Chorizo Rolls

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  I certainly did and now I am avoiding pants with buttons for the next few days or so.

We had a great weekend.  Jim the Elf arrive to completely creep out our five year old (but also keep him in line), we set up our Christmas tree, and we relaxed and ate some great food.  Today was absolutely beautiful out so I took our dog out for a nice long walk at my favorite spot.  

Speaking of great food, I think I found a new favorite for my husband.  Best of all…it's two ingredients!

Ingredients

• 2 packages of puff pastry (Pillsbury is vegan!!!)
• 1 package of Trader Joe's soy chorizo 

* The two packages of puff pastry will finish off the entire package of chorizo, but if you have just one puff pastry the extra chorizo makes a great contribution to sauces or vegan tacos!

I have some Portuguese ancestry so I have a soft spot for chorizo (well soy chorizo).  A friend of mine used to bring in a non vegetarian version of these to work and they always were a hit.  She would make chorizo rolled up in a puff pastry and those things would disappear quickly.  I realized I had all the ingredients in my refrigerator and thought I'd give it a shot at making a vegan version.   

Super simple.  I put about 2 tablespoons of the soy chorizo on the crescent roll and roll them up.  As you can see some come out prettier than others...

I cooked the rolls at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.  And about 12 minutes after that half of the rolls were gone…

The hubby and I are hosting a Christmas party this weekend and I plan on making a big batch of these.  I'm looking forward to sharing more recipes/reviews for the holiday season!

Vegan Cheddar Biscuits

I love Thanksgiving.  I love everything about it.  Except for the turkey that is.

Thanksgiving can be a nightmare for vegetarians and vegans.  There's meat and gravy everywhere and lots of relatives asking you questions about where do you get your protein.  Therefore, it's not uncommon for veggies (and some of their non veggie friends) to gather together before Thanksgiving and have their own feast.  I've done with before with my friends and this weekend with got together with my husband's college buddies and had a blast.

One of my contributions to this gathering was my vegan cheddar biscuits.  Here's what you do...

Ingredients 

• 2/3 cup of unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup Bisquick mix
• 2 tablespoons vegan butter softened
• about 1/2 cup Daiya cheddar cheese shreds
• 1/4 cup chopped green onion
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste

First you need to make yourself some vegan buttermilk.  Take your almond milk and lemon and whisk it together in a bowl.  Let this sit for about five minutes.  I threw all the dry ingredients in a bowl and added the "buttermilk" once it was ready.  I cooked it at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

I made another batch of these babies but with peppers and garlic chopped up and mixed in.  I honestly think you could add anything to these biscuits and not go wrong.  The possibilities are endless.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Review: Gardein Chipotle Line Crispy Fingers

Review time.

So lots of things have happened since the last time I posted…the Patriots almost gave all of New England a heart attack, my husband and I discovered Game of Thrones, and I've been sick.  It's that time of year and it comes with the job, but I've been down and out and it's never fun.  

I'm finally starting to feel better and I realize we have so much frozen food in our kitchen.  I'm making it a goal this week to use up as much of our frozen food a possible, which brings me to my review this evening.  Gardein's Chipotle Line Crispy Fingers.  Yummy.

We picked this baby up at Whole Foods when my husband and I went there pretending to be rich.  Well I guess we deserve a trip there once in awhile…What kills me about Whole Foods is I can find a lot of the food their cheaper other places (such as Gardein products) but they carry things I can't seem to find anywhere else, such as these "chicken" fingers.  

My mom made us a vegan pumpkin bread this weekend (amazing!) and also sent me home with some minestrone soup (I have yet to confirm if it was homemade or not).  So tonight I made a soup and salad combo.  

So back to the "chicken", it was good!  There was a subtle southwestern taste to the chicken, and it was nice and crispy on the outside.  I loved it on the salad but I think it would be great in a wrap as well with some vegan sour cream.  

I heated up our minestrone soup and stuck some Daiya cheese and bread crumbs on top.  Then I put the  bowls under the broiler for a minute or two.  Soup is best served on a rooster tray.  

Happy end of the weekend!

Review: Trader Joe's Hot and Sweet Chili Jam

So it's Friday, hence it's pizza night.  There's only so much I can tell you about vegan pizza and I'm pretty sure I've told you everything I know.  So I'll share something else...

So tonight I'm doing another review.  I took another trip to Trader Joe's tonight, and it's amazing what you find when the store isn't packed like it is on the weekend.  I came across a new hot and sweet chili jam.  I've pretty much drawn to any sort of spicy food.  I picked it up and read the suggestion that this jam can be served with cream cheese on a cracker.  Easy vegan fix.  I'm super indecisive so of course I put it down and came back to it later.

I paired with with our favorite vegan alternative to cream cheese, Tofutti, and served the jam on a Ritz cracker.  It was awesome!

My plating leaves something to be desired, but this would be an awesome appetizer.  And super easy of course.  The jam is the perfect combination of sweet and spicy, and goes great with the cream cheese to cool everything down.  

Review: Daiya Mac and Cheese

Can you believe I never really liked macaroni and cheese until I was in college?  I know right?  It's two of my favorite things; pasta and cheese.  

Tonight I'd like to introduce you to Daiya's version of macaroni and cheese.  We love the Daiya products, especially their version of shredded mozzarella cheese we use on our pizza.  My mom picked up a package of this once for us and we loved it, so when I sent my husband out on a rare trip to the grocery store for him, he came back with this mac and cheese, "alfredo style."  

This is definitely one of our favorite instant vegan alternatives to macaroni and cheese.  Daiya is a little bit different from other versions of vegan mac and cheese we've tried.  Instead of a powered cheese, the Daiya version had a creamy "cheese" you add to the pasta.  It tastes JUST like regular mac and cheese (I swear!).  

Mac and cheese is fun too because you can spruce it up.  I made mine tonight with vegan beef crumble, roasted red pepper, and tomatoes.  I mixed everything together and crumbled Ritz crackers (yes those are vegan!) and nutritional yeast on top of the mixture.  Then I added a little Daiya shredded cheese. I cooked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees in the sweet casserole dish we got as a wedding gift over the summer.  

Family approved.  Or at least the dog was begging for some.  

Chili II

My husband and I have a lot in common.  We're both special education teachers, we're both terrible at putting away laundry, and we both make a mean chili.  Those are actually the three reasons why we got married…

Okay not really, but I think it's nice to have a friendly rivalry when it comes to cooking.  We're having friends over next week and we're planning on making both of our chills.  I've introduced my version on here before, but my hubby's is very different (hence why we can serve them at the same time without being redundant).  His is very…let's say "collegey"???  And not in an educational sense, more like poor college kid throwing everything in his fridge together and some how amazingly making something that tastes good.

.  You'll know what I'm talking about when you see the ingredients…Also, please notice how the dog is stalking my husband in the picture above...

Ingredients

• 1 can vegetarian baked beans
• 1 can black beans (drained)
• 1 can red kidney beans (drained)
• 2 packages of veggie crumble
• 1 onion chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 red pepper
• 1 can diced tomatoes (with the juice)

All you need to do is mix everything together.  We made ours in our crock pot and cooked it on low for six hours.  I was skeptical, but it was delicious.  We threw some sliced jalapeño peppers and Daiya cheese on there and in the words of my husband "BOOM"!

It's certainly a hardy chili with all the protein varieties.  The baked beans add a unique flavor too.  It's something that would satisfy vegetarians and non vegetarians alike.

We'll see who makes the better chili next week though...