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!

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!

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...

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!

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.  

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! 

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...

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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