Vegan Eggplant Parmesan

Last week, a friend I work with gave me two beautiful eggplants from her garden and last night I decided to make vegan eggplant Parmesan.

I used the recipe from the Fat Free Vegan Blog. When this recipe was first published in 2006, I made it and it was the first time I had made anything with nutritional yeast. Although, I loved the sauce when I made it then, it has taken me a while (6 years!) to come to really love the "nooch".

Things that I changed about this recipe:
My eggplants were small, so I wish I had more of them and that I had sliced them thicker - I think 1/4 inch was too thin.

I skipped salting the eggplant, and I cooked the rounds in my cast iron skillet instead of in the oven.

I used a store bought jar of marinara sauce instead of making my own.

I didn't have any tofu, so I substituted 1/2 cup of cashews that had soaked in hot water for about 10 minutes. I made sure to blend for a bit longer to make sure the cashews were all broken up. Even so, the cheese sauce was a bit granular.

I skipped the vegan parm or ground almonds.

We had some leftover TVP in the fridge, so we put that on top with the bread crumbs.

Notes
I did not take a picture because it looks like glop. Delicious, yes, but not aesthetically appetizing.

Both my husband and I loved this. And the leftovers I ate tonight for dinner were probably even better. If you have eggplants around, I recommend you making this forthwith. It came together pretty quickly and was super tasty!

Tofu Scramble

Last Thursday, I woke up early enough to have a leisurely breakfast while my husband was still sleeping. We had some tofu in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I made a tofu scramble. My throat also started hurting that day, so I thought I would try and soothe it with some hot water, lemon, and honey tea.

Ingredients

extra-firm tofu

onions

garlic

spices - chipotle powder, salt, pepper, rosemary

kale

hot sauce

Method

 Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until browned.  Crumble up the tofu into little bits until it looks like scramble egg.  Stir to mix up the tofu, onion, garlic, olive oil.  Add spices, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, etc - anything you think would taste good on the "eggs".  You can even add black salt at the end.  It gives a sulphur flavour that is reminiscent of eggs.  A few minutes before everything is to your liking, add the chopped kale, pour a tablespoon or so of water in the pan and over with a lid.  Allow the kale to steam for a few minutes until tender.  Mix everything together, taste for seasoning, and serve with a delicious hot sauce.

I picked up this  hot sauce at the grocery store randomly a few months ago and just got around to trying it.  I love it.  It has heat AND it has flavour.

Notes

This was very good. I haven't made a tofu scramble in a while and it was exactly what I wanted. I served it with some Tuscan bread from the new Trader Joe's!


The cat has been a good cuddle buddy while I have been sick the last few days.

What I ate Wednesday

I thought I would document what I ate today, for funsies.

Breakfast, part 1: Strawberry, banana, raspberry, almond smoothie

After drinking my smoothie, right as I was getting up to school, I could feel my blood sugar drop and I needed something a bit more substantial to eat.

Breakfast, part 2: Everything bagel with hummus and sriracha

Lunch, after eating some dill pickle chips and pumpkin ice cream (not shown)

Carrot sticks, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, banana chips, pear, chocolate, mini bell peppers stuffed with cashew cheese

Dinner: Rice noodles, broccoli, tofu, peanut sauce

Notes
This is a typical day of food I eat. I also had some Teeccino Chai herbal coffee today and of course a lot of water.

Wine and vegan cheese night

I was going to link to my recipe for cashew cheese in my previous post and I realised I had never posted it!

About a month ago, I invited a few friends over for a wine and vegan cheese night. It was a lot of fun. I made "nacho cheese", herbed cashew cheese, and dehydrated cashew cheese. The nacho cheese was the favourite of the evening, which was surprising to me.


Vegan Nacho Cheese
Ingredients
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
about 1 cup water (add more to get to desired consistency

Everything else is up to you, what I added:
diced garden tomatoes
chipotle powder
salt
black pepper
habanero hot sauce
3/4 of a can of diced green chilies
a dash of olive oil

Method
In a medium sauce pan, whisk the flour and nutritional yeast together. Add the water and whisk over medium heat until combined. Whisk in the other ingredients. Taste constantly to get to taste how you want it to. Add more water if needed. Heat until hot and bubbly. I think next time, I'll make it in the 1.5 quart slow cooker to keep it warm.


Cashew Cheese
Ingredients
1 cup cashews, soaked for 2 - 4 hours (or longer)
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon probiotic powder
lemon juice
nutritional yeast
salt
herbs, optional

Method
Place the soaked cashews, water, and probiotic powder in a high speed blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Wrap the mixture in a cheese cloth and place in a strainer. Put the strainer in the sink or in a bowl. Place a heavy object on top of the cashew mixture, just enough to push out liquid, but not the mixture through the cheese cloth. Leave to culture for 24 - 48 hours, depending on how tangy you desire.

Stir the cheese with lemon juice, nutritional yeast, salt, and herbs to taste. You can also finely chop herbs and roll the cheese in that. Wrap in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least 8 hours. I think it tastes better after a few days in the fridge.


Notes
Like I said above, the nacho cheese was the favourite of the evening. Everyone mentioned how much it tasted like the processed cheese you get out of a pump. It was delicious. I thought it would be fun to dehydrate one of the cheeses to get a "rind", but it didn't really add to the flavour of the cheese. I'll just keep my cashew cheese undehydrated.

I also served the cheeses with some fresh vegetables, apple chips dried in the dehydrator, and almond veggie pate. A friend had brought over a walnut cheese spread and sunflower cheese after I took the picture. Such a fun night!


The cheese in the front is the "herbed" cashew cheese and the one in the back is the dehydrated cheese.

Menu 19 - 22 Sept

Here is the menu I made today for the next four days. I'm trying to use up produce we received in our produce box this week.

Wednesday:
B: Smoothies
L: Dining hall at school
D: Raw pecan tacos

Thursday:
B: Smoothies
L: Pad Thai with Zucchini Noodles
D: Mushroom Curry

Friday:
B: Breakfast sandwich
L: Thai Smile 2
D: Broccoli Quinoa Bowl

Saturday:
B: Pancakes
L: Baby bell peppers stuffed with cashew cheese
D: Butternut Squash Tamales

Raw Walnut Meat, salsa, guacamole

I was working from home this week and was trying to decide what to make for lunch. A few blogs I follow had posted recently about raw walnut "meat", so I decided to try it with a salad.

Change up the spices to your tastes. This is a great recipe because it comes together quickly.



Serves 1 - 2

Ingredients
Walnut Meat
1/2 raw walnuts
2 - 3 sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
soy sauce
sriracha
salt
pepper
chili powder
cumin powder (We are out of cumin powder, so I added cumin seeds)

Garden Salsa
Tomatoes (I used cherry and roma from the garden)
Onion
garlic chives
hungarian wax pepper
olive oil
salt
pepper
juice from 1/2 lime

Corn Guacamole
1 ear corn
1/2 avocado
salt
pepper
lime juice

Lettuce

Method
Walnut Meat
Place the walnuts and tomatoes in a food processor (I used the smaller bowl because I am using such small amounts). Pulse until it appears to have the texture of ground meat. Add the seasonings to taste.

Garden Salsa
This is just what I had ripe in my garden, feel free to use whatever you think would be good in salsa.

Roughly chop the tomatoes, onion, and chili. Place the tomatoes, onion, chili, and herbs in a food processor (again I used the smaller bowl) and pulse until still chunky, but mixed. Transfer to a bowl and season to taste.

Corn Guacamole
Shuck the corn. Place the ear of corn upright and using a knife, cut away the kernels into a bowl. Add the avocado and mix. Season to taste.


Wash and dry the lettuce. Chop into a bowl and add the meat, salsa, and guacamole.

Notes
This was really really good. The walnut meat has A LOT of flavour. I'm going to try it again with pecans because my husband is sensitive to walnuts. I'm happy that I was able to make the salsa completely from our garden. Garden vegetables taste waaay better than anything bought from the store.

I had a couple of tortillas in the fridge that needed to be used. I put them in the toaster oven until they were crispy and served it with the salad.

Hummus Board

My husband and I are more grazers than set meal eaters. When we eat smaller meals, we are generally in better moods and have more energy. This is one of our "meals".



Ingredients
Homemade hummus - crockpot cooked chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, sriracha sauce, salt, pepper
pita bread
cucumbers
carrot sticks
celery
avocado
pickles
strawberries
peaches


Notes
We love making our own hummus. We add a lot more garlic and spice it up with the sriracha. It tastes so much better than store bought.

Zucchini Noodles

There has been lots of talk about zucchini noodles around the vegan blogs lately. And for good reason. Zucchini noodles are easy to make (even without a spiralizer!), fast, and delicious. I have a vegetable peeler that has two sides. One side makes long flat peels, much like a regular peeler. The other side has small teeth and makes spaghetti sized noodles when used.



Ingredients
Zucchini
spices to taste, I used basil, oregano, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes

Tomato sauce

Method
Using a vegetable peeler, peel the zucchini in strips until you start seeing the seeds. I generally turn the zucchini as I go.

Add spices and sauce to taste.


Notes
This turned out really well! I might even like the zucchini noodles better than regular pasta. I have also turned cucumbers into noodles, mixed it with zucchini noodles, and topped with a peanut sauce for a faux pad thai.



Our cat was contemplating why I was taking pictures outside.

Almond Veggie Pate

Recently, I have been toying with doing a raw food diet. I have book marked lots of recipes, checked out several books from the library, and I'm slowly starting to make more raw foods. I'm doing it mostly because I enjoy the challenge of making tasty food in nontraditional ways. Also, the arguments I have read for adding more raw foods to your diet seem to make sense to me.

I came across the following recipe and thought it looked good. I made a month or so ago and my husband and I still talk about it. Very tasty!



Ingredients
Adapted from Ani Phyo Website

3/4 cup almonds
1 cup cashews
1 T grated ginger
3 cloves garlic (this was a little high even for me and I love garlic, I would probably do two cloves next time)
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/3 cup dried plums
salt
pepper
juice from 1/2 lemon
sriracha sauce

lettuce leafs
bean sprouts
cilranto
cucumbers
carrot sticks

2 T orange champagne vinegar
1 T sugar
1 T water

Method
Process the almonds and cashews until they are powdery. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until combined and the desired consistency. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Using lettuce as a wrap, place a tablespoon or two of the pate with the other toppings and eat.

For the dipping sauce, over low heat heat up the vinegar, sugar, and water until the sugar is dissolved, whisking continuously. Take off the heat and serve.

Notes

The original recipe called to wrap the pate up in nori, but the nori I had in my cupboard was a bit stale and chewy and after trying a few in the nori, we decided to just use lettuce as a vessel for the pate. My husband really enjoyed this.


He couldn't wait until I was done taking a photo!

May Vegan Food Box Swap

This month for the vegan food box swap, I was matched up to receive a box from Stephanie at Just Believe. She sent me a fabulous box! Thank you!

I sent a box to Sarah at She Decidedly Wore Pants When Others Did Not (fabulous name for a blog, BTW).



Stephanie sent me the following goodies:
Dates - which I am turning into homemade Lara bars soon
Coconut water
Coconut oil
Spicy Pumpkin seeds
Two packets of green powder - I'm going to try adding these to a smoothie
Justin's almond butter
Two coconut Lara bars
and a handwritten note

Notes
I'm glad that she sent me so much coconut stuff, I love the smell and taste of it. This was a great box.

If you want to get in on the fun, go over to read the rules and sign up at The Verdant Life blog.

I'm going to sit out the next few months of the food box swap because I am going to be travelling here and there for work over the next few months.