Braised Seitan with Red Wine and Mushrooms ..and a sundae

This recipe was perfect!! It is on page 131 of Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. Gluten-meat, mushrooms, red wine, slow cooked for hours.. can't go wrong. I will definitely make this again.

And for dessert..


a sundae made of Soy Delicious chocolate ice cream, canned peaches, chocolate sauce, dried cranberries and candied peanuts.

Whole-Wheat Bowties with Oil-free Alfredo

I had a delicious lunch of pasta with faux alfredo sauce from the McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook. It's a great sauce- creamy and rich tasting. It's basically soft tofu with some tahini, nutritional yeast and garlic. I'd made sauces like this before, but without the tahini. Tahini makes everything better!

This dish is topped with my version of not-parmesan: ground almonds, ground flax seeds, salt.

Nog Ice Cream

Sugar-free soynog ice cream: frozen banana, soynog. I also made soynog cookies and soynog pancakes. Yum!

I got three new cookbooks for xmas: Veganomicon, Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. I am really excited about all three!

I made the chickpea cutlets from V-con tonight, but with black-eyed peas. They were great!

Soynog cupcakes

Salad wraps with peanut sauce

These were lazily-made rice-paper salad rolls. Instead of marinating the tofu first, I just baked in for a while in some bottled vegetarian oyster sauce. It's just tofu and lettuce. The peanut sauce is the recipe in Vegan Lunchbox. A yummy Saturday lunch. Everything tastes good dipped in peanut sauce!

I also made the ginger sparkle cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance, but it seems like everyone had made them lately, so I didn't bother taking a picture.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies from Vegan With a Vengeance. They were not crispy at all, but really crumbly. Anyone else had trouble with this recipe?

Sundried tomato, mushroom and spinach lasagna

This lasagna was based on this recipe: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/RE00027

I used frozen spinach instead of the fresh, vegan ricotta (tofu, lemon juice, salt, garlic powder, fresh ground pepper), and no green onions. I also doubled the white sauce.

Djibouti!

Last night was a "Djibouti" themed dinner party (we're getting through the alphabet). Luckily, their food is practically the same as Ethiopian food, which I love!

We bought the injera bread from an Ethiopian restaurant, and then we made three stews:
an Ethiopian split pea stew from the Vegan Lunchbox cookbook, a mixed vegetable stew similar to the one in the same cookbook, and Djibouti lentils: http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/miscellaneous/fetch-recipe.php?rid=misc-djibouti-lentils

It was all very delicious!

Middle Eastern Lentil and Spinach Soup

This soup is delicious!! One of my favourites. The lemon juice makes it perfect.
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/25306/

Hearty Korean Pancakes

These are on p.359 of Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. I took out the egg, but the rest is the same. This cookbook is full of butter and eggs and cheese, but some of the recipes are really good.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Tofu with Lime and Ginger sauce

This was a particularly inspired lunch! I cubed fresh butternut squash and tofu and roasted it in the oven with a bit of olive oil, and then I tossed it with a dressing made of minced fresh ginger, olive oil, agave nectar (how delish is this stuff?!), and lots of fresh lime juice based on this recipe: http://busycooks.about.com/od/saladdressings/r/limegingerdress.htm
It was AWESOME. I love all of the ingredients individually, so all together was heaven. Also, I cooked the rice in veg broth.

Chinese Food Pizza

I was too lazy to make rice, so I put my stir fry on leftover pizza crust! The first layer is black bean+garlic sauce, topped with fried onion and red bell pepper, with soy-sauce seasoned TVP chunks (made with soy flour) on top. It was awesome.

Squash Pizza

Saturday was homemade pizza night. Homemade crust is really not that much work- don't be intimidated!
The crust was made with spelt flour. The first layer was chopped, cooked butternut squash (from frozen- a great grocery store discovery) and some dried thyme, the second layer was lots of chopped shallots and some chopped fresh garlic, and the "cheese" layer was crumbled tofu mixed with salt, olive oil, lemon juice and a tbs of light miso. The final touch was some chopped walnuts, which are always awesome on pizza.

Artichoke and Caper Sauce with Whole Wheat Fettuccine

This amazing sauce is from my new favourite cookbook, 366 Simple Delicious Dairy-Free Recipes by Robin Robertson. It is a basic soymilk white sauce with a can of drained artichoke hearts added, a tablespoon of capers, some salt and pepper and some lemon juice. I added some faux blue cheese crumbles on top. It was heavenly!

My cat looking silly.

All the other vegan bloggers post pictures of their pets from time to time, so I can too! :)
Her name is Elsie because of her cow colouring and I have no idea why she was sleeping on her side. Awwww.

Herbed-Tofu and Turnip Stuffed Squash with fried plantains

This was a fancy dinner that I made for my friend's birthday. I made a bunch of individual Sweet Potato squashes stuffed with crumbled exta-firm tofu, dried savory, cubed frozen turnip that I happened to have a bag of, and olive oil. Not pictured is the creamy tofu-artichoke sauce that we poured on top when it was ready to eat. Soo good!!

Home-Style Brown Rice Pilaf

This was a great recipe from Vegetarian Planet. I left out the egg and the parsley, but the rest is the same. It's brown basmati rice, Earth Balance margarine, onion, mushroom, carrot, garlic, chickpeas, kidney beans, black pepper and soy sauce. I will definitely be making this again.

Spicy Peanut Eggplant and Shallot stew

Recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen website:
http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=449

Dark Chocolate Orange Cake

This picture is of the last piece before it got eaten. I almost didn't even get this photo, the cake went so fast! It was for my mom's birthday.

It was a recipe that I made up by combining two recipes-
this one: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/514618
with this one: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/02/cant-be-beet-chocolate-cake.html

On top is a ganache that includes a whole organic fairtrade dark chocolate orange bar. I was going for decadent!

Snowpea + Tofu Strifry

Tonight's dinner was a lovely stirfry made with some local, organic snow peas. I'd never had snow peas that were so sweet and delish!
Also includes tofu and mushroom. I was too lazy to chop onion or garlic, so it was pretty mellow. The sauce was pretty much soy sauce, miso and mirin.

Omelet Lunch

A lunch: carrot, whole wheat fig newton, apple with lemon juice,
tofu omelet (recipe from Cozy Inside cookbook) with salsa, corn and soy cheese

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I bought pumpkin pie mix (pumpkin, cimammon, nutmeg, cane sugar) the other day by accident when I meant to buy plain canned pumpkin, so I decided to make something sweet with it instead of the planned breakfast muffins. These cookies turned out sweet and cake-y and fabulous!

recipe:
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup canned pumpkin pie mix
1/2 ish cup water
1/3 cup oil (I used safflower)

Stir, bake at 350 for 15 ish minutes.

Mushroom Risotto

Mmmm.. risotto!
Before adding the arborio rice to the pan I fried some onion, garlic, and re-constituted dried shiitake mushroom slices. After it was cooked I added were some salt, black pepper, and about a half cup of a mix of nutritional yeast and ground almonds. The risotto was to die for!
I served it with baby greens and balsamic vinaigrette.

Does anyone know if arborio rice is a whole grain or if it is a "white" rice?

Koshary

A friend of mine's parents are Egyptian, and she told me about this delicious and very popular Egyptian meal. Basically you need pasta, green lentils, rice, and tomato sauce. There are variations. I added some cinnamon and cumin to my pasta sauce because I found that in one recipe on the net. I also added red bell pepper, which sort of took away from the traditional-ness of the recipe.. next time I'll leave it out and I'll use macaroni instead of rotini.
It was great, though!

Thai Yellow Curry

Tonight's dinner was thai yellow curry.
I fried some cubed tofu in a little olive oil, and then I added a couple of tablespoons of thai yellow curry paste, coconut milk + some water, chopped eggplant and chopped zucchini. Served over short grain brown rice.
Very delicious but rather high-fat because of the coconut milk so we don't have this dish often, or other thai curries.

Burger and Fries Night!

Tonight was sweet potato oven fries with a tempeh burger. One of our* favourite meals!
*all meals featured are eaten by me and my boyfriend, mr. www.iheartmusic.net

I cut the block of tempeh (like tofu but more fun) in half, and then lengthwise through the side, so that it was two thinner pieces. I marinated the pieces a bit in some tamari, corriander and garlic powder, and then I fried it with some olive oil.

On the burger: Veganaise (I bought this for the first time!), pickle, tomato, Dijon mustard, and colby block cheese from The Uncheese Cookbook.

I really like these new thin burger buns from Loblaws!

Red Lentil Dhal

Indian lentil soup is amazing. I'm not sure about the best recipe/method yet, so I won't give you the recipe I used, especially since I can't really remember.

Tofu-Bacon and Tofu-Egg Breakfast Sandwhich

Saturday morning breakfast sandwich! I left it open for the picture but I put the two sides together to eat it.

"bacon":
tofu marinated in tamari (soy sauce), a bit of apply cider vinegar, some drops liquid smoke, garlic powder and then fried with some olive oil in frying pan

"egg":
tofu coated in nutritional yeast + salt and pepper and fried

tofu mayo:
soft tofu, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt

+ tomato

Chinese Orange "chicken" with Brown Rice

I used TVP chunks for this delicious meal, which are made of soy flour. I used this sauce from about.com:

• 2 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• Sauce:
• 1/3 cup orange juice*
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon chile paste
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 slice ginger, minced
• Oil for stir-frying, as needed

Chilli lunch!

This is a cute new lunch container set that I got when I was in Alexandria, VA. I love the bento-style boxes that have click-y tops, they seal so much better.

Tomorrow's lunch is leftover chili with corn, fruit juice gel hearts (made with agar, in an Ikea silicone ice cube tray), raw red pepper and roasted chickpeas. If you've never had/made roasted chickpeas, do it now! They are best right out of the oven. Here is a basic recipe. I like them best with curry powder, but here I used nutritional yeast and salt.

Chili

Chili adapted from the Vegan Lunchbox cookbook. She uses dry beans but I used canned. I also added organic local kale for extra calcium and iron. It's a great recipe and a great cookbook! I start a new job tomorrow and therefore lunch pictures start tomorrow, yay!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bars

These bars are from the 'Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies' recipe in Vegan With a Vengeance. I added chocolate chips, and I used less oil but added some applesauce. They are soooo good. I think I'm going to make them again with only a bit of sugar and eat them for breakfast.

Fajita night!

My boyfriend suggested fajitas for dinner tonight. Yum!
Whole wheat tortillas, grocery store salsa, grated vegan cheese (FYH), homemade tofu sour cream, and the filling: TVP chunks, zucchini, mushrooms, paprika, other spices.

Inari Sushi and Konnyaku Yam Noodles

Sushi again! I LOVE Inari sushi- seasoned rice in fried tofu pockets! I bought the pockets frozen at a cool Korean store. The other stuff is little bunches of Japanese yam noodles with some (reconstituted) dried shiitake mushrooms.

Roasted Eggplant with Red Wine-enhanced Pasta Sauce and Bows

I had some red wine because I am going to put it in my henna mix, so I decided to put some in a tomato sauce as well. The baby eggplants were roasted in the oven with olive oil, dried basil and minced garlic.
The pasta sauce: onion, can of chopped tomatoes, red wine, basil, salt, mashed chickpeas.

Spinach, Mushroom and Tofu Ravioli

I found some egg-free wonton wrappers and I was excited to use them. This was delish, but really time-consuming. I can't imagine how long it would take if I had made the wrappers by hand!

The sauce is sauté-d onions and a can of organic tomatoes. I was not about to make a (non-lazy) sauce after all the ravioli making!

Greens, Tofu and Mushrooms with Black Bean Sauce and Red Rice

I stir-fried some mystery greens that I got in Chinatown, onion, mushrooms and medium-firm tofu, and then I added some black bean sauce from a bottle. I used Thai red rice, which is like brown rice.. but more fun.

Sushi!

Homemade sushi with cucumber or soysauce-marinated tofu.

Mushroom and Red Pepper Omelet

First I fried some chopped onions and mushrooms with a tsp of olive oil, some salt and lots of pepper, and then I poured the "omelet" mixture over top:
1/2 cup whole wheat four
1/2 cut chickpea flour
1 tbs nutritional yeast
1 tsp baking powder
salt
a pinch of tumeric

This "omelet" mixture is a variation on a recipe in Vegan Vittles.

I let that solidify, and then I put some Ajvar (awesome red pepper spread from Hungary) on top before folding the whole thing over.

Spanikopita

This spinach-tofu-filo pie was for a Cyprus- themed dinner party. I throw a dinner party every few weeks and we are going through the alphabet for which country we do.
This pic is from the next day, so it looks a little less photogenic than it was. It was delicious! I even found whole wheat filo pastry. The recipe was from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Baked Tofu with Steamed Broccoli and Brown Rice

I cubed and baked the tofu with fresh local garlic, and homemade salad dressing: olive oil, wine vinegar, wholegrain mustard, spices.

Chickpea Crepes with Roasted Purple Potatoes and Nacho Sauce

Woo, this wasn't much work but boy does it look classy!

The crepe is whole wheat flour and chickpea flour, and it is basically the Eggless Omelet recipe from Vegan Vittles.
Inside are purple potatoes chopped and roasted with lots of garlic.
The sauce is 'nacho cheez sauce' from, yes, the Uncheese Cookbook. It has chickpea flour in it, too. Lots of protein!

Unprocessed Cheez Sauce

I LOVE this sauce from the Uncheese Cookbook. It is make with onions, carrots, and potato! It is sort of like baby food. Mmm!

"Ribs", Broccoli and Lemon-Pepper Quinoa

I gave in to peer pressure and made the gluten "ribs" from FatFree Vegan Kitchen, and I am so glad I did!
I used the BBQ sauce recipe from The Garden of Vegan and it was perfect.

The side dishes are quinoa and steamed broccoli with fresh lemon juice, sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper.

Fresh Market Veggies and White Bean-Eggpant Dip

I threw together the dip, I can't really remember what was in it.. but I think it was:
white kidney beans
pan-fried eggplant and zucchini
fresh minced garlic
some tahini
some italian seasoning

It wasn't amazing, but it was good with the veggies.

Baked Macaroni and Cheez

This is the "Baked Macaroni and Cheez" recipe from The Uncheese Cookbook. I added breadcrumbs on top because I had some, and instead of blending all of the red pepper I left some chunks. This is a cashew-based "cheese" sauce. Yum!