Memorial Day Vegan BBQ

Before I start, everyone thank a veteran today. Even if they haven't passed away, every veteran sacrifices a lot for his or her country. Regardless of your feelings about Iraq and Afghanistan, our veterans deserve our support.
On to my BBQ.
I bought the stuffing portobellos from Trader Joe's instead of the large ones for my BBQ. I figured I got more mushroom for my dollar that way. In the morning, I basted each mushroom with a mix of balsamic vinegar and olive oil and then I poured a little in the dish to marinate the bottoms of the mushrooms. I let that sit for about six hours.

When they were done, they looked something like this:

Mike grilled them for about five or so minutes on each side, gill side first. He noticed that when the gills were up, they began to get juicy in the middle, which is normal. When they were done, they looked like so:

I also made a potato salad. I don't really measure when I make potato salad, but it went something like this:
I took a bag of potatoes from Trader Joe's, washed each potato and cut them into cubes. I boiled the cubes in a pot on the stove for about ten minutes, drained them and let them cool for about twenty minutes. When they were cooler, I put them in a big bowl and mixed in about three big spoonfuls of Vegenaise. I chopped half a red onion and threw those in, as well as three celery stalks. Instead of using premade relish, I diced up a bunch of pickle slices (about 20)and added those as well. I then seasoned it with a bunch of salt and pepper to my own tastes and I got this:

The picture keeps flipping itself, sorry. But it was yum.
We also grilled some Smart Dogs, Tofurky Italian brats and veggie burgers:

The spread:

And my dinner plate:

We also had vegetarian baked beans, chips and grilled corn, of which I got none because it wasn't ready when I took the picture and when it was finally ready, I was too stuffed to move.

17 Bean Soup

In an effort to eat healthier and lose ten pounds before I get married in January, I have been eating more soup and salad. While soup and salad can be secretly loaded with calories, many are healthy and filling. Case in point: 17 bean soup, from Trader Joe's. Found in the dry goods section (the rice and such), it a bag of dry beans, 17 to be exact :)
The package recommends soaking the beans in water overnight in a large pot. This estimate is slightly off, thinks I. I soaked the beans the night before. They absorbed quite a bit of the water by morning and still felt hard, so I resoaked them until I got home from work at 7 p.m. Then I drained the beans and added an entire carton of low-sodium vegetable broth, also from Trader Joe's. I chopped up three zucchinis and threw those in, along with half a chopped white onion, and three diced carrots. I then decided it needed a kick, so I threw in Rotel tomatoes and chilis (there was so much broth and beans, the spice wasn't all that noticeable). Finally, I added minced garlic, salt, pepper, a bit of chili powder, paprika, oregano and crushed bay leaves, all to taste.

The downside is that the soup cooked for over an hour and the beans were still not as soft as I'd have liked them, so they had to cook another hour. These were some really firm beans. I had already eaten dinner by this point so I let the soup cool and served it into various tupperware bowls for my lunch the next day and Mikey's lunch and dinner at work.

The finished product.

Although it was time consuming, the soup was delicious. The best thing about it is that the supplemental ingredients can be changed every time to suit your mood.

Meatloaf!

I got an urge to eat meatloaf the other day, and one thing after another prevented me from making it. My other issue was that none of the meatloaf recipes I found were what I wanted or else they were complicated. Red meat was the last thing I gave up and I have fond memories of eating a big meatloaf sandwich with red onion, made for me by my grandma. So I set out to create my own meatloaf recipe, suited to my tastes.

1 1/2 package veggie crumbles, defrosted
1 c. bread crumbs (go more or less depending on preference)
1 can of plain tomato sauce
1/2 onion, chopped (I prefer red, brown will also work)
2 tbs vegan Worcester sauce
2 tbs tamari
Salt, pepper, dried oregano and dried basil, to taste
1 tsp garlic salt

I set the oven to 350. I warmed the veggie crumbles in the microwave. Defrosting is preferable if you have time. I mixed the crumbles with bread crumbs. Once they were mixed, I added in the tomato sauce, a little bit at a time, mixing as I went along. Then I added the tamari and worcester sauce and mixed well.

Note: don't use the bread crumbs in the pic! They aren't vegan....someone bought these for me without reading the label. There's a lot of junk in there.
I added a little bit of salt, pepper, basil and oregano and threw in a tiny bit of garlic salt. Finally, I added the chopped onions. I pressed the mixture into an oiled loaf pan and baked it in the oven for half an hour.
Before
After
When it was done, I served it with portobello mushroom gravy on top, the recipe which I got here and a nice spinach salad.



This recipe would easily adapt itself to the inclusion of other veggies such as carrot cubes or chopped celery. I want to mess with it a little and see how that works, but it got the seal of approval from my meat-eating mother and my very recent vegetarian fiance and I hope it can encourage other omnis out there to give it a try :)

Vegan Mac and Cheese, Grandma Style

Whenever I would read mac and cheese recipes, I would think "wha?" when I got to the sauce part and the mixing of the cheese with flour and milk because I learned how to make mac and cheese from my grandma and she never did any of that. Now that I've gotten more into my culinary skills, I've made mac and cheese the traditional way but I still prefer my grandma's version, with tomato sauce and onions (veganized of course). Mike had never had my version of mac and cheese, so last night I got on it. Even now, when I make Amy's brand vegan mac, I throw in tomato sauce and green onions. Frankly, I think it tastes way better. But I digress. The very simple recipe:

1 box vegan macaroni noodles
1 can tomato sauce
3-4 green onions
2-3 cups of Daiya or vegan cheese of choice

First, boil the noodles for about seven minutes. You can adjust the amount of noodles depending on how much macaroni you want. Preheat the oven to 380.

Boil away, little ones.

After the mac is done, drain the noodles fully. Then take about half the noodles and put them in a casserole dish appropriate to the amount of mac you want. I was making less than I usually do, so I used a smaller dish this time.


Take the can of tomato sauce, pour about half on the noodles and mix it in with them. Then add 1 1/2 chopped green onions and mix in as well. Then coat with a layer of cheese.



Take the remaining noodles and make a second layer in your dish. Pour the remain tomato sauce on top and mix it in without disturbing the bottom layer. Add the rest of your green onions and coat with a nice even layer of cheese.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese browns a little. I was in a rush to go watch Mike's nieces and I didn't let it brown enough. It still tasted good.

I usually put a big helping of salt and pepper on my serving, but that's just a personal preference. This goes well with a nice side salad.

Vegan Chili

I had to make dinner tonight because Mikey flaked out, so I looked around and decided it was chili night. My mom has a set recipe for this but I'm a little more experimental. So here's what I did:
I sauteed a chopped white onion and garlic with a little oil, then added a bag of soy meat. I seasoned it with cumin, chili powder and salt. Then I decided I needed more spice so I chopped up two serrano chiles and threw them in. I also added a little orange bell pepper. I still wasn't satisfied, so I added chopped tomato. This is what it looked like.















Then I added a can of chili beans and a can of black beans. I'd like to soak my own beans someday; however, dinner in a hurry does not equal soaked beans. I simmered the mixture for about ten minutes and added a little more chili powder and salt.




















After ten minutes of patient waiting, I was starving. I served it atop a green salad with some leftover chopped onion and Daiya cheese on top.




I think this may be my favorite version yet, but I still want to play around with chili. I found a recipe for sweet potato black bean chili at work today, so that may be veganized in the near future!

Squash Enchiladas

Saturday night, my parents were going to have their usual weekend meal of fish, potatoes and salad, when I stepped in and said I was going to make dinner. My dad is considering going full on vegan (he eats only fish and a modicum of dairy right now) so I'm trying to keep him away from the animal products.
I decided to make squash enchiladas. I posted the recipe on VegWeb here:
I also made the yellow rice from the Viva Vegan! cookbook and some refried beans.
Here I am preparing the filling. I used Mexican squash, yellow squash and zucchini, mixed with onion, serrano chile (I use jalapeno if I have them) and spinach.













After about ten minutes or so, when the squash is nice and soft, I filled up the tortillas like so:















And finally I threw green sauce over the whole thing and took the little bit of leftover filling and put it on top. It's messy but delicious.


You have to use green sauce with this...red enchilada sauce wouldn't compliment the taste of the veggies very well. I suppose you could use a little bit of Daiya, but I find it pretty tasty without it.