Salad with Chipotle Ranch Dressing

Spring salad mix, with baby spinach.


Tomato and cucumbers.


Steamed broccoli and carrots.


Mix together, cover with the dressing below.


Dressing:
Ranch dressing packet mix,
soymilk,
leftover homemade vegan sour cream,
Ring of Fire Chipotle & Roasted Garlic hot sauce (which I'm fairly positive is vegan.)

Russian Blini

I miss Russia!

I didn't miss it when I when to school there!
But I miss it now!

My landlady used to make me blini for breakfast on special weekends.
Blini is a crepe-like pancake. Mine had a buttery scrambled egg filling.
So yummy!!!

Now, the thought of eating an egg (full of tasty antibiotics and growth hormones) gives me the heebie-jeebies... but I had to have blini!

I adapted a recipe for vegan Austrian Kaiserschmarrn, to result in an even thinner crepe and didn't any use vanilla.

Next, I made a buttery tofu scramble using firm regular tofu. Usually I make a tofu scramble for my husband (he loves it) and I add tons of veggies, onions, and spices... this time I left those all out. I added plenty of buttery earth balance, turmeric, a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (I swear this makes it very eggy tasting!) and a teeny bit of dried parsley flakes. Then I mutilated the tofu because this is how my landlady always made her eggs. It was PERFECT!!

I have made the adapted Kaiserschmarrn recipe many, many times now. I can even do cool pan flips! I'm really good! They go well with jam, lemon juice and powdered sugar, or anything! My son loves them plain.

I vow to serve these crepes for any breakfast-like event that I host in the future.

Red Bean Burgers and Spicy Fries

These vegan red bean burgers are based on a black bean burger recipe that I thought was a little bland. Mine have a slight salsa taste. Great with avacado! :)

The bean burgers are made with organic kidney beans, bell pepper, whole grain bread crumbs and egg replacer (only if it's a dry day.)

The hamburger buns (in the first photo) I made from scratch... I have to say I was a bit disappointed with them. They are 100% whole grain (good!) but turned out dry and a bit heavy (bad...)
That's what I get from randomly choosing a recipe from the web without checking to see that it had tons of good reviews first. They weren't terrible... it's just that bread making involves a considerable time investment (not to mention the kneading!) I may try these again with some tweaking I think.

We try to not eat too many potatoes, but when we do I make spicy fries. They are soooo good! They are seasoned with a few different things but the killer 'secret ingredient' is dry mustard.

This second photo (more recent) has the same burger recipe but the fries are spicy rutabaga fries.

*Yes, that's a paper plate. Please don't email me with nasty things, our faucet is getting replaced.

Baked Seitan "Ribs"

Mmm ribs!!

These are made with kneaded, seasoned, wheat gluten and then baked. Glaze with a your favorite yummy BBQ sauce.
MMM! :)

BBQ sauce is the literally only thing we have in our house right now that has high fructose corn syrup in it. Does anyone know a good brand without it??

High fructose corn syrup is the devil.

I hate HFCS... But these vegan ribbies, they are goooooooood!

Stuffed Mushrooms

Mushrooms are good.
Stuffed mushrooms are great.


I made these up last week and thought that seasoned bread crumbs would be too plain.
So, I added some mashed silken tofu and nutrional yeast.
They were good. But next time I'll just leave them alone. The creamy stuff totally overpowered the mushroom-y goodness.

Yeah... I burned the tops too. :P

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Every week, I make a batch of cookies for my 2 year old (who is allergic to eggs and dairy.)

He loves cookies! And man, can he eat some cookies!

"Every week?" you say, "Cookies? That can't be good!"

AH HA! But it is!

I am a sneaky Mommy, you see! The cookies I usually make are super-filled with great things like fiber, bananas and flax. If I do use chips, they are carob chips. It's really more like breakfast in a cookie.

This week I was in the mood to make some carob chip cookies. Of course, we happened to be out of carob chips. I have to buy ours online, due to where we live... so, it's not like I can just run out and grab some. Instead, I went to the grocery store (with low hopes) that I might find an "accidentally vegan" bag of chocolate chips. To my surprise I did!
Baker's brand, Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks are vegan! Spread the word!

So here is a (somewhat blurry) photo of our BAD-for-you chocolate chunk cookies from this week.

My husband reminded me, as he had a mouthful of cookie, that they aren't really that bad for you since they're still made with, half whole what flour, Earth Balance, Ener-G egg replacer and flax. He is sort of right... and I just think the vegan chocolate chunks look so nummy! Now, if only they made carob chunks...

Chana Masala

Indian food is seriously my vice...

I love it all!

Vindaloos, Malai Kofta and Ooo Peshawri Naan!
It makes me want to stop blogging right now and run out to get some from our local Indian restaurant!

Indian food is traditionally made with ghee and therefore, quite often not vegan. I do not make my curries with ghee. However, due to the many vegetarian options that Indian cuisine provides, I tend to overlook the ghee factor when eating out.

Anyhow, here we have Chana Masala (Curried Garbanzo Beans)

I make curries quite often and I have to say that this has been my best EVER. I make my garam masala from scratch and I have been perfecting it for some time now. I can never get my hands on cardamon and it's probably the best it's going to be without it.

I am so pleased with the way the Chana Masala turned out. It is so good, in fact, that I made it Sunday for lunch, we had the leftovers for dinner, and then I made an ENTIRE new batch for lunch Monday. Today (Tuesday) both my husband and I will be having those leftovers for lunch. Hmm... 11:30am? Close enough to lunchtime for me!

Simple Salad with Chik'n

This is just a simple salad of baby field greens and some (vegan!) Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Chik'n Strips.

I try to limit packaged food use as much as possible but the Meal Starters are really handy when you want something quick.

They make great chik'n enchilldas! They are VERY chicken like, I'm sure you could fool people with them.

The best way to prepare them is in a non-stick pan. I don't use non-stick anymore so I've had some issues lately getting them to... well, not stick without using too much oil. I'll keep trying. :)

Eggplant Parma

Eggplant is my favorite food!

It is just so yummy! But only went cooked properly! I can understand why people don't like eggplant when they eat a purple, rubbery, squeeky chunk of something.

Eggplant Parmesan is usually fried, then baked.

Instead, I bake mine twice.

I use a ground flax/hot water mixture to bread raw eggplant in seasoned Panko breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast. Then I bake or broil the breaded eggplant slices on both sides.

Finally stack in this order: eggplant, un-cheese & then sauce (Using the mock cheese as a barrier between the eggplant and the sauce helps keep the eggplant crispy!)

Spanakoptia

This is my vegan Spanakopita.

Spanakoptia is a Greek dish traditionally made with, spinach, feta cheese, eggs, phyllo dough, butter, onions and seasonings. It is often served in individual triangles.

My version (with vegan puff pastry) includes, spinach, onions, crumbled firm silken tofu, non-hydrogenated vegan margarine and seasonings.