Cast Iron Fun

So as I've mentioned before, Friday night is homemade pizza in our house.  It's pretty much my favorite night of the week.  Last night I tried to experiment a little though.

My husband and I both bring pizza stones into the relationship.  Thankfully, when we moved in together we hung on to both.  However, last night I broke out the cast iron skillet to make pizza.

It was awesome, and allowed for a thicker crust (who doesn't love more crust?)  I covered the bottom of the skillet with my corn meal and flaxseed mixture and then spread out the dough.  I don't' have a picture of the final product because I think we were too excited to eat it.  We thew some veggie chicken  nuggets and olives on top of the pizza above.  So good.  

The hubby and I had some Contadino pinot grigio with our pizza.  I'm usually not a huge pinot grigio fan, but this wine has a little bit of carbonation to it.  It's delicious.  It's a more expensive wine for us ( and by that I mean this was $6 dollars).

Happy weekend!

Review: Tofutti Cuties

Growing up we always had ice cream sandwiches.  Well maybe not always, but it seemed that way.  I'm not a huge dessert person but I always can appreciate an ice cream sandwich.  

I've found a vegan alternative that reminds me of my childhood.  Tofutti Cuties.  

And they are exactly that.  Cute.  They come 8 to a box and are "snack" size (aka the perfect size according to my mom).  

If you appreciate a good ice cream sandwich, but can't do dairy (or are vegan) I recommend these 100%.  They honestly taste just like the ones I had as a kid. I really love the Tofutti brand, so many vegan alternatives can be pricey, but I always find their products to be very reasonably priced.

Enjoy!

Vegan cream sauce

I made Thanksgiving in a bowl tonight.  I cleaned out our freezer and some of our pantry veggies to make the ultimate vegan comfort food.  It's a cold rainy night here,  and it's been a long day so obviously it's no time to watch calories (not like we ever do).

I'll spare you the recipe of everything I made tonight to focus on what pulled this meal together, vegan creamed onions.  You can't go wrong with Thanksgiving in a bowl.  Everyone's Thanksgiving is different. Our family's usually includes creamed onions.

I made homemade mashed potatoes, squash, and added corn, peas, and green beans to our bowl version of Thanksgiving.  Instead of turkey we had Trader Joe's "chicken" nuggets.  Now here's the point of me posting thing, the cream sauce.

I texted my mom today, thinking about this meal and that I could probably easily make this sauce vegan.  It was super easy and honestly didn't taste any different than the non vegan version.  Here's what I did:

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons vegan butter 
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk

First you melt the vegan butter over low heat with a wooden spoon until it is smooth and bubbly.  Next remove the butter and flour from the heat and add the cup of almond milk.  Put this back on the stove and bring it to a boil for one minute.  Cook the mixture for about ten minutes until it is thickened.  I chopped two onions and one shallot on the side and cooked in a separate pot with a little vegan butter.  I added this to the cream sauce once it was cooked.

I made this my top layer to my Thanksgiving in a bowl combo.  When we serve this as a side dish on that special Thursday we usually use pearl onions.  

Not the healthiest of meals but very tasty.  I'm so looking forward to the holidays!

Friday Night Pizza

Yes, I realize it's only Wednesday, but I'm behind and I'm already looking forward to Friday.  It's not so far away!

Pizza.

Friday night is probably my favorite night of the week, even more so than Saturday.  Friday night is full of promise and potential.  In our home, making pizza on Friday night is one of our special traditions.  I get my pizza dough at Trader Joe's.  I buy it earlier in the week and store it in the freezer.  I take it out the night before I intend to use it.  They have several varieties to choose from so I usually buy one of each.  It's even labeled "vegan" which we appreciate!

So here' the secret.  I use a pizza stone and I roll out my dough in corn meal and flaxseed meal.  I make sure the dough is covered in the mixture (I usually about 50/50).  I cover the pizza stone with the mixture and just throw my dough on top and use a rolling pin, flipping the dough at least once.  It makes for a crispier crust that does not stick to the stone, plus you get the nutritional benefits of the flaxseed.

The hubby and I love playing around with different combinations of pizza.  This last Friday I marinaded some Gardein chicken strips in BBQ sauce and threw that on top of the pizza with onions and garlic.  You can't go wrong.

Vegan Shepard's Pie

It's been a busy week for the hubby and me (did you know teachers don't just work 6 hours a day???)  There's been some late nights at work so I actually went on my weekly grocery shopping trip on Wednesday.  Felt a little weird.  

Friday night is pizza night of course and this weekend my college roommate is getting married, so I really only had to worry about Wednesday and Thursday night.  I went with Shepard's pie.  

Ingredients

• 4 potatoes (I used two regular and 2 sweet potatoes)
• 2 tablespoons vegan mayo (I used Just Mayo)
• splash of unsweetened almond milk
• 1 package of precooked lentils
• 1 shallot
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 six oz. can of tomato paste
• as many veggies as you can fit/like (I used fresh celery and carrots and added frozen green beans, corn and peas)  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

This was so good.  I wouldn't post anything on here that wasn't a hit of course.  Sometimes when you're a vegetarian you miss out of going to restaurants and having some good comfort food.  Shepard's pie is definitely one of those foods you typically don't see a vegetarian version of.  I have made veggie Shepard's pie before but I used veggie beef crumble.  Last night I experimented with lentils and I didn't miss the veggie beef at all.  Trader Joe's sells a precooked package of lentils, so I went with that to make my life a little easier.   

Prep for this meal was super easy.  The hardest part was the mashed potatoes.  I've actually never made mashed potatoes before so I'm sure many of you have a better way of doing it.  I did get to break out my new potato masher though that I purchased at Crate and Barrel.  It was fun!  I have a picture of it on my Instagram attached to this page.  

So yeah, make mashed potatoes how ever people who know how to make mashed potatoes do.  I did mine with half sweet potatoes, pretending to be healthier.  I also mixed them with a splash of almond milk and some vegan mayo (vegan butter would work as well but I wanted to experiment).  I sautéed the garlic, shallot, and onion in my cast iron grill.  Then I added the fresh and frozen veggies and sautéed those as well.  I added the tomato paste and stirred that into the veggies.  

I spooned the mashed potatoes on top and added a little Daiya cheese as well.  I want to say I cooked it for about 15 minutes.  Figure, the mashed potatoes are already warm as well as the veggies.  The beauty about the cast iron grill is you can stick it in the oven (thanks Kiel and Rudy!).  It came out looking like this.  

It was a hit and (obviously) we had some leftovers for lunch the next day.  It's a pretty healthy version of a Shepard's pie too.  I served it with some farm fresh squash from my parents'.  It's a great dish to bring to a party or to make for the token vegetarian at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  

Enjoy!

Vegan Alfredo Sneak Peak

Monday was a long day for the hubby and me.  Tuesday is going to be even longer, so might as well make Monday count right?  

For Christmas my mother-in-law got me Chloe' Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen cookbook.  I love it and have used several recipes from it.  Her dishes are simple, use minimal ingredients, and are easy to follow.  I hate when cookbooks have seemingly simple meals that call for twenty different ingredients that you need to go to Whole Foods for, this is not the case with this book.  

I can't really post someone else's recipe on here, but I'll give you a hint that the alfredo sauce is primarily made of cauliflower.  

I followed Chloe's recipe (I'm sure there are other vegan cauliflower ones online) but I added peas and vegan chicken to it to make it a well-rounded meal.  

For dessert we had some decaf espresso (we're coffee snobs of course) with some vegan vanilla ice-cream.  If you have never put ice cream (vegan or not) in your coffee you are missing out.  I saw this first when I visited Charleston, SC and had to try it.  

I know this wasn't really a recipe, but I had to share.  It's a great way to sneak veggies in for kids or to enjoy alfredo without all the calories.  I'm hoping to post a vegan shepard's pie later this week and I'll also share my secret to for making a delicious homemade pizza.  

"Veganized" Banana Bread

My husband is a fan of many things, but bananas are not one of them.  Oh well, it's not all about him.  My mom gave me a bunch of ripe bananas over the weekend.  They were perfect for baking.

After the long weekend it was time to do some grocery shopping.  I went to Trader Joe's after work today and loaded up for the week.  I came across the Banana Bread Mix and thought what better to use my ripe bananas for.  The ingredients did not require a banana but it was mentioned you can add all sorts of fixing to the banana bread mix, including ripe bananas.  However, this recipe called for two eggs.

No problem.  I knew I could come up with a binding substitute at home, and thew the mix in my cart. 

I know I have used different egg substitutes here before, so I experimented a bit tonight.  Tonight instead of one egg I used…

one egg = 1 tablespoon flaxseed and 3 tablespoons of water

Of course we're earthy crunchy enough to have flaxseed laying around and I whisked it together with the water and added it to my wet ingredients.  Besides my egg substitutes I followed all the other ingredients and directions, adding a mashed ripe banana as well.  I don't know if it's my oven or not but I ended up cooking the banana bread about ten minutes longer than directed.  That may have something to do with the fact I didn't use real eggs. 

The result…a tasty vegan banana bread.  So my breakfast tomorrow.  Enjoy!

Tofu Scramble

Tofu.  It's a wet block of soy with endless possibilities.  Have I sold it yet?

As a vegetarian, tofu is something I need to be well versed in.  It's loaded with protein and the options are endless as to what you can do with it.  

I've been extra inspired lately.  The hubs and I are lucky (for many reasons) but mostly because we live in walking distance (though we've never walked there) to an awesome Chinese food restaurant.  I measure Chinese food "awesomeness" by two criteria…

1. Does it make me feel disgusting after?
2. What are my vegetarian options?

First of all this place does not make me want to beach myself afterwards.  The ingredients are fresh and the food isn't greasy.  Second of all this place has an entire page of vegetarian/vegan options.  Awesome!

Last night we order a ton of food including two tofu dishes (they list it as "bean curd" mmmm bean curd).  They were both delicious as well as very different from one another.  That's the beauty of tofu.  

I want to share with you one of my favorite tofu go to's, the tofu scramble.  This is a dish my husband introduced to me (I use slightly less butter, and by slightly I mean not a whole stick).  Tofu scramble is super versatile, in that you can really do whatever you want with it, adding what ever veggies and sauces you wish.  I'll share with you our favorite tofu scramble.

Ingredients:

• 1 block extra firm tofu
• 1 pepper
• 1 onion
• 1 sharlot
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 crown of broccoli
• 2 tablespoon butter or olive oil
• 1/4 Bragg's amino acids

Again, you can use any veggies you want.  I try to make this for my family every Saturday morning and I use whatever I have on hand.  Below is a picture from one of my more aggressive Saturday morning family breakfasts since I don't have a good tofu scramble picture.  

Back to the tofu scramble.  Basically you're going to start with sautéing you're garlic and shallot.  Once those are cooked add the peppers and then the broccoli. 

 The most important part is the tofu.  Make sure you by the extra firm version of tofu.  There' are all different consistencies of tofu out there but the extra firm version is going to give you the most scrambled egg like texture.  Tofu is packaged in water, therefore it's important to wrap the tofu in a dish towel before using it.  If you can place a heavy-ish object on top of the wrapped tofu that is even better and will get a lot of the water out.  They do make tofu presses but we don't have one yet.  

Once your tofu is pressed crumble it up with your hands over the veggies and add your sauce.  Tofu scramble!

Super easy, as healthy as you want to make it (you can use more or less butter and oil), and super flexible.  You can't go wrong.  Once I added a cup of rice to our tofu scramble for fun and my husband loved it.  I hope you do as well.  

Here's Sophie doing what she does for 95% of the day.  Sleeping.  

Wednesday Night

Wednesday night.   It's a good night.  It's almost the weekend (emphasis on almost), the husband and I went for a nice walk since it was beautiful outside, and we had a delicious dinner.  

Here's Soph begging for some tofu...

We had a ton of fresh vegetables in our fridge so I decided to make another round of veggie lo mein.  I was feeling a little adventurous (and thin) so I decided to cut my veggie "noodles" with real pasta noodles.  No regrets.  

I cannot praise sesame oil enough.  It really made this dish.  If you're going to cook with an oil you might as well cook with something that's going to provide a lot of flavor.  Sesame oil is the way to go if you're cooking an Asian-inspired dish.  

I served our dinners in giant Fiestaware bowls my mom gave us to add to our collection.  My theory is you don't need portion control when you're consuming 80-90% vegetables.  

My one regret of the evening was with my chili paste.  Not for me but for my husband.  Sometimes I forget that I am genetically superior when it comes to consuming spicy food compared to Dylan.  He still tries to keep up with me though.  His first round of veggie lo mein was spice-free, the second round he added some chili paste.  He needed a couple of cans of seltzer water after that...  All in moderation my friends.  However, if you are a fan of spicy food I suggest you buy some chili paste.  It's spicy and it's zero calories and most importantly tasty!

We ended the evening with some fresh air popped popcorn.  If you don't have a popcorn maker you're missing out.  My brother got me this one years ago and I love it.  It's a great healthy snack.  I added some melted vegan butter and nutritional yeast to ours tonight.  Better than the movies!

Taco Tuesday

I'm a slacker.  It's been very busy around here lately.  Busy in a good way but also busy in a Chinese food/ pizza way.  Well not tonight.  Tonight was Taco Tuesday…well mine was taco salad because I'm pretending to be healthy.  

Super easy.  Somewhat healthy.  Totally vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 package soy chorizo (I get mine from Trader Joe's)
• 1 package hard taco shells
• 1 head of lettuce
• salsa
• vegan sour cream (we use Tofutti)
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• guacamole 
• 2 tablespoons vegan butter

Again.  This meal was super easy. The only portion you need to cook is the chorizo.  I started with sautéing the garlic and onion in a pan.  Then I added the soy chorizo until it was heated.  

That's it!  I topped off the tacos with all the sides we had.  For me I made taco salad, crushing up the taco shells.

So here it is.  Super easy, quick, vegan Taco Tuesday!