This would be another menu item if I owned a cafe. This is really easy to make and one of my favorites. It’s also only about 350 calories!

The trick is the tofu– you have to buy the firmest you can find that’s not packed in water. It comes in the vacuum sealed packs and has a much better texture than the kind packed in water. It also doesn’t require and pressing. Take two slices off the brick of tofu and put in a preheated skillet over medium heat. Brown on both sides. Reduce heat to low and add enough BBQ sauce to generously coat both sides of the tofu. Cook for another few minutes, then slice.



While that’s cooking, prepare your bread/tortilla/whatever. Warm it a little, spread a little Vegenaise and BBQ sauce on it, top with tofu slices, and add any produce you like. I used baby spinach here, but have used salad mix, cabbage, cole slaw mix, and broccoli slaw in the past. Anything works.

I bought a bag of onions a few weeks ago and it had this recipe on the back for a caramelized onion and mango quesadilla. At first I thought it sounded really weird, but I warmed up to the idea as I scanned the list of ingredients: mango, caramelized onions, pepper jack cheese…

And I had read somewhere recently that Daiya had a new flavor out (pepper jack) and I’ve been dying to try it. My WF has been out of it the last few times I’ve been in until today. Even better, mangoes were on sale for $1 each. It was meant to be.

To make this, you must first caramelize the onions. You then peel and chop your mango and heat a skillet to make the quesadilla in. Scatter some pepper jack Daiya on half the tortilla (I used brown rice), top with onions and mango, then add a little bit more cheese. As with every vegan cheese I’ve tried, Daiya takes a little bit longer to melt than cow cheese. You may even need to turn your stove to low (to keep the tortilla from burning) and put a lid on your skillet to circulate the heat. It’s worth the wait– I inhaled this in about 1 minute.

A note about the Daiya pepper jack: Hands down, without a doubt, this is my favorite Daiya and the only one I will buy from now on, even for pizzas. It’s awesome!!!!!!! I can’t wait to make a spicy mac & cheese with it.

For breakfast yesterday, I made some oatmeal. Amanda insists on feeding herself, so I gave her a bowl and let her go to town. She managed to get quite a bit in her mouth… and in her hair… and all over the place. So today I got smart and baked it! I’ve made these once before, but was too lazy to blog about it. I love this recipe so much that I feel bad not sharing.

If you’ve never had baked oatmeal, it’s really quite good. It turns out fluffy and dense, sort of like an oatmeal muffin, and you can flavor it with whatever you want. Check out Chocolate Covered Katie for the recipe. I did change up her recipe a bit just to make it work with what I had. Here’s what I did:

• Quadrupled the recipe (and used certified GF oats).
• Used 1 large ripe banana and 1 small sweet potato (both mashed up) in place of the pumpkin/applesauce.
• Omitted the vanilla. Not for any good reason, except that I just didn’t feel like putting any in.
• Used maple syrup as the sweetener. Didn’t measure, just poured some in.
• Used rice milk.
• Added a generous amount of coconut oil.
• Mix-ins: raisins and shredded coconut.
• Spice: added pumpkin pie spice, about a teaspoon.

I only have 1/2 cup ramekins and used 5 to bake the quadrupled recipe. I plan to freeze some of the leftovers to have on hand just in case I get caught with no baby-friendly foods around.

You must make this recipe ASAP. It’s delicious! I followed the recipe exactly, except that I didn’t add any veggies because I didn’t have any appropriate for this dish. The sauce is served over some quinoa spaghetti noodles (that’s why they look a little yellow in the pic). I also did not bake it and opted instead to cook the pasta and sauce together for a few minutes after the pasta was done boiling. The sauce definitely tastes better after cooking (it must give the garlic time to mellow out a little), so I would definitely recommend cooking it a little if you can. Baking would be ideal and I will plan ahead next time to allow time to do that– I was just too hungry to wait this time. Enjoy!

Emma has a pretend kitchen and she likes to cook stuff in it– pretend food, dolls, whatever.  The other day, she “cooked” one of her little dinosaurs pretending it was something else and she offers me some. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “no, thank you, I don’t eat dinosaurs.”

Emma:  “don’t worry, it’s vegetarian.”

Me: “cool!  Do you know what that means?”

E:  “not made out by animals.”

Me: “yes!  and do you know what vegan means?”

E: “it means it’s on sale.”

LOL!!  She cracks me up.  When we’re not cooking pretend food and vegetarian dinosaurs, we have been making some yummy gluten-free, vegan stuff around here.  I’ve tried a few brands of bread… some are better than others, but most are okay when toasted.  I also picked up the fixin’s for english muffin pizzas the other day while shopping.  I got some GF, vegan english muffins, a jar of sauce and some Daiya.  They turned out really good…

I’ve been enjoying these for the last few days and my favorite way to eat them is topped with a sprinkle of dried basil, dried oregano and some chopped jalapeno (the kind from the jar).  They’re super good!  I first toast the english muffin in the toaster, then top with the sauce and cheese.  Then I bake at 425 degrees until bubbly.  Side note: my toaster now has a designated GF side.  I put a little label on there to keep it separated from the gluteny side.

That’s all for now.  I do have some cake photos to post.  Will do that soon, hopefully.

I’m chuckling to myself as I type this as it reminds me of Jennifer’s blog post from a few days ago when she talked about how she frequently has to cook one-handed. You see, I am typing this one-handed for the exact same reason and it is taking forever!!

I stopped buying canned beans a while ago because they’re just so expensive! It might not seem like a lot to buy a can now and then, but when you compare that to how inexpensive it is to cook them yourself, the savings adds up. Besides that, beans that I’ve cooked myself have so much more flavor than canned ones. Yesterday I cooked up a whole bunch of pinto beans and they were so good that I’ve been eating them plain. Here is my favorite method for cooking all types of beans.

Like most brown foods, beans are not very photogenic.

1. About 12 hours before you plan to cook your beans, put them in a large bowl and cover with water.
2. After soaking for 12 hours, drain and rinse them. Place into your slow cooker.
3. Peel one large onion and cut in half. Throw it in with the beans.
4. Peel and chop 2-3 cloves of garlic.  Add t the pot.
5. Cut a jalapeno in half, remove the seeds and add to the pot.  I don’t always have these on hand so I don’t always add them.
6. Pour in enough water to cover everything.  Put on lid and cook on low for 8-10 hours.
7. When the beans are cooked, add S&P to taste.

I like to fill up glass jars (quart size) with cooked beans and freeze them. They’ll last forever in the freezer and take only a few seconds in the microwave to defrost when you want to use them.   It’s so easy and you won’t believe how much better they taste than canned beans.

Wednesday’s are my farmer’s market days, which usually means that by Tuesday I have either nothing left in the house or some random fruits and veggies that need to be eaten. In an effort to use up what I had on hand before buying more stuff, I did a “clean out the fridge” night and made this pasta dish that turned out pretty good.

Here’s what I had: a pint of cherry/pear tomatoes from my grandma’s and friend’s garden, some herbs from the same friend’s garden, and a jar of marinara sauce about 2/3 full. The obvious direction was pasta…

In my largest, high-sided skillet, I sauteed one clove of minced garlic in some olive oil. I added my cherry/pear tomatoes and cooked them until they started to burst, about 7 minutes on medium-low heat. Add some herbs– I used about a TB of fresh parsley and a TB of fresh basil– and some salt. Then add the marinara sauce. Ta da, as my Emma likes to say! I served mine over some brown rice pasta. I like the brown rice pasta as much as I like regular wheat pasta, so it’s pretty much all I use now for pasta dishes. It’s gluten-free and I eat enough gluten that I could probably stand to eat a little less. Case in point: I have a loaf of wheat bread baking in my bread machine right now. It should be done in about 20 minutes, in fact.

For some extra protein, I threw in about a cup of cooked chickpeas. I cooked up a huge pot of them recently and had 2 quart jars stashed away in the freezer. It took about an extra millisecond to thaw some and throw them in, so I figured why not?! Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a photo of my farmer’s market goodies to share with you all.

I used my leftover lentils from the other night to make some nachos last night. Yes, nachos hardly qualify as being healthy, but everyone needs a little indulgence every now and again. These are made with organic yellow corn tortilla chips and piled high with Daiya cheddar shreds, lentils, pico de gallo, avocado, olives, hot sauce, and jalapenos. They were pretty good– I just wish I could have washed them down with a nice cold beer. A couple more weeks and I’ll be able to do that.

Here’s my best tip for nacho making: I like to build my nachos in layers so that the chips underneath aren’t naked.  I put a layer of chips down on my plate, then some cheese, then the lentils.  Another layer of chips, more cheese, more lentils.  Pop that in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the cheese, then put under the broiler to assist in the melting.  Now you’re ready to top with all of your extras.

Lentils and brown rice are staples in my pantry because they’re so versatile and cheap! While browsing the internet to find inspiration for dinner the other night, I came across this recipe, where lentils and brown rice are combined to make a really yummy filling for tacos or burritos or a topping for taco salad. The only change I’ve made to the recipe is cutting back the amount of water. The amount called for in the recipe is too much, so I suggest cutting it back to 3 cups. I also omit the bouillon.

I don’t know what inspired this meal, but I have an idea it may have had something to do with this post about a turkey and cheddar biscuit.  I follow lots of bento blogs and while pretty much none of them ever make anything vegan, they can inspire food creativity and some things can easily be veganized.  I must have had the idea of a turkey and cheddar biscuit in my head all day because by the time dinner rolled around, it was all I could think about.  I had a pack of smoked tofurky in the fridge, but no vegan cheddar style cheese.  In the freezer, though, I had some Daiya mozzarella and I thought– tofurky pizza!  Pizza, on a biscuit?  It sounds like a recipe the Duggars may have invented, I know.  If you’ve ever watched their show, you know that they come up with some pretty…  uhhmm… creative?… culinary delights.

The idea didn’t sound so bad, so I took myself to Google to find a vegan (or veganizable) rolled biscuit recipe, since I typically only make drop biscuits when I make them from scratch.  I’m not sure of any brands of store bought biscuits that are vegan, although I’m sure some exist even if they are just “accidentally vegan.”  Beware of funky ingredients like hydrogenated oils and stuff, if you are as turned off by them as I am.  If you can’t find any and don’t want to make your own, I bet you could attempt this pizza idea (or even the turkey/cheddar thing) with crescent rolls.

Anyway, I settled on this recipe and I used Earth Balance shortening for the fat.  I have no preference for shortening over margarine in recipes like these, but the shortening is a wee bit cheaper and a little less versatile than the marg.  I thought I’d save my marg for another day.  So I made the biscuit dough, rolled out to about 1/2″ thickness, used a glass to cut them out, then rolled the biscuits to about 1/4″ thickness.  I topped each with some jarred marinara that I had leftover from our pasta dish the other night– I had cooked up some red lentils and pureed them into the sauce, which was really tasty!  Anyway, then I sliced up some tofurky and put the Daiya on top of that.  When working with vegan cheese, I find it best to put it on top of everything since vegan cheese doesn’t melt the same way dairy cheese does.  And if you’re topping your pizzas with veggies, the water from the veggies will really keep your cheese from melting and may even make it too watery.  That’s just been my experience.

These baked for about 10 minutes and turned out really good.  I’m still craving the turkey/cheddar biscuits, so I may have to make those next week when I can get myself to the store to score some Daiya cheddar.  Emma helped me make these and had fun playing with the leftover dough (hey, it’s way better than playdoh!  Does anyone else gag at the smell of playdoh?).  And, she ended up eating 3 of these pizzas– the recipe yielded 8 biscuits, 4 of which were tofurky and 4 of which were plain cheese.  Even with making biscuits from scratch, this was ready to be eaten in about 20 minutes.  Can’t beat that!

(And sorry for the crappy photo.  I broke our camera and am now relying on my iPhone.  It was my fault and I take full responsibility for the broken camera.  It fell out of the unzipped camera case as I was carrying it and the screen cracked.  Just my luck!)