Mmmm. I <3 mushrooms!

Found via healthy.happy.life recipe from pcrm.orgs 21-day vegan kickstart.

Need to make this before summer ends. Check’n out more of the recipes at pcrm’s vegan kickstart; they seem really simple and wholesome which is what I am in dire need of. Between work and school I don’t make time to cook or eat enough and when I do eat its not the best options. It’s killing my metabolism. I should try out their meal plans…

Recipefor BBQ Portobellos:
2 large portobello mushrooms
¹/₂ cup vegetable juice
¹/₄ cup apple juice concentrate
¹/₂ cup roasted red peppers
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
2 teaspoons chili powder
¹/₂ teaspoon garlic powder
¹/₄ teaspoon black pepper

Clean mushrooms and remove stems. Cut into 1/2-inch strips.

Combine vegetable juice, apple juice concentrate, red peppers, soy sauce, vinegar, chili powder, garlic powder, and black pepper in a blender. Process until smooth, then transfer mixture to a non-stick skillet and heat until bubbly.

Add mushroom strips, turning to coat evenly with sauce. Cover and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until mushrooms are tender, about 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Per serving (1/2 of recipe)

• Calories: 132 
• Fat: 1.2 g
• Saturated Fat: 0.2 g
• Calories from Fat: 8.4%
• Cholesterol: 0 mg
• Protein: 4.7 g
• Carbohydrates: 28.9 g
• Sugar: 19.9 g
• Fiber: 3.9 g
• Sodium: 589 mg
• Calcium: 31 mg
• Iron: 1.8 mg
• Vitamin C: 97.9 mg
• Beta Carotene: 1906 mcg
• Vitamin E: 1.6 mg

Source: Healthy Eating for Life to Prevent and Treat Cancer by Vesanto Melina, M.S., R.D.; recipe by Jennifer Raymond, M.S., R.D.

This would be a mighty tasty meal with a green salad and a piece of crusty whole grain bread. Obvi, it could be made even simpler with premade (vegan) bbq sauce.

Holy shitballs. These are so completely, exactly like chicken I actually find it disturbing. Like, I refuse to believe this is NOT chicken, it boggles the mind. I think the makers of Gardein are pulling a fast one on us all.

And as if that wasn’t good enough:

There seriously is no reason to eat real chicken with options like this out there.

Cause, although I have been cooking, it’s been the usual suspects: cheesy beef penne, oreo brownies, cheesy guac dip, etc. I’ve been spreading the vegan love to my non-veg friends and these are the faves.

So, anyways, here’s more eye candy found via my fave tastspotting/vegan

New Age Vegan Pasta Carbonara

Vegan Sloppy Joes

Raw Sushi with Daikon Rice

Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles. Drool.

Oh, and these Vegan Crumpets look yum.

I should be in bed right now, but I’m caught in a vegan food pornado (via http://www.tastespotting.com/search/vegan, click at your own risk!)

Herb’d Mushroom Poppers (Yes please!)

Falafel (Now I just need to find a vegan tzatziki sauce and I’ll be set for life.)

Creamy Vegan  Mac’n’Cheese (OMG! I am currently obssessed with the delectible possibilities of nutrition yeast and this looks BOMB.)

This shit is making me hungryyyy!

OMG, these look killerrrr!

Recipe, if you’re too lazy to click:

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup brown rice

1 cup water
Canola oil

1 onion, sliced thin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1 large beet, grated



STEPS
Place brown rice, water, a dash of oil and a dash of salt in a pot.

Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 50 minutes.
Remove from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes.
Fluff with a fork and set aside.
Heat a sautee pan over high heat and add a few tablespoons of oil, followed by the onions.
After the first minute, reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking until the onions are caramelized, stirring often (5-7 minutes).
Add the paprika, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt, and remove from the heat.

Cool to room temperature and set aside.

Grate the beet.

Place the rice, onions, and 1 cup of the beets in the bowl of a food processor.
Process until the mixture forms a thick puree (about a minute)
You may need to stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times.

Combine the puree with the remaining beets, mixing thouroughly with your hands.

Use 1/3 cup measure to divide the dough into 8 balls, and shape the balls into patties.

Heat a skillet over medium high heat.

Add a little oil, and cook the cakes for 4-5 minutes on each side, until they form a light crust.

Season each side with a little salt as they cook.

Serve hot.

Cheesy “Beef” Penne

This is another yummy recipe found via 365daysofvegan(girls got good taste!) This turned out surprisingly good. I was apprehensive because I’ve heard so many negative things about nutritional yeast. But even my non-vegan roomie gave it two thumbs up.

I added mushrooms, because mushrooms make everything better (see also: garlic.) Really you could add whatever veg is handy: peas, broccoli, asparagus, etc. The few slices of onion I put on top as an afterthought when I saw a leftover half of an onion in the fridge. Next time I’ll mix in more (and twice as much mushrooms, yum!) I also used Lightlife’s Smart Ground Original for the “hamburger.” I tasted it on it’s own and, ngl, was not a fan. But mixed in with everything it is good, promise! Here’s my slightly tweaked version:

VEGAN CHEESY “BEEF” PENNE
Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs whole wheat penne (or other pasta)
1 package of vegan hamburger substitute
Mushrooms (or veg of choice)
Onions (optional)
Sauce:
1 1/2 cups of plain soy milk
1 cup of water
1 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup of canola or vegetable oil (I wonder if EVOO would work?)
Pepper, to taste

Directions
Cook pasta until just barely al dente (this is going to cook some more in the oven, so you don’t want it to turn mushy.)

Sautee the mushrooms in a bit of EVOO and/or Earth Balance vegan butter. Brown “hamburger” per package directions. 

Meanwhile, thoroughly mix up the ingredients for the sauce (I like to use the hot pasta water and combine with the yeast flakes first to kind of dissolve it before adding the rest so it doesn’t clump up.)

Mix it all together (this is where you can add some sliced raw onions if that’s your thing.) and pour into a lightly greased 9x12 baking dish, bake in oven preheated to 350 for aprox 15 minutes.
Done!

I had this leftover for lunch and dinner. The sauce kind of dried and separated, it lost the creaminess it had fresh out of the over. I tried adding a few tablespoons of soymilk, oil and water before re-heating and that helped a bit. (I’m going to half this recipe next time, because it makes much too much for this lone vegan girlie.)

For dinner I added a side of green beans that were AMAZING. Super simple too:

1. Add fresh, trimmed green beans to salted, boiling water
2. Blanch for about five minutes, drain
3. While beans are boiling in the pot, heat up a skillet with Earth Balance and a drop of EVOO (the EB gives it a buttery taste, but it tends to burn easily so the EVOO helps to keep it from burning.)
4. Chop up garlic (the more, the better I say) and toss it in the pan with the green beans. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
5. Sautee for 5-10 minutes (I’m not big on times/measurements, I just kind of eyeball it.)
6. Done!
 

This is super filling, stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. Generally I try to eat light and healthy, but sometimes a girl just needs something a little hardier to really hit the spot. DELISH!

So this week I made two batches of OREO BROWNIES, from a recipe I bookmarked from miss 365daysofvegan months ago. I left one batch with my parents while I was visiting my hometown and then made a double batch later in the week for a work pot luck. Both were very well received, but I would not recommend doubling the recipe. They didn’t come out quite as moist, and got too crisp around the edges for my taste.

But yeah, these brownies are killerrrr.

It is a good thing I don’t have a big sweet tooth, though, ‘cause now I understand how one can be a “fat vegan.”

(no pictures, they all got ate too fast!)

I was flipping channels late tonight and I peeped this cooking show on PBS called “Tommy Tang’s Easy Thai” He cooks with meat but it’s still seems like a pretty veg-friendly show; no eggs or dairy, just switch out the meat for some tofu or other protein. There was this one all-veg dish I want to try asap! (Not the most well-written recipe, I jotted it down real fast while I was watching)

From Tommy Tang’s Easy Thai: Sauteed shiitake mushroom and asparagus

Ingredients:
olive/vegetable oil
chopped garlic
chopped asparagus
shiitake mushrooms
soy sauce
hoisin sauce
brown sugar
white pepper

Directions:
heat just a little oil in a large pan, add garlic, then fresh asparagus
add mushrooms (can use dried shiitakes if fresh is not available, soak first in warm water 15 mins)
add tablespoon or so of soy sauce
add a little hoisin, not too much as it is salty too
add a pinch of brown sugar
add about half tablespoon of white pepper
optional: add a few slices of fresh ginger
Sautee until tender and serve over rice (Thai jasmine rice suggested)

Yummy!

I have some explaining to do… But first, here is my new favorite lunch:

I recently discovered a kind of ‘hole in the wall’ Japanese place on one of my lunch-time walks. They have veggie sushi rolls and chilled edamame (never had it chilled before and OMG love it!) for under 5 bucks! Delish. And it’s the only place around work I can rely on for a decent vegan lunch!

Ok, so my original goal with this blog was to document everything I ate during my transition into a vegan diet. Obviously the last month and a half I haven’t been doing that. But I have remained dairy-free, promise! See, this hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I thought I’d need this photo-log to keep me in check, but it has been a pretty smooth transition. I do have to admit I have not been eating very healthy lately though. February was a rough month emotionally for me so that’s where I started to go astray; skipping meals, not preparing healthy lunches, not getting nearly enough fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. But I did learn something (I always try to focus on the lesson and not the “failure.”) This is about more than cutting out foods, the foods that I do eat are just as important. A lot of the amazing benefits I was experiencing my first month went away; energy, smooth digestive system (ie “good poops” I have found vegans are all about this) and an overall sense of well-being.

So I am getting myself back on track. I need to get cookin’ again! I think my posts will be more about meals I cook and foods I love rather than actually documenting everything I eat.

K, so my goal is to cook something awesome this weekend and update on that! :)

This is what I made the basil pesto for, sooo yummy! I made a big ‘ole batch to eat on for the next few days. It was super easy to make, it’s just pasta + pesto + a bunch of veg.

For the pesto: I don’t really measure anything when I cook (measurements are for baking, I say!) so I just threw the basil in a handful at a time and added the olive oil bit by bit until I got the desired consistency. I also added two cloves of garlic (which may be a bit much for some people) and some salt and pepper. That’s it. I do feel like my pesto is missing just a little something to make it complete, but I don’t know what… lemon zest? I’ll try that next time.

I used quinoa pasta shells. While that was cooking I sauteed a few handfuls of quartered shiitake mushrooms, red onions, roasted red bell pepper, and one sneaky ingredient… chicken! Gardien “chicken” strips, of course. I thought of it at the last minute because I figured the dish needed some protein to make it complete. I picked up a couple packs on my way home, I’m mulling over some ideas for the rest of it.

I threw fresh broccoli in with the pasta for the last few minutes and drained. I picked out the broccoli and mixed the pesto in with just the pasta to coat it well. Then I rough chopped a handful of fresh spinach and mixed that in, then threw in the rest of my veg and stirred. Delish! And I think it will be good cold too. Be sure to check your teeth when youre done, tho :)