Toddler Food - Peanut Butter P-Pie

P-Pie is what my son used to call pizza when he was younger.

He wanted pizza day and night.

It was getting ridiculous because he's allergic to dairy, so we'd get a pizza and scrape off all the cheese and throw that out. (We're not sure how ordering a pizza with no cheese would go over at the Italian owned restaurant in our German village yet!) OR I'd make a pizza and he might or might not eat it with nutritional yeast... I know how he feels, nut. yeast still makes me gag sometimes.

I had to come up with something to get him to eat some veg and other things as well. So, I made a five grain pizza dough (with lots of ground flaxseed) in my Vitamix and baked mini pizza crusts. Topped it with organic PB, raisins, carrot slices (isn't it cute they look like pepperoni!) and sunflower seeds (not pictured.)

You can add anything...

PB with jelly spoonfuls (again, like pepperoni), other nut butters, chocolate or carob chips, shredded coconut...

I posted the recipe for pizza dough on a popular veggie recipe site and someone commented that they made it with bananas and honey! (FYI, I have still not decided where I stand on the Vegan Honey Debate.)

If you don't feel like making the pizza dough you can just put all of this on a whole wheat pita!

Toddler Food - Pea Pockets and Grapes

Wow, I take bad pictures.

Anyway......

This was dinner for my not-quite 2.5 year old.

The little pastry pockets are filled with peas. That's it, just frozen peas. He loves peas! He pretty much eats at least 1/2 cup of peas and an apple every day.

The pastry is made with half whole wheat flour. Our family actually prefers half whole wheat pastry for most pies... it adds a yummy harvesty taste.

The recipe is the "Easy Pie Crust" from the Vegan Lunch Box Cookbook with a dash of nutmeg. I used the left over pastry and made larger samosa-like pockets for myself with some left over Chana Masala (with fresh spinach.)

For dessert he had another pastry pocket filled a teaspoon of some nutella-like stuff and part of a chopped up Chocolate Coconut Larabar.

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