A Busy, Busy Week Means A Bunch Of Quick Dinners

I know I stated in my last post, I've been really busy recently, and that's putting it mildly!  Along with quick and easy breakfasts, my dinners have been pretty quick and easy, too.  It's times like these, I am extremely thankful for stuff I make and tuck away in my freezer.  I'm also thankful for vegan convenience foods, reliable cookbooks with easy recipes, and takeout.  :)

Occasionally I have to work on a Saturday, and last Saturday afternoon was one of them.  I actually suspected I might have to work into the evening, which I did.  My son Blake had been helping me with yard work that morning, and we were both hungry.  I knew I wanted to eat something a little filling, just in case, but it couldn't be too time consuming, and it needed to be non vegan friendly, since Blake isn't vegan (yet).  I decided on the Sloppy Joes out of Vegan Junk Food (I just got this cookbook, and ironically, purchased Alicia Simpson's new Low Cal Vegan Comfort Food at the same time, go figure).  The Sloppy Joes were good.  Blake loved them, which is always a plus.  Next time I make them, I will probably reduce the salt called for by half, because I thought they were a tad salty (Blake, however, thought they were perfect as is and didn't need adjusting).  I topped mine with a little Daiya shredded cheddar, and had a mix of broccoli and cauliflower, along with some Trader Joe's Crunchy Curls on the side.  :)  Despite the name of the cookbook, the Sloppy Joes were filled with lots of good things.  Vegan Junk Food does have it's share of special occasion treats and once in awhile type meals, though, for sure.  This cookbook appears to have a lot of things in it that will appeal to non vegans, so I am definitely glad to have it in my arsenal of cookbooks.

Takeout Vegetable Lo Mein from I Wok in Savoy.  I added some baked tofu that had been marinated in Island Soyaki sauce and a little sriracha for good measure.  The food at I Wok is good, and you can easily take it with you or eat in.  The owners are a really nice young couple.  Although I Wok is slightly farther from me than other places, I will definitely go there occasionally to help support this nice family.  Luckily, I have family members that live in Savoy, so finding a reason to be in the area won't be too hard.  :)

This dinner took advantage of some Italian Sausage Cutlets I had stashed away in the freezer.  The cutlets are from Vegan Diner.  I grilled them real quick and served them with a Caprese Salad I made using some of the Mozzarella Teese I got at Veggiefest, along with tomatoes and basil from the farmer's market.  I really, really like the Mozzarella Teese in a cold salad like this.  I've also had the mozzarella in a grilled sandwich, and although it was quite good, I think cold is where it really shines.  I have to be fair and say I haven't used it yet on a pizza or melted in an Italian pasta dish, but I am excited that there is a vegan mozzarella that is so good straight from the package.  My tomatoes were pretty big, which is why I cut them in half for the salad (I know it looks a little funny).  The potatoes were another recipe from Vegan Junk Food.  They were really saucy and delicious.  After I shot the picture, I drizzled some of the sauce over my cutlet.  :)

Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Sausage in a Rudi's bun smothered with PPK Cashew Queso (I know I have this a lot), mustard, and diced red onion.  This time I had some baby tomatoes with smoked salt, and a broccoli/cauliflower blend topped with, you guessed it, Cashew Queso.  :)

A quick and easy noodle dish from Chloe's Kitchen.  These are the Peanutty Perfection Noodles.  I didn't have any green onions, so I added a little bit of sweet onion.  I also had part of a yellow pepper I wanted to finish off, so I threw it in.  Despite the fact that my rice noodles were a little overdone (I'm easily distracted sometimes), this dish was right up my peanut butter loving alley.  I sure hope things slow down this week.  :)

A Busy, Busy Week Means A Bunch Of Quick Breakfasts

I have been really busy this week!  Most days I've been up and running pretty early.  My breakfasts haven't been anything too elaborate, but they have been good.

One of my quick go to breakfasts, leftover quinoa (when I'm planning on using it for breakfast, I make it with plain water or non dairy milk) reheated with more almond milk, dried cherries, and sliced banana.

Super easy Carrot Cake and Zucchini Bread Oatmeal from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester.  This really does sort of taste like a marriage between carrot cake, zucchini bread, and oatmeal.  The next time I make this I will probably only use half the sweetener she calls for, it was a little sweet for me, although still amazing.  I love that she uses steel cut oats for her slow cooked oatmeal, and it is great to put it in the crock pot before you go to bed at night, and wake up to yummy oatmeal in the morning.  She has tons of oatmeal (and other) recipes on her blog that look delicious.  I can see using these recipes a lot when the weather gets colder.

Another couldn't be easier breakfast.  Nature's Path Chia Plus frozen waffles, heated in the toaster oven for a few minutes, then topped with homemade peach jam given to me by a friend.  These waffles are another thing I just tried for the first time this month, and they are really good.  They are also gluten free.

My most elaborate breakfast this week.  I did actually take the time to make a throw together tofu scramble one morning.  I had it with whole wheat toast and honeydew.

Something I've been eating for breakfast, snack, and even dessert lately, is Nature's Path Apple Crumble Love Crunch.  The story about how the original Love Crunch came to be is nice, it's on the back of the bag, plus they donate money and organic food to a food bank for every bag purchased.  I like the Dark Chocolate and Red Berries flavor (I think this might actually be the one they originally created, the dark chocolate and the apple are the two flavors that are vegan), but the Apple Crumble is the one that's really stolen my heart.  The apple is so good I almost have to hide the bag from myself when I buy it.  :)

A Veggie Fest Filled Saturday

My husband and I went to Veggie Fest in Naperville on Saturday.  We had so much fun.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and I didn't really get any good pictures with my phone.  There was so much amazing vegan food.  For our main courses, we had the most wonderful Cajun Chik'n and Rice from Auntie Hannah's Caribbean Kitchen (I'm seriously drooling just typing about it, it was that good), and delicious 'Beef' and Broccoli and Sweet and Sour Chik'n from Asian Palace.  For dessert, we tried the award winning Carrot Cake from Cafe Indigo and Chocolate NadaMoo!  I attended a couple of the food demos, one of which was Ellen Jaffe Jones author of Eat Vegan on $4 A Day.  She had a lot of good basic information and it was interesting to hear her story.  She is basically the only female in her family who hasn't had breast cancer.

There were tons of booths handing out samples, giving away coupons and goodies, and running special festival pricing on things you could buy to take home with you.  There was also a booth where they were giving free massages.  I had too many other things drawing my attention, but my husband was on that booth like jelly on peanut butter.

After we got home, I did take some pictures of a few things I picked up.  One of the things I'm most excited about is this adorable skirt I got for only $12.  I love it and just couldn't resist sharing.  :)

Chicago Vegan Foods, makers of Dandies marshmallows and Teese vegan cheeses had a booth.  They were giving out marshmallow samples and had awesome festival pricing on both the marshmallows and the cheeses.  I love the marshmallows so I knew for sure I wanted to snag a few of those.  I'd heard about Teese before, but had never tried it.  Although Teese is made in Chicago, which isn't very far, none of our local stores carry it (thank goodness they do carry the marshmallows).

I got The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book.  It's a cute little book filled with a decent number of recipes for our four legged family members.  This book is more of an encouragement for those who have already decided to feed their dog/dogs a vegan diet.  It's not meant to be a comprehensive book for those researching the subject.  Last night, I made Rover's Risotto to supplement Duchess and Hollie's vegan kibble for the week.  They gobbled up there first helping this morning.  :)  There is everything from basic meals and treats to Bowser's Birthday Cake.  I'm glad I picked it up on a whim.

Trader Joe's was pretty much on the way home, so of course we stopped.  There are several things I like to get when I'm at Trader Joe's, but I am always on the lookout for new things.  I don't remember seeing the Coconut Milk Yogurts the last time I was there, but I spotted them this time.  They had Blueberry and Vanilla, and even though it doesn't say it on the front, when you read the ingredients on the back, it's got organic ingredients.  The Blueberry was good, although a little sweet for me, but I loved the Vanilla.

No trip to Trader Joe's is complete without these.  :)

Cream Cheese Three Ways

I have two daughters that work at Atlanta Bread (which is similar to Panera, if you're not familiar with it).  My youngest daughter is a manager, and my middle daughter, although she's graduated from college and has a job in her field now, still works there on Saturdays while she is saving up to buy a house.  Atlanta Bread has a couple of vegan options, and several things that can easily be made vegan.  For any of you locals out there, both of my daughters are very knowledgeable in that area.  ;)

Most of Atlanta's bagels are vegan, although if you are eating in, you are pretty much limited to peanut butter and/or jelly to put on it (their peanut butter is really good though).  A couple of Saturdays ago, I stopped in to get a drink (they have lots of good teas) and say hi to my daughters.  They had samples out of a cream cheese spread they had just made, jalapeno cheddar.  Although I wasn't going to eat it, I admitted to my middle daughter that the concept sounded good.  She commented that I could easily make it at home with vegan ingredients.  That girl's a genius I tell you.  :)  It made perfect sense in its simplicity, why hadn't I thought of it.  From there, I embarked on a journey of vegan cream cheese spreads.

The first one I made was, of course, after my initial inspiration.  I used half an 8 oz. container of vegan cream cheese (I like Galaxy brand), then I threw in some chopped up pickled jalapenos ( to taste) and part of a Daiya Jack wedge chopped into small pieces.  I mixed it all together and it was good to go.  The amount of cream cheese ended up being enough to generously cover 2 bagels and a few crackers.  It was even better the next day after the flavors had melded a little more.

Sorry, I almost forgot to take a picture of this one.  :)

My next cream cheese spread was inspired by the strawberry flavored cream cheese I use to buy before I became vegan.  This was another success.  I used this recipe and halved it, subbing vegan cream cheese and I used agave instead of powdered sugar.  Again for me, this ended up being enough for 2 bagels and a little extra.  This was even better than I remember buying at the store.

The most recent one I made was after something I think I tried at some point, but can't really remember for sure.  It was sundried tomato and basil.  Just like before, I started with half a tub of vegan cream cheese, threw in some sundried tomatoes and some chopped fresh basil and mixed it all up.  I used sundried tomatoes packed in oil, rinsed off, but I would have rehydrated dried ones if I'd have had any at the time.  This picture is what it looked like later in the day.  Initially it was white with the red and green flecks, but after sitting in the refrigerator a couple of hours, I stirred it again and it turned this color.

I'm glad I recently stocked up on vegan cream cheese, because now I'm thinking maybe a black olive spread or raspberry, the possibilities are endless.

Corned Seitan And A Summer Dinner

I love Robin Robertson.  Her cookbooks are among some of my favorites.  I know if I want to make something, I can almost always find it in one of her cookbooks (or on her blog), and count on the recipe to be solid.

Her Corned Seitan with Cabbage, out of Vegan on the Cheap was no exception to this rule.  It utilizes a slow cooker, which I've been quite interested in lately, and is really good.  The first night I had corned seitan and cabbage with potatoes and made a mustard sauce to go over it (sorry no picture).  Yum.

Here it is before cooking.  It's a good size seitan roast.

For breakfast the next day, I made corned seitan hash.  I chopped the seitan, onions, potatoes and red pepper into pieces approximately the same size, and sauteed in a little olive oil until the potatoes were tender.  Yum again.

Then for lunch, I made a reuben with the seitan, sauerkraut, Daiya mozzarella and the Very Secret Sauce out of Vegan Diner.  I actually made these a couple of days in a row.  Yum again and again!  Needless to say, I definitely got a lot of use out of the Corned Seitan, and it came together easy without heating up the kitchen.

This was my dinner tonight.  Look at that plate of summer deliciousness.  Sweet corn and tomatoes from the farmer's market, as well as homemade pesto using basil from the farmer's market.  The pesto was on whole wheat baguette from Strawberry Fields.  I also had truroots organic sprouted quinoa trio.  I just got this quinoa for the first time last month and I really like it.  It's so pretty to look at, and I think it has a slightly nutty taste.  If I'm not making it for breakfast, I usually add just a tiny amount of Better Than Bouillon No Beef Base or No Chicken Base to the water to give it a little extra flavor.  I talked about the Gardein Southern BBQ Riblet here.  The bbq sauce on these is so good, and bbq anything screams summer to me.  This dinner was made complete with some iced tea, lightly sweetened with stevia and agave syrup, and a fresh peach from the farmer's market.  I love eating like this in the summer.  :)

A Fun Day And A Dinner Disappointment

Saturday was my husband's company picnic.  We decided to take the granddaughters.  We knew they would have a blast with all of the activities planned for kids.  I have to admit, I was impressed, not only with everything they did for the employees and their families, but the thought put into it.  They had a vegan food option, which was a pleasant surprise.  It was an awesome veggie wrap.  They also had all kinds of blow ups for the kids, everything from a bouncy house to an obstacle course, a huge slide and a giant blown up slip and slide with water spraying in all directions.  There was miniature golf, bingo, giveaways, face painting, and a giant monster truck called The Raminator that we could ride in.  They had snow cones from a Mahomet youth club and two other local vendors (who are regularly at the farmer's market) with free goodies for us.  There was definitely no lack of things to do.  With a heat index that day of 105, the water slide was a huge success.  Both girls loved it, especially Kaia, who went on it at least 30 times.  :)  They both got a kick out of The Raminator, surprisingly Lexi liked it the most.  Of course, both girls wanted their face painted.

Lexi loves Minnie Mouse.  This is early in the process.

My little Hello Kitty.

We were all pretty exhausted when we left (we were there for almost 4 hours).  I gave the girls baths when we got home and that seemed to revive them, although Lexi hated to wash the remnants of her Minnie Mouse off.  :)

We decided to go to a local Italian restaurant for dinner, my husband had a half off certificate he had purchased earlier.  I ordered a vegetarian pasta that had tomatoes, black olives, onions sauteed in olive oil and fresh basil, omitting the parmesan cheese sprinkled on top to make it vegan (or so I thought).

This is the picture I took before realizing what was wrong.

I had clarified with the waitress that the dish was vegetarian, and that the only dairy or egg in it was the cheese sprinkled on top.  She also double checked my salad dressing and left the croutons off of my salad.  

She was very nice and I thought we understood each other. I never try to be difficult, but I am specific.  I was enjoying my dinner, when about a third of the way into it, something tasted fishy (literally).  I started looking through my pasta and I found pieces of anchovy!  I was upset and got the waitress's attention.  When I mentioned the anchovy, she said "Oh sorry, they use one as a secret ingredient in the sauce, but they don't usually leave it in when it's served."  I told her it's not vegetarian when it has fish in it, which anchovy is.  She apologized and took the dish away.  I wasn't going to finish it, and at this point I had lost my appetite so I didn't want anything else.  I didn't want to ruin dinner for everyone, so we stayed, and my husband and the girls finished their dishes.  When our bill came, they had taken $3 off of a $14 dinner for my inconvenience.  Still trying to be diplomatic, I spoke to the manager about the confusion.  She also commented that the anchovy is a secret ingredient, but that it can be made without it to be vegetarian.  I pointed out that unless my server asked the chef for me, I have no way of knowing to ask for it to be made without anchovy, since I wasn't even told it had anchovy in the first place.  They did end up taking my dinner off the bill, which I'm glad they did, but more than that I wanted them to understand what was wrong.  I tried not to be the 'crazy vegan lady' but I don't know how well I did.  Have you ever had a similar situation and if so how did you handle it?

I Can Make Good Indian Food At Home

I was recently at a local vegan meet up where one of the couples brought some really good Chana Masala they had made.  I started talking with one of the other ladies there about how I love Indian food, but never feel like I really do it justice when I try and make it at home.  It's usually edible, but nowhere near restaurant quality. It's usually not even what I would call really good.  She commented that she has had success at home, and told me maybe I should give it another try with a different recipe, so that's what I did.  I searched the web and decided on Vegan Belle's Vegetable Korma.  

I'm so glad I decided to try cooking Indian food at home again because this was delicious.  My husband (apparently not noticing the dishes and pans ?), asked where I got it from.  Rather than be offended, I took it as a compliment, it was restaurant quality.  :)

I didn't have any cauliflower, so I used frozen broccoli.  I also added some golden raisins.  Other than that I followed her recipe exactly.  I will say, while she states that it's mild, mine seemed a little spicy.  Luckily, we love spicy food!  I know the cayenne pepper I use is a little wicked, and it's always possible I grabbed the hot curry powder instead of regular sweet curry powder.  :)  This made quite a bit, so I even got to freeze myself a helping for later.  I served it with naan bread and tamarind chutney.  Yum!