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!!"

leftovers and yam salad

Tonight's dinner consisted of some jazzed up leftovers and curried yam salad. I had some leftover angel hair pasta w/zucchini and fake chicken, to give it some more life I cooked up a bunch of onion, then added sun dried tomatoes and tomato paste to the pan, I let that simmer for a minute, then I added in my leftover pasta. Came out really yummy the second time around :)

I wanted to use up this gigantic yam I had in the cabinet, so I create this salad:

ingredients:
1 gigantic yam - cubed and steamed
2 Tb chopped onion
1/4 cup raisins
1/8 cup sunflower seeds

toss w/ sauce:
1/4 cup vegenaise
1 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper

came out fantastic :)

biryani rice w/ roasted onion and asparagus

I made some biryani rice with some leftover brown rice I had in the fridge. The first time around, I had cooked the rice with saffron and garlic in the rice cooker. To make the biryani, I simple fried the rice (4 cups) it up with a little olive oil and added biryani-rice-spice-mix (2 Tbl) that I had in the cabinet, I stirred in some frozen peas (1/2 cup) and some chopped cashews (1/4 cup). I thought it needed a little creamy sauce, so I mixed together some mango chutney (1 T), tahini (1 T) Tofutti cream cheese (3 Tb) and a splash of water. I thought it tasted kinda yogurty and yummy.. It balanced out the spicy rice nicely :)

For the veggies, I oven-roasted asparagus and an onion at 350 until they looked browned and yummy.

vegan mac w/ sweet potatoes

Our honeymoon in Mexico was wonderful, we stayed at a fancy resort and ate tons and tons of guacamole :) The food we missed most from home was vegan mac.
So I made it right away when we got home..

Here's the recipe for my standard "cheese" sauce for vegan mac :) This amount of sauce is good for 16 oz box of pasta (shells, noodles, whatever...) I usually add some sort of veggie, this time I added sweet potato cubes

(note: this recipe was inspired by vegweb.com)

ingredients:
1 1/2 c. nutritional yeast
3/4 c. canola oil or earth balance
1 1/2 c. soy milk
1/3 c. Bragg's Liquid Amminos
1/4 block extra firm tofu
1 T paprika
1 T onion powder
1 T garlic powder
1 squirt dijon mustard
lots of fresh ground black pepper

-combine all ingredients together and blend, i like to use the immersion blender and blend until its a thick-creamy cheesey sauce

-stir in with cooked macaroni (1lb), and veggie of choice, top with bread crumbs, bake for 20-30 mins until bubbly and a little browned