Stuffed on Stuffing

I hope everyone had a great holiday or day off, and it was relaxing and full of awesomeness. Although exhausting, mine was pretty spectacular. I haven't had a real holiday at home with my family in a couple of years, between being with a significant other or my family being out of town. This Christmas, however, there were no vacations or significant others, so I got to enjoy all of my family on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On the 24th, my mom typically hosts a small family shindig, where everyone comes over, we play games, hang out and make hor d'oeuvres. Because my father (and now brother-in-law) are atkins people, the spread usually consists of mostly meat/cheese items with a couple of carb extras. Aside from crackers, there was not anything I could eat, so I whipped up my most awesome hummus and ate it with asparagus, carrots and crackers. Food didn't really matter though as I took advantage of having a weekend off after a very stressful work week and drank enough to quote from "Monster"* and learn the "Cleveland Shuffle" with my sister.

You can barely see it, but my hummus is behind the meatballs. In my inebriated state, I added bits of asparagus to "fancy it up"

Christmas morning my sisters and their families returned for breakfast, presents and dinner. I didn't realize the impact that a vegan lifestyle had taken on me until my mom started preparing the turkey for the oven and I started crying thinking about all that turkey went through before it died. Yeah, yeah, I know, shut it.

I didn't need turkey though because I prepared a most awesome vegan stuffing. I also had a pretty awesome Christmas dinner that consisted of corn, spinach, asparagus and cranberries in addition the stuffing, and ate more than I thought possible. Anyways, I made a similar stuffing for Thanksgiving but noticed that I was missing something in my flavor, so I tried again, severely tweaking what I had. I started with organic sourdough bread that I let sit out for a day and a half before breaking it up in tiny little bite sized pieces.

I then sauted my vegetables and soy meat, and rehydrated my craisins in chickn stock. I highly prefer this to vegetable stock for this dish. It's usually 1 bullion cube per 2 cups of water, but I used 2 bullion cubs in 2.5 cups of water. Overall, I thought it was pretty fantastic and much better the second day. Those that ate it (my mom and sister) really enjoyed it too.

The best part of it was while cooking my dad kept asking me in a surprised way if I was cooking sausage. I told him a couple of times that it was soy, but he either didn't hear me or wasn't paying attention. Right before assembling it, he asked to have a bite of the "meat," loaded up his fork, took a bite, then looked at my mom and said "...this isn't real." His face was pretty awesome. Who knows, maybe one day I'll convert him from his meat based diet. Probably not though.

Stuffing

1lb of day old bread (preferably sourdough)

1lb vegan sausage

1 large onion

2 celery stalks

2-3 garlic gloves

2.5 cups "chickn" broth

1/2 c craisins

sage, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste

Rip the stale bread into pieces and place in casserole dish. In a large saute pan, add olive oil and cook the onions, garlic and celery over med heat for 5 min. Add the meat and seasonings and cook until the meat browns, around 7 min. Add the mixture to the bread and mix. Then add the broth and rehydrated craisins and mix well. Cover and bake at 350 for 30 min, then remove the foil and cook for 10 min longer, careful to not overcook and dry out your stuffing.

I don't have a final picture of it, but it was pretty. I actually recommend cooking it the night before

so that the bread can soak up all the flavor.

*We're not a weird or crazy family. The events surrounding "Monster" are horrible and deplorable but for some reason the women in my family have developed a crazy attachment to this amazing film, and it just isn't a get together with the Rush women without this movie being mentioned or acted out.**

**Not the rape/murder/lesbian scenes, obvs.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My work decided to have a cookie exchange for our holiday party. Not nearly as cool as free wine, but it's cookies, so whatev. I felt a lot of pressure because I feel like whatever I make is going to be taken one of two ways: cautiously because it's vegan or ignored because, well, it's vegan. Because I had to work today, I said I wasn't going to make anything until my coworker made what is going to be a very amazing key lime goat cheese cheesecake. So if she could do that, I can make some cookies.

I didn't want to go to the store, so I decided on peanut butter cookies, partly because I had all the ingredients on hand and partly because this same coworker said that she loved vegan peanut butter cookies.

Overall they aren't bad. My biggest whine with cookie baking is after the first batch, I'm bored and don't want to continue baking so my cookies get bigger and bigger so less and less cookie sheets go in the oven. I also I think it's hard for me to give a solid answer because I'm just not a sweet person. My mom tried them and said she never would have guessed they were vegan. Then followed it up with "this isn't like when I said your brownies were good. There really are good." So if she gives the thumb up, I trust her baking critique enough that they much be pretty good. I added little peanuts on the top for decoration and because I was a little short on peanut butter, I added 1tbs of tahini. The one compliant that I had is that these did not take 5-7min like the recipe said it would. Maybe I made them too big, but they took at least 10 min.

Peanut Butter Cookies
(recipe taken from hellyeahitsvegan.com)

¾ c creamy peanut butter (like I said, I added tahini)
½ c shortening
1¼ c light brown sugar
3 tbsp almond milk
1 tbsp vanilla
2 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed into 3 tbsp warm water
1¾ c flour
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, combine peanut butter, shortening, and brown sugar. Add almond milk, vanilla, and flax mixture and beat well. In a small bowl, sift together flour, salt, and soda. Add dry mixture to wet; mix well. Drop by heaping tablespoons, 2″ apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten lengthwise and crosswise with fork tines. Bake 10-12 minutes. Store in an air-tight container.

no real reason for this picture, but definitely happy that baking is over

Vegetable Casserole

While at work yesterday I had an intense craving for pineapple fried rice. I convinced myself however that I couldn't eat the rice because I already had rice that day, and two rice meals in a row would equal carb overload. I looked through some of my vegan blogs and found a recipe for carrot, sweet potato and coconut casserole from Musings from the Fishbowl. Her blog is super awesome, fyi.

So, she thought the picture looked unappealing, but I thought it looked great and decided that I wanted that. The problem is the cooktime was going to take an estimated hour, and after work on Wednesday I work out and don't often get home until 9pm. I decided to do it anyway because the impending snow would mean getting home on Thursday would suck, and it would be nice

to have a comfortable dinner waiting for me.

So after working out, I headed to the grocery store. The safeway in Waldorf has a surprisingly okay section of vegan/organic options. No Trader Joes or Whole Foods, but not bad. Plus, I found this:

Bamba! I first had this while hanging out with some friends and they always said you could only get it overseas. Super happy to find it. If you like peanut butter, you'll like Bamba, so go try it.

What I didn't find were parsnips needed for the recipe. I got fingerling potatoes, and just added a couple more to make up for the lack of parsnips, but it totally could have done better with them.

I didn't get home until 930pm, so dinner went in at 945pm. It cooked until 11:15 when the carrots just wouldn't get tender. Maybe I didn't have them small enough. My mom, the brilliant mother she is, said to finish it in the crock pot, so I did. It cooked on high for another hour or two, and she turned it off so I could go to bed. Good thing I had Bamba. That and mushrooms became and equally satisfying dinner and this casserole made an excellent lunch on a snowy day.

Carrot, Sweet Potato and Coconut Casserole

(posting the recipe from Shellyfish as she made it up, then in parenthesis are my edits. All credit goes to her.)

530 grams/18.5 ounces cooked garbanzo beans (I used 1 can, rinsed)

1 red onion, diced

2 to 4 cloves garlic, diced (3)

2 medium carrots, chopped

1 medium parsnip, chopped (extra fingerling potatoes)

1 medium yukon gold-type potato, chopped (4 fingerling potatoes)

1 medium sweet potato, chopped

a large handful of frozen peas, rinsed (used 2)

400 ml/1 1/2 cups light coconut milk

200 ml/3/4 cups soy milk* (used 1 cup unsweetened almond milk)

curry paste to taste (2 tsp)

1/2 tsp ground cumin

salt & pepper

Fresh chopped cilantro or parsley for garnish (cilantro)

(couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast to add B-12 and sop up some liquid)

Combine all the ingredients except the peas in a deep casserole dish. Cover and bake at 190°c/375°f for about 30 minutes, then take it out and give it a stir. Bake for another 15 minutes, then add the peas and stir again. Bake for another 10 minutes or so, then serve garnished with fresh chopped cilantro.

(Mine didn't cook through, so I finished it in a crock pot on high for 1-2 hrs. I imagine though that putting everything in the crockpot and cooking on low while at work all day, then adding peas when you get home because they only have to warm would be just as nice)

not baby food, promise. just a bad picture

Snow!

There was snow on the ground this morning and it made me super happy. I'd love to have crazy snow storms like last year, but from what I hear, that's not in the cards for Maryland this winter. I just wish this snow had hit yesterday so I could have enjoyed it more versus driving in it.

Somehow over the weekend I always gain. I guess during the week I'm controlled with my food that snacking over the weekend paired with a lower water intake, that come Monday I'm always up 2 or 3 lbs. I generally lose that and move forward by Tuesday, but it's always upsetting to see a gain on the scales. Especially when I know I don't eat enough to put on 3lbs in one day.

So per usual, Monday tends to be a really low cal/high water day. I won't show you a picture of what I'm eating today, but it's eggplant and chickpea curry stew and it's not too pretty. I made a huge batch about a month ago, froze half and this is the last of it. It doesn't taste bad but I'm just done. It was really good the first couple of times I ate it, but now...blah.

But at least there's snow! =)

Brownies

Brownies are one of my favorite desserts, which is weird because I'm not a chocolate person. Given any dessert, I'll take lemon or rainbow (funfetti, sherbert) flavored things. Given that, I was bored yesterday and decided to bake. While looking through one of my vegan cookbooks (this one given to me by Mandy for my birthday, thanks Mandy!) I decided on the dreary, grey day that it would be a brownie day.

Now maybe it's because I haven't had a dessert type item in a long time but I thought they were pretty great. I discovered nog by Silk that I am oh so happy with, so it was very cool to me to have a vegan brownie and a no-dairy, no egg nog. Others were not as thrilled as me. My mom seemed to like it, although I think she was just being nice. Julie took a bite, smiled and said "mmmm, I'll save the rest for later." The only one that seemed to love them was Cass, and I think that was because she found out it had coffee in it and she thought that was pretty cool. Given those comments, I still think they were good. Alicia Silverstone has a recipe in her Kind Diet book that I think I'd like to try next time instead of this one.

The recipe I used is from the book but tweaked it some, so I'm not sure if this violates copyright things. It's taken from The Complete Vegan Kitchen by Jannequin Bennett, and you should get it for the original recipe.

Hope that covers everything, ha.

Brownies

1/2 c brewed french vanilla coffee (blech, my mom's coffee)

1/3 c cocoa

1 heaping cup of sugar

1tsp vanilla

1/3 oil

1 1/4 flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

Whisk the coffee, cocoa and sugar together until well blended. Then mix the remaining ingrediants just until blended but don't over do it, apparently it can make the brownies tough. Pour the batter in a greased 8in pan for 30-32 min in a 350 degree oven.

Hummus

I used to buy hummus once a week, but was sick of spending $4 for a tub of good quality hummus. I decided to save money and make sure I knew where each ingredient came from, so I went on the search for the perfect hummus recipe. You know what I found? There are a bazillion recipes for hummus. I tried free styling it for a while and that failed miserably. So, two months in, I think I found my favorite hummus recipe. I was eating two batches a week until I realized that although hummus is good for you, too much of a good thing is...too much. So I make this on Sunday and it'll last me until Friday or Saturday, and still tastes just as fresh as when I first made it. I use roasted red peppers in it frequently because after reading an article Sarah posted, I discovered that red peppers mixed with chickpeas increases the level of iron that is absorbed.

Favorite Hummus

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

juice of one lemon (unless it's a big, super juicy lemon. just use half)

2 tbs tahini

a few big pieces of roasted red pepper (i use the one from the jar, but I imagine if I had some extra time and made my own, this would taste way better)

2 garlic cloves chopped

1tbs water

1-1.5 tbs olive oil

salt, pepper and paprika to taste

I don't have a food processor, so I put the chickpeas in a blender, mix for a few seconds, then add everything else but the olive oil. Then I get it going on a low setting and add the oil until it's as smooth as I like it, which typically hangs out around 1tbs, sometimes 1.5tbs.

Enjoy!

Quinoa: A Love Story

So I'm really bad at blogging. Like, really really bad at it. My mom blogs on a regular basis and her entries are always so entertaining. I feel like when I blog it starts to turn boring and a "here's another recipe" sort of thing.

Anyways, I'm still vegan, so my recipes will still be of that nature. I love it so much and it was so easy, I can't believe it took me this long to get here. I started at the end of August, really just to see if I could last a month, and I can't believe the transformation you go through. I now exercise 4-5 times a week because I have so much energy, I'm down 45lbs and 2.5 dress sizes, and I can't describe the way my body feels. I still have a ways to go, but goal weight doesn't feel like such an impossible task anymore. I feel like I know my body better, that I think more clearly, and I'm not this miserable blob. I don't drink soda but once in a blue moon because it doesn't make my body feel good, which is so weird to me. My diet has switched from mostly processed to mostly fresh and whole, plus cooking is a lot of fun. My mom has been so much fun to cook for because she's not only honest, she's open to trying anything I make, and some of the stuff really impresses her. My dad is even opening up about trying some of my dishes (as long as they aren't too loaded with carbs =P)

Okay, off my "vegan is amazing and everyone should do this!" platform and moving on...

When I cooked this recipe last night, I knew I had to blog about it. A blog I read, apricot-tea.com, is becoming one of my favorites and her husband is a combination of vegan and raw, so she in turn is at the very least vegetarian. When I came across this black bean and tomato quinoa recipe, I had to try it.

There's a small natural food store in Waldorf that sells different grains and whatnot, but their items and hours are very limited, so I usually do a Whole Foods trip on Tuesday when I'm at work since one is fairly close (and a pretty walk). I got my quinoa from the bulk bin and it looked nothing like it does when it's cooked. I also had no idea how to cook it. I read that I had to wash it well plus my coworker reminded me about the importance of washing it, so when I looked up why, I found out that a coating covers the quinoa and can make the dish bitter.

So last night I mustered up the courage, bathed my quinoa twice and made this dish. It. Was. Amazing. It reminded me of rice a little, but it wasn't heavy and it kept me satisfied for a while. Plus, 1 cup of uncooked quinoa swells to 4 cups cooked, so in my opinion it's a pretty awesome deal (and 1c cooked is 4 ww points, which is a very filling meal with vegetables to me). I also paired it with avocado and Tofutti sour cream that tastes so much like regular sour cream to me, that I probably shouldn't have purchased it. I tweaked her recipe a little to fit what I had on hand and I apologize for the grainy picture, my camera phone isn't the greatest. I will be making this again today because I have left over ingredients and this will make lovely meals throughout the week.

Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa

2 teaspoons grated lime zest
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (really it was the zest and juice of two small limes)
3 tbs Olive Oil
1 teaspoon sugar (used Truvia)
1 cup quinoa
1 (14- to 15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 medium tomatoes, diced
3-4 green onions, chopped (white and green parts)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Wash quinoa in 2 changes of cold water. If you don't have a sieve like me, wash your quinoa in a pot and empty out the water as much as you can without loosing the quinoa. Then line your strainer with paper towels and dump the quinoa in that. A little more work but it's easy still. Put quinoa in a pot with 2 cups of water; bring to boil. Then turn the fire down low to a simmer & cover to steam. Cook for 20 minutes (or until it’s reached its desired softness and no liquid is left).

Meanwhile, whisk together lime zest & juice, oil, & sugar in a large bowl.

Add dressing to quinoa & toss until dressing is absorbed. Stir in black beans, tomatoes, green onion, & cilantro. Mix well, salt and pepper. You can add avocado and sour cream and eat it as is, or serve it with tortilla chips.

Vegan sour cream?! So excited about this.

Tonight I think I'm going to make some pumpkin bread, which will at the very least warm up the house. So cold today!