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.