vegan potato tacos

So I bought a bunch of potatoes recently for a specific dish, but ended up having a lot of leftovers. I wanted to try to use them up and knew we were having John and Robin over for dinner...I was planning to make my vegan mexican chicken dish with fresh avocados- so I googled "mexican potatoe salad". I ended up finding a couple weird recipes and tried one- it was ok, not great. I forgot to take pictures and decided not to post it as it was relatively boring and I probably won't make it again. but, in my searching I saw a recipe for "potatoe tacos" that looked interesting, so I made some adjustments and tried that this week.

Ingredients:
1 TBsp veggie oil
1 TBsp fajita seasoning
4 peeled, boiled and chopped potatoes
1 container of pre-sliced white mushrooms
Daiya mozzarella and cheddar cheese
1 can vegetarian refried beans
1/2-3/4 cup of salsa
soft taco shells
sliced avocados

Directions:
preheat the oven to 350.
Stir together the oil and fajita seasoning. Then toss the mushrooms and potatoes in them until evenly coated.
Arrange the potatoes and mushrooms on a baking tray. Sprinkle with a layer of mixed vegan cheese. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the potatoes and mushrooms are baking, stir together the refried beans and salsa in a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a paper towel and microwave on high for 3 minutes.
Spon the bean mixture in to the bottom of the taco sheels, then place the potatoe mixture on top of that. Then put whatever taco topping you want on top (I had avocados I needed to use so I tried that).
I thought it was a pretty tasty and unique taco dish- Mark was not a fan, which is ok, not every dish I make is good. Mark thought it was "too much like baby food", so I guess he does not like refried beans.
But I thought it was a good dish, if you want to use up some potatoes in a unique way give it a try!

taco salads

I think I make too much mexican...but it's so easy to convert vegan!!
I made taco salad for several nights in a row this week- initially made tacos but had enough leftovers that I could just break up the tacos in to chip sizes and layer the bottom of a boil with it. Then I placed mornigstar crumbles that had been cooked with red kidney beans and some fajita seasoning in the bowl, then on top of that fresh chopped tomatoes, then on top of the daiya cheese. Then just microwaved and served with some vegan sour cream- so easy and tasty.

Sweet Bean and Potatoe Casserole

Nothing too special about this dish- but it was great for leftovers.

Ingredients:
1 pound of potatoes
Olive oil
3 TBsp margarine
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 TBsp thyme
1 TBsp marjoram
1 can butter beans
1 can chickpeas
1 can kidney beans
1 busshel of chopped green onions
1 container of chopped up portabella mushrooms
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup apple sauce
1 cup V8 or two small cans of V8
1/4 cup red cooking wine
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar

DIRECTIONS:
Peel and slice the potatoes. Boil until soft. Drain and toss with a small amount of olive oil.
In a large saucepan add the margarine and flour, V8, apple sauce, sugar, ketchup, cooking win, and soy cause. Heat and whick until it thickens and comes to a boil.
Turn the heat down once boiling and add in the beans, chickpeas, onions, mushrooms, and spices. Stir well and keep heated for a couple minutes.
Spoon the mixture in to a casserole dish.
Layer the potatoes on top of the mixture overlapping slightly and completely covering the bean mixture.
Cover and bake at 400 for 1 hours. Remove the foil about 20 minutes prior to finishing to brown the poatotoes.

The Kennedy Tour

Mark has been complaining that we don't do enough together when we have the weekends off together- so when I saw tht livingsocial had a 1/2 historical tour I jumped on it. This past Saturday Mark and I went on "The Kennedy Tour". It sounded a little lame- 90 minutes of a walking tour around Boston pointing out sites famous to the Kennedys, but it was actually quite fun- considering we would have otherwise been in the house being lazy watching TV or reading...the guy giving the tour knew his stuff, and we learned a lot of neat new facts about Boston with regards to its history and links with the Kennedys, it was a lot more fun then we both anticipated.

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.