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...

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!