#91 Bloody Mary

There may be some of you who look at this and think, "that isn't a meal." But I assure you, a Bloody Mary counts as breakfast!

Sean made ours by muddling garlic with vodka and adding: Spicy V8, Robbie's vegan worcestershire sauce, horseradish (Watch out! So many of the horseradish bottles contained eggs! Blech!), garlic stuffed green olives, celery stalks, and salt and pepper to taste. We poured it into celery salt rimmed glasses. Yummmm!

This is the perfect breakfast for a lazy day spent at home!



Those olives are sooooo good! I Get them from the olive bar at Sprouts. Mmmmm!

 

#90 Orecchiette in No-Cook Spinach Sauce

Another winning recipe from Chloe's Kitchen. I served this with The Best Garlic Bread in the World. Yum! Everybody loved this meal and it was super quick and easy. The no-cook sauce is deliciously fresh, vibrant, and just look at that color!!! The bread is dangerously awesome. The first thing Mia said when she tasted was "Is it cheese?". Haha!

#89 Sandwiches and a Story

This isn't like our usual blog posts...but it is vegan and it is a meal! I made this in my classroom with Ninel, my fabulous former (as of last week) student teacher. We read my first graders, The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan. It's a really great story about two BFFs who both secretly think each other's lunch looks disgusting. One eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday and the other eats a hummus sandwich everyday. The two girls end up fighting and causing a food fight at school.

The lesson learned by the end of the story is tolerance and to not make judgements on other people's food without trying it. The kids loved the story and I think they learned a valuable lesson. After the story they wrote about their favorite sandwich. While they were writing, I passed out 1/2 a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and a quarter piece of pita bread with hummus in the middle. It was fun to watch the kids try something new. Some kids had never had hummus before and surprisingly a few hadn't ever eaten a PB&J sandwich.

If you're a teacher, know a teacher or have your own kiddos, this is a fun activity!

#88 Soyrizo & Potato Soft Tacos

The filling for these tacos is easy to make and really tasty. It reheats nicely too. I like to make it and take it when we go camping. We usually eat it for breakfast. But this time I made it for dinner! Since it reheats so well, I cooked up the entire soyrizo packet. I cubed potatoes and cooked them first. Once they were golden brown, I put them aside and browned the soyrizo. I spread the soyrizo across the pan then flip it over a few times until it's all browned- but not too crispy. I mix in the potatoes, put a lid on and lower the heat. I cook the tortillas over an open flame and keep them warm in a towel.

I serve these with avocado salsa and a dollop of sour cream. Yummm!
I make my own avocado salsa. Here's how:

1 chopped avocado
1 chopped tomato
1 garlic clove minced
A quarter of a red onion chopped (sometimes)
Juice from 1/2 a lime (more or less to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
chopped cilantro

I stir all these ingredients together and DONE! yay! so so easy.

#87 Loaded Baked Potatoes

There's a potato under there, I promise!

My family loves baked potato night!  Sometimes I'll cook the potatoes in the crockpot but if I have time, I prefer to bake them.  I coat them in a little olive oil and salt, they puff up a bit and the skin gets crunchy and yummy.  As for toppings, I make the cheese sauce from our favorite Mac and Cheese recipe (doubled of course), peel and steam the stalks of broccoli I have leftover from earlier in the week, and mix them together.  This reminds me of the frozen broccoli & cheese sauce from Green Giant only much better.  I adore broccoli stalk.  It is so sweet and tender.  I used to give the kids the florets and save the stalk for myself, then one day they tasted some of mine and now I have to share!  It is also a great addition to your green juices, if you are in to that sort of thing.  Back to the potatoes....I heat up a can of chili, top that with more of the cheese sauce and some of the sour cream from Vegan Junk Food.  A sprinkle of pepper and some Bac'n Bits and it's time to dig in!  Max ended up eating 2 huge potatoes and Mia had 1.  I'm going to have to start baking more if I want leftovers for lunch.

#86 Eggplant & Garlic Soup

OK OK OK. I know. I know. I know. This soup is not pretty. But it's sooooo good! I've been making this soup for a million years. Every person I've made it for loves it and eventually makes it themselves. I got the recipe from The Book of Vegetarian Cooking, by Louise Pickford. It has lots of yummy recipes, but this one was always my favorite.

Michelle calls this ratatouille soup because it has almost all the same ingredients, eggplant, tomato, zuchinni, and onion- just all blended up! I used my immersion blender to create this magical soup. I served it with garlic bread. Garlic and more garlic! YUM!


Pre-Blended



#85 Another yummy Sandwich

After another busy day of moving and unpacking, I only had energy for making a sandwich. Toasted sourdough, chipotle Gardein strips, romaine (lots of it!), tomatoes, avocado, Vegenaise and mustard (I like mixing them together to mellow the zip of the mustard a bit). I enjoyed this late night meal with a side of Kettle BBQ chips. It hit the spot!

#84 Happy Birthday Daddy Calzones!

Today is my dad's birthday! Woo! We had a small dinner party at my house. I made calzones for everyone. Yumm!!!

I used premade dough from Whole Foods, Daiya Cheese, Field Roast Italian sausages (crumbled then quickly pan fried, Yves Pepperoni, mushrooms and olives. Sean and I rolled out the dough. I spread the sauce, sprinkled the toppings, folded and sealed them. All made to order! Whew! Since I made so many different kids, I wrote their first initial with a little pizza sauce on the top. This made it easy for me to identify which calzone belonged to each person.

That's an "L" for Lynzie!

This was my first time making these. I'm proud of my sealing capabilities. Out of 7 calzones only one was leaky. I know next time I need to roll out the dough thinner. These were a little bready on top as you can see in the pictures below.

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

#83 Mexarama

Topless!

Topped with Savory Sauce and Salsa

This is my other favorite thing to order at The Spot in Hermosa Beach. From their cookbook Recipes from the Heart I make the Pinto Beans, Savory Tofu, and Savory sauce. Add some brown rice, steamed veggies (I like to use carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and red and/or green cabbage) then top it all with savory sauce and salsa. My favorite prepared salsa to use with this recipe is Trader Joe's Salsa Especial. Such delicious comfort food!

#82 Sanctuary Chef Salad

Salad pre-dressing!

I love this salad!!! This recipe came from Appetite for Reduction. I'm going to say it again...I love this salad!!! It has so many delicious ingredients. This salad has so many components that I recommend making some of them the day before- like the baked breaded cauliflower and baked tofu. My favorite part of this salad is the eggplant bacon (you can see it in the middle). It's so easy to make and is so tasty. The salty, smoky taste of the eggplant tastes so good with the dressing. The cookbook has a wonderful looking recipe for a tofu based ranch dressing. I have to admit that I've never made it though. I love my black creek ranch so much that I haven't tried it yet. But I will! I promise! The only thing I added to the salad is some cubed avocado. I love me some avocado!!! This salad is really filling. For whatever reason Sean and I both hadn't eaten much during the day. When I told Sean I was making a salad for dinner he wasn't thrilled. But I assured him that this would be satisfying. . . and . . . It was! No complaints!!

I don't usually make dessert unless there is a special occasion, but I had a berries in the fridge I wanted to use. I bought a pint of Double Rainbow Vanilla Bean Soy Cream. I sprinkled it with sliced fresh fruit. Sean grated a little semi-sweet chocolate on top and garnished it with a sprig of mint. It was sooooo good! I think I want to eat some everyday ;)

These berries were so sweet!

#81 Veganniversary Quesadillas

Money Shot!

Tonight I made the best quesadilla I've ever had.  I wasn't expecting it to be so amazing, which made it even more exciting!  I was going to call it "Clean out the fridge Quesadilla" but then I remembered that March 21st, 2005 was the day I became vegan.  I wish I had the time and energy to go all out on such a momentous occasion.  Oh well.  This was a delicious discovery!

Also could have called it "Rainbow Quesadilla"

I started out with uncooked flour tortillas from La Fe bakery in San Diego.  When I lived in SD, these tortillas were available everywhere.  Now I find them at Sprouts.  Today just so happened to be opening day for my local La Canada Sprouts.  What a perfect Veganniverssary gift :)  Be careful when choosing tortillas, especially flour.  Most of them contain whey and/or lard.  Next I mashed up some roasted yams that I had on hand, ripped up some fresh spinach, sprinkled on sprouted brown rice, and topped it with salsa.  Lastly, I sliced an avocado and threw it on top.  

Perfection!

#80 Breakfast Sandwich

Good Morning!!

Breakfast is supposedly the most important meal of the day. . . but I almost always skip it. When I do make it, this is one of my favorites. First, I put the hash browns in the oven to bake (I buy the frozen ones). While they are baking, I press the tofu, slice the avocado and sausage, toast the english muffins and make some ranch dressing. I brown the sausage and tofu on my cast iron skillet. I only salt and pepper the tofu. When everything is done, I take out the hash browns and brown them a little more if necessary. I layer the sandwich and top it with a little ranch and taco sauce or tabasco. You can't see the dressing and sauce in the picture because I only spread it on the top half of the sandwich. This is really good and really simple! Who needs McDonalds?!

#79 Tonya's Favorite Salad

Before adding the rice and sauce.

Tonight I made a copycat salad from The Spot in Hermosa Beach. Tonya is the owner, and this is her favorite salad. I agree with her! I love warm elements in my salad and this one has 2! Brown rice and The Spot's famous Savory Sauce. Luckily, Tonya has shared the recipe in her cookbook, Recipes from the Heart. The salad also features romaine, spinach, broccoli, carrots, tomato, cucumbers, sprouts, and sunflower seeds. I'm normally not a huge fan of raw broccoli. My friends know I prefer it blanched. In this salad though, raw is the way to go! I feel so healthy eating this!

It's not the prettiest salad.

But it is super tasty!

#78 Cheesy Broccoli Soup in a Sourdough Bread Bowl

I love bread bowls!

This recipe came from Chloe's Kitchen. This soup was incredibly easy to make.  It only had two things to chop so the prep time was minimal. It was also quite tasty. I added a few shreds of daiya cheddar for fun.

 I did come across one problem. I didn't scoop out enough of the bread when I was making my bread bowl. I was afraid to make a hole and have the soup spill out. . . Well...I left too much of the bread in. When I poured the soup into the bread bowl, the bowl quickly absorbed almost all of the liquid. I was left with a really thick soup. It still tasted good so I ate it all but it lost the original texture. I ate before Sean did, so he ate his out of a regular bowl. He tore his bowl apart and used it for dipping. It was much better!! Phew!

Note to self and anyone who wants to make this:
- Scrape out as much of the bread as possible when making the sourdough bread bowl!
- I reduced the amount of nutritional yeast by a little less than half. If you aren't crazy about nutritional yeast, I suggest you do the same.

#77 Corned Beef Sausage & Colcannon

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

Thanks for the beer and green soda Sean and Lynz!

For tonight's feast I made Corned Beef Sausages.  I doubled Vegan Dad's recipe but instead of one big loaf, I separated it into 8 individual sausages.  Best. Idea. Ever.  After they were done steaming, Lynzie sliced them and we browned them in some olive oil.  YUM

The colcannon was amazing.  The recipe is from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Color Me Vegan.  Yes, I doubled it.  Lynzie is obsessed with potatoes and we are both freaks for kale.  I wanted to make sure there was plenty of leftovers.  I make colcannon every year and this was my favorite version so far.

The Irish Soda Bread was also one of Colleen's recipes.  This one came from her book The Joy of Vegan Baking.  I added currants that I had soaked in hot water and Bushmills Whiskey to plump them up and add flavor.  It turned out so moist and flavorful.  We all loved it.

For dessert, I made Irish Whiskey Cake.  I got the recipe from Peta's website.  I only had a couple of bites because I was so stuffed from dinner and all the beer that The Roaches brought over.  It was really tender and flavorful but I would reduce the salt a bit next time.

This was the first special occasion meal I've made for guests at the new house and it went rather smoothly.  I do have a kitchen full of dishes but that is the norm for me.  I'm excited that I have leftovers and have discovered some great new recipes.  A note for my future self: If you are doubling the corned beef recipe, don't double the salt (the regular salt, not the seasoned), and reduce the salt in the cake.

I hope you all had a fun, festive day!

#76 Smoky Bacon Mac&Cheese

Mmmm Bacon!

This is the same mac and cheese Michelle posted as #39. As per Sean's request, I made this with some chopped up smoky tempeh bacon. I'm glad he asked because this was delicious. As I previously mentioned, I'm obsessed with that bacon. We both loved the richness the bacon added to the meal. I would definitely make it again. Yumm! And in case you missed the recipe the first time, click here.

#75 Fish Tacos...Kinda!

Even before I was vegetarian, I was never much of a fish eater. So I've actually never had a real fish taco. But based on pictures and recipes I've seen before...This is my version.

Into the fried tortilla shells I stuffed:

 Gardein chicken strips as the "fish"

Shredded cabbage

Avocado salsa made with garlic, tomato and lemon juice

 I drizzled the tops with some Vegenaise Tartar Sauce.

I thinned down the tartar sauce to make it more of a sauce as opposed to a dip. In the past when I've made these, I've always made my own tartar sauce. But when I saw the premade stuff in the store, I had to try it! I'm glad I did! I'm envisioning some "fish" and chips in my new future!!

#74 Tempeh Picatta



Tempeh picatta with garlic kale

 After looking through Michelle's copy of Chloe's Kitchen and becoming obesessed with this recipe, I bought it yesterday. This was realy easy to make and was quite tasty. I'm a sucker for picatta sauce. I think my onion was too big because the sauce was a little heacy on the onions. Next time I'm going to use less or a smaller onion. I loved the fresh parsley and lemony flavor. I am currently in love with tempeh, so this was a perfect dinner for me. Note to self: Next time, be sure to brown the tempeh a bit more! When I looked at the picture in the book, Chloe's was much darker than mine.

I suateed garlic in olive oil until it was slightly brown then tossed in a bunch of kale, mixing in the garlic and olive oil. I put a lid on it and turned off the heat. Before serving, I drizzled a little basalmic vinegar on top.
These two were very yummy together. There wasn't even any leftovers. Yummm!!!

#73 Fettuccine Alfredo

The first dinner I made in the new house!!

Part of my amazing birthday present from Lynzie was a gift card to Vroman's. I used it to purchase Chloe Coscarelli's new book Chloe's Kitchen. She was the first vegan winner of Cupcake Wars! Woohoo!!! I haven't been this excited about a cookbook in a long time. I kept taking pictures and sending them to Lynzie. She rushed out and grabbed a copy too, so you'll be seeing more from this fabulous book soon!

I had everything I needed to make the cashew based Alfredo sauce (I love it when that happens) so I went with this recipe first. It was super simple, and fast. I really liked the mellow flavor and rich creaminess. I used brown rice fettuccine and served it with the Best Garlic Bread in the World (another recipe from the book). Wow. My new favorite garlic bread. The nutritional yeast gives it a flavor reminiscent of Parmesan...from what I can remember anyway.

I'm so excited about this latest addition to my cookbook library! It's an absolute steal for 11 bucks!

#72 Bacon Ranch Burger

So Tasty!

For dinner tonight, I grilled a Gardein Beefless Burger. I also cooked up a couple slices of Tofurkey Tempeh Bacon because I'm obsessed with it. I layered a toasted bun in this order:

Ranch (on both sides of the bun)

Gardein

Tempeh bacon

Tomato

Avocado 

Thinly sliced pickles

Lettuce

I served this with baked french fries and cole slaw. This is the same cole slaw recipe that I posted here. 

It was really yummy but was way too much for for me. I only ended up eating about half my burger. 

Sean ate it all though! He made his a little different. He had his with a ton of lettuce, mushrooms and onions instead of bacon.  He also opted for Veganaise and a sweet/hot mustard instead of ranch.

Sean's delicious looking burger

\] \

#71 Breakfast Bagel

This is one of my favorite breakfasts. It's a Works bagel from Goldsteins, toasted and topped with Tofutti cream cheese, red onion, tomato, capers, salt & pepper. From Starbucks we have a venti soy misto with 1 pump cinnamon dolce. Delicious.

I'm hoping to cook a real meal in the new kitchen very soon! I had my first bake session there today, it was a cookie success. The little boy (with serious food allergies) they were ordered for loved them!

#70 Goddess Niçoise Salad

So many yummy ingredients!

This is another recipe from Appetite For Reduction. This is one of my favorites from the book. As you can see the salad is made of tomatoes, steamed potatoes, red onion, green, beans, kalamata olives, and a chickpea "tuna," served on a bed of romaine.

The picture I took is without the dressing. The recipe for the dressing follows the recipe for the salad. The dressing is the best part! It's green, garlicky and delicious, with 2 of my most loved dressing ingredients: tahini and miso! I always double the dressing so I have some left over.

I love this salad. I make it for dinner because it's so filling. Yumm!

#69 Garlicky Mushrooms & Kale w/Quinoa

This hit the spot! I was in need of some good ol' fashioned health food. Maybe because of my last convo with Lynzie. It involved tempeh, granola, dreads, and patchouli. Hahaha!

This recipe is from Appetite for Reduction. Super quick and easy. Garlic, mushrooms, kale, olive oil, salt & pepper. That's it! I had some quinoa cooked in the fridge and it was perfect! Tasted fantastic with a glass of red wine. The recipe says it serves four however, I ate half of it and I'm considering seconds...looks like another one for the doubling files.

#68 Loaded Baked Potato

That's tempeh bacon not pecans!

This is something I like to make when I know I'm getting home late. I call Sean and have him put the potatoes in the oven about an hour before I think I'll be home. When I get home all I have to do is steam the broccoli and cook up the tempeh bacon.

I mash Earth Balance into the potato and top it with steamed broccoli, daiya cheddar and crumbled tempeh bacon. I add a dollop of Black Creek dressing.

Presto! Dinner is done in 20 minutes (except the time the potato is baking)!!

#67 M Chopped Salad

This is my absolute, favorite salad. Ever. The M Chopped Salad from M cafe. I love bringing this to weddings. People get jealous while they eat their dried out banquet chicken. Blech!

Copy catting this salad is a labor of love. Totally worth it though. M cafe charges $11.95 for it. I can easily make 3 for that price!

From their website:
hearts of romaine & mixed greens, avocado, cucumber, chickpeas, herb-baked tofu, scallions, umeboshi pickled radishes, carrots, beets, tamari-roasted almonds, crumbled tempeh“bacon” & tofu-peppercorn ranch dressing

I use vive le vegan's lemon herb tofu but sub extra veggie broth for the lemon juice. The ume pickled radish is from the kind diet. I use the trader joe's steamed beets and tamari roasted almonds. The tempeh bacon recipe is from vegan brunch. And again we gave the super star native foods black creek ranch dressing.

This is a jaw dropping, Oooh and Aaaahs type salad. I love it!!!

#66 Chickpea Tuna Melt

This was SUPER yummy!!

This recipe is from Vegan Junk Food. I had to buy it for myself after I saw that mushroom stroganoff (which I made last night)!

The sandwich was really easy to make. Chickpeas are wonderful. As suggested in the book, I used granulated seaweed to give it a seafood flavor. I had dulse flakes in my pantry so that's what I used. The flavor was mild but definitely good. I spread the "tuna" on both halves of the bread and sprinkled it with Daiya cheddar. I broiled it until the cheese was melted. Then I spread a little Earth Balance on both sides and browned it on my cast iron skillet. Sean and I both really liked this.

When I made my meal plan for the week, I knew I was going to make this sandwich and wanted to make a side that was a little different than usual. I thought potato salad was the perfect answer. But as I was making this, I realized that the sandwich and the potato salad had essentially the same exact ingredients (vegenaise, celery and red onions). I decided not to care and did it anyways. It was good but- I won't be making these two together again. 

The sandwich halves before I put them in the broiler.

#65 "Egg" foo yum Sandwich

I wanted to say that this was lunch. That would've been a lie. I'm in the middle of moving so the kitchen is in disarray. This was the best I could do tonight!

I love these Organic Tofu Veggie Burgers from Trader Joe's. They're made by Wildwood (my absolute favorite soy company). I call these Egg foo Yum (yung) because they remind me of the Chinese food dish. I could be crazy but there's definitely something scrambled egg-like about them.

Heated up in a pan, served on a grinder roll with Vegenaise, mustard, romaine, tomato, and crunched up Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos. Hooray for vegan Doritos!!! The whole family loves them. They're pretty salty but every now and then they're a yummy treat! I was very sad to discover I didn't have an avocado, Gasp!!! Not sad enough to drive to the store though.

For dessert I'm going to eat these amazing PB cups (both of them!) that Ryan brought home for me today :)

#64 Spaghetti and Meatballs II

Check out the steam coming of those meatballs! Yummm!

I've talked to Michelle about this before...it's funny how we can both make the same thing and have it look completely different. Michelle's Spaghetti and Meatballs looks very different than mine. Here's how I made it:

I cooked up bucatini pasta. This is a thick spaghetti like pasta with a hole through the center. I was in the mood for a thick hearty pasta and this hit the spot. I used Gimme Lean ground beef to make the meatballs. I smushed in a couple fennel seeds into each ball with a little salt and pepper. I baked them in the oven, then pan fired the with a little oil to crisp them up a little. I tossed it all with a simple jarred marinara sauce.

Sean made the garlic bread using a baguette and a garlic spread he made with minced garlic, parsley and Earth Balance.

#63 All Hail Kale Salad

The All Hail Kale with blackened tempeh from Veggie Grill is currently, my favorite way to eat kale.  It's a little pricey (around $11 after the tempeh add-on) and the closest VG to me is a bit of a trek so....I decided to make it my next copycat salad.  First off I googled it.  There were quite a few options, most of them seemed to come from the same site so I checked it out.  Besides the banquet sized yield, I was disappointed in the amount of sugar and oil used.  Then it hit me!  My trusty Native Foods Cookbook was what I needed!  In case you didn't already know this, one of the VG founders was once a partner of Native Foods.  I'd heard that he ran off with quite a few recipes (which totally sucks) but NF seems to be growing rapidly too so the more the merrier I say!  Unless Tanya is mad about it, then I'll boycott!!!  Who needs them now anyway since I've mastered my favorite item?







From The Native Foods Cookbook-
I made the Mango Lime Vinaigrette but swapped fresh papaya for the mango. This dressing uses far less oil and maple syrup instead of sugar. So much better! For the tempeh I started with the basic prep then blackened it using Ray's Good Home Blackening Spice. Either this is one recipe (named after him) that he did not take with him or they don't really blacken it when I order. It did not taste the same. It was really good, just different.

For the corn salsa I used TJ's frozen roasted corn, Roma tomato, cilantro, lime juice, salt & pepper. The salad also has red cabbage, quinoa, and walnuts. So delicious!
 

#62 Quesaritto

Quesadilla + Burritto = Quesaritto

This was really good and easy to make. I've always loved quesadillas. . . but a quesadilla made with soy cheese just isn't the same. So I spread some vegetarian refried beans on a tortilla, then sprinkled Daiya cheese and salsa on top. Sean also sprinkled fresh chopped jalapeños on his. I heated it up on both sides.  I served it with spanish rice, homemade gaucamole and Follow Your Heart sour cream. Yumm!

Sean was in charge of plating. Looks amazing right?!

Pre-cooked

#61 Chile Relleño Casserole

This was another recipe from Vegan Junk Food. I was super excited for this one. I loved my Mom's version in my Pre-Vegan days. Unfortunately, this one was not a winner like the stroganoff was.

The stuffed chilies were yum, but the batter surrounding them was odd. It had a funky flavor and a gummy, pasty texture. Nobody liked it. You're supposed to blend the flour based batter for a minute. I feel like this messed the texture up. I did add tomato sauce to the top a few minutes before it was done baking. That's how my Mom's was and I don't think it affected the outcome. It probably helped out actually.

I served mine with corn tortillas, spanish rice, vegetarian refried beans, sliced avocado, and some of the sour cream leftover from the oh so yummy stroganoff recipe. (that one's double worthy!). Ryan and the kids had theirs in burrito form.

I'm not going to give up! I think a tofu based, maybe quiche filling would be better for the batter. I'll keep you posted.