Vegan Taco Tuesday!!!

I love tacos.... so easy, so fast, so cheap, so kid friendly. There are many nights when we need to put together a quick dinner that works for everyone. Carter likes them with just beans, Addison has been developing a taste for spicy things, and Nikki and I usually go extra hot. I always try to keep it simple and let the garnishes define which taco is for whom.
20 minutes from start to eat!!!




Here's the line up:

• Canned organic black and pinto beans, seasoned with cumin, garlic powder, onion powder
• Morningstar Farms, Vegan Steak strips
• Grilled onions
  
• Rotel, canned tomatoes and green chili's
• Follow Your Heart vegan Jack cheese
• Toffutti Sour Supreme
• Romaine lettuce

We served these soft taco style and just warmed the flour tortillas up in the microwave.
Most of the time I will heat up the tacos in my giant "18" Volrath commercial frying pan, but on this night we streamlined.
As we move into summer you will see more tacos, because it is a quick and easy way to utilize many of the veggies from the CSA and the farmers market.

Mac N No Cheese

I love spring.... watching as the first green shoots fight their way out of brown earth, then the explosion of flowering trees and shrubs, then finally the electric light green of the new leaves on the trees.
This year there signs of a new kind of spring that heralds a shift to growth in the understanding of importance of choosing foods mindfully. There is growing momentum in the press(LA Times supporting the importance of eating vegetables(organic and local being the best choices) and radically decreasing the the consumption of animal products(there is a common call for humanely raised animal products, which I do not agree with). But even though I do not totally agree with all of the elements of the shifts being proposed I am encouraged that reinforcement of the benefits of a plant based diet and the concept of moderation will have some positive effect in the lives of animals, but to be honest factory farms will not go away. I am also hopeful that people are finally understanding that a plant based diet can have enormous benefits to their health.
I have a very diverse group of people visiting this blog, some veteran vegans, some foodie vegans, people interested in their health, some just curious, and those that are considering the SHIFT to veganism and looking for ideas. I am glad to have all of you here!!!!
My goal with this blog is to show as many vegan meals as I can so that people understand that moderation is a start, and that it is possible to vegan, eat well, be healthy, balance family life, and that once you learn a few basic meals it is pretty easy.
I am going to start working on posting weekly menus, and talking about food cost. I am fairly frugal and will share some product reviews and suggestions. There are many new vegan friendly products coming to market in the coming year!
Oh.... I forgot to talk about the meal displayed, this is simply Mac N No Cheese (click for recipe), and Boca Nuggets. Right now the only place I can find vegan Boca Chic'n Nuggets is at Target, but by the end of the year they are reformulating all of their products to be meatless so it will be easier to find them.
Eat with thought, eat with passion, eat with purpose!!!!

Early Spring Broccoli Tofu Rut!!!!!

I have been looking through old posts and man we eat massive amounts of broccoli. I think this is the case because it is the only veggie that Carter really likes other than edamame. But low and behold on this day not only did we have broccoli, we also had tofu and edamame, yes I know it is a bit redundant. To shake things up I added snow peas.
This was pretty basic set up:
Tofu in the Foreman Grill
Broccoli pre steamed in mircowave
Stir fried peas, edamame, garlic, and broccoli, then added a 1/2 cup of water, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and stired in 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, and a handful of peanuts. We served this over instant brown rice. The whole preparation time was about 20 min.
It will be interesting to look back in a year and see what we have eaten and identify trends. If anyone has a suggestion for something they would like to see me cook please let me know.

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!!!! Local Organic Greens

It has finally happened..... Spring has sprung!!!! Our meals will begin to change as we receive our weekly allotment from the Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance. Each week we will go to pick from an assortment of locally grown organic produce. What I love about this set up is that you have to make some choices but you end up getting things that number one you would never see in a grocery store and number two you would probably not pick if they did have it in a grocery store.
I was so excited for the first pick up that I had a hard time focusing at work.
Here' what I got in the first pick up:

• Baby Lettuce Greens
• Swiss Chard
• Red Leaf Lettuce
• Shitake Mushrooms
• Sweet Pea Shoots
• A Big Sweet Potato
• Chives

After picking up the produce I drove like a vegan maniac home, washed the produce, while dreaming up a salad masterpiece.
The greens were easy, but I needed to use the mushrooms so I rough diced the with chives, and mixed them with garlic, Panko bread crumbs, and olive oil. I took the mixture and placed it between two thin layers of tofu and cooked in the Foreman Grill.
After the tofu cooked, I sliced it and placed it on top of a bed of baby greens and sweet pea shoots. And dressed with Annie's Goddess Dressing.
I have never eaten sweet pea shoots, they were about 5 inches long, tender sweet, and absolutely fantastic!!!!!!!!!!! I think that these would be easy to grow in planter, think I will try!

This is my second salad, not as pretty. I chopped shitakes and chives and placed on top. I also added peanuts!!!










Since we had light salads for dinner, Nikki made some chocolate chip cookies!!! Yea for Nikki!!!!!!!

Bean Noodle Stir Fry = Love and Devotion

Yes the posts have been short lately. I have been getting caught up on posting meals from the lost month. The lost months of February and March, starting the new job finishing up old projects. Nikki really picked up the slack and made some great meals. There were many nights when she was like a prep cook, she got everything ready and then when I got home I finished things off. It is really awesome that she and I can work together that way. Until becoming vegan we struggled to work together in the kitchen, but the past few years we have really started enjoying cooking together!!!
This was one of the meals that Nikki put together and had ready when I got home from a long day. This is a spicy red curry stir fry with rice noodles. The spice was just right, with a hint of cinnamon. Nikki I love you and all you do for our family THANK YOU!!!!!

Vegan Peanut Sauce Noodles, Garnish with Green

You just can't go wrong with noodles. They are quick, versatile, and fun to eat. Nikki cooked these one evening while I was on my way home from my bathroom remodel project. I was beat tired and she waited to eat with me. What a sweet heart!!!
This was a Simply Asian peanut noodle kit that she added fresh broccoli, cilantro, green onion, jalapenos and extra peanuts.
I do not usually go for the boxed units, but the Simply Asia brand is great because they are not afraid to label items vegan. This is very helpful and I do use several of their sauce bases in many dishes. Their green curry is fantastic!!!!
I wish there were more companies that would label their products vegan, I think that the word "vegan" has less of a stigma to mainline companies than it once did!!!

Happy Seitan and Broccoli!!!!!

This is a meal from the "LOST" month. I do not believe that I cooked this. I think that my sweet Nikki angel made this one night while I was working late, but I could have made it?!?!?!? See what happens when you do not keep on top of your blog.
I do remember this dinner, sugar snap peas, broccoli, onions, Morningstar Farm Seitan Strips with a no beef base sauce.
This is one of those classic meals that is pretty easy to make and is enjoyed by all segments of the family.
Noodles are a winter time item, I do not really like to boil water in the summer, it's too hot and humid in Kansas for that. We will be moving towards more rice and fresh greens, tacos, salads, and sandwiches. We will also be laying off the chili and baked potatoes soon. As spring progresses into summer, I will yearn for the tomatoes and then we will have about six weeks of tomato based gluttony I cannot wait!!!! We have had a wet and mild spring, I hope that bodes well for apples, peaches and cherries. I am drooling on the keyboard, must stop thinking about summer!!!!

Spring Rolls, thanks Addison!!!!!!!

Addison likes to cook, but I usually hog the kitchen. She has been wanting to make Spring Rolls so she went the store with me and got all of the ingredients.
I helped by doing some of the prep work for her, and cooking the tofu. She did all of the assembly work.
Here is what you need:
Spring roll wrappers
Romaine
Carrots
Bean Sprouts
Bean thread noodles
Baked tofu(cut 1/4 inch thick, brush with oil, garlic powder, soy sauce - bake for 15 min at 400 degrees) when cool cut into strips.




Addison piled all of the ingredients in the center and rolled, she is very good at this and the end product looked very professional.
She is very talented and I really need to let her do more. Look how organized her work area is!!!





Nice afternoon light in the kitchen













One down 15 more to go!!!

Beautiful!!!!

















Peanut and Red Chili Dipping Sauce








The Clean Up Crew!!!!

Sublime Carrot Soup

Nikki gets to go to all of the awesome vegan restaurants when she travels for work. We get the benefit of her take on what was good, and it challenges me to be better at what I do!!!!
This was a work related project for Nikki, to make a soup from the Sublime cookbook as a preview for cookbook for PCRM. It is a Carrot Ginger Soup with coconut milk and fennel seed. There were a few ingredients that I did not have, fennugreek, whats that?!?!?!!?
As I have said before I am not a recipe guy..... I have a hard time keeping track of ingredients is frustrating!!! This soup was surprisingly simple and was very delicious. Everything was cooked until soft then into the Vita Mix it went, the color was truly stunning!!!!
I knew the kids would be turned off by the color, even though they both love carrots!!! I made grilled Follow your Heart cheese sandwiches with Tofurkey to go with the soup. Please double click on the photo below to get see the fantastic color and detail. We will make this again!!!!

A Rueben for a hung over Leprechaun

This really was not left overs, we ate all of the "corned" tofu because it was so good!!!! Nikki had been talking up Reubens for a while so I made more corned tofu and we made Reubens, with kraut, Follow your Heart cheddar, and secret sauce(yeah ketchup and veganaise)

The salad was fun... quinoa, tomatoes, green onions, and kale. I dressed it with olive oil and lime juice.

The kids really liked the tofu, which had baked rather than cook in the Foreman, and they had fries.
I find it very interesting how many of the foods that I remember liking from my non vegan days really were more influenced by the accompanying flavors. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is nothing lost by eating a tofu Reuben, so there!!!! I like to dream that some day there will be faux Swiss Cheese!!!

Mac N Salad N Brussell Sprouts

Well I have like 50 meals photographed that need to be posted. I have been lucky to become very busy lately. I am starting to get my head back above water, which reminded me what a bad blogger I have been!!!
Like you have heard in so many acceptance speeches..... I could not have managed the past couple of months without the wonderful support of my wife, who has achieved super woman status in my opinion, my kids, animal companions, and friends!!!!! We have continued to live a rich and culinarily interesting vegan life!!!! We have on many occasions leaned on simple standards to make it through, some recipes have become even more refined(in simplicity, not in high standard) As an example, Carter was begging(AKA Grinding) for Mac n Cheese, I have been using the Veg News veganize it recipe with a few simple changes, but I did not have any fresh potatoes or canned potatoes. I USED INSTANT MASHED POTATOES!!!! Oh the humanity!!!!!!
DID YOU CATCH THAT CARTER WAS BEGGING FOR MAC N CHEESE.... He has been the model of a skeptic in the faux cheese department, he has come around to the cheese sauce and he likes Follow Your Heart cheese. I bought some Tofutti slices the other day just to see if they still produce the Kryptonite reaction!!!
But as is often the case it turned out very good, in the taste department, not the high quality, freshest-local-organic-nutrient dense kind of way. I will be working to post some of the highlights of the past couple of months while working on some new meals. If anyone has suggestions for meals in the next new months..... please share!!!!










Check out the roasted Brussel sprouts, they were very garlicky and tasty!!!!