Veganmofo: Set yourself up for success: fast, easy ways to get yourself fed when time or mental health isn't on your side

Somedays you have time, ingredients, and space to prep and make a ton of rad experimental delicious vegan goodies and other times our energy levels, stress, work, lives, mental health, budget or a million other things are just telling you that you cannot.

This has been a huge huge struggle for me the past few years having moved into an apartment with a less then ideal kitchen, poor storage space, low counter space, and only being in the province 2 days a week meals groceries (and produce) are a rare sight. When you are in a hotel more often then home eating right or at all becomes a struggled so here is a collection of tips, tricks, recipes and hacks I have collected and will be posting throughout the month on Instagram and here!

 Especially when it comes to depression or mental health I find it important to remind myself that A) eating is important and B) healthy eating is important but eating period is better then nothing.

Something that helps me the most is having a stash of emergency food. Simple easy to prep food of various levels of nutrition. Maybe this food is all you have the energy to make, or maybe eating it will give you enough time/energy to make something better. Regardless eating is important some things I find helpful to keep on hand.

Meals/Food

• Canned veggie soups/chilli
• Potatoes (mashing, frying, baking they are endlessly usefull filling & last a while. mashed potatoes takes very little effort and you can kinda let the pot boil while you do something else. Make extra mashed potatoes. Leftovers are useful and saves you energy later)
• instant oatmeal (or ground oatmeal which is basically the same) Regular oatmeal isn't too diffcult and overnight oats work as well, but if instant is the difference between you eating and not then buy the instant
• ramen/instant noodles: faster then regular noodles and if you have dried veggies/miso/frozen veggies/tvp you can easily bulk it up & make it healther
• protein powder: Smoothies are easy, vegan milk/ice/banana/fruit/green any combo of those. If you just have vegan milk, mix the protein powder in it's better then nothing.
• Boxed pilafs/flavoured grain or dry grain & powdered veggie broth. They last forever and are super easy/filling as a main or side.
• Fake meats/vegan frozen meals/burritos: When you feel up to it cook, freeze your extras. If you are short on time or energy it is ok to buy these things, even if they are pricey. Be honest and gentle with yourself, will you eat this? will you be able to eat this with an easy side? 
• boxed mixes (easy enough to make your own and store for fast pancakes or biscuits or seitan just store the dry ingredients in a jar in your pantry with the wet instructions. Yah this isn't crazy easier then just following a recipe but when your brain is fried having 1/2 the work already done helps)
• Frozen dumplings/samosas/spring rolls: Carb/veggies/sometimes protein done. Check asian grocery stores for better quality but even the North American style frozen options are better then nothing.
• Indian curry pouches: They have loads of accidentally vegan curry pouches, normally they are stored in a metal pouch you can boil or dump into the nuke. If you feel up to it add a grain or eat alone.
• Frozen waffles/pancakes: Either buy some on sale or whenever you make pancakes freeze the extra to pop in the toaster.

Ingredients/Things to keep on hand for fast bulking

•  frozen veggies: great for when you haven't been able to hit the grocery store, you can add them to bulk up & healthify almost anything. 


• Mixed veggies for ramen/stirfries/sides/soups/top potatoes
• single veggie types: Ideally greens (spinach/kale/chard/broccoli/peas) tend to be more nutritious and easily added to anything from mac-n-cheese (boxed or from scratch), butter noodles, ramen, as a side, added to mashed potatoes, or biscuits
• Steamed veggies are an easy side or way to improve any meal (you got some instant rice, add veggies/baked potato topped with veggies)
• miso: add hot water for warming broth, flavour powerhouse from soups to gravies to roasted veggies or just mix with vegan butter on steamed veggies
•  
• tvp unlike tofu or tempeh or faked meats it can be stored forever in the pantry and added to anything (jarred pasta sauce boiled with tvp is instantly more filling) rehydrate it with soysauce and eat on rice or noodles or tacos I like to keep both the minced and chunk kind available
• 
• lentils : similar to TVP last forever easily cooked into dahl curries, or to bulk up soups, add them to rice/grains in the same pot. chillis, Tacos, Burritos, Spagettie sauce the uses are endless. Red lentils can thicken soups/curries, you can make spreads or dips for cold portable food or filling stews/casseroles/potpies etc
•  
• broth powder: you can toss grain/lentils/tvp/frozen veggies into a pot with some veggie broth for a cheap filling meal that takes very little time
• 
• Nut butter: if you were able to get fruit or bread or crackers it makes an acceptable filling snack or meal. You can toss it into oats, smoothies, with miso to make sauces. Toast is an acceptable meal if that is what you have.
• Jarred sauces: Pasta sauce/tomato sauce is super versitile and useful but taco sauces/bbq sauce/curry sauces or paste are all easy flavour boosts. You can easily marinade veggies or tofu by throwing them together with a jarred sauce then into the oven later.
• jarred lemon juice from tea, to muffins, to sauces, to veggies/noodles, lemon garlic noodles
• minced garlic/frozen pureed garlic/ginger or peeled and frozen garlic/ginger + micro-plane zester makes seasoning super easy flavour
• Curry powder/All seasoning mix: make a mixture you love or buy one. Something you like the taste of makes eating easier. Just nuke a potato or veggie, instantly season soups. You can make your own to make your fav dishes even faster or to change up instant ramen, grains or steam veggies
• Leftovers. Anything you have already made can be saved for later, try to make a habit of freezing extras for later. Even freezing plain cooked grains or beans can make the difference between feeding yourself something good later on with minimal prep. 
• Hemp Hearts: not the most frugal thing but these nutritional power houses can be added to anything. Batters, smoothies, pudding, apple with PB, sweet or savory they help me feel better about whatever I am eating. I usually toss them on top of everything for a little bit of texture. Their duality between real food and desserts means you can always add a little boost to your food
  

I will try to showcase some more ideas and tips as the month goes on with more details!
But happy Mofo! <3

Veganmofo15: Lunch on the go! #19

For the ultra lazy vegan on the go: microwave burritos!

Behold the burrito!

These are a pretty simple standard in our house hold, where we make huge batches to freeze for fast and lazy meals.

The steps are pretty simple: Buy bulk tortillas when on sale, cook a large pot of rice and a large pot of refried beans and optional black beans/salasa.

Everyone has their own go to recipe, but I prefer to make lime scented rice, with refried pinto beans +jalapenos, Cooked cumin scented black beans and optional diaya or fire roasted tomatoes.

Once assemble you add a base of rice, re-fried bean and your toppings  then roll them up by the dozen. We then wrap ours in paper towel and freeze for up to six months (but really they never last this long). Although it seems sacrilegious, I don't usually put salsa in these and instead serve them with salsa on the side. I find this helps them keep longer in the freezer without getting weird. We do sometimes cook the beans with tomato/onion/salsa for flavor, but you want to avoid rolling them with anything too wet.

I actually found this rogue burrito in the bottom of our freeze from a batch made last year, which was still quite good. I ate it with some Salsa my roommate's parent's brought us from their supply (which is not spicy, so I added equal parts sriracha and tobasco). I prefer to serve them with hot sauce/salsa on the side or ontop after they are cooked.

Burritos really aren't a pretty food. Sorry.

My roommate Tory started this tradition, and honestly it is a pretty great way to keep everyone fed during the killer school months and other high stress times. She recommends nuking them burrito in its paper towel for 1-1.30min flip then repeat on the other side. I typically nuke them then bake them on high for a bit or pan fry to get them crispy on the outside.

Either way enjoy this filling, portable, and lazy vegan lunch. Happy Mofo!

VeganMofo V: Bachelorette Meals Part 1

Sometimes after a long day at work/school/volunteering and you kinda just need to put something in your face before you take the dog out and go to bed. The PPK has been a little obsessed with these terrible, lack-luster or otherwise poor meal offerings that us single folk like to chow down on. I'm a little bit obsessed too.

Bachelorette Meals might not be the mightiest of offerings but they have served me well enough through years of university. They certainly haven't killed me yet. And since this The Unhealthy Vegan Blog I figure the pseudo meals deserve some lime light. In all their single-hood-glory, I bring you yet another series of lameness:

Vegan Eats for Sad-n-Single Folks: Bachelorette Meals 
(there is a tongue and cheek thing happening here, in case that didn't come through).

These sad offerings of non-meals consumed by the lonely over the sink in their single bedroom apartments sometimes in the wee-hours of the morning.

Many are limited to grains with seasoning, spoonfuls of spreads, crackers for the adventurous. Just clicking through the thread, almost makes me want to cook/eat my way through it.

So now, I'll show case a few examples from over the many years of single-dom through which I've survived.

Fried Tofu

A single persons best friend. Fried foods offer the warm comfort that others may gain through companionship, it's fat content and protein-y goodness makes this humble offering an speedy way to a sustained stomach so you can get back to watching The Early Edition on Netflix.

Bonus points here for this is pre-fried packaged tofu puffs from the Asian discount store. So I just opened the pack and poured some sauce into the dipping bowls. But I used fancy dipping bowls and lacquered chopsticks, LIKE A LADY.

Burritos
Frozen morsels of salvation. Even making them yourself can count as bachelorette chow (what you opened some can beans and put it on some bread, face it you are one of us). Although the below pictured is actually a wicked-fancy-stuffed-to-the-max-morsel from a local take out place, it's take-out so the cooking effort was dialing the phone.

ok, sorry not the most photogenic of foods.

And unlike 98% of Bachelorette-Chow Burritos may actually offer more than one food group/nutrient requirement. So really, these are the all-stars of single-person-foods, there is avocado and lettuce in there. FRESH VEGGIES (sometimes frozen veggies, but at least they are green).

Bachelorette-Smash
Perhaps the closest thing to true bachelorette-chow, The Smash features a selection of available edibles a-top a baked potato. Most often a can of drained chickpeas, fake-bacon-bits, and seasoning. Earth balance if one is feeling refined.

Bonus points for microwaved potatoes that are then pressed with a fork in your bowl and seasoned with spice mix.

Boxed-Mac
Although the vegan version is arguably not of the same neon-orange calibre, it is still packaged and easy. So I figured it deserved a brief mention.

I will conclude this post for now on the ultimate bachelorette meal the one that inspires pity form your friends and family. Assending to new culinary lows in bad habits and despair, may I present:


The Vegan-Ice-Cream Diner
It can be observed in two distinct levels of culinary thought and levels of desolation, the classier approach is the dinner sunday which offers the comforting embrace of sugar.

Not only does this distinguished school of thought offer the user the self-esteem-boost which comes from eating out of an actually dish but it's liberal thoughts on flavour mingling and add-ins provides an assortment of sugar sources.

This is for the classy-folks among us

 The second school, is reserved for the more accustomed solo-travellers. Those who have been segregated from humanity long enough to shed even the most basic of social customs. This level of desperation and loneliness should not be rushed, it can only be undertaken after sufficient solitude. Always alone, often unspoken, this is the meal eaten with a shield of humility. The meal we hide from our cats/dogs, because you don't want anyone watching you eat this.

It's clean-up is a breeze and it's social stigma is long lasting. Ice-cream from the carton. Bonus points for both eating the whole thing at once and for the sad-affair of returning the half eaten carton to the fridge to eat for dinner the next day.

Happy Mofo Folks!