Kidney Bean Salad

I don't know what else to call this. 

I started off trying to make mock tuna. I diced all of my onions and then opened a can of what I thought was chick peas... 

FOILED! It was kidney beans! WTF?!  I literally spent the next 30 minutes tearing the pantries apart in search of chick peas. There were none. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! That's like running out of nooch, or cashews. IMPOSSIBLE. I am still in total disbelief, maybe even denial. (They're here SOMEWHERE!!!) 

In the mean time, I had a large red onion chopped and a hankering for a Just Mayo based salad. Mock tuna was out- but what could I do with kidney beans? 

This. I did this. And sweet mother jeebus it is divine. Here is my best recollection of the recipe with made up measurements. 

1 can kidney beans (28oz)

1/2 cup Just Mayo 

3-4 garlic dill pickles, chopped

1 medium/large red onion chopped

1 tbsp tamari 

1 tbsp horseradish

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything except the onions, pickles and beans. Then add the pickles and onions. Last, add the beans and stir to coat. Now, eat directly from mixing bowl, or you could top your favourite cracker, load up your favourite bread, wrap it up. Whatever you do, just enjoy! It's delicious!

*Do you ever make something SO good, but it's impossible to take a good photo of? It's late and I'm tired and quite frankly, keep eating my model. This is the bean salad on a toasted jalapeño baguette. (Teeny bite size to feign sophistication! 😆)

Waffle All The Things!

It's not a new craze, but waffling food other than waffles is pretty amazing. Waffle irons are pretty versatile. You can cook tofu, hash browns, cookies and more. 

I wanted something brunchy today and decided to try an experiment. Sometimes they work, sometimes not so much. Lucky for you all, this one worked. 

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Waffles

1/2 a banana, smashed

1/2 cup quick oats

1/2 cup organic pastry flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla 

1/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup almond milk 

Pinch of salt

You know the drill. Mix dry, mix wet, combine and pour into the waffle iron. Voila. 

The shell crisped up nicely in the waffle iron and the inside was cakey and oatey like I wanted it to be. The chocolate chips got a little toasty for my liking- in future I would probably add them after the fact, or just make a chocolate drizzle. This would also work well with raisins.

Being the glutton that I am, I added coconut whipped cream and cinnamon to mine. You should do the same. It was spectacular. 

Note: if you wanted to make it sweeter (I didn't add any sugar to the mix) you could add 1/4 cup of sugar.

 

Sausage Rolls!

Seitan is something that I usually buy, but rarely make. Which is silly, because it's not difficult to do and tastes so much better home made. 

The basics of Seitan are wheat gluten and spices (the "dry"), mixed with water/stock and a binding agent (the "wet"). When I make my Seitan ribs I use natural peanut butter as the binding agent, but for sausages I wanted a different flavour. I have seen in other recipes that some people use beans so I thought I'd give it a try. 

To make the sausages you'll need:

The "wet":

3/4 cup baked beans in tomato sauce

2 tbsp minced garlic

3 tbsp tamari

1/2 tbsp hickory liquid smoke 

2 tbsp chili oil (or olive if you don't want them spicy)

1.5 cups vegan beef broth 

The "dry":

2 cups wheat gluten 

1/3 cup nooch 

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground sage

1/2 tsp onion powder

In a food processor thoroughly mix the wet ingredients until smooth. Switch the blade to a dough hook and add in the dry mix until a batter forms evenly.

Using lengths of heavy duty aluminum foil  add even mounds of batter and roll into sausage lengths, twist ends closed. Repeat until all batter is used, 8-10 sausages depending on size.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes and let cool in the foil. 

Now that you have sausages, the possibilities are endless! BBQ and top with sauerkraut and mustard, slice and fry for pasta dishes, or create some great holiday apps! 

To make sausage rolls, once cooled you need to slice them in half and cut into 1.5" sections. 

Roll out your puffed pastry and wrap each square evenly. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with specialty mustard, and enjoy!

When you dip, I dip, we dip!

Firstly, who gets the song reference? Hooray for 80's kids! 

Moving along.....PIZZA!!! Now that Pizza Nova has vegan mozarella, at a reasonable price no less, I can once again embrace my inner (ok; maybe outer  too...) fat kid and eat my feelings via take-out! 

The one thing they don't have is a vegan dipping sauce. My fave FAVE dip was the Cheddar Jalapeño dip that most pizza places carry. So creamy, and cheezy and with a nice bite.

When you order pizza that you're too lazy to get dressed to drive and go pick up, it leaves a 40 minute void. Mostly, this time is filled with peeking through the curtains brimming with hope that THAT car has your pizza, contemplating getting dressed to exchange money for carbs (but ultimately deciding against it) and/or swearing and wishing that they would just HURRY UP WITH MY PIZZA damnit!!

Maybe I'm maturing, because I spent my 40 minute void concocting dipping sauce! Truth be told, I ordered pizza on several different occasions which gave me the opportunity for trial and error. There wasn't a lot of error, per se, but I did find a great recipe that tastes amazing and is easy peasy.

Without further adieu, VEGAN CHEEZY JALAPEÑO DIPPING SAUCE!!! 😁

1 cup vegan mayo (I used Nayonaise)

1/4 cup nooch (or more if you want it really cheezy. Always add more nooch!)

2 tbsp hot sauce (for both added heat and colour)

1/2 a jalapeño, finely diced

Add all ingredients into a blender and purée until it's a nice saucy consistency. If it's too thick for your liking, add a bit of liquid. Water or unsweetened, unflavored milk will do. 

Enjoy!

Baked smashed potatoes!

I'm tired and cranky. The kind of tired and cranky that only starch can fix. Bring on the potatoes! 

I bought a few bags of those little mini potatoes. They might have a real name, but I already said I'm tired. After boiling them, I arranged them on a parchment lined paper and used a wooden spoon to smash them. 

You can really garnish them with anything you want, but I used:

- Earth Balance

- Sea salt 

- Fresh minced garlic 

- Scallions, chopped finely 

Pre-heat the oven to 375 and bake for 35-45 minutes. Then, eat all of your feelings and hopefully be a little less cranky! 

Pierogi!

Starch fried in (vegan) butter may as well just be called HEAVEN! 😍

Oddly, not everyone agrees with that. As you may have gathered from previous posts, my other (better) half doesn't like a lot of my favourite things. Like bread, sandwiches, pierogi. Basically, if it's starchy and or fried, she wants none of it. She likes her food to be nutritionally complete, where I like mine to replace feelings and cause bloat. I know, I'm not sure how we make it work, either. 

So I wanted to try something that kind of met half way. Let me have my fried starch while being (somewhat) nutritionally complete. So I thought, why not use processed chick peas in lieu of potato, add a ton of nooch and some other good stuff? Win win? I think so!

To make the pierogi shell, I googled and came up with this:

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour 

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sunflower oil 

1 cup warm water

Blend flour and salt in a food processor, then add oil and water and mix until combined. Hand roll into a ball and set aside while you make your filling.

For the filling I used:

- 1 large 28oz can of chick peas, rinsed and puréed in the food processor

- 2 medium white onions, finely chopped

- 1 tbsp fresh minced garlic

- 1/2 tbsp ground sriracha (aka THE GREATEST SPICE EVER!) 

- 1/2 tsp turmeric

- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

In a large frying pan, sauté the onions and garlic. Then season with sriracha (or other spice with a nice heat) turmeric and nutritional yeast. Lastly add in the chick pea mix and combine well. 

On a floured surface roll out the dough to desired thickness. Use a cup to make the shapes for your pierogi. Spoon one tbsp of filling onto the centre of the shell. Pinch near the middle to seal and then continue along both sides until you have a crescent shape. (See photo for detail)

Once they're all formed, crimp edges with a fork and get ready to boil. Do not overcrowd the pan; only boil 3-5 at a time and then set aside. When they are all done, preheat a large frying pan and sauté in vegan butter until lightly browned on both sides. 

Top with your fave vegan sour cream (or not) and enjoy! 

Nacho Cheez!

I'm back! Two weddings, three events and the general chaos of life has subsided (kind of) and I'm back to the blogosphere! Yay!

Nacho night is one of my fave nights. I bought Yves new soy free veggie ground round with pea protein and figured the best way to try it out would be spiced into oblivion with veggies from our garden. And then I had a hankering for nacho cheez sauce. You know the kind that you see at the 7-11, except minus the plastic-y look. Without further adieu...

Nacho Cheez Sauce

1 cup hot water

1 cup raw cashews

3/4 cup nooch (nutritional yeast)

1.5 tsp salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp pimento, drained

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder 

1 tsp smoked paprika 

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp tapioca starch

1 whole jalapeño, diced 

Blend well in a high powered blender with nut blade attachment and voila! Creamy, tangy, spicy cheez sauce!