This meal wasn’t super gourmet, but definitely much more so than anything I’ve prepared in the last couple of months.  I was in Sacramento over the weekend and got a huge haul of organic fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market there.  Since I haven’t been to the regular grocery store, that’s pretty much what we had on hand.  I used what I had to whip up these stuffed portobello mushroom caps, which I served alongside a mixed green salad with blueberries and cherry tomatoes and a few slices of white peach.  And then for dessert, I used some frozen bananas to make an “ode to Elvis” ice cream.  I think we had our 5 servings of fruits and veggies just in this one meal!    I’m sure there are far worse things to O.D. on.

Since this stuffing would work really well with any vegetable mix, I’ll just describe how I made it.  Feel free to sub whatever it is you’ve got on hand.  I did use a bag of organic instant stuffing mix that I’ve had in my pantry since Thanksgiving, but I imagine you could use your own favorite homemade stuffing recipe as a substitute, or even something like Stove Top would work.  I have no idea whether or not Stove Top is vegan and/or healthy (I imagine it’s neither), which is why I’m saying to try something like it.  I know that mine was vegan and was relatively healthy, as in it didn’t have anything in it besides bread and spices.  Anyway, cook your stuffing according to package directions or follow your own homemade recipe.

While the stuffing is cooking, saute the veggies.  I diced up some onion, carrots, the mushroom stems and 2 small zucchini– one yellow and one green.  Be sure to add in the remnants of whatever veggie you are stuffing– for example, if you will be stuffing an eggplant, add the part of the eggplant that you scooped out to make room for the stuffing.  I also added in a clove of minced garlic to the veggies.  Saute in a wee bit of olive oil until just beginning to get tender.  Add about 1/2 cup raisins or dried fruit of your choosing (cherries, cranberries, apricots would all be good) and about 1/2 cup white wine.  At this point, I also threw in a bay leaf.  Turn up the heat and allow the wine to reduce so that there is no liquid left.  Seas0n with salt and pepper.  Once the wine has completely cooked off, combine with an equal amount of the cooked stuffing so that your final stuffing mixture is about half stuffing and half sauteed vegetables.  Stuff into your vegetable of choice.

If you are using portobellos, you’ll want to scrape the gills off with a spoon before stuffing.  I also rubbed mine on both sides with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.  Once stuffed, place into a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, turn on the broiler and broil for about 2 minutes or until the top of the stuffing is crunchy and golden.

These turned out really, really good… and I have to mention that I detest mushrooms.  I could eat these every day and not get tired of them.

And now, let’s talk dessert!  When I returned home from Sac, I found that all of my bananas had spots on them.  Even one spot on a banana indicates it’s too ripe for me (I prefer mine slightly green and starchy), so I peeled and sliced them and put them in the freezer.  When they were frozen, I put them into my food processor (sorry, but you will need a food processor for this… a blender isn’t going to work) and processed them until smooth like ice cream.  It’ll take a little while to get them super smooth and you may even find that you need to let them defrost a bit.  Once smooth, add about 2 TB peanut butter– I used 5 bananas to give you an idea of the banana to peanut butter ratio– and a drizzle of agave.  Either eat right away or place back in the freezer to solidify.  Actually, you may even want to make dessert before dinner so that it can be freezing while you make and eat dinner.  I topped mine with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, but I think a handful of vegan chocolate chips would have been yummier.  Any kind of nut butter will work here, so use your favorite or leave it out if you want plain banana.  I’ve made this type of “ice cream” with all kinds of different fruits, so play around with it.

There are so many recipes of this sandwich filling floating around, most calling themselves a faux tuna spread.  I’ve even posted my recipe here.  Well, to me it’s not really fishy tasting and not really that much like tuna, but it is so darn tasty that we had it for dinner the other night.  Seriously, you can’t beat this stuff.  It’s easy to make, cheap!, and full of good stuff– protein, vitamins, etc.  This time, I added some nutritional yeast, celery and sweet relish to my recipe and we had it on some yummy homemade bread!  My husband commented: “hey!  this turned out really good,” which is a total win in my book.  He’s not picky at all when it comes to food and he’ll eat pretty much anything I make (or at least try it), but when he actually says something tastes good, you know it’s awesome.

Yes!  A new recipe!!!!

I made this for dinner last night and it was SO EASY to make and was also really flavorful (and my kid ate it with minimal complaining).  Feel free to add whatever veggies and fruit you like or have on hand.  It’s a great use-up for those that may be on their way to the compost bin, if ya know what I mean.  Grapes or nectarines would be a really yummy addition.

Easy Peasy Creamy Pasta Salad

2 cups dry pasta, any shape

1 cup carrots, chopped

1 cup peas, frozen

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup cucumber, seeded and diced

Dressing:

1/3 cup vegan mayo of your choosing (I use Vegenaise)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 1 large lemon)

S&P to taste

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  When boiling, salt the water and add the pasta.  I used penne, which took about 9 minutes to cook through.  When your pasta has about 3-4 minutes left on it’s cooking time, add the carrots to the boiling water.  When it has about 2 minutes left, add the peas.  Cook until the pasta is tender, then drain and rinse with cold water.

While your pasta is cooking, whisk together the dressing ingredients in the bottom of a large bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients and the pasta/carrot/pea mixture once it has been drained and rinsed.  Toss to coat with the dressing and refrigerate until ready to eat.  If the dressing made just enough to cover everything, you may want to consider making a little extra since the pasta will absorb it and your leftovers may be a tad dry the next day.

To go with our pasta salad, I made Tofu Fish Sticks from Vegan Lunch Box.  These are so simple to make and are really good.  While the texture isn’t quite the same as I remember real fish sticks being, the taste is spot on.  I made a quick tartar sauce to dip them in by mixing some Vegenaise with sweet pickle relish.  Really, could our meal have been any simpler to prepare?!  I love easy (and relatively inexpensive) meals like this one.

The pasta salad could even stand alone as a meal itself, if paired with a simple green salad or something.  It’s got good protein in there from the beans and peas (yep, peas are pretty high in protein), as well as a good mix of veggies.  Like I mentioned above, the addition of some fruit would be really good.  When my mom made pasta salad when I was a kid, she always added grapes or nectarines and it was so good.  Seriously, you have to try it!

I was chatting with a friend the other day and she mentioned that she was shopping around for a popcorn popper.  Confused, I asked her why she would need such a thing.  She explained that the microwave stuff has BPA in it, or something else not good for you.  I agree with that, but I still don’t understand the need for a popcorn popper.

I’m all about kitchen gadgets, don’t get me wrong, but the popcorn popper is one gadget that I just can’t fathom purchasing.  Unlike the food processor or blender, a popcorn popper only serves one purpose– making popcorn.  Call me old fashioned, but I like to make my popcorn in a big ol’ soup pot right on the stove.  It’s so super easy that I thought I’d take a minute to describe the process here to people who may not know how easy it is.

1. Take the biggest soup pot you’ve got and put it on the stove at medium-high heat.  On my stove, I do this at 5, with 6 being the next hottest before “high” which I would use to boil water.  You want it pretty hot, but not so hot that it burns the kernels.
2. Drizzle about a TB of oil in the bottom.  You don’t need much.
3. Sprinkle 1/3 to 1/2 cup of kernels in the bottom of the pot.  Try to get them to land in a single layer, if  you can.
4. Put the lid on it!  This is pretty important or you’ll have a mess on your hands.
5. Wait til you hear some popping, then give the pot a little shake.  When the popping has stopped or slowed down considerably, remove from heat.
6. Remove the lid and top with your favorite toppings or seasonings.  We like popcorn salt on ours (it’s a finer grain than regular salt and sticks better to the popcorn).  I’ve also read that some people like nutritional yeast on theirs for a cheezy taste.
7. Enjoy!

It’s really that easy!  And you don’t have to pull out some heavy piece of machinery to get it all done.  Popcorn is one of Emma’s favorite snacks and I feel good giving it to her when I’ve made it myself, know exactly what’s in it and where it all came from.  Besides that, it’s SO cheap!  I buy the kernels from the bulk bin at Whole Foods at something like $2 per pound (hey, the organic stuff is a little more expensive than the Jiffy Pop), but this is one snack where you can get a lot of bang for your buck.  A $2 pound of kernels makes A TON of popcorn.

What’s your favorite way to make popcorn?

If you’ve got a small army to feed (or if you just want to have leftovers for the next week), then do I have a recipe for you!  I originally set out to make enchiladas, but when my dry tortillas started falling apart and when my bowl of filling started overflowing, I decided to throw it all into the baking dish and call it a day.  And, it worked out really well.  This dish has actually been better as leftovers, so I would recommend baking it in advance (if you can) and then reheating it when you’re ready to serve it– like make it on a weekend when you have extra time to serve at some point during the week.  If you don’t have time to make it ahead, no worries!  It’s delicious any way you want to eat it.

Feel free to mix up the veggies here.  I would think that mushrooms would be a nice addition, but I don’t particularly like them and don’t use them often.  Eggplant may also be interesting.

Enchilada Lasagna

(serves an army of hungry vegans)

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp cumin

1 TB chili powder

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp seasoned salt (or regular salt)

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

1 generous handful of baby spinach

1 cup broccoli florets

1 cup cauliflower florets

1 zucchini, chopped

3 small potatoes, boiled and cubed (they’ll need to be mostly cooked)

1 cup pinto beans

1 cup black beans

1 package corn tortillas

2 cups enchilada sauce

2 cups marinara sauce

1 small can black olives

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish or cake pan with non-stick spray.  Line the bottom of the pan with one layer of corn tortillas and set aside.

Saute the onion in a little bit of oil and add all of the spices (everything through the pepper).  Cook until onion is tender then add to a mixing bowl with all of the other veggies and the beans.  Mix well and pour on top of the tortillas in the pan.  Add another single layer of tortillas (you’ll probably need 12 or so total).  Mix together the enchilada and marinara sauces and pour over the top.  Top with olives and bake (uncovered) for 45 minutes to an hour.

We had ours topped with some guacamole and some avocado slices.  Have I mentioned how good this is?  You should make some tonight!

Okay, I’m sure I’m not the first person to come up with something like this, but it was so darn easy and tasty that I couldn’t help but blog about it.  We don’t have any vegan bread in this house and I’ve been too lazy (and it’s been too hot) to make any.  Even just using the bread machine heats up the house.  Anyway, what I did have were some tortillas left from last night’s burrito fest, so I made a PB&J-dilla.  And it was SOOOOOOO good!!

Spread some natural (organic) PB on one side of your tortilla.  Top with J of choice (I used strawberry).  Add some fruit, if you want.  I added some sliced banana and green apple.  Fold.  Place in a hot skillet and toast about 2 minutes per side.  Remove from pan and enjoy!

a peak at the inside

Finally!  A post about food I made, not about eating out!  Sorry for my absence lately.  I’ve been super busy with getting my bakery up and running, fulfilling orders that have come in, and life in general.  I have to admit that I sort of enjoyed the break from blogging– it’s nice to just eat a meal without first taking a bunch of photos.  Anyway, I’m back but still a little overwhelmed, so I can’t guarantee how often I’ll be blogging about yummy vegan food.

I cooked last night for the first time in a while.  Cooked as in something a little more complicated than pasta with sauce from a jar.  I was really craving burritos and I had some potatoes that needed cooking, so I thought I’d make a spicy potato to put in the burrito.  I’m sorry to say that I didn’t actually measure anything that I put in, but I can sort of estimate and describe how I made them.  They were really good– in fact, I’m eating some right now for breakfast!

Start off by first washing and chopping your potatoes.  I used about 2 pounds of red and baby yukon golds.  Put into a pot of cold water and bring to a boil, semi-covered.  Cook until fork tender.  Meanwhile, sautee half of a small onion in some olive oil.  When potatoes have finished cooking, drain them and add them to the sauteed onion.  Here’s where you’ll have to figure things out for yourself… I spiced them up with cumin (about a tsp), chili powder (about a TB), dried oregano (about 1/2 tsp) and S&P (to taste).  While these were spicy, they were not hot.  If you want more heat, add some cayenne.  My hubby doesn’t like things as spicy as I do, so I had to go easy with the heat.

And here they are in my burrito with refried black beans, vegan sour cream, lettuce, tomato, black olives and hot sauce.  These came together really quickly (probably less than 30 minutes total kitchen time) and were really tasty and filling.

Last night, I suddenly realized that it was dinner time and I needed to whip something up quick.  The fridge was running on empty and I still had half of the 6-pound zucchini to use.  Pretty much the only dinner item in the fridge was some tofu, which made me think of VeganDad’s Memphis BBQ Tofu.  And if I was going to go to the trouble of grilling the tofu, why not grill the zucchini too?!  Oh, and speaking of VeganDad, he’s hosting a “guess the gadget” giveaway which runs until July 6.  You could win a copy of his cookbook.

Back to the food…  The tofu was freakin’ awesome!  Like seriously, seriously good.  Even a non-tofu lover would like this stuff.  I used super firm tofu, put on the dry rub, then grilled it on my indoor grill.  After it was grilled on both sides, I coated it very generously with BBQ sauce (Bull’s Eye brand… sorry, but I love it and am too lazy to make my own  from scratch), then put it in a baking dish in a 300 degree oven while I grilled the zucchini.  I had the leftovers on top of a salad for dinner tonight and it was unbelievably good!

The zucchini was a different story… the thing was just too big to be worth eating as a zucchini should be eaten.  The seeds were huge– like the size of pumpkin seeds– and the flesh was super fibrous and tough.  These big guys are best for baking, but I still ate it to set a good example.

Start to finish, this meal probably only took 15 minutes to throw together.  If I had had a larger grill, it would have taken half that.  And did I mention that the tofu was awesome?!! 

I can’t believe I’ve never blogged about this recipe.  I guess that means it’s been over a year since I’ve made it.  Shame, shame on me.  Matt loves this soup and I like it too.  It does take a while to cook, but the prep time is quick and it’s so easy.  It’s also really cheap to make.  I like the addition of barely because it gives the soup some extra texture.  Otherwise, it’s pretty much like baby food.  AND, I think you could throw the ingredients into a slow cooker and have it cook on low the whole time you’re at work and you could come home to a delicious, easy meal.  Unfortunately, split pea soup just doesn’t photograph well.

Split Pea and Barely Soup

1 onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 cups split peas

1/4 cup pearl barley

8 cups water

Throw everything into a big pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer for about an hour or until the peas are soft.  You may need to add more water as it cooks off and gets absorbed.  Cook until you’ve reached a consistency that you like.

It took a while, but I finally found a vegan nacho cheese sauce that is worth making and eating.  It may just surprise you too.  Be forewarned though, it is not really anything like the dayglo orange “cheese” you may find at a ballgame.  If you’re expecting that, you may be a little disappointed.

The recipe for the sauce can be found here (scroll down a bit til you see it).  REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF SALT TO 1/4 TSP.  Seriously, 1 full teaspoon is salt overload, especially if you are using salted tortilla chips.