Fresh russets make the best fluffy mashed potatoes whipped with almond milk and Earth Balance margarine.
View #1. Beautiful stuff. You can see how rich and red it is from the wine and mushrooms.
The Field Roast worked very well and held up in the sauce. I love Field Roast.
Served with arugula pesto pasta salad.
Arugula and spinach pesto mixed with Vegenaise made a great pasta salad dressing.
Cranberry and raisin scones.
Gardein "meatloaf", mash, gravy and peas. Vegan tv dinner! Thumbs up on the Gardein meatloaf by the way. Easy to prepare. I would rather make my own though with beans, grains and vegetables. It wouldn't have all that processed stuff that meat analogues have.
I found a recipe for diy energy bars in Runner's World magazine. Here is my version made with oats, peanut butter, dried fruits, chocolate chips and hemp powder.
Based on the Marronthon bars recipe in Runner's World Magazine.
Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats (toasted in the oven first)
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 cup dried fruits chopped (apricots, cranberries etc)
1/4 cup hemp protein powder (Trader Joe's vanilla flavor)
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup plus 2 TB of chunky peanut butter
1/2 cup agave syrup, 1/3 cup brown sugar (next time I will cut back to a smaller amount of agave and leave out the sugar)
Method: Mix the toasted oats, fruit, nuts, powder, seeds and chocolate chips in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the agave, peanut butter and sugar until just boiling and the pb is melted. Take off heat and add to oat mixture. Stir until everything is combined. Spread into a prepared pan that was sprayed with oil. Flatten with wet hands and refrigerate for 4 hours. Cut into bars. Keep in fridge wrapped in foil.
I made about 30 ravioli and froze a bunch of them for another time.
Cooked and plated up. I tossed them in melted Earth Balance, sauteed onions, garlic and sage. Was very tasty.
Dinner was the ketchup curry from Hugh's book. He uses chickpeas but I was all out so I subbed white beans. It was a super easy 10 minute recipe that uses ketchup instead of tomatoes. Loved it. On the side, more flatbread and one-pot mushroom rice from Mary's book.
Some ingredients.
The insides before topping with puff pastry.
From the oven to the table, all puffed and golden!
On the plate with a side of mashed potatoes. This is the best comfort food ever.
The Recipe:
Steak and mushroom pie
3 TB vegan margarine + 2 TB olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
1 cup dry protein soy chunks rehydrated in boiling water until soft.
2 TB flour
1 cup veggie broth
1 tsp red miso
1 tsp vegemite or marmite
1 TB tomato paste
1 TB vegan worcestershire sauce or soy sauce
1 tsp thyme
1 container mushrooms sliced
salt and pepper to taste
frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed (a good vegan brand is Pepperidge Farm)
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Put the kettle on and boil water and pour over soy chunks in a bowl and let sit until soy chunks are soft.
3. Drain the hydrated soy chunks and put them in to a bowl. Add a couple of TB of flour and toss to coat the soy chunks.
4. Heat margarine in a pan on med high heat. Add soy chunks to pan and brown evenly, about 5 minutes. Remove soy chunks from pan and set aside.
5. Add oil to the pan and add the vegetables. Cook for a about 4 minutes. Then add vegetable broth, miso, marmite, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce and thyme to the pan. Cook for a few more minutes and then add the mushrooms. Add the soy chunks back to the pan, season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and cover and simmer until veggies are tender.
6. Pour mixture into a baking dish and top with puff pastry sheets. Bake for 20 minutes or until pastry is golden and puffy.
Tried some new things this week. My birthday was last Tuesday and as a birthday gift to myself, I bought Mary McCartney's book FOOD: Vegetarian Home Cooking. As you know I'm Beatles obsessed and also a fan of Linda McCartney's cookbooks. Mary is the beautiful daughter of Paul and Linda. She is a very talented photographer and judging from this book, she is also a relaxed and non-fussy cook, just like myself. The book has really great recipes (most are vegetarian but you can probably experiment by substituting vegan products for the eggs and cheese) and the photographs taken by Mary are gorgeous. One recipe that caught my eye, was the Saucy Mushrooms and Tomatoes on Toast. A very very simple recipe with big rewards. It was so tasty and made a perfect breakfast on buttered (Earth Balance) whole grain toast.
You see? It's just perfection. The tomatoes are sweet and juicy, the mushrooms are deliciously seasoned with soy sauce, garlic and thyme. The buttered toast brings it all together into one satisfying dish. I will make this again for sure.
Another picture to entice you to buy Mary's book. There is another recipe in it, Hummus, Avocado and Chili Jam sandwich. It sounds soo good. Where can I get chili jam here in Los Angeles?
I don't remember what day it was, but my husband and I were in the mood for tacos and we went to the local Vons to shop for ingredients. I used to love Morningstar Farms crumbles to make "taco meat" but alas it is no longer vegan. I came across this product by Helen's Kitchen that I was very willing to try.
They turned out fabulous. Very easy to make with no fuss, just like I like it! Recipe at the bottom of this post.
Went shopping at Whole Foods today and found these delicious morsels of fun. Vegan dark chocolate caramels! With gray sea salt! I love sweet and salty combinations. I bought two and they are all for meeee!
Kim's Quick Soft Tacos
1 TB olive oil
1 package Helen's Kitchen veggie ground
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper
4 soft taco size flour tortillas
Garnish: shredded lettuce chopped onion chopped cilantro freshly prepared salsa
Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan on medium high heat. Add the whole package of the veggie ground. It is fairly moist, so stir it around for a few minutes to dry it out a little. Add the spices and season with salt and pepper. Continue to stir for about 5-6 minutes until heated through. Take off of the heat and set the mixture aside. Heat flour tortillas individually over an open burner on your stove for a few seconds on each side to soften and warm them. You may also toast them in a dry pan over heat. Divide mixture onto the flour tortillas and garnish with shredded lettuce, onion, cilantro and fresh salsa.
Check these out. I collect vintage cookbooks and I just got this cool shipment of vintage cooking pamphlets from the 50's and 60's. I want to veganize some of them one day. Will definitely blog about that when it happens.
Sauteed tofu on salad greens with cranberries and poppyseed dressing (Brianna's).
Stuffed mushrooms via this recipe.
Vegan cashew cheese from the Vegetarian Times recipe.
On top of crackers of course.
Homemade vegan potato salad (potatoes, vegenaise, red onion, celery, parsley, dill, mustard, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper) and roasted vegetables. Very yummy.
Delicious szechuan cabbage recipe from The Complete Vegan Kitchen cookbook. Served over brown rice with Sriracha hot sauce drizzled on top.