Pizza and beans! With Chef Bab!

That's right! We made cajun-spiced (read: SPICED. Just spice it up. Do whatever you want.) blackened string beans (recipe --> here) with a side of Vegenaise. Such a great dipper. Then...

Pizza! P I Z Z A! Used the "naan" recipe to make the dough, topped with cashew cream sauce

(add 1 c. raw cashews, 2 cloves garlic to a measuring cup, fill up with warm water to 1 1/2 c mark, soak for an hr, add 1 Tb of olive oil and pinch o' salt. Yarggh. Blend till smooth.)

Then put some dang veggies on top! Bake on preheated pizza stone at 450F until the crust looks done.

(So nice.)

yellow split pea soup w/ mushrooms and chipotle

*

I've been on a serious soup kick lately... soup is so satisfying and warming on cold winter days. It's also super easy to make; I find soup foolproof, it's the type of food that can be mostly ignored on the stove, and especially when kept simple, is always delicious. This one bubbled away on the stove for most of yesterday's lazy Sunday afternoon. This was inspired by a bag of yellow split peas that's been living in my dried bean basket for a while now :) I flavored it with dried porcini mushrooms and chipotle, nice and spicy without  burning.

I topped each portion of soup with a little crumbed tempeh bacon. The hubby and I each really enjoyed this and gobbled up the leftovers at lunchtime today.

Yellow Split Pea Soup

ingredients:
-1 bag dried yellow split peas
-2 cubes veggie bouillion 
-1 cup dried porcini mushrooms
-1 chipotle pepper in adobo
-1 clove garlic-smashed
-6 cups water
-2 cups frozen broccoli stems (this was mostly to use them up, potato would do the same job)
-2 tsp cider vinegar
-salt, pepper, curry powder to taste
-crumbled tempeh bacon for garnish

-In a heavy pot, add peas, buillion, mushrooms, chipotle, garlic, water and broccoli stems. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and let simmer until the peas start to break up, this took me atleast 90 minutes.
-Use an immersion blender and blend soup until creamy. I added a little more water, cause mine was a little thick at this point.
-Once happy with consistency, add the cider vinegar and season with salt, pepper and some curry powder.  
-Garnish each bowl with some tempeh bacon crumbles.


*it's really hard to get a good picture of food during the winter!!!!

vegan sausages- improved!!

homemade sausage w/ sauteed onion and peppers on a hoagie roll, and curried potato salad

I've really enjoyed vegandad's sausages, I've made them several times and enjoyed the satisfying meaty texture. The past couple times I've made them, I decided to start playing around with some additions/omissions.... (I LOVE playing with recipes) and well, the recipe keeps getting better and better! Today I used garbanzo beans instead of the pinto called for in the original recipe, and added in grated onion, the addition of the onion keeps them moister and allows for a much improved texture. I've definitely also upped the spices considerably. With the garbanzo beans coarse-ness, I think we've found that these are  the best sausages yet. Here's what I did:

homemade sausages

1/2 c. garbanzo beans
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1 c. bean cooking liquid (or veggie broth or water)
2 Tb soy sauce
1 Tb olive oil
2 cloves garlic-crushed
1/4 c onion- grated
1 1/2 tsp fennel seed- crushed
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sage
1 tsp rosemary
1 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten

-turn rice cooker onto "steam" setting, allow to heat up
-crush/mash beans until none are left whole, stir in all liquid ingredients, then add spices, then add vital wheat gluten-- dough should be very moist and spongy
-cut 6 square pieces of aluminum foil
-separate dough into 6 even pieces, form log shapes, then wrap up in foil, twist in edges into seal off
-steam for 35 min
-allow to cool in fridge, then cook in variety of ways (in frying pan, on grill, chopped up in stir fries, etc..)

 Tonight I fried the sausages in some onions and peppers, and ate my hoagie with lots of ketchup. The hubby said mustard is only way to go... we agreed to disagree and stuffed our happy faces :) :)

family party time!

I hosted my first ever family party this weekend. I was quite nervous about cooking up a vegan feast, for my non-vegan/gigantic family. I put a lot of work into a family friendly menu and the whole party went off without a hitch.

Vegweb.com is such an amazing resource and I found some great recipes on there for the party. As usual when there are too many people around, I forget to take pictures of food... but I do think I documented the dishes that came out the best :) I've made vegandad's sausages before, and they do NOT disappoint. They got gobbled up, along with lots of other goodies, that I made and were contributed :)

On the menu:
-Potato angels (pictured below).. these came out so yummy and the "deviled egg" job amazingly. The whole platter was cleared within minutes
-Red cabbage asian coleslaw.. I made this with cabbage, carrots, slivered almonds, ramen noodles and a sesame dressing
-Marinated chickpea and artichoke salad
-Spicy sausages
-Grilled veggies (eggplant, red, orange and yellow peppers, and porcini mushrooms)
-Pineapple Upside-down Cake (super easy recipe, SUPER delicious cake, i highly recommend!)
-homebrewed iced tea

sweet potato-chickpea curry with mellow yellow rice

Have I ever told you how much I love Indian food? Well I do, but I have NO CLUE how to cook it authentically, my lack of knowledge doesn't stop me from trying! I think my attempts are yummy :)

Last night, I satisfied the Indian craving.. I made a curry with a sweet potato, chickpeas, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder and coconut milk. (I also added in other spices... like cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper). I basically started with the aromatic veggies, added in the spices and coconut milk, chopped sweet potato and chickpeas.. then let it come together on the stovetop for 45 minutes.

I also made a yummy mixed yellow rice. I had like 3/4 cup of brown rice and 2/3 cup of basmati rice left in the cabinet, so not really enough for a full dinner, I decided to combine them into a sort of pilaf. During my lazy sunday afternoon, I had cooked the rices separately in the rice cooker, then let cool. When it was almost time for dinner, I cooked up a lil onion in some earth balance, added a teaspoon of turmeric, then fried the rice in. I used my regular chinese fried rice technique, and it worked great! I think saffron would have been an awesome flavor, but I'm too poor and the turmeric did the mellow yellow job. I also steamed some kale for a nutritious side of greens.

I wish I could have posted a "recipe" for this... but whenever I make a curry I never measure, and just keep adding random spices until I'm happy with the flavor.

fideo!!!

Today was a nice relaxing sunday spent with my hubby and animals. For dinner, I decided to make fideo again. I made this only last week for the first time ever, and I think it's my new favorite food. I've had a bookmark on this recipe for six months, and only just got around to making this it. Super simple to make, and super delicious. I barely ever eat white pasta, but this recipe is so yummy its worth it. I think I'll try it with whole wheat angel hair, broken into little pieces. Also on tonight's dinner menu, a bbq bean loaf and some noochy snap peas.

Vegan MOFO day 5- Nachos Grande!

Holy wowza! This, ladies and germs, is THE end-all, be-all reason to believe in veganism. "Wait... you don't eat meat or cheese or ANYTHING?" Feed those nay-sayers these super delicious nachos and watch the jaws drop and the plates get licked clean. This was a team effort, Peggy and Danny nacho party night.

We started by putting a bunch of your favorite brand of tortilla chips on a pizza pan. Put some Amy's re-fried beans with mild green chiles all over them chippies, then covered with shredded Daiya cheddar and Follow Your Heart monterey jack. Then covered all of that yummy stuff with half a chopped up red onion and some sliced kalamata olives. Baked in the oven at around 375F until "cheese" was melted. Took out of oven, covered with Follow Your Heart sour "cream" and a chopped up avocado. If anyone needs proof of some kind of higher power, just eat a perfectly ripe avocado. That's right. Nature MADE it! Unbelievable! It's like nature butter. But I digress. Served with a side dish of salsa, but I don't even know if it needed it. Dios mio!

-El Danny

corn dip and mexican millet

It has been a lovely long weekend spent with my wonderful husband and lil puppy dog. We've been running around, seeing friends, and family and eating lots of good food! We originally had plans to have a 'Mexican night' with my brother and sister-in-law's family tonight. But the whole family isn't feeling well :(

We decided to cook the dishes we were planning on contributing at our house and enjoy a quiet night at home.

For an appetizer, I made my corn dip :) This stuff is super addicting! All the produce (for the whole dinner) was fresh from the Greenmarket yesterday, so the flavor of the fresh corn, and peppers were amazing in this dip! We gobbled it up with some tortilla chips.
For dinner, I was planning on making Mexican millet as a side for tacos. Since we didn't end up having the ingredients for tacos, we ate the millet, with some canned re-fried beans and some more corn chips. And we both added a lil dollop of Vegenaise, cause we can't resist the stuff!
I've made this Mexican millet recipe (from the Veganomicon) many many times, but it definitely turned on the best tonight. The secret? I followed the recipe exactly, for once :) I even topped it was some fresh lime juice. yum-my! I think I could eat this stuff every day.

green chili skillet cornbread, refried beans and noochy veggies

The star of tonight's dinner was definitely the cornbread. I had a green chili pepper from Nancy's garden on my counter, so I decided to make the skillet cornbread recipe from the Veganomicon. I cooked the chili pepper with some onion, and added it to the top of the corn batter before it baked. Such an easy yummy recipe, and we ate the bread warm from the oven, and boy was it good :) The beans are leftover refried beans that my parents made, creamy and satisfying (and all I did to tweak was add some chili powder, needed a lil more heat!). The hubby contributed ti dinner with some sauteed pepper, carrot, garlic and zucchini, cooked with nutritional yeast and Bragg's.

I got fancy with a lil cherry tomato garnish :)

its too hot! lets eat pesto pasta!

It's CRAZY hot today, so I didn't really feel like cooking. But I'm usually a hungry kid, so I knew I had to make something . My husband was feeling junky, and craving some protein. So the original plan for dinner contained some beans. I had some pinto beans in the fridge, that had been thawing out all day. I decided to just fry up some pinto beans and mash em up. I added a lil tomato paste and some chili powder. Creamy and yummy! What the heck else do I want for dinner? How about some pasta?!?! I'm always happy with pasta!
I cooked up these cute squiggly noodles, and tossed them with some homemade pesto (basil, parsley, garlic, olive oil, miso, and almonds). I added in some chopped zucchini from the in-laws garden! (I love free veggies!!!!)

adzuki chili w/ cheese sauce!!

This was a cozy weekend dinner :) A couple weeks ago I bought some bulk adzuki beans, I've never cooked with them before. So I made a big batch not really knowing what I was gonna do with it. So early in the week, I made some adzuki bean hummus w/ marinated artichoke hearts in the mix, using my standard hummus procedure. The hummus came out quite delicious, but had a weird brown-grey color from using dark beans. I wanted to make something with adzuki beans that had a bit more visual appeal. I made this chili with carrots, fire-roasted canned tomatoes, roasted red peppers, some frozen corn and a bunch of spices. I let the chili simmer for about an hour, the flavor was wonderful and zippy. Our carni dinner guest said it was the best chili he'd ever eaten :) (thanks ritch!). I made a cheese sauce using this handy recipe to top the chili. We ate it topped with a lil kalamata/cilantro topping and frito chips :)

dal, beets&spinach and easy vegan naan bread

I really enjoy Indian food, however I have no idea at all how to make it authentically. I enjoy playing around with lentils, spices, veggies and coconut milk to make 'curries.' Tonight I made a Dal with red lentils.

ingredients:
1 Tb peanut oil
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 tsp mustard seeds
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 inch grated fresh ginger
1 clove grated garlic
1 Tb garam masala
salt to taste
1 c. red lentils
2 c. water

1) heat up oil, add onion and mustard seeds, sauteed for a couple minutes, until the onion is slightly softened
2) add red pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, garam masala and salt, cook for a few minutes until nice and fragrant
3) add lentils and water, cover and stir, cook on a low simmer until lentils are completedly softened (20-25 min). dal with look like a thick paste.
4) served with a dollop of vegan butter on top

I am a sucker for flatbreads, I call this "Naan bread" however, I believe it is closer to what is called "Roti" traditionally... it's delicious whatever its called! I like to make a big batch of this dough, after the first rise, I break it up into little balls and put in the freezer. Whenever we're having Indian food for dinner, I'll take a couple of dough balls out of the freezer, and leave in the fridge while we're at work. When it's time for dinner, just roll out the thawed dough and cook.

ingredients:
1 1/3 c. very warm water
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. active dry yeast
2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. white whole wheat flour
2 Tb olive oil
2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic -crushed

1) combine sugar, yeast and water in a small bowl, mix until yeast is dissolved. let mixture sit for 10 minutes until foamy
2) put flour in a big bowl. make a well in center, add oil, salt, garlic and the yeast mixture. mix thoroughly with hands to form a dough ball.
3) place dough a well floured surface, knead for five minutes. add a bit more flour as needed.
4) place kneaded dough in a slightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 1/2 hours.
5) knead dough a little, let sit for 5 minutes. break dough up into 2 inch balls (16-18 dough balls). flatten and roll out with rolling pin into little circles.
6) cook in cast iron skillet for 4 minutes on each side (med heat), the bread is done when browned and slightly crispy

I had some beets in the refrigerator, so I decided to make a beet side for the dal and bread. I roasted the beets in the toaster oven until cooked (wrapped in aluminum foil, bake for 35-45 min at 375 degrees). I combined this with a box of frozen spinach, to get some greens into dinner.

ingredients:
5 roasted beets, cut into bite sized pieces
3/4 c. coconut milk
dash salt
curry powder to taste (2 Tb)
1 box frozen chopped spinach
3 Tb nutritional yeast

-combine ingredients in small sauce pan until well combined, and allow to simmer for 15 minutes over low-medium heat.

breakfast muffin sandwiches!!!!

I made some sausages with the Vegan with a Vengeance. Tempeh-Bean sausages, yum yum yum. Right when they were done cooking, I added a drizzle of maple syrup. We ate them on 12 grain english muffins with some avocado! Good breakfast!

chili with millet and avocado

I had a bunch of cooked pinto beans in the fridge that needed to be cooked, so I decided to make a chili. I don't really believe in using recipes for chili, I just use the ingredients I have around. I used a can of fire-roasted tomatoes w/ chipotle, the cooked pinto beans (2.5 cups), some onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, onion powder, oregano, paprika and a lil frozen corn.

The millet was toasted, then cooked with water, a lil tomato paste, salt, splash of hot sauce, then simmered for 25 minutes.

This tasted fabulous topped with some chopped avocado :)

asparagus risotto and pesto beans

I made some risotto and added in some asparagus that I had already steamed. The beans are navy beans with some homemade pesto. yum yum :)

Taco Monday

Lunch today was some tacos. I made a bean filling with some onion, some navy beans and a little leftover hot salsa cooked down in a pan. When this all got a lil mushy I added some red wine, pumpkin seeds and cocoa powder to the pan, and a spoonful of earth balance...then I smashed most of the beans with the back of my spatula. Danny made a creamy sauce with a little vegenaise, lemon juice and fresh chopped cilantro. We put some fresh spinach leaves on tortillas, then the beans, then the sauce :) Yummy lunch

Kale and Chickpeas :)

This was a yummy and easy dinner tonight :) We had some Kale that needed to be cooked from last week's farmer's market, and a bunch of chickpeas in the fridge. I took inspiration from Vegan Dad's Spinach and Potatoes. Cooked up the chickpeas with some onion, garlic and ginger...added in the spices and the chopped kale, added some chickpea cooking broth. The broth steamed the kale, and made everything come together. We ate it on top of some rice (mix of wild, white and brown), and with a lil mango chutney.

Danny said "Nutritious and Delicious-tastic!!"

Southwestern Corn Pudding, Red Beans & Rice

This was last night's "Lost" night dinner with friends :) I made the Southwestern Corn Pudding from the Veganomicon, I've seen it on so many other vegan blogs and it sounded delicious. I thought it came out super yummy, I'll probably go a lil lighter on the cilantro next time, but overall so creamy and delicious!

I made brown rice in the rice cooker and made up a red bean recipe as I went along :) I'm definitley going to make beans like this again!

ingredients:
1 small onion-chopped
3 cloves garlic-minced
2 stalks celery- chopped
1/2 red bell pepper- chopped
3 c. red kidney beans (i had these precooked in my freezer, so i just let thaw out on the counter for the day)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
salt
liquid from the beans/water

-sauteed onion for a bit in a lil oil, then added the garlic, celery, red pepper
-add in the beans and spices, liquid smoke, etc..
-cook for an hour or so until the beans break down in a creamy saucey concoction
-top with a lil hot sauce :)

yummy corn pudding!!!!

Recent Kitchen Adventures

This was our Valentine's Day Dinner. I made up some naan, I found this recipe online somewhere... Can't seem to find the link anymore though. Also made some curry with red lentils, chickpeas, spinach and coconut milk. We had some mango chutney in the fridge as a condiment. yum yum yum!










We had a pizza night w/ our friend Kaitlin :) We made two different pizzas. I found a great recipe online for whole-wheat pizza dough.
The only thing I did different from the recipe is using white whole wheat flour.

This first pizza has some leftover red sauce on first, the chopped artichoke hearts and red onion. We put lots of vegan cheese on top (Follow Your Heart Mozzerella and Almond Mozzerella).

This one baked for 14 min @ 425




This pizza was Vegan Buffalo Chicken, I made a blue cheese dressing Kaitlin baked three vegan chicken patties (Health is Wealth brand), then chopped them up and tossed w/ Frank's Red Hot.

We spread the dressing all over the pizza (about half the amount of the recipe), then the spicy chicken pieces, added some red onion.

Lots of vegan cheese on top.

Baked 15-17 min @ 425 :)



This is today's breakfast :)

I put some salt, pepper and nutritional yeast in a bowl, then dredged slices of tofu in the mixture.

I fried up the tofu in a cast-iron skillet for a couple minutes on each side. I put some Follow Your Heart Monterey Jack cheese on top to melt. A little Frank's red hot on top, then served on a whole wheat English muffin :)