Mixed Reviews

Since I didn't have to work today, it seemed like a good day to experiment in the kitchen. I made some black bean burgers, some sweet potato fries, some zucchini fritters and some cornbread for lunch. I loved the black bean burgers. John really didn't care for them. The fritters were pretty good - not outstanding - but something different. The surprise hit was the sweet potato fries. All I did was slice the uncooked sweet potatoes and put in a 400 degree oven until they were browned - about 30 minutes. I served all this up with some steamed matchstick carrots and a chunk of fresh pineapple. Not bad. . . not bad at all.

Taco Salad - and TVP

I have always loved taco salads - especially when I am "dieting" but I wasn't sure how a vegan version would look and taste. TVP is textured vegetable protein. It comes dried in bags and you reconstitute when you are ready to use it by pouring boiling water over it. I put some in a non-stick skillet and poured hot water over it til it soaked it all up. Then added a packet of taco seasoning, a can of kidney beans, a little salsa, and some sliced onion and cooked it until the onion was tender. In the meantime, I fixed a big bowl of lettuce, put some tomatoes on top, crumbled just a few Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips, (they have just a little fat so go light on them) and then poured the taco mixture over the top. I topped with some Walden Farms Thousand Island dressing - John used the Honey Dijon. It was quite tasty. TVP has 12 grams of protein for 1/4 cup and zero fat. It takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it in so it's good for chili, spaghetti, and tacos. Doesn't taste or look like meat - but it adds "body" and texture to the dishes.

Lasagna Substitute

I had been wanting some lasagna for several weeks and finally started the process one day last week. I got the water boiling in my big pot and pulled out the fat-free spaghetti sauce (which, by the way, Kroger no longer carries). I started some fresh spinach cooking and got out my small package of silken tofu. Then it happened. I spent 20 minutes going thru the pantry with a fine tooth comb looking for my half used box of lasagna noodles and there were not any there! I guess I had undoubtably used them another time and didn't replace them. aaarrrggghhh. And that was definitely what I had my tastebuds set for.

Not to be deterred, I took a box of whole wheat elbow macaroni and dumped it in the now boiling water and continued on. When the pasta was tender, I rinsed it and put half of it in a layer in a casserole dish, poured some of the sauce over (right out of the jar) and prepared the tofu. Here's what I did:
Took the silken tofu and put it in the food processor and whirled it a little bit.
Added egg replacer prepared for 2 eggs. (1 Tbl of the replacer with 4 Tbl of warm water, stirred up good with a fork before adding to the mixture)
Added 1 clove of garlic, some Italian seasoning, some parsley flakes, some black pepper, and a little sea salt. Whirled it again til it was almost smooth.
Then, drained the cooked spinach to get as much of the liquid out as I could and added that to the food processor too. Whirled it again til it was mixed very well.

Then I took this mixture and put it on top of the layer of noodles and sauce and smoothed it out.

Added the rest of the pasta on top and put the rest of the jar of sauce. Baked it at 350 for about 30 minutes to let everything get really hot.

We served this up with some hot crusty bread and it was very, very good! I have used the tofu filling before to make lasagna - and that's what I really wanted this time - but sometimes you just gotta make do with what you've got. This made a good meal and there were great leftovers - but not for long! :)

Brownies!

OK. We eat waaayyy too much sugar - but sometimes you just gotta have a brownie. . . and it's even better warm with some ice cream. I took the old faithful family brownie recipe and veganized it (posted it here) and then made some of our new vegan "ice cream" (frozen banana, 1 Tbl. of cocoa, 3 packs of Splenda and a dab of soymilk mixed together in the small food processor). Wow. It was sooo good. Gotta be careful about that stuff. It's addictive. Can't make those brownies too often! I think we're OK with the ice cream though - what a great way to eat your fruit! :)

Sloppy Joes/ Manwich

I grew up eating what we called "chili burgers" - ground beef with onions, chili powder, and ketchup served open face over a hamburger bun with a healthy serving of pork and beans over the top - topped off with ketchup of course. Later that evolved to a can of manwich served in the same manner. Now THAT's comfort food. :)

With the vegan diet, we assumed those days were far behind us - but NO!! Manwich meets our dietary requirements - and what of that ground beef? BOCA makes Boca Crumbles - also meeting our requirements of no animal products and no added fats. I used the crumbles just like I would use the beef and then served them over my homemade sandwich buns, topped it with a spoonful of vegetarian style beans (think pork and beans without the pork), then squirted on our additive-free ketchup! Voila! Just like old times!

Bananas!

We eat a LOT of bananas. I've been reading about some recipes where you freeze ripe bananas and use them to make smoothies, ice cream, and sorbet. The only problem with that is our bananas don't stay around long enough to get ripe! We go through about 3 bunches a week these days. Saturday when we went to Kroger, they had bags of ripe bananas for $.39 per pound. We bought one bag of those and brought them home, peeled them, and put them in the freezer in a ziploc bag. (Well actually, we bought 5 pounds of the ripe ones and then another 6 pounds of some barely yellow and mostly green bananas!)

Tonight, I remembered the ice cream recipe and got out the small food processor. It was just the right size. I took 1 of the frozen bananas, 1/3 c. soymilk, about 1 T. of cocoa and 3 packets of Splenda and whirled it until the bananas were all blended. Actually, the recipe called for 1 tsp of vanilla too but I forgot. What a great treat! It was thick and rich and creamy and gave that whole ice cream "experience". Oh yeah! I can see banana split ice cream, strawberry/banana ice cream, maybe even plain old banana ice cream. And then you could add a little more soymilk and make milkshakes. Maybe water instead of the milk to make sorbet . . . and oh, we found out that Junior Mints are vegan! It would be good to throw a few of those in the mix as well! This could be really good! Hmmmm. Wonder what's next? :)

Homemade cinnamon rolls

So I think I've written about these before - but they are certainly worth documenting again. I use my regular white bread recipe to make these - adding only an additional 1/4 cup of sugar to the dough.

When the dough is done rising, I roll it out about 1/2 inch thick, brush with a little blue agave nectar (non-vegans could use butter but that defeats the purpose I guess), cover with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, a small handful of brown sugar, and raisins if you like them. Obviously from the picture, I love raisins in my cinnamon rolls.

Then roll from either end - I usually roll the long side and get more rolls. You can roll from the short side and get fatter rolls. Once rolled up, pinch the end so it will stay sealed. Then use a serrated blade knife and cut the rolls about 1 inch thick. I get 9 or 10 rolls from 1 recipe of dough. You can double the recipe easily and get twice that many. Let the rolls rise in a warm place until they have doubled in size, then bake at 375 until they are lightly brown.

I used about a cup and a half of confectioners sugar, just a little soymilk and vanilla flavoring to make the icing. Use just enough liquid to make the consistency you like. Be careful, a little dab will do you. These things are awesome right out of the oven.

Pita Chips

I've always enjoyed pita chips but shopping for them as a low-fat vegan can be a challenge. This week I found some "legal" pita pockets at Kroger and later got the idea that I might could make some chips out of them. I did a Google search and got some ideas. Here's what I did: as you can see, the ones I bought were already cut in half. I cut each piece in 4 pieces - then split them front and back with a sharp knife - laid them on a baking sheet cut side up (that would be the inside of the pita pocket), lightly misted them with a water bottle, and very lightly went over the entire pan with my fresh ground sea salt. Baked them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes until they were lightly browned and - voila! Really delicious pita chips! I could see using other spices and herbs on these for different flavorings - garlic would be nice - maybe even a little Splenda and cinnamon for a sweet variation. Anyway, you get the idea. I served these up with some baba ganoush and took them to a gathering. We will definitely do this again.