life among the trees

Soups on!

2008-03-01T11:47:00.004-09:00

It is still soup season in our neck of the woods. My cream of tomato soup and a tuna free sandwich from Vegan Planet. The kids loved this version of a no tuna sandwich! This recipe called for half a cup of blanched almonds that gave it a bit of a crunch that my honey loved. Okay, so it probably wouldn't fool anybody but, it did freakishly remind me of my high school days. I had my first babe in high school, and well, making lunch before school as I tried to get us both out the door was often not a goal I met. Luckily, my best friend's mom would pack her two sandwiches a day, and she was very willing to share. Often one would be a tuna sandwich and that would be the one I got. I hadn't thought about that in years. Funny how certain foods can invoke long-lost memories. I really wish I had written down this recipe! A "somewhat" cream of potato soup. I say somewhat because all I had was rice milk in the cupboard and, as you may very well know, it is not exactly creamy. Those are little bits of fake bacon on top w/ a dollop of vegan sour cream. I happen to LOVE this soup. The little ones not so much. I had the nerve not to puree the onion, garlic, carrots and celery for a change and that just didn't go over - AGAIN! Isn't there some magical number of times kids have to be exposed to food before they start to like it? From the ever popular Don't Eat of the Sidewalk blog the Tempeh Wingz. I truly can't get enough of these! If you haven't tried them yet, you really should! I happen to like tempeh a lot. I just haven't found any way to prepare it that my family likes too. Okay, so the kids don't gobble these up like I do, but they tried it and liked it. On the side are some spicy yam fries. The kids love these and it is a way easier and healthy alternative than the gooey brown sugar and butter method.

Spicy yam fries.
Pre heat oven @ 425
Coat yams in a couple of table spoons olive oil in a bag (I use an old bread bag)
In another bag add seasonings
add1 tbl flour
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp salt
add yams and shake to coat
Bake for 30- 40 min.

Ohh baby, left overs are so good on a bun w/ all the fixings! Go make it now!

A non food post..

2008-02-21T08:35:00.008-09:00

But, a post none the less, eh?

I have every intention of coming back to the blog world real soon.. I do miss all of my blog buddies dearly!

I thought I would share this video of my sons dance performance last week it was for a celebration for Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. I copied some info about her below.

He is the fidgety one in the front - the one who runs in the beginning of the video after his solo and costume change.

Elizabeth Peratrovich: Speaking out for civil rights
By FATHER MICHAEL OLEKSA FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

In 1945 in Alaska, citizens could address the state Senate. The public was allowed to speak from the gallery, and Native civil rights activists Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich were in attendance daily during the floor debate.

From the official Senate Record:

Sen. Frank Whaley: " I am also against the Equal Rights bill. I personally would prefer not to have to sit next to these Natives in a theater. Why, they smell bad. . . ."

Sen. O.D. Cochran: " I am personally assailed by Senator Whaley's remarks. I stand in support of the Equal Rights Bill. Discrimination does exist. . . ."

r Sen. Allen Shattuck: " This legislation is wrong. Rather than being brought together, the races should be kept further apart. Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites, with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?"

Elizabeth Peratrovich: " I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind the gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights. When my husband and I came to Juneau and sought a home in a nice neighborhood where our children could play happily with our neighbor's children, we found such a house and arranged to lease it. When the owners learned that we were Indians, they said no. Would we be compelled to live in the slums?"

(There was a silence in the hall.)

Sen. Shattuck: " Will this law eliminate discrimination?"

Elizabeth Peratrovich: " Do your laws against larceny, rape and murder prevent those crimes? No law will eliminate crimes, but at least you, as legislators, can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak of your intent to help us overcome discrimination. There are three kinds of persons who practice discrimination: First, the politician who wants to maintain an inferior minority group so that he can always promise them something; second, the " Mr. and Mrs. Jones" who aren't quite sure of their social position, and who are nice to you on one occasion and can't see you on others, depending on whom they are with; and third, the great superman, who believes in the superiority of the white race. This super race attitude is wrong and forces our fine Native people to be associated with less than desirable circumstances."

(Applause from the gallery and from the Senate floor.)

The following afternoon's newspaper reported Elizabeth Peratrovich " Climaxed the hearing with a biting condemnation of the " super race' attitude. It was the neatest performance of any witness to yet appear before this session, and there were a few red senatorial ears as she regally left the chamber."

On Feb. 8, 1945, the Senate voted 11-5 in favor of the bill, and Gov. Ernest Gruening signed it into law Feb. 16. It was the first anti-discrimination law in the nation.
Years afterward, Gruening said that without Elizabeth Peratrovich's eloquent testimony the measure would not have passed.

Excerpted from " Haa Kusteeyi: Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories," edited by Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer. The text above was written by Father Michael Oleksa.

More non foodness... Meet our new hairless kitty Mystic. She is two years old. She came to us the day after Christmas and is a real joy to have around.

I promise to come back and blog.. Thanks for stopping by.

Great Vegan Eats

2007-12-18T15:14:00.000-09:00

Hello blog land.. I would love to be a more regular poster.. but, I don't think that will ever happen.. I was downloading my pictures thinking holly cow, I have a lot. Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks.From Eat, Drink and Be Vegan the polenta casserole. The top pic is the casserole straight out of the oven the bottom is it in all its steamy glory.. Emma and Daddy REALLY liked this one, funny Eli usually devours any thing w/ beans but, he really didn't care for this one. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups beans of your choice - I used a can of kidney and some left over black beans. Next, we have an action eating photo.. I had tried the most of the seitan variations in LaDolce Vegan and loved them! This is the first time I have tried the turkey.. darn good eats!

Black bean burgers and roasted butternut squash w/ coriander seeds - both from V-con. I had bought a squash thinking I was going to make it at Thanksgiving but, it never happened. Mind you my kids love the whole maple syrup/brown sugar method of cooking squash. The didn't not like this one. The burgers where a hit though.

Chickpea-quinoa pilaf from V-con.. Darn quick, darn good, chalk full of protein goodness! If you are looking for a good vegan potluck dish this one would do!
Ahh, I had some close ups of the soup but, went with this one. I just love Eli's face in the steam!This is something we eat a lot! Cindy o's "chicken" and rice soup for the soul from La Dolce Vegan. I always throw in whatever frozen veggies we have in the freezer. It is so easy and has a wonderful flavor. What I like most is the little seitan bits cook right in the soup - genius!Pumpkin waffles from Vegan w/a vengeance with some vegan sausage and the most perfect ready to eat pears I do believe I have eaten in my whole life! I have said it before here in Alaska our produce is often not like what you can get else where! So these pears where a real treat! Yes, this was a dinner one night. Little miss Emma had mentioned the pumpkin waffles one day and I flat could not get them off my mind! They really are more of dinner food! They are extremely dense and filling. My take on the sweet potato curry from Vegan family favorites. I added lime leaves, lemon grass, green beans and chick peas served on a bed of brown rice... This is another ol' standby in our house.
Oops how did this get here?
Daddy was out of town and cruising through the store I saw these on sale none the less. VEGAN ORGANIC KIDDIE T.V. dinners. How cool is that? Funny thing was I had to explain to Eli and Emma what T.V. dinners are. No, they didn't get to eat it while watching T.V. but, it was a big hit none the less! I didn't think it was really enough dinner for a 5 and 6 year old so I made a big salad w/ beans. Yup, they gobbled up their dinner and salad before they got the coveted apple crisp. We have come a long way from the hungry man meals or chicken pot pies of my youth. Thank goodness! The sad thing is though I think they were on sale because they were discontinuing them. I rarely look at the convenient frozen food (besides the Amy's cheese less pizza) because so much of it might be vegetarian but contain hidden dairy.

last but, not least..

2007-12-02T08:30:00.000-09:00

I must be the very last blogger to post Thanksgiving one week and a couple days late.. hummm... My Beautiful Mom came w/ her Beautiful Mom..(my Granny, my kids Great Granny).. what a joy to have four generations at our table... That is what Thanksgiving is all about.. is it not? Good times were had by all! I hope everyone out there had a great day too! Here is my Thanksgiving plate mostly thanks to the The Real Food Daily cookbook. Wow, it was a lot of work and prep but, worth the effort. I made the corn sage stuffing. Be warned it says it serves eight, I think they meant 8 starving football players because man o live I could not lift that pan w/ one hand if I tried! It was an obscene amount of stuffing. I also made the Mushroom gravy... The best gravy ever! a bit spendy w/ all of the mushrooms but, by far the best gravy I have ever made! And again it makes a BOAT LOAD! I used it for the green bean casserole which was by far the hit of the night! Again a heck of a lot of work(making the gravy and frying two large onions)- no cans of funky onions or salty soup was opened in the process! ohhhh VEGAN GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE.. (makes my mouth water just writing about it!!!) I would say that recipes needs to be doubled to keep everyone happy (everything but the fried onions there seemed to be plenty for the topping). I also made the faux Turkey breasts from the same book. Very good! I don't know if I would make those again though. I really liked last years Tofurky from How it all Vegan.. It was just so easy and the right amount.. Just for me!

Not pictured is my ol' standbytofu pumpkin pie.. from vegweb .. everybody still loves this (I have been making this for years).. This year we had some very omni guest this year who even asked for that recipe.. claiming it is the best pumpkin pie they have ever had!!! I always use extra firm silken tofu and 3 tbs cornstarch... mix everything in the blender and Viola! Easy as pie!
From ED&BV the white bean and Rosemary soup... ummm... I thought the recipe looked very flippen kid friendly but, my kids did not like it! maybe too many fresh herbs? rather then dried? I just don't know, I am sure I will try it again on them both.. . Little Ms. Emma thought it tasted better w/ cheese flakes (nutritional yeast flakes) I thought it was very good and ohhhh so creamy!
ohhh the mac daddy from v-con! (isn't it funny how there have been just waves of the same recipes in the blog world from the same new books?) The kids LOVED this too no end! they had two servings and little Eli BEGGED me to put in his lunch for the next day! Me and honey personally like my cheese sauce a tad better.. Funny thing is there is very little difference. Evidently a difference enough though!... I think next time I will do my sauce w/ the crumbled bit of tofu! that seemed to add a bit of moisture my baked mac and cheese was missing. ..

This was a quickie dinner.. I was shopping at our Safeway and noticed this sauce was half off.. Okay, I never have any vodka laying around and have heard really good things about a vodka pasta sauce... (oh by the way this was one was accidentally vegan). I was very curious. .. and well, normally this bottle of pasta sauce was ten bucks! ahhh ya.. For that price it should be flipping fab huh? even at five bucks it seems to me to quite a stretch! Because, even Safeway has an organic pasta sauce for $ 3 .50... any hoo I bought it.. Eli had a Dr. apt. after school leaving me very little time to come home and make a fab dinner and it seemed like the perfect time to try this over price sauce... verdict? A big fat ehh... Nothing to write home about about! Thank goodness I was not one of the suckers who paid ten flippen dollars for it! I added some silk creamer to it as suggested on the bottle.. but it was still jarred sauce... oh well... evidently I need me some vodka around the house to make my own sauce...!

v-con and ED&BV LOVE! and a very personal sidenote!

2007-11-16T17:27:00.000-09:00

I first want to start w/ my very best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! no matter how you choose to celebrate! Over the last couple of weeks here is what I have been cooking from my new cookbooks.....

V-Con leek and bean cassolet w/ biscuits..
Love these biscuits!.. This totally smelled good in the oven!!!

V-con...Chickpea cutlets.. OHH baby.. too bad I made mine a bit too thin then baked the heck out of them.. they ended up being more like crackers... Total operator error.. I will be trying these again!! Sweet potato mash and a garden salad on the side.

The ever so crumbly ED & BV chickpea sensation patties w/ popcorn fries. Ohhhh everyone LOVED those fries!! man o man! I had some better photos but, thought this one was cute w/ the book there and all.ohhh MYYY again... The chickpea sensation patties made a mighty fine leftover lunch! especially w/ homemade bread
I made some beefy seitan then added some left over bbq sauce and on the side....ED&BV Lemon garlic pasta... The funny thing about these noodles is little Ms. Emma really didn't care for them.. She begs me to buy lemons so she can suck on them or make "lemon water" regularly.. but, to hers I ended up adding a splash of Old Bay seasoning and then she ate them.. Would I make them again? oh heck yea w/ some Old Bay seasoning and soy creamer (life is always better w/ soy creamer, is it not?)

ON a very serious note....

Last year my Mom was diagnosed w/ breast cancer the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. .. I will never forget that call. I had that night's dinner going... and Thanksgiving dinner going too. I had started the tofu pumpkin pie, I had my wild rice cooking on the stove.. It was about 3:00 pm.. when Mom called. She really couldn't say anything but, it was confirmed it was breast cancer. She hung up and all of the sudden I was completely and utterly paralyzed. I remember calling my hubby.. telling him the news, sobbing.. telling him I had a plan for the night, that I had started prepping this and that...but, I could not seem to remember a bit of it. Stuff was cooking and I could not seem to remember where I was, or what I was doing. Honey came right home to help/ comfort me and reassure me everything was going to be okay. The absolute hardest part was I was 900+ miles away.. That I could not be with her. That was torture! I wanted so desperately for her not to be alone that night (her honey was out of town). I called her BFF and she assured me that she was on her way to stay the night w/ my Mom (YEA! MARYELLEN!). The next day I had my first parent teacher conference w/ my son Eli's then kindergarten teacher. My oldest was in town for the holidays and stayed home w/ the little ones. I only remember braking down in the car on the way .. crying... yelling screaming all the way there.. Once there, I couldn't tell you one thing that the dear teacher said. Later that night my mom arrived for Thanksgiving.. Logically I knew she would be fine, emotionally I couldn't stand the thought of her suffering emotionally.. Why would I tell ya all about this?

-One, my Mom almost skipped her yearly mammogram last year. It was inconvenient, It was time consuming, and she thought like every year they wouldn't find anything anyway. Moral of the story girls - they did find something! SOOO girls go get your mammograms! Please don't put it off...They truly does saves lives!

-Two it leads me to this..

(I hear your collective ahhhhh... isn't it cute?)In honor of my Mom's one year anniversary.... My new tattoo. It is on my wrist, if ya can't tell from the photo. It is kind of hard to see but that is supposed to be a breast cancer pink ribbon behind my MOM tat... I had gone up to Anchorage to celebrate my daughter's 18th birthday. Her idea was to go get tattoos. It became a family affair as my two oldest kids, my bff Kari and I all got tattoos.

-Three, while I was there I got to meet Ms. Dabbleswithapples!( yea me! I have been some what jealous of ya all being able to meet up! in my neck of the woods it just seem to be impossible!), Ms. Monica is just as charismatic as she is so flipping cute! Me, I'm a bit shy and reserved, and meeting new people has never been one of my strong points.. I kinda felt like a nerdy Jr. high boy w/ braces and glasses and a bad hair cut .. at his first dance. I was thrilled to meet her none the less! She is a veggie superstar!

Happy Thanksgiving again.. I look forward to reading all of ya'alls post! I have had quite a time making my vegan thanksgiving thus far! stay tuned .. it should be fabulous!

Coca-coconut chili w/ kinda corny muffins.

2007-10-29T00:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it! I got my Eat Drink & Be Vegan cookbook! After reading it from cover to cover, I found it a bit difficult to decide what to make first! So much goodness! One of my problems you see my little Eli is allergic to cashews- how sad huh? And well, Honey reacts to raw nuts. Funny thing is those recipes that call for cashews were just calling my name! Drats. Maybe it is time to make a huge pot o spaghetti so the boys could have left overs and Emma and I could enjoy some cashew goodness! I just dread making two dinners, this way everybody is happy..

Anyhoo

I thought I would try the Coca-Coconut Chili first w/ the kinda corny muffins. I have tried MANY different chili recipes on the little ones - they just are not chili fans. Emma gave this one a sideways thumb- i.e. not a thumbs up but, not a thumbs down either. Both kids ate their dinner all gone though.. w/a little coaxing. It was good, just a tad different. I didn't add the whole amount of coca powder it called for- maybe it was the brand I used it seemed a bit overpowering. Who ever would have thought to add a can of coconut milk and shredded coconut to chili?

The muffins were awesome! I haven't done much wheat-free cooking and was surprised how good they turned out.

A couple of days later I recycled the chili into a hamburger helper kinda of the dish (dare, I use that term here?). I boiled up some macaroni -drained and in the same pot made some nutritional cheese sauce. I mixed half the sauce w/ the cooked noodles added the chili and topped it off w/ more cheese sauce. Now that was a hit w/ the kids!

Stay tuned for more ED&BV goodness to come! ohh and I got my veganomicon cookbook over the weekend.. If a need me I will be on the couch reading my new cookbooks.

Some of our family’s favorites

2007-10-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I had a hankering for some tomato soup. Well, in the name of blogging I tried a new recipe from the 125 Best Vegan Recipes cookbook. All though, it wasn't bad I really should have just made everyone in our house all time favorite cream of tomato soup.

That's okay, we all ate our soup and quesadilla then the next night I recycled the left over soup into a pasta bake.. This went over much better! Topped w/ veganrella and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast flakes..

From my last post I did it again, I made the Lunch box roast beef and like I said I should have done the first time, this time I did make two.. One for honey to grill and one so the kids could take some yummy sandwiches to school. Like Ms. Megan said -it is a time investment to make.

So really making two roast is the way to go!

Well, I have sense learned that if I do make this again it will be only for my family. I am MSG/nitrate/ sulfate sensitive and evidently it was the marmite which is yeast extract sent me off to migraine land. I was clearly in denial hoping it wouldn't get me. The first time we ate it I wanted to believe that my migraine was hormonal but, after eating it again it is confirmed.. It was the seitan pot roast.. bummer because it re ally is good. I was trying to come up w/ some sort of replacement for the marmite, does anyone have any suggestions? I might try using the vegan worcesterchire sauce? or just leave it out and see what happens.

Honey giving the grilled seitan roast beef a thumbs up..

Behold the grilled beauty! We served them hamburger style on buns w/ all the fixins.

Again from the Vegan Lunch Box the triple chocolate cupcakes. I made them as only double chocolate- I left out the icing part. That way one, they travel better and two this recipe makes 24 so I could freeze some of them.

I am not much of a baker unless I have too. And well, the kids were invited to a birthday party, so I had too. This recipe intrigued me because there were no egg substitutes required- no soy yogurt, flax seeds, egg-replacer nothing. There is also nothing nutritionally redeeming about them either.

One thing I learned- I should not try and cook all of the cup cakes at the same time. Evidently my oven has hot spots and some of the cupcakes got a bit too toasty. Very good moist vegan chocolaty goodness!

On one of the days Daddy was out of town I made the kids and my favorite alphabet soup..From the Vegetarian family cookbook. Heck after all that seitan I was ready for some veggies! I was out of the little alphabet noodles and replaced them w/ some animal shaped + spiral rice noodles.. all was well.

After readings SaraJanes post about her Vegan "Chicken" and Dumplings I had had another hankering. After the whole tomato soup thing I didn't try hers (which don't get me wrong looks fantastic! I didn't have the soy cream or even plain soy milk). Our family's favorite comes from the well, the cookbook Vegan Family Favorites (ironic?). It is so easy and so good. This time I added some frozen 'chicken' tofu, onion, garlic, corn and instead of veggie broth I used water w/ no chicken flavored cubes. Perfect! The kids have never had real chicken and dumplings so, when Emma asked what we were having for dinner I told her using my exaggerated quote fingers "chicken" and dumplings to which she replied ohhh you mean dumpling soup Yum!Notice the fine silverware setting? Eli and Emma came up w/ a new game to play this weekend. When they set the table they set all six places when we only need four.. See that way we can play sit anywhere you want night. Evidently we should be wild and crazy once in awhile and not just sit in our normal spots ALL the time!

vegan lunch box -seitan pot roast..ohh baby!!

2007-10-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

Excuse my very long absence. Life is good it has just been busy and it seems I have just been cooking ol'stadbys that I have already blogged about. Nothing really seemed that blog worthy.
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Until last night.
If you have the Vegan Lunch Box Cookbook YOU MUST TRY THIS! pg 119. The wheat gluten pot roast and gravy. Man oh Man! The recipe says it serves 4 w/ leftovers for lunch. But, really it was all we could do to stop stuffing our selves and eating the whole darn roast in one night. My family really loved it. If I knew how good it was going to be I definitely would have made two roast. The only minor substitutions I made was instead of red wine I used 1/4 cup red wine vinegar w/a 1/4 cup water and instead of fresh thyme I used a 1/2 tsp dried. On the side is of course mashed potatoes (1/2 white the other 1/2 sweet I use the pressure cooker w/ about a cup of veggie broth salt and pepper)

sorry about the bad photo
Okay so we did manage to save enough for three sandwiches (lucky kids and honey!)... BEHOLD the beauty! That seitan looks kinda freakishly like the real deal doesn't it? My hubby believes that this would pass with any skeptical omni test. He also wants to try doing this recipe only try to shape the seitan more like a tube to be cut up into burgers and then grilled... mmmm that boy is always thinking.
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Well, I started a post about our summer vacation many moons ago but, never got around to posting it. Here is little Emma enjoying her very first doughnut from Ronald's Doughnuts in Las Vegas.
It was cute - all though she has never seen the Simson she started chanting just like Homer Simson ...mmmmmm doughnuts

Emma has dairy allergy's and has never had a doughnut! The poor kid huh? Well, a couple of years ago her and I were in Seattle and I had tried to make it to the vegan doughnut shop there. But, I got lost and frustrated because of my poor timing we had hit five o clock traffic so we never made it, she still remembers to this day.

I think I made up for it though.

So here she is standing in front of the surgery goodness! All but three trays on the bottom are vegan. The lady behind the counter was SOOO NICE!!
So if you are ever in the Las Vegas area I recommend hitting up Ronalds - as a bonus it's not to far from the Trader Joes.

2007-09-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

Who is up for this challenge???

ever since I saw this video I have been completely moved! don't ask me why have ya all seen this???? (minus my facebook friends that I sent it too)

okay so I have tried endlessly to upload this youtube video to no end... to my blog.. but..
you all will have to follow the link on your own..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpzkHhgcZG4&eurl=

or just Google freehugs.org

just fabulous stuff!!

THEN there is quite the Facebook event @ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4722122479&ref=mf

which reads...

Click here to join the event!http://qc.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5865315035

September 10th, 2007will be remembered as the biggest Free Hug day this world has ever seen. Everybody get ready, this one is going to be HUGE.

The Reason for the date,September 10th is the day before 9/11. We will all sit down on that day and think about the tragedies that have befallen this world, we will think of the twin towers, of the iraq war, of the terrorist attacks all over the world. We will think to ourselves...what has this world come to? where has the good gone. That is why i created this event, so when you do ask yourself that, you think about all the hugs you had received the day before and you think to yourself that there is love left.i want people to be reminded that this world has a great amount of good left in it, and that it should never be forgotten.INVITE INVITE INVITE!!!!LETS MAKE THIS HUGE!The reason it was started so early was to build a large amount of people. Do not worry. your facebooks will remind you when the time is near.Please Message me with further questions. If you need advice as to what to do on free hug day, no problem. t shirt info, anything.A group of friends and i are simply making t shirts, making signs, and hugging people all day, hopefully it will spread.T SHIRT WEBSITES FOR FREE HUGS:http://www.freehugscampaign.org/index.php?categoryid=8 http://www.free-hugs.com/products.shtmlOr just make them yourself with a blank t shirt Hug Buttons:http://hug.blarthsday.com/- they are free but donations are highly appreciated Okay, so we're growing at an incredible rate. that's amazing!so no more goals, let's just grow.VERY

IMPORTANT:to people for all countries, make sure you do not impose hugs onto anyone to seem as if you are harassing them, and make sure to check the laws of your country to make sure you do not get into trouble.Thank you ~

you all feel free to Google, you tube, blog search whatever search there are PLENTY of examples i.e. video of FREE HUGS going on out there.. it is a good thing.
take care
HUGS
Julee

Too Busy to POST!!!!

2007-07-26T17:33:00.000-08:00

Okay listen to me ... promising more post..

Well, life has proven to be tooo flipping busy this summer.. I really did start a post about two weeks ago.. downloaded pic and all..I just never got back to writing anything.

Now my family and I are leaving tomorrow morning for a two week vacation.

We are flying in and out of Las Vegas driving up threw Utah and over to N. California. W/ pit stops in Moab UT, Reno NV and Arcata CA!

Any ideas/suggestions where to eat? Any bloggers in the area??? (Hint hint MS. Kleo and Mattie) My e-mail is vegan325(AT)hotmail(dot) com.

Take care and I am truly hoping ya'all are having a fabulous summer!!!!
Until we meet again...
Julee

Hello Blogland!!!! a personal update w/ a bit of food

2007-06-26T13:43:00.000-08:00

Hello blog land.. Sorry to have disappeared on ya'all.. Everybody is healthy- I just got out of my little blogging routine. I have been a bad blogging buddy- not updating or commenting. Thanks to those who came back to check on me.. You guys are awesome! It is summer time in Alaska! Here is Emma roasting a marshmallow at the beach. In other news my oldest daughter Amber graduated high school a year early. My best friend Kari came down for the ceremony. Which is so awesome because not only was it great to see her but, Kari was w/ me when Amber was born.. ahh the milestones... she is the closest thing to a sister I have.. (I grew up w\ four brothers - and no sisters).
Eli started t-ball- what a hoot! It is so funny to watch the little ones learning how to play. Here is Eli taking a practice swing.
Eli has also kept us busy w/ dancing. That's him between the two taller boys. The kids and I have a tad bit of Tlingit in us and when Eli was in school they had a Tlingit unit in school he decided that he wanted to dance. So, we signed him up and he really enjoys it. Every Sunday his group puts on a show for the tourist. And a big kudos to Daddy for making his blanket! He did a wonderful job! I crochet, I bead, I cook but, I don't sew.
Now on to some food.. I have been taking pictures still every night despite not blogging.. some highlights from the past few months....

From the Quick-Fix Vegetarian cook book -The sesame-spinach salad w/ mango and the from the same book the linguine w/ edamame pesto. Good eats! I put the left over edamame from the noodle recipe in w/ the salad. I made the salad again for a potluck and got rave reviews!

From Vive le Vegan- the Hummus tortilla pizza. Love this!
My absolute favorite- fresh spring rolls! Inside is fresh mango, cilantro, mint, mung beans, bean thread noodles, carrots and mango tofu from Vegan w/ a Vengeance. The mango tofu was one of the best tofu dishes EVER!! but, the flavor got a bit lost in the spring roll- next time it will be served over rice as suggested.
One of my honeys favorites! Beefy seitan from La Dolce Vegan - He likes slice it thin and put in the toaster oven to make it more jerky like. He thinks if I ever should dare to open a restaurant this sandwich would by far be the best seller! I am afraid though Juneau is very far from accepting/supporting a vegan restaurant....
A long time ago I came across this recipe and it just called out to me! But after going to three different stores looking for some decent portobello mushrooms that didn't cost an arm and a leg....I decided to try some dried shitake mushrooms instead and it worked great! I soaked them w/ a vegetarian beef bullion cube which added a nice flavor. Nice and chewy. I used my standard 'cheese' sauce recipe.
Now see this will teach me to be a better blogger!! This was by far my best homemade pizza ever! and I have since lost the recipe. I found the sauce recipe and crust recipe on the internet and I usually keep a binder of internet recipes but, I guess it didn't make it into the binder this time... I also NAILED the seitan - frying it up w/ some sausage seasonings.

Okay now I will leave you w/ a picture from a walk the kids and I went on near the glacier this week.. yep on the trail we encounter this bear up in the tree happily munching on the leaves.

Ya, my zoom is not that great we did have to walk right underneath that tree to get back to the parking lot. Luckily the momma bear was not around!

Hopefully I will be back to being a more regular blogger again.. some time soon... w/ that said...

I am sure I won't be blogging until next week.. My oldest will be here on Tuesday for the Fourth and his 21st birthday... OHHH that is soo hard to say.. but, really I can't wait to see him!!

Happy fourth of July.. Be safe! and take care!

Back to the kid food- Vegan pizza, tacos, mac &cheese OH MY

2007-03-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

From the Real Food Daily some yellow split pea curry soup. Zeenes suggested the tacos from the Real Food Daily in a comment from my last post how to use up some of the left over seitan that the kids weren't wild about. OH MY THIS IS SO GOOD!!!! Thanks for the suggestion!
My taco picture didn't turn out so here is little Emma enjoying hers!

The kids had a guest over one night and I made them a separate dinner. Which then gave me the opportunity to do a very spicy grown up meal. From the Flavors of Korean the cucumber salad (oi sangchae), cucumber noodles (oi kuksu muchim) and fiery tofu (maeun tubu bokum). All of the recipe use the spicy gochujang paste. Honey thought the tofu was the best he had ever eaten w/ the carmelized onions it seem to have a slight BBQ taste to it. Emma LOVES the noodles and has been eating them for lunch.
Some asparagus soup I made up the recipe using a box of leek and potato soup as the base and then added a dash of this and a dash of that. In the end it was okay.. but, not great. From the Vegan Deli I made the curried tofu salad. I was trying to introduce the kids to a tofu sandwich and thought this would be a good one to start with. It has tofu, vegan mayo a bit of curry powder, crush pineapple and raisins. A bit too sweet for my liking but, the kids ate most of their sandwiches. It surely wasn't one of their favs. Not a great photo but that's some baked mac and "cheese". It seems we haven't had in a while and the kids just go CRAZY for it!

Another use for some the left over seitan.. Honey got creative and added some sausage like seasonings to some finely diced seitan fried it up and added some to our pizza. Believe me its under all those tomatoes, green onions, red onions, red pepper and mushrooms so is a bit of veganrella mozzarella. Thanks Honey! Now I will leave you w/ this shot of Emma on her snow slide Daddy helped make for the kids over the weekend. Kleo asked if maybe this was normal for us to have sooo much snow this time of year.. Well, nope under this very spot where Emma's slide is where the tulips were coming up last year at this time. The weather man is calling for YET ANOTHER 8-12 inches headed our way tonight.. only to turn to RAIN tomorrow.. Ohhh what a mess.

still cooking

2007-03-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I made the lentil balls from the Vegan Lunchbox and thought that my Honey would love them (he was traveling). The kids were not that thrilled about them and I thought it was the brown lentils so this time I tried it w/ red lentils. I cut down on the cooking time but, they ended up being a bit too mushy and well, just plain not as good as the original ones.

I made some more "beefy" seitan from La Dolce Vegan and covered them in some homemade bbq and baked them. Really good flavor but, the seitan didn't firm up enough for Honey who suggested a light fry after baking would have made this over the top good!
Sweet potato curry. One of Emma's favorites.
Ginger hoisin noodles from the Everyday Vegan. I double the recipe for the sauce and marinated the tofu in it- then lightly fried it up. I used udon noodles instead of rice, which was okay but, would have been better w/ rice noodles I think. Emma LOVED these noodles. Very kid friendly.
From the Real Food Daily- I made the basic seitan in the morning (4 lbs worth!) then marinated it using the Salisbury seitan recipe then smothered it w/ some Golden Gravy(all from the same book). The kids I must say had to be coaxed to eat this one. I thought it was good. I think it was the texture of this seitan more then the flavors the kids didn't like. Everybody in our house prefers the Vegan w/ a Vengeance seitan.. So now what do I do with the other two pounds of seitan? Along side I made Granny's hurry-up dinner rolls. Which were okay.
Roasted pepper Cannellini bean Sauce from Vive le Vegan. Honey liked it - The kids and I -not so much. I added some red pepper flakes to mine.
So, I saw Bazu's post w/ her walk the other day I thought I would share w/ you what our walk looks like.. I am 5'11 and the wall of snow is about eye level. It has been one heck of a crazy year here. We are working our way to braking the snowiest year on record here in Juneau. So far this is the fourth snowiest year w/ about 177 inches the record is 194 inches. The weather forecast calls for yet another storm headed our way and snow likely all week... uuuggghhhh! Yes, I know I live in Alaska but, we live in the rain forest not way up north.

Well, truth be told I don't fair well in hot weather - but, right now I am dreaming of a warm sandy beach and a cool drink something w/ an umbrella in it!

Snow ball fight anyone?

International kid friendly cuisine (vegan)

2007-03-05T14:55:00.000-09:00

Black bean and salsa soup. So easy. I had some black beans in the freezer- Daddy had bought some very yummy salsa from Costco.. So Ta da! I did add some corn to the soup. On the side we have our favorite country corn muffins from The Garden of Vegan. If your looking for a quick dinner idea this is it! It is not fancy but very satisfying!
This was my first recipe from the Flavors of Korea- Delicious Vegetarian Cuisine cook book. I made the Sweet potato stir fry which was great! It is basically 2 large sweet potatoes, onion, green pepper and a dash of soy sauce.. The sesame noodles however had a big ol' typo in the cookbook that render them inedible! They look good though don't they?.. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of soy sauce as the base to the sauce to 1/4 lb noodles (it was only the kids and I so it seemed like the perfect amount).. After looking through the book though I think the recipe really should have been at least one pound of noodles.. but, even that seems like an obnoxious amount of soy sauce. I did added some chopped "chicken" seitan but, it was all for not. I even tried to save the noodles by rinsing them w/ some water. Nope, even that didn't help.

So, I didn't give up though! Honey had gone to a Asian market on one of his trips and brought back some Korean vermicelli (made from sweet potato starch), some Denjang paste(Korean miso) and Gochujang (fermented hot pepper paste). So, here we have my second attempt from the Korean cook book. I made the Tofu Noodles (tubu kuksu) minus the tofu. I just don't think my kids are up for plain fried tofu YET. Instead I made thee three-way sesame coated tofu strips w/ spicy broccoli from the Vegan Planet. And the orange looking pile is the Cucumber salad (ol sangchae) from the Korean cookbook. In the cucumber salad I got try the Gochujang, which is so good! It is spicy but, not a eye watering kind of spicy -just chalk full of WONDERFUL flavor! I love spicy food and this could very well become a new addiction for me! Our adventurous 4 year old Emma tried it and liked it - Eli no way! They ate the rest of the dinner, though the next day Eli informed me he didn't like the "cooked bits on the crunchy tofu" I think he might have gotten some burnt sesame seeds on his tofu.

(I can't believe but I found all three of those recipes online they are all linked)
For lunch the next day I made a Korean miso noodle soup. The Korean miso is so different then the Japanese kind. The Korean is not salty and there is a hint of mustard seed that really sets it apart. It was nice but, I ended up spicing it up w/ the red pepper paste YUM!
A long time ago Honey had brought back some black lentils from Trader Joes and they have just been sitting in the pantry for the longest time. I scoured the Internet looking for recipes and found this one Kaali Daal. On the other side of the rice is Vegetarian Korma. I substituted the heavy cream w/ plain soy creamer for both dishes but, in the end I wish I had used coconut milk I think it would have made it creamy-er. I only had two green chili's so I used 1 1/2 in the bean dish and 1/2 one in the vegetables. Funny the bean dish didn't have any heat and the vegetables were spicy- a little too spicy for Eli but, he still ate it.

Saturday morning I was watching a cooking show and on it they were making a lasagna. It looked so good and I was inspired- So, I had some left over home made spaghetti sauce from last week and tried my hand at making Susan's (fatfreevegan) My Favorite Lasagna. To her filling I added 2 tbs tofutti cream cheese and 2 tbs lemon juice. I topped it w/ some Parmezano sprinkles from the uncheese cookbook. In this lasagna I tried the no boil rice lasagna noodles and I must say they are wonderful! I have tried the whole wheat ones in the past and they just seem to be so heavy.

Yes, my lasagna is lacking the olives that Susan's recipe calls for. I had been cutting some up when a friend of mine called. When I got off the phone and went back to cutting them I discovered that the little ones had came in and ate ALL of the olives and I was left w/ just a small hand full to put on the lasagna. What little kid (or big one for that matter) could resist ten whole olives on ten little fingers?

Well, there you have it. Quite a bit different they the last few weeks. I am happy to report the kids did enjoy all of these dinners and it was a pleasant change from the strictly kids foods we have been eating.

More Kid Food..

2007-02-27T13:19:00.000-09:00

Hey there.. I can't believe I started this post on the Feb. 15th and just never got back to post it. Well, after some editing I will give you a very condensed version of what I have been cooking in the last couple of weeks. Dear Honey has been traveling an obnoxious amount the last few weeks, so posting is hard because 1) I really don't have time and 2) when he isn't here I am just far less motivated to make any thing that requires a lot of dishes (he always cleans up after dinner- ohhh I do my share while I cook- I am a firm believer in washing as you go) .

Exhibit A.. A no dishes to do kind of dinner...Chili baked potato w/ follow you heart vegan nacho cheese.. cue the choir- this is one of the only vegan cheese the boys will eat. Yes, that is suppose to be sour cream on there, we had a little incident w/ the fridge when one of the little ones thought they would turn the dial to the coldest setting and see what would happen. There were a few casualties like the sprouts and lettuce . Well, and the sour cream it still taste the same but the texture did change that's for sure. Oh ya, let us not forget the brand new $6.49 bottle of Vegenaise mayo.. me oh my it will never be the same.
"chicken" fried seitan sandwich- I have a real weakness for this one. Poor honey missed out, he has been asking for some chicken fried seitan for weeks now.

A real garlic lovers dream!!! Dreena's Basic Creamy Garlic Sauce from the Everyday Vegan. I didn't have any wine so I substituted more veggie broth. I also didn't have any fresh herbs instead I used some simply organic all purpose seasoning. Good stuff, the little ones thought it was a bit too "spicy" from the three whole bulbs of roasted garlic the recipe called for. It really was creamy though despite the fact that it had no cream in it! Another winner from The Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking (truly there have been no duds- if you don't have it I highly recommend it!) Belizean Beans and rice. I didn't have any white rice so I cut back about 1/4 cup of what the recipe called for and used brown rice instead. Man this would be a very good candidate to bring along to a pot luck. It basically consists of pinto beans, green pepper, onion, coconut milk, rice and some seasonings.
So, a while ago I tried the fish sticks from the Vegan Lunch box cookbook and thought I should try marinating the tofu w/ the recipe in the Cooking Southern style cookbook. So I did just that using the marinated from one book and the coating from the other. WOW!! I made the kids and I a "fish" sandwich on a whole wheat english muffin, melted a slice of cheddar tofutti. Good stuff, very good stuff. The kids gave the "fish" two thumbs up.

Okay there is a bit of what the kids and I ate while Honey was gone... stay tuned for more grown up food to come now that Honey is home YEAH!

Vegan comfort foods...

2007-02-10T08:56:00.000-09:00

Well, Daddy's home for a bit.. Here is one of his favorites .. From The Vegan Family Favorites again w/ the veggies and dumplings. I added seitan and corn.

Veggies and dumplings in the pot
A close up

Eggplant Parmesan

So eggplant was on sale here in our neck of the woods and I wanted to try something new. Here we have Susans (fatfreevegan) Vegan Eggplant "Parmesan". My picture looks nothing like hers though. I even woke up at midnight the night I cooked this going over the recipe in my head wondering what I did wrong. I followed all of the steps and the recipe to a t, but mine turned out mushy. VERY edible mush, though. The only thing I could think is maybe I cut the eggplant too thin. It worked in my favor though, because the kids-who claim not to like eggplant ate it up. Honey suggested adding some no bake lasagna noodle to it and making eggplant lasagna.
Mushy eggplant parma Tater tot biscuit from Cookin Southern vegetarian style
That salad looks kind of out of place there huh? Oh well- I just thought we could all use some roughage (who doesn't). Everybody LOVED the tater tot biscuits. Who would have thought to combined those two things together? I did replace 1 cup all purpose w/ whole wheat pastry flour and they still got fluffy. From the same cook book I made the Cole Miner's "Chicken Fried" Steak and Gravy. The patties are made from chick-peas and quick oats, onions, garlic, tahini, dijon mustard. Coated w/ nutritional yeast flakes, flour and sesame seeds.

Last night we ate yummy enchilada's, blogger is being finicky and not letting me up load a picture right now...

Have a great weekend. And thanks for all your well wishes from my last post.

Nothing fancy...

2007-02-06T08:41:00.000-09:00

Well, Daddy was gone all week, this leaves me very unmotivated to do any gung-ho cooking. Rather, I prefer to do low stress, easy dinners. Exhibit -A. Tofu nuggets, some baked red potatoes w/ some leftover cheese sauce, and green beans. Funny the kids didn't really enjoy the potatoes like I thought they would. Speaking of the cheese sauce I updated my recipe from the last post to clarify PLAIN rice milk. Sloppy lentils I basically followed Jennifer's recipe my changes included adding 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup carrots, 1/2 onion and two handfuls of fresh spinach. Which I cooked in veggie broth then pureed before adding the lentils. This was a real hit w/ the kids the first night - left overs the next night ehh.. not so much. But, they really don't like left over anything. Silly kids. I was hit by a cold this day- I spent most of the day on the couch and was sooo not motivated to cook anything. I seriously debated (w/myself) serving the kids peanut butter and jelly. Just to avoid having to do any dishes. I didn't so from out of the pantry we have some organic spaghetti sauce from a jar, frozen crumbles and whole wheat pasta.

Here we have an adapted soup from Vegetarian Soups for all Seasons. The Curried Lentil, potato, and cauliflower soup w/ spinach and lots of garlic.. My changes though include substituting 2 cups of broth w/ one can of coconut milk, sweet potato instead of white, 2 TB soy sauce, 1 stick lemon grass and about six lime leaves (honey brought some fresh ones back w/ him!). This was a good soup.. But, Emma and I added a splash of some spicy chili dipping sauce to ours that seem to give it just the flavor it was missing.

This weeks dinners..

2007-02-01T11:35:00.000-09:00

Looks like breakfast huh? Nope it was a dinner. Biscuits from Cookin' Southern, carrot potato hash browns from Vegan Family Favorites, vegan sausage, and the real winner Bryanna's Hollandaise sauce from her website. It was freaky good! The perfect combo of texture and taste w/o eggs. I am just amazed by how she can brilliantly veganize things. The kiddo's have been begging for mac and cheese. I used my ol'standby recipe only I had a carton of rice milk that needed to be use so I replaced 1 1/2 cups of water w/that and the other 1/2 cup I used veggie broth. Man what an awesome replacement it ending up being! Nice and creamy! On the side was a big veggie salad w/ a bits of "beefy" seitan. Happy kids, very happy!

improved "cheese" sauce
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt & garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 cup plain rice milk + 1/2 cup veggie broth
1 tsp prepared mustard
2 tbs. earth balance
Combine dry ingredients and rice milk and broth and heat until bubbling and thick- keep stirring it gets thick quick. Remove from heat add mustard and earth balance.

This makes a lot..I probably used half for 4 servings of noodles.

For the baked mac I added some home made bread crumbs from some left over home made bread in the freezer. Just toasted it and put in in the food processor w/ a bit of olive oil and simply organics all purpose seasoning. I bake at 350 until the top gets toasty and brown.

I had a real hankering for a mock meatball sandwich. I used the Lentil-rice Ball recipe from the Vegan Lunch box. I thoroughly enjoyed them- the kids not so much. I think it was just the brown lentils they don't really like. My honey is gone out of town again and missed this one. Poor guy this was a sandwich right up his alley. Maybe when he gets back I will try them again w/ red lentils..hmmmmm anyway while we were eating it Emma asked why I just couldn't have used seitan.. soooo
The next day her and I made the 'beefy' seitan again from La Dolce Vegan . Then we sauteed up some onions, mushrooms, and red pepper added some pineapple and pizza sauce, melted some vegan rella and had us a pizza sandwich. Yum!
Here we have Wendy's (red) Lentil and brown rice Casserole from La Dolce Vegan. I had my doubts but, it was easy just dumping all the ingredients into a casserole dish and cooking it. I happened to love this one too, the kids ehhh.. But, they ate it.

Behind the Apron

2007-01-28T13:55:00.000-09:00

CLICK ON THE BEHIND THE APRON BUTTON TO FIND OUT MORE- TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Humm.. What can I share about myself? I am a 36 year old mother of four. I have a degree in biology w/ an emphasis in ecology. After I got my degree I worked as a fisheries biologist. An awesome job, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel all over Alaska to some VERY remote places.. I got my degree as a single mother w/ my two older kids in tow. Kinda of a strange turn of events -that I ended up after all of that blood sweet and tears of being a single, working mother going to collage only lead me to be a stay at home mom w/ my two younger ones.

Why Vegan? Unlike many of you long time vegetarians I am a newbie.. At first when the news came of Mad Cow in the U.S. I immediately stopped buying/cooking beef. I started replacing some of meals w/ vegetarian. Then when my youngest daughter, Emma was about 18 mo old we had just quit breastfeeding and she broke out in the most un-godly rash/hives for six weeks. So bad that at times her joints/ hands and feet would swell up and it was too painful for her to even walk. Terrifying. She had also dropped off the growth chart from the fiftieth percentile to the 12th, and was diagnosed w/ failure to thrive- again terrifying. I had spent hours on the Internet as well as hours at the doctor. I had begun her on a gluten free diet and switched to soy. Meanwhile still feeding her eggs. Finally a blood test had shown that she was allergic to all dairy (milk and eggs). The signs were there her whole little life.. The only time I ever really drank milk was when I was pregnant or breastfeeding. So began our journey. I had to relearn how to cook everything. So, I bought some vegan cookbooks. For a while I was cooking basically two dinners- that got old quick. And after expanding my vegan cookbook selection all of the food just looked so good. One thing lead to another I quit cooking meat and began cooking one dinner every night-Vegan.

Here I am in Hong Kong last November. I was very fortunate to be able to join my little brother in Thailand for two weeks. He had been traveling throughout South Eat Asia for a year and was getting ready to come back when I thought to myself that he would be the perfect tour guide. A trip of a life time. We stopped in Hong Kong for a couple of days on our way home. I was happy to be there despite my picture..Really. I had woken up that morning w/ a KILLER sore throat.

This is my family- my oldest daughter Amber(17) holding Emma(4), my oldest son Keith(20) holding Eli(5), my honey and I . This was taking last summer at my little brothers wedding.

Busy week = Vegan Fast Food

2007-01-25T11:00:00.000-09:00

Wow, a whole week has just zoomed by. DH had to leave again on business and that makes life a bit hectic around here. Before he left, our little social butterfly Emma had orchestrated a family date. We went to a noodle place kinda like a Mongolian barbeque kind of thing. You fill your bowel w/ veggies, noodles and a sauce and they fry it up. All of the sauces that are vegan are clearly labeled. So, I couldn't decide on which picture to post .. The one w/ o the flash or the one w/ the flash.. This is the Gee Whiz Spread from the Uncheese cookbook on the noodles w/ green beans. The kids ate it, but I think they would prefer the my normal cheese sauce on their noodles. I was intrigued by this one because it uses white beans for the base..And I had just pressure cooked a boat load of beans (white, chick and black). Besides I am always on the hunt for the next family favorite. This sadly wasn't it though.
A meal on the run, the kids and I got home after school and running around w/ just enough time to make a quickie sandwich and steamed asparagus before we had to leave again for a preschool meeting. I had bought a tofu cutlet- blahh very bland. But, affordable and quick. The real selling point was the new bread from Costco.. The kids just loved it! I was pretty surprised they both don't like to eat crust but, LOVED this crust.
From the Vegan Vittles cookbook the Cheddary Cheeze Soup. Well, sort of my modifications include using two cups white beans instead of silken tofu, sweet potato rather then a white, veggie broth instead of water and added some of the left over cauliflower from the other day.. Yum, I Love this soup! The kids - ehh,, I can't say they love it, but they will eat it. They did love the bread sticks though.
One very dolled up Annies cheesless pizza.. I added oodles of zucchini, red peppers, mushrooms, red onions, and veganrella. From The Everyday Vegan some Soul-full Chili. We had my daughter Amber and her boyfriend for dinner that night and need to make something that wasn't going to our weird vegan food. I.e. no tofu, seitan and what not. This chili got mixed reviews though, a bit to tomato-y for some. It did age well, the leftovers were great.
To go w/ the chili I made corn bread using the country corn muffin recipe from How It All Vegan. Only I cooked it in my cast iron skillet.

whew!
I see a lot animals on other vegan blogs out there. Now, let me introduce you to our dogs.. Emma is on the girl dog her name is Tani. A great big love bug! They were trying to ride her. One would throw a snowball to get Tani to jump up and chase. Nobody got a ride though, it was more like being thrown from a bucking bronco.

Here is the boy dog Timber.

They are Black Russian Terriers my honey got them from a very good friend and colleague from Russia. They are very good family dogs, Timber however is a guard dog and will bite when a stranger approaches the door. Once inside he will be your best bud, and leaving generally isn't a problem either. It is just getting guest into the house that's the problem. He is a very sweet boy though once he gets to know you. They have quirky personalities and are very smart and playful.
Traditionally their breeds hair looks like this.. They don't shed, their hair just grows and grows. Ours are outside dogs and living in Alaska we don't want them to get a chill during the winter.

Tofu sramble success!!!

2007-01-18T10:50:00.000-09:00

I made the tofu scramble from VWAV last Saturday night. We had a weird kind of day, we just hung out and snacked all day. Except Eli who went to a birthday party where he got to make his own pizza (very exciting). Anyway, there was just no need for a big dinner production, when I got hungry I made this scramble thinking I would offer it to everyone and they could eat it or not..(oh ya, I was in a mood). This is what Mom wanted- this is what I was cooking and everyone was welcome to join me. Now, mind you I have been pureeing my veggies for my kids sake FOREVER! Not this time can you see the tofu, mushrooms, green peppers, onions -OH MY! Nothing hiding there huh? I cooked it in our quesadilla maker w/ a bit of veganrella. Everybody came to the table and never said a word about what was inside their tortillas.. Even Eli ate it!

Looks kinda creepy huh? I used up some of my seitan from last week in this Vietnamese "beef" noodle soup from Vegetarian Soups for all Seasons. I have made a soup like this before using a recipe from the Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow cooker and all though they are very similar I think I prefer the slow cooker recipe.
My first recipe from the Vegan Lunch Box- the "fish" sticks. Pretty good, a nice change from the baked tofu nuggets. I think they would be a better using a "fishy" marinade I found in the Cooking Southern Vegetarian Style cookbook. Maybe next time. Along side we have some carrot-potato pancakes from Vegan Family Favorites. Those were awesome! I must say that is one recipe that everyone wished I had doubled!
And finally, a Vive le Vegan recipe, the Sweet curry chickpea casserole. This one just didn't strike my fancy. I loved the idea, loved all the ingredients but, I think we would all prefer the Sweet potato curry from Vegan Family Favorites. Or really a combo of the two.

So, lastly I was invited by Laura from the Jewish Vegan to participate in a vegan/vegetarian recipe exchange I was wondering if I could recruit anybody out there in blogland? Anybody interested? You would be asked to send a recipe to two people then pass on the e-mail to ten of your friends. In return if everybody does it you should get a boat load of new recipes. If your interested please e-mail me at vegan325@hotmail.com.

seitan three ways..'beef', 'turkey' and 'ham'

2007-01-15T09:30:00.000-09:00

Quinoa and Black Beans (a repeat ). To this recipe I add a can of fire roasted tomatoes and a can of green .
From La Dolce Vegan -Mock Beef and Rice Noodle Toss. Yet another Honey's favorite! The mock beef is kinda freaky stuff though.. It is really "beefy". It was unanimous this was an awesome dinner and the leftovers the next day were even better!
I guess I got stuck in my seitan rut only using the VWAV recipe and was ready to try another recipe. The LDV method of seitan making requires some time investments as you need to deflate the seitan every ten minutes.
After the rave reviews from the "beef" I was anxious to try the other seitan recipes from LDV and decided on the "ham" and "turkey".. Funny, I really liked the "turkey", but Eli and Emma preferred the "ham"- I thought it was just too salty. Overall though the "beef" was by far every one's favorite. I will be sticking w/ the VWAV recipe when I want to make nuggets though it just has a denser texture I prefer.
Here we have a peak into my quesadilla w/ the 'ham' seitan and veganrella mozzarella along side some of my cream of tomato soup.
I used the turkey seitan in this noodle dish. I was winging it and trying to get a creamy noddle dish- sauteed an onion, lots of celery and mushrooms then pureed w/ some soy creamer and plain soy milk seasoned and volia. It was okay, though not great. I think it was the whole wheat noodles I really didn't care for. It was a brand I had never tried before and evidently some are way better then others. Nobody complained though..
Yes, we have been eating an obnoxious amount of carrots lately.. The available produce at the store is in a mid winter slump around here.. Over priced and marginal at best.

this weeks grub..so far..

2007-01-09T08:45:00.000-09:00

Here's what has been happening in my kitchen latley... Before we get to the pictures, let me just say that the sunflower lentil sandwiches are soo delicious! I didn't get a picture but, if I ever make it again I may just have to make two pies - one for dinner and one for sandwhiches. It is that good. I added a bit of 'mayo' but I mostly moistened it w/ the mustard sauce and then added lettuce and sprouts.. Eli snubed it, but Emma ate it.

Not the most flattering picture, eh? This is one of those Mommy is too lazy to cook kind of meals that really does make the kids happy..Its from How it all Vegan - Mums bean & cheese casserole pg. 108.
Here we have some of the yummist muffins I think I have ever made. From La Dolce Vegan pg. 275 Cinnamon Apple Muffins. I had to make something for Emma to bring to school because one of her classmates was going to be celebrating a birthday.. So, she got to bring this for her snack.
From The Everyday Vegan pg. 84 Chickpea Mash Stew. Pretty good.. I substituted about 1/2 an eggplant for the zucchini- and well, when I went to the fridge to get the sun-dried tomatos I realized I had accidently bought smoked- ohhh not good - so that got left out. Bummer. Yes, it is extra pureed because there is just less dinner-table drama from the little ones that way. My honey thought it tasted a pizza soup. Hmmm.. I also made some wheat beer-bread.

We had some left over chickpea mash and so we recycled it for a quick dinner. Added it to some whole wheat penner and baked it w/ some veganrella mozzarella.

veggie dumplings and sunflower-lentil pie

2007-01-06T16:00:00.000-09:00

This could very well become one of our family favorite! I made the Veggies an Dumplings from Vegan Family Favorites pg. 175. I did spruce it up a bit by sauteing an onion w/ the celery and carrots. I also added some corn and chopped up seitan making it a one pot wonder! My DH could not get enough of it! It was so much better then the chicken and dumplings I use to make using the recipe of from the Bisquick box..(Although, my daughter Amber would very much like to disagree w/ that statement- she is far from being even vegetarian let alone vegan. She did try it though.) If you are ever in the mood for some wholesome, kid friendly, vegan comfort food I would highly recommend this recipe! Next, we have from Dreena's Vive le Vegan we have the Sunflower-lentil pie, with some very lightly steamed broccoli and some butternut squash on the side. I did make the recommended Sesame Mustard Tahini Sauce to go over the pie I also drizzled it over my broccoli (oh my-YUM). Okay, this was not one of the kid's faves.. But, me and my DH thought it was very-very good especially w/ the sauce! Dreena also recommends mashing it w/ some vegan mayo and making a sandwich out of it- Me oh my that's whats happen for lunch tomorrow. We'll see if the kids like it better that way.
Okay so Fiber at 28 cooks has a round up going on -

Fiber writes-

"Have you ever visited a food blog, day after day, and stopped and wondered what the chef behind the magic looks like? I often wander through my Blogroll and wonder who's on the other side of the computer. As food bloggers, we focus so much on the food that we often reveal nothing of ourselves to our readers. On any given street, I probably couldn't pick out more than 2 or 3 of the writers of the 100 or so food blogs I read on a regular basis. That's where this "Behind The Apron" round-up comes in. Starting today, and ending January 31st, post a picture of yourself on your blog, revealing as much (tastefully, of course) or as little as you want. Introduce yourself, show us your family, do whatever you want. "

And well, if you haven't been to this site before you should- there is by far the most stunning food photos ever and lots-o-yummy recipes!

A lot of you are braver then and I and already do this- with your avatars and what not. My Mom has been encouraging me to do this for months! She is absolutely on of my biggest blog fans and is positive that me showing you pictures of the rest of my family (i.e. not just those cute kids Eli and Emma) would please all of you! ahh.. but, I am shy.. and really don't photograph well.. I am one of those people who just HATES my picture being taken- it just never seems to lead to any good! But, I am up for the challenge!! Stay tuned in the mean time spread the word.

a post .. a post..

2007-01-04T10:30:00.000-09:00

Hello to all! Here is to hoping every one had a fabulous holiday season. I have really felt guilty about not posting during my absence! I was still taking pictures w/ the intent of posting.. I swear! My life was kind of struck, well, more like blind sided in November with some bad news and then I was on a crazy emotional roller coaster until mid December. Anyway, everything turned out well, as well as it could and we are are extremely thankful for that! A cute picture of Eli and Emma in the Christmas duds from their Granny. (ya, the windows are steamed up -I was making seitan;)
On with some food now- huh? Like I said I have many, many pictures of our food for the last month, but, it is a new year so I will just start fresh.
Two days ago my oldest son who was down visiting us for the holidays was leaving. For his farewell dinner I made some peanut noodles (coconut milk, peanut butter, splash of maple syrup and soy sauce and a dab of red curry paste) w/ a side of spicy stir fried red cabbage, onions and mushrooms. To say this boy (oops, he is 20 years old- no longer a boy-rather my boy) is meat and potato kinda guy is an extreme understatement- he is a pure carnivore. Anyway, during his stay I did try to feed him familiar foods like spaghetti, enchilada's, pizza and what not- minus the meat. He didn't complain, but as he was saying his goodbyes he told me he would be going on a meat binge when he got home, he felt so deprived during his stay.
Last night the kids and I got home late and I made some clam-less chowder. I combined two recipes one from La Dolce Vegan and the other from 20 minutes to dinner. It worked out well, I didn't have any kelp powder but, I had some nori strips I shredded up instead -guesstimating how much was needed. I came very close but, ever so slightly to much. I also had to puree the onions, carrots and celery for the little ones sake. I was pleasantly surprised that both Eli and Emma liked the soup. No, it didn't really come close to my Mom's clam chowder but, it was very satisfying non-the-less!

Well, folks that's all for now.. I truly hope everybody has a fantastic, happy and healthy new year! I am hoping to get back in the swing of things again and become a more regular blogger as well as commenting again.... I am very grateful for all of my new blogging buddies! You guys are the best! Blogging for me has become a very satisfying hobby and I just wanted to say thanks- for all of your great comments and fabulous blogs!

table for one

2006-12-03T13:44:00.000-09:00

Well, it has been quite a week. Our family was hit by one evil bug. A stomach flu from hell- not the 24 hour kind - no, it is still lingering (the worst is over but, nobody but me has an appetite yet). At least we are all over the hump and nibbling. Nothing very interesting, mostly toast and bland stuff. Anyways, I was the first one to regain my appetite and made some simple udon noodle soup w/ Asian baked tofu from 125 Best Vegan Recipes. This is what I have been living on while I wait for my family to catch up w/ me.

Now, this I made quite a while ago before Thanksgiving. These Sunshine burgers are the absolute best thing ever! If you haven't tried them- do so now! I warn you they are spendy! At least in our neck of the woods. 3 for $4.59. But, worth every penny! Along side I have some spicy yams. I combined two different baked yam fries recipes I found on the internet and the results where great! But, after I tried one I thought they would be too spicy for the kids so, I added some apple slices to their plate along w/ a few fries... But, they both loved the spicy fries, it was the first thing they ate and they ate them all gone..
Spicy yam fries.
Pre heat oven @ 425
Coat yams in a couple of table spoons olive oil
in a bag (I use an old bread bag) add
1 tbl flour
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp salt.
add yams and shake to coat
Bake for 30- 40 min.
I made this right before we all got sick... I think I got this box of soy chiken on a trip to Seattle, I don't really remember. Anyways I thought I would give it a try. YUK! Not even edible! I can't even describe it. There is a recipe on the box that suggest breading and frying- but, honestly I don't think even that would help much. Has anybody else tried this? Along side is broccoli, tomato and baked potato w/ my family's favorite "cheese" sauce.
Anyways..I have been checking in on all my fav. blogs but, time hasn't allowed me to really comment. I am hoping life will be back to normal next week. I hope ya all have a great week!

My Vegan Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T10:40:00.000-09:00

Happy day after Thanksgiving.. Sorry there this will be very short and to the point.. My Mom and oldest son is here visiting, our time together is to short for me to be sitting in front of the computer for too long.... I do hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving and a will have a wonderful weekend.

Soooo what was on my plate?

-Smashed cauliflower-used 2 tbl. vegan sour cream + earth balance + one head of cauliflower.
-Mushroom gravy from Vegan Vittles.
-I made the sausage tempeh from Vegan w/ a vengeance and use that in my stuffing.
-I also tried the Savory Wild Rice Stuffed Onions from Veg Family's- The vegan holiday table.
-Tofurky from How it all Vegan.
I also made regular mashed potatoes and cranberries.
One Tofu pumpkin pie- I suggest adding 3 tbl cornstarch to that recipe and using firm silken tofu.. Turns out perfect everytime.
One Impossible Vegan Pumpkin pie from The fatfreevegan.. w/ a dollop of tofu whip cream from How it all vegan.

Alaskan Vegan Kid Food at it's Very Best!

2006-11-17T16:40:00.000-09:00

Ya me! I happen to love low stress happy dinners! I try not to cater to the kids to much and expose them to things they may or may not like.. But, at the same time I really do appreciate low stress dinners. It's a mothers dilemma.. I swear Emma would have "hot dog"soup (Cheezy corn and frank chowder from Bryanna's 20 min. to dinner) every day and Mr. Eli pick would be bean and cheese burritos. So here are three creations the kids have never had before and loved ...really whats not to love?

First off we have a Calzone - I used Bryannas(Nonna's Italian Kitchen pg. 199) pizza crust recipe (w/ 1/2 whole wheat). Stuffed inside is breast of tofu aka tofu chicken from the same book pg. 170, diced and sauteed w/ garlic then added some jar spaghetti sauce, pineapple and the last of our stash of veganrella (sniffle).
Next from Vegan Planet Thai Peanut-burger wraps pg. 459 w/ spicy peanut dipping sauce pg 160. The 'burger' part is made up of onions, garlic, ginger peanuts, tofu, peanut butter, cilantro, soy sauce, chili paste and bread crumbs. Me oh my it was very good and the kids loved it! Emma especially liked the spice peanut sauce. The 'burger' part is baked and well, mine didn't hold up and turned out very crumbly- but worked great in the wrap.
Oh happy days.. Again Vegan Planet Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchilada pg 361. I saw this done by Seattlegal over at The Vegan Cookbook tester (Her picture is soo much nicer then my mess here), My first thought how much the kids would love them and for me- what a welcome change to our regular enchiladas. Well, when I went to get my cookbook low and behold that page was already marked w/ a yellow sticky. < -I guess I shall publicly confess here -> I often go to bed w/ a arm full of cookbooks and read them. Then I mark pages that I think the kids would eat, ah ya, while watching the food network sounds kinda weird huh? Needless to say this contributes heavily to my midnight munchies and my waist size because I after all have no self control! (its on my wish list though).
Any way these were a big hit! I made some home made enchilada sauce to go over it. I feed some to my older daughter Amber (17 years old) and her friends.. one of the boys asked "wow- so no meat in there huh?" and when I told him it was black beans and sweet potatoes he said " these are so good- I have eaten sweet potatoes before but, I have never liked them.". I thought they were very reminiscent of the Addictive Sweet potato recipe, give them a try-if you don't have Vegan Planet- you wouldn't be sorry (after all of 338 reviews it receives a 4.5 out of 5)! Be sure to read the reviews they offer a lot of great ideas- oh and change the serving size its default is 12 servings. And now I will leave you w/ this picture of little ms. Emma all tuckered out from playing in the snow all day. She is curled up in our kitty Sammy's bed- Evidently it's not just for kitty's anymore.

A Snow Day...

2006-11-14T08:05:00.000-09:00

Winter is here! The kids are home from school- A SNOW DAY! Yesterday we got well over a foot of snow and they are warning us another foot on the way. Last year we didn't get our first dusting after Christmas. The first picture is a the view from our kitchen window. Does it look kind of familiar? My blog header picture was taken from my bedroom deck which is directly above the kitchen a couple of years ago.
This is a shot from out the front door..
Now on to the food.. A vegan breakfast crepe from The Garden of Vegan pg.41With some dinner crepe filling (Again, from the Garden of Vegan pg. 157) It consist of red onion, garlic, mushrooms, small tomato, red lentils, green beans and the recipe called for walnuts but, I didn't have any so I substituted some toasted pine nuts.

And the final product- a dinner crepe.. The verdict? Well, the kids ate theirs but, thought it was mighty strange. Evidently (in their 4 and 5 year old world) pancakes are flat w/ butter and syrup. It is my job to keep them on their toes, is it not? I thought it was pretty darn tasty. The crepes worked out beautifully, very reminiscent of my honeys Swedish pancakes he use to make.
And for desert... cranberry Apple crisp from La Dolce Vegan pg.234. I used some fresh cranberry's instead of frozen. I don't know if that influenced the tart factor but, the little kids didn't eat to much of it. I sent the rest w/ my older daughter Amber so her and her friends could finish it off.
I tried Leslie's Tofu Noodle soup- Well, I adapted--her adapted soup. I made a small batch, because my honey is gone again. My other changes include little bits of wheat gluten (equal portions of wheat gluten and water. Cut into tiny pieces) rather then tofu, I also added corn and green beans. A one pot wonder! LOVE THOSE! (0h ya, art by Emma)
And finally last night the kids and I got home late- Well, let me rephrase that we got in late. After picking up Eli from kindergarten there was some serious snow for the kids to play in and for me to shovel.. So here we have once again some baked tofu nuggets, I aslo made 'cheese' sauce for some left over noodles and asparagus.. Yep, Megan the vegan mention it being particularly odd -that its on sale in the the winter- being a spring vegetable and all.. Funny that was my first thought too, when I saw it on sale here.

Okay guys- It must be time to go play in the snow huh? errr.. and shovel!

our vegan dinners

2006-11-11T09:19:00.000-09:00

BBQ seitan w/ homemade bbq sauce from the Vegan World Fusion Cuisine cookbook. I was really trying to come up w/ another way for us to eat seitan w/ out frying it. This worked out really well. First I marinated the seitan in the bbq sauce for about an hour and baked it @375 for about 30-40 minutes. Corn bread from the Cookin Southern Vegetarian style cookbook. Along side are smashed sweet potato's and green beans. Rice noodles w/ eggs broccoli and dark sweet soy sauce from the cookbook Real Vegetarian Thai. Instead of eggs I used some of Bryanna's Curried "chicken" from her cook book Authentic Chinese cuisine that I had in the freezer. I also used the "chicken" to fill the won ton wrappers (baked, not fried).

I found this Celebration loaf in the store and knew the kids and I would be home late and wanted to try some new fast food. The label reads "premium vegan grain meat stuffed w/ butternut squash, apples and mushroom" I couldn't get a picture of the label but, you can check it out here at their web site. What intrigued me most was that it is not a soy based fast food, rather wheat gluten. And the verdict? Well, when I got home and looked at the label a little closer it is rather high in fat. The kids had mixed feelings about it, the first few bites they really liked, but in the end they didn't eat it all. I thought it was okay, and would make a really good sandwich. But, like most pre-made packaged foods it rather spendy(well, over $6.00).

a few of our vegan family favorites

2006-11-08T13:53:00.000-09:00

Another Yummy repeat- General Tao's Seitan
Nope its not baby food.. This one of my all time favorite soups! It comes from the cookbook Vegan Vittles, Cheddary cheeze soup. I usually make it w/ the broccoli this time I made it w/ cauliflower. Basically it uses silken tofu and nutritional yeast flakes as the cheeze base. I am totally addicted to the nutritional flakes (does anybody else out there have this "problem"?). We call them cheezy flakes in our house, Emma and I often have cheezy flakes on toast or bagels in the morning. Oops, I digress- back to the soup....I have to puree it all for my children's sake-they prefer their veggies raw. Neither like cooked carrots, one doesn't like visible onions the other one doesn't like cooked cauliflower. They both prefer this soup over the kind I make w/ broccoli. I also made a whole wheat beer bread - I often substitute the all purpose flour with a combination of spelt and almond meal- it always works out great. I have also used different kind of beers w/ great results. It seems the lighter beers give it a more of a sourdough kind of taste, I however prefer to drink darker beers and those work fine. It is a very forgiving recipe.
Yep, more enchiladas.

The almost vegan birthday...

2006-11-05T09:30:00.000-09:00

Yes, she does exist my oldest daughter Amber who turned 17 on October 30th. We celebrated it a couple days late with a couple of her friends and a bean taco bar. Amber or her friends are by no means vegetarian let alone vegan, but there where no complaints. I made a layered bean dip from The garden of vegan (pg 105) leaving out the vegan cheese but, did have some regular shredded cheddar on the side (hence the almost vegan title). I made the Vwav lemon gem cupcakes (Ambers favorite) into a cake and the icing from here The little ones got a lick of the frosting and gave it "ten thumbs up.. No wait a hundred thumbs up!" Yep, the little kids again made the wrapping paper. Amber w/ her boyfriend Brendon.

Other then that I have just been cooking a lot of non blog worthy repeats this week. I didn't even take pictures. "Chicken" fried seitan, baked tofu nuggets, and last night I was so lazy we just had boca burgers.

Halloween fun!

2006-10-31T15:01:00.000-09:00

So Saturday was full of Halloween fun, Daddy was still out of town, so I was left to entertain the little ones.. The first stop was the Glacier visitor center.. It had to be the coolest Halloween party in town! It was filled with ghoulish stations that were all geared towards Alaska..
The world renown Alaskan Blood sucker- The mosquito. The skeleton station had a display of skeletons like the Alaskan bats, beavers, bears, seals and what not. Another station was about carnivorous Alaskan plants.. Each station had a game for the kids to play, for example the skeleton station was pin the skull on the skeleton.

The absolute coolest part was after getting the kids loaded back in the car a big ol black bear crossed the parking lot full of people. I did hop out of my car to try and snap a picture, but evidently I was kind of flustered, in a hurry and I didn't have time to zoom in. And well, my picture is just a black fuzzy spot far off in the distance.

Anyhoo here are the kids sporting their face paintings.. After the glacier we went to Eli's school carnival for 2 more hours of fun filled haloween fun! After all that FUN I must admit I was in NO MOOD to go home and cook so we drove down town for our world famous Cheese-less pizza.. Eli went for strait pineapple Ms. Emma's and mine had pineapple, red pepper and red onion!!! It was kinda funny, there was a new waiter who while I was ordering repeated Cheese less like 5 times, like I was out of my mind! he kept trying to confim he had heard me right..He evidently had never served a cheese less pizza and found it quite unbelievable.. (at least that was my impression) Well, at least it was served w/o cheese.. it could have been worse! We have had many send it back to the kitchen incidences because of communication break downs between us- the waitress and the cook.

Okay, Sundays dinner>>> what did I do with my extra hour? (day- lights saving time) I made seitan.. Then made some home made whole wheat hamburger buns.. I then used the seitan to make sloppy joes.. (I replaced the hamburger w/ 2 1/2 cups seitan, diced) Me oh my... It was pretty good. Not great though, the kids ate it so I really can't complain. I left out the ever important green pepper 1) because I didn't have one and 2) Eli would have never eaten it. I think that would have really made the recipe complete though. Oh Well! Oh ya, I also made Dreenas home style chocolate chip cookies so little Ms. Emma would have a treat to bring to pre-school for her Halloween party extravaganza..
This was Mr. Daddy's welcome home dinner .. YEA!!! Daddy is finally home!!
Home made hamburger buns w/ seitan sloppy joes and a fabulous garden salad. Monday was my signature spaghetti sauce w/ all the vegan fixings.. Tuesday was Halloween so we just had left over spaghetti.. Ya for leftovers!!!

Here is little Ms. Emma Halloween haul.. the left side is at least milk and egg free (she is allergic to dairy).. I did not read the labels for bug parts, gelatin or non-vegan sugar .. we are by no means purest- and I don't buy candy ever- so I can't image once a year it will hurt.

Kid Food Galore

2006-10-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

On the day I made this soup was a day full of Murphy's law. I won't go into any of the gory details but, Daddy was still gone and the kids and I weren't even heading home until 5:30. I had no ideas about what to make for dinner. So this is what I came up with. Creamy tomato soup and veganrella quesadillas. One of Emma's favorite soups, Eli on the other hand tolerates it but, definitely not one of his fav. As I was driving home, passing by one of two Mc Donalds in our town, all I could think about was some sort of healthy fast food. The fantasy went something like this...Me pulling up to the drive up window and asking for the eggless sandwich and a side of roasted veggies oh and for the kids two hummus wraps one w/ red onions both w/ a side of sweet potato fries. Can I just ask does this exist out there in what I loving refer to is the "real world"?

Bagel dogs (our fav. brand is Yves veggie dogs). The recipe came from bunnyfoots blog long ago. I was trying to make up some of my cooking disasters lately. This one was mostly for Eli. Next we have a sweet potato curry from vegan family favorites, I added some green beans and garbanzo beans.
This one was by far my favorite dinner of the week! From How it all Vegan "tofurky". I wanted to give a few "turkey" kinda of dishes a try before thanksgiving. This one was quite awesome. It calls for marinating the tofu for an hour then baking it for an hour then frying it. I ended up w/ a lot of the marinate left after I baked it so I added it all to the frying pan and it eventually reduced down. If you haven't tried it, let me just tell you should - you won't be disappointed. On the side the orange potatoes- 1/2 white potatoes 1/2 yams. The kids didn't partake in the tofu, they had some out of the box frozen bbq "riblets" instead.

weekend flops

2006-10-24T06:29:00.000-08:00

I recycled some leftovers and made the sweet potato and black beans chili from the other day into wraps. The kids and I were at the store and noticed some orange cauliflower which sent them into begging mode " oh please Mom can we buy it? can we please" whats a mom to do say no? Eli concluded that it taste just the same as "real" cauliflower. Little did he know it boast to have 25% more beta carotene the white.
From Dreena's Vive le Vegan Tomato-lentil pasta sauce. This was okay, Emma ate it, Eli needed a lot of coaxing. I LOVED the addition of toasted pine nuts and well, for me the capers didn't really add anything to it. Even little Emma who every once in a while will ask for a bite of capers straight up out of the bottle left a pile on her plate.

So the next two bean dishes came out of a new cook book I won off of e-bay for the whopping price of $2.98 w/ shipping!! Well, I kinda feel bad because the seller in the end didn't send it media mail and the cost of shipping for him ended up being $5.70. Whoops. The book is Vegan cooking for everyone by Leah Leneman. It has some pretty intriguing recipes but, it was published in London and a lot of the recipes call for a yeast extract. I had to google it and learned that the name brands are Vegemite or Marmite, which I have heard of but never seen in stores around here. Anyway these where pretty simple recipes that I thought the kids would like but, I was wrong. The first was a kidney bean "cheese burger". The book has a few pictures in it and the Kidney "cheese burger" was one of them. Their picture looked mouthwatering good. My "burger" how ever turned out looking nothing like it. The second was a Mexican bean loaf w/ a tomato gravy. This recipe also had nothing in it that I thought the kids would be opposed to but, it just wasn't a hit either. I must say though, I had it the next day in a tortilla and thought that it could make good enchiladas.
Sunday morning we had vegan w/ a vengeance's "fronch" toast. That was a big hit! and so much simpler then my french toast concoction! (which blogger is acting up and I can't seem to link to it right now)

On Saturday the kids were invited to a costume birthday party. No we are not big Dolphin fans. I bought them off of e-bay and this was the only combo of fit and matching team outfits that I could find for the kids. Eli use to have shoulder pads but they have been misplaced. I can only think that was a good thing and nobody was tackled as a result. And of course, when we are invited to birthday parties we have to go prepared so I made some blueberry-banana- oat muffins.

good times

2006-10-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

We're home again. We had a great time visiting w/ my family. Let me just say there was no vegan love in Ketchikan even the salad and my Granny's 80th birthday party had shrimp in it. Oh well. Fun was had by all.. Exhibit A- My brother- aka Uncle Rick showing Eli wearing a tie ain't all bad...On with the food....So here we have the black bean and sweet potato chili from the Vegetarian family cookbook. Little Eli had requested that one night we make herbs chili again, from Cooking with Herb the Vegetarian Dragon cook book. Well, the kids didn't really like it the first time we made it. I think they just liked making it. Herbs calls for tvp which the kids haven't quite taken too (YET). So, I suggested we make this chili and from the Herb book we also made Flora's crispy polenta and cut them into stars and hearts w/ a cookie cutter. Well, this time the chili was a hit! You really can't go wrong w/ sweet potatoes and black beans. And hey look after MUCH practice both kids can peel potatoes! My little helpers.
Next is Vanessa's Lentil-Quinoa stew from La Dolce Vegan. Good, simple and quick to prepare. Really hits the spot on a chilly fall day. Paired w/ what we call crunchy broccoli at our house (raw) and some organic wheat u-bake dinner rolls I found at Costco (quite a deal I might add-12 rolls for .97 cents)
So Daddy is going away on a business trip again. So last night had our vegan comfort food send off dinner. Evidently I have become addicted to frying. I have not fried anything in over 20 years, since the fried chicken incidence of '85 when my brother and I tried frying chicken for the first time - the oil was way too hot- in shorts -you get the idea. And now I guess I am just making up for lost time. (Sounds like a guilty confessional doesn't it?) Anyway using some seitan from the freezer (I use vegan w/ a vengeance seitan recipe and add 1tsp each Rosemary, thyme, sage and 1/4 tsp each cumin and garlic powder) Then used this "chicken" fried recipe. Which by the way makes WAY to much of the dry ingredients, I only used half. Gravy comes Vegan Vittles- golden gravy. And well, EVERYBODY loved dinner! Again, what's not to love? Daddy also got a tub of Dreena's creamy hummus (his all time favorite hummus) to take on the plane w/ carrots and bread. As well as Vegan w/ a Vengeance Lemon Gems cupecakes - what a lucky boy.

tacos, nuggets, and stuff..

2006-10-11T13:14:00.000-08:00

heJeez I would love to post every day.... Really I would, funny thing is I just don't have the time.
Anyway here we go with some of this weeks vegan goodness, kid friendly, dinners !

My hubby has no vegan cooking confidence, but bless his heart he does try to help alleviate some of my cooking duties now and again. (thanks honey!) And, well everyone loves tacos! This time instead of frying he thought he would try something new. First spraying the corn tortilla filling w/ beans and veganrella for the girls, cheddar for the boys and then baking them. It worked pretty good except where the tortillas touched the baking pan, it got a bit soggy there. But, I didn't hear any complaints and there where no left overs.

Yup, seitan nuggets this time I tried changing the recipe using 1/4 cup flour + 1/2 cup cornstarch. Its hard to say if 1) my oil wasn't hot enough or 2) the flour absorbed more oil then cornstarch. These where a tad to greasy for me. But, again no leftovers and no complaints. When I make them again I will probably go back to the 3/4 cup cornstarch. Next to those nuggets are some smashed potatoes. I try to use 1/2 sweet potatoes and 1/2 regular potatoes. I have noticed that when I do that I really don' t have to use much earth balance at all. (who am I kidding though isn't that like ordering a hot fudge sunday w/ a diet coke? being as I fried the nuggets and all). The story behind this dinner. I had bought this pasta from the bulk bin at the store for one of Eli's Kindergarten homework projects and for some reason Emma became obsessed about eating those noodles, oh they where her favorite .. "remember mom I had them once?" "Can we please have them tonight?" So this is what I came up w/ it is from the cookbook Simply Vegan and is very reminiscent of what my mom used to make and call goulash, only Mom use to put slices of Kraft cheese to melt over the top. Very simple, very kid friendly its basically some tomato juice w/ chili powder and a can of kidney beans and some corn.. and OH, must not forget those magic noodles. The recipe calls for elbow macaroni.

Miss Melissa asked about the bbq tempeh - I steam it for about 20 mins, while its steaming I make a bbq from a recipe in the Vegan World Fusion Cuisine (a really beautiful, chalk full of good recipes kinda of book) let it marinate for what ever, 15 min - hour. And then my honey the grill master grills it up. It doesn't take long maybe five minutes a side. OH MY IT IS THE BEST!!!!! it made my top five list!

Miss aTxVegn asked about breaded tofu.. nope, no eggs needed I do press the tofu and then it is coated in 1 tablespoon of olive oil then dredged in the rest. You can find the recipe in the vegetarian family cookbook pg. 144 ( I just saw your reference to the book! yea!)

I don't feel quite comfortable about posting recipes from cook books.. It some how feels different posting it on the Internet then say just sharing w/ a friend. What is the etiquette? I have posted links when they are available. But, in the end I guess I would rather support those vegan authors and encourage others to just buy their books!

Okay, the little kids and I will be away this weekend to my grandmothers (the little one's great Granny's) 80th birthday party in lovely Ketchikan, Alaska. I do look forward to seeing my family.. but, I have a feeling that I will be eating lots of green salads and bread.. I wish I was more prepared. I did make some of Dreena's home style chocolate chip cookies to take with us. Priorities people! My granny is famous for buying a ton of store bought sweets not of which are not vegan, and none of which Emma can eat (she is allergic to dairy). I will return again next week..

lots of pics - not much to say

2006-10-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a while and I have been cooking.. What the heck happened? Our internet was down for three days. Oh the horror! I think there where only two streets in town affected and we lived on one of them. It was pretty strange to live in the dark ages again. I found that things just cross my mind through out the day and I want to go google the answer, or find a recipe, or read y'all blogs for some dinner inspiration. Then the internet returned and the power went out. Anyway, here are some hi-lights from the week..

Nothing fancy here my baked mac and "cheese" and a big ol garden salad. Mr. Eli who is five exclaimed "THIS DINNER ROCKS" while shoveling it in "JUST ROCKS MY WORLD". What every mom wants to here!
BBQ tempeh w/ pineapple fried rice from the garden of vegan.
"chicken" pot pie I was in need of some good ol' fashion comfort food.
An Italian style soup loosely based on a recipe from the Complete Vegan Cookbook topped w/ some veganrella chedder. And home made 12 grain bread, I substitute some of the flour w/ almond meal and man is it good!

Friday night fun.. Well, I had a particularly hard day on Friday and my honey offered to pick up some take out to make the night easier. The problem is there just aren't any real vegan options for take out on our side of town besides a cheese-less Papa Murphy. Don't get me wrong we have done it but, I just wasn't in the mood for that. So, this is really just as easy, much cheaper and makes the kids just as happy. Win Win.
A real treat! Saturday morning slice of heaven! Honey made his vegan sourdough waffles and they are AWESOME! This is one of the few foods that the box -o- egg replacer gets used for and works really well in.

a few dinners + a trip to the glacier

2006-09-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

It has been one long busy week especially with daddy gone.This was our dinner the night before Daddy got home. Fast food. A veggie burger. Really, it was that or drive 25 miles to our favorite pizza place and this was just way more economical. (Although, they do make a mean cheese-less pizza!) Eli loved the "burger", raved about it! Emma tells me she prefers the bocca burgers from Costco. One of the few items she can eat there when they have their sample tables set up.Ohh baby! Let me tell ya about this one! Eggplants must be a tricky item to ship here. They are over priced and often to soft, dented, or bruised w/ moldy tops. Ewww, hardly ever worth buying. But, on that rare occasion that they are fresh looking and even on sale.. Yea! this was the case. The asparagus was on sale too. And we all LOVE asparagus! Any way.. this is Baked breaded eggplant from the Venturesome Vegetarian (it's a beautiful vegan cookbook). It is very reminiscent of eggplant parmesan w/o the cheese and well, baked not fried. The eggplant is dredged in pureed silken tofu and then bread crumbs and baked. I topped it w/ some spaghetti sauce I had in the freezer. This was Daddy's welcome home dinner! I didn't take a picture but, the next day for lunch we had the baked eggplant in a pita w/ sauteed onions, green pepper some sauce and a slice of veganrella, a truly PERFECT combo!
This dinner was also awesome. But, it took me all day to prepare. I again made Bryanna's "chicken" curry filling as I did here. This time I used it to make "egg rolls". For the adults I also added shredded cabbage and carrots. The kids I added some mashed sweet potatoes. The won tons here are filled w/ mashed sweet potatoes, then baked. I was going to try and bake the egg rolls too, but really after putting so many hours into the prep I really wanted them done right. Honey was happy to hear that!
Quinoa and Black Beans (a repeat ). To this recipe I add a can of fire roasted tomatoes and a can of green chili's. I also serve it over a bed of shredded romaine lettuce. Delicious, kid friendly and a one pot full of protein wonder! On Friday I volunteered to go on a preschool field trip to the glacier. Good times. A global warming side note..I grew up here and have watched this glacier shrinking myself. I moved away for about fifteen years and was quite stunned when I came back and saw it again. I should dig up and scan some of my old photos from 25 years ago when the glacier use to come to about where the waterfall is in the above photo. There was a trail along the right side of the lake and I remember we would be walking right next to the glacier and could reach out and touch it.

I just googled Mendenhall glacier and found this pic (want to see it high resolution?) on a noaa site from 1981. Crazy huh? that rock point in front of the glacier is where the we took the above photos from.

color us green..

2006-09-26T07:05:00.000-08:00

Our very green dinner. Green noodles from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas. A very kid friendly recipe. Basically it is green peas, steamed broccoli, a bit of silken tofu and soy milk pureed. I used to make this a lot when the kids were toddlers. I haven't made in quite a while though. It seemed a bit bland for me, but that is probably why the kids like it. Note to self.. next time it would be awesome smothered w/ some sauteed garlic, onions and mushrooms.

The Best Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan w/a Vengeance .. and if you don't have the book (who doesn't?) the recipe is on the post punk kitchen here.

And they truly are the best! Emma and I made them this morning. Yet another classmate will be celebrating a birthday this week.Which means they will be bringing cupcakes to school. So we have to be prepared.

She was cute while making them she saw how much sugar was going in and said " these are kinda not good for you, huh mom? well, at least they have pumpkin in them and at least that's a fruit or something"

simple meals..

2006-09-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks you all for all of your well wishes! I am so much better now!

Okay so I would have really loved to call in sick and stay in bed all day, but lunches need to be made, kids need rides and well, there are those pesky dinners as well.. What does a Mom w/ a miserable cold cook for dinner?? Well, the first day when my cold was at its worst I made the "mums bean and cheese " casserole from How it all Vegan. My brain was foggy though and my bean to potato ratio was a bit off. I tried the Veganrella Cheddar cheese for the first time (in the casserole). Emma and I both thought it was ehh.. alright but, we both prefer the Veganrella mozzarella way better. I threw on the left over carrot oat patties for good measure.

Miso soup w/ bean thread noodles, mushrooms carrots and the ever important green onions..

Okay this is another very simple dish that we all love! And I do make it often. Split pea soup w/ sweet potato and Mexican seasonings. It's from the complete vegan cookbook . I do usually make bread or biscuits or something but, that night I just didn't have in me so we had toast.

By this dinner I am feeling WAY better, but Daddy left for a work trip to the big city of Anchorage. So I didn't feel the need for a big dinner production. Again w/ the baked tofu nuggets. Come on people they are just to easy and good! The rest is a hodge podge of sorts of butternut squash "crunchy" broccoli and more toast.

The kids had worked really hard on making our Sammy a bed of sorts by very methodically spreading out the newspaper all over the living room. They were a bit disappointed that he didn't like his new bed until they made it way more comfy by adding his favorite blanket. Sammy loved it after that.

weekend fun

2006-09-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Last weekends fun..Friday at the beach.. On Saturday we went to a new park .. We really had fun it was way more my kids size then other playgrounds..

On Sunday we were invited to go to a birthday party for one of Emma's little classmates. It seemed like we spent all day preparing.. Eli and Emma made wrapping paper and birthday cards. I made Dreena's Chocolate P-nut Butter Squares from Viva Le Vegan, for Emma who can't have the cake and had two more birthdays coming up this week at pre-school. Awesome stuff! three layers of goodness! The oat base, the peanut butter center and last the chocolate topping.. I messed up the oat base though. I accidentally used reg. oatmeal instead of quick cooking and this just did not work. The base was hard and crumbly.. waa.. But, Emma loves it none the less. Because I thought I blew it I also made the Moosewood Restaurant cooks at home 6 min chocolate cake. I experimented using stevia again, the recipe calls for a whole flippen cup of sugar so I used 1/2 cup sugar and replaced the other 1/2 cup sugar w/ 1/2 tsp stevia. Daddy loves it! Well, the party was at five and I assumed there would be some sort of dinner or snacks so, before we went I made the kids and I some more "hot dog" soup. None of my food pictures turned out, so here is a picture of Emma's wrapping paper.Monday nights dinner...
Zucchini delight from How it All Vegan and Carrot Oat patties from Bryanna's 20 Min. to Dinner.
Well, my only complaint is that because I grated the zucchini in the food processor it made the casserole a bit too soupy (I was trying to disguise the zucchini, so the kids would eat it). The original recipe calls for lentils but, I didn't have a can and I was being lazy so I replaced it w/ some chick peas that I cooked last week. It worked. The patties were tasty I will definitely make those again!

edit: Okay so I am really hoping that my post make some sort of sense I have come down with a hell of a cold and I hope to join the land of the living really soon! Until then it will freezer food and what not around here. I'll be on the couch if ya need me..

stroganoff

2006-09-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

From the comment box on my last post...
Let me first say I love to read the comments that you all post! it just tickles me to no end!
thanks for stopping by my little ol blog..

I thought I would share these with you ..
Well, mostly Crystal, who I get the feeling is hearing her biological clock ticking a bit louder these days. Over at Motherhood uncensored she started this challenge of sorts using flikr where you can make your own motivational poster.. these are some posters that her readers came up with (Crystal had asked for kids throwing fits): earplugs, birth control, Parenting, and my favorite - climb every mountain- okay that one is just too cute!

Crystal also asked if I like living in Alaska. Well, I have traveled a bit in the "states"; up and down the west coast many times, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho. A bit on the east coast; Maryland, D.C., West Virgina, Virgina. And I have been to Hawaii, driven through Canada, been to Thailand and Hong Kong. I have also been fortunate enough to have traveled to many very remote parts all over Alaska. And, I couldn't imagine living any where else. Where I live now is a pretty small town of 30 thousand people (third largest city in Alaska). It is unbelievably beautiful. We live in a rain forest near the ocean surrounded by mountains, glaciers and wildlife. The downside is we live in a rain forest and it is often rainy or overcast here. Another down side is what the locals call "island-itis" - the only way out of here is by ferry boat or plane, and both are pretty spendy.

Leslie asked about the mix diet family.. yes, we all still eat sea food occasionally.. And Daddy-o and kids will order some meat now and then when we eat out. Which is becoming very rare these days. I prepare (I am guessing) 99% vegan food-breakfast, lunch and dinner.. the 1% would be vegetarian because the boys still eat real cheese, yogurt and eggs now and then. Our transition to being vegan is still a work in progress but, coming along quite nicely..don'cha think?

ya, uh thanks Gaia for pointing out my spelling errors.. ewww!

Now on to the food...

Let me just say this was the best stroganoff I ever made! I made the seitan using my old recipe: a combo of Vegan w/ a Vengeance and some "chicken" spice. A funny side note, as I was making the seitan little Emma started eating it out of the pot when it was cooling .. straight up and she loved it! A far cry from a few months ago when I couldn't get anybody to eat the stuff. Anyhoo I also used the Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff recipe from the same book on pg 163. If you don't have the book, both of the recipes can be found on the post punk kitchen. Anyway, of course I had to make some kid friendly changes, like pureeing the onions and mushrooms. I also just used large white mushrooms (much cheaper, and its what I had on hand). I didn't use the red wine, I react w/ a migraine to the smallest amounts. The recipe called for 1 cup of burgundy so I substituted 1/2 cup red wine vinegar and 1/2 cup veggie broth. I can only imagine that the original recipe would very much be a restaurant quality meal!

I was intrigued to try this Cheeze Rice and Broccoli Casserole from the un-cheese cookbook after seeing it on Vegandiva's blog. Well, as Eli is constantly reminding us- he DOES NOT LIKE his broccoli mixed w/ anything! So, both kids had to be a bit coaxed to finish their dinner. I thought it was pretty good and VERY easy to make! I also made more "chicken" nuggets (w/ the seitan I made the other day). This time I used a recipe on the back of the bisquick box. It worked! The seitan is coated w/ bisquick and some seasonings then, I baked it (not fried) w/ a tbls of earthbalance melted in a bottom of the baking pan.

Lifes a Beach

2006-09-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

Corn bread muffin

So as my previous post mention that black bean soup recipe makes a lot! so we had left overs. Along w/ leftovers I made our favorite corn bread muffins from How it all Vegan Pg.130. So simple and not to sweet. I do use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose and they always turn out great! Behind the muffin is what I add to my bowl of soup.. YUMMY! The black bean soup is a bit bland for me, but I think that is why the kids like it so much. So, I like to kick it up w/ the chipotle hot sauce!

Blue Banana Muffins

Also from How it all Vegan.. some blue banana muffins Pg.131.. I thought they had a great texture to them but, I cut the sugar down from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup and well, they where a bit bland... and the recipe doesn't call for salt but, it really needed a touch. Oh by the way this extra buttery muffin was one of the kids.. Kids need some bit of fat in their diets, especially when they aren't eating meat. Barbecue grilled tempeh
Ohh last nights dinner was delicious!! Barbecue Tempeh! Hubby grilled him and the kids some Rock Fish (yes, we are still a mix diet family..) I had this tempeh in the fridge and this is my favorite way to eat it. I use a home made barbecue sauce recipe from the Vegan Word Fusion Cuisine. Oh I can not begin to tell you how good this is! Hugs
For the first time in forever we have had some sun!! which means we can go to the beach!! yea! after school yesterday we headed out and it was fabulous! It was a bit windy and a bet chilly as fall is really in the air here..but,still fun was had by all.

black bean soup and french toast..not together though.. silly

2006-09-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I pressure cooked some black beans. Well, long story short I forgot them in the pot after releasing the pressure and well, they got over cooked. So what do you do w/ over cooked black beans you make this kid friendly and favorite Vegan Black Bean Soup! Be warned this recipe makes heck of a lot! Which is good.. means left overs tonight! yea! I like to add to mine some chipotle hot sauce, extra cilantro and a a dab of vegan sour cream ! I bet a sweet potato would be an awesome addition as well. We have tried many different black bean soups, this one is the kids fave.
Okay.. soo Monday night we had to go to Eli's kindergarten open house. Part of the festivities was a pot luck.. And well, I was not prepared w/ our own little meal soo I kinda bribed the kids to come home early and we would have "french toast" and "sausage". The kids always seem to be tickled by having a breakfast for dinner. I veganized this recipe before we were trying to go vegan, out of necessity because Emma had been diagnosed to be allergic to dairy.. I had found two different recipes that I combined w/ fabulous results..

Julees french toast
3/4 cup blanched then skinned almonds
1/4 cup soy creamer
3/4 cup soy milk
3 tsp. maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 banana
I put in all in a blender and blend until smooth.. dip bread in mixture and I am betting you know the rest.. fry until golden brown.

We topped ours w/ earth balance and Vive le vegans blueberry maple syrup.. (thank you very much for the idea Vicki)

food funk

2006-09-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of blog worthy cooking happening here this weekend. I seemed to have lost my cooking mojo. It's just with the kids and school I haven't quite got a system or routine yet and has left me feeling really scattered.. which leads me to Fridays dinner.. When I got up on Friday, I just hit the ground running By the time the kids and I got home and settled, and I sat for the first time all day at about 4:30 I just wasn't ready to cook a big meal.. or well, really cook at all. Enter hubby.. He came home from work and slapped together some black bean taco's everybodys fav. It was sooo nice to have a bit of a break. Three cheers for honey!
Saturday night dinner yet another wrap.. I made some more baked "chicken" nuggets only more like strips w/ some "ranch" dressing and baked sweet potato fries..

Last night we had a family date- a movie and dinner down town.

edit: honey was a bit offended by my choice of words.. food funk .. ect..ect.. his tacos were fabulous and the wrap was great.. for the record..

2006-09-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

One big success + well, one not so big.....Okay soo MY KIDS ATE TOFU!! not creamed, not hidden but, in plain sight! those little cubed things are baked "chicken nuggets" and they were a BIG hit! (insert happy mom dance here... ohhh you know the one! the one w/ the silly arm movements--too the tune of its your birthday ahh huh...). Straight from the Vegetarian Family Cookbook pg 144 . Okay so, I didn't tell them it was tofu.. When they asked what's for dinner, I told them that I was making "chicken nuggets", but I was using a different recipe than I did before (frying seitan). They bought it. They both are pretty cute using the exaggerated quote hand movements when mom makes "chicken"..ha ha.. along side our "chicken nuggets" is some baked mac & "cheese" - yummo!

"cheese" sauce
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup nutitional yeast
1 tsp salt & garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 cups water
1 tsp prepared mustard
2 tbs. earth balance
Combine dry ingredients and water and heat until bubbling and thick. remove from heat add mustard and earth balance.
This makes a lot.. i probably used half for 4 servings of noodles.
For the baked mac I added some home made bread crumbs from some left over home made bread in the freezer. Just toasted it and put in in the food processor w/ a bit of olive oil and simply organics all purpose seasoning. I baked it along w/ the "chicken nuggets". This will definintly become a regular item! ha!

Okay, now for my not so good dish.. again I will spare you the photo and give ya a cute one of Eli eating it.. Okay, so all of the ingredients look good but, for some reason it was just no one's favorite and I can't say we will be trying it again.. anyhoo.. It came from the Vegetarian family favorites Pg. 186, The black beans w/ potatoes and tortillas. I guess ya win some, and you lose some occasionally.. huh?

sooo. I must ask - do ya all really go back to read the comments when you ask questions? I've noticed some of you comment on a lot of blogs.. How do you ever keep track?

Vicky asked about which Bryanna cookbook I would recommend..
I have three: The Twenty Minutes to Dinner, Nonna's Italian Kitchen, and Authentic Chinese Cuisine. I haven't tried Nonna's but, I must say, the Authentic Chinese Cuisine has me captivated, as it has new ways to make "meat" substitutes... stuff you will not find in any other cookbook. And the recipe we tried was fabulous!!! I really can't wait to try more. The 20 min. to Dinner cookbook is good, but there are a lot of recipes more for adult taste than my little ones are ready for. But, Emma would say the "hot dog soup" was worth the price of the book alone! But, really there is SOOOO much to learn from every one of her cookbooks.. She is amazing! All of her books include a heck of a lot of tips, tricks and substitutions! They truly are the most informative Vegan cook books!

There were lot's-o-comments on the Vegan family Favorites.. I don't think I would rush out and buy it (sorry Melody .. I haven't tried your recipes in the book.... yet) There are a lot of obvious recipes in it and that's what made me think I should send it back initially. But, I didn't, and please don't get me wrong as I have only tried one of it's many recipes.. soooo... stay tuned for more! I think it would be ideal for beginners or those transitioning to the veggie world...

A new Emma favorite!!

2006-09-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

Sweet potato curry from Vegan Family Favorites. This is a cookbook I have not used before, and quite frankly I almost sent back. Little miss Emma is out of her mind for this dinner! This morning at breakfast she reminded me to buy more coconut milk and sweet potatoes, because , evidently she wants again REAL SOON! It really is a mild peanut nutty kind of yellow curry, simple,quick & not to spicy. We where out of brown rice so I paired it w/ healthy organic, whole wheat w/ flax seed noodle! For Eli again w/ the plain cauliflower (it's been on sale lately, here in our neck of the woods). We had enough for left overs at lunch today and Emma asked her Daddy which is better "hot dog" soup or these noodles? Daddy of course answered the noodles.. Emma voted for the "hot dog" soup....hummmm????

weekend cooking + I switched to beta..

2006-09-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

SO.. Saturday night pizza-making fun! actually since trying out my other Bryann Clark Grogans cookbooks and LOVING the results I busted out 20 min to dinner again.. I had all the ingredients to make her Greek-style spinach pizza. Pretty darn tasty! Me and Hubby both agree the only thing it was missing was garlic! the filling consist of tofu, miso, nutritional flakes and spinach seasoned w/ a touch dill. This topping would make an awesome filling for a stuffed-noodle bake topped w/ a marinara sauce(hubby's suggestion). I made a whole wheat crust, I double the recipe and in retrospect I didn't really have to. One crust would have been plenty. The spinach pizza would have been a hard sell for the kids though. So, they made their own..poor things we were out of their favorite toppings so their plain pizza consisted of crumbed bocca burger and cheese- veganrella for Emma and reg. mozzarella for Eli. On the side we had a big garden salad. I have been blessed w/ children who love salads! yea!

So yesterday little Eli had some sort of flu that really knocked the wind out of he sails and he pretty much slept all day. Leaving Emma with no one to fight with.. ahhh.. These two kids have this innate urge they can't seem to control .. when one is sleeping the other is compelled to wake them up..urrggg. soo I tried to distract Emma in order to let Eli rest we made Muffins that taste like doughnuts from Vegan Vittles. And well, no one complains about fresh made muffins. I can't say that they taste like doughnuts(maybe a little bit), but they were okay. And not only was Emma distracted she also has a muffin to take to school next week, one of her little preschool classmates is having a birthday and that always involves eggs + butter of some sort (cake, cupcake or cookie). For dinner last night we let Emma pick. Over mac -n- "cheese" she chose Cheezy corn and frank chowder again from 20 min. to dinner.. and well, I will spare you the photo.. But, really it was tasty! as freaky as it sounds. The soup was really chalk full of goodness: tofu, miso, nutritional yeast flakes, potato's, onion, celery, corn and well hot dogs. Emma LOVES the veggie dog! cold, cooked, plain or as a sandwich. And now evidently in soup. Eli bounced out of bed today and is feeling much better. He tried a bite of soup and actually liked it.. Wow!

tagged..

2006-09-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Gaia list my top picks of things I think everybody should eat before they die

This tag started quite a discussion in our house so I thought my list would include my family's vote for their favorite food..

1. Hubby voted for my birthday sandwich from last year.. It was quite a work of art! Sandwich consist of marinated (w/ garlic and red wine vinegar) portabella mushrooms and eggplant, steamed Temphe then smothered in a home made bbq sauce, all grilled by hubby the grill master along w/ roasted red pepper, red onions, tomato and lettuce all on a fresh hoagie roll.. yum!

2. Eli voted for the chocolate pudding we splurge on now and again.. I say splurge because in our neck of the woods they are about .97 cents a cup...EEKKK!!!

3. Emma voted for Mac -n- "cheese" which consists of earth balance, nutrional yeast flakes, dash of garlic powder, onion powder and simply organic all purpose seasoning.

4. My vote is for Dreen's homesyle chocolate chip cookies! Those are sinfully delicious and I do believe everyone should experience them themselves!

5. Me and hubby agreed vine ripen homegrown tomatoes.. Our produce where we live is basically "van ripened", not so good.... Our climate makes gardening difficult, don't get me wrong it can be done.. Amber, my older daughter was about six the first time she had a home grown tomato said " Mom.. These are sooo good, they are not like the kind we buy at the store"...

jeeeezzee who hasn't been tagged yet? and sorry if you have been previously tagged..
I will tag
FOOD SNOB
Vegan eats & Treats
vegan cookbook tester

vegancookiemonster
Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit

Wontons

2006-09-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is little Eli's contribution to the blog world! He was cute last night and grabbed the camera during all of the dinner prep commotion.. When I asked what the heck are you doing? He said "don'cha need a picture for your blog?" So below is the Mister Eli's picture of the vegetarian ground "chicken" becoming Curried "chicken" filling So.. Last night I broke out Bryanna Clark Grogens Authentic Chinese Cuisine.. Her cook books are really great! They are all chalk full of tips, tricks and substitution options for all of her recipes. Anyway, these little crispy wontons were quite an undertaking to say the least! But, the pay off was huge!!! First I had to make the "chicken" which is a brilliant combination of TVP, Tofu (shhh don't tell the kids) and gluten, mixed and steamed. Then came the "chicken" filling which really amounted to adding some curry - the recipe calls for onion, but I left it out for Eli's sake. Then came filling the vegan wonton wrappers and frying them. I know, I know, I have never fried so much in my adult life as I have in the last month??? soo much dear hubby commented about buying a fry daddy.. oh for the love of my big fat butt NOOO! I also made Bryanns sweet and sour dipping sauce which was really more for the kids - to entice them into eating the won tons. Okay, I managed to dirty every dish in the house- this no exaggeration! On the side, we had brown rice and we had some cauliflower that really, really needed steaming which makes for one very happy Eli. Plain, not mixed w/ anything, is how that boy likes his veggies.
So the kids have been taking a lot of pictures lately and magically managed to change some camera setting buttons, and.. I wish they could switch them back as easily as they changed them. On our camera, it's no easy feat. Truly I don't know how they managed it w/ all of the menus and prompting to save. But, 4 and 5 year olds have unique capabilities, don't they?

ahh... a couple cute pictures of Emma and her kitty Sammy napping while Eli was at school. We adopted Sammy a couple months ago from the shelter, he was a stray cat. He is about three years old, and man, I truly don't know how they ever survived w/o one and other. He has blended and become one of our family flawlessly.

He has trained us all very well.. This is Sammy's blanket.. And when we lay it out on our laps he will jump up and LOVE.. that's what little Emma calls it when they snuggle..

I have also been tagged by Gaia to list my top picks of things I think everybody should eat before they die .. I will do that, but, I am still thinking about it! She also made the nuggets... wow.. I was just tickled to see my name her blog!

Long time.. No blog..

2006-08-31T09:16:00.000-08:00

We actually had a sunny day here.. Here is the proof. This picture is from a turn out we pass on the way home...

I feel a bit bad about my little absence .. I had finally invited some friends and family to my blog and then my Mom came down for a visit! Which is always awesome. We really do miss her! It is hard living so far away , so we all love it when she comes. Yes, I did cook, but we were just to busy visiting and what not to stop and blog about it.. It was also Mr. Eli's first week of kindergarten..
ahhh one very exited Eli on his first day of school..
Back to the food.. Eh? Last nights dinner was Slow Pho.. A Vietnamese noodle soup. And I thought it was pretty darn okay! Its from the Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook.. Which I have had some pretty mixed result from. I used it a lot last summer when it was too hot to cook. Everybody agreed the crispy little seitan bits made the soup! Eli though won't be eating any left overs .. Silly kid his just had noodles, seitan and green beans but, he needed a lot of coaxing to get him to finish his dinner... errrr.
And well, this was left on the camera from last weekend some little bean taquito's w/ mango! No, coaxing Eli on this one! He would eat beans and cheese everyday if we would let him!

Truly a happy meal

2006-08-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, keep in mind we have small kids here.. Who LOVED the little fried seitan nuggets in the General Tao's Seitan from the night before.. soo, I tried to make little "chicken" nuggets from the same batch of seitan. I must say, they weren't spot on, but pretty darn edible! Along w/ it are sweet potato fries from Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking: Bold Flavors for Meat- and Dairy-Free Meals . If you don't have this book, I highly recommend it.. We have yet to have a dud from it..
And for Eli we had steamed PLAIN broccoli! Who reminded me again and again he doesn't like his broccoli mixed w/ anything.. There ya go...

my attempt at "chicken nuggets"

see this post for my "chicken" seitan

Wet.. 1/2 cup plain soy milk, mix in 2 tsp. egg replacer
dry
3/4 cup corn starch
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp garlic
2tsp onion
1/2 tsp pepper
dash of Lawry's
dash of all purpose seasoning
1 tbl sugar..
dunk nugget size seitan in wet, dredge in dry, and fry ..
I think when I try this again I will cut the corn starch down to a 1/2 cup and add 1/4 cup flour..
But, if you like your nuggets extra crispy.. then stay w/ the 3/4 cup corn starch.

Yea new cookbooks

2006-08-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

yoaaazaa.. two post in one day..??
Yea for new cook books! I have been LOVING Vive la Vegan soo much I just had to order Dreena's other book Everyday Vegan! And along with it (well, I HAD to get the free shipping from Amazon) I got 20 Minutes to Dinner: Quick, Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Vegetarian Meals by Bryanna Clark Grogen yet another cookbook goddess.. My dear sweet daughter Amber works at a tourist shop down town and this morning surprised me this morning w/ The Joy of Blueberries -Natures little Blue Powehouse. Not a vegan book, but will be fun to veganize the recipes!

Soo I wasted no time ...I had already started some 12 grain bread this morning to that I added avocado, red pepper lettuce and from Everyday Vegan the Egg-less sandwich filling! Flippen Good Eats again! The kids had a peanut butter and jelly.. As I have not been able to sell them on the goodness of tofu!

General Tao's Seitan

2006-08-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

This is one of my all time best creations.. I never really imagined I could produce restaurant quality meals but, this is.. I made the seitan basically following vegan w/ a vegance recipe but, added some "chicken" spices 1tsp rosemary, thyme and sage, 1/4 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp garlic powder. Then prepared the General Tao's Tofu.. I added some pineapple which the kids love, and red pepper..I highly recommend doubling the sauce! The first time I made this I added the fried seitan to the sauce and by the time it hit the table the seitan had gone soggy.. soo this time I added the sauce on the plate over a bed of brown rice.. The kids went crazy.. they love the little nuggets.. Eli though, is still adverse to broccoli any way but plain.. I keep hoping this will change..

spaghetti + singapore noodles

2006-08-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

ahh spaghetti.. If there is one thing I can cook its spaghetti! My little secret ingredients are a pinch of cinnamon and after the sauce is done cooking about 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar.

1 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery
8-10 white mushrooms
2 28oz cans diced tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
1/4 tsp stevia
1 tble simply organic all purpose seasoning
1 tble Basil
1/2 tble oregano
1/2 tsp. Thyme
salt pepper, pinch of cinnamon
1/4 cup red wine vinegar..

I tried to record my recipe, but in the end I always seem to add a little more of this and a dash more of that.. this makes a lot! I usually freeze some.

last night the kids got leftover spaghetti.. So me and hubby could have P.F. Chang's Chinese Bistro Singapore Street Noodles be warned these are Very Very spicy! I find theMadras curry powder in our supermarkets bulk spices. I also only use a half pound of noodles keeping everything else the same. It makes A lot.. And it keeps it in a manageable amount to fry all noodles at once.

Well, things are crazy this week w/ back to school.. Eli will be starting kindergarten and is just beside himself w/ anticipation! He is so cute packing and unpacking all of his new school supplies.. And showing everybody who walks in the door his new stuff.. Emma will be going back to pre-school .. Solo w/ out her brother.. This will be very hard for her.. She is quite dependent on her big brother for many of her social interactions.. She attends a co-op pre-school which means I too will be going back to pre-school as parent participation is a requirement (ya, that's a good thing). My oldest daughter will be starting eleventh grade she is looking into going into an alternative school.. We have a week full of school meetings and what not.. Ya! I really am looking forward to a bit of alone time.. If nothing else just going to the store ALONE w/o my little helpers!

soup + muffins

2006-08-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

Ahh yes the fruits of our labor! The rain has given us a bit of a break and we went blueberry picking again.. The kids begged for some muffins.. I used an old recipe as a base, but made enough changes that I think I can call it mine now.. It was a bit salty for me but hubby said he didn't get that .. And well, Emma had to be cut off.. She LOVED them! This would be my first attempt at using Stevia - and man its awesome! So these are fat free and sugar free!! And delicious!

Julees Blue Berry muffines
Ingredients:
2 ripe banana's
1/2 tsp vanilla
1tble ground flaxseed + 3 tbl h2o
1tsp egg replacer + 1 tbl h2o
1/2 tsp stevia
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup blue berries
pre heat oven 350 grease or line muffin tins-- I made 9 small --maybe 6 goodsize ones..
in blender or food processor add banana's, flax seed, egg replacer and h20 blend well..
in a bowel mix dry ingredients, add wet and mix all together, fold in blue berries and voila.. Bake for about 20 - 25 mins

Our soup doesn't really photographic well.. so here is Eli at the table..
Awww mom - soup again? That's what I heard as the kids shuffled to the table.. The soup recipe came from La Dolce Vegan pg 121 Cindy o's " chicken" & rice soup for the soul.. I was quite intrigued by the recipe as my dear hubby requested a break from beans.. eekk.. No Seitan in the freezer, kids don't eat tofu - what's a gal to do? This recipe calls for 2 tbls gluten + 2 tbl h2o and ya just cook the darn stuff w/ the soup.. Yes it was that easy..Who knew? And guess what? It really was tasty.. And there were no left overs, so I must have done something right.. I cut up the little seitan bits into small chunks reminiscent of canned soup.. I think if I made it again I would use noodles in place of rice.. cuz, that's just the kind of gal I am..

More vive le vegan

2006-08-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Saturdays night dinner.. Yet another recipe from vive le vegan .. The pureed chickpea pasta sauce(pg 99) we didn't have the fresh herbs it called for so I sprinkled some dried ones on at the end.. Funny, this one didn't quite strike my fancy like the other ones.. But, I thought the sauce would make some darn fine potato salad adding some relish and celery...I think it was the dry mustard which I am not a big fan of and didn't even add the whole tsp the recipe called for.. Emma gobbled hers up though.. Eli needed a bit of coaxing.. No big surprise there..
Friday night comfort food.. Vive's Scalloped potatoes (pg 102) and Cookin' Southern Coal miners "chicken fried" steak (pg. 92). This was my first recipe from this book and I must say I was quite impressed.. The chicken is really a chick pea + quick oat patty.. I have tried two other recipes for chick pea patties and well, this one the kids will eat.. The others were baked though? Any way if you like to read cook books this one is a hoot! Full of southern stories and humor! Most of the recipes are vegan or easily veganized.. all though it should come as no big surprise there is a lot of frying going on in it.. I would probably recommend it for beginners or for those who are transitioning to becoming vegetarian/vegan.. As a few recipes rely on packaged food, or just plain common sense. But, I bet you won't find another cook book w/ a recipe for tater-tot biscuits..

From Cookin Southern - the author wrote a bit of an essay on nobody liking to wash dishes.. Then she came across this little ditty that gave her a different outlook..

Thank God for dirty dishes,
for they have a tale to tell.
while others may go hungry
we're still eating well.
with heath, home, and happiness,
We surely shouldn't fuss.
For by the stack of evidence,
Life's been very good to us.

Curried veggie pie w/ chickpea crust

2006-08-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

Last night we gave Vive le vegan a break.. I made curried vegetable pie w/ chickpea crust from the garden of vegan (pg 158).. Well, had to make a couple of changes. One change I made was the necessary step of disguising the onion, carrots, celery, tomato and red pepper by pureeing them after they were sauteed.. cuz of our little Eli.. After that step I didn't need to add the veg broth the recipe called for... Whats acceptable? left un-pureed are the peas, chickpeas and cauliflower...I also used curry paste rather then powder.. But, my guestimation made it a bit on the spicy side.. Which only really bothered Eli (there is one in every family huh??, one that is a bit picker then the rest?)..I thought it was perfect, Emma gobbled hers up and dad was pretty pleased. The crust turned out great and I am NOT, I repeat NOT a crust maker.. I lack some gene needed to make even the fail proof kinds of crust.. I have read all the tips, I have tried all the tips.. Still my crust is usually very edible just not pretty.... The pictures is kinda washed out the crust was a golden brown..

Creamy hummus totilla pizza

2006-08-17T13:15:00.000-08:00

Last night was pizza night the kids made their own. I wanted something a little lighter and made Dreenas creamy hummus tortilla pizza.. Again a real winner. i really like the low carb tortillas they are high in fiber, low in calories...The zucchini and red pepper are roasted w/ a dash of hoisin sauce.. what a perfect combo! How does she do it??? My hubby could not get over how fabulous the hummus was.. All these years I have been making my own version w/ chili paste.. I prefer my hummus spicy .. Dreenas is a very simple very creamy version.. I did add a bit more garlic then the recipe called for .. Sad the only crackers in the house were plain ol saltines but, enjoyed by all..

Again with the rain.. My 16 yr old daughter told me today that we have only had one day of sunshine in the last 49 days.. Ugh! The rainiest months are coming up September and October.. It will only stop raining when its starts to snow..

cookbook magic

2006-08-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

The noodle dish was last nights dinner inspired by the garden of vegans zucchini and broccoli toss.. Only I substituted green beans and corn for zucchini and added some mushroom sauce.. Emma loved it.. Eli not so much he is kinda picky and likes his broccoli either "crunchy" w/ dip or cooked w/ mayo.. I keep hoping this will change..

Here is a pic of little Emma having some yummy tofu scramble from vegan vittles.. I haven't had much luck feeding the little ones tofu..Unless is it well hidden (like sauces or pumpkin pie) once in awhile they like the tofu bacon (also vegan vittles). She claimed to like it but, really in the end only had a few bites..

Monday night we hosted a going away party for my older son.. Had a group of his good friends out.. It was nice.. I made some chili and JO Jo potatoes from venturesome vegetarian, some corn bread muffins from how it all vegan.. To top it all of some more vive le vegan magic! Peanut butter cookies.. Again me oh my they are truly fabulous!

Zucchini delight is right

2006-08-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

This is the making of a fine Friday night dinner..One of dh co workers grew these crazy zucchinis in his garden.. And really I only used the big one for this dish and we had leftovers wow! I used the zucchini delight recipe from How it all vegan.. Really easy! I ended up slicing the zucchini in the food processor trying to disguise it a bit for the little ones sake who all though they have never really tried it in anything but bread...Proclaim they don't like it! The only thing else I would change is it called for 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes which was great for me, but a bit too spicy for the kids. But, they ate it zucchini and all..

We had a break in the rain and went blue berry picking the little ones had a blast.. We even were graced by the big brothers presence..ahh what a good boy. We are all going to miss him when he leaves! The little ones keep begging him to stay..

No Saturday night dinners to post we ended up eating leftovers...As we had a late lunch at a barbecue on the beach.. Yes, we came prepared w/ veggie burgers for me and hubby (wow, he could have had a burger but didn't) and veggie dogs for the kids.. Only endured a bit of ribbing..

Split pea soup w/ sweet potato and Mexican seasonings

2006-08-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite soups that I make regularly.. I have found that it is a very good dish for entertaining non vegans. It's from the complete vegan cookbook . And it is fabulous! My oldest son is in town who is a pure carnivore.. Sad but, true. There was a chance he would grace us w/ his presence at dinner time.. I was realistic knowing he would be visiting w/ his good buddies and the chance of him driving back out to our house was really slim to none.. But, secretly I remained Optimistic ..Optimistic enough to make a dinner I knew he would eat despite the lack of flesh...
With it a made a "whole wheat beer quick bread"..(hey veganknitter, I did it! Thanks for the comment/suggestion) this is such a forgiving recipe. Last night I used 1 cup spelt, 1 cup whole wheat, 1/2 cup all purpose and 1/2 cup almond meal.. Many of the reviewers commented about only using non aluminum baking powder or it is too strong tasting. I have made this bread using many flour and beer combos.. The kids prefer a lighter beer (sounds kinda funny huh?), I mean they prefer the bread when i make it using a lighter beer while, I kinda like a darker porter beer it kinda makes it a bit more like sour dough-ish... Happy friday!

Quinoa and Black Beans

2006-08-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

http://vegetarian.allrecipes.com/az/QinndBlckBns.asp

This is another kid friendly, quick, one pot meal (I love one pot meals!). I follow the recipe but, add a can of Muir fire roasted tomatoes w/ chilies w/ the veggie broth. I always rinse the quinoa first it does help. Also, the age of the quinoa will influence the cooking time and the amount of liquid needed. The kids were lacking in the fruit department soo they got a side of applesauce w/ pineapple.

My little vegan chefs

2006-08-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

vive le dangerous!

Yes it was raining again.. Not just a little light mist, no the kind that soaks ya between the store and the car. Yes we live in the rainforest, yes we regularly dawn our rain coats and rain boots - they are our normal attire. But, its not even suppose to be the rainy season yet, that is coming next. I have tried to keep the little ones busy despite the rain: we go to the library, play dates, swimming etc etc.. And we have glued, painted and created, but I am running out of ideas.. soo today we cooked. Before lunch we made Dreenas home-style chocolate cookies.. I get what all the hysteria is about (megan, vegancore, vivaciousvegan ect.. ect..).. Those are vive le dangerous. We made a double batch thank god! My dd could not believe it and just kept gleefully yelling about how they were the best cookies she has ever eaten in her life!! I used up the last of my stash of the tropical source chocolate chips. Major bummer as those we can not get locally. I bought them in Seattle..
Next we made dinner..I chose a simple recipe I have done in the past .. It is my I am too lazy to cook meal.. And remember we have little ones. It's from How It All Vegan, mums bean and cheese casserole.. It consists of cheese, potatoes, a can of veg baked beans, a squirt of mustard and a casserole pan. How hard could it be with the kids? Well, lets just say I planned ahead and we started very early...I thought I could kill some time by letting the kids peel the potatoes. Guess what? it worked.. It is definitely a task that requires some practice and patience. My daughter got some bits peeled here and there and then I tried to guide her a bit.. My son was getting it, but gave up breathing hard and saying "boy this is really hard work". So they moved on to trying to open the can of beans. Yet another task that requires practice and patience and a bit of strength neither of them has yet.. My son informed me "did you know they make a can opener that opens cans by itself? Ya its true all you have to do is push a button" (as seen on t.v.). Okay then I grated cheese while they mixed the mustard in w/ the beans and mixed in the potatoes. And then came the real fun..they got to do the scooping and layering each pan. We made two dishes one for the boys w/ real cheddar cheese and one for the girls w/ veganrella..
A dinner that should have taken five minute took about 45 min to prepare Cooking w/ kids and keeping them away from the t.v. -> priceless..

creamy corn chowder

2006-08-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

(Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking: Bold Flavors for Meat- and Dairy-Free Meals http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572840641/sr=8-1/qid=1155049723/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2504433-1259204?ie=UTF8 )
Creamy corn chowder, yet another winner from this cookbook! (and there have been a lot!) I did add 2 cups of white beans for protein and it worked very well! Creamy and hot.. Unlike the rest of the states we have had a very cold and rainy summer. Soup is always satisfying.. the kids ate it w/ little coaxing. They are not big fans of soup. Which is really to bad because not only is it a one pot meal (Love those) I really enjoy making soup and experimenting, making it my own.. I usually make fresh bread but, today we had gone to the store and on they way home snacked on this small loaf of organic garlic bread it was a match made in heaven.

Enchiladas..

2006-08-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it was a lovely Sunday afternoon here.. The dh took the little ones for a little hike threw the wild strawberry patch and they brought me back a treat.. Yummy little things.. On their little outing they saw a mamma deer w/ two babies, and two bears. One along side the road eating berries and the other along side a river chalk full of spawning and spent salmon.
Then we had dinner.. Under that mound of toppings is an enchilada.. Once I discovered how easy it was to make the sauce from the previously mentioned guinnah entry http://guinnah.blogspot.com/2006/04/soyrizo-and-green-olive-enchiladas.html
I have been doing it ever since.. Besides I can use organic ingredients .. The recipe makes two dinners for us so I make it and freeze the rest...

This dinner will be posted often as...
1. Its one of hubbies favorites
2. No coaxing the kids to eat, no dinner time drama = happy kids and parents
3. NO BRAINER

vive le vegan magic

2006-08-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last night dinner..... Me oh my I must say Dreena is brilliant!
We (dh helped) made the Broccoli-Mushroom-Walnut phyllo pie. Amazing. We had just enough of everything in the fridge to put it all together. I did blend it all a bit more then called for the onions and mushrooms that is I did leave some broccoli bits .. One child doesn't like onions.. The other one loves them all of them red, green, yellow raw or cooked. Neither child likes mushrooms unless they are sautéed and by them self, not on pizza, noodles nothing.. so most nights usually end up pureeing a lot of onions after sautéing them.. Then adding them back to the dish. That little step has got to stop.
The only other recipes I have tried are the Banana oat bundles..Yummy, simple w/ just a bit of sugar.. and the fudgy brownies my daughter deemed with a huge smile on her face.. "Awesome chocolaty goodness"

yummy peanut noodles

2006-08-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

well, last night we had yummy peanut noodles.. The sauce comes from the vegan world fusion cuisine call primal peanut sauce it is a really easy sauce w/ coconut milk, maple syrup, red curry paste, shoyou sauce and red pepper flakes. I highly recommend this cook book, if you don't have put it on your wish list now(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975283723/sr=8-3/qid=1154813497/ref=sr_1_3/103-1035969-2695816?ie=UTF8)! not only is it a beautiful book it has a lot of wonderful recipes. I have made a handful of recipes and they all have been flippen fabulous .. or here is a link for some free recipes from their site http://www.veganfusion.com/recipes.php
anyhoo..
I made me and hubby some very spicy stir fry vegetables (cabbage, onion, mushrooms, carrots and extra chili sauce, spicy sesame oil, soy sauce, touch of ginger and lots o garlic) to go with ours.. The kids had raw veggies the pink fish dish use to have baby carrots in it, but were snatched before I took a pic.

My collection of cookbooks

2006-08-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

Wow that's a lot huh? I have become a bit obsessed w/ cookbooks.. As I mentioned before my daughters allergies gave way for the need to re-learn how to cook at the time we were already kind of moving towards being vegetarian. But, with the all of the awesome recipes I just began cooking more and more vegan and so our journey began. We are hardly 100% vegan.. Someday?

leftovers...

2006-08-04T07:47:00.000-08:00

Well I really should have named this blog my daughters dinners.. thus far all my pictures are of her dinner. Tonight I worked on cleaning out the fridge.. We had some left over bow tie pasta that I added a "cheese" sauce to, corn on the cob, again w/ the "chicken fried" seitan and sauteed mushrooms.
The cheese sauce comes from guinnahs blog (http://guinnah.blogspot.com/2006/04/soyrizo-and-green-olive-enchiladas.html)It is just like a recipe in the uncheese book, but instead of olive oil it uses earth balance which I really prefer. This sauce is wonderful on just about anything! It makes great potato au gratin, baked mac and cheese, over broccoli, cauliflower, I am a big fan of the cheese sauce.. It also has made my life easier as we have a mix diet kind of family. My daughter is allergic to dairy so I use to make her and I one "mac and cheese" and make my son and hubby the regular kind.. Now there is one! Yea!

creamy tomato soup...

2006-08-03T05:59:00.000-08:00

this soup is flippen yummy! and easy.. Along side it we have a "cheesy" quesadilla w/ veganrella cheese.. At first I didn't like this cheese but, I think they change the recipe or maybe I just acquired a taste for it? For me it must be melted my daughter though, can eat a cold slice of it anytime..

Tomato soup
1 onion
2 8 oz cans of organic tomato sauce
2tbl soy sauce
1tbl All purpose seasoning
1/2 tbl basil
dash of onion powder
dash of garlic powder
2 cups rice milk
2cups plain soy milk
4tbl corn starch
3tbl nutritional yeast
saute onion add tomato sauce and seasoning let it come to boil..
add 31/2 cup milk .. Add cornstarch and yeast to remaining 1/2 cup mix well and add to the pot..

2006-08-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

two entry's in a row? How about that?
tonight due to some exhausting circumstances..We had left over lunch for dinner.. cheese less pizza and a garden salad..
Here in our neck of the woods we have very limited dining options. Lucky for us this pizza place it makes a mean cheese less pizza. But it is "all the way downtown" where we rarely go. The little ones do get a hankering now and then and ask to go on a "family date" (how cute is that)..
which would also include a movie or sometimes just walking around down town. We live in a very touristy town in the summer and downtown is a buzz.. its fun to walk along the board walk and look at all of the Huge cruise ships.. On friday nights there is music in the park.. locals perform which means some good some bad.. some polka..

ready or not...

2006-07-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

okay.. so my first blog entry.. how flippen exiting?
this is my not so gracefull photo of dinner..
i made saitan from vegan w/ a vengence.. then "chicken fried" it..
brown gravy from vegan vittles
green beens
and mashed potaoes in the preasure cooker W/ 5 yukon and 1 sweet 1 cup veg broth cooked under preasure for 4 min. quick release added some earth balance salt and pepper..
the ultimate comfort meal!

2006-04-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

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