Valentine's Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone!

I hope everyone single or attached enjoyed their Sunday.  When I was single I always found Vday to be a great excuse to buy myself flowers and make something nice for dinner.  Now that I'm married I have someone else to buy me flowers, but now I have two people to cook a romantic dinner for (and yes I still want to do the cooking).

So if you haven't been able to tell by now, we like to show our love with food in this house (please see meal #2 below).  I started my Valentine's day with the boys making me a delicious vegan breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, and fruit with yogurt.  It was awesome!

It was absolutely freezing here on Sunday, to the point where it was dangerous to be outside.  I did brave the cold, however, to trek out to the grocery store.  I asked my husband what he wanted for Valentine's Day dinner and I made my pilgrimage to Trader Joe's. 

Dylan requested soup because it was the perfect soup kind of day (i.e. FREEZING!)  I referenced Chloe Coscarelli's Vegan Italian Kitchen cookbook and decided I was making her spicy tomato soup (maybe not so spicy for my hubby).  I love her recipes because they are easy to make and don't require copious exotic ingredients I can only find at Whole Foods for $20.  Anyways, the soup came out amazing and I served the leftovers when my mother in law came over tonight.  Everyone enjoyed it.  

This week my husband is taking me out all week (it's his Vday gift and also we're on school vacation!).  Some of the places we are going are vegan restaurants in the area.  I'm very much looking forward to it and am prepping myself for nostalgia overload!  

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

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...

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.

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.  

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!  

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!