What You've All Been Waiting For: Recipes!

My vegan diet has me eating a lot of the same foods. I just love the B.A.T's (bacon, avocado, tomato) so much though that I don't mind at all. I did want to try a new vehicle for the filling though and had been eyeing a recipe in one of my newer Taste of Home magazines for Homemade Tortillas.

Here's the recipe:

Homemade Tortillas

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup water

3 Tbsp olive oil

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Stir in water and oil. Turn onto a floured surface; knead 5-6 times. Divide dough into 8 portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 7" circle.

In a large non-stick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook tortillas over medium heat for 1 minute on each side, until lightly browned.

You can stack these on a plate under a clean slightly damp kitchen towel as you make the whole batch.

I made the dough and divided it into 8 portions. C rolled them out and cooked them for me because I was starting to get frustrated with the dough sticking to the counter.

They turned out sooo tasty! These tortillas made awesome B.A.T's.

bacon, avocado, tomatoe

 While the sandwich would have likely been enough for a light meal, I felt like having something more with the sammie. How about a steaming bowl of lentil soup?

lentil soup and sammie

 This is the best lentil soup EVER. It might actually be just one of the best soups ever. Period. The recipe is actually called "Lentil Soup You'll Absolutely Love. Trust Me." I don't remember where I found the recipe but it was on a blog somewhere. We gave a copy of this recipe to the chef at Terrace 55 so that he could make it for the appetizer at our wedding. They came served in shooter glasses with a breadstick straw. So cute!

Because I love you guys so much, I am going to share this much coveted recipe. My copy is crinkly, worn, stained, and well-used. Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients. This is an easy recipe and it makes a lot. This soup can be frozen. Make sure you have an immersion blender and a large pot. You could use a blender to puree this in batches, but my preference is the immersion blender. Much easier and cleaner.

Please enjoy this and serve it to those people you really care about.

Healthy, easy, wholesome, and perfect for when you need a warm hug.

Lentil Soup You'll Absolutely Love. Trust Me.

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 tsp salt

5-6 large carrots, peeled (if not organic), and sliced

3 cloves garlic or 1 Tbsp chopped garlic in oil

1 Tbsp dried thyme (or 3-4 sprigs fresh)

1 - 14oz can Aylmer Accents Spicy Red Pepper tomatoes

1 cup red lentils, dried

cracked black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup dry white wine (or water or stock to make non-alcoholic)

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock (vegetable to make it vegan)

1 cup water (if you want to add 1 cup wine and 1/2 cup water, that works)

1-1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar, or a splash

Pour oil into a large pot set over medium heat. Add in onions and a generous pinch of salt. Saute for a minute or 2 and add in carrots. Cook about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook for a minute more, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Add in thyme, tomatoes, lentils, salt and pepper. Stir. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Retrieve any thyme stems if using fresh.

Pour in wine, stock, and water. Increase heat to medium. Cover partially and let simmer for about 30 minutes, until onions are tender. Use an immersion blender and puree the soup until smooth. Add in vinegar and stir. Serve or cool and freeze.

Enjoy!!

I have served this with chopped sauteed kielbasa and crimini mushroom dumped into each bowl and a crisp piece of ciabbatta on the side. Add a salad and you have a perfect meal.

red lentil soup

 The only difference between my workday breakfasts and my weekend breakfasts is the freshly ground coffee. 1 cup of dry oats, with boiling water poured over top. My breakfast almost everyday lately, which I love! My mom bought me a vegan ice cream making book for Christmas so I have been engrossed in the colourful tasty looking recipes many afternoons and evenings. My mom has a big pot of fresh rosemary (so jealous!) and she generously gave me a small ziplock full of the enticingly fragrant stems.

This photos shows how I like to start my day.

oats and coffee

 I found a recipe for quinoa veggie burgers online so figured that since I had all of the ingredients, that this would be an easy dinner.

organic quinoa from Costco

 I followed the instructions on how to cook up the grain and then got to work on the veggies. Onions, mushrooms, shredded zuchinni and carrots all into a bowl. The quinoa was supposed to act as a binder, along with some cornstarch and egg replacer. I made the mistake of adding those 2 ingredients together and they just clumped. Ugh! Whatever. On with the show. The shredded veggies took a while to do so I wasn't making a new batch.

shredded and chopped veggies

 With the burger filling done, I was going to deal with the chocolate craving that I was having. I had given my mom a call and she told me about some vegan pudding that she makes all the time! I thought that was very cool and since this would use up the half carton of silken tofu from the omelet disaster AND hopefully curb my dessert craving, I was excited to give it a whirl. Did I mention that this recipe sounded super simple?

Vegan Chocolate Pudding

1 lb silken tofu

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2-3 Tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients in a food processor, scrapping down the sides often, ensuring that the mixture is smooth. Spoon into serving cups and cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

vegan pudding ingredients

 Wow. This pudding is so simple and so tasty I will never buy Jello pudding again! Since you can substitute 3 Tbsp of melted chocolate for the cocoa powder, you could change up the flavour of the pudding if you like. White chocolate and orange extract, using agave syrup instead of maple, and you have a new pudding flavour! Go now and try this!

dark chocolate pudding

 With dessert in the fridge, I figured I should start on the burgers. With my screw-up with my egg replacer, these did not hold together well at all. We basically ended up just sautee-ing the mix.

quinoa and veggie burger

 Served with peas and roasted beets, and we have a meal. Ta-da! Despite how they looked, the burgers (or quinoa and veggie fry) was surprisingly tasty. I would make these again and be more careful with the recipe.

another vegan dinner

 I didn't feel like cooking the other night so decided to make something super easy. Cooked red lentils with reduced sodium taco seasoning added to it. Served warm over chopped iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and black olives and I had my quick and filling dinner for one.

lentil taco filling

 I needed an easy dinner because I had a lot of food packing to do. I was driving to Kenora Thursday morning to spend the next 2 days there working on their showroom. I would be helping to re-merchandise everything and make it look fresh and organized. Since I was still eating vegan, it was going to be really tough to eat out, so I wanted to be sure that I had enough food for my breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks packed with me. I made sure to have enough for 2 B.A.T sandwiches, fresh veg, raw nuts, water, fruit. The weather was cold and I left early in the morning with my fresh ground coffee, a giant bowl of oatmeal, food for the trip, my work laptop, clothes, my briefcase, and off I went.

Viva la Vegan: A Cheese Sauce by Any Other Name

Eating vegan doesn't mean that I want to give up all of my recipes that once contained meat. I was craving chili, the kind that would be poured over top of a Fatboy from any number of local greasy spoon burger joints (Mrs. Mike's, Superboys, Daly). Unfortunately, this kind of chili is all meat. Likely beef (at least I always hoped). I decided to give the dried TVP (textured vegetable protein) from Bulk Barn a try. I scooped out about a cup of dried TVP and put it in about 2 cups of boiling water to reconstitute the "meat". I chopped an onion and sauteed it with the meat.

meat for the chili

 I didn't have any peppers or red kidney beans so instead I added a can of white kidney beans and black-eyed peas, along with a can of crushed pineapple to add a Hawaiian taste. Some ketchup, a bit of mustard, brown sugar and let it sit in it's nice warm slow cooker pot to soak everything up. This would be a meal for another day and definitely lunches at work.

vegan Hawaiian chili

 Something else that I was missing with vegan eating was cheese. While I had found a site that showed how to make blocks of cheese out of cashews and other ingredients, I was dubious about this. I did find another recipe on Dreena's Vive le Vegan blog that had me very interested. It was called "Vegveeta" and was supposed to taste like the similarly named cheese-like food. You can find the recipe here.

The base of this cheese is raw cashews, which I had a big bag of from Bulk Barn just for this purpose, although it was quickly dwindling down due to my post-workout snacking. Nutritional yeast, tahini, lemon juice, white vinegar, almond milk, mustard, corn starch, paprika, salt, pepper, turmeric and canola oil were added with the cashews to the food processor. This vegan diet was giving our KitchenAid a real workout! After blending until smooth, the cheese was poured into a saucepan to heat through and thicken.

I added some reduced salt taco seasoning to the cheese dip to give it a more Tex-Mex flair and served it with dinner to dip the potato wedges into. 

How was this fake cheese? OM NOM NOM!! So good! Definitely try this one, folks.

Dreena's Vegveeta

 Dinner was a slice of seitan, marinated in leftover "bacon" liquid and served on a slice of sprouted grain bread with vegenaise, tomato, and sprouts. The sides were roasted carrots, sauteed spinach, and potato wedges. Mmmm, crispy potato wedges dipped in creamy fake cheese sauce!!

vegan dinner

I was craving something sweet so decided to use up a bunch of our fruit to make a compote. Chopped apples, bananas, fresh cranberries and leftover crushed pineapple with juice. I poured the chunks into a casserole dish and put this, covered, into the oven at a lower temperature to slowly bake/steam the fruit.

Fruit compote, pre baking

 The next day, leftovers were on the menu. Leftovers and the chili that I had made the night before when I had time. The meal came together really quickly. All I had to do was lightly cook some broccoli then pour some reheated cheese on top and a bowl of heated chili. Wonderful and colourful!

Hawaiian chili and broccoli with cheese sauce

 Since I had really liked the soy slice stir-fry I had made earlier for myself, I decided to make it again for C and I. Broccoli, carrots, snow peas, soba noodles, and soy slices were stir-fried with some teriyaki sauce mixed in water. Some warmed cherry sauce dotted on top, yum! I love serving bowl foods like this in certain bowls I bought at Urban Outfitters in Ottawa and hauled back with me in my suitcase ages ago. They are perfect half rounds, vibrant colours, and fit so nicely in my hands. I love eating stir-fry with wooden chopsticks. These utensils force me to slow down and allow me to really savor and enjoy the meal. 

I call this thoughtful eating.  

a thoughtful colourful bowl of stir-fry

 After the success with Vegveeta, I was willing to give another one of Dreena's cheese recipes a try. This one was called Mac-Oh-Geez (I love the name!). Same idea with the processed raw cashews.

raw cashews

 Blend the cashews until they are as smooth as possible. Be patient.

blended cashews

 I didn't have any raw Brazil nuts so I just used more cashews in their place. The rest of the ingredients went into the food processor. I would recommend transferring the cashews to a blender though and then adding the rest of the ingredients since this sauce is very watery.

cheese sauce, uncooked

 I had bought a bag of cute curly pasta that was going to make the perfect mac and cheese.

curly noodles

 Once the noodles were cooked, I poured them into a strainer to drain the water, but didn't rinse the noodles.

cooked pasta

 I poured the noodles back into the same pot and then the cheese mixture from the food processor. This will be really liquid-y but trust the recipe. This all changes after being baked.

mac and cheese, pre-baking

 This whole mix was carefully poured into a greased casserole pan and then covered with foil for baking.

mac and cheese unbaked

 As promised, the cheese thickened during the baking process. The casserole looked puffy, like an egg bake of some kind. I was a little worried that this wouldn't be creamy at all.

mac and cheese baked

 I tentatively slid a serving spoon into what appeared to be a casserole and scooped up a bunch of the noodles to mix them up. Ohh! The pasta and cheese made the right squishing sound! You know the sound I'm talking about. Only pasta and cheese sauce makes this sound and it sounded right!

mac and cheese, stirred up

mmmm no cheese mac and cheese

 Well, since it sounded right, I just assumed that it would taste right as well. No sense in formalities since it was just me home this evening. A fancy fork skewered a few spirals and I popped them into my mouth, licking the cheese sauce off the spoon. Well, they don't taste like cheese per say, but the texture was spot-on to what I was hoping for and craving.  Something to keep in mind is that don't let the fact that this is vegan fool you into thinking that you can eat loads of it. Well, you can, but you shouldn't if you want to maintain your girlish figures. This dish is still full of pasta and cashews are high in fat, albeit healthier fat. So, all good things in moderation.

creamy mac and cheese

 To stop me from standing at the stove eating forkful after forkful of this awesome dish, I made a side of broccoli and mushrooms and pan fried the last piece of tofu bacon and added some mustard to it. I tossed on a bit of leftover taco seasoning to the mac and cheese and it was such a good dinner. I only wish that C had been home that night to enjoy it with me, but he would get a change to try it later when he came home.

a dinner with mac and cheese

A side note about the tofu bacon I've been making. I went to Boon Burger Cafe today for lunch with a friend and we tried the vegan "fish" burger and bacon cheeseburger. There was tofu bacon on the cheeseburger and we both decided that the recipe I used was much tastier!

A Hit and Miss: Vegan

I have been craving cornmeal something fierce lately and while cornbread might be tasty, it was polenta that I had my eye on. I was also craving the bright taste of cilantro. While thumbing through a copy of Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson, I stopped on a recipe called Cilantro Pesto. My mom made basil pesto all the time when I lived at home. She would spread it on homemade pizza crust and top it with cheese. Pesto pizza was one of my best friend's favorite meals when she'd come to our house for dinner. She'd request it all the time. Her parents are Chinese and I would always ask for extra white rice. Her mom was always smiling about how much plain rice I would eat there. For my friend, it was old news, but for me, we never got rice like that. I felt the way about her mom's rice as my friend did about my mom's pizza. Their place was also the first place I tried and fell in love with Asian greens. Mmmm! So, I knew that I loved pesto, but would cilantro pesto be as good? We'd see. This seemed like a perfect topping to the polenta though.

The recipe was pretty easy: 1 cup tightly packed fresh cilantro leaves, 1/4 cup raw almonds, 2 large garlic cloves (peeled) and half a tsp of salt go into a food processor. With the motor running, slowly pour in a steady stream of 1/4 cup of olive oil.

cilantro pesto ingredients

cilantro pesto, done

 The food processor does the work, yet again, and I scrapped the pesto into a Tupperware for later. 

Vegan Planet is a book that I actually went to a bookstore to buy. I believe Chapters actually. I now buy most of my books online if it's something specific that I am after. Hey, I'm a busy girl, can you blame me for the convenience? Interestingly enough, I was inspired to purchase this book after looking it over at another great friend's place. We met in our first year of university and just clicked. We both had a love for entertaining and our personalities were very similar: driven, independent, and strict with ourselves but also just wanting to let loose and have fun too. She was always an inspiration to me. She became a vegetarian and I used to sit in her apartment, flipping through her cookbooks. There was one recipe in this book that would always catch my eye (although I don't know which one that is now) and when she moved away, I bought a copy of this book. 

We once hosted a huge dinner party for about 20 people in her small apartment near the university. We decided to do chicken peanut satay, rice, and some other sides. We were very ambitious... I remember having 2 roasting pans filled with raw chicken and we cut and skewered and my dad helped us BBQ everything at their old house where I was living too at that time (I loved that Heidi had her own place!). We had to transport everything back to her apartment. We also bought candle holders and other decor pieces on a student's budget. We made it a Tiki kind of theme. We even put sand around the candles! Oh, and the elevator at her building only stopped on every second floor for some reason. Her floor wasn't one of the lucky ones...

We slaved in the kitchen, decorated the apartment, changed into our tropical dresses and waiting for guests to arrive. I met so many new people that night and everyone was having a fabulous time! The food was awesome, wine flowed freely, and we partied the night away! I woke up early in the morning, laying on the balcony, with the sun rising. The apartment looked like the aftermath of a college party...wine bottles everywhere, people crashed all over the place, and rice in the carpet. I recall having such a fun time but being sooo tired and wine still in my veins. I vividly recall Heidi getting up, looking hungover and exhausted, saying she needed to clean everything because her and her friend were going to the beach that morning. I definitely thought they were crazy, there was no way I could stomach being anywhere but cold and dark at this point and my own bed seemed like a good place. My friend was a determined spitfire though and her and her friend loaded up giant Rubbermaids with all the dirty dishes, carried them down a flight of stairs to the elevator, and brought them in her trunk to her friend's mom's place to load them in her dishwasher! 

It's these memories that I can look back on and truly smile and be thankful that I have you in my life. Amazing how time flies and how we change and grow. She walked down the aisle at my wedding a year ago as a treasured bridesmaid, and I will soon be doing the same for her this summer. I love you.

Yes, I know, but what about the food? boy, you people sure are pushy! I'm done reminiscing (for now) so polenta time. Basically, polenta is just cornmeal in boiling water. The key is to whisk whisk whisk the boiling water while adding the cornmeal in slooowly so that lumps don't form. I still haven't mastered this yet. I usually just look up online how to cook this and the recipe I happened to find said to keep stirring this with a wooden spoon until the polenta comes away from the sides of the pot...oh, that should take about 35-65 minutes. Um, excuse me? Yah right. I went to the gym once today already and these guns are loaded baby. Instead, I just stirred it for about 5 minutes (okpolenta into a greased bread pan and stuck it in the fridge.

cooking polenta

 Half of my dinner was (mostly) done and I was ready to try something to make the next portion. I have to say that sometimes menu ideas come together in my brain in such a harmonious way that I can do nothing but go with it. I wanted to create a meal like I pictured a southern summer BBQ picnic. Instead of corn on the cob, which isn't in season, I had the polenta. I didn't have chimichurri sauce but I had cilantro pesto. I was going to make some sticky, saucy ribs as the main and some bean dip to serve on the side.

polenta and cilantro pesto

 The bean dip was actually a vehicle to use up leftovers, plus a way to get some protein and iron into my husband in legume form. I figured he could use this as wrap filling or dipping vegetables in for his lunches. I wanted to use black beans but apparently I had used up my last can. Fava beans went into the food processor instead (drained and rinsed). No need to wash out the bowl either if the flavours won't mind mingling. I wouldn't make muffins after cilantro without a wash but a bean dip would be fine. Leftover fresh salsa, leftover jalapeno salsa I had made, coriander, cumin, and salt and pepper all got blended together and set aside.

fava bean dip

" You can't have ribs!" I can hear you shouting "You're eating vegan this month!" Tut, tut, I tell you. The industrious vegan has no intention of giving up the flavours of most dishes and has cleverly devised schemes to recreate many meaty meals in veggie form. I was actually really giddy to try out this recipe. The recipe was called Seitan BBQ Ribs and I found it here, on the Food.com website.

Basically, you made the seitan dough first and would bake it in a pan. Then, you'd grill these "ribs" on a BBQ or stove top grill pan, brushing them with BBQ sauce! Awesome! I absolutely love trying vegan and vegetarian food so I was game. First, all of the dry ingredients get mixed together (vital wheat gluten, paprika, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic. salt)

seitan rib dry ingredients

 Next, you combined all of the wet ingredients (water, tahini, liquid smoke, soy sauce).

seitan ribs wet ingredients

 Wet mixes into dry and you've got your gluten ball, ready for pressing into the bottom of a greased square pan. To make these look like ribs, you need to score the dough with a sharp knife. First in half, then those into eighths.

seitan ribs, unbaked

 So far so good. I was like this seitan recipe way better than the last one I tried. No messing about with boiling the hunks like dumplings and storing them like little floating brains. Nope, just into the oven, and out of the oven. They also smelled really great while baking... I am not in love with liquid smoke. This vegan trial is the first time I've ever bought any and my little glass jar of liquid hickory is like a jar of liquid sunshine or gold. I would dab this on myself like perfume if it was socially acceptable! Well, maybe in another city, but not Winnipeg. I would definitely like to try other smoke flavours but this was all that Superstore had. Even more now, I want to own my own smoker.

seitan ribs, baked

 Since all that was left to be done with the ribs was to glaze them in BBQ sauce, I decided to pan fry the polenta first. A little bit of PAM in a pan and I sliced up the polenta right in the bread pan and just pulled out as many pieces as I'd be serving with dinner.

polenta strips

 "How many ribs did you want, C?" I grinned "half a rack? a whole rack?" Hahaha, I was hilarious. Actually, I was having a lot of fun with this recipes, I'm not going to lie. I gave C half the pan and I took a quarter for myself since it looked filling. I glazed one side with BBQ sauce and then placed that side down on the hot oiled pan. The recipe calls for doing this on the BBQ (it's winter and ours is in the front porch) or using a grill pan (we're eyeing cast iron ones but have yet to own one). So, a frying pan would have to do.

"ribs" getting sauced

 After a couple minutes, I flipped them over and glazed the other side with BBQ sauce. Oh, these were smelling so good!

Seitan ribs, flipped once

 Ok, one more flip and more BBQ sauce brushed on.

second flip

 These were now ready to serve, nice and hot!

seitan ribs done

 Doesn't this look good? I usually photograph C's plate since there is more food there. Some peas for a little bit more greenery and this was a very hearty, filling, and satisfying meal. Cholesterol free too!

BBQ rib dinner

The texture wasn't like beef or pork ribs...it was spongy and dense but I liked it. I will definitely be making this again. So easy, and the seitan could even be made ahead of time and left in the fridge until you're ready to add the sauce.

cross section of ribs

 Now for the miss. I haven't been missing much on the vegan diet. I have been missing eggs though. Something fierce. I would normally eat eggs for weekend breakfasts, dinners as omelets, in baking. I wanted an omelet but not for another month. I had seen recipes online for things called "nomelets" and vegan omelets and I was getting desperate. They sounded promising and the photos looked like real omelets. I found the Mori-Nu silken tofu at Bulk Barn and was hopeful.

silken tofu

 The tofu went into the food processor with nutritional yeast, turmeric for colour, salt, pepper, and paprika.

omelet ingredients

 Blend, scrape down sides, blend, scrape down sides.

omelet mix

 Now, the idea was to carefully pour the mix into a hot pan and then spread out the mixture with the back of a spoon. This didn't work so well. The texture was thick but liquid-y and didn't set with heat in the same way that an egg or a pancake would. It just stayed soft and mushy. I followed the recipe and topped my nomelet with some fresh spinach, mushrooms and Daiya cheddar cheese (vegan).

nomelet uncooked

 I covered the omelet with a pot lid and let it cook through. Apparently.

"cooked" nomelet

 Now, you're suppose to carefully flip half of the nomelet over onto itself. Easier said than done. The whole thing was a wet, jiggly mess. Still, I marched on, determined to eat this disaster. First bite...hmmm? Not good. Watery, flavourless. I wasn't wasting calories and taste buds on this mush. C made sauteed Swiss chard with garlic and fresh tomatoes so I ate that and pitched the nomelet. I will rarely throw out a meal so you know this just wasn't good. Well, no whole egg vegan substitute yet.

nomelet and sauteed swiss chard with fresh tomatoes