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.

The Tale of Two Taters

So Steve and I decided to have dinner really early today. I was starving and he's always hungry so it worked out for me. I don't know if I mentioned this before but Steve is really picky about everything involving food. Its a miracle I got him to be a cheating vegan. An absolute miracle. Before I started cooking for him, he thought BBQ sauce was a food group. A food group that trumped the Grains on the pyramid. So when I do things like make dill mashed potatoes and he flinches, I don't get too offended. It takes time to bounce back from that much BBQ sauce. But that doesn't stop me from making it.

So along with our Boca Burgers and fresh green salad we had mashed potatoes. Not just one type of mashed potato. Two. As soon as I started chopping up the fresh dill (which is pretty much just a green flower) he started mock vomiting all over the kitchen. Lovely. So with my little taters boiling I got out another mixing bowl and a small frying pan and starting preparing garlic for my overdramatic hungry hubby.

Wanna know how I did it?! I'll tell you. (Because honestly, I had to google how to make mashed potatoes when I got here. Milk. Who knew?)

When I make mashed potatoes I aim for left overs. I love mashed potatoes and will indulge as much as possible. SO! For the two of us I had:

6 potatoes, washed, peeled & cut into cubes/chunks (you don't have to peel the potatoes, but not a lot of people like the skins in their mashed potatoes, including me)

1/4 cup of dairy free margarine

3/4 cup of almond milk (original)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Things you'll need:

Large sauce pan (filled with water to just above the potatoes, remember you'll need room for it to boil!)

Strainer

Mixing bowl

Hand held mixer/mixing spoon (I just just my mixer because its faster)

Measuring cups/Spoons

Put the potatoes in the sauce pan and then fill to the top of the potatoes and put on the stove top on medium heat for 15-20 minutes, depending on if you want your mashed potatoes lumpy or not.

Dump potatoes into strainer (over the sink, obviously) and then put the potatoes into your mixing bowl.

Add the butter, salt and pepper and mix. It should be still flakey, not creamy at this point, but I like to add the butter first to know where I stand with the milk.

Slowly and gradually add in the milk. You may need more or less milk depending on the size of your potatoes but make sure you don't over milk them! There's not much you can do with mashed potato soup.

Then add in the flavor of your choice! I added in about 1/2 a tablespoon of dill to my potatoes (which are pictured above and were delicious!). For Steven's garlic potatoes I sauteed 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil for about 6-8 minutes on low heat while the potatoes were boiling. If you don't have garlic cloves, a few dashes of garlic powder is fine. Just don't over do it. Garlic is very overpowering, especially in something bland like potatoes.

Enjoy!

Very Blueberry Grunt and Grumbles

This Morning I woke up starving. And Grumpy. But I'm grumpy every morning, so that's beside the point. All I wanted was some comfort food. My Husband had cereal, and for some reason that made me angry. So I grumbled my grumpy self to the kitchen and just stared at the fridge. Thats when I remembered that I have about 5 pounds of blueberries in my freezer and I should probably do something about it.

I have never been much of a blueberry fan. But I was starving and in no shape to go pick up anything for anywhere. So I decided I would use a recipe I found on an iphone app called vegan yum yum. A blueberry grunt. Now I am not going to pretend that while I looking through my app that I knew what a grunt was. I had no idea. But considering my mood it seemed appropriate. Plus its a really low maintenance recipe.

So here it is:

for the blueberry filling:

4 cups of blueberries

2 tablespoons of lemon juice (or if you have a lemon just squeeze half of it into the pan)

1/2 cup of sugar (the original recipe called for 3/4 cup but even 1/2 was very sweet)

1/2 cup water (if you're using frozen blueberries i recommend NOT using this much water. Try 1/4. I used 1/2 and it took way too long for the mixture to thicken and the berries got too prun-like for my taste)

for the "grunt":

2 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons of dairy free margarine

3/4 cup of soy/almond milk (I always use almond milk)

make sure you have:

a deep dish frying/sauce pan (sorry i have no idea what to call it. i'm really a novice i guess)

a mixing bowl

measuring cups/spoons

a fork

a wooden spoon

corning ware dish(es) (if you're making individual ones you'll, obviously need more than one)

OK! so lets get started.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

Throw all the blueberry ingredients into your pan. (It doesn't really matter what kind of pot/pan it is as long as it goes on a burner & it fits all the ingredients with room for the mixture to boil.) Mix it all together and let it come to a boil on medium heat, then let it boil for about 15 minutes, still on medium heat (more or less time depending on how thick you want it to be. I wanted mine thick so I did it for more time. don't freak out because i'm not giving you a definite time. you don't want it to be soupy, but you don't want your blueberries to resemble raisins. so just play with it. you'll be fine! promise!)

While thats coming to a boil, put all your dry ingredients into a bowl, and if you really want to be organized, you can measure out your butter & milk and throw it in the fridge until you need it too. Once the blueberries are almost done (like have 1-2 minutes left) take your butter & with a fork mix it into your dry ingredients until you can't really find any chunks of butter in there anymore.

When the blueberries are done, put the mixture on simmer (this next part wont take long at all, promise, so a simmer will be fine. if you're really worried you can turn it off!)

Pour in about half of you milk and WITH YOUR FORK still, mix it in. Don't mix or handle the dough too much or it'll get tough. Pour in the rest of your milk and mix it in again as little as possible. just until none (or most of) the flour is dry.

Then take your blueberries and pour them in to your dish(es) (try not too go too much over half way) and break up the dough into bite size chunks and put them on top of the blueberries. If you want you can put some sugar on top of the biscuits and then put the dish(es) in the oven for about 20 minutes.

I had a LOT of left over dough, so i just made (about 8) biscuits and baked them at the same time as the grunts.

When they're done let them cool for about 5 minutes and then enjoy! I put powdered sugar on mine when they were ready to serve and that made them very very very sweet lol but really its all based on preference.

If you want to make blueberry syrup! add more water in the beginning (about 3/4 cup) and go about everything the same way. then when you're dishing out your blueberries just use a draining spoon and whats left in the pan is your syrup! my very picky husband loves it!

Once Upon a Time...

I've always loved cooking. Especially baking. I would rather stand over the stove for an hour than pour myself a bowl of cereal most mornings. And when it comes to dinner, no matter how tired I am I always want to make it myself, even if its just to see how many helpings my husband will devour.

But when I got married I didn't realize that cooking for two didn't mean I had to whip up 3 family size meals a day. And we got a little chubby. And on top of that I learned that my body decided on its 21st year on the planet that it no longer could have dairy.

So! We went vegan. Yes. VEGAN! Everyone I've ever talked to has something against vegan eating. Even Vegetarian eating. You need protein blah blah blah what about calcium blah blah blah b12!!!!! blahblahblaahblahblah. Well I did some research. Not "WHY IS VEGANISM GOOD" research or "WHY SHOULD I EAT MEAT" research. I looked at food. Allll types of food and found out that if I eat my fruits and veggies like my mommy always told me (and throw in some beans/nuts) I'll be justttt fine! Even better than fine! I'll be very healthy. So if you're just here to tell me why I shouldn't be a vegan, shove it. I've heard enough. You can eat all the meat and dairy you want. And if you live longer than I do, congrats. But I do what I want. And you can't stop me!

Obviously I'm not here to tell you that you need to be a vegan and THINK OF THE ANIMALS! and what not. I'm just here to provide you with some good food recipes. That happen to be vegan. (and actually healthier, but just as tasty as the alternative...just sayin!)

So just enjoy and don't preach to me about what I'm missing out on, because if you try these recipes you'll know that I am not missing out on a THING! :)