace. Here’s what happened to my necklace:

This little peanut stole it!

Anyway, J and I have been cooking like mad out of the cookbooks – shiny and new and all… We made this first:

It’s supposed to be a chickpea Ethiopian stew, but after we started making it we realized we had no chickpeas…so, we used navy beans and it was pretty good. We actually made this dish three times already – twice with navy beans and once with chickpeas. It’s really good, even the babies liked it – it’s supposed to be fairly spicy but we toned it down a lot.

I went and picked up some yellow split peas at my local Indian grocery last night for a different recipe I wanted to try and in typical fashion bought the wrong stuff. I’ll be posting more recipes as we cook more from these cookbooks.

Inspiration for dinner March 27, 2012

One of my favorite vegan blogs is vegan crunk. I pretty much want to try everything she posts about.

Last night she posted about a cheeze sauce using a bit of liquid smoke. Tonight when trying to figure out what to what to make for dinner, I thought about the liquid smoke added to cheeze sauce. So…

I made a nutritional yeast sauce and added a bit of liquid smoke and vegan bbq sauce (which my husband suggested). Then I mixed in some steamed kale.

That’s it cooking. It was so good! Now that I’m on a kale kick, I’m going to make this again.

How do you like kale?

Slight break January 12, 2012

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.

Indian food November 14, 2011

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?

Recipe: lentil nut loaf October 30, 2011

My husband and I thought that after our craptastic weekend that we would make some comfort food. So we made a lentil nut loaf tonight. We used the mystery loaf generator from veganlunchbox to get a recipe. It came out fairly tasty, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup almonds
1 onion
1 grated carrot
5 cloves garlic (no vampires at my house)
1/2 cup cooked oatmeal
1 cup bread crumbs
2 cups cooked lentils
1/4 cup soy sauce
Spices – we used black pepper, cumin, dill and paprika

How to make:

Preheat oven to 350.

Grind the almonds down in a food processor or coffee grinder. Then set aside in a large bowl.

Sauté the veggies and garlic until cooked.

Once the veggies are cooked, throw them and all the other ingredients into the bowl with the almonds. Mix well.

Once mixed, put in a well greased loaf pan. We couldn’t find our loaf pan, so we put it in a 9×13 pyrex. It was lentil nut brownies…

Cook at 350 for 45 – 60 minutes.

Notes on this:

I thought it was pretty good but it was missing something. I ate it, as you can see above, in a sandwich with mustard and romaine lettuce. My husband ate his with bbq sauce – it was much tastier. We thought that maybe adding bbq to the mix would’ve been really good.

Do you have a good vegan loaf recipe?

Butternut Squash & Chickpea soup October 26, 2011

Jen over at Vegan in the Sticks had a post about a week or so ago about a butternut squash and chickpea soup that she’d made. I thought it sounded so delicious, but as usual, completely forgot about it…

Then last Friday we took a trip to the farmer’s market. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but Scranton has a great farmer’s market. While we were there I noticed that the butternut squash was out and it reminded me of Jen’s soup post. So, I bought a squash and couldn’t wait to get home to try the soup.

Jen’s recipe is in her post for the soup. I followed it pretty closely, except that we were out of tomato paste. I instead put in one of those small sized cans of tomato soup. It probably made the soup a bit runnier, but it didn’t affect the taste.

J and I made it after the babies went to bed. We loved it. J, who usually hates all manner of squash said, “I could eat this every day.” I didn’t answer because I was too busy gobbling my soup up.

The next day, I thought I’d try my luck and see if the babies liked it. We reheated it in a small bowl and gave some to Lucien first. He loved it, no surprise there. We gave some to Bea, her response was a smile, a shake of her tongue and “more!” They actually ended up finishing the soup! They cried when we ran out.

J and I decided that we’ll need to make this for them a lot, since all four of us loved it, it’s totally going into rotation. I think the only thing, I might add is a bit of cauliflower or grated carrot, but only to get more veggies in it for the babies, because really this soup doesn’t need anything changed – it is amazing as is.

*since none of my pictures of the soup made it look appetizing, I thought maybe you’d like to see the two happy kids, post eating the soup. Seriously, Bea is super picky and she loved it – try it for your kid.

Seitan’s A Jerk! October 23, 2011

A boiling pot of elastic dumplings! Yuck!

UGH!!! So, as promised earlier, I attempted to make some vegan jerk chicken out of homemade seitan (vital wheat gluten) last night. A complete disaster! It was like chewing on elastic bands! I’m not sure what I did wrong. Last week I ate vegan sausage and peppers made with saitan and it was like chomping on bits of heaven (obviously, someone else made it, not me! LOL!).  If anyone knows any tricks to making this shit taste edible please help a poor culinary challenged dimwit out!

Quick and Easy: part two, electric bugaloo October 17, 2011

My mom has been visiting for the last couple of days, so that’s why I haven’t been able to post – well, that and a cold hit every member of my family.

Anyway, my mom brought with her some homemade pasta sauce. What could be quicker and easier than something that someone else made?

She didn’t give me a recipe for her sauce, most likely because there isn’t one. She’s the kind of cook who just throws things together without ever measuring. But, since her sauce was actually pretty good (after I added some wine and more spices), I thought I’d share the recipe.

Here’s how she did it:

She said she took a couple of jars of plain Ragu. She added to that chopped belled pepper, onions, finely diced carrots, a can of chickpeas (after she ran the chickpeas through the food processer), and diced mushrooms. She put all this in a big pot and cooked it until the veggies were soft. She added 3 garlic cloves and a small amount of salt and pepper.

Now, it was kind of bland, but that’s because she was making it for the babies and not for me. But when I reheated some for my dinner, I added a splash (or three) or wine, a lot more garlic, a lot of black pepper, and a bit of parsley. It was really good.

I’m not normally a fan of anything tomato, I think tomatoes are gross, but this sauce had so much other veggie flavors (and wine) that it was super good. I didn’t think of this at the time, but I think it would be pretty good with some vegan meatballs added.

How do you like to make your tomato sauce?

Easy but not so quick recipe September 20, 2011

 

I was craving eggplant parmesean the other night and wasn’t sure how to go about making it vegan. Duh, should be easy, right? Well, it was! I combined (and changed up) a couple is different Isa Chandra recipes. I turned it into more of a layered casserole type dish, but it was so good! Even the babies liked it, which is always something we strive for at my house.

Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients:

• 1 large eggplant
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup flour (you might end up needing a bit more)
• 1 cup bread crumbs (again, you could end up needing more)
• olive oil
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of raw cashews
• 1 brick of firm tofu, drained (the firmer the tofu, the firmer your “ricotta” will be)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice (sometimes I add a bit more)
• 1/4 or more of shredded carrots
• your favorite spices (I tend to use dill, parsley, basil, garlic, a tiny bit of salt, and lots of black pepper)
• 2 cups, or so, of cooked pasta (I used leftovers that were in the fridge)
• 3 smaller cans of tomato sauce (or a jar of pasta sauce)

 

Directions:

For the eggplant:

 I like my eggplant peeled, but it isn’t necessary as I’ve had it unpeeled and it was just as good. After peeling, slice into 1/4″ thick rounds. I also tend to salt the eggplant and ‘sweat’ it for a few minutes after cutting it, this isn’t needed, but the Italian neighbor I had when I was growing up did this and I trust her…so…If you choose to salt the eggplant, you’ll need to dab them with a papertowel to take off the moisture. Once you’ve done this, or while you’re sweating the eggplant, assemble 3 containers for the dredging. I use big, flat bowls, but plates work, too. In the first one, you’ll place the flour. In the second one, mix together the cornstarch and the water. In the third, go the breadcrumbs. It is in this order that you’ll dredge the eggplant. Heat a skillet with a bit of olive oil, keep in mind that eggplant loves olive oil and you’ll need to add more to the skillet/pan as needed. I cook it on medium to medium high heat. Okay, so take a slice and dip it in the flour, then the cornstarch mixture, then the breadcrumbs, then into the skillet. Cook for a couple minutes on each side until it’s golden brown and you can easily pierce it with a fork. After cooking, you might want to place the eggplant slices on a plate lined with papertowels so they can absorb the oil.

For the fake ricotta:

Bust out your food processor, if you don’t have one a blender works, too. Throw in the lemon juice, tofu, cashews, shredded carrots, and spices. Blend until smooth. The carrots could be omitted, I added them for extra veggies for the babies. I also tried it with fresh spinach blended in, but I prefer it with the shredded carrots. Sometimes, I also add some lightly cooked spinach to the baking pan – it’s really good that way.

Assemble:

Preheat oven to 375. In a pyrex baking container, put down a layer of tomato sauce. On top of that layer the eggplant. On top of the eggplant layer the ricotta mixture. At this point, in a separate bowl, I mixed together the pasta (leftover elbows) and tomato sauce, then I layered that on top of the ricotta. Bake uncovered for 30-45 minutes.

 

 

If you make this, let me know how it turned out!

 

Oh, and no picture, because this was gobbled up way to quickly for me to snap a pic. I promise to post a picture of it next time I make it.

BBQ Soy Curl Sandwich September 16, 2011

So…this is the first post. DreamGeek and I thought it might be fun to start a blog talking about how we’re trying to eat vegan. We thought that by blogging to each other, since talking on the phone every night is apparently not enough, that we’d be more likely to stick to it. We’ll see…

Anyway, here’s a shot of my dinner. Bbq soy curls sandwich and some veggie chips (lots of the veggie chips because my children are like pigeons who will swarm for food any time they see it). I made the soy curls last night. These are cold, I just added some bbq sauce and lettuce…easy dinners are good.

To tell you the truth, I’m really torn on soy curls. On one hand I like the taste, on the other they have a strange texture. But I did like them cold with the bbq sauce. I guess I don’t like them unless there’s a lot of spices on them.