Pizza Potatoes

Comfort food at its finest. It's probably the only Irish-Italian marriage your great great grandmother would approve of: PIZZA POTATOES.
I got this recipe from a Whole Foods app on my iPhone, but they only had the vegetarian version (basically they used cheese that was made from animal milk, so its not much of a stretch to grab some Daiya instead).

Now I know you're excited so, here's what you'll need:

(makes 6 servings)

minus the potatoes, all these veggies are optional

6 medium sized potatoes
1 cup of freshly cut broccoli
1 small/medium sized zuccini, cut in bite size pieces
1 cup freshly cut mushrooms
1/4 - 1/2 of an onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup of peas (I used sugar snap peas)
2 cups of spinach
2-3 cups of Red Sauce
1-2 cups of shredded diaya mozzarella "cheese" (I found some right at Wegmans)
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil

casserole dish
large frying pan
measuring cups
measuring spoons
spatula or wooden spoon


First Preheat the oven to 375.
Then stab your potatoes all over with a fork and stick them in the microwave...I can't help you with for how long, because my microwave just has a baked potato setting, but I'm sure it wont be hard to find out!
While your potatoes are microwaving, chop up all your veggies and stick them in the frying pan, with salt & pepper and olive oil. (This includes garlic.) Put the veggies on medium-high heat and stir occasionally for about 15 minutes. I put the top on for a good 10 minutes within that 15 minutes.
When your potatoes are done, let them sit for a minute so you can pick them up (until your veggies are done cooking.) When your veggies are done, turn the burner off and put the top on. Put a little bit of your sauce and put it on the bottom of your casserole dish then grab the potatoes and put them in the dish. Split the potatoes open (cutting about 1/3 of the way down) and pour a little bit more sauce on the potatoes. Take your vegetables and evenly distribute them on top of the potatoes and add the rest of the sauce. Put your cheese on top of everything and then put it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until your cheese is melted.
Now eat up! Just don't burn your mouth off :)

Garbage Plate!

A Vegan Garbage Plate?? Crazy, I know. But it IS doable. And sooo good! For those of you who don't know what a garbage plate is, its like if you went on a picnic and threw the left overs in the garbage. But instead of throwing them in the garbage, you throw it all on a plate. Its great for if you're planning on fasting for a month....well I promise you wont be hungry for at least 72 hours after eating. Makes 2-3 HUGE garbage plates

Here's what you'll need:

For The Beans...

2 cans of red beans, drained

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1 cup ketchup

6 tablespoons mustard

1 teaspoon salt

For The Hash browns...

6 potatoes, scrubbed clean & diced in 1 inch cubes

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons salt

pepper to taste

cayenne pepper to taste

hot sauce to taste

For The Pasta Salad...

5 cups mini shell pasta, cooked

1 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

paprika to taste

2/3 cup veganaise (vegan mayo, and more or less can be used if wanted)

2 tablespoons mustard

For The Burgers...

4 veggie burgers (make sure there isn't any egg in it!)

4 slices of soy based cheese (i used pepperjack flavored)

Sauce pan

Casserole Dish

2 Frying pans

Measuring cups & spoons

1 medium bowl

Mixing spoons

Spatula

Tin Foil

Small bowl

Ok, so first. Preheat the oven to 300. Put all the ingredients for the beans in a casserole dish, mix together & cover with tin foil. Bake for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

Put your cooked pasta, coated with a little olive oil, in the fridge to cool.

Uncover the beans for the last half hour they cook.

Clean & chop the potatoes and put them in a large frying pan. Add spices and cook, stirring occasionally for 15-20 minutes.

Half way into cooking the potatoes, start cooking your veggie burgers based on package instructions. During the last 2 minutes, add the cheese.

Don't forget about the beans!! Take them out of the oven after the 4 hours.

While you're waiting to flip your burgers & in between stirring the hash browns, add your spices with your veganaise into a small bowl and mix them all together. Add the mixture to your chilled pasta.

Once everything is done, pile it all on one plate, however you like and then drench in ketchup.

You'll probably have lots of leftovers, but the best part of it is that its even better as a left over! Good luck finishing a whole plate!

Homemade Vegan Sauce

I saw this recipe (in: Skinny Bitch in the Kitch) for sauce and I thought I should try it. Steve loved it and, like always, I altered it a bit. Its really easy, and you can make it taste however you want which I love. I decided I wanted to make mine sweet, but if you'd rather have it spicy just omit the agave nectar. You can freeze it for up to 2 months, or you can keep it in the fridge for a week or so. From this recipe, for the two of us, I used it with about 4 dinners. The book says it makes 7 cups.

Here's What You'll Need:

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice

8 to 10 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups of fresh mushrooms, diced (optional)

2 (28-ounce) cans crush tomatoes

1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste

1/4 cup fruity red wine (optional)

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon hot sauce (optional)

1/4 cup agave nectar (optional, more or less can be added to taste)

4-6 Quart Stockpot

Wooden Spoon

Heat the oil in the stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the Onion and Mushroom and cook until tender. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in wine, basil, oregano, salt, hot sauce and agave. From here, I let the sauce stay on the stove on VERY low heat for a couple hours, stirring occasionally, but you can serve right after you mix in the last ingredients.

I served this over Quinoa (keen wa) which is pretty much the best grain on the planet. They have it at WalMart now too, so there's no excuse not to try it!!

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies You Will Ever Have

I wasn't really sure how vegan chocolate chip cookies would work. I've been holding off on making them because vegan chocolate chips aren't exactly the easiest thing to find. So when I found them the other day I decided why not? I'll only use half the bag and if worse comes to worse I can melt the rest of the chocolate & have fondue for dessert one night.

I got the recipe from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, and I was not at all disappointed. I had to change a couple things based on what I had in my cupboard. But whatever I did worked and I cannot wait to make these again!

Here's what you'll need:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I just used all purpose)

1/2 tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/2 cups evaporated cane sugar (I used sucanat)

3/4 cup dairy free margarine

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup ice water

1 tablespoon molasses

1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

6 oz vegan chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts

*the original recipe calls for 1 1/4 refined coconut oil, but I don't have coconut oil so I substituted with the margarine and oil

Medium Bowl

Large Mixing Bowl

Mixer

Rubber Spatula

Measuring cups & spoons

Bakins Sheet(s) (greased or non stick)

Cooling Rack

Preheat the oven to 375. In a medium bowl, sift together salt, flour and baking soda (I didn't have a sifter, so I just whisked together the ingredients and it turned out fine) and set aside.

In your large (or mixing) bowl, combine the sugar, butter and oil and with your mixer, beat until creamy. Add the water, molasses and vanilla and mix until everything is combined. On a low speed, mix in the flour mixture gradually. Add in the chocolate chips and mix until just combined. The dough will seem like its too sticky, but its fine! Maybe its just because I used sucanat, but I added another 1/2 cup of flour and it really didn't change the dough's texture much so I just let it be sticky and baked them. You want to put about 2 tablespoons worth of dough on your baking sheet and have them be about 2 inches apart. I fit 12 on each of my sheets. Then bake them for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the centers are set. I baked my first batch for about 12 minuted and then the rest for about 10. Take them out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before moving to the cooling rack (or just eat one after that, they're way too good to wait that long for!) My husband says they're the best cookies he's ever had...aww! Enjoy!

Brownie Cake Things That Just Taste Good

Sometimes having chocolate isn't an option. My body just screams for it. Whether this is healthy or not, I don't really care. I just know that Brownies are the best way to settle the craving. (That and I was looking at Alecia Silverstone's book, The Kind Diet, Which have PB cups....and I will be trying those soon!)

So I found this vegan brownie recipe on Allrecipes.com and I changed it (of course) to make my own delicious brownie/cake type things. You'll love them. And they're just about the easiest things on the planet to make. I don't have a picture to share for these yet, they just go too quickly!

What you'll need:

2 cups of all purpose flour

2 cups sugar (I used sucanat because it's what I had)

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil (plus a little extra to grease the pan)

3/4 cup apple sauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Measuring Cups & Spoons

A Large Bowl

A Rubber Spatula

9 x 13 Pan (greased)

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl until it basically looks like the brownie mix you buy out of the box. Then add all the dry ingredients and mix until everything is wet. The batter should be thicker than a cake batter!! Pour the batter into you greased pan and make sure the batter is spread out evenly! Now stick it in the oven for 20-30 minutes! I know, annoying that it could be anywhere between those 10 minutes that your delicious brownies could be done. I only put mine in for 20 minutes and they were perfect! Then let them cool for at least 10 minutes before you start to cut and serve! Soo easy!

Christmas in July Stovetop Hot Cocoa

Today the sky was overcast all day and my AC had to be on AT LEAST 50 because I was freezing! So I tricked myself into thinking it was October or something and got a hankering for some hot cocoa. I remember when I was little my mom used to occasionally bring out the big stockpot and make hot cocoa on the stovetop and I loved it! So today I decided why not try it myself?
This recipe makes six cups, which is perfect for me because I love hot cocoa for breakfast! Its also super easy and tastes MUCH better than those packets of powdered crap.

Here's what you'll need:
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 sugar
1/3 cup water
dash of salt
4 cups vanilla almond milk (or soy milk, and if you only have original, just add some vanilla extract...about 1 teaspoon)

Supplies:
Stirring spoon
Sauce pan
Ladle

First you'll want to mix all your dry ingredients in the sauce pan & add in the water. On medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, and then boil for about 2 minutes. Turn down the heat just a little bit and add in the milk. Then just keep heating until its warm enough to serve (this is a great time to sample!) and enjoy! (Just don't let it get to a boil again!!!)

See?! EASY! feel free to play around with the amount of sugar (less is more sometimes) and the type/amount of cocoa you use.

Long Live Lasagna!

I knew that at the beginning of the week I would not want to do anything. There was way too much stress the week before and I was all out of energy. So I enlisted my wonderful husband to help me make the next 3 nights dinner. Lasagna. In a family of 5, lasagna probably wouldn't last past Dad's lunch the next day. But there's only two of us here and we made it last from Tuesday until Thursday night. And some how I just never got sick of it!

I got this recipe from Skinny Bitch In the Kitch. Yeah Yeah, I know. Ridiculous name. But its got some really great vegan recipes in there. And Steven loved every bite, which couldn't make me happier...and I used to hate lasagna but I couldn't get enough of this!

So what you'll need:

1 package of Lasagna noodles (try to get whole wheat! and watch out for some pastas, they have an egg base. gross.)

3 table spoons of sea salt

5 cups red sauce (you can make your own or buy vegan)

10-12 ounces vegan shredded mozzarella "cheese"

12-14 ounces vegan ground beef (I used Smart brand)

4 cups of tofu "Ricotta"

28-32 ounces extra firm tofu, crumbled (the tofu i get comes in 14 oz packages, so 2 packages)

6 cloves garlic

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh oregano (or 2 teaspoons dried)

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

Supplies:

8-10 quart stockpot

foil

13 x 9 inch pan

cookie sheet

Food processor

Mixing bowl

Measuring cups/spoons

So lets get started...preheat the oven to 350 F

In your stock pot add about 6 quarts of water (I have no idea how much that is, so I just did it up to the handles on the pot and it seemed to do the job) and the sea salt and start boiling! Then add the lasagna noodles and cook according to the packages instructions.

While the water is boiling/you're cooking the noodles, why not get the ricotta out of the way? So throw all your ingredients into your food processor, process and bam! (sorry, emril) you've got vegan ricotta! If you don't have a food processor, don't worry! Just chop up your garlic VERY FINELY and throw it all in a bowl and mix until creamy! Perfect. Then throw it in the fridge until you need it.

So the pasta is done! now drain it and rinse (I know, I was always told not to rinse my pasta too!) to cool it off so you can actually touch it. Then lay it out on the tinfoil so they don't all stick together.

Next, get out your 13 x 9 inch pan, red sauce, "meat", "ricotta" and "cheese". Spread about a 1/2 cup of sauce on the bottom of the pan. Then put a layer of lasagna noodles down so they're slightly overlapping (they don't have to be perfect!!!). Now we're going to start a cycle! Put down a 1/3 of each ingredient: "ricotta", "meat", "cheese", sauce, noodles, repeat (twice)! so you'll have 3 layers of goodness. Then I put some more sauce & cheese on top and stuck it in the oven on top of the cookie sheet for about an hour.

Then just take it out of the oven and let it cool for 10-15 minutes and serve! It should make about 10 servings give or take.