Supper...Top Secret

I will not even post what I had for dinner tonight since it was not good for me at all! Instead let us enjoy this nice picture of snow. This was taken last winter from our front step.

East meets East dinner?

Was feeling lazy tonight so we had a dinner of Samosas from Costco and spring rolls that I found for super cheap at a Chinese food mart which were surprisingly vegan and with very few ingredients. Served it with some dipping sauce and a nice mix of organic greens with homemade salad dressing on the side. At least we got some veggies in...right?

Guacamole, Fries and Local Asparagus

Yummmy...local asparagus. It was so perfect and tender. I baked this in the oven for 10 minutes at 450, sprinkled with some olive oil and salt and pepper. Cut up a few russet potatoes, added 1 tbsp of olive oil and some rosemary and baked for 30 minutes. Made a sandwich with amazing Canadian grain whole wheat bread, guacamole, tomato and onion.

A cute picture of Moon...because who doesn't like cat pictures?

Local Fiddleheads and leftovers

I went to a new market yesterday here in town that advertised local asparagus. I am a sucker for asparagus and love it when fresh local asparagus comes available. I also found these little babies. Fresh, just picked, wild Manitoba Fiddleheads. I had seen them before but had never tried them. They are amazing! They taste very closely to asparagus.

We had leftovers from last night paired with fiddleheads which were steamed for 10 minutes then sauteed in a pan with chopped red onion and garlic with some earth balance. They were divine. I am thinking of heading back to get some more of these this week since they are only available for 3 weeks out of the year.

Creamy Chickpea and Tahini Casserole

In my effort to incorporate healthier meals into our plans I searched on the Internet for a nice chickpea casserole. I came up with a recipe for Creamy Chickpea and Tahini Casserole
This casserole is super easy to make and tastes amazing. I still want to calculate its nutritional value because I am sure it is awesome. Chickpeas, tomatoes, brown rice, onion and spices is all you need. The tahini gives it a nice creamy texture but does not overpower the taste of the chickpeas and tomatoes. I served it with ripped up green leaf lettuce with dressing and amazing multigrain bread that I found at a market today.

I am back with Hummus/BabaGanoush Pizza

Sorry I have not posted in a while but it has been somewhat of a crazy week. I made some babaganoush for the first time the other day when my mom pushed some nearly too ripe eggplant on me :). I normally only buy eggplant when I want to use it in a specific recipe so I was not sure what to do with this. I decided to try making babaganoush since I have never had it before and it sounded interesting. I roasted the eggplant for 45 minutes, toasted some pine nuts, ground those in the blender and added some lime juice, tahini and cumin. Not sure I really enjoyed it, maybe I have to find a better recipe or taste what it is really suppose to taste like.
I also had some leftover hummus so I decided to make this pizza. Half hummus, half babaganoush with sliced black olives, red onion and parsley.
I really enjoyed the hummus side but not so much for the babaganoush. Next time I am making a pizza with just the hummus. I served this with a side of green leaf lettuce and some homemade dressing.

A special cake that deserves its own post

I made my parents a four layer raspberry chocolate torte for their birthdays and decorated it with leftover beet icing from a few weeks ago. It turned out delicious even though I was not personally satisfied on how it looked. Everyone likes it so in the end that made me happy. It took a few days to put all of the components together but well worth the wait.

Very Special Dinner for Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad came over tonight and we celebrated both of their birthdays. I wanted to make them a fancy meal so I started preparing this one days ago. It is a mixture of grains, shitake mushrooms, yams, onions, collards and spices in wrapped in a filo dough with an onion, shitake mushroom and corn fumee sauce to go with it. I served a nice salad on the side. I love making this because once the filling is prepared it is so easy to assemble. I even froze half of the mixture for next time. This is my second time using whole wheat filo dough and it turned out way better this time. It did not dry out extremely quickly and tasted amazing.
Fancy presentation with parsley
Salad with red leaf lettuce, cranberries, tomatoes, pepitas and carrots. I made a side of dressing with some mustard, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup for sweetness.
I also made some olive bread. It was a hit.
Filo wraps hot out of the oven.

Vegan Chinese Take Out

With hubby gone out again tonight I decided to treat myself to some of my favourite Chinese food from a local restaurant called Delicious Vegetarian. Here we have sweet and sour gluten balls, shanghai noodles with veggie ham, schezuan tofu with broccoli, brown rice and a spring roll. It really hit the spot and we have tons of leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. Yum yum

Baked Stuffed Shells and olive bread

I bought a box of shells a few weeks ago and finally made them tonight. I wish I could fine whole wheat pasta shells but I have never seen them in the stores. These were super easy to make and turned out delicious. I even froze a smaller batch and will see how they hold up when defrosted and baked in the oven.

Baked Stuffed Shells

1 package firm or extra-firm tofu (crumble with your hands)

2 tbsp dried basil and dried parsley (or fresh if you can get it)

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 package frozen spinach, thawed and excess water squeezed out

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 jars of spaghetti sauce

1/2 box of shells, cooked according to directions

Mix all of the ingredients together (except for the shells and sauce). Preheat oven to 375. Lightly spray a 9 by 11 pan and add about 1/2 jar spaghetti sauce to bottom. Stuff the shells by adding about 1 heaping tbsp of the mixture to each one, layer them in the pan. Cover with remaining spaghetti sauce. Cover tightly in foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy

This is what the shells looked like before they were covered in sauce and went into the oven.

I made bread too! I used parts of the dough I made yesterday and incorporated some olives into it. It was great! I love olive bread.

Smoothie of the day. I cheated a little with this one because I added some soy ice cream to it. Rice milk, banana, peanut butter and molasses. It was a great combo.

BBQ Seitan, Avocado and homemade fries

I ate supper alone tonight and this is what I had. I made myself some homemade fries (russet potatoes, rosemary and garlic) baked in the oven. Then I mixed some of my leftover seitan with my homemade bbq sauce, warmed it up and slapped it on the homemade buns that just came out of the oven. I slathered on about 1/2 of an avocado. Seriously, BBQ sauce and avocado is a match made in heaven. If you have never combined the two try it. I had a salad on the side and this was supper for me.



Simple No-Knead Bread
adapted from Vegan Feast Kitchen

3 1/4 cups warm water (around 100)
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cups all purpose flour
2.5 cups whole wheat flour

Add yeast to warm water and let dissolve for about 10 minutes. Wisk in salt and olive oil. Add flours. Let rise in warm place for a few hours or until it doubles in size. At this point you can refrigerate the dough or cut a piece away and bake it. Stays fresh in the fridge for up to 2 weeks

I baked these buns at 450 for 20 minutes.

Sushi, Veggie Pancakes and Puffed Rice Treats

This is what we had for supper tonight in my efforts to clean out the fridge. Used up the rest of the sweet potato, zucchini and asparagus.

I vowed to use at least one item from our cupboards with each meal to help clean things out. I wanted to make these squares which I saw on the blog Yeah, That Vegan Shit. He calls them Chocolate and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars. I had some corn syrup in my cupboard and who knows how long it has been there for since I do not remember buying it. I know that corn syrup is horrible but I would feel bad just throwing it away so I made there. I changed the recipe a little, using 3/4 corn syrup and 1/4 maple syrup and I used Nature Path's Organic Brown Rice Puffed cereal and only 1 cup of chocolate chips. They turned out nice. I will definitely make them again but next time with agave or brown rice syrup.

Breakfast Smoothie-raw oats, rice milk, kiwi, banana, figs and blackstrap molasses. I have also vowed to incorporate more blackstrap molasses into my daily eating since it has amazing properties. Good thing my mom taught me to love the taste of this at a young age.

Seitan ham, scalloped potatoes and broccoli

I wanted a nice slow cooked Sunday sit down kind of dinner tonight. I made Bryanna Clark Grogan's seitan ham which turned out beautifully, scalloped potatoes from Veganomicon, steamed broccoli, leftover homemade cranberry sauce and leftover crescent roll. It really hit the spot. I love this seitan recipe, it combines wheat gluten with tofu to make the roast very easy to slice and pulls apart to make bbq sandwiches. I might freeze half of this since it makes such a huge roast.

The seitan ham when it just came out of the oven. It is almost the same size as the cutting board.

The scalloped potatoes. I love this recipe. Very easy to make and the potatoes turned out nice and creamy. Just the right amount of spices.

BLT and fries

Tonight we had BLT's with Yves veggie bacon. Not too bad but I wish it would crisp up some more. I really wanted avocado tonight but the choices were not ripe or over ripe so I bought one to eat in the week.

Sushi

I got another craving for sushi the other day. I purposely bought white organic sushi rice (I know hiss boo!) because every time I work with the organic brown sushi rice it never comes out like I would want it to. So, I figure if we eat white rice once a month we will be okay. I had some marinated asparagus tips in the fridge and they worked perfectly in here. Served it with a little soy sauce for supper.

A full Day of Vegan Eating

For breakfast this morning I had a nice smoothie. I also had some fresh pineapple

Oatmeal Breakfast Smoothie
1 cup soy or rice milk
1/2 cup regular oats
5 strawberries, cut in half
3 dried figs, cut in half
1 frozen banana, sliced

Put oats in blender and blend for 1 minute, add rest of ingredients and mix well. This was extremely filling and satisfying. Next time I want to try adding some kale or spinach to make it a green smoothie.

Lunch-leftover chickpea cultet from Veganomicon with ketchup, mustard and salad on rye toast.

Dinner-breaded tofu baked in the oven with lemon caper sauce from one of my previous posts. I took this sauce out of the freezer and was delighted to see that it freezes well. Next time I will make a double batch and freeze some of the leftovers. Served with baked asparagus and whole grain crescent rolls.

For snacks I also had a Nature Valley Peanut Butter bar and a handful of nuts.

So this is what this typical vegan eats in a day.

Peanut Butter Cannonballs

I saw this recipe and wanted to try it out since I have been craving rice krispy squares but have not found a substitute for marshmallows. I found these on the Yeah, That Vegan Shit blog. They are called Peanut Butter Cannonballs and they are amazing. I used a puffed brown rice cereal inside and omitted the chopped peanuts. The recipe made about 40 balls and we savoured every one of them. I would definitely make these again for a potluck. They were amazing and curbed my craving for chocolate and peanut butter.

Chickpea Nuggets, Pineapple Fried Rice and Salad

I used the leftover rice from the other day and made some pineapple/cashew fried rice with it. Served it with chickpea nuggets from Veganomicon and a salad on the side. I still love these little nuggets. Served with agave nectar they are amazing!

Gardenburger BBQ Riblets, Rice and Broccoli

Here is a product that I have never found in Canada anywhere. Well I fell in love with these riblets a few years ago and I think I went overboard on them because now I hate them. I have had 4 neglected packages sitting in the freezer for a few years now. Since I am trying to clean out the freezer I thought I would give these another shot. Verdict...I still hate them! I served them with steamed broccoli topped with leftover cheeze sauce from the other night and brown rice.

Vegan Nachos

I have been craving nachos for a while now. So, in my efforts to clean out the cupboards I saw a bag of almost-stale organic tortilla chips waiting to be eaten. I thought now is a great time to fulfill that craving. A ran 2 veggie sausages in the blender and fried the crumbles up in a a dry frying pan for about 10 minutes on medium heat. DH sliced some black olives and green onions for garnish. We added some nice salsa. The cheeze sauce comes from a recipe from one of Bryanna Clark Grogan's Vegan Feast Newsletters. It is basically a mixtures of soymilk, nutritional yeast, cornstarch and spices. The verdict...they really hit the spot. This was great for our junk food night and I would make these again in the near future.