Yes it is a Boca Burger...

There are times when dinner is not the primary focus of our day so we always have a few basic items that are universally enjoyed. Boca Burgers and Boca Chic Patties do reside in our freezer.
I would like to claim that I peeled organic Yukon Gold potatoes and fried them in cold pressed high in omega 3 oil blend, but that would be a lie and would defeat the purpose of a quick and easy dinner. Yes sir those are Ore-Ida Fast Food Style Crispy fries, devoid of all nutritional value! The bread is from grocery store bakery, decent sour dough, we had some Follow Your Heart Cheddar, and Vegenaise.
This is a classic two cookie sheet meal, put burgers and fries on parchment paper on cookie sheets, cook at 400 degrees for about 17 minutes. Clean up is a snap!!
For years we were big supporters of Boca and Morningstar Farms "Vegetarian" meat substitues, but have not eaten them as much since becoming vegan. I am constantly disappointed to see the number of products made by Boca and Morningstar that are not vegan. Morningstar is doing a better job of labeling their vegan products, which is great but I wish that they would make the "corn dogs" vegan, Carter would really like them. Speaking of Carter he does not refer to substitutes by what they are mocking. He calls Boca Chic'n Nuggets- Soy Nuggets/Patties, because he will tell you there are no Chickens in the nuggets he eats.
I have also started being very leery of Light Life products after finding eggs listed on some of their new offerings.

To the store with Mr. Osum

I try to do most of the shopping for the week in a single trip, which as many of you know is not always easy, since there are few stores that carry every thing a vegan family needs. The main store that I go to is Checkers, a local low price store, which has great prices on vegetables and good variety. They have a fair number of staple items too. Then I usually go to the local coop or one of the other stores in town to fill in the blanks. I like taking Addison because she is a quick and thorough label reader. The store used to cause me a great deal of stress, constantly reading labels to find that there was some animal product in almost everything(especially gelatin in kid stuff and cereal). She is on her way home today so Mr. Osum(Carter) came with me.
Carter is doing a great job of starting to try to read labels, although he was bummed that the chicken noodle soup he was holding had chicken in it. I offered to make him no chicken soup, with alphabet noodles, but he DOES NOT LIKE SOUP!!! The irony!!!



Here is the trunk full of vegan vittles, loaded in pro-vegan-green shopping bags. And yes people stop me all of the time to ask about the bags, which is interesting!!! I like to talk to people about being vegan, and so does Carter. I am happy when I feel that a "vegan" conversation has answered someone's questions about being vegan and left them with a positive impression.


These are the dry goods, there are more beans and tofu out of camera range!!!! I try to buy as few processed foods as possible, but I have to buy some.
Below are the veggies: kale, spinach, limes, lemons, broccoli, romaine, carrots, cauliflower, onions, jalapenos, garlic, potatoes, and red and green peppers.



In the back you can see store brand bread, bread is one of the items that causes me quite a bit of frustration. The kids are like any others... their idea of good bread is soft white and squishy. I prefer something that is crustier. Most of the bread in stores are made at centralized bakeries, and in the past six months have reformulated because of commodity prices earlier in the year. Earlier in the year there were a hand full of breads that were clean, but not after the reformulations. There are very few mainline breads that vegan, milk and honey are the main offenders.
The experience with bread this year has really made me vigilant in reading labels because you never know when they change formulations.
The store trip takes about an hour and a half with some time to prep/wash veggies and put everything away.

Quick... Make some noodles

I was going to make boring old spaghetti for Carter, his favorite. But I mentioned noodles to Nikki and she suggested edamame, so it ended up Asian.
Here are the ingredients:



I added garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and some water. Topped it off with cilantro and garlic chili sauce.
So what would I call it? Not really sure, Tofu with spicy green curry, miso noodles. Nikki really liked the broth/sauce. She said it reminded her of hot and sour soup. She said she would like it again, I will try my sweetie!!!
Carter had plain noodles, edamame, and tofu. He ate the noodles, but the tofu not a hit. You never know.

Glad to be home, but we have to eat...

We were away for a few days but the pantry at Casa Bollaert is always stocked!!!!! When I shop I tend to go overboard with the staples, but it is nice when you have been gone to open the cupboards and find the base for another meal.
After a quick scan of the available supplies I decided to make scrambled tofu. Here's what we had:
Central Soy Organic Nigari Tofu
Canned corn
Can of original Rotel
Instant brown rice
This meal took about 20 minutes start to finish
Carter had plain scrambled tofu and rice with a little teriyaki
Ours had garlic powder, onion powder, salt, lowrys seasoned salt, pepper, and a bit of EVO.
I usually do not mix tomato and tofu, it can get slimy, but since I added the Rotel at the end the tofu was ok.
It was hot, simple, and it tasted pretty darn good.

In the picture below is our scrambled tofu in my #1 favorite pan, it is a 18" volrath commercial non stick heavy gauge aluminum pan. What I like about it is I can cook a whole meal for the family in it. It is big... big... BIG... which makes it very versatile and clean up is a bit easier.
The big pan love comes from my days as a chef, it reminds me of a griddle... I love griddles!!!!

On the road again, again......

Yesterday we made the 8.5 hour trek back from Denver. Of course we had to eat.... We were planning ahead since our bag of "car snacks" was almost completely empty besides graham crackers. We brought a block of Follow Your Heart - Cheddar and we had left over chick pea patties (V-CON recipe). Nikki had already had the vision to add the cheese and chickpea patties to Subway sandwiches.
It is always funny how people in the middle of nowhere look at you when you request the old $5 foot long with no meat, no cheese, no mayo. Then to top that off we ordered Carter a just bread, it took the cash register woman a few minutes to consult with the manager to decide what to charge for just bread. The irony is that they charged us for a side of "bacon", which is $1.
We took our sandwiches with bread, extra tomatoes - pickles, olives, lettuce, cucumbers, and oil/vinegar/salt/pepper to the car and added the chick pea patties and Follow Your Heart cheddar. The bread was toasted and the sandwiches were very tasty!!!! We also had chips.
Carter had his plain bread with chickpea patties.... a simple decent lunch.

Christmas Dinner was a team effort

The first couple holidays after we became vegan were hard!!! Not that the traditional ones were really any less stressful I might add!!
This year the family gatherings have been really fun, and everyone has gone along with the vegan theme and we have produced as a group some wonderful meals. Christmas dinner was truly fantastic!!!! It was fairly simple, but covered all of the bases.
First Patsie got in the kitchen early and made an awesome salad with black beans, tomato, red onions, corn, cilantro, fresh lime and a bit of oil.
She also made green beans, cooked "old school style" on high temp for a long time.
Then Randy helped peel the potatoes for the mashed potatoes. I made basic gravy with Better Than Boullion - No Chicken Base.
Nikki made the Chic Pea Patties from the Veganomicon (V-CON), I pan seared them and then finished them off in the oven.
The whole meal took about 2 hours to prepare, mostly because the kitchen space was tight and we worked in shifts. Everything came out hot and tasty.
To finish off the meal Patti made a green apple crisp. I am sorry that I did not get a photo of the apple crisp, it was delicious, I was quite full and simple forgot.
You will also notice that the pictures were taken mid meal, well actually mid second helping, hard to remember when the focus has been on getting everything on the table.

So Many Blessings!!!

To start the day Addison and I made cinnamon rolls, her idea. To keep it simple we start with reduced fat crescent roll dough, and fill with brown sugar and cinnamon. They bake for 15 min, topped with mixture of brown sugar, powdered sugar, vanilla, buttery stick, and silk creamer. heat the mixture until it bubbles, pour on top of rolls. Easy, kid friendly, delicious, and vegan.







We had a late afternoon dinner:
Chick pea Cutlets, the kids favorite (from V-CON)
Mashed tatos
Gravy
Stuffing
Green Beans
Corn, black bean and tomato salad
Apple crisp for desert
That was a few hours ago and I am just now able to type!!!
Today was another fantastic holiday with family that enjoys our new(2 year old) traditions!!!! Every one pitches in and we all eat well. I am really happy when we are able to host or cook a complete holiday meal. I feel as though maybe there will be a time when vegan celebrations will be more common and as a cumulative will have an impact on big pictures.
A couple of store note NEW ITEMS found in Denver:
Follow your Heart cream cheese and sour cream.... sorry I still prefer Tofutti
Saw the Morningstar Farms VEGAN labeling for the first time, on the chic strips and a vegan burger, priced at $8.97 YIKES!!!!!!!!!!! On sale for $4.39 though. Their pricing is not going to help sales. Seitan is too easy to make!!
Cannot talk about food anymore I have eaten too much!!!!!

The best Christmas Eve

It is a tradition in Nikki's family to have Mexican food for Christmas Eve. Nikki suggested fajitas which were a good mix for the the number of people we were cooking for and the limits of Patti's kitchen. By the way one of my favorite things is the challenge of cooking in someone else's kitchen.
Here's the line up:
Broiled, peppers(green, poblano, anaheim)+onions
Morningstar Farms chic'n strips(in the new package)
Pinto Beans
Steamed rice
Not Yo Cheese (An evolving recipe that can take velveeta dip to task)
Follow your Heart sour cream
Salsa
Chips

There were nine of us together for dinner, 4 confirmed vegans, 3 working vegans, and two teenage non vegans(my nephews). One of my nephews is in a food service training program and it was really fun talking about the "business" with him. The Not Yo Cheese has become one of the key items I use to share that vegan food can be just as good as its evil counterpart. Everyone ate hearty portions, especially the boys. This makes me very happy!!!!!
Making the Not Yo Cheese without the VitaMix was challenging.... Patti's blender produced enough ozone to sanitize the whole house!!!!! I really think that the VitaMix is one of the best cooking tools I have ever owned... thank you Nikki.

On the road....

We are in Denver for Christmas, and are staying with Nikki's sister who has chosen veganism in the past year. Last night we had bagel pizzas, cheddar follow your heart, with a variety of veggies so everyone could make theirs the way they wanted. An easy meal that was quite tasty.... Thanks Patti.


Carter even got his favorite kind of pizza, sauce solamente!!!!! He is starting to like follow your heart cheese and he will eat it in mac n cheese.



The car trip was the usual...
Many crackers,
snack mix,
Clif bars,
Fruit leather,
Follow your heart mozzarella
and yes we stopped for fries at McDonalds...... Carter is still believes that the only thing they have to eat a McD's are fries and hash browns.
The 8 hour drive went well, the weather was fine, and the company was fantastic!!!!

Yeah we eat at Taco Bell too!!!!!

We do not eat out that often, and when we do it is rarely fast food. We usually try to support local establishments that are vegan friendly... And surprisingly there are quite a few places around us.





Yup.... that's a tostada, Fresco Style (THE NO CHEESE ADD PICO DE GALO), we add the vegan cheese and sour cream at home




The Three Layer Nachos, minus the cheese, add the vegan cheese at home.
We also get the 7 layer burrito, minus the cheese and sour cream, add the vegan replacements at home. We get Taco Bell every once in a while, it's not a habit.... REALLY!!!!


Carter gets to old Bean burrito, hold the onions, sauce and cheese. He likes the rice, so he adds it to his burrito.

We have been to Taco Bell about ten times in the last year, and they are generally cool about the special requests and we have only had one time when a burrito was polluted with cheese.

Follow Your Quesadillas to the all you can eat bean buffet!!!

Well as often happens one thing turns into another...
The quesadilla idea was thwarted be the fact that we only had corn tortillas, contemplated tacos, but ended up with stacked enchiladas:





Corn Tortillas
Follow your Heart vegan cheddar
Black beans
Chili beans
Tofutti sour cream
Rotel
Jalapenos
Corn
Green chile enchilada sauce

To make things odd, I had a half a tube of gimme lean sausage style, cooked in toaster oven on parchment. Cut up and placed on top. This was a 30 minute meal!!! The finished product was like huevos rancheros, pero no huevos, queso, crema, o rancheros por favor!!!!!
Salude

Good Luck at the Potluck

We went to the monthly local veggie potluck last night.....
Not very crowded......
Every one is busy, it has been cold, and who has time to cook early in the day?
I cooked the Garbanzo's in the afternoon, and then Nikki finished them off Indian style, cumin, cinnamon, garlic, and cilantro. Very tasty, none leftover;(

We really like going to the monthly potluck, interesting food and people. I have to admit that I am a bit competitive about cooking so there is some tension.

It was really awesome that Nikki cooked this time, I really love cooking with her and her Garbanzo's were the best thing at the 'luck. Cheers,

Steamin' Hot Green Curry

Tofu green curry..... so nice on a cold day. has some spice but not too much
Carrots
Cauliflower
Eda Mame
Celery
Tofu
Coconut milk broth
About 20 minutes start to finish.



Carter had baked tofu and mashed potatoes, the boy will not eat soup!!!!! Someday he will and then he will be sad;)

I pride myself on putting hot food on the table, the steam does make pictures a bit hard.

Easy root veggies & some kids are mean!!!!

Getting ready to put yukon gold potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cauliflower in the oven to roast. 375 for about 45 minutes should do the trick. They were coated with about a tablespoon of veg oil, salt, pepper, and organic garlic powder. They will be accompanied by Boca chic patties. Simple dinner for a cold evening. Would make soup, but Carter refuses to eat soup. Let's not even talk about polenta.
Addison came home upset today because some jerk threw lunch meat at her today. I am non violent for the most part, but I had thoughts that were not nice. I tried to reassure her, but what can you really say.... I am sad that there are so many people that do not get what there lunch choices inflict on others!!!!! Then she told me that she was quoted in the local paper for green tips for kids.... she very intelligently explained the environmental benefits of living as a vegan. She and her brother will change the world!!!!!!!!!