Homemade Lasagna

If you have read my About Me page or taken a look at our Nuggets page, you know that we have chickens.  Other than the eggs from our chickens, we are vegan.  Eventually, our eggs accumulate and we need to use them and that's when I make pasta.  There are many, excellent vegan pastas on the market.  The lasagna I made today would taste fabulous and be vegan using those.  I don't use cheese or milk, but I make the lasagna noodles from scratch.

I made the tomato sauce I made the other day, minus the mushrooms and plus carrots.  I sauteed 2 cups sliced mushrooms, but reserved them for their own layer in the lasagna.  I made a vegan bechemel sauce.  It's simple, though a bit of a splurge. 

3 T vegan butter 

3 T olive oil 

3 T flour ( I like white whole wheat)

2 cups soy milk ( or other non-dairy milk)

1 t dried italian herbs

salt

• melt butter and oil in pan until bubbly
• add flour and wisk
• cook flour until starts to brown slightly
• slowly add milk, stirring continuously with wisk
• stir in italian herbs
• salt to taste

If you have nutritional yeast you can add 1/4 to 1/2 cup before salting.


Layer tomato sauce, noodles, mushrooms, bechamel until pan is full.  Usually 2 layers of each.  I top it with the bechamel.  It browns nicely and gives the look of cheese.  This is vegan, but not something I would have all the time.  So good!

Sweet Pan-Fried Mochi

My daughter and I have discovered mochi.  So good.  Today we pan fried a couple squares each, drizzled them in agave syrup and sprinkled them with cinnamon.

Sweet Tooth Satisfied!

Spicy!

I live in the Southwest and spicy food is a staple here.  I was feeling like some comfort food, so I made vegan versions of my faves.

First I made pinto beans, seasoned with onions, sea salt and cumin.  

Then green chili sauce.  You start with the green chilies, of course.  I chose mild, they still have a little heat.  The frozen ones are best, unless you can find freshly roasted.  For one 13 oz container, saute a small onion and two cloves of garlic in a little canola oil over medium-high heat.

After the onions have started to soften, add 2 tablespoons of flour and cook an additional minute or so, until browned.  Then add the defrosted container of green chilies and about 1 cup of water.

Stir and bring mixture to boil, then reduce heat to low and allow to thicken, this picture is before the sauce came to a boil.

It takes about 15 min or so to thicken, salt to taste and serve.  It is served here on almost every thing.  Makes amazing green enchiladas.

I wanted something cold and fresh to go with the beans and rice, but was completely out of tomatoes and lettuce, so I decided to make a simple corn salsa.

• 1 green pepper
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
• 1 slice purple onion, diced
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• salt to taste

Combine and serve, very yummy.  If you want it to be hot, chop a jalapeno and add that.

I made a long-grain brown rice and seasoned it with salt and Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime.  I'm blessed to have a rice cooker, so not sure how long it took to cook exactly.  

Lunch was a big hit, we had some leftover chipotle tostadas from last week.  It was so good!  I served it with a little Tofutti sour cream.  The kids had some vegan cheese with theirs.

Letting Go

It's time to dump the fat pants, so to speak.  I'm talking about cookbooks.  I love to cook and have many cookbooks.  I only own two vegan ones, The Kind Diet and Clean Food.  I love them both and have relied heavily on them over the past few weeks.

It all started when I got my newest Cooking Light magazine in the mail late last week.  Usually, this is a highlight for me, but now I was viewing the magazine with new eyes.  I was surprised to see how few meatless recipes there were and almost all of those had cheese or another dairy.  There wasn't much left to make.  Being new to veganism, I am still learning how to use certain ingredients.  I need more instruction.  Not to mention, that some of the recipes looked good!  I haven't been tempted to have meat, until I looked through that magazine.  I just don't need that.

Then my daughter pointed out all my cookbooks were full of meat too.  I already new this, but I was holding on to them like a safety blanket.  Makes no sense, since I see this as a permanent change.  Even last week, when I went to the used book store to sell some books we no longer needed, I didn't include the cookbooks, why?  I decided they were like fat pants.  I was holding on to them just in case.  It's time to let go.  Strangely it feels like a bigger commitment that the initial one I made.  So today I'm going through the cookbooks, 11 already this morning, and scanning out any vegan recipes I find that sound good.  I have about 15 to 20 to go.   It feels good.  We are boxing them up for our monthly shopping trip, when I can turn them in.  Now I need to find some new vegan cookbooks!

I'm looking forward to the day when I'm really letting go of my fat pants.  I'm losing weight, my hubby too, but haven't gotten rid of clothes yet.  I think that will be truly awesome.

Polenta & Sun-Dried Tomato & Mushroom Sauce

I have always enjoyed polenta.  In the past I had purchased it in the tube and sauteed it in a pan.  Today I decided to make it myself.  It was quite simple.  It was soft and delicious.  To make it firm to saute, just simply chill and cut later.  The sauce I made was dark and rich.  Maybe a little heavy for summer, but it was so good.  We were so hungry and ate it so fast, there were no pictures taken!


Polenta:


7 cups water
1 2/3 cups yellow polenta
2-3 tsp sea salt

• In a large saucepan, bring the water and salt to a boil over medium high heat
• slowly add polenta, while stirring with a whisk
• after all the polenta has been added, reduce heat to low and cook, with lid on, until all the water is absorbed and the polenta is thick, stirring occasionally
• this took about 15 min, but I let it sit in the pan for a good 30 with the lid on while I prepared the sauce.

Sundried Tomato-Mushroom Sauce

1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes

8 oz baby portabella or other mushroom, sliced

1/4 cup red wine

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 med onion, finely chopped

3-4 sundried tomatoes, soaked in warm water until soft enough to dice

2 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

sea salt to taste

olive oil

• heat pan over medium-high heat
• drizzle with olive oil, enough to coat
• add onion, mushroom and garlic and saute for 3-4 min
• add basil and oregano and saute for 1 min
• add wine and saute 1 min
• add crushed tomatoes and sundried tomatoes.  Stir to combine and reduce heat to low
• cover and cook for 15 min, checking every 5 min.  Add small amount of water if starting to stick.
• taste and add salt to taste

New Location

Today I moved my blog from wordpress http://kinddietjourney.wordpress.com/ to blogger. I was unable to move any comments made before today. So, you'll have to look on the wordpress blog for those.

Thanks!

Alicia's Cheesecake

Baked vegan cheesecake

Today felt like it needed cheesecake. I have been wanting to bake a cheesecake forever. I think it is perfect that my very first cheesecake should be vegan. I used the cheesecake recipe in The Kind Diet. I love this book. I've yet to have a bad recipe, and this was no exception.

Mixing the Cheesecake filling in the blender

It was super easy to make and totally yummy. I put all the filling ingredients into my blender and simply poured it into the crust. I would have to warn that it is much more like a custard in texture than a cheesecake. If I was offering it to my non-vegan friends that is what I would call it. I also cheated. My local health food store had a vegan pre-made graham cracker crust, so I used that instead.

Right after I poured the filling into the graham crust

After realizing just how important and blender and food processor was I went and picked out the Ninja Master Prep Blender and Food Processor. I just love it. It's super easy to use and very quick clean-up. I will probably get a larger food processor bowl eventually, but for now this is perfect. Plus, it was really affordable.

Leftover Lovers

This morning was like any other. My husband wanted some hot cereal, so I started it for him. I'm a leftover girl. I prefer not to have to much sweet in the morning. The risotto from last night was calling my name and I thought it would taste just amazing with a baked sweet potato. So while the cereal cooked, I assembled my breakfast.

My husband is a strict, no leftovers for breakfast kind of guy. He usually wrinkles his nose and looks disgusted when me or the kids choose something savory for breakfast. So you can imagine my surprise when he came in for breakfast and saw my plate and asked if it was for him! Next thing I knew I was assembling a 2nd leftover plate. The hot cereal went to our Nuggets.

My New Favorite Thing To Cook

A little while back I made the Risotto from The Kind Diet. It was wonderful. Having always been intimidated by the thought of making a risotto, I was surprised how easy it was. So for our main meal today, I did it again. I followed the same basic steps, but I had different ingredients. This was flavored more like a pilaf. The carrots were added with the onion at the beginning and were perfectly done by the time the rice was ready. I just stirred in the frozen peas at the end. I had it with sautéed Gardein Scallopini (which I love!) and greens. My family loves this meal. It is very comforting and feels familiar to a bunch of new vegans.

Not So Fantastic Falafel

Ok, so when my husband and I were shopping last weekend we purchased two products form Fantastic. We had the Nature Burgers earlier this week and loved them. I felt like something fast and easy so we tried the l tonight. I didn't like it nearly as much. It dissolved in the oil, was way too dry and didn't taste that great. There were a lot leftover, which is never a good sign. The falafel I made a week ago were much better. Pics are here. I'm not sure if I did it wrong, so someone else might have better luck. However, making them from scratch was just as easy, and very tasty.