Rainbow Swiss Chard

I couldn't wait to share with you the rainbow swiss chard I found at the co-op today!!!  I swear it is like a candy store on the veggie aisle.  They have so many fun things you can't find anywhere else!!  How beautiful is this!! 

I also picked up a sweet indulgence for myself!  Vegan cookie dough!  Oh YES!!!

I'll be back tomorrow!!!

Hello all!

Sorry it's been a few days since I've posted.  I haven't cooked anything blog worthy recently.  Just some more sauted veggies, veggie burgers, left overs. etc.  I'm going shopping today after work so I'm set to make some new stuff!  Stay tuned!!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Two Dinners -- One Post Sesame Green Beans/stir fry & Miso-Ginger Rice

Sorry, didnt' realize it was so blurry, took in a hurry

Hello fellow bloggers (or non-bloggers, we don't discriminate here)!!  Since my last post I've been eating a lot of chili!!  It's finally all eaten and I have to say I enjoyed it each and every time I had it.  It was spicy and filling.  I ate it with and without rice, with cornbread a few times and with some "butter" crackers and liked it all.  I think it would be good too if you were sick.  Its spicy so it will clear your sinuses, and it has a ton of good veggies, maybe just add more broth.  =) 
 Since we've been cleaning out the fridge (again) I've put together two dinners that were based on things I already had in the pantry.  First I made Miso-Ginger rice and Sesame green beans.  The rice I found the recipe here from Whole Foods Website.  I made a few adjustments to the recipe:

I used brown rice instead of wild, because that's what I had on hand
Apple cider vinegar (again because that's what I had on hand) with a little sugar added
I was out of garlic (I know you are thinking, how can you live without garlic???  I'm not sure how but I can say I lived to survive) but had some dehydrated? garlic in my pantry.  I tossed it in place of the fresh, but after it sat and melded flavors with the rest of the dressing I spooned them out. 
I didn't have barley miso, so I used what I had, white.
I also didn't have any cabbage so I just left it out

It was good, but I totally screwed up the rice.  It was my first time making brown rice on the stove and it didn't pan out very well....not sure why I have trouble cooking rice over the stove!!  One day I'll figure it out.  It was just really soggy.  I did end up eating it, but it could have been better.  I didn't keep the left overs because it wouldn't have lasted. 

Far left, dressing for rice, middle sauce for green beans, right chopped veggies

I topped the rice with some sesame green beans, recipe here.  These were delish!!! Loved them and so did Husband.  They are very spicy so beware.  The only changes I made was agave nectar for honey, I didn't have any red bell peppers on hand so I just left that out, and I didn't use the sesame oil.  I also didn't have fresh green beans so I used one can.





Finished Green Onions.  Added some left over chopped green onions from the rice

The next night I had to make dinner on a whim because all of the recipes I planned for this week I was missing ingredients.  If someone didn't steal my visa check card number and spend all my money this wouldn't have been a problem...but that's how the cookie crumbles so I did with what I had.  Plus I ended up with another yummy meal.  

Since Husband and I both loved the sauce I made for the green beans I went with that same recipe and changed it up.  I was out of green beans, but the other day I bought a bag of froxen asian medley vegetables from Sam's Club.  It comes with all my fav. veggies.  Broccoli, snap peas, chestnuts, carrots, red peppers, mushrooms and baby corn.  It comes with a package of sauce, but I just didn't use it for this meal.  I made the same sauce as I did the day before (except I was out of agave nectar, I used just a tiny bit of maple syrup in it's place.  Just enough to sweeten it a bit but without "tasting" like maple syrup.  It still tasted good, but prefer it with the agave.  I doubled the recipe since I had more veggies this go round. 

I cooked the veggies over the stove until warm, then mixed the sauce until slightly thickened like the recipe states.  Before all of this I cooked some vermicelli noodles, and when everything was done topped the veggies on the noodles for a perfect stir fry. 



Veggies with sauce



Yummm

Again be forewarned that this was spicy.  I even preempted with some tums.  The second go round (probably from the lack of agave) it had a familiar spicy taste that I couldn't put my finger on.  Later I realized it had a very similar taste to wasabi.  I'm not the biggest fan of wasabi, but I have had it before and it's very unique.  I'm not sure what would have made this taste like that?  Maybe the dry mustard mixed with the red pepper flakes?  Regardless this was yummy and we'll probably have it again.  It was quick and easy too. 

I got paid so now that I have money back in my account I'll be going grocery shopping soon, with more meals on the way.  I have a ton of recipes planned and excited to share with you!  As always Stay Tuned and

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Spicy Vegen Chili

Soo glad it's Friday, even though it was a short week it felt like a LONG week!  The even better part is Husband has the whole weekend off, which never happens!!!  Hopefully the sun stays out!  As I'm sure you all remember the last time I made "chili" it wasn't my fav.  I thought I'd try my hand at a more traditional chili.  I found the recipe here from Whole Food's website.  They have some other recipes on there I want to try too.  It was super easy to make, just a little bit of waiting time while it cooks.  I made the following adjustments to the recipe:

1 Can of Kidney beans
1 Can of black beans
I didn't have Cumin so I used Coriander instead
I also didn't have chili powder on hand so I used slap ya mama
The recipe calls for 4 cups of water but reading the comments I cut down to 2 which I think was perfect so it wasn't so soupy. 
I also added a can of corn

It was really tasty!!  and really spicy.  I used probably a little more than 3 tablespoons of chipotles in adobo sauce.  I also took some of the sauce from the can and added it to the chili.  If you don't want it so spicy definitely cut down on the chipotles.  I loved the flavor it gave the chili though.  I cooked just a little bit of brown rice and added it to my bowl to give it some body.  I also had some cornbread in the freezer, so I defrosted that for the side.  YUMMO!!  Also I chopped my veggies kind of big, if you don't want it so "chunky" you can chop them smaller.

For dinner yesterday I was looking for something quick.  I bought some samosas's in the freezer section at Davis Food Co-Op.

I've never had samosas before so I wasn't sure what to expect but they were tasty!  I read up on the dipping sauce that typically goes with these but I didn't have any of the ingredients on hand, so I just went with what I had, a sweet chili sauce.  Pretty good for being in the freezer section. 

Till next time!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Spaghetti with Veggie Balls and Garlic Bread *Edit + Meatball Sub from leftovers!

Is anyone else counting down the days to spring like me?  T minus 61 days!  I have to say it's days like today that get me through winter.  The sun was out and shining!  It was still cold...but not so bad!  I wanted something easy tonight and spaghetti is always that and always a fav in our house.  I haven't ventured to make my own spaghetti sauce.  I'm sure its probably easy and better than the jar stuff  but I just haven't had the desire.  You can find some good sauces in the jar and when I make spaghetti it's usually on days like today that I don't want to put a lot of effort into it.  One of these days. 

I bought some Gimme Lean ground beef style veggie meat.  I was just going to crumble it up in the spaghetti but I had an idea to make them into meatballs.  The meat is very "sticky" so it worked really well.  I put the whole package in a bowl with about 1/4 cup of bread crumbs and some seasoning (italian seasoning, crushed red peppers, and a little paprika).  I molded them into about 1/2 inch thuick. 

1/2 of the Formed meatballs uncooked

I heated the oven with some olive oil and browned the meatballs 1/2 of the batch at a time.  Once they were all browned I took them out of the pot and added some chopped onions and garlic. 

Meatballs cooking

 Meatballs cooked

Then I added a jar of sauce and let that simmer on low.  Then I cooked the spaghetti.  I know I've talked about the pasta boat before so I thought I'd take a picture of mine.  Super easy to use. 

I found this super cool recipe on the vegweb iPhone app for a garlic spread.  I made this while cooking the spaghetti.  You take a whole bulb of garlic and cut the top off.  Wrap in foil and bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes (I baked at about 250, but the recipe called for less temp and less time, but I found mine wasn't done in that time).  Then take out of the oven and press the end of the bulb to push all of the cloves out into a small bowl (I'm amused easily and found this quite fun!).  Mix with equal amount of butter and your fav. seasonings.  You'll want to use a fork for this so you can mash the garlic into a "paste".  Toast some bread and spread with the garlic mixture.  Really good.  If you don't like garlic you won't like it.  Then again why would you be making garlic bread?  lol, I LOVE garlic and can eat whole cloves by themself so I find this very tasty! 

Make sure not to burn yourself when handling the garlic

Once the sauce is pretty much done cooking I added the meatballs back to the sauce so they can warm up.  When the pasta is done cooking mix with the sauce and meatballs, and if you are feeling fancy top with some vegan parma!  This turned out really well.  I was surprisingly impressed with the meatballs.  I didn't have much hope for them but they turned out really good.  Husband said they tasted just like real meat.  You still get the slight after taste but not like some fake meats that tastes bad...this tasted good just the after taste gave it away that it wasn't real meat.  If that makes sense?  This recipe will make for good leftovers too. 


**Edit -- So I made some GREAT meatball sandwich with the leftovers for lunch.  SOOO yummy!  I toasted a bun.  Heated the garlic spread in the microwave for a few seconds, spread on the bun.  Heated a few meatballs and sauce with some daiya cheese on top.  Put on the bun with some hot sauce...Perfection!! 

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Homemade In-N-Out Burgers Veganized!!

If you're like myself pre-vegetarian I enjoyed myself an In-N-Out burger or two.  I was never a big burger eater, but they did know how to make one.  Post vegetarian I enjoyed their "grilled cheese" which was delish, and post vegan I'm left with slight cravings for their grilled crispy buns, raw onions, tasty dressing and melted cheese!!  And who says you can't have one vegan???  It was actually quite easy.  Even Husband who isn't a big veggie burger fan thought it tasted "just" like an in-n-out burger...minus the veggie patty.  =) 

I used:
Boca original vegan burger patty (these are the best I've found thus far and are quite tasty!)

I bought some potato buns with onion.  I typically buy sprouted wheat buns which are my fav and are healthy for you, but I thought since I was trying to mimick INO that they wouldn't do, so I opted for the less healthy, ingredient list a mile long buns for the sake of the recipe.

Onions
Pickles
Lettuce Leaves

Homemade thousand island dressing (see below for recipe, super easy!)

daiya cheese
Mustard

Thousand island:  I used this site as a guideline to the recipe, but made some modifications.  No milk or eggs and I reduced the recipe down by a lot because I didn't want that much.  This is super fast, easy and I usually have the ingredients on hand.  If you don't have the worcestershire sauce I think it would taste just fine. 

~ 1/4 cup Ketchup

~ 1/4 cup Mayo (I use vegenaise)

~ 1 Tablespoon of relish
A few dashs of vegan worcestershire sauce
A sprinkle of sugar
Mix together all ingredients in a bowl, then refridgerate until chilled

Husband loves the animal style burger at INO.  I googled exactly what that meant since I wan't to get as close as I could and it is extra sauce, extra grilled oninos, pickles and mustard fried on the patty.  I can do that!!  You can't have INO without fries so I started there.  I took a few potatoes and instead of cubing them like usual I sliced them thin and long like fries.  I put them on a baking pan sprayed with olive oil with my handy misto.  Sprinkled salt and pepper, slap ya mama seasoning and some rosemary (this is key!  LOVE rosemary on my potatoes!).  These obviously are a step up from INO fries but thats how we do it at my house!  =)  I popped them in the oven until crispy.  Meanwhile I started the burgers.

Pre-Baked

I heated two pans with olive oil.  One smaller one for grilling the onions and buns and the other for the pattys.  I spread some mustard on the uncooked pattys and put them in the heated pan to cook.  Chopped the oninos but kept them in rings and tossed in the other heated pot to grill.  Flip the pattys until thoroughly cooked, while stirring the onions. 

When the onions were done I put them on a plate and I grilled the buns on each side until crisp.  Don't forget to check the potatoes.  Once they were done I turned the oven down to warm and kept them in there until the rest of the food was ready.  I also tossed the buns that were done in there as well since the pattys weren't ready yet.  The last bun that was in the pan I tossed the onions on the side so they heated back up.  When the pattys were done I topped with some daiya cheese and left on the stove until melted. 

Once everything was done cooking I assembled!  I used approximately two tablespoons of dressing for each burger.  Topped with onions (I like raw oninos, but used the grilled for Husband), then burger patty, pickles, then a lettuce leaf.  (You can add sliced tomatoes too if you like, but I'm not a fan of tomatoes on my burger).  If you so desire use leftover dressing for dipping your fries! 

And there you have it vegan In-N-Out burgers!!  Us vegans CAN have everything!  ;)

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler! 

Lunch at Amy's!

Today the WONDERFUL Amy treated my mom, sister and I to lunch!  She was most gracious and made us all the yummiest home made vegan meal!!  I wasn't very good at taking photos but I did catch a few.  She made a black eyed pea salad, tofu "egg" salad sandwiches, and baked apples for dessert. 

So I didn't really get a picture of the tofu egg salad, but you can get a glimpse in the background. 

Soooo Yummy!!  We topped it with soy yogurt mixed with some agave and something else I can't remember.  Definitely going to have to make these again! 

And the best part of this lunch (besides the food, and the company, and the conversation....who am I kidding everything was the best part) was we got to talk about quilts!!!  Amy is an expert quilter and is going to make me one.  I can't wait!!!  So if you're reading this Amy thank you for having us over and for the nice afternoon.  I really enjoyed myself and I hope we can do it again soon.  =) 

For dinner I made some french toast, which I've posted about many times.   See my original post here.  It never gets old and another Husband favorite!  I was even able to bargain with him to finally get the xmas tree out of the house with this meal!!  LoL! 

I'll leave you with a picture of my niece Lilah Jo and me.  She is too cute for words!  Don't you just want to squeeeze her!! ♥



Look at those curls!!!  ♥ LOVE! 

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!