Meal Preps & shout out to Moon @Things2Eat

Hey Folks,

I know it has been a long hiatus and those on Instagram can vouch that I have in fact been eating however I have not been cooking. Some may know I got a new job working for Via Rail, which means most of my days are spent on a long haul train, the rest in a hotel in montreal and occasionally a few days back home in bed. As such, since my move to Dartmouth cooking has fallen by the wayside and honestly that bums me and my stomach out.

Sure we've had some tasty food here and there but for the most part, it has been sparse. I still follow all kinds of you lovely folks online with your cooking adventures from the side lines but as fortune has it I have a whopping 4 days home; I've been following alone the lovely Moon's @Things2Eat blog project where she crafts menu plans from blogs around the vegan-sphere. So please, please, please check out her mailing list and meal plans.

@Things2Eat

**Menu Plan Sept 3-9 Original post+recipes**

So yesterdays big adventure was getting groceries which I haven't done in months, I mean MONTHS. With my schedule more often then not things when bad, and there just wasn't time which also meant there wasn't fresh food and so you can see why some of my recent grams were a bit bland.

Meal Preps in action, carnage from multiple recipes on going.

One thing I think I would like to start doing is keeping a better photo record of receipts and food prices here, because it seems they can be somewhat steep or maybe I can work harder on spending less. Let me know if you folks would be interested in seeing more grocery hauls & cost stuff, or if I should leave it to Instagram posts.

As you can see yesterday's adventure amounted to around 100$ but this included non-meal plan items, snacks for board games and a few non-vegan things Adam got. 100$ a week is steep for my usual costs but seems on par with what folks are spending for families (What do you roughly spend on groceries a week?). Some of this will also last longer then a week and many items needed for the menu plan Moon set up I already had so I spent 39.49$ CAD on this meal plan (few things were on sale, plus I subbed red onions/leeks for white onions, used jarred lime juice I already had, skipped all fresh herbs because they are 2-3$ a pop here).


For me the most expensive ingredients were Vegan Ranch @5.49$, 1.79$ avocado, and red peppers 4.06$. I also realized during cooking I didn't buy good bread for the cassoulet so I am gonna go back out and I imagine it will be around 5$. But enough about food costs & my frugal cost cutting.




I didn't follow Moon's directions exactly and I have left a few meals to make later, part way through prepping the bowls, the cassoulet, the lentils, the salad and soaking the chickpeas I realized I might be going on the train Wed and to make a full pot of soup in addition to all these things was potentially Too much food even if I pack leftovers for MTRL & on Board. Since my freezer is still busting, I can't do my usual freeze half for later tactic. But since the corn was on sale, I would like to use it before it goes bad and the coconut milk can is open so I believe I will prep the corn and freeze it in the coconut milk with the red pepper. As the onions/garlic/potatoes are both cheap to buy and should keep until I am home.

Sheet pan full of vegetables for Minimalist Bakers Buddah Bowls. #mealprep

 I also realized I had forgotten to get bread, so what I wound up doing was prepping the cassoulet sans bread and my plan will be to get some after the meeting tomorrow take the dutch oven out of the fridge and bake it for dinner tomorrow so it all works out. I also think maybe the original author of the recipe used a much larger dutch oven or a more shallow one as my tomatoes/beans were incredibly liquid so I kept cooking to reduce it a bit more and thicken the sauce.

Anna Jone's Tomato Coconut Cassoulet (a bit bastardized by me & being cheap). I am going to chill it like this and resume the baking when I have bread

  Not sure why coconut is in the title with only 4tbs that don't seem to add a whole lot but I imagine it increases the richness. I also added dried basil to simmer a bit, not the same as fresh by any means but it will hopefully get me closer to the authors initial creation. I have also learned I need to take some time when I am laid off to inventory my pantry because many of the staples I sore I had in spades are low or exhausted but that is a project for another day.

The Garden Grazer's Lentil Black Bean Cumin and Lime Salad. This will be great train/lunch food and keeps super well. I imagine I will be coming back to this & maybe spending the extra $ for parsley

There is just something satisfying about beans soaking in the fridge over night and prep/chopping a ton of veggies as you stew/roast and mix various things. I miss the kitchen juggling act, with timers beeping at different times when you need to toss the sweet potatoes or reduce the lentils or simmer the sauces. I hope this long winded post finds you all happy and still cooking.

xoxoxox

B.A.D.

Vegan mofo: Day 8 across the globe

Super fast easy dinner tonight a chow mein low mein combo as I was flipping through Chinese Vegetarian Cookery a thrift store gem from a few years ago.

 

I had lofty plans for dumplings but I want to get some decent photos and it is now far to dark so stay tuned!

This book is super dense with easy recipes and basic techniques a real joy to read. I read through a few different recipes before throwing together dinner.

 

Chopped 1 carrot 2 baby bokchoy minced ginger and garlic with bean sprouts and tofu + boiled rice noodles and all spice

 

Key is to chop all your vegetables first heat oil with garlic ginger and seasoning then toss in your hardest vegetables first and quickly move them around the pan. Adjust seasoning and toss in water as you cook once your firm veggies are done add your drained noodles and hit everything with soy sauce before adding your lighter greens and bean sprouts

 

Veganmofo: Diaya

So it's only been very, very recently that Diaya has become available here and more recently that it has made it's way into the normal grocery stores. But since that has happened the 24/7 shop has it on sale almost all the time (only 1$ off, but still). Whenever i'm there I stock up, since my first bag of Diaya the one and only thing I've ever really made has been Mac-N-Cheese.

The one form Diaya's website here

Try this delicious gluten and dairy free recipe by Daiya fan Dawn Grey in Lawrence, KS.

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 30 mins

8 ounces gluten-free or regular pasta, any shape 3 cups Daiya style Shreds 3 tablespoons vegan butter 2 cups unsweetened (soy / rice) milk product 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast ¼ teaspoon black pepper ½ cup gluten-free bread crumbs ¼ teaspoon paprika ¼ cup vegan parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook pasta according to package instructions.  Drain thoroughly when done.  Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare the cheese sauce while oven is warming. In a small pot melt the butter. When melted, add the pepper and nutritional yeast.

Stir in the milk or crème product. Add the cheddar, and cook over low/medium heat for about 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning.  Stir in the macaroni and mix together. Transfer to an 8x8 casserole dish. Top with the bread crumbs and paprika.  Bake for 15 minutes uncovered, or until the cheese is bubbling and top is starting to brown.

For health purposes I served this with a salad and some lame bottled dressing from the fridge. Because if I'm going to eat salad it's normally just to round out a meal, because sometimes a salad is just a salad. Usually if I pick up Diaya the rest of this comes together with stuff I have on hand and if I happen to luck out and have a bag of salad greens or some lettuce, I'll do a salad on the side.

Tasty Week night meal

Sorry for the long absence, I just reclaimed my kitchen from the mold and bacon grease/roommate related mess. Late classes followed by tasty tasty full meals.

The prep was pretty easy, I defrosted some mock chicken breast, 4 in total. Took two to cover with garlic, olive oil, dijon, thyme, pepper, celery, balsamic vinegar and diced green onions and set them aside to marinate.

The other two were chopped plain and added to a bowl with celery, cabbage, green onions, white onion, vegan mayo, dijon, pepper and so on. So lunch tomorrow was the leftover diced carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes for work.

Back to the cooking, I rubbed 3 potatoes with olive oil and tossed them into the toaster oven. Then I shredded a head of cabbage and 1/2 onion to fry in margerine with onion/garlic/celery/pepper. Splashing in water as needed to braise it up, eventually reducing it with white wine.

Steamed some carrot chunks and added my mock-chicken to the toaster oven.

Final plate! Braised cabbage; steamed carrots; roasted dijon vegan chicken; roasted celery/onions; cherry tomatoes; and baked potatoes.

Not pictured is the balsamic glaze for the carrots and the dijon reduction sauce for the mock-breast.

Added some hot tea for the throat and voila!

Update on my lunch tomorrow to come!

Followed by Cabbage may be the greatest vegetable ever! it's 79 cents!! For over a pound, easily adds a quick cooking veggie for all meals and keeps forever. Salads, Slaws, Chicken Salad, braised veggies, steamed, used as lettuce or whatever! Good times.

Theppk's Cookbook Challenge #2: Week 1 Apetite for Reduction!

That's right, cookbook challenge is back! This time we'll be starting with Isa's latest book.

Get all the details on this weeks challenge and snoop what everyone else is making here.


My first dish is simmering away from page 133

Mango BBQ Red Beans!

Super easy and man does it smell good. Not sure I'm going to want to add Agave to it... Maybe I will eat a bowl and then decide.

Super easy directions, pantry friendly stuff and it comes together quickly.

JUST BE SURE TO KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THE ONIONS AND GARLIC. Maybe cook on 5 or lower, I caught mine burning a few times.

Otherwise it smells and tastes fantastic. I served mine over brown rice and saved the rest for lunches.

FoodNetworkFriday (FNF!): Spicy Cherry Ribz!

This week's recipe, originally from Guy Fieri,, for sppicy cherry ribs. First off, this sauce is amazingly complex, like you can almost feel/taste it's flavour changing in your mouth. Not at all what I would describe as a BBQ sauce, but yet still rich, smoky, sweet, spicy, savoury blending all at once.


I made a few changes because canned cherries do not exist in CANADA. I tried every store, spoke to managers, they were not having it. I could have cherry jam, cherry pie filling, frozen cherries or fresh. Fresh ones were on sale, so I used those (which was messy! but so good). I also didn't measure my ginger/garlic, instead i opted to use purees of both 3 spoons of ginger and 2 heaping spoons of ginger. I was also tempted to add a little brown sugar to my sauce but held off.

For my ribz, I decided to utilize the beautiful and head sized portobello caps I had from costco. As such, I should have reduced the amount of spice rub used but didn't. I sliced halfway through the caps to create tear-able riblettes. Brushed the top sides of the caps with mustard as the recipe suggests, and then just shorta dumped the rub on and mixed it a bit.


Then they went covered into the fridge for way longer than required (I sorta forgot about them for a week).
Mushroom version

Bringing us to today! I cooked up the sauce as the recipe describes, painfully pitting and chopping cherries. As a result my final sauce was kinda jelly like, thick with little sweet/sour cherry bombs throughout. I smushed them up while cooking, but I kinda liked the chunks. In the future I may try blending the final sauce for a smoother glazing approach.



I baked the rubbed mushrooms and last minute sliced a bit of seitan I had into sticks/ribs. The seitan wasn't rubbed or marinated, just brushed on both sides with olive oil. I baked at 350 for 15 minutes on one side while the sauce cooked, flipped then another 15 on the other.



Reduced heat to 250, and here came the tough part. I couldn't choose between a light glazing/brushing of sauce to create an extra crispy sell served with additional sauce OR if I should stick with the recipe and dump the whole mess into the pan to broil. I started with a light coating on side, baked for 10. It looked pretty good, but after reading all the other posts decided to flip everything and then liberally cover with sauce and bake for another 15. Then out and flipped once more with everything bubbling, stir around the sauce and broil for 5-6 minutes.


The results were amazing!!The seitan developed an amazing colour/glazed coating. Nice and crisp while soft and chewy in the middle. But the mushrooms really stole the show! they were moist, meaty, chewy and simply amazing. The texture was out of this world.

Seitan Riblet

Here's the thing, through baking the mushrooms let out a LOT of water which I drained and all was good. But i really should have drastically reduced the rub because while baking, mushrooms sweating, spicy ribz rub ran everywhere and mixed into the sauce. So my ribz where extra hot! The baking and additional Cayenne really turned up the heat! So I would try halving the rub next time, or maybe try leaving it out. In the mean time I'll be eating these tasty babies in small batches.

Mushrooms had such a unique meaty feel.

To round out the meal I mashed some taters in skin mixed with an amazing Vegan-mayo styled dill/chive/garlic dip from the Farmers Market. It was very similar to a super thick cream cheese/sour cream dip. Making a nice creamy, slightly tart, with a bit of bite, extra flavourful side dish! And added some steamed veggies for colour!
I even had enough for lunch for work! yum!

I'm also planning to use some of the remaining seitan/mushroom ribs for a rib sandwich if I can find a nice, easy, cooling,creamy slaw to serve it with. Another idea I toyed with was serving the ribs pho style atop a rich noodled broth with veggies.

More photos on Flickr.

VeganMofo: Secret Training: How to season your cast iron ware

A good seasoned cast iron grill or skillet is every vegan's best friend. Now some people might try and tell you that lard is the only way to treat these bad babies but those people are just plain silly!

You have taken the first step in improving your life and seasoning your cast iron goods, let's begin.

Things you will need:
-Vegan solid shortening (I used earth balance brand)
-Pastry brush or small paint brush
-Cast iron pans
-All natural dish soap
-Scrub brush


Step 1: Scrub the heck outta those babies!!



Assemble your cast iron gear, done your rubber gloves and run that hot water! Take your brush and scrub hard, make sure you scrub all over with lots of soap and hot hot water. Once clean, towel dry completely! and move onto step two.

Step 2: Some Assembly required

Before you begin, preheat your oven to 350. (Check you oven temperatures and make sure it is at 350, those dials on the top lie! So trust your thermometers and adjust accordingly.)

*you might also want to place some foil at the bottom of the oven to catch any drippings*

One you've washed and dried all your gear it is time to melt your shortening. Take you stick (or half depending on the size) and place it into a microwave safe container. Microwave for about 2 minutes until liquid.


Step 3: The messy bit



Now here comes the get your hands dirty part, using your brush apply the melted shortening evenly in coats all over your pans. I would suggest an extra heavy layer on the cooking surface and bottom. It is probably best to do the top and handle before lifting the pan to coat the outsides and bottom. BE CAREFULL! Your heavy and lovely pots are greased and slippery, we don't want any broken toes or kitchen tiles.



Step 4: Hot potatoe

As you grease your pans place them into the oven asap, you don't want to put them down anywhere as they will make a mess. So straight into the oven with them. And move onto the next one.

Once every pan has been greased and moved into your hot oven allow them to bake for an hour. When the hour is up, simply turn off the oven and allow it to gradually return to normal temperatures and you will have lovely seasoned pots and pans.

The ugliest scones the world has ever seen

With the help of my good lacky James, we made the pumpkin cranberry scones from Veganomicon, minus the pumpkin as I did not have any. Instead we used a cooked and pureed carrot and some apple sauce. We also made these into drop scones because the batter was wet and we are lazy, hence their hideous appearance.

We reduced the liquids a little to account for the added moisture of apple sauce, but obviously we could have reduced further. They also burnt a little on the edges (too close to the bottom element).
For an added twist (and because we lacked Pepitas to place on top) I ground some walnuts and brown sugar to sprinkle on top).Either way they taste great, and were delightful alongside coffee and allowed me to use my remaining soy cream.
Also here is just another shot of the coffee because it has been far to long since I last had some.

Ah, coffee my one true love.

A Return to testing

This is a test recipe from and upcoming zing called "Cooking with my Craw-Daddy", this is a recipe for

Croquignole Banane. They are like a fried pastry or dough nut.

.Light sweetened goodness.

The recipe is really easy, these are a snap to make and their subtle banana flavour makes them outstanding. Really great treat, just be sure to watch your oil temperature for the start I had mine off a bit which resulted in slightly doughy centers. So be sure to keep a look out for the zine! And help support fellow ppkers!

Pizza porn

The quick, easy and always a great fall back mid week meal. The pizza. Here in Canada, we are blessed with something called Danny's pizza crusts (now come in WW too!) so our freezer is stocked with pre-made crusts topped with sauce. Now this isn't anything fancy, but it is convenient and cheap. So here we go.

Trying to hold onto my teenage years, my favorite pizza combo is still toffuties vegan slices with yves pepperoni and some herbs. But being as how I haven't bought vegan cheese in a while (and superstore seems to have stopped carrying it {FUCKERS!}) here is a healthier alternative.

Appearing: Green and red bell peppers, carmalised onions (I did this with sugar, because the internet told me too, although good next time I will just cook them), mushrooms, canned pineapple, vegan pepperoni and tomato slices.


Please excuse the lighting, but in these parts dinner is served at 8.