The Vegan Valley Girl

Resolutions, Energy, and Vegan for the Holidays

Happy New Year, dear reader! I hope that 2013 brings you love, health, wealth, and green veggies. It's been awhile since I have posted here so forgive me if I am extra-windy today. I fell off the blogging wagon over the past few months and one of my resolutions is to climb back on and ride.

Happy Holidays from the Vegan-Meaty Family!

There are three topics I want to cover today... resolutions, energy, and keeping vegan during the holidays. So here we go:

Resolutions

1. Get and stay organized: if you have ever seen my desk you probably know that I am not a naturally organized person. I have an uncanny ability to look like I am working hard, and that has carried me thorough my professional life thus far. However, it is obvious to anyone who knows me that, at best, I am a semi-controlled mess.
2. Write every day: I love to write. However, I am sort of lazy and easily distracted, so I do not always get around to it. This month I am going to participate in Blogher's NaBloPoMo to give myself a kick in the seat. Look for lots of posts. Some of them may suck but I am going to crank them out anyways.
3. Get back to the vegan basics: Although I continue to be vegan (except when I am tricked, misled, or tipsy) I need to get back to eating the way I did when I first cut out all animal products. Less oil, less sugar, and more greens. To get re-inspired I am going to re-read Eat to Live and do my best to get that pound of greens down my gullet each day. That's a lot of greens, my friend. A LOT of greens.    
4.  Earn money: According to Mr. Meaty, I have ridden the stay-at-home-mom/blogger train as far as the tracks will take me. It's kind of a relief because I am not a great homemaker. So, 2013 will mark the end of my "sabbatical" and a return to the world of work. More on this in a later post. I am kind of excited!
5. Return to The FlyLady: if any of you have been on The FlyLady's website you know what I mean when I say that I am going to shine the sink at night, unload the dishwasher in the morning, and wash/dry/fold/put away one load of laundry every day. Such a simple plan but so easy to neglect these basics. If I do these things on a regular basis I might have the mental space to make resolution #1 possible.

 

Energy

The theme for this month's NaBloPoMo is energy, and today's prompt is "from where do you draw your energy?" For me, two things are my main sources of energy…exercise and reading. If I do not take the time to exercise or to read I get very blah very quickly.

I (usually) do a good job of making sure that I exercise. I do Pilates with a trainer two or three times a week and I try to do yoga twice a week, too. I walk our dog, I do indoor walking videos with Leslie Sansone (yes, I am getting old and corny), and I use our elliptical machine at home. Exercise makes me feel great. It does not make me thin the way it used to (at my age weight control seems to be more about eating) but my workouts are completely and utterly necessary for me to feel good.

Reading is also mandatory for me to feel my best. I read anything; fiction, biographies, business books, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Also, I love reading other people's blogs. Reading gets pushed to the back burner when I get busy, so here's another resolution: make time to read for at least one hour every day. Also, I need to do more reading with my kids.

*If anyone out there is looking for a belated Christmas gift for me, please send me a couple of extra hours for each day. Or tell me how to become super-organized so that I can do everything in the standard twenty-four. Thanks.*

Vegan for the Holidays

My family barely knew what to do with me on Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was vegetarian. However, they took comfort in knowing that I could eat all of the sides so there was not a real need to consider my diet. Well, how things change! No butter, no eggs, and no cheese? So what the hell do we feed her?

Fortunately for me, this was the first year ever that we had both Thanksgiving and Christmas in our own home. Since Mr. Meaty is the former chef he handles most of our holiday and special occasion meals. Luckily, he loves me and seems to have accepted that my vegan-ness is not a passing fad so he worked my diet into the menu. Meaty is a Good Husband.

Veggie Loves Meaty

Thanksgiving included goodies like mashed sweet potatoes, roasted carrots, and yummy vegan quinoa stuffing. The rest of the family had turkey while I had Tofurkey (which is kind of like a giant vegan hotdog stuffed with more vegan stuffing). Christmas saw roasted rosemary potatoes, roasted asparagus, and more Tofurkey (the rest of the family ate a standing rib roast). Mmmm.

My Plate on Thanksgiving

It's starting to get dark here on the west coast so it's time for me to sign off. I am cooking our traditional southern New Year's dinner of greens and black-eyed peas for dinner tonight. I'd love to know…what are your resolutions? Where do you find energy? What did you eat during the holidays?

Happy New Year!!!

    

With Love,

The Vegan Valley Girl xoxo

 

LA-Style Vegan Chimichurri Tacos and Prop 37

If you are anything like me, you are glad that the election is over. All of the negativity, the vitriol, the uncertainty…I am glad to have it behind us. My mother often told me that politics and religion make terrible dinner conversation and she was right. We all have opinions, and by the time you reach my age your opinions are not likely to change. Instead of harping at each other, I would love to see people get off of their soap boxes, roll up their sleeves, and try to work together. It's just sensible; we're all in the same boat, so we will all sink or swim together.

That said, I do have one (brief!) political commentary to share with you. Here in California we voted on Proposition 37, which would have given us the right to know if our food was genetically altered. I was an enthusiastic supporter of Prop 37 (I would imagine that most vegans were). Europe and much of the rest of the world have the right to know if they are consuming GMOs. Why do we not have this right? Why do food manufacturers want to avoid labeling their products?

Needless to say, Prop 37 did not pass. Big Agriculture ponied up a whole lot of money in order to scare citizens into thinking that labeling for GMOs would somehow add significantly to their grocery bill. Why does Big Agriculture care about that? Food is a necessity; people are going to buy it. What is it about GMOs that Big Agriculture does not want us to know? Might consumers flock to non-GMO foods if they knew what they were eating?

Your body is your temple. Be careful about what you put in there. Make informed decisions about what you eat. Have a look at the picture below to learn about ways to avoid GMOs. Also, buy your food in stores like Whole Foods Market. You won't find GMOs at Whole Foods AND you'll be helping to fund my retirement! (Full disclosure: Mr. Meaty works for WFM)

How To Avoid Those Nasty GMOs

Anyhoo, how is your November going? Are you ready for the holidays? Are you planning yummy vegan dishes for Thanksgiving dinner?

This is the first year in a long time that I have not dreaded the holidays. I think that this is because I finally feel like I have enough time to cook, clean, shop, bake, send cards, do stuff with the kids, etc. I will only be a stay-at-home mom for a little while longer, so I am milking it for all it is worth.

Zoloft helps, too. Just putting that out there.

Between now and Thanksgiving I would imagine that you will want recipes for easy, tasty, non-turkey flavored food. I have just the thing…

Chef Chloe Coscarelli's LA-Style Chimichurri Tacos!

I

LA-Style Chimichurri Tacos

I know that the color on these is not the best but they are YUMMY. Chloe used more tomato, red onion, etc., etc., so hers are much prettier than mine. Also, she had a professional photographer and a food stylist. Humpf.

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Ingredients for Tomato Rice:

• 2 tbsps. olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• ½ tsp. sea salt
• 1 tomato, finely chopped
• ½ cup rice (white or brown)
• 1 cup veg stock

Ingredients for Chimichurri Sauce:

• 1 cup fresh cilantro
• ½ cup fresh Italian parsley
• ½ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup lime juice
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsps. agave
• ½ tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• ½ tsp. fresh ground black pepper

Ingredients for Taco Filling:

• 2 tbsps. olive oil
• 8 ounces crimini mushrooms (cleaned and sliced)
• 1 15 oz. can black beans (rinsed and drained)

Also need:

• 1 package taco-sized (small) tortillas (Chloe uses flour, I used corn)
• Aluminum foil
• Toppings: vegan sour cream, chopped tomatoes, red onion, lettuce, avocado (or whatever else you like)

Instructions:

Before you start, wrap the tortillas in foil and place in a hot oven. I pre-heat to 350, put in the tortillas, and then turn off the oven to conserve energy

Now for the cooking…

First, make the tomato rice. Heat the oil in a saucepan and then add onions and salt. Saute the onions until they are cooked. Add the tomato, rice, and broth. Bring the pan to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until the rice is cooked. When the rice is cooked remove it from the heat, keep it covered, and let it sit for 15 minutes

Second, make the chimichurri sauce. If you don't have a food processor you will wish you had one. Combine the cilantro, parsley, oil, lime juice, garlic, agave, cumin, salt, and pepper in a food processor (or, if you are me, in an over-crowded chop chop machine). Process until everything is finely chopped

Third, make the taco filling. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a skillet and then sauté the mushrooms. Saute the mushrooms until they start giving up their juices. Add the black beans to the skillet, then add half the chimichurri sauce (save the other half to spoon onto the taco)

To serve, scoop the rice and taco filling on top of a warm tortilla. Drizzle a bit of the remaining chimichurri sauce onto each taco. Top the tacos as you like and enjoy!

Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any super-awesome vegan recipes for Thanksgiving!

XOXO,

The Vegan Valley Girl

Mu Shu Tacos and What’s Up in SoCal

I have not been the world's most prolific blogger lately. In fact, it's been more than a month since my last post. You would think that food blogging would be easy…you have to eat right? There should be never-ending inspiration for posts. "Blogger's Block" should never be a problem.

Yet it is. Life gets in the way. I get into a rut. The food I eat gets boring. I am sure you can relate.

Enough whining. September was a busy month! Let me regale you with tales from the life and kitchen of the Vegan Valley Girl and her Meaty family. That's why you are here, right?

From the kitchen: The inevitability of my eventual return to work has hit me (serious ambivalence about this). Cooking after work has always been a huge challenge for me. I do not want to come home after a long day to spend time in the kitchen cooking for my (usually unappreciative) family. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy cooking. I just don't enjoy cooking poorly-planned slop in a hurry when I could be spending precious time with my kids.

So lately my work in the kitchen has centered on planning and executing once-a-week cooking menus that are vegan, healthy, cheap, and edible for the whole family. In other words, I am trying to pull a rabbit out of my proverbial orifice. Good luck, right? Thus far, my once-a-week cooking project is not going very well. The food is vegan alright, and usually cheap and healthy, but it has not been very tasty. Needless to say, the Meaty bunch has not been amused.

Here is what I have learned so far about once-a-week menu planning:

1. Read through all of the recipes first. Next, re-write them into one long recipe so that they all work together, time-wise and prep-wise. This is really important. If you just make one dish followed by another, you will spend the whole weekend cooking. Or, if you are like me, you will cook one or two of your recipes and then you will get distracted by, say, the need to rearrange your Amazon wish list. Did I mention that I have ADHD?
2. Overlap ingredients. This one might seem obvious but I usually need to learn things the hard way. Choosing recipes that use at least some of the same core ingredients will make prep easier, save you money, and save you time.
3. Do not repeat your starches. Again, something that seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised. If you are making four recipes (the number that seems to work for my family of four), do not make more than one of them rice-based or pasta-based or potato-based. You and your family will be bored by the end of the week and you will be unmotivated to repeat this little exercise next weekend.
4. Keep it simple. If you are like me you have a million recipes you want to try. Unfortunately, very few of them are kid-friendly. These are NOT the recipes you want to include in your once-a-week cooking spree. Choose simple dishes that incorporate bright, common flavors. Your kids and your spouse will thank you. You can thrill everyone with that complicated little ditty at your next dinner party.

Since my once-a-week cooking dishes have been flops I am not going to include them in this post. I want to be encouraging, though, both to you and to myself. On that note, here is a recent success from my kitchen:

Mu Shu Tacos. Major Yum!!!

 

Mu Shu Tacos are a (very close) variation on Robin Robertson's Mu Shu Burritos from Vegan on the Cheap. This recipe is fast, easy, and healthy. Best of all, when I served it both Mr. Meaty and Baby Girl Meaty cleaned their plates (Boy Meaty had cheese quesadillas. You win some, you lose some). Mr. Meaty said, and I quote, "you should make that again, it was really good." It's like winning a Nobel Prize or something.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. seitan, torn into bite-size pieces
• 1 small head of green cabbage (Napa cabbage would work well, too), shredded
• 1 carrot, peeled and shredded
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 2 tbsps. canola oil
• Hoisin sauce, ¼ cup for cooking, more as a condiment
• 1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil
• Sriracha (to taste)
• ¼ cup water
• 10 (or so) small flour tortillas

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wrap the tortillas in aluminum foil. Place the foil-wrapped packet in the oven. When the oven reaches 350 you can turn off the oven. Leave the tortillas in the oven (do not open the door!) until the recipe is finished.
• Heat 1 tbsp. of the canola oil over medium heat in a large sauté pan or wok. Brown the seitan, then remove it from pan. Set the seitan aside.
• Add the second 1 tbsp. of canola to the hot sauté pan or wok. Add the cabbage, carrot, and green onions to the pan and cook for approximately 7 minutes (or until the veggies are soft).
• Combine the hoisin sauce, water, and sesame oil in a small bowl. When the veggies are soft, pour the mixture into the pan and stir. Add the browned seitan and stir some more. Keep stirring for about five minutes, or until everything is well blended.
• Add sriracha to taste and stir
• Remove the tortillas from the oven. Lay hot tortillas flat on a plate, and drizzle some of the hoisin sauce down the middle. Spoon the veggie and seitan mixture onto the tortillas and then fold them into tacos.
• Enjoy!

Onto the next topic…

We Got A Dog: Look at the sweetie who joined our family in September.

The Amazing Daisy Dog

 

Daisy the Dog joined our family on September 8, 2012. She is a sweet, loving, energetic two-year-old Boxer who we adopted from the LA Boxer Rescue. We just love her! What more can I say? Daisy jumped into our family routine and now we cannot remember life without her. She's like one of the kids, but we can put her in a kennel when we go out and we don't have to save up for her to go to college. Dogs rule!

Daisy is not vegan. I am not sure how the vegan thing works with dogs. Ideas?

Life with Kids: Does this picture sum things up well or not?

Daisy on Kid Duty

 

That is all for today. I hope that the rest of your weekend is restful and fun!

Much love,

The Vegan Valley Girl

 

Vegan Made Easy (Sort of)

Most of my friends and family have been supportive of my on-again-off-again approach to vegetarianism over the years. Veganism, however, is another matter. "What do you eat?" they ask. "How do you eat in restaurants?" And my favorite…"how do you get your protein?"

If you are reading my blog you probably already know that I eat a wide variety of plant-based foods. I cook all the time, and my meals are varied, satisfying, and tasty. I eat in restaurants several times a week, and the vegan thing is rarely a problem. This is LA, people!   A ton of vegans live here. Mexican restaurant? I'll have veggie fajitas, hold the cheese and sour cream. Pizza place? Veggie pizza, hold the cheese. Steakhouse? I'll call ahead and see if they will make a good veggie plate. If not, I'll find a steakhouse that will accommodate me.

And the protein question…I will not take up your time with that one. If you want the answer, have a look at this article. Enough already!

So anyways, when my family and friends are done grilling me about my eating habits, the next part of the conversation usually goes like this:

Friend/Family: Well, that's all well and good for you but I could never be vegan. I don't have time to do all that cooking and chopping and shopping!

Me: What do you usually feed your family?

Friend/Family: Oh, the usual stuff. Chicken, steak, mac and cheese. Fast, easy, kid-friendly food.

Me: Honestly, if you have a well-stocked pantry it is just as easy, if not easier, to feed your family a vegetarian or vegan diet. You just have to know what to have on hand.

Friend/Family: But vegan food is so expensive! I have to watch my budget.

Me: Meat and cheese are pricier than veg. If you buy vegan cold cuts, vegan meatloaf, and pre-made vegan cookies then yes, vegan is expensive. If you stick to whole foods, vegan is cheap.

Friend/Family: I just couldn't give up cheese.

Me: That's the real issue, isn't it? I didn't think that I could give up cheese, either. But I did.

(FYI: vegan cheese is nothing like dairy cheese. I avoid it.)

I started this blog to document my vegan "experiment" and to keep myself on track with it. At this point, I have been vegan for about seven months and I no longer find it difficult, nor do I crave meat or dairy. So what do I write about now? Here's my one-word answer: accessibility. I want to make vegan food accessible for anyone who wants to give veganism a try.

So to that end, I attempted to do the working mom's trick of cooking a week's worth of vegan dishes all at once this past Sunday. If you had an easy-to-follow blueprint for how to cook once and eat vegan for a week you would give it a try, right? Personally, I have always aspired to be a once-a-week cook. How wonderful would it be to simply open the fridge, pop a dish in the oven or in the microwave, and voila! A home cooked vegan meal. It's like leftovers, only better.

I am afraid that my once-a-week cooking project did not work out quite as I had planned. I will give you more details in my next post (as well as recipes and more pictures) but, suffice it to say, I did not do such a hot job of making sure that I had all of my ingredients together before I started cooking. I made two of the four planned dishes, but I had to make another run to the store to buy the missing ingredients so the other two dishes will have to be assembled today or tomorrow. As usual, the devil is in the details.

A Week's Worth of Prep

Never fear, I will get this worked out so that your outcome will be better than mine. Any tips you can offer would be appreciated.

Would you give vegan eating a try if it were easy? What is the obstacle between you and a vegan diet? Burgers? Bacon? Cheese? Your job at the butcher shop?

Until next time,

The Vegan Valley Girl

Veggie Fajitas (Or How to Clean Out the Fridge)

One of the pitfalls of working from home is the many distractions…child who wants your help downloading a movie, husband who wants to tell you about the car he wants to buy (when he has a brand new car in the driveway), kid's friend calling to see if he can have a play date, doggie rescue calling to say our new baby is ready (more on that later)…it's nearly 11:30 am and I have written nothing so far. I need to pick up Baby Girl Meaty at noon so this is going to be a quick post.

"Mommy, can you kill someone with a wooden bow and arrow?" What???

Anyhow, last night was use-up-the-veg-before-it-becomes-compost night. This is what I started with:

What's for dinner?

Normally my thoughts would turn to soup. My Vitamix can turn even the most nearly-rotten vegetables into creamy, smooth, delicious concoctions. I have a vat of leftover potato and leek soup in the fridge, though, so soup was not going to work. I turned to Allrecipes.com's ingredient list function (where you tell it what you have and it tells you what to cook) and voila! The internet told me to make Veggie Fajitas. Mmmm. Why didn't I think of that?

Ready to Roast

I did not use the recipe that Allrecipes provided, although it looked very good. I wanted to use as little oil as possible so I roasted the veg (the recipe online called for sautéing in oil and a lot of seasoning). Here is the general gist:

Ingredients:

4 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks

1 red onion, sliced

1 red bell pepper, cut into matchsticks

1 yellow squash, cut into matchsticks

2 tbsps. olive oil

12 small corn tortillas (you can also use flour but you will only need 6)

Your favorite salsa (I used medium Pace picante sauce)

Salt to taste

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
• Cover bottom of a large cookie sheet with 1 tbsp. olive oil
• Place carrots on oiled cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes alone
• Toss red onion, bell pepper, and yellow squash in 1 tbsp. olive oil and then add them to the carrots on the cookie sheet
• Bake all of the veg together for 30 minutes, checking frequently to watch for burning
• With 10 minutes to go, wrap the stack of tortillas in aluminum foil and place them in the oven
• When the veg is done roasting, remove the cookie sheet and the tortillas from the oven
• Place a spoonful of the veg mixture on each tortilla (double the tortillas up if you use corn) and top with the salsa
• Eat them like tacos. Enjoy!

So good I nearly forgot to take a picture

 

So there you go. Cheap, easy, and a great way to make sure that the yummy stuff you bought at the farmer's market on a whim does not go to waste.

What do you do to use up almost-rotten vegetables? Let me know and have a great holiday weekend!

Lots of Love,

The Vegan Valley Girl

 

Potato Leek Soup and Artichoke Quiche, Vegan-Style

It's official; the kids are both back at school. Let's all say it together…AHHHHHH.

I've been trying to get into a cooking routine these past couple of days. Generally speaking, I strive to keep to a routine in all things but I almost always fail. Everyday seems to call for a plan B or a plan C. I keep trying, though…older people tend to be creatures of habit, right? Maybe I will get it together someday.

So, inspired by my new "What to Eat" pad from Knock Knock (yes, I am a sucker for cute stuff by the register at Barnes & Noble), I am trying to plan my dinner menus by the week. Here is the general plan:

Monday: soup and salad/soup and sandwich

Tuesday: casserole and salad

Wednesday: something with sauce

Thursday: baked potato covered with yesterday's sauce (or chili from a can or from the freezer if the sauce from yesterday sucked)

Friday: pizza (because I need a break)

Saturday: free night (Meaty had better cook or take me out to dinner if he wants to keep the peace)

Sunday: something new (Meaty will probably eat frozen pizza)

So far I am not a routine-keeping overachiever. Yesterday was Monday and I had a frozen potato knish. I chased the knish down with a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I will never outgrow these). Today is Tuesday, so instead of a casserole I made Monday's meal, which was Vegan Potato Leek Soup and a vegan bologna sandwich. Feast your eyes on this giant vat of orange-y goodness:

Weirdly-Orange Vegan Potato Leek Soup

Why is this soup orange? Does it include carrots? The answers are I don't know and no. The only explanation I can come up with for this soup's color is the vegetable stock I used in it. The stock was one of those ready-made tetra-packed stocks that I normally avoid because they cost an arm and a leg. It was organic but it had a bizarre, other-worldly glow about it. Next time I will use my usual veg bouillon cubes.

Color aside, this soup was pretty good. It was adapted from the "Creamy" Vegan Potato-Leek Soup recipe on Food.com (which received 4 and ½ stars, in case you were wondering). I changed the quantities a bit and added nutritional yeast. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 tbsps. olive oil

2 large leeks, sliced into lots and lots of small hoops

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 baker potatoes, peeled and cubed

4 cups vegan broth

1 14 oz. can white beans, drained

2 tsps. rosemary, chopped

2 tbsps. nutritional yeast

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot
• Sauté the leeks in the oil on medium heat for about five minutes, taking care not to burn them
• Add the garlic and stir for one more minute
• Add the stock and the potatoes. Bring the stock to a boil, cover, and then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer the mixture for about thirty minutes or until the potatoes are soft
• Add the beans, the rosemary, and the salt and pepper to taste
• Puree the mixture using an immersion blender or a regular kitchen blender. Add the nutritional yeast while mixing. Adjust salt and pepper, then serve warm

If you are like me, you will eat this soup with a vegan sandwich. Also, you will be very full when you are done. This is a hearty, cool weather soup. Of course, I made it in August in Los Angeles, when soup is really not in season. Oh well, it was good anyways.

I have another recipe to share…this is one I cooked last Wednesday (my four-year-old was home with me last week so there was very little writing accomplished). A question for you…If you are a vegan, do you ever miss quiche? I do. I used to love making quiche (when I was vegetarian) because 1) I almost always had the ingredients on hand, 2) it was fun to eat something that looked like pie for dinner, and 3) you can put anything in a quiche, which makes it a good vehicle for almost-rotten food. Eggs are a big vegan no-no and I do not want to eat them but I still mourn a little bit when I see quiche on a menu.

I found a book called 125 Best Vegan Recipes by Maxine Effenson Chuck and Beth Gurney in the library. Our library has a good selection of vegan cookbooks…yet another reason to love California. I tried a recipe called "Savory Artichoke Pie," which I messed with and then renamed "Vegan Artichoke Quiche" because, well, it looks and tastes like quiche. This is a tofu-based dish, and it is surprisingly good (I know, you are gagging at the thought of eating a piecrust full of mushy silken tofu. Well, don't because it is really good). Here's the pic:

Vegan Artichoke Quiche…I made two so that next week I will have my casserole for Tuesday

 

Here is the recipe…be sure to watch the salt. I overdid it but I enjoyed the dish anyways.

Ingredients:

4 tbsps. olive oil

2 large onions, chopped

8 garlic cloves, minced

15 fresh basil leaves, chopped

8 canned or bottled artichoke hearts, drained and cut into six pieces each

½ tsp. hot pepper flakes

2 12 oz. containers of firm silken tofu, drained

2 cubes vegan bouillon

Hot pepper sauce, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

2 9-inch vegan pie crusts, baked (in the freezer section at vegan-friendly markets like Whole Foods Market)

4 tsps. chopped fresh Italian parsley

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F
• Heat the oil in a large skillet on medium heat
• Add onion and sauté for about 10 minutes
• Add garlic and basil, sauté for one minute
• Remove from the heat and stir in the artichoke and the hot pepper sauce
• Puree the tofu, bouillon cubes, and hot pepper sauce in a blender or a food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste (again, watch the salt because the artichokes tend to have a salty flavor)
• Divide half of the tofu mixture over the bottom of both pie crusts
• Divide half of the artichoke mixture evenly over the tofu mixture in both pie crusts
• Divide the remaining tofu mixture over the artichoke mixture in both pie crusts
• Divide the remaining artichoke mixture evenly over the top of both pies
• Bake the pies in a preheated oven for about 35 minutes. Cool for about ten minutes when they are done baking, and sprinkle the pies with parsley. Serve hot or warm

I hope you enjoy these recipes! The kids will be awake in a mere seven hours so I am off to bed now. Please let me know if you have a successful cooking (or day-to-day life) routine you can share, I would love to know how other people make dinner and everything else work for their families. Thanks for reading!

Love, The Vegan Valley Girl

 

Vegan Spicy Bean Chili in the Valley

Happy Monday! Let me help you feel better.

Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes from The Angel in Your Kitchen

I found these beauties at the farmer's market in Topanga. They taste even better than they look. Better now?

I cannot believe that the summer is drawing to a close. It is 100 degrees and sunny outside and the entire city is still living in flip flops. Is LA the land of the perpetual summer? Does anyone back east need my sweaters or my coats?

This week my cooking has been all about using up veggies before they rot. I made Vegan Spicy Bean Chili earlier in the week and I am still nibbling off of it today. This recipe is a standby for me inspired by the Festive Black Bean Chili from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. Have a look:

Vegan Spicy Bean Chili. Yum!

This is a pantry recipe if there ever was one…the only ingredients that were not already in my freezer or pantry were the tomato and the red and yellow bell pepper. Serve Vegan Spicy Bean Chili alone, over rice, over a baked potato, or on top of vegan hot dogs.

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp. ground cumin
• 1 tbsp. ground coriander
• 1 cup of prepared salsa (I like Frontera's chipotle salsa, which has a spicy, smoky flavor)
• 2 bell peppers, de-seeded and chopped (I use red and yellow for aesthetics but any color bell pepper will work)
• 1 15 oz. can of red kidney beans
• 1 15 oz. can of black beans
• 1 15 oz. can of tomato sauce
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 11 oz. frozen corn kernels
• Salt to taste
• Hot sauce to taste

Directions:

• Warm the olive oil briefly in a large soup pot on medium heat (make sure your pot has a lid to use later in the recipe). Once the oil is hot sauté the onion and the garlic for about 5 minutes, taking care not to burn the garlic
• Add the cumin and the coriander, stirring into the onions and garlic for about one minute
• Add the salsa and the bell peppers, lower the heat a bit, cover the pot, then simmer for about 5 minutes
• Add the beans, the tomato sauce, and the chopped tomatoes. Stir and simmer covered for about 10 minutes
• Add the corn and simmer covered for another 10 minutes
• Adjust to taste using salt and hot sauce. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this one. It is easy, it is economical, and you will have leftovers (unless you are feeding a whole lot of people).

Have a great week and let me know how it tastes!

Your Vegan Valley Girl

Vegan Fast Food

Hi All,

This is going to be a quickie post...the kids' camp ends in about an hour and I have still not showered today.  I have been writing and surfing the web since early this morning instead of doing the things I should be doing (aka Meaty's honey-do list).  I believe that the internet is a force for good and that it does amazing things for people but WOW does it exacerbate my ADHD.  I need to hide my laptop.

If you read my last post you may be expecting some sort of delicious beet recipe today.  Well, the beets are still in my fridge, waiting for me to roast them.  For some reason I am making beet-roasting out to be a monumental task in my mind.  Good thing they keep for awhile.  No one wants a rotten beet salad.

So what do I eat when I cannot find the time (or the discipline) to cook?  Glad you asked!  Feast your eyes on my new favorite quickie meal from Bolani.  This is a spinach bolani with lentil curry sauce:

Bolanis are an Afghan dish, and they bear a striking resemblance to a spinach quesadilla.  They are vegan, though, as they do not contain cheese.  I heat them up in the oven on 350 degrees F for about five minutes and then I smear them with the lentil curry sauce.  Yum!  The Bolani company (a mother and son team) sell these fabulous goodies in farmers' markets all over southern California, but I got mine at the Old Town Calabasas Farmer's Market (where else?).

Even Mr. Meaty likes Bolanis.  There.  Now are you impressed?

I promised a short post so this is where I am going to leave off today.  Try out a Bolani and then we will talk more about fast food.  In the meantime, I am going to stare at my beets and try conjure up enough gumption to get them peeled and roasted.

Have a great weekend!

Love, The VVG 

 

Sticky Soba and Treats in Topanga

Today begins what will hopefully be a quiet, productive week here in SoCal. The kiddos are both at camp all day and my refrigerator is full of goodies we bought at the farmer's market this past weekend. I got a great deal on beets, so watch for some great beet recipes (or beet-themed tragedies) later this week.

If you have been reading my blog you may remember that I am (slowly) trying to cook my way through Isa Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction. I tried another recipe from the book this past Saturday and met with equal amounts of success and failure. Here's the pic:

Ginger Bok Choy and Soba from Appetite for Reduction

Me: Dinner is ready! I think that I can confidently say that I screwed up the soba.

Meaty: Dear (as he holds up a sticky clump of noodles from his bowl), I think you made glue.

Me: I followed the instructions on the package!!!

Meaty: How much water did you use to cook them?

Me: About this much (holding up a medium-sized saucepan)

Meaty: What would you say, just offhand, was the ratio of noodles to water?

Me: I dunno…maybe 1 to 2?

Meaty: I know why your noodles are like glue.

Me: Are you going to keep me in suspense?

Meaty: The ratio should be more like 1 to 5

Me: How long have we been a couple? Something like seventeen years now?

Meaty: If you say so.

Me: And you are just now telling me that all of these years I have been cooking noodles wrong? When were you going to tell me this?

Meaty: Didn't you work in restaurants too?

Me: I WAS THE BARTENDER!!!

And so on, and so on.

You may be saying to yourself, you met with equal amounts of success and failure? Where was the success? Well, a few minutes later this was the conversation:

    Me: Well, at least the flavor is good.

    Meaty: The flavor is actually really good. You should make this one again.

Make this one again? That is HIGH praise from Meaty. All is not lost.

In other news, we have settled into a new favorite brunch place. Meaty and the kids and I had our third Sunday brunch at The Canyon Bistro in Topanga this past weekend. Like the other times we have eaten there, The Canyon Bistro was fabulous. Meaty had a non-vegan eggs benedict dish (where he subbed spinach for the usual ham…what was that all about?) and I had a wonderful Tempeh Burger with Sweet Potato Fries. The tempeh was juicy and (dare I say) meaty and the burger was topped with fresh avocado, which made it just that much better.

Tempeh Burger and Sweet Potato Fries from the Canyon Bistro in Topanga

If you find yourself in Topanga Canyon (you lucky thing) be sure to stop into the Canyon Bistro. The food is fine dining quality but the restaurant is all Topanga. Artsy, homey, outdoorsy, and a little bit too cool to care about what the rest of the world is doing. Love love love.

That's it for today. Wish me well with my beets!

XOXO,

The Vegan Valley Girl

Salads, Tacos, and Why Portland is so Awesome

Now that our guests have all gone home it is time for me to return to eating the way I did when I started this blog. When I first went vegan I was following Eat to Live's plan, which involved eating a lot of greens, eliminating oil as much as humanly possible, and avoiding bread. I lost weight rapidly, felt great, and I rarely felt deprived. Also, Eat to Live encourages you to eat as much as possible, provided that you eat the right things (greens, fruits, vegetables). Eating a lot works well for me because, well, I eat a lot.

Lunchtime today started out well-intended, but this is what my plate wound up looking like:

Red leaf lettuce with garbanzo beans, corn, and lots of goddess dressing

Goodness gracious, I freaking love goddess dressing! Since I first discovered goddess dressing earlier this year it has been the downfall, nutrition-wise, of many a salad for me. Granted, it is vegan, but it should not be confused with health food. I used Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing (sorry Isa, yours is best but sometimes I am lazy and I just need something out of a bottle) and there are 120 calories in two tablespoons. Two tablespoons? I am pretty sure that I used more than that. Perhaps I should have just gone for a slice of vegan birthday cake instead.

I will get back to the Eat to Live thing tomorrow. I promise.

Moving right along…yesterday was Girls' Day Out with Baby Girl Meaty. We started at the gym (a workout for me, some coloring and running around in circles for her), and then headed to Islands for lunch (her choice). Baby Girl Meaty ordered her usual macaroni and cheese with apple sauce and carrots (note to self…find a recipe for vegan mac and cheese that Baby Girl Meaty and her brother will eat). I usually order a veggie burger at Islands but, feeling adventurous, I ordered the veggie tacos and asked that the kitchen hold the cheese. The tacos were excellent! I think that the veggies (except for the avocado) were frozen but no matter, they tasted great. They were served with salsa and a veggie slaw but I stuffed myself on tacos and was unable to get to everything on the plate.

Veggie Taco Plate from Islands, Sans Cheese

See? You can be vegan almost anywhere. Islands bills themselves as a burger joint and I still managed to have a terrific lunch there.

On a different note, Portland, Oregon is now at the top of my must-see cities on this side of the world. Did you know that Portland's mayor, Sam Adams, has declared a vegan awareness weekend in September? I love him! Have a look at the declaration below. Talk about a vegan friendly city! Maybe Mr. Meaty will take me there for a romantic get-away this fall (or, more likely, all four of us will go and it will rain and the kids will spend the whole weekend jumping on the beds in the hotel room while Meaty and I pull out our hair). Anyways, yea Portland! I hope to visit soon.

Pure Awesomeness

So, in sum, eat your greens without high-calorie dressing, do not be afraid to ask your waiter to alter your food to accommodate your diet (even at a burger place), and visit Portland soon. Oh yes. You should also look at the picture below of my darling daughter and say ahhh how cute! I know I'm biased but come on!

Baby Girl Meaty aka Future Vegan Princess

Love and Laughter,

The Vegan Valley Girl