Faux noodles are your friend

My husband spent the entire day studying for a big test he's taking this fall.  I wanted to make him some vegan comfort food but I also wanted to keep it fairly healthy (there's been some takeout and pasta in these parts the last few days).

I honestly didn't have much of a plan besides knowing I wanted to make zucchini noodles.  I tend to go grocery shopping on Monday's so Wednesday nights usually have a variety of ingredients to choose from.  

Ingredients 

• 1 zucchini (made into noodles with the Spiralfix)
• 4 cloves of garlic (we love garlic!)
• 2 Tbs. crushed garlic (I'd skip this if you're not a garlic fan)
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 carrots chopped
• 2 Tofurkey sausages
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 3 Tbs. vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)
• 2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
• 3 Tbs. nutritional yeast
• 1/4 Cup vegan cheese (I used Daiya mozzarella cheese) 

First I sautéed my onions and garlic in a pan with some vegan butter.  While they were cooking I made my zucchini into noodles with the Spiralfix.  Zucchini noodles are my personal favorite. 

Once my onions and garlic were translucent I threw in my carrots, tofurkey sausage, tomatoes and noodles.  I added the remaining butter and red wine vinegar to the pan.  Once my veggies and sausage were cooked I topped everything off with the nutritional yeast and vegan cheese.  I personally love Daiya cheese because it melts like real cheese, a lot of other vegan cheeses do not.  Along with the nutritional yeast, this created a nice creamy sauce.  

This was definitely vegan comfort food but loaded with veggies (or at least I kept telling myself that).  My husband loved it.  I might have slipped some to the dog too...

A word about peanut butter...

This post is about two epiphanies.

First...If you haven't tried Peanut Butter & Co.'s line of peanut butter you are missing out.  I don't usually get excited about something you spread onto a sandwich or coax your dog with, but this peanut butter is different. 

My husband introduced me to Peanut Butter & Co. when we were dating.  He made me a sandwich with cinnamon raisin swirl (my current favorite) and I was hooked.

So what was preventing me from filling my cabinets with this delicious spread?  Well unfortunately at the time the only place I could find this peanut butter was at Whole Foods, and it was selling for about $6.  Quite a splurge for something I pair with grape jelly.  Now one of my long term financial goals in life is to be able to do about 80% of my food shopping at Whole Foods, however that it not the reality right now.  Then I made an amazing discovery…

Second...When I was a little kid (before my appreciation of seasonal decorative paper napkins)  my mother would always drag me to the Christmas Tree Shop.  If you're not familiar with the Xmas Tree shop my adult self loves it, but little kid self was not amused my discounted lamps.  It's a great place to buy decorations, kitchen gadgets, curtains and more.  They even have a food section.  Now, my little kid self thought it was pretty sad to be buying food at a store like this.  I often overlooked this section as an adult, until one day I thought I'd look around.

What did I find there?

Peanut Butter and Co. galore AND for $3.69!

So yes, I do some of my food shopping at the Xmas Tree shop and my cabinets are always stocked with delicious peanut butter.  Give it a try, you won't regret it.

Sunday Night Special

Tonight's dinner was a bit of an experiment.  I tend to do our grocery shopping on Mondays which means by Sunday night I need to be a little more creative with what I have left to work with.

I made vegan french toast this morning, which I am kicking myself for not documenting (I will another time).  We spent the rest of the day at a four year old's birthday party, surrounded by cake, pizza, and ice cream.  When we got home I knew I wanted to make something hardy and loaded with veggies.  As much as I love our Spiralfix, I also knew I had a package of spaghetti calling my name in our kitchen cabinet.

These are the ingredients I used tonight, but again this was what I could throw together a night before grocery shopping.  The carrots made this sauce a little sweet (which is great for kids) I would probably add more roasted tomatoes to the recipe next time.

Ingredients

• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 5 carrots, halved
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1 sweet potato sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic (we are addicted to garlic)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 package veggie crumble (I used Trader Joe's tonight)
• 1 package of spaghetti
• assorted frozen veggies (I finished a bag of broccoli and 1/2 a bag of Trader Joe's organic vegetable foursome) 
• salt and pepper to taste

My first task was to start the sauce.  I worked with what I had in the kitchen and cut up my carrots, tomato, sweet potato, and garlic.  Then I drizzled a little less than 1/4 cup of olive over the veggies along with a little salt and pepper.  I threw them into a preheated oven set to 450 degrees for about 25 minutes.  They came out looking like this…

While my veggies were roasting I cooked my pasta according to directions.  I also browned my veggie crumble, a sliced tomato and frozen veggies in a pan with the remaining olive oil.  

Once my veggies were done roasting I transferred them to the Vitamix.  I added some vegetable broth to the roasted veggies and set my Vitamix to setting 1 and slowly increased to 7 meanwhile pouring the remaining veggie broth into the mix.  You can add more or less broth depending on your desired thickness of the sauce.  My sauce came out looking like this…

I transferred my sauce to a pot and threw in my veggie crumble mix.  I dished out some for our four year old and added some red pepper flake to the "grown up" version. I served this over pasta and it was kid and husband approved (I enjoyed it too!).  

Anything Goes Fried Rice

Every time I order Chinese food out I need to have fried rice.  I've never met a carb I didn't love and fried rice is one of my favorites.  I know, however, it can pack a punch calories wise.

I started making my own version of this dish when I was single and living alone.  I found that it was a great way to use up all the opened bags of frozen veggies that somehow seemed to pile up in my freezer.  It allows for creativity and it's hard to go wrong!

It's also incredibly easy to make healthy.  Here's what I did:

Ingredients 

• 1 chopped onion
• 3 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 cup frozen green beans
• 2 cups frozen broccoli 
• 4 carrots (half chopped, half "noodles")
• 1 cup uncooked rice, prepared and refrigerated
• 1/2 cup frozen peppers
• 3 Tbs.  olive oil
• 1 block of marinated extra firm tofu (I used Trader Joe's gyoza sauce as a marinade tonight)
• salt and pepper to taste

I'm currently obsessed with heirloom carrots.  I buy mine at Trader Joe's.  It also makes my husband happy that they're organic (he's on an organic kick too).  I'm partially to the purple ones.

I'm also currently obsessed with one of my favorite wedding gifts, the Spiralfix.  It basically turns veggies into noodles, and if a carboholic like myself enjoys these "noodles" they must be good.  The Sprialfix is great for veggies like squash and zucchini.  It's a little trickier with carrots but I was able to manage making some carrot "noodles" as you can see below.  I chopped these up to have the same consistency of the rice, adding bulk and color.  

  

I've worked many odd jobs in my days, including being somewhat of a wok cook.  We registered for a wok for our wedding, and I really enjoy playing around with it, it's especially perfect for making fried rice.  From my wok-ing days I also remember we would prepare rice and refrigerate it before using.  I made my rice ahead of time this morning, but overnight is fine as well.  

First, in the olive oil I sautéed my garlic and onion, I try to use the minimal amount of oil I need, you may need to add more oil.  Once my onions were translucent I threw in the rest of my veggies.  I used frozen veggies, but I took them out ahead of time to thaw a bit.  Don't they look pretty? 

Once my veggies were cooked I added the rice, carrots, and tofu.  I pressed and marinated the tofu this morning.  I added a little extra gyoza sauce for flavor as well as salt and pepper.  Here's the final product…

So here it is, a super easy and healthy way to enjoy one of my favorite takeout dishes.  Again you can't go wrong with this, you can add a little or as many veggies as you'd like as well as any protein.  For all the non vegans out there I would recommend adding an egg or two.  It makes for great leftovers, but it was so much of a hit tonight we don't have any!

The newest member of our family...

…our Vitamix.

For two people who had a super small wedding we really made out with wedding gifts.  We are so luck y to have so many generous friends and family.  We did not register for a Vitamix but Dylan (the hubby) has been talking about getting one ever since we started dating.  For those who are not familiar with the Vitamix, it's the most amazing (and expensive) thing you can possibly have in your kitchen.  It's basically a food processor, blender, juicer, and so much more in one (and it cleans itself!).

We talked about possibly taking the plunge and getting one with some of our wedding money but my parents beat us to the punch and now we have a Vitamix 750 sitting on our kitchen counter.  I wanted to introduce the Vitamix because I'm probably going to be talking about it a ton.  We use it at least once a day for smoothies, soups, sauces, and more.  I'm looking forward to playing around with it more and and making soups on cold winter nights and well as some frozen margaritas before the end of the summer.  Margaritas are healthy if you make them in a Vitamix, right?

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Hello

Well I'm new to this so pardon my appearance…

I've always wanted to start a blog, but have never actually sat down to do it.  In the last month I've experienced two major life events…moving and getting married!  Both fun and exciting yet so stressful!    Now that we're back from our honeymoon and have unpacked all those beautiful Crate and Barrel boxes I'm starting to get back into cooking.

I joke with my husband that about 90% of our conversations are food related.  I think that's pretty accurate.  We also share a love of animals and do not eat meat (even our dog is a vegan).  My husband has been a vegan/vegetarian for about 20 years and currently he's on a vegan kick.  

So what does this mean for me?  Well I guess I'm the at home vegan.  With a husband that does not eat any animal products I tend to avoid eggs and dairy when I'm out of the house as well, except for that slice of NYC cheese pizza I ate on our honeymoon (totally worth it!) 

Cooking and eating as a vegan isn't as difficult as many people make it out to be, you just have to be  little more creative.  I'm constantly asked about what we eat and I love talking about it hence this blog.  

I'm not out there to preach about vegetarianism and veganism.  It's our choice and it's not for everyone, but everyone can enjoy the food we eat.  One of my favorite things to do is to cook for my meat-eating friends and family and to have them enjoy what I make.  

So I hope some of my ideas and recipes find you.  I thought it would be fun to share a little part of our new life and maybe this blog will help my husband and I cut down on our conversations about food…save it for the blog!