meat and potatoes vegan style

Thought I would try a traditional meat and poatoes dinner vegan style, it took no time at all to make and was pretty tasty!
I used the new gardein fake chicken...they have a couple flavors but I used this one for this dish- basically just heated it up in the microwave while cooking everything else (I know, lame).


Then I made mashed potatoes from scratch- easy enough- boil some peeled potatoes, then mash and add some soy milk and margarine.
I then took a bag of fresh spinach and steamed it down, then fried it in a little balsalmic vinegar.
I was lazy with the gravy too...just used Han's Vegetarian Brown Gravy (which involves stirring a powder in some boiling water until it thickens, but it is vegan and tasy). And then voila, the vegan version of meat and potatoes was complete- AND TASTY!

fake cheesey lasagna

This was by far one of the best meals I have made, and the picture does not do it justice.
I took a recipe for a cheesey lasagna and converted it vegan.
Basically it was a layered lasagna that had two main vegan substitues: the sauce and the cheese.
Ingredients:
Vegan bechamel sauce
(silken tofu, soy milk, vegetable bullion, margarine, flour, olive oil, and vegan cream cheese)
lasagna
mushrooms
tomatoes
margarine
vegan parmesan cheese
daiya cheddar cheese

To make the bechamel sauce:
Blenerize 1 package of silken tofu with 1.5 cups soy milk, 3/4 cup water, the vegetable bullion cube, and toffutti cream cheese. Then heat 1 TBsp oil and 5 TBsp margarine in a sauce pan. Add4 TBsp flour and whisk for a minute, then add the blenderized ingredients.
Whisk while on medium heat for about 5 minutes until it thickens.

For inside the lasagna layers:
chop 4 tomatoes and heat with 1 TBsp olive oil for a couple minutes until wilted.
Set aside and then saute 2 cups sliced mushrooms with 2 TBsp garlic in 1 TBsp olive oil. Add 1/4 lemon juice and let simmer until the mushrooms are browned.

Then cook the lasagna noodles as you normally would.

In the lasagna pan place a layer of the sauce, followed by noodles, then a layer of mushrooms, then sauce again, then a layer of daiya cheese. Then on top of that place more noodles, then a layer of tomatoes and sauce, then some daiya cheese and noodles. Repeat with however many more layers of veggies you have. (I did one more layer after that of mushrooms and tomatoes, then sauce, then daiya cheese, then noodles, and then on top of the noodles a thin layer of sauce sprinkled with vegan parmesan cheese).
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

It really was amazingly tasty.

chickpea, pepper, and tomato salad

Simple and easy salad made with veggies I did not want to go bad...
INGREDIENTS
-cherry tomatoes sliced in half
-1 can rinsed chickpeas
-2 TBsp garlic
-1 orange and 1 yellow bell pepper chopped
-1 TBsp dried basil

DRESSING
-2 TBsp lemon juice
-4 TBsp olive oil
-1 tsp sugar

I mixed up the salad ingredients together and then pre-packaged several days worth of salad for lunch, then I whicked the dressing ingredients and brought along as the dressing for the salad each day.

vegan mashed potato pizza

Pre:

This was a new experiment...We went to sacco's bowling alley a couple weekends ago with friends, enjoyed good beer and a couple rounds of candle pin. They have excellent vegan pizza there too. Their special that day was mashed potato pizza (not vegan) and Mark Elledge said he had it before and it was delicious.
So I went home and googled some recipes- I guess it is a tradition that started in New haven, CT with the Yale college kids. Basically you take a layer of mashed potatoes as your sauce, and whatever toppings you want. I made a vegan version to experiment and it was REALLY tasty...
Ingredients:
pizza dough (I bought premade from trader joe's, it was vegan obviously)
mashed potatoes (from scratch using whatever recipe you use, probably about 4-6 potatoes worth)
olive oil
topping of your choice (I used brocolli and mushrooms)
Daiya cheese (mozzarella and cheddar).

Directions:
Roll out the dough with some flour and then place on a floured baking sheet. Drizzle a layer of olive oil over the dough.
Once the mashed potatoes are cooked spread a layer about 1/2cm thick over the entire dough.
Then apply you toppings (mushrooms and brocolli for me).
Then apply a layer of cheese so the toppings are covered.
Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes.
Post:

vegan lo mein

Used my new wok to make this easy and tasty meal:
Basically I mixed up some udon noodles, brocolli, shitake mushrooms, mini corn, waterchesnuts, and fake beef chunks in Trader Joe's General Tsao's sauce.
Super tasty and lots of leftovers!

silly mental images

Somehow Mark and I were talking about wild dogs, and I mentioned I knew of people who lived in rural Europe who told stories of packs of wild dogs that if they caught you alone on the road they would attack. Mark thought this a little far fetched, and maybe it is, I have never seen it.
But then Mark said "I wonder what a pack of wild dachshunds would look like? Just imagine like 50+ dachshunds in a pack running like the wild animals they are, tearing ass as fast as they could like they were on a mission. And after the pack runs past, the stragglers that had or need back surgery would come through, hobbling in their ataxic way." It juts formed such a strong mental image in my head and I couldn't stop laughing imagining it I thought I would share it.

great vegan meal weekend

this weekend I made a mexican chicken dish for dinner on Saturday and vegan berry crepes for brunch on Sunday, both fantastic!
The crepes were using the vegan yumyum website recipe, with some drizzled on vegan chocolate syrup from whole foods that I added.

The mexican recipe was modified from one I found online:
ingredients:
1 package fake chicken strips from trader joes
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1 bag frozen corn
1 can black beans
1 cup brown rice cooked as directed
1 jar salsa
2 TBsp chili powder
1 TBsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp cumin
2 TBsp liquid aminos Braggs
2 TBsp cilantro
2 TBsp olive oil
fresh avocado

Directions: fry the oil and fake chicken until brown. Then add the chili powder and cook another minute, then remove from heat. Apply a little more oil to the pan and fry the peppers, then add the corn, salsa, black beans, and all the remaining ingredients. After heating about 5 minutes add the fake chicken back in and cook another 2-3 minutes.
Serve over rice with freshly sliced avocado. Delish!

tofu and pistachio stir fry

http://www.cookveg.co.uk/vegetarian-recipes/recipe/tofu-snow-peas-and-pistachio-salad1/

This stir fry I pretty much made directly from the recipes, and I served it over cous cous, which was deilcious! I use trader joe's teriyaki tofu. Not a lot of sauce, but packed with flavor.

asparagus and brocollini with fake beef soy dish

This was a unique, modifed dish from a yum yum recipe, and I swear, it tastes a lot better then it looks (I forgot to take a picture so this was the 3rd day leftover that I took a picture of).
First I made some cous cous for the rice part of the dish.
Then for the main dish-
Ingredients:
1 package of your choice fake meat (I used fake beef cubes)
2 Tbs Oil
2 Tbs Garlic
1 TBs crushed red pepper flakes
1 package of brocollini chopped
1 package of asparagus, chopped
1 Tbs Brown Sugar
3 Tbs Soy Sauce
1 Tbs Rice Vinegar
2 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1 TBs Sesame Seeds

Directions:
Fry the fake meat, brocollini, and asparagus with the sesame oil.
Add in the garlic and red pepper flakes once the veggies are tender.
Add the sugar, soy sauce, and rice vinegar just prior to removing from heat. Toss.
Mix with sesame seeds and 1 more teaspoon sesame oil. Serve over the cous cous.

mexican mexican

Being a vegan I find random stir frys or something mexican is always a quick and easy stand by.
In the last month I have made fake chicken fajitas and fake crumbled beef tacos, both super tasty. I like tacos, esp since making my unique lime-cashew-tofu tacos, but I find it is hard to fit all you want to in to a taco.