Vegan Tacos

“Meat” Ingredients
1 cup of walnuts
1 tbsp vegan mayonnaise
2 small pearl onions
1 tbsp taco seasoning

“Cheese” Ingredients
1 cup of peeled chopped potatoe
2 small carrots
2 – 3 tbsp of olive oil
2 tbsp of nutritional yeast

Additional Ingredients
Tomato
Kale

Directions
1. Soak walnuts overnight in water
2. Boil potatoes and carrots until soft enough to mash
3. Add cheese ingredients to a blender. Blend until smooth and the consistency of nacho cheese
4. Drain walnuts
5. Add meat ingredients to a blender. Blend until smooth but crunchy
6. Put together your taco topped with chopped tomatoes and Kale (or toppings of your choosing)

Homemade Red Pepper Hummus

Ingredients
• 1 cup of dried chickpeas
• 3 tbsp tahini
• 1/4 cup chopped red pepper
• 1 lemon fresh squeezed
• 4 tbsp Olive oil

Directions
1. Soak chickpeas in water overnight. Water should cover chickpeas
2. After soaking,  bring medium pot to boil
3. Drain chickpeas,  there shouldn’t be much excess water
4. Place into pot and cook about 10 minutes or until chickpeas can be squished between fingers
5. After cooked add all ingredients to blender and mix until smooth
6. Serve with veggies of your choosing

Sriracha Tofu on Rosemary & Sage Crackers

Cracker Ingredients
• Almond pulp (I had this left over from making almond milk)
• Rosemary to taste (I used about 1 tbsp)
• Sage to taste (I used about 1 tsp)
• 3 – 4 tbsp Olive Oil

Directions
1. Mix together well,  should be a wet consistency but not runny
2. Put pulp mixture in between two sheets of parchment paper
3. Use rolling pin over the parchment paper and roll pulp out to thin layer
4. Place in dehydrator for about 10 hours (according to mine)
5. After dehydrated, you can break the pull into cracker like shapes

Tofu Ingredients
• Extra firm tofu
• Vegan mayonnaise
• Sriracha sauce
• Pepper to taste
• Salt to taste

Directions
1. Mix all ingredients together,  where consistency looks like egg salad
2. Pick a garnish
3. Top crackers with garnish and tofu mixture

Mung Bean Bulgar Soup

Ingredients
Half a container of vegan vegetable stock
1/4 cup bulgar
1/4 cup mung beans
1 Roma tomato diced
1 tbsp of garlic salt
1 tbsp of celery seed
1 tbsp of peppercorns
3 pearl onions peeled and diced
1/2-1 cup water

Directions
1. Place all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours
2. Add water based on your preference for the thickness of the soup (the bulgar soaks up the stock).
3. Cook on high for an hour
4. Serve – if thicker consistency the soup is good with garlic crackers for dipping.

Quinoa with Green Peppers and Tomatoes

Ingredients
2/3 cup of quinoa
1 1/4 cup of water
Half green pepper diced
Half tomato chopped
2 pearl onions chopped
1/4 cup of cumin
1 tsp red curry paste
1 tbsp earth balance butter (I used preflavored with garlic)
Pinch of saffron
Black pepper to taste

Directions

Add all ingredients to medium size sauce pan
Cook on medium heat for 20-30 minutes or until liquid is absorbed (stir occasionally)
Serve!

Vegan in Bahrain

Still catching up on travel postings, here’s my thoughts on traveling to Bahrain. First, because the country has influence from mediterranean places I wasn’t concerned at all prior to travel. There are many individuals that are expats from India and The Philippines so the cuisine is very diverse.

The first thing I tried was a traditional Arabic breakfast.

Now I did request that it came without the cheese, but it came anyways. The main dish is called medames, which is a bean lentil type soup. It was absolutely to die for. The breakfast itself came with dates, olives, bread, labneh, halloumi, and medames. This is pretty much what I ate every morning (sans dairy products).

I also tried something called poori bhaji which is a type of pancakes that comes with a sweet curry sauce.

Most of my other meals consisted of lentil soup and hummus.

Overall it was fairly easy finding something to eat within my dietary restraints. I did learn that vegan isn’t part of the cuisine lingo, mostly people say vegetarian non dairy when ordering a meal.

Vegan in Lisboa

Well here’s another adventure of eating abroad. This time I was off to Lisboa. I was slightly concerned because Lisboa is known for it’s variety of fish dishes. So like always I packed a few packets of bars, shake mixes, and almond butter packets. Fortunately, I had no need to use any of them because finding vegan cuisine was quite easy and the people that were hosting me were amazing at finding places.

Here’s a few of the places specifically for vegetarians and vegans.

Tibetanos – Great little restaurant. I would suggest reservations they were packed! Many dishes are seitan or tofu based. The owner of the restaurant was very nice and seemed to stop by to each table to make sure everyone was enjoying their experience.

Terra – Great buffet! Fully vegan. Delicious apple crisp to end the meal. They also seemed to operate more off of reservations, but they were accommodating to walk-ins. There were a few tofu dishes but mostly seemed to be carefully and creatively cooked vegetables. I can’t even remember exactly what I had but all of it was delicious!!!

Jardim doSentidos – Full menu of vegetarian and vegan options. I had a delicious pumpkin pancake as an appetizer with a warm salad as my entree. The salad had field greens topped with sauteed veggies and a vinaigrette. Serving sizes were quite big and could have fed two people.

Natraj – Great Indian restaurant. Serve people of all palettes. My favorite vegan Indian dish is Channa Masala with Roti (sans butter). This place had one of the best Channa dishes I’ve had in a really long time!

I wish I remembered to grab the business cards of all the places I ate because honestly every place was accommodating and vegan friendly. I  would love to hear from other vegans that have traveled to Lisboa and what experience they had eating there. These two thoughts always cross my mind when traveling

1. Am I missing something by not partaking in the cultural dining experience? I find that I get to experience a different side of the culture while dining, mostly how hospitable people are.

2. It’s okay if something sneaks into my diet. I can’t expect others to manage my diet like I do and especially with a language barrier understand everything I say I don’t want in my meal.

In the mood for a sandwich?

Well it’s been too long but I’m planning to get back to cooking and posting (I swear!). I’ve just gotten back from a couple trips out of town, one international, which it’s on my to-do to do a posting about eating vegan while traveling. Anywho… I wanted a good sandwich tonight and was too lazy to go to my favorite staple Ike’s Lair. So I threw together this bad boy. But who cares about a sandwich right?! Well this was my first time using tempeh bacon and I’m a fan!

Ingredients
Daiya cheese cheddar slices
Vegenaise
Kale
3 slices of tempeh bacon
Mack’s Flax Sprouted Bread
Sliced tomato

Directions
Heat the bacon according to package
Slap it together as you like
Nosh!

Tofu Salad

I just realized that I do a lot of cooking with mushrooms, especially portobello ones. Also, I recently found out I am severely vitamin D deficient, like so many of us are. So I’ve decides to up my mushroom intake, plus a vegan supplement. For those of you that don’t know some mushrooms are grown in ultraviolet lights to produce vitamin D. Each cup of mushrooms grown like this can give you about 400 IUs of Vitamin D. My philosophy is the less supplements I need to take the better. Outside of having the potential Vitamin D benefit, mushrooms also are a source of B vitamins (including B6 & B12).

So here’s the tofu salad recipe with portobello mushrooms!

Ingredients:
• 1 portobello mushroom cap
• handful of cherry tomatoes (varied colors)
• half of a firm tofu square (about 4 ounces)
• one large spoonful of Earth Balance Mayo
• salt
• pepper
• paprika
• chiptole seasoning

Directions:
1. Slice and steam mushroom cap until tender
2. Chop tomatoes and crumble tofu
3. Put all ingredients into bowl and add serve
4. Stir until mixed
5. Chill for 1-2 hours and serve

Watermelon Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Here’s a nice refreshing salad for the upcoming hot summer months. Its super simple and I find that the watermelon takes away some of the butter flavor of raw Kale. This posting is mainly for the dressing I made

Salad Ingredients
• chopped Kale
• sliced watermelon
• chopped walnuts

Dressing Ingredients
• spoonful of tahini
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup water
• 3 – 4 raspberries

Directions
• Blend all dressing ingredients together until smooth and top your salad! Viola!