Pizza and Banana Bread

I mad a quick pizza tonight with the usual on it, green and black olives, pineapple, artichoke hearts and red onion. It was the perfect size for 2 people.
I also found myself with tons of ripe bananas so I decided to try my hand at making some banana bread. I was a little skeptical about using 100% whole wheat flour so I used a little bit of white flour. It turned out amazing. Really banana-y and chocolate-y! Recipe to follow...

Buffalo Seitan, Fries and Broccoli

Same old buffalo wings from Vegan Dad's blog. I absolutely love these and make them at least once a week. I am now officially addicted to Frank's red hot sauce, a few curly fries and local steamed broccoli on the side.

French Toast and Breakfast Links

I was craving french toast today and it worked out perfect because we had some old raisin bread to get rid of. All I did was puree one banana, once cup almond milk, 2 tbsp of ground flax and 1 tbsp of sugar in the blender. Dipped the bread in the dip and cooked them on the griddle. I served them with some more banana, powdered sugar and Tofurky Breakfast sausages. I know I can make homemade sausage, and I have but I absolutely love the taste of these breakfast links.

Calones stuffed with...

Looks like an innocent little calzone but I stuffed it with....leftover spaghetti! I had this in a restaurant many years ago in my pre-vegan days so wanted to try it myself. It turned out pretty good. I used frozen pizza dough I had made a while back and stuffed it with some cold spaghetti. Baked it at 400 for 25 minutes and voila!

Simple pasta and salad

Nice whole wheat pasta accompanied by a garden salad. Yummy

Tempeh, Swiss Chard and Potatoes

Sorry for the crappy picture but I did not realize until later that none of the pictures I took really turned out. Tonight I tried the recipe from Veganomicon for the hot sauce glazed tempeh. It was amazing! So simple to make and DH actually said this was the best way tempeh has ever been prepared. Definitely a keeper. I roasted some potatoes in dill and rosemary in the toaster oven and steamed some baby swiss chard in garlic and the remainder of the hot sauce marinade. It was a nice and spicy super.

Jelly Donut Cupcakes

I attempted the recipe from Veganomicon for jelly donut cupcakes and learned 2 valuable lessons tonight:
1)you cannot make sour milk out of almond milk, adding apple cider vinegar to almond milk curdles it
2)when jam does not sink into the cupcakes like it is suppose to it overflows all over the place and pools at the bottom of the oven where it will smoke and burn

Even though these might not be pretty a dusting of icing sugar makes them look better and they still taste pretty amazing. I will definitely give this recipe another try cutting back some of the sugar and pushing the jam down into the cupcake batter.

Veggie Dogs and Fries

I had yoga tonight so DH made supper and we had veggie dogs with fries. We topped the dogs with fresh cut tomatoes and red onion from a friend's garden. It really hit the spot.

Pizza!

I love homemade pizza and have yet to really find a "delivery" pizza that enjoy better. I used the dough from Vegan with a Vengeance subbing in some whole wheat flour and froze the second half of the dough for later use. I topped the pizza with pasta sauce, shredded Sheese (the last of it so I have to run out and get more!), artichoke hearts, green and black olives and fresh pineapple all topped with a nice sprinkling of dried basil. Baked it and enjoyed it with a nice green salad. Cheap, tasty and perfect!

Samosas, Rice and Salad

Pretty quick supper tonight, store bought samosas, brown rice and salad.

Portabellos, mixed grains and beets

I roasted up some nice portabellos tonight in some soy sauce, olive oil, veggie stock, balsamic vinegar and spices served it with mixed grains I took out of the freezer(Isralean couscous, split baby chickpeas, yams, collards, raisins, corn) and orange glazed beets. Was a nice colourful meal that I am sure we will be reminded of tomorrow morning:)

Three Cheeze Lasagna

This is what I created with half of the pasta sauce I made the other night. It is the three cheeze lasagna from the Uncheese Cookbook. I love this lasagna because it has never failed me yet. It has a layer of tofu ricotta cheeze, a layer of chopped spinach, a cheezy sauce that thickens as it cooks and a cheezy parmesan-like topping. The only lesson I learned from this lasagna....never ever use no-boil lasagna noodles! While the lasagna turned out nice the noodles were quite soggy. We like ours a little a la dente I guess. I served it with a nice green salad on the side with some homemade dressing.

Sandwiches!

We found this amazing new eggplant spread (thanks mom!) and it is simply to die for. So tasty and makes super sandwiches. Tonight for supper we had the eggplant spread, sliced Sheese, tomato and lettuce on a bun. It was delicious!

I am finally back...with homemade pasta sauce!

Wow with summer nearing an end I am back in the kitchen cooking. I really missed it but really could not bear to turn the oven on during those hot summer days. My parents brought me tons of tomatoes so I wanted to make a pasta sauce. This is based on a version of a recipe I ripped out of a magazine at the doctor's office (shhhhh!!! it will be our little secret). It is so easy to follow and the results are amazing. This sauce tastes even better when it is heated the second time around.

Homemade Pasta Sauce
20 tomatoes (approximately)
4 onions, chopped
2 cans of Tomato Paste (5.5 oz each)
10 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp dried basil
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt

1. Remove skin from tomatoes (mark x at bottom, boil 1 minute and put in ice bath for 2 minutes and skins falls right off)
2. Chop up the onions and garlic. Sautee them in the olive oil in a large pot for about 15 minutes.
3. Chop up all of the tomatoes, keeping all of their juices
4. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and spices to the pot. Bring to a boil
5. Simmer over med-low heat with lead mostly on but not tight for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
6. Enjoy!