Tax Season is Finally Over

Yes, I know that tax season officially ended (in the US at least) on April 15th, but I have spent the last couple of weeks recuperating from it.  Sorry that I didn’t do any posts while running the tax office, but I did not realize how exhausting it would be, until I started the season.  Near the end, I didn’t even do a lot of cooking, simply because I didn’t know how busy the office might be and when or what I would be able to eat.  Most of my meals the last couple of weeks before the 15th were either sandwiches (made with Field Roast), and quick stir fry with frozen vegetables, Pop-tarts (the Brown Sugar Cinnamon without icing are vegan) and Larabars.  Not exactly healthy, but they kept me going.  And since the 15th, I really haven’t done a lot of cooking either.  It is so easy to just sit down and do nothing. 

I do plan on getting all the pictures up of what I did do, and will most likely do it in just one post.  It may be all pictures, but that may be the easiest way to do it. 

As for this week, I’ve done a few things.  The first is I made my absolutely favorite dessert out of Vcon again, the Banana Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding.  I made it with the SilkAlmond Original and used dark Agave in place of the maple syrup.  Since the almond milk is already sweetened, I only used 1/4 cup instead of the 1/2 cup called for in the recipe.  As you can see, it came out just right and isn’t to sweet.  If it hadn’t been sweet enough, that would have been easy to solve with some chocolate syrup drizzled over it. 

This isn’t what I had planned on for dinner, but what I had planned on eating, seemed a bit to much for dinner tonight.  I’ll eat it tomorrow.  Since I still had two of the Home-style Vegan Meatloaf in the refrigerator, that seemed like an easy main dish and decided that a side dish of sautéed frozen spinach and corn would make a simple dinner.   All I had to do was finish the mini meatloaf in the toaster oven, since I only partially baked them when they were made last week.  While that was baking, I put the spinach and corn in the non stick skillet and cooked them till the spinach was done.  I added a bit of Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning to the veggies and a ribbon of BBQ sauce to the mini meatloaf. 

Joe’s Oat Patties: A Product Review

I started to see these little bags of oats and spices pop up on store shelves around here in the past few months. It turns out they are a new veggie burger that is sold in mix form called Joe's Oat Patties. They have a few flavors, including Taco, but the one I selected to try is the “Meatless Chicken”. Part of the reason I selected this is that their website has a recipe for “Chicken Salad” to use in sandwiches. Since I was still putting my food list together for starting back to work, I thought that if this worked, it might be nice to use as something to bring for lunch to work. And since it is soy free, that is a big bonus.

The mix is basically oat and quinoa based, with various spices and other ingredients, depending on what type of veggie burger it is supposed to make. The directions to make each mix are the same: for one bag of mix, combine it with one cup of hot water of broth, let sit for 10 minutes, stir well. Once the mix is cool, then shape and fry up. You can also scramble the mix, which means to cook it up and move it around until you get smaller pieces until they are done. I did two things with the mix. I used the single batch directions to make a single pattie, and then I scrambled the rest to turn it into a “Chicken Salad” sandwich spread.



Here is the single pattie mix made as to mini chicken patties on some potato rolls (acting as buns). The sauce on the bun top is some Annie’s BBQ sauce. On the side is some steamed green beans and simple potato pancakes (leftover mashed potatoes and flour, and then pan fried). Amazingly enough, the patties do taste chicken-like. And you would never know that this is just grains and other ingredients mixed together and cooked up. I don’t know if you can get 6 patties from each batch, they would be quite thin.



The other thing I did with it is make a “Chicken Salad”. I was going to use the recipe on their website, but decided to just make a traditional recipe with mayo, mustard and pickle relish. I “scrambled” the rest of the mix by making the left over mix with ¾ cup of water and then putting spoonfuls of it into the pan. As they cooked up, I broke them into smaller pieces until it was all in fairly small pieces and cooked through. At that point I put it in the refrigerator until cool and mixed in the mayo, mustard and pickle relish. It may not look that great, but tastes quite good. I took the last of it in my lunch on Monday, and it was a nice way to start the week.

So there you are. Quite an interesting new product and the best thing is that it is made here, near Orlando. I don’t know if this will ever go national or overseas, but this is one of those things that is worth a try if you see it on the shelves in your area.

Field Roast Meatloaf

Hope you all had a happy New Year. Teddybear and I did absolutely nothing this year. We didn’t even stay up till midnight or drink any Asti. Maybe I’m getting old?

I also haven’t been cooking a lot. I was sick the week before Christmas and then spent the week before New Year’s planning for when I went back to work in January. I also spent the last two weeks of last year worrying about my new job. Being a new tax preparer is bad enough, but running an office just adds to it. So far it has gone fairly well, but the rush starts next week, so we will see how things are then.



The Field Roast Meatloaf was something I picked up, thinking it would make a nice, quick dinner. Little did I know at the time, it would be a perfect comfort dinner for a cold week in Florida. And if you like the sausages or the Celebration Roast from them, you will love the meatloaf. If you fed it to an omni, they may not believe it is vegan. The directions suggest that you coat it with something when heating it, so I made a sauce of equal parts of some Annies Original BBQ sauce and some leftover cranberry sauce from Christmas. It added a nice touch of a little sweetness and a little spice.

On the side are some corn and an interesting little side dish called Korean Style Romaine, part of my plan to get more greens in the diet. It is basically sliced romaine lettuce that is seasoned with a hot dressing of sesame oil, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and hot pepper flakes. You pour the hot dressing over the lettuce and let it sit for 30 minutes, and then it is ready to eat. It is a bit spicy, but it could easily be made without the pepper flakes; if you want it milder. It is also a different way to eat your lettuce.

I also have some other things to show you this week, including an interesting new product that is made in Florida. So see you all later.

Vegan at Disney: With no Tofu or Tempeh

Sorry that there is no pictures, but I was with my brother and sister-in-law. Since they are not aware of this blog, I couldn’t really take a picture of my lunch. I also did not want to come up with an explanation for my inquisitive nephews about why I was taking pictures of my food.

Since I was with family, and suspecting that they would most likely be eating at the quick service places at Disney Hollywood, I was expecting that my lunch would be a veggie burger. However, I got very lucky. We ended up having our lunch at the Backlot Express, in the Echo Lake area of the park. It is right between the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and Star Tours. They have the one sandwich at the park that is both easily veganized and also soy free, the Grilled Vegetable Sandwich. If you have it without the cheese, it is vegan and comes with a black bean salad on the side. The sandwich is grilled mushrooms, zucchini, red bell peppers with tomato and watercress on a cibatta roll with sundried tomato pesto. The black bean salad is just black beans, diced onion and some type of vinaigrette dressing. All in all a quite filling and nutritious meal. I would be quite happy to eat this a few days in a row.

Now suppose they had decided to eat somewhere else and I was stuck with a veggie burger (which are Boca burgers, from what I have read on the web). Would I have been in trouble, since it contains soy? Not really, because I now have a solution for when there is no other choice but to eat a soy base based product, Enzymedica Digest capsules. These are capsules filled with digestive enzymes that will allow me to occasionally (key word) eat soy products. I have even been able to eat tofu (after taking three capsules before the meal). Now this is not a solution if you are soy allergic (probiotics may be a better solution in that case). However, if you are soy intolerant this may give your digestive system the added boost it needs to digest soy.

For those of you planning a trip to Disney, the best resource I could give you is the special dining page at allears.net (http://allears.net/din/special.htm). They have a comprehensive listing of all the vegetarian and vegan options at all the parks and resorts. I will also tell you that Disney works very hard to accommodate visitors with special dietary needs. They will allow you to bring food into the parks (yes you are not stuck eating on the property). If you are on the food plan and willing to plan ahead about where you want to eat, I would suggest that you get in touch with the park and see if they can substitute seitan for the tofu in some of the dishes at the sit down restaurants and the resorts. If not, they should be able to make something for you. And if you need more resources just google “vegan Disney” and a lot of things will pop up.

Merry Christmas

I hope you have all been doing well. Sorry to be away for so long, but right after I got back from Disney I came down with my death of a cold. The Teddybear was off all last week and I was so sick that not only did I not really cook, but I didn’t really eat either. In fact, today is the best I have felt in almost two weeks. Good thing, since I start a new job in January. I’ll be running a tax office for Amscot during the tax season. It’s only for a few months, but much better than nothing. And it might help me get another position down the line. I plan on blogging about what I’m taking for lunch and showing you all my various lunch boxes.




I’ve done some cooking this week. This soup is something I made off the top of my head to give me something simple and nutritious for lunch. It is just some vegetable stock (from the carton), chopped kale, carrots and celery. I cooked them for about 30 minutes, till the kale was soft. I then took it off the heat, added a heaping teaspoonful of chickpea miso and stirred that through. Then I added the last of my udon noodles from the refrigerator by dumping them in the hot soup and letting it sit on the counter for 15 minutes. That was enough to warm them up and let them separate in the broth. Quite good and filling. Not bad, considering that I prefer recipes to free willing my cooking.


I also did my only bit of Christmas cooking today, by making a batch of Hannah Kaminsky‘s Five Minute Fudge that I found over at GoDairyFree.com. Using a tip found up at PPK, I used So Delicious coconut milk creamer (plain) to make it. It is quite good and fudge like, much to my somewhat surprise. While the ½ cup of coconut milk (or cream) may not seem enough, the recipe does work. And it looks quite chocolaty, considering that I had to use regular cocoa since I couldn’t find any Dutch processed cocoa.

My guy has to work tomorrow (ugh) so I made up another batch of the Holiday Nog and plan on just snacking and listening to holiday music till we have dinner fairly late. At least he is supposed to be off at 5:00, so we can at least plan on having dinner. It will be just about the same as what we had on Thanksgiving, except I have a new cranberry sauce to try and no sweet potatoes (because I can’t find any in the store).

I do plan on telling you about Disney, but that will have to wait till this weekend at the earliest. Till then, I hope you all have a healthy and safe Christmas.

Holiday Nog

I had originally planned on being at Disney today, but that got moved back to tomorrow; so I thought you might be interested in this.

This is the Holiday Nog I found on the VegNews website last year. It was too late in the year to be able to have it for Christmas 2008, so I have been saving it for Christmas 2009. I made it on Monday and on that day it was pretty good, however after sitting for 24 hours in the refrigerator, it was great. It looks, smells and tastes fairly close to what you think eggnog should taste like. Hard to believe it is just cashews, dates, water, nutmeg and vanilla. The best news is that you really don’t have to strain this through a nut milk bag, or I didn’t any way. And I made it in a regular counter top blender, but if you had a milk maker that makes raw nut milks, you could possibly use that as well. So if you are looking for an eggnog replacement and either don’t like what is on the market or can’t have soy, try this.

Thai Fried Rice

This has been my lunch for the last few days. Vegan Dad’s Thai Fried Rice and the Smoky Miso Tofu from Vegan Yum Yum. The fried rice goes together really easily and is not very spicy, despite the curry paste and sweet chili sauce that is part of the recipe. I still had some mushrooms left from making the Hippie Loaf, so I decided to dump those in as well. I also dropped the green onions, since I have not been able to find them pre chopped in the store lately. The coconut and cashews add a really nice touch to the rice and also help to cut any spiciness.

On top is some of the Smokey Miso Tofu from Vegan Yum Yum made with the Hickory Nufu Tofu and some chickpea miso. As you can see it worked really well in this recipe, but if you should make it, I do suggest that you use a brush to apply the marinade to the tofu. I tried this using a spoon and the marinade pooled around the tofu on the sheet pan. That excess marinade burned in the oven, and stuck to the pan to the Silpat. So make sure you keep the marinade on the tofu, if you make this.

I’m going to Disney on Wednesday to see some family that has come down for the week. I hope to report that one can eat at Disney and be vegan and soy free, but what I have seen so far is not promising. However, I will tell you how I am able to cope; when I have to do so. See you later in the week.

Hippie Loaf Fix Up

I mentioned in my last post that I had made the Gluten Free Hippie Loaf from Happy Herbivore on Monday. However, I haven’t been able to get mine to set up like Lindsey’s did. Part of it may be that I mashed the black beans and rice together and part of it maybe that I made a mistake in the recipe; I forgot the rice flour (actually any flour). So my loaf was rather soft and would have fallen apart if taken out of the loaf pan. What is a person to do at this point? Improvise. I cut slices off the loaf in the pan and then pressed and reshaped them so they would stick together a bit more. Then I fried them up in my non stick pan and had them as an open faced sandwich on bread, covered with either ketchup or BBQ sauce. This has been my lunch for the last few days and it is quite good and filling; especially on this chilly, rainy and dreary day in Florida.

I do really like the flavors of this loaf and am going to make it again, but change the recipe a bit. First of all, I plan on chopping up the veggies in the blender, just so they are in smaller pieces. I think that I will use amaranth instead of quinoa or rice, and won’t mind if it is sticky, since it will help the whole thing stay together. I will also use some vital wheat gluten to help it stick together a bit better (to keep it gluten free you could use some chickpea flour as a binder instead). And I may do this as either a veggie burger or as mini meatloaves in the toaster oven. This could actually get a lot of use when working next spring when I have a job for a few months.

Comfort Food for Cooler Days

Yes, you did read that title correctly. Fall has arrived for us Floridians and we have our second cold front come through the state today. It’s not as cool as it could be, but 60s and 70s are nice compared to 80s (and did you hear that Dallas got snow today). Now if the humidity would just go down. I actually still have to run the AC occasionally to get the humidity out of the apartment. However, this does mean that I can use my oven and so it has been getting ample use this week.



On Monday I made some Gluten-Free Hippie Loaf (from the Happy Herbivore blog). And last night I made the Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables from VwaV. So they both were for dinner last night. I’ve wanted to make this dish for a while, but have had one problem, the butternut squash. I’m really not able to prep that in my kitchen, but am lucky enough to be able to buy it already cut up for a few weeks each fall in November, so this has been on hold till it came back into the stores. I made this with dark agave, since I didn’t have enough maple syrup and amazingly enough it didn’t get to dark and caramelized wonderfully.



Tonight, I made some Mac Daddy from VCON, using the chickpea variation. However, I did change the recipe just a bit, since I don’t have a pan as big as called for in the recipe. I made it in an 8x8 cake pan and used 1 can of chickpeas with one batch of Cheezy Sauce. It cooked in the oven for 25 minutes and after sitting for 10 minutes it was ready. If you haven’t made this yet and am not sure that you want a really saucy Mac and Cheese, you may want to try it this way. I may have to make a second batch of the Cheezy Sauce for reheating, but that is really not a problem; because I can still control how much sauce goes into the dish. And it should reheat nicely in the toaster oven.

Thanksgiving 2009

Well, Thanksgiving 2009 has come and gone. I hope yours went well and you were able to gather with family and friends. My fiancé and I had a simple dinner, but that is all you need when it is only the two of you.



This is the first plate I had yesterday. On it is Celebration Roast with Vegan Brown Gravy (from Lindsay at Happy Herbivore), candied sweet potatoes, potato roll (from Wal-Mart), and some steamed corn. If you have not yet made Lindsey’s gravy, please give it a try. It has very few ingredients and comes together quite quickly and is also quite flavorful. The candied sweet potatoes were simply a roasted sweet potato, candied with some brown sugar and water then drizzled with some marshmallow ice cream topping. Perfect for a serving of one, since they were only for my (my other half won’t eat sweet potatoes).



On my second plate, I had another potato roll, mashed potatoes and more of the brown gravy as well as finishing up the last of the Cranberry Waldorf Salad in the refrigerator. After all that, I was way to full for desert; but since I have been eating Lindsay’s Pumpkin Brownies all week don’t feel sorry for me since I have not been deprived of having pumpkin.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Chickpea Scramble, Take Two

I hope all of you in the US are enjoying this Thanksgiving eve. Hopefully, your weather is better than ours in Florida is at the moment. Fall has definitely arrived here, but that has brought us rain off and on all day today. It may clear up tomorrow, but we have a front in the area, so who knows. It has cooled down, no more highs in the 80s, but the humidity is still here. Once that goes away, the weather will be great. But I really shouldn’t complain about the rain. We need a winter with high rainfall and a normal rainy season next year to have our drought declared over.

I am not doing a lot of cooking for Thanksgiving, don’t really need to with just the two of us. I will be heating up the Celebration Roast and potato rolls (from Wal-Mart) tomorrow, make the mashed potatoes and gravy, roast a sweet potato for me and steam some corn. Neither one of us is into really big meals, so that will be enough. And I will most likely have some Celebration Roast leftover to make some sandwiches on Friday and even possibly into Saturday. This is fine; since I will be the only one eating any leftovers (my other half doesn’t like to eat them).



However, I have done some cooking. In fact, I made the Chickpea Scramble again, but this time tried to give it more of an Asian flavor. I added baby bok choy and cooked the bok choy and red bell pepper in vegan oyster sauce before adding the chickpeas, rice, corn, green beans and shredded carrots. It worked out really well; the vegan oyster sauce definably changed the flavor profile of the dish. The next time I do this Asian variation however, I am going to use more Asian vegetables, such as baby corn and water chestnuts. In fact, I am also looking at doing a Mediterranean variation and a Latin America variation (with black beans) as well. This recipe just has so many possibilities.

All for today, and I will come back on Friday to show you my Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving

Things I Have been Cooking Lately

Sorry to be away for so long. Due to my tax class, I really did not cook at all the first week of the month. But that is now completed (I passed) and may result in some work starting in January, but I won’t know about that till December. And I have been cooking a lot, since my refrigerator totally ran out of food.



The first thing I made was on November 6, the only day that week with no class. I decided to make the Curried Udon Noodle Stir Fry from VCON, which had been on my list for the past few weeks. It turned out fairly good, but I did make a few errors. The first was making the roux for the gravy; I don’t think I did it correctly. Either that or it is supposed to be much thicker than I realized. The second error was in trying to warm up my precooked udon noodles in a colander under hot tap water, when I should have used a pan with hot water instead. As you can see, they all broke apart. I will just have to try again, because even with all those errors, it was quite good. But a visit to Just Hungry may be in order to learn more about Japanese curries.



The next time I was able to get some cooking done was after the class was over, last Wednesday. I made the Seitan & Polenta with Fresh Greens from Vegan Express again. This time I got the bok choy, but decided to use Vegetation’s variation of seitan sausage. The sausage I used was the Field Roast Italian Sausage. They had been sitting in the freezer just waiting for it to cool down a bit (and it has finally) so that I could make this again. I think that Vegetation may have been onto something, because using sausage just seems to make this recipe better. If you know of someone who thinks that vegan food is bland, feed them this and they will change their minds.

The last three things were part of lunch today, but I made them last week. Just did not get any pictures till today.



First, my lunch today was one of the Black Bean and Potato Patty from 366 Ways to Cook Beans, Rice and Grains; my latest cookbook purchase. It is not a vegan or vegetarian cookbook, but all the recipes are by default vegetarian and most can be veganized quite easily. In this case, I substituted chickpea flour for the eggs and used panko breadcrumbs. Put some salsa on top and these are quite good, they would be good plain as well.

On the side is Cranberry Waldorf Salad. It has all the standard items in a regular Waldorf Salad; apples, celery and walnuts and adds crushed cranberries to the mix as well. If you are still looking for some salads for your Thanksgiving dinner, this would be a good one to think about, since it lets you put cranberries on the table in a way more people may find to their liking.



The last item is my desert for today; the scones from VwaV, done as the chocolate chip variation. I had to use my only and last container of MimicCreme to make them, but it was worth it. They definitely are a different texture when using crème instead of all milk. Unfortunately, since I can no longer get MimicCreme that will mean that I have to make my own with cashews or use the So Delicious Coconut Milk Cremer when making these.

Last day of Vegan Mofo

Ok, today is officially the last day of Vegan Mofo. I have missed a few days this week, but have made up for them with weekend posts, so I don’t feel that bad. In fact I think that I have posted 23 as of today, so that isn’t half bad for just planning to post on weekdays.

Today let me show you what I had for breakfast today. And it will make all of you soy free very happy, because we again have a sausage replacement that we don’t have to make. When I was shopping yesterday at Rollin Oats, I found that Sunshine Burgers has a new product, a breakfast patty. I looked at that and realized that it could have some possibilities, so I picked up some English muffins, knowing that at home I had rice cheese and some of Bryanna’s Chickpea Chilla mix still in the refrigerator. Vegan Egg Muffin, here I come.



The “egg” was an idea that I has been floating in my mind for a while. I knew that it cooked up quite well as an omelet or crepe, but wondered how it would do if I cooked it up in a smaller mold to make an “egg”, that could be put on sandwiches. So last night, I tried out my idea using ¼ cup of the Chickpea Chilla cooked in a 2 ½ size biscuit cutter (that is open on top). As you can see from the sandwich, it worked quite well and looks most egg like. I got two from what was left from the batter and put them both in the refrigerator till today.

This morning, I toasted the English muffin in the toaster oven and then heated up the Chilla “egg” in the toaster oven as well, while heating the breakfast patty on the stove. Then it was just a matter of assembly. Bottom of the English muffin, breakfast patty, “egg”, rice cheese and then the top. This was quite good, but I forgot how thick these sandwiches can get. However, it would be great for taking into work and reheating in the microwave, since all you would have to do is reheat it from the refrigerator. You don’t even have to cook the breakfast patty, since it just needs to be defrosted and heated to eat. And the Sunshine Burger Breakfast Patty is a very acceptable sausage replacement. I just wish they gave you more than three in a box.

Mixed Summer Vegetable Sauce with Bow Tie Pasta

Sorry about missing yesterday. My life is really hectic right now with this tax class. And I only have time for a quick post today. I also don't see really doing any cooking till after this is all over. When you lose 3 hours of your day to something (plus study time), it really affects how one schedules the rest of your time. And I am sure my eating is suffering as well.

This is lunch from yesterday and probably will be lunch or dinner for today also. Just some of the Summer Vegetable Sauce from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen on some bow tie pasta. The pasta is from the organic line that DaVinci has, which I didn't even know existed. And I checked it is good old pasta, just semolina flour and water; like pasta should be. 

All for now.  See you on Friday. 

Vegan Mofo Survey

I really had no time to do any cooking today.  So I thougth this might be the time to roll out this survey that has been passed around.


1. Favorite non-dairy milk?

Rice is my everyday milk, but I will also drink almond and homemade cashew milk also.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?

just check out my Monday posts

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?

don’t really eat popcorn, but nutritional yeast sounds good

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?

my first attempt at making peanut tofu, I think the peanut milk was overheated and the curds were so small they went through the cloth lining the mold

5. Favorite pickled item?

my grandmother’s homemade sweet pickles that my dad used to make, otherwise bread & butter pickles from the store

6. How do you organize your recipes?

I use Living Cookbook, but I also have some in OneNote and others saved as files on my system, they will all get into one place someday

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?

trash and garbage disposal

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods...what would they be (don't worry about how you'll cook them)?

chocolate, peanut butter, coconut (I know, it should be there already)

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?

My mother’s cinnamon rolls made with a potato roll recipe she got from the local agriculture office. She would cover them in chocolate pudding and coconut for me.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?

Coconut Bliss and Purely Decadent with coconut milk are a tie

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?

My new blender. I can actually do things with it now.

12. Spice/herb you would die without?

Curry (does that count)

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?

My very first cookbook was one put out by Betty Crocker for kids, but I also have the Little House Cookbook as well. The first one I bought for myself was Laurel’s Kitchen Recipes.

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?

pink grapefruit marmalade, Stonewall Kitchen makes a really good one

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?

my finace loves Sloppy Sams (a sloppy joe variantion made with lentils)

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?

well I can’t eat tofu or tempeh, so it would have to be seitan

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?

doesn’t matter, I eat to live and don’t really live to eat

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?

storage containers, cornstarch, baking powder

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.

a bag of ground flax seeds, nutritional yeast, hamburger buns

20. What's on your grocery list?

changes from week to week, but always veggies, bread, walnuts (I eat about a pound a week)

21. Favorite grocery store?

My main shopping is at Publix (they are close enough to walk) but I also go to Nature’s Food Patch in Clearwater, Nature’s Finest in Gulfport (St. Petersburg) and Rollin Oats in St. Petersburg

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet.

not sure yet

23. Food blog you read the most. Or maybe the top 3?

Oh, boy. I read a ton. More than is in my blogroll. However, those are my basics. I must have about 50 in my RSS folder.

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?

rice milk chocolate bars

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?

the three pounds of raw peanuts to make peanut tofu, and I also plan on buying some coconut butter to help me use up all that peanut pulp

26. Ingredients you are scared to work with?

I really haven’t found anything yet I can’t deal with. But then I am not that adventurous.

Final Week of Vegan Mofo

I’m not going to do a menu this week, since I plan on only making two new things. The Black Beans and Potato Cakes (which may or may not get made again due to refrigerator space) I had planned on making last week and I also plan on making the Curried Udon Noodle Stir Fry from Vcon. However, this week will see my main meal being eaten at lunch not dinner, because my tax class starts today. That schedule is four nights this week, four nights next week and two nights the week after. Needless to say it will mess up my evenings because it runs from 6-9 pm. It also means eating lunch and dinner earlier than normal, since I will be leaving for the class about the time I usually eat dinner.

I also did a lot of research this weekend to find some ways to use all the peanut pulp I will soon have on hand. I found an interesting cookie recipe up at The Sunny Raw Kitchen that looks promising. It doesn’t use a dehydrator and I would think it would work as well with peanut flour (or nut pulp) as it does with cashew. Now anything I make will only quasi-raw, just to let you know, since I don’t buy the virgin coconut oil nor raw agave. And in this recipe, I am tempted to use regular chocolate chips, instead of making the raw ones suggested. I also found a recipe for Raw Reese’s Cups that looks promising as well. Unfortunately, this weeks schedule is going to force me to wait until Friday for more peanut tofu experiments. But that gives me time over the weekend to make some raw treats.

Iron Chef Vegan Mofo Entry

The ingredients this week were peanut butter and apples. I figured that they were something I could do something with and while this is not the most inventive idea (I took the apple peanut butter wrap idea and ran with it a bit). It is quite good.

Apple Peanut Butter Desert Chimichanga

1 tortilla, burrito sized (or more if making more than one)

1 apple, chopped

1 banana, sliced

1-2 Tbs peanut butter, smooth is better but chunky is alright also

Drizzle of dark agave nectar

Chocolate chips (optional, but add a nice taste)

Walnuts, chopped (optional)

Take the chopped apple and sliced banana and sprinkle with some lemon juice, so that if you don’t use them all know, you can eat them later without being brown. Spread the peanut butter on the top ½ of a burrito size tortilla. Add the apples and bananas, drizzle the agave nectar, then add the chocolate chips and walnuts. Fold like a burrito and place on a heat pan until one side is crisp. Roll over and cook until the other side is crisp. Let cool, slice and eat.

Simple, easy to make and quite good. I used a Fuji, but a baking apple would be better, just couldn’t find any today. So there you are, enjoy.

Wayfare Cheese: A Product Review

This may be the best soy free cheese to come onto the market (which I say never having tried Playfood cheese). You open the continuer and it looks like something you would make at home. The amazing thing is that it is oatmeal based and all the ingredients are pronounceable. If you have ever made your own cheese sauce at home, then you may have noticed that the oatmeal based ones are a bit smoother than the nut based cheese sauces. And for some lucky reason, we Floridians get this early in the game not late (like MimicCreme, which I found today I can no longer buy).

I first saw this at Nature’s Food Patch in Clearwater around Labor Day and bought some of the Cheddar Cheese style spread to try on crackers over the holiday weekend. I was quite impressed, you could put this in a dish and no one would realize it was vegan cheese, let alone soy free. I would have said something before now, but wasn’t quite sure how to use it, since neither the company’s website nor the containers give any suggestions. Then I saw this over at A Bear’s Fare and realized it may be more useful than I thought. Even though, just to have a soy free cheese spread for crackers is a big win in itself.

Today I bought some of the Cheddar Cheese style dip and have used it twice, for a quesadilla (lunch) and a grilled cheese sandwich (dinner and suggested by A Bear’s Fare). I didn’t mean to use it twice in one day, but was not really hungry, so wanted simple things to eat. All I can say is that you have to at least give this a try. The dip is more like a semi set cheese sauce, when you open the container. And I find you can scoop it out and spread it with a spoon quite easily. The cheddar flavor isn’t overwhelming, which may or may not be a good thing. The cheese does actually melt, much to my surprise, since it has no cornstarch or arrowroot in it (per the ingredients). Needless to say I am quite pleased and can’t wait to see if it will also make a nice rotini and cheese for one.

Now I haven’t tried the other flavors yet, but would suspect that they are also quite good. What I really would like to get my hands on would be the sour cream, since there are no vegan sour creams on the market that are soy free. Alas, I have not been able to find that yet in the one store I know carries this line. I am not really a sour cream user, but there are some recipes where you need it as an ingredient and it is a bit of a pain to always have to make it yourself.

Breakfast for Dinner, Part 2

Yes, I am doing it again. This time it was with the Chickpea Scramble (from Vegweb), more of the Sweet Potato Hash (from VwaV) and a Flatout wraps.

I know I have been promising this for a little while and finally got to it tonight. I did make two minor changes to the recipe though. No mushrooms, because my mushrooms went bad in the refrigerator and no sour cream because I didn’t have any soy free vegan sour cream. However, I don’t think it hurt the dish. It may not photograph well, but does taste quite good. And it will most likely be great in a wrap with some cheese. I don’t know if it should be called a scramble or maybe stir-fried rice for breakfast, since it seems more like a stir-fried rice recipe. Along that line of thought, I may season it differently next time with some yellow curry and smoked paprika. In fact I think you could season this in a few different ways. You could go Italian, Indian, Cuban or Asian; depending on the spices or sauces you added. It could be most versatile.

P.S. What is going on with Blogger.  Is anyone else unable to import pictures from Flickr or other services on the web. 

Using Leftovers

Tonight was about using leftovers, specifically a half of eggplant and a half of spaghetti squash. And since it is starting to heat up here again, the idea was not to use the oven.

The spaghetti squash was easy. I just put it in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes, let it cool and then scraped it with a fork to pull out the meat. All the insides went into a small pan with some olive oil and nutritional yeast. Stir it around a bit and done. Simple and quite good, also.

The eggplant was a bit harder. I thought about using a recipe I have for Barbecued Eggplant (from Vegweb), but really did not want to use the oven. However, it did occur to me that if the eggplant was diced fairly small and cooked on the stovetop, then covered with BBQ sauce, that could also be good and would make an open face sandwich. And that is exactly what I did, and yes it was quite good. The sauce I used is Annies Naturals Organic BBQ Sauce Sweet & Spicy. It is so good that I may never make my own sauce again. Just the right balance of sweet and heat. Also bonus, it is soy free.

On the side is just a simple salad of romaine, carrots, celery, and radishes; then topped with Drews Raspberry Vinaigrette. If you are looking for raspberry vinaigrette, this is not a bad one to use. It has a nice raspberry flavor. I still have some of the salad in the refrigerator and the rest of the eggplant is going on it in a wrap for lunch tomorrow. Should be good.