Local Salad, Baby Potatoes and Seitan Sandwich

Vegan Reuben Sandwiches

I have been craving these since I had amazing Vegan Reuben sandwiches in Portland, Oregon in 2007. I wanted to make a seitan recipe and found a great recipe for Vegan Corned Beef on Vegan Dad's amazing Blog. The recipe was super simple to make once I restocked my spice cupboard. This recipe makes a huge amount of seitan, is very economical and freezes well. I sliced the Vegan Corned Beef into thin layers and topped it with saurekraut, homemade Thousand Island Dressings (vegannaise, ketchup and chopped pickles) and a spread made up of tahini and miso, all on rye bread.

For the Love of Cherries!!!

I was looking for something a little different for supper tonight and stumbled upon a recipe for Mexican Stuffed Portabellos from Herbivore Dinosaur's blog. Very basic ingredients, local tomatoes, onions and cilantro stuffed into portabello mushroom caps. I served this with a side of roasted corn and Jasmine rice tossed with cilantro and a splash of Lemon Grapeseed oil. It tasted very refreshing and delicious.

I was lucky enough to be gifted a case of cherries and spent most of my day off pitting these little round beauties. I then invested in a cherry pitter and it made my life so much easier. I froze around 3/4 of the cherries, kept some fresh cherries and made these amazing Cherry and Almond Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. I love that these only have a small amount of oil and sugar. The recipe uses soy yogurt which I rarely buy but wouldn't you know when I went shopping they had tubs on sale for 0.99 today because they expired today! These taste amazing and I will be freezing most of them so I can grab one for a quick snack.

Homemade Perogies

I have been craving Perogies lately and with a little bit of Daiya cheese I decided to give these a whirl. I followed a recipe from Where it all Vegan. The dough was very simple to roll out. I filled these with roasted potatoes, Daiya and caramalized onions. We had a few for supper and the rest went into the freezer for a rainy day. They tasted great with a dab of vegan sour cream.

Peach & Nectarine Upside-Down Cakehat

With an excess amount of peaches and nectarines I searched online for an easy Peach upside down cake and found one on the Fat Free Vegan Blog. I made 3 cakes all together and really enjoyed this recipe. The only thing I would chance would be to make the cake a little thinner. We enjoyed this cake while the remaining 3 went into the freezer. We will be all ready for winter this year :)

Daiya Vegan Cheese in Canada!!!

IT is here! Daiya cheese has only been a rumor in my life until now. I had some relatives driving from Minneapolis who graciously brought me 2 bags of the coveted Daiya vegan cheese. It melts! It stretches! It's Daiya!

The first attempt was on toast to see if it would melt under the broiler and I was surprised and amazed that it did. The taste/consistency of Daiya in your mouth is quite interesting. It tastes and feels amazing.

Next I tried it cold in a 7 layer dip. There are refried beans, salsa, vegan sour cream, chopped mixed greens, green onions, olives and Daiya cheese. It was delicious. I would make this for my next potluck dish. The flavours all worked well with each other.

Last but not least....potato skins! These were Fabulous! I don't think I have ever had a potato skin since being vegan but now I can enjoy them on a regular basis! I baked some Russet Potatoes and scrapped out the flesh. I think filled them with chopped green onions and Daiya Cheese. I baked for about 15 minutes at 425 in the toaster oven and they came out perfect. I topped each with a dollop of vegan sour cream.

I really hope that someone in Winnipeg starts carrying Daiya cheese. For now I am at the mercy of friends/family who visit the USA.

Vegan Potato Salad

We attended a family picnic this weekend so I brought my Vegan Potato Salad. I absolutely love this recipe and have not met anyone who does not enjoy it. Low in fat and high in flavour!

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce and Cannelloni

So what do you do when you come into some locally grown hot house tomatoes that are not in great shape? You roast them and make Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce. I was excited to use our small toaster oven for this recipe because I knew it would be cooking for a while. In the end 2 large pans of produce made this:

This tasted like a million bucks. The roasted veggies had a nice charred-taste to them

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

8 large local tomatoes, roughly chopped

2 large onions, roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

10 large basil leaves, minced

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

dash of salt and pepper

Roast in 425 oven for 1 hour. Stir Often

For supper we had homemade cannelloni stuffed with tofu and fresh spinach. A tossed salad with local mixed organic greens, local cucumber, nectarines, cranberries, sunflower seeds and a Meyer Lemon dressing.

Pear-Cardamom Sorbet

I recently ran into some bruised pears and I immediately thought of the recipe for Pear-Cardamom Sorbet from the Millennium Cookbook. This is super simple to make with my Cuisinart ice cream maker and tastes so refreshing. The combination of pear and cardamom together is very delightful!

First Vegan BBQ of the Year!

We refilled the propane tank and dusted off the BBQ. It is my goal to start using it weekly this year instead of monthly. I love the taste of veggies, tofu, etc on the bbq. Tonight we had Tofurky sausages. We tossed baby new potatoes from B.C. and local asparagus with a new Infused Grapeseed oil that I bought and topped it with a squeeze of lemon. The taste was amazing and I was very proud that my husband made most of this meal himself.