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

 

Veganmofo15: #15/day 15 : to feed a president

So being Canadian, it is possible this challenge isn't as daunting as those USA bloggers. But I feel like Barack could get down with some veganized souther cooking, which is great because if he was nosing around that is what my roommate and I whipped up last night!

Jae made some Vegan Ribz from EverydayDish TV. With a basic BBQ sauce he googled, tomato paste, liquid smoke, sugar, and minimal spice (I rebasted my ribz and likely Mr. Obama's ribz with some good old hot sauce to add zip!).

To go with our ribs we whipped some potatoes WITH SKIN with some of our homemade coconut butter and almond milk. Jae also decided to add more carbs with some baking soda biscuits, a basic quick bread we cut using tall glasses and baked while the ribz cooked.

I sauted some frozen kale, carrot, corn and onion for the side with some simple herbs and more homemade vegan butter to add some greens. But for our other roommate with the diet restrictions we boiled some regular old green peas.

We paired the potatoes and biscuits with a white southern style gravy from Hot Damn & Hell Yeah.Dirty South Cookbook Zine my Roommates both love this zine, which is nice because I've owned it and drooled over it for years without making much. This gravy is great, click the link to find out where you can get your own. I guess I likely would have ordered an additional copy for the President to take home to Michelle (Seriously, why is Michelle not at this dinner? Or in this hypothetical, she is obviously the cooler half of this couple).


Since this dinner goes together so quick, I also made a giant batch of Yellow Rose Recipes couscous and chickpea salad for lunches this week. Which worked out great because I had a spare rib (puns!) to make a rib sandwich for lunch, added some of our sweet homemade onion pickles and homemade mayo to the mix too. Gotta love when everything comes together.

Gratuitous food porn below!

Veganmofo15: #14 share something vegan with non vegans~!

Today's theme seems a little bit cheap, because I live with non vegan housemates who eat vegan most of the time at home so really all I did yesterday was make dinner while they mouse proofed our pantry.

We had a lonely squash of mysterious origin and a lone sweet potato, so I decided to put both into the oven while the housemates went to Canadian tire. I was debating between making Yellow Rose Recipes butter nut squash (with a few adjustments due to my roommates terrible diet restrictions which prohibit 90% of food stuffs**) or doing a Veggie Mac-n-Cheese with blended veggies for the sauce.

Obviously, I opted for lasagna and made a few adjustments: Namely replaced butternut squash with the small mystery squash and sweet potato (hoping that by blending it into a sauce it would reduce the amount my roommate consumed within safe levels, and it did!). I left out all the garlic and onion, although I did sneak some onion salt into the filling again not much to avoid potentially murdering my roommate. Defrosted some tofu and diaya cheese.

All in all it turned out pretty good considering! Everyone enjoyed it and no one died eating it. The squash had a more subtle flavour and next time I think I'll up the salt as we were missing many of the glorious flavours this dish usually has. But it was rich, creamy, subtly flavoured and pretty good for you.

I added vegan parm to my slice!

***I forget what it is she cannot have but it basically means she cannot have mushrooms, onions, garlic or anything related to either garlic or onions. And crazy restrictive amounts of  things like sweet potatoes, avocados, beets and very few greens. It is pretty terrible, but we are on the hunt for Asafoetida which she can eat and mimics the garlic/onion flavour well.

Veganmofo15: lazy mornings

One of the easiest and best ways to enjoy your monring and eat brekafast during hte busy weeks or pre-morning-coffee is an old resturant trick: keep a batch of pancaker batter handy wiht lots of add ins for a customaziable breakfast any day of the week.

Really any pancake recipe will work and you should be able to keep them for about a week in the fridge. I opted for a plain white batter, so I could raid the pantry or fruit section throughout the week to spice things up. In the morning just heat your pan over high heat, pour/laddle in your batter and add a topping or filling of choice (here I did coconut walnut) as the batter is cooking in the pan. Then struggle valiantly to flip them and if you're me throw some vegan meats or seitan sausage on the pan post pancakes.

Simple and filling breakfast you can make in minutes, you are welcome!

VeganMofo 2015! A Lazy Food Bloggers Journey

Hey Folks,

Welcome back to Vegan Month of Food 2015! A lot has changed since my last posts, best of all I have started working in a Vegan Resturant Kitchen here in Halifax (EXCITED). You can check out my new work place Wild Leek in Halifax on Windsor st or on social media or our website http://wildleek.ca/

In bonus news just as VEGANMOFO began our fridge broke, so we've been without one for a week or so and are just now finding out our landlords have bought a new one (which won't arrive until Tuesday, sadness). Basically, what this all means is I am likely going to keep my posts short, and they will likely be on social media for a few days before I get a chance to move them over here.

And on the weekends, they will likely be posts about my work!

 This wasn't the first time I'd made cupcakes at work, but this was my first shot making them by myself and icing them, anyone who has seen my dessert food porn or this blog knows decorating isn't my forte. But I think these guys turned out pretty great, they are our basic vegan vanilla cupcakes with a chocolate mint icing and vegan mint candies that I painstakingly sliced into thinner translucent slices for magic.

 Daily special was a brilliant 'spicy' tomato chickpea soup, which I ate for lunch with the pakora burger! So good a few regulars asked us to place it on the menu. I added raw jalapenos to both my sandwich and soup and it was amazing.

The pakora burger was topped with our vegan house mayo, a ginger date chutney, bitter lettuce greens and cucumber. Great mixture of sweet, savory, crispy and creamy. We used an assortment of veggies in the pakora (cauliflower, spinach, onion, carrot, etc)

HAPPY VEGAN MOFO!

Veganmofo: Canadian Thanks Giving Details post!

I know I promised to write one giving all the savory thanksgiving details so here they are!

DINNER!

I've already gone over the menu and the sheer scope of the undertaking in delisiousness. So I'll just go over a few close ups

 Green Bean Casserole is my unsung hero of the holidays. Warm caserole, rich noochy sauce and crispy onions, brilliant! These photos are all the leftovers I horded back to my place so they suffered some transporting.

 Mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, roasted garlic asparagus, turnip, mom's stuffing.
 Our stuffing recipes has been the one thing Mom always makes.

 Mom's Stuffing
 Homemade brown bread, dried and torn with sliced peppers, garlic, onions, celery and seasoning (paprika, garlic, onion, poultry seasoning, oregano, thyme, Rosemary and pepper) toss and allow to sit for 20 mins, top with EB. Baked in a earth balance coated dutch oven at 350 for 30 mins then ten uncovered.

 More green bean action

 Seriously, tofurky done to perfection and topped with roasted asparagus adds a slight tang to the first layer. So good.

/ end of photos

Veganmofo: Thaksgiving post

As promised, here is the complete unhealthy vegan thanksgiving spread. There will be a follow up leftover's post which will provide some more details and recipes on the dishes.

Here we go!

Thanksgiving Tofurkey Platter:

Featuring roasted garden onions, garlic bulbs, celery and carrots. Basting mixture of soy sauce and OJ with poultry seasoning, fresh pepper and a bit of sugar.

Next up Butternut Squash pre-baking:

Squash was cut with fresh garlic, brown sugar, crushed rosemary, pepper, sea salt, ginger and sage.

Roasted at 400 for over an hour

Yellow Rose Recipes Sweet Potatoes, Candied with ginger

 Final Platter with tofurkeys, roasted veggies and the squash medallions

 Double Tofurkey roasting in the oven, 2 hours

 Green Bean casserole, man this stuff is good. Simple roux, nooch and vegetable broth sauce. Seasoning with garlic, onion, and oregano poured over beans baked for 30 mins then topped with fried onions.

 Gratuitous plate shot, sorry about the flash it was dark by the time we ate. Left to right: YRR sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, tofurkey slices, mom's bread stuffing, and roasted squash. Not featured second plate: Roasted garlic asparagus, steamed garden carrots, steam snap peas, apple crisps and more.

Family bonus picture, my mother peeling potatoes on her back deck. Happy Mofo everyone!

Veganmofo: Sald Expose!

 Ok Mofo-ers, this is a rare occasion around these parts but I'm going to do an expose on salads. Yes, that is right, greens and raw vegetables in all their vegan supposed glory.

 

Now I'm not the biggest fan of salads as most of you know, but there are few things that for me make salads both palatable and worth eating. So let me break this down for you in how to make sure your salads are extra tasty and more than a side dish.

 First up, is the grain salad. If I don't know it's a salad, I'll eat it. I like grain salads for their portability, tastiness and above all their lack of lettuces. Sorry lettuce. This is AFR mango black bean quinoa goodness. Salads based in grains just sit better with me, they seem like more real food and they hold dressing like a champ.

 The next one is a shocker, but Vegetables. Yup, they go in salads sometimes they can even make the whole thing worthwhile. Fresh peppers are perhaps my favourite their subtle sweetness and crunch make it worth while. Other pickled vegetable offerings can add busts of flavour which help the boring lettuce-y nature of our salad companions.

 

Dressings! This may be my favourite part. Pre-vegan I hated all forms of creamy dressing due to my general icky-feelings towards cream and weird milk/egg mixtures. But vegan creamy dressings rain supreme. Vinaigrette are all well and good, but something about the fattiness or thickness which clings to your selection of ingredients put thicker dressings above the rest for me.

This is where you salad gets the most of it's flavour, so shop around or better yet make your own! Additions like maple syrup for sweetness, Dijon for spice, blended dressings lend their thickness to every bite. Even if you stick with same base day in and day out, swapping your dressing is an easy way to avoid boredom.

 On that flavour note, seasonings. I know, seasoning a salad sounds trite, but I enjoy the difference it makes. Obviously if you have a green thumb or cash to burn, fresh herbs and seasonings are best. But I find even a simple sprinkle of complimentary dried herbs lending their flavours can turn a salad into something I have to eat into something I want to eat.

 Perhaps my favourite part of salads! Toppings! Adding all kinds of stuff to make it more interesting. Flax seeds for texture/omega 3, chickpeas are an all around salad champ! legumes, means, fruits, bacos (vegan bacon bits) or anything else your little heart desires! Make the salad your own, top it with nooch, spicy peppers! Nuts, Seeds, Sprinkles! Anything to make it less boring.

 On the topping note, there is the fruit option. I used to be a firm believer in fruit salads keep their fruit and vegetable salads should never be eaten (I've obviously become lax in my views). Turns out adding fruit or other sweet bits to a savoury salad can make it pretty fantastic. Especially with creamy or spicy dressings, having the natural sugar pops the vinegar. This one has a raspberry vinaigrette with cranberries! Strawberries, raspberries, apples are all classic choices. I've heard good things about grapes and even banana. If adding fruit to your veggies still sounds too scary, make a fruit salad! anything to change up the normal routine.

Finally, protein. This is what takes salads from blah to meal quality for me. Plus it comes together super fast if you keep a selection of things on hand. Some seitan sausage, tvp, bacos, tempeh bacon or croutons, nuts, seeds all add a little something to make salads more than just rabbit food. Another option is the addition of fats, from flax seeds, nuts, avocado, and oils! These also help with balancing out a salad into a meal.

Veganmofo: A lazy day and quiet breakfast

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!