last wine night in Boston

Had a great last wine night in Boston before shipping out to California this fall. We had a great turn out and mix of guests. Some people from Albany even made it! I made a rice salad and a tater tot casserole. For the rice salad: I took 2 cups of rice in a large pot, added 2 cans of coconut milk and 1 cup of water, and 1 tsp cinnamon to the pot. Boiled it then like you always do. Once the rice was done I added 1 two chopped up cucumbers and two containers of sliced mango, and 1 container of fresh edamame, mixing them in a turning the rice down to low heat. In a large wok I added chopped up tofu and fried it in a little oil with 1tsp coriander and 1 TBsp garlic. Once the tofu was done I added it to the rice mixture. I mixed it all up with some spinach. It was super tasty and like a lot of times it was better as leftovers the next day. For the main course I made a version of tater tot casserole from the Meet The Shannons recipe, just modified a bit. I fried up a 2 chopped red peppers, 2 yellow peppers, 1 red onion, and 2 green bell peppers in a small amount of oil. In order to use up some of the expendables in my fridge I also fried up a package of vegan boca ground beef and tempeh chunks. Then in a massive bowl I mixed up the peppers, onion, and fake meat along with one package of daiya cheddar cheese, 1 package frozen corn, 2 TBsp dried cilantro,2 TBsp Braggs, 2 TBsp cumin, 2 TBsp chili powder, 4 TBsp garlic, and two cans of diced tomatoes. This all went in to a large casserole, topped with one package of pepperjack daiya cheese, and 1 package of sweet potato tater tots from TJs. Baked then at 375 for 40 minutes. SUPER DELICIOUS.Goes great with guacamole or vegan sour cream.

super easy BBQ meal

I had some gardein vegan pulled pork in the house an threw this little sandwich together. The topping is just Broccoli Slaw from TJs with some added vegan ranch dressing that I make on a regular basis. Super tasty and simple.

vegan chicken pasta casserole

Being that Mark and I will be moving to Cali in about a little over a month, I have decided to start making dishes that reflect using up the random crap in our kitchen... I noticed the other day that I had 3 containers of vegan cream cheese (I must have bought it for a cheesecake or something and never made it). Well, I will be using 2 in a cheesecake I make for our going away party next week, but I used another in a recipe I found for a pasta casserole. I also conveniently had 2 packaged of TJ's vegan chicken strips, pasta in the cupboard, along with lots of pasta sauce, so only had to buy spinach for the recipe. First boil a box of pasta, whatever you have on hand (I had rotini). Then in a large sauce pan or wok, add a little oil and cook the fake chicken. Once browned, add 1 TBsp Italian seasoning 1 jar spaghetti sauce, and 1 can drained diced tomatoes. I had a bag of sundried tomatoes that I threw in as well at this point. Cook a couple minutes. Next add your spinach, helping it wilt as it gets mixed in. (I used one bag of fresh spinach). Lastly, start dropping chunks of cream cheese and mixing them in to the dish. I used one container of toffuti cream cheese. In a casserole dish first drain and pour the cooked pasta. Then top with the chicken sauce mixture. Then top this with shredded mozzarella, next a layer of plan sauce again from a different jar, and last with some mozzarella and some parmesan (obviously vegan versions of both for me). Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. I think I put a little too much sauce in, but it was tasty and even better as a leftover.

brussel sprout pizza you say? Why Yes!

I saw brussel sprouts at TJs this week and suddenly had a craving, so bought a bag of fresh sprouts, and then did not know what to cook them with... I searched and searched, and since I love making pizzas I made a brussel sprouts pizza. First I sliced all the BSps in half, and cooked in a dish with 2 TBsp sunflower oil, as well as sprinkled over 1/4 cup of brown sugar. I cooked on both sides about 5 minutes, until carmelized.

The hardest part was the cheese, which most recipes making bsp pizza use a goat cheese. I found this recipe and made it word for word for a vegan version of goat cheese. http://thekindlife.com/blog/post/vegan-goat-cheese-recipe

So that was made 2 days before. Once the BSps were cooked I set them aside, and sliced up fake bacon and fried in a little sunflower oil as well. Finally I threw all this on top of a TJ's middle eastern flat bread- the "goat cheese" first, then the BSps, bacon, i threw on some chickpeas, and topped with daiya mozzarella. I then baked for 10 minutes at 350. Really good, the leftover toppings I threw in mini salad containers and had leftover salad for a couple days (just used a little bit of TJs hummus salad dressing).

mexican flatbread

Trader Joe's has started carrying this Middle Eastern flatbread, which is a small, thick pita-like bread that happens to be vegan. I have been throwing things on it like a pizza for quick meals lately and love it! This one, I took 1 can black beans, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 bag frozen corn, and 1 bag of gardein beef chunks. I stir fried them all up together, mixed in 2 TBsp fajita seasoning, and then 1/4 cup each of daiya cheddar and mozzarella. Served over the bread. Super tasty. (Lots of leftovers, goes well with tofutti sour cream like shown here and avocado slices).

Meat Lover's Lasagna...FOR VEGANS!

Had a bunch of people over for a wine night and made this amazing dish. The recipe was used exactly from this site: http://stemartaen.com/2009/11/vegan-meat-lovers-lasagna/

Vegan Indian Night

This was a fun combination of recipes I tried out. The Saag Paneer dish on the side was SUPER easy: In my wok I heated a little olive oil with 2TBsp garlic, 1 TBsp ginger, and 2 TBsp cumin. Then I added 1 bag frozen spinach and cooked it until it was heated through. Last I added a package of vegan chicken along with 3 TBsp margarine and 1 TBsp masala seasoning, and heated through. It was creamy and tasty. The samosa french toast was more of an issue to make (labor intensive) but totally worth it. First I boiled 8 little potatoes, then mashed them up in a large bowl (leaving the skins on) with 2 TBsp margarine. Then in a skillet I heated up 2 TBsp subflower oil with 1 tsp mustard seed, 1 tsp crushed coriander, 1 tsp tumeric, and 1 TBsp masala seasoning. Once heated I added 1 cup frozen peas and the potatoes from earlier. I cooked them together, mashing them up like they would be if they were the inside of a samosa. Towards the end I added 1 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cilantro, and 1 tsp cumin and mixed that in. Once this was all mashed together I let it cool. In a separate dish I whisked together 1 cup chapati flour with 2-ish cups water (basically started with one cup and added more as needed to get a batter like consistency), 1 tsp tumeric, 1 tsp vayenne pepper powder, 1 tsp masala seasoning, and 2 TBsp sunflower oil. Then I took two slices of bread, applied the samosa potato mixture to the inside, closed the bread like a sandwich, coated it with the chapati batter, and fried in sunflower oil until done. It took a while but was well worth it, amazing meal.

inside out vegan fajita pizza

This is another example of a meal of mine that I threw together in to a pizza. I had some pre-made vegan pizza crust that was wood fried from Whole Foods. First I topped it with a little marinara. Then cheese- as you can see one half of this has real cheese for Mark, for me I used Daiya mozzarella and pepperjack shreds. In a separate skillet I fried up 1/2 a bag of frozen corn, 1 can black beans, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 bag Boca fake meat burger crumbles, and 2 TBsp fajita seasoning in a little olive oil. Once this was heated sprinkled it all over the top of the pizza and then baked at 425 for 10 minutes. Once cooked I topped it with a little sliced avocado. Super tasty, and the left over topping I was able to package up to use as taco filling later in the week.

great calzone and left over salad

I guess I do tend to just mix weird things together as salads or pizzas or calzones. For this one in a large salad bowl I mixed together 1 bag arugala, 1 can artichoke hearts, 1 can olives, 3 chopped up tomatoes, and 1 can mushrooms first. I had a package of tofurky italian sausages which I sliced and fried in a little bit of olive oil until toasty brown and then placed in the salad. Then I mixed it all up and placed some of it in a calzone with almond milk cheese. I topped it with a little balsalmic vinigrette and marinara sauce, rolled up the calzone with some holes punctured through the top of the dough, and baked at 450 for 10 minutes. Delicious calzone. Of course, with the leftover salad I just packaged it up in some tuperware, added a little of the almond milk cheese and marinara to each container, and mixed it up with balsalmic vingrette whenever I had it for a meal. Super tasty. I love the tofurky italian sausage.

new vegan ham egg and cheese

I posted a vegan recipe version of a ham egg and cheese sandwich earlier this year which was great. This is a new recipe I tried that was also quite good. I had a bunch of mini bagels I wanted to use so this worked out well making breakfast for almost 2 weeks with them. The tofu is the "egg"- basically take an extra firm block and slice it in to 3/4 inch square sections. In a separate bowl mix together 1 cup flour with 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, and 1 tsp tumeric. Dust the tofu squares in the flour mixture and place on a greased baking sheet, then back for 10 miuntes at 300 degrees. Once baked take a skillet and place 6 TBsp olive oil with 3 TBsp worcestershire sauce and 3 TBsp lemon juice. Heat the liquids and then fry the tofu on both sides in this mixture. Then just assemble your sanwich! I had vegan cheese slices as well as vegan ham slices for mine, but vegan bacon would probably go well with it too.