Whole wheat macaroni, pasta sauce, salad and breadsticks. Salad was amazing. Mixed greens, green onions, carrots, cucumbers, pepitas and cranberries. Dressing was grainy mustard, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Great dinner. Nice and refreshing.
My parents and brother have moved in for a week so we are dinner-sharing. This should be fun. Tonight's dinner was rice wraps that had veggie shrimps, cilantro, lettuce and rice noodles in them. The sauce was from Veganomicon with 1 tbsp of peanut butter in it. This will definitely be a staple for the summer months. The sauce was perfect. We just need to add more for colour in the wraps next time.
Since I got Veganomicon I have to admit that I have been neglecting Vegan With a Vengeance (VWAV). So, I have decided to revisit it and actually do all of the recipes from cover to end. Let's start tonight, I used Isa's pizza dough but used 1 cup of whole wheat flour instead of all white flour. I topped it with some of her cashew-tofu ricotta. This ricotta is amazing. It is quite creamy with the cashews and perfect on pizzas. I am going to try using it in ravioli next. We topped the rest of the pizza with artichoke hearts, green and black olives (just to be fair), veggie pepperoni, parsley and green onions. It was great. This will definitely be my go to pizza dough recipe from now on. It makes 2 large pizzas so I froze the other half in the freezer for later on in the week. So, 2 recipes down and many, many more to try...
Here are the meatballs simmering away in the pan. 
I have been waiting months to try these out but they were not sold anywhere near where I live. Since I could not get them, I did the next best thing...I asked one of our local food co-ops to bring them in. To my surprise, they did! Not bad at 5.99, kind of a gourmet treat I guess. I had one last night and although I cannot really remember what a marshmallow tasted like these little coconut delights curbed my 6-month long craving. They are really nice. I was a little surprised that the package was so small, somehow I thought it was bigger but at least we got them so I am not complaining. Yeah!!!
Still trying to clean out the cupboards before my parents move in for a few weeks. I found these, kind of like the cheap version of soycurls. I rehydrated them, squeezed water out of them and mixed them with a homemade bbq sauce that I made from Where It All Vegan. Served it in a wrap with a salad and that was dinner. They were actually quite good this way. Problem is I still have half a package and am not sure what to do with them. 
I am back! Tonight we had samosas and leftover Quinoa, Black Bean and Mango salad (from Veganomicon). We went to a Vegetarian Picnic Potluck yesterday and this salad is what I brought. Unfortunately I liked the salad better the first time I made it with red quinoa. It was still good though. 
I finally got my hands on a copy of Vegan Vittles from the library and I have at least 30 recipes I want to try out. This was one of them. Called better then your mother's meatloaf and it is amazing. It is made with ground seitan as a base. Unfortunately it did not stay in meatloaf form for me but I think it is because I did not let it cool enough first. I made some mashed potato and yams with green beens on the side. I cannot wait to try these leftovers in a sandwich tomorrow. 
We had leftover lasagna from the freezer that I made last week. It still tasted amazing. I served it with a side of baby spinach with dressing. Rough ingredients for the dressing are tahini, miso, grainy mustard, chili-garlic flaxseed oil and maple syrup. It was a nice combination for a thick dressing to go on the raw spinach.
It was a Veganomicon kind of night. I finally tried the Quinoa, Black Bean and Mango salad and it is too die for. If you have not tried it yet, read the ingredients tonight, buy them tomorrow and make this for supper tomorrow night. This is going to be a staple in our home from now on. I also made the roasted portabellos from the book. They were amazing. So flavourful without being salty. Served it with roasted asparagus and steamed edemame.
Just look how gorgeous this salad is!
For dessert I tried 2 recipes from The Artful Vegan (Millenium Restaurant). The first one is a strawberry, rose, rhubarb soup and the second is a pear-cardamom sorbet. They were perfect together and this makes for a very nice summer dessert since it is cool. The sorbet was amazing and only called for 6 tbsp of maple syrup to sweeten it. Next time I am going to cut it down to 3 tbsp.
In my attempt to clean the freezer (still!) I found some of this in the back. Kind of a frittata with spinach and mushrooms. I did not like it as it was so I decided to sautee some onions, portabellos and leftover potatoes in a pan and then add the tofu mixture. It was really nice this way. I think I liked the consistency of it better when it was frozen and then thawed. 
Last time I made Susan's famous seitan BBQ ribz I made a double batch and froze half of it to see if it would taste fine when defrosted. Well, in my opinion they tasted even better. I defrosted them on the counter for a few hours then threw them in the fridge over night. I used some leftover sauces I had in the fridge to baste them with. One had half of chipotle/raspberry bbq sauce and an apple marinade. The other one had a nice mango chipotle glaze applied to it. They tasted great. Crispy on the outside and super tender on the inside. We also grilled some asparagus and potatoes. 
I have been MIA for most of the week since I have not been home to cook meals. We have been eating leftover lasagna all week which just gets more and more amazing as the flavours are left to develop in the fridge. Reminds me that I should make lasagna more often. So, finally after waiting a whole year I got my ice cream maker! Well this is the second one actually since the first one had a screw loose (who knew!?) so it had to be sent back.
Addition #2 is my little organic Basil plant form Wiens Organic Farm. They did not have much of a selection and I did not want to go empty handed so I bought him. Wish me luck with his prosperity.
I love this lasagna recipe from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, It takes a little while to put together but if you make each cheeze component one day at a time it would be a cinch to put together on the final day. The 3 cheezes are a ricotta cheeze made with tofu and select spices, a tahini sauce and a miso/sesame topping. I added a full bag of steamed spinach to this lasagna. I also made some homemade pasta sauce (recipe down below). This truly has a cheezy taste to it because of the tahini and miso. It is worth getting the book for this recipe alone. It freezes well so I made a double batch.
Super Easy Tomato Sauce
I was lucky enough to be picked to be a tester for this amazing blog Vegan Cookies
In my quest to find that perfect veggie burger I stumbled on a recipe from a blog entitled Vegan Dad where he has a recipe for the Perfect Tempeh Burgers I have heard nothing but reviews about the burger so I decided to give it a shot tonight since I had a package of tempeh lying around waiting to be used up in the fridge. I love these burgers. They are super simple to make, cook extremely quickly and have a great taste. The next test will be to see if they fair well on the b-b-q but I am sure they will. 
