Veggie Lo Mein

Everyday I wake up with the intention to be healthy and active.  Most of the time it happens, not aways though.  In an ideal world I will run, walk, or go to the gym every day, easier said than done of course. On our honeymoon in NYC my husband and I walked 12 miles one day.  Dylan thinks I took him on a death march, but I loved it.  When we got home from work last night we attempted to take a walk with the dog, but it started pouring rain.  I think Dylan was a little relieved.  We opted for a glass of wine on the deck instead, that's good for your heart too right?

So if I can't be active everyday I figured I could at least make something healthy for dinner.  We've been incredibly busy lately.  It seems as though all our friends are getting married, having babies or celebrating birthdays.  I feel like I haven't pulled together a blog worthy meal in while (I'm sure everyone knows how to make pizza right?).  

I have so many fresh and frozen vegetables in our kitchen so it's not too difficult to throw something together that's healthy.  I decided to make a veggie lo mein with zucchini noodles.  Here's what I used:

Ingredients

• 1 zucchini (made into noodles with the Sprialfix)
• 1/2 package of Trader Joe's Healthy Chopped Veggie Mix (I used the other half in a salad last night, you can use any chopped veggies you'd like!)
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic chopped 
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1/4 cup Bragg's Amino Acid (it's an earthy crunchy soy sauce)

For a little something else on the side I made Trader Joe's Thai Vegetable Gyoza (Japanese dumpling) with their Sweet Chili Sauce on the side.  This sauce is super tasty if you haven't tried it already.  It's great for dipping veggie chicken nuggets in.  

To cut down on oil I made the gyoza in a pan with water, they came out pretty good!

Now back to the lo mein.  I broke out my wok and sautéed my chopped onion and garlic in sesame oil. If you haven't cooked with sesame oil before, you are missing out.  The smell is incredible and it gives whatever you're cooking a real authentic Asian flavor. 

After I sautéed the garlic and onion for a bit I added the rest of my veggies and zucchini noodles to the wok.  I threw in a some leftover veggie chicken as well to add a little protein to the dish.  I topped everything off with the Bragg's sauce. 

I said to my husband this meal was 95% veggies, well that's what I estimated at least.  With the zucchini noodles I honestly don't miss the real noodles.

  So here it is, some guilt free Chinese food.  You'll never have to order takeout again.  Ok, I'm kidding about that...

International Coffee Day

So apparently it's International Coffee Day.  As a part-time Starbucks barista, I should probably have marked this on my calendar.  I've worked at Starbucks part-time for the last five years.  It's been one of my favorite jobs and I've met some great people.  Also, over the last five years I've been supplied with a free pound of Starbucks coffee every week.  Needless to say, my hubby and I never run out…

So working at Starbucks has made me a bit of a coffee snob.  Now for me, an eight dollar bottle of wine borders "fancy," but I can't cheap out on coffee.  I like to think I kind of know what I'm talking about here.  In honor of International Coffee Day I wanted to share with you my favorite iced coffee you can make at home.

First, you need to arm yourself with a French press.  As a Starbucks baritsa, I cannot recommend a French press enough.  Throw away your K cups please, French press is the way to go.  Once you go French press you won't go back.  Trust me.  Plus it makes you look super classy.  

I currently have a smaller French press, as a loaner from my parents, because my graceful self broke my bigger one.  This one is is from Starbucks and was not expensive.  I've also seen inexpensive presses at Homegoods as well.  

Now you need some coffee beans.  Use your favorite, obviously all of my coffee for now comes from Starbucks.  My husband and I (okay it might have been just me) registered for an air tight container for our coffee beans.  This is your best bet if you want to keep your coffee at it's prime freshness.  You want to keep your coffee whole bean and grind as you go, and please please never freeze.

When you are grinding your coffee for a French press make sure your setting is coarse, or else you'll be drinking coffee grounds.  

So now you have your French press and your favorite coffee ground.  Next you need to follow the scoop and water measurements for your French press.  Mine calls for 4 tablespoons of grounds.  However, since this is an iced coffee recipe, I use an extra scoop considering the coffee might be watered down by ice.  Add your coffee to the French press and at COLD water.  This is the beauty of the cold press, you do not need to heat water, the coffee and water will be absorbed overnight.  Stir your coffee and grounds and let it sit in the fridge for 8-12 hours. Do not press until the morning when you're ready to serve it.

Make sure to place it next to the beer in your fridge.  That makes it better.  Enjoy!

Review: Trader Joe's Vegan Cream Cheese

Since I can't make something blog worthy seven days a week and hey sometimes you need to throw on some yoga pants and order some Chinese food, I want to post some reviews of different vegan products my family likes (or detests!)

We definitely have some go to's but I'm always up for buying and trying something new.  Anyone can enjoy vegan products.  Trust me.  I have many friends with dairy sensitivities, and I care about them too much for them to miss out on cheesiness.  Whether you're allergic or dairy or eggs or just want to eat a little bit healthier, vegan alternatives are great and tasty…but sometimes they're not…

I love Trader Joe's.  Trust me.  I'm there at least twice a week.  As I mentioned before I recently moved and I'm sure the employees at my old Trader Joe's have reported me as a missing person.  I do about 85% of our grocery shopping a TJ's.  It's a great place for vegans to shop, but sometimes Trader Joe's misses its mark.

Example:  Vegan cream cheese.

Oh man.  It pains me to write anything bad about Trader Joe's, but yuck.  My husband and I went shopping on Sunday and I was curious to try it, I've had other brands before (which I'll mention) that I can purchase at other store.  In my attempt to make my life easier I decided to buy some.

I opened it the next night and it was apparent something horrible had happened to this particular container of cream cheese. However, having much faith in TJ's, I returned to the store and swapped it out for a new one.  I went home and decide to test it out.  It was gritty, watery, and did not taste at all like cream cheese.

I wanted to get the word out, because I love bagels too much to have you ruin one with this product!

Don't lose faith though, if you're avoiding dairy and still love cream cheese there are other options out there.  In our house we opt for Tofutti cream cheese.  It's smooth and creamy and really does taste like cream cheese.  Daiya also makes cream cheese, but I personally have not tried it.

Oh Trader Joe's…I guess no one is perfect.

Monday Night

We went to the gym. My husband is making dinner tonight.  The dog is following his every move.

Life is good.

As much as I love cooking for my family (ask me that in ten years I might have a different response) it's nice to have a night off.  Regardless of whether I'm cooking or not I claimed before we were married sole responsibility of the grocery shopping.  That way when Dylan cooks for me he has plenty of goodies to choose from.

I'd like to do more posts on here about grocery shopping.  I budget $100 a week for groceries which I am easily able to do.  I can usually keep our bill under $80 a week.  I also strive to have minimal food waste.  I read an article recently that stated American's end up throwing out roughly 1/3 of their groceries.  Not in my house!  We rarely ever toss anything out.  I consider my grocery shopping skills as a victory for my family every week.  We eat well and we don't waste.

Now the dog is following me...

Squashin' it

Spaghetti Squash.  I'm not going to lie to you.  It doesn't taste like spaghetti.  Some (people on diets) may try to tell you it does, but I assure you you won't be mistaking a bowl of spaghetti squash for pasta unless you have the taste buds of a 90 year old or it's smothered in sauce.

Now that I've gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about the spaghetti squash for what it is.  The spaghetti squash is unique in that it has a noodle like texture.  I was introduced to it a few years ago, and it's definitely been a great fall go to.  Depending on where you buy spaghetti squash, it can be a little pricey, especially if you pay per pound.  I bought mine at Trader Joe's, for I want to say $2.99.  One thing I like about Trader Joe's is that all the veggies are a set price, no weighing involved.

Typically with spaghetti squash I've seen people try to pretend it's pasta and smother it with tomato sauce.  However, I am going to show you a vegan dish which celebrates the squash for what it is!  You'll need:

Ingredients

• 1 spaghetti squash, cooked (see below for directions)
• 1/3 cup Italian Dressing (I use Fanny's Lite Italian)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• red pepper flake (I use a lot on mine as usual!)

First, let's talk about how you cook this thing.  There are several ways to cook a spaghetti squash including a microwave (easy right?).  We don't have a microwave in our home so I'll be cooking mine in the oven.

The trickiest part is cutting this baby in half, I'm terrible at this so I don't really have any help for you there.  Once you have your squash cut in half you'll notice the ewwy gooey innards of the squash is similar to a pumpkin.  Take a spoon and scoop that all that out.  Heat your oven to 375 and cook your squash for about 40 minutes.  You can brush each side with olive oil or seasoning if you'd like, but I'm opting not to since I'm going to add dressing later.

Once your squash is cooked you're going to have to manhandle it, so let it cool! When it's a comfortable temperature to touch, take a fork and scrap the inside of you're squash.  You'll notice when you do this the texture of the squash is stringy, like spaghetti.  Hey that's where the name comes from!

I gathering my squash innards (yummy) in a dish and tossed with the dressing, nutritional yeast and red pepper flake.  I think this makes a great side dish, however I served this as our dinner so I added some veggies and protein.  You can add anything you want, I think peas are a nice addition to the squash.  For our dinner I added peas and Beyond Chicken strips.  Beyond Chicken is one of my favorite chicken alternatives, plus a serving is 120 calories and 20 grams of protein! (Hey that's how vegetarians get their protein, huh!
So here it is, a nice healthy fall meal that is primarily vegetables.  We went apple picking earlier in the day so we have an endless supply of apple crisp in our future.  We also grabbed some wine from the winery at the orchard as well!

 I love fall.

The best thing I make...

This is the best thing I make.  Period.

It's easy.  It's versatile.  It's healthy. It's tasty.  It's chili.

It's fall so therefore it's pumpkin candle, boots, and chili season.  It's one of my favorite times of year, and not just because it's better hair weather.  This is the perfect time to break out the old crockpot and make some delicious vegan chili.

I make this chili all year round.  I love this recipe so much because everyone enjoys it, carnivores and vegetarians alike.  It's got a little spice but not too much spice.  It's got a balance of protein and veggies. And it's perfect to serve with bread, and I am always looking for any excuse to eat bread.

This is my fall variation of this recipe, but the basic chili has four ingredients, all from Trader Joe's.  I've played around with adding different vegetables such as peppers, but the recipe with just the four ingredients covers all your bases.  I hope you love it as much as my family, my friends, and I do!

Ingredients

• one 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes (undrained)
• 1 package of soy chorizo
• 1 can of black beans (drained)
• 1 container of Trader Joe's mirepoix (diced carrots, onions, and celery)

Optional (I used this for this chili)

• 1 can of organic pumpkin puree

Again you can use any veggies you like, you do not need to buy the precut veggies.  I usually prefer to cut my own veggies since it's so much more economical, but the precut mix is so perfect for this chili.  

Basically you are going to drain your beans and throw everything else into a pot and stir together.  Just be careful with the soy chorizo, it's in a plastic package, it's a little misleading if you haven't cooked with it before.  When I first bought it I thought it was a solid sausage, but it's actually a crumble.  Just make sure you squeeze it out of the plastic.  I may be married to  know someone who cooked the plastic once.  Now that I have a crockpot in my life, I'm going to use it as much as possible.  However, I've made this recipe on the stove for years and it's come out great. With the crockpot today I cooked mine on low for five hours.    

I topped my chili with some Daiya cheese and chopped tomatoes.  Everything is better when it's served with a hunk of bread!  Enjoy!

The Amazing Bisquick

There are so many familiar food products out there you may not realize are vegan.  Everyone has had Bisquick pancakes before right?  Did you know the mix is vegan?  

It is!  And I use it quite a bit.  You may have picked up by now that I like foods that are versatile.  It makes grocery shopping and meal planning so much easier when you have room to play around with what you have in your cabinets.  

Today was a cooler rainy day, the perfect kind of day for soup.  As with most of my attempts at making meals for my family, this was  bit of an experiment.  I knew what I had in the kitchen and decided to could throw something decent together.  

As I've said before, I have to be a little more creative on Sundays.  When I make this soup (or I guess it was more like a stew) I would add more vegetables and maybe even potatoes as well.  For now this is what I used…

Ingredients 

•  32 oz. vegetable broth
• 1 package of Gardein Beefless Tips
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (but you could use any veggie you'd like!)
• 1 cup frozen mixed peppers
• 2 cups of Bisquick mix
• 2/3 cup unsweatened almond milk
• 1 tablespoon crushed garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

I know there are rules to making soup.  I don't really know any of them.  So I'll tell you what I did since it worked for me.

I emptied my vegetable broth into a pot on the stove on high heat.  When the broth started to boil I added my mixed veggies, garlic, and beefless tips.  While everything was heating up I started my dumplings.  Bisquick boxes have directions for all sorts of fun stuff you can make with the mix besides pancakes.  I am drawn to their biscuits and dumplings recipes because the only thing I need to change in the recipe is the milk.  We use almond milk, but there are a lot of other alternates out there like coconut, cashew, and soy milk.  I mixed the almond milk and Bisquick mix together in a bowl.  Once the dough was made I dropped spoonfuls of the dough into the boiling soup.  I covered the pan and reduced the heat to medium and let it sit for about 20 minutes.  I did about of it covered and half uncovered.

What I thought would be a soup came out as more of a stew, and it was delicious!  I admit it didn't photograph well (I know how that feels), but it tasted great.  My husband really loved it.  It's definitely going to be something I'll play around with more this fall.   

Easiest dessert ever...

I'm not much of a baker.  I'm not really a sweets person.  Lock me in a room with a cake and I wouldn't touch it.  Lock me in a room with a loaf of bread however, and it wouldn't be pretty.  During my single days grocery shopping for myself, I would rarely buy any type of dessert food.  Now I have a husband and four year old who can polish off a box of cookies in two days.

I have committed my life to a man with a sweet tooth, therefore, I have committed to making a dessert once in awhile.  I like branching out and vegan baking can be quite a challenge.

However, this dessert is not.  And it was still delicious.  And vegan.

Did you know that you can make a cake with cake mix and 8 ounces of soda?  Thank you Pinterest.  The possibilities are endless.  Plus it's two ingredients, amazingly easy.

I've dabbled with several combinations of cake mix and soda, but this particular one was a home run.  This is the perfect cake to make with kids.  Two ingredients = less of a chance of mess = everybody wins!  Our four year old likes to bake with me so he and I went to pick out ingredients to make a cake for dad.  We originally wanted to make something with root beer (we are both big fans), but we opted for cream soda instead.

As for cake mix everything I've seen from Duncan Hines has been vegan, containing no eggs or milk products.  I had never made a cake like this with spice cake so I grabbed it.  Gotta keep our marriage spicy, right? 

Making a soda cake like this is super easy.  I'll say it again….. easy. I don't even need to list the ingredients.  Basically, you add the soda (I used 8 ounces, but I have seen variations of the amount to use) and the entire cake mix.  Stir it together, and place in a greased pan (I used Earth Balance butter).  I used a 9 x13 pan because that was what I had available.  Cook for the amount of time displayed on the box, however I cooked mine about 7 minutes longer than directed.  

The combinations of cream soda and spice cake mix was delightful.  It smelled great and tasted great.    Our little guy ate it up.

You're welcome.

Not a subpar sub...

My husband casually mentioned meatball subs the other night so I decided to win some wife points and picked up our favorite pre made vegetarian meatballs from Trader Joe's. I would like to dabble with making my own veggie meatballs, but honestly the last thing I want to do after working all day is roll bean balls.  I'll save that for a weekend.  

My mom visited us and brought us a fresh loaf of bread from Panera (she's the best!).  It definitely upped my level of submarine sandwich action.  I didn't document this meal like I usually do because honestly I didn't think it was blog worthy, plus we just got our wedding pictures so I was "slightly" distracted!  I regretted not taking more pictures after the first bite.  When my husband asked for seconds I knew I had to post what I made.  

I can't really take credit for the bread and the meatballs, but the sauce is where I make my creative contribution to this meal.  It's my own recipe and it's simple, tasty, and very versatile.  Once you have your base you can add any veggie or protein you want to it.  I'm including what I used last night but I've played around with all different vegetables and veggie proteins and have not gone wrong yet.  

Ingredients

• 2 one pound cans of unsalted plum tomatoes 
• 1 six ounce can of tomato paste 
• 1 14.5 ounce can to tomato sauce
• 1 onion chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic chopped (again we love garlic…you can use more or less!)
• 1 cup chopped peppers (I used frozen since that's what I had, fresh works great as well)
• 1/4 cup olive oil (I used less that 1/4 this time around the sauce was not lacking)
• 3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (I didn't use this for this particular meal, the sauce was still tasty but you can't go wrong with a little brown sugar!)

Making sauce also gave me an opportunity to break out another wedding gift, our crock pot!  I'm a crock pot novice, but all my girlfriends rave about throwing something together and coming home to an amazing smelling house.  I usually make my sauce on the stove in a pot and let it simmer, but I opted for the crock pot.  I cut up my veggies and combined them with the canned tomatoes.  I mixed everything together in the crock pot besides the meatballs.  I didn't know how the meatballs would hold up in the crock pot so I added them last.  I cooked the sauce on simmer for 4.5 hours and then added the meatballs when my mom and I returned from shopping.

If I was a super wife I would have toasted the bread with the Daiya cheese before I added the meatballs and sauce.  I slacked off and added the cheese afterwards.  Still delicious, plus I made a side salad so it's all healthy, right?  We used the leftover sauce tonight over pasta.  Kid and husband approved is always a win!

I hoped to not to be one of those women who are obsessed about their wedding, but I'm thrilled with our pictures.  I love every single one of them.  Here's my favorite and the reason why I slacked on taking pictures of packages of meatballs.  

Veganized Cornbread

I love taking everyday food and making a vegan version of it.  I see it as an experimental and tasty challenge (the best kind of challenge).  There's a lot of food out there people may not realize is vegan and there's a lot of food you can easily make a few amendments to to "veganize" it.  Here's one of them…

My husband loves cornbread, but obviously unless we are at a vegan restaurant he's not able to eat it.  Trader Joe's has an amazing cornbread mix, the mix itself is vegan, however the recipe calls for milk and eggs.  

I substituted the milk for almond milk, which is an easy switch.  However, the egg is where it gets tricky.  I'm not a huge fan of PETA but they have a great chart online for egg substitutes.  For the cornbread egg substitute I used two Tbsp. of water, one Tbsp. and two tsp. of baking powder to substitute for one egg.

This worked wonderfully.  My family loved it.  I baked it in our cast iron which added a rustic feel to eating cornbread.  It was a Monday morning breakfast win.  

Husband inspired...

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  

Going into this weekend I anticipated (correctly) there would be copious amounts of beer and cook out food, therefore I was extra motivated to get my healthy food in when I can.  I needed to make an additional grocery haul Friday night and my husband had a request…

My hubby always talks about Life Alive in Cambridge.  We've never seemed to make our way there together since usually when we're in the city we tend to gravitate towards Grasshopper in Allston.  I will absolutely write an ode to Grasshopper on here at some point.  Anyways, Dylan would always talk about one particular dish he would have at Life Alive.  I thought it would be a great healthy meal to start off a not so healthy weekend plus making it would win me some wife points. ;)

Ingredients

• 1 heart of romaine lettuce
• 1 tomato 
• 1/4 red onion 
• 1 package of tempeh 
• 1/4 cup Trader Joe's BBQ Sriracha sauce (but you could use any marinade you want or non at all!)
• 1 ripe avodado
• 1 package of precooked squash
• brown rice
• nutritional yeast for topping

This meal is super simple yet unique.  The preparation obviously doesn't require much explanation.  I prepared my lettuce, tomato, avocado and onion while my rice and squash were cooking.  I bought frozen squash to save time.

I don't think I've talked about tempeh too much on here yet.  Tempeh is the new tofu.  I never thought I liked it until Dylan and I had it at a wedding in May.  Tempeh is so versatile.  You can fry it, bake it, marinate it, and it's good for you!  I like to marinate it in teriyaki sauce.  For this dish I sliced the tempeh  and cooked it in a pan with a little vegan butter.  Then I added my BBQ sauce.  

I layered this salad with the warm rice and squash at the bottom then the salad.  I topped everything off with the tempeh and nutritional yeast.  It was so good and honestly didn't need  any dressing.  We balance out this healthy meal with a big hunk of bread and some wine.  Enjoy! 

It's that time of the year...

…back to school.  My husband and I are both lucky to work in education.  We had an amazing and busy summer, but now it's time to go back to real work.  I think our dog is the most depressed about it honestly.

This year is so much different than last.  This is the first school year my hubby and I will be living together.  When we were dating we lived an hour away from each other.  It seemed like we were always driving to each other and it was exhausting.  Everyday I feel so lucky that we get to come home to each other.

Sharing a home together of course means that we have one kitchen, one refrigerator, and one set of groceries (I claimed sole responsibility for grocery shopping!).  This of course is very exciting to me because I (obviously) enjoy food and cooking and thankfully Dylan doesn't mind cleaning the kitchen (where did I find this guy?).  

With everything going on with transitioning back to school I've slacked on posting my recipes.  I've honestly been throwing things together…mostly garlic loaded things my coworkers can smell across the teachers' room (sorry!).  I had a tough day a few days ago so my husband cooked for me.  The picture is below, it was delicious but if my husband cooked for me every night my pants wouldn't fit by the end of the month.  I'll make sure to post some of his recipes sometimes too.  

So I promise to get back into the swing of things, post some recipes and mention some products you might not even realize are vegan.  My husband has requested peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch so I better make dinner count!