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!

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!

Mung Bean & Bulgar

So here’s two ingredients I haven’t really cooked with. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so this is what I came up with! Hope you enjoy my cooking experiment.

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Bulgar
• 1/4 cup mung beans
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water
• 3 stalks of asparagus chopped
• White onion to taste
• 1/4 cup Low Country Spice
• Pepper to taste

Directions

• Start with 1 cup of water in slow cooker
• Place all ingredients in the cooker
• Cook on low heat for 1.5 hours – add 1/2 cup of water continue to cook on low heat for another 1.5 hours

Ideas for serving

• Eat just as is
• Use as filling for taco or tortilla with additional fixins’
• Form together and fry in pan to make patties

Vegetable Spring Roll Ravioli

Okay as promised, I made a “ravioli” from the spring roll wrappers. I also decided to give a sauce mix a chance at the same time.

Ingredients

• About 4 medium sized  mushrooms
• 3 to 4 leaves of Kale (less if you don’t want a strong Kale taste)
• 2 “one bite” potatoes
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• 1 to 2 Tbsp of Tahini
• 2 Spring Roll wrappers
• 1 package of Sauce Mix (I used Road’s End Organics Alfredo Style)

Directions

• Place mushrooms, kale, potatoes, garlic, tahini, salt and pepper in a blender or food processor and let mix until desired consistency. If you prefer a creamer mixture add the milk of your choice or  a little water.
• Follow the instructions on the sauce mix (Boil 1/2 water and slowly add mixture) – Pretty simple.
• Wet the spring roll wrapper. Once the wrapper is malleable, cut into pieces. I found that triangle shaped worked best for wrapping.
• Put some of the vegetable mixture in the middle and fold up so all ends are sealed. Place with edges down on the plate. Continue wrapping until you have the desired amount of ravioli.
• Once Alfredo sauce is down, spoon amount onto each ravioli. I found these best to be eaten with your fingers. I rolled my ravioli to be bite sized.

Things to think of:

• Hold off on the salt – the sauce mix has a pretty salty taste
• Less Kale and more mushrooms depending on your taste preferences