Colorful holiday foods

Good day everyone! 

My day started off happy and you want to know why?

Dave(my husband) and I drove down the street to our health food store to get a coffee before he went to work.  We step up to the counter and lying there is the longest, most delicous smelling loaf of unsliced sweet bread.  I told the lady how good it looked and she said that it's a vegan pumpkin chocolate chip bread that was still warm from the oven.  My heart just sped up....she had the other gal slice off a piece for me.  YUM!  I'm saving the other half for Keaton.  Then while we were waiting too pay another girl gives us a sample of pumpkin spice cake...Dave asked if it was vegan and she said "yes".  My lucky morning!  It was soooooo moist.  It's not every day that this kind of thing happens for a vegan.

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

Want to impress your guests with colorful and delicous foods this Christmas and that don't take hours and hours to make?  How about....

Quinoa Pilaf (recipe below)



Marinated Pan Grilled Tofu, Roasted Asparagus and Quinoa Pilaf

This was a huge hit with Dave and Keaton.

Two Bean Tempeh Chili with finely chopped kale.

This is a great way to add more greens into your diet.  Finely chop your greens and mix into the chili. 

Roasted Vegetable Pasta with a kick.

This recipe is adapted from Gluten Free Goddess.  You can

take any vegetable really.  I used asparagus, roma tomatoes, eggplant, onion and bell pepper.  I also eliminated the use of raisins.  You can also add finely chopped greens to this as well and no one would know.

Quinoa Pilaf

2 C. vegetable broth

1 C. quinoa, rinsed

1 med. yellow/white onion, diced

1 small bell pepper, diced

1/3 C. parsley, chopped

1/4 C. pinenuts, toasted*

S & P

In a medium saucepan heat up broth and quinoa until boiling.  Cover with lid and turn down heat to low.  Cook for about 20 min.  Once quinoa is cooked take off heat and let sit for about 10min. then fluff with fork.  Take off lid and cool down to room temperature.

While quinoa is cooking heat up a heavy pan(I use cast iron) and toast pinenuts.  Keep close watch as to not burn.  This only takes about 2 min. or so.

In a large pan heat up 1 T. olive oil or broth/water to saute onion.  Once the onion is softened add the bell pepper and cook for 2 more minutes.  Take off heat and add the quinoa, onion, bell pepper, parsley and pineuts. Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Scoop into serving dish.



Marinade for tofu

1/3 C. Olive Oil

1/3 C. lemon juice

1/3 C. Italian parsley

1/3 C. Cilantro

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

In a blender or processer add olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, cilantro, garlic.  Blend together.  Add in red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

Slice tofu up and lay in a casserole dish.  Pour marinade over and let sit in refrigerator for a couple of hours.  Heat up grill pan and spary with olive oil.  Grill tofu.  Serve with leftover marinade.

I hope this gives you all some ideas.  If anything whip it up for dinner one night just for your family.What are your plans for Chrismas dinner? 

Until next post.  Have a great day! 

First Day of Vegan MOFO and Halloween weekend review.

It's November and the first day of Vegan MOFO! I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend! I did, it's my birthday on Halloween. Dave, Keaton and I went to a late breakfast Halloween morning and guess who was sitting a table away from us?????? Peter Facinelli, Jennie Garth and their kids. A vampire eating breakfast right by me. hee hee!   That was a pretty cool celebrity sighting and start to my morning.  Later that afternoon Dave carved the pumpkin.

Scary Leprechaun

Keaton made me a chocolate cake, while I made the filling and ganache topping.

The go to  chocolate cake recipe we go to all of the time that is super moist and comes out perfect everytime is taken from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts.  There are some changes I make they are: We double the recipe, use applesauce for half of the oil and I add a couple of tablespoons of instant coffee.
The caramel filling I used was actually the Dulce De Leche recipe from Viva Vegan and then the chocolate ganache was made with full fat soy milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted of course, than poured over the top.

Keaton went as a gorilla this year.  He had some cool sunglasses to wear but forgot all about them.

3 Bean Chili

For dinner I made a pot of chili and a side of cornbread.  For this recipe I used a ground veggie crumble because I thought that one of the parents were coming over to eat with us and they are a big time meat eater.  We actually prefer no veg meat in our chili. I forgot to add the chipotle chili in adobe sauce which adds an amazing flavor, oh well next time.  I make my own beans and this is actually the first tine I've cooked up my own kidney beans and man are nothing like the canned, they are so much better!  I also use Pomi tomatoes in a box because it is free of BPA but you can use any tomatoes you like, even fresh which I use all summer long.

3 Bean Chili

Olive oil for sauteeing

2 medium onions, diced

4 Italian red peppers, diced

2 Anaheim peppers, seeded and diced

5 garlic cloves, minced 

1- 12 oz. pkg veggie crumbles

1/4 C. soyrizo

1 1/2 T. oregano

1 1/2 T. cumin

4 T. Chili powder

2 T. Cocoa powder 

1/2 tsp salt

39oz. Pomi diced or whole tomatoes in juice, don't drain( if whole you can chop up or just pour into pot and mash them with spoon against side of pot to break them up)

2 C. water

2 C. black beans, drained

2 C. white beans(northern beans or cannelini), drained

3 C. kidney beans, drained

Chipotle in adobe sauce (optional) use according to how much heat you can stand

In a large heavy pot heat oil.  Once oil is heated saute onions, red peppers, garlic until they start to soften.  Then add the veggie crumbles and soyrizo.  Cook until it is browned and pepper-onion mixture is soft.  Next stir in the spices, salt and cocoa powder for about 1-2 minutes.(This is also the time to add the chipotle if you want).  Then add the water, tomatoes and beans.     Bring to a boil cover and turn down heat to a simmer for an hour or longer.  The longer it simmers the more the flavor develops. 

      

Houseboat and Viva Vegan/Peruvian Seitan and Potato Skewers

Hi everyone!  I was trying to post the other day but something was going on with my blog and it just didn't work out.  I'm here now!  I hope you are all off to a great summer.  4th of July is coming up, do you all have plans?  My in-laws are coming up again this year to watch the fireworks with us.  Our town has a parade and then some good bands that play before the fireworks.

We have been back from the family reunion housboat trip about a week now.  We had a nice time.  It was only like 104-107 degrees out. lol!   Acually that isn't bad because we have been houseboating in the middle of July and that's when it doesn't even cool off very much at night. My father-in-law made some awesome margarita's that I will post soon.   Here are a few pic's, I'm waiting on everyone else's pic's because we couldn't stay the whole week. 

Looking out from the front of our boat to the back of the "old people's boat" as we called it! lol!  Those "older ones" can put down some drink I tell you! 

Cleo hanging out!  First day we found a place to anchor she was non-stop in the water.  She was pooped out the next day.

 

I couldn't wait to make another recipe from Viva Vegan and the Peruvian Seitan and Potato Skewers were calling to me.  These are so good!!!  I made the Red Seitan recipe from the book and used up 3 out of 4 loaves from it for the skewers.  The seitan recipe is really easy to make and it made 12 skewers.  For the skewers I found these small cherry size potato's at Trader Joe's that worked perfectly.  The marinade for these skewers is delicious!  Next time I will kick up the heat more, I toned it down for my son.

This is one skewer(kabob) served with the So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce that is also in the book.  Again I will add more heat next go around but we really liked this sauce.  We made some artichokes as well and used the green sauce for dipping the leaves in them.

This sauce makes alot!!!

I had plenty of left over skewers from the night before so for dinner the next night I sauteed up some zucchini slices,a couple of tomatoes, then added the veggies and seitan from the skewers and heated through.  Warmed up some corn tortillas, filled them with the seitan mixture, topped off with avocado, lettuce, green onion and green sauce!  Served with a side of pinto beans. The seitan was really good the next night with all of those wonderful flavors from the marinade. Yum!  Dave commented on how good this was and topped off with the green sauce that he really likes!

My next venture...tamales? 

 I have a couple of girlfriends coming up to visit today.  I better go get ready. 

Until next post..have a wonderful summer day!