VeganMoFo Day 18 How did I miss my 100th post?

I'll tell you how, I was just Mofoing away and never stopped to pay attention. I have not missed a MoFo post yet, and knew I would hit my 100th post before MoFo started and I still missed it. You can bet I won't miss my big 200. :o) Oh well, happy 105th post to me!!! :o) Thanks to all of you for being my blog buddies. It is so awesome how we all come together to share in each others accomplishment, disasters, heartaches, and celebrations. Woo Hoo to all of you and great big HUGS!!!

Yes, we are still in a heat wave. DH is lucky he is getting homemade bread. Who wants to turn on the oven in this heat? Not me! So once again I bore you with yet another salad. Good thing I have a stash of seitan in the freezer. :o) This is one of my favorite salads. Packed full of mixed greens, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, mango, walnuts, black beans, and some seitan strips. I really could eat this everyday.

Tomorrow is the day you all get to see what is lurking in my freezer.

At least I will stay cool taking pictures.

VeganMoFo Day 17 Clean out the Fridge Dinner

It is the end of the work week and it was time to clean out the fridge to make room for the unknown creations of this coming week. :o) Cleaning out the fridge makes dinner not only fun, but a mystery until it is completed. I took leftovers out and began to see what I could make. Cut up a potato and cook up with some green and red bell pepper to start with. I found some water chestnuts and knew I had to use them. Yep, get out the green beans, toast up some almonds, thrown in those chestnuts and just a dash of tamari. Wait I have some leftover seitan too! Slice it really thin and toss it in with the green bean dish and stir fry it together. My, this dinner is taking shape. Last but certainly not least get out the leftover salad containers, (both of them), the rest of the miscellaneous containers of carrots mixed with cucumbers, black beans, mango, add a fresh tomato and avocado, and dinner is served.

It might look like a mess, but it sure tasted good!

VeganMoFo Day 14 and Breakfast for Dinner

I know it is 11:42pm and I am just getting dinner posted. Well, at least it is before Wednesday. :o) DH and I were vegging in front of the TV playing Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader. We love that show. On to dinner. Tonight it was clean out the fridge and what better way to do that than tofu scramble or stir fry. Since I wanted hash browns tofu scramble won out. Every time I make this meal it comes out different because I use what I have on hand. Tonight's scramble consisted of medium firm tofu, pressed, green and red bell peppers, yellow onions, tomatoes, jalapeno, zucchini, diced RFD seitan, and Bryanna's scramble tofu seasoning, which is my favorite. We also had diced hash browns with more left over bell peppers, onion, and jalapeno. And of course we can't leave out the fresh pineapple spears and red delicious grapes.

I must say, breakfast for dinner is really a favorite of mine!

Hugs to all and good night!

Now it is 11:54, hurry Sheree' publish this post. :o)

VeganMoFo Day 13 and Delicious Wrap

Hi everyone! Today we were hit with our first Santa Ana winds here in Southern California and they are doing a number on us. The wind is a howling and blowing up a storm. Too bad it is not the cooler soup making weather. Darn! It is too warm for the stove or oven so we fixed up wraps for dinner tonight. This wrap contains my favorite seitan, (check out the Real Food Daily Cookbook), carrots, romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, mustard, and another favorite, avocado, all on a sprouted wheat tortilla. We served it up with some fresh pineapple spears. Delicious!

See you all tomorrow unless we get blown away. :o)

Boy that wrap looks good, might have to have an instant replay for tomorrows lunch. hehe

VeganMoFo Day 9 and Lettuce Wraps

Though today was a tad bit cooler than yesterday, I was still craving salads. Seeing that it is MoFo I wanted to have something a bit more interesting. What is fun about being vegan is veganizing recipes. I picked this recipe from an Eating Well newsletter. You can see the original recipe here. It was very easy to veganize as you can see. DH and I loved the "meet" filling. Oh, and just to let you know. It makes enough to feed an army. We will be eating lettuce wraps for the next few days. Granted that is not too much of a struggle since I had to tell myself, "Stop eating!" I am trying very hard to live by the rule to only eat when I am hungry and not because it tastes so good and trust me these taste really good. We had brown rice and yes a salad with it. I just couldn't help myself. :o)

Five Spice Seitan and Lettuce Wraps

1 cup cooked brown rice

1 teaspoons sesame oil

1 pound ground seitan

1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger

1 red bell pepper, finely diced

1 green onion, sliced

1 8-ounce can water chestnuts, rinsed and chopped

1/2 vegetable broth ( I use no chicken broth)

2tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon five-spice powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

lettuce leaves for wrapping.

1/2 cup chopped or chives

1 large carrot, shredded

I use stainless steel cookware so I heat my pan, spray with cooking spray, and add the sesame oi. Once it is hot add our seitan and ginger. Cook until it reaches your desired doneness. Stir in the cooked rice, bell pepper, water chestnuts, broth, hoisin sauce, five-spice powder and salt; cook until heated through, about 1 minute. To serve, spoon portions of the turkey mixture into lettuce leaves, top with herbs and carrot and roll into wraps.

Enjoy and Happy MoFo

Fun cooking and delicious meals

Yeah! Blogger finally let me on. After deleting and emptying files, history, cookies, and whatever else I could I was given the right of passage to post on my blog. I was a bit worried that I would never get logged on. Anyway, I have been cooking up a storm. It was time to defrost the big, bad, boy freezer in the garage. I usually keep a good amount of go to meals ready for weekday meals and when I saw that my stash had been deleted it was time to break out the ice pick and hair dryer. All kidding aside the blow dryer does work on those last, few, stubborn ice chunks. Next came the fun of filling the bad boy back up. I cooked up a huge batch of my marinara sauce. To achieve a great sauce I mix to sauces together. The first, is a recipe adapted from an old Mennonite cookbook that I have made for over 25 years and Melodies awesome marinara sauce for that extra kick! Sorry folks it is a test recipe, which is fantastic. Here is the sauce ready for the deep freeze.

Next, over run with zucchini I made some zucchini pancakes. I found this recipe on Su Good Sweets and they are awesome. They have a really nice flavor and they freeze really well for those on the run mornings. I can grab one, toss it in my lunch bag, and use the toaster oven at work. If you are trying to get your kids to eat more veggies this is a way to do it. I used agave in place of honey. So, so, good!




I also made Susan's favorite lasagna, which has become our household favorite. This recipe freezes really well. I freeze it in single serving portions and put a spoon of added sauce over the top. Defrost it and place in the toaster oven and you have a wonderful meal. For those of you who use the microwave it works well in it too. Sorry no picture. I packaged it up and tucked them all nicely in the deep freeze.



After all that cooking it was time to try a new recipe. I broke out my Vegan Vittles cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak. Mine is the older edition. It is a wonderful cookbook. This week I made "Barbecue-Style Braised Short Ribs" on page 130. They are very simple to put together, but take an hour and a half to cook in the oven. You turn them every 30 minutes while baking. The sauteed onions, carrots, and garlic along with the sauce turn your home into a summer BBQ. Give them a try!





Finally after a few really lousy days with my back and I mean lousy it was time for a comfort meal. My dear hubby is my knight in shinning armor. He has been helping so much around the house and even helping me get dressed (I am not able to bend these days), he still had time to help make this comfort meal. I know we have all made this same meal, but it was really good today. "Buttermilk" Biscuits with cream gravy, scrambled tofu with zucchini, Vegan Dad's sausage made into patties, and good old country potatoes. I tried hash browns, but they never turn out. They just stay soggy or burn. If anyone has any great solutions to this problem please let me know. DH loves hash browns. And to top it off, my DH did all the dishes and boy were there alot. Thanks babe!

Lastly a smile from our grandson. Enjoy!

Cooking, cooking, and more cooking!

Bored beyond belief without the internet. Crazy! What on earth did I do before it exsisted? I miss everyone. You are all like best buds. Thank you for checking in on me. We do have our internet back and hopefully for good this time. I have been cooking like crazy so please forgive the long post, but enjoy!

Couscous and roasted veggies. How can one go wrong? You can't! Fast, delicious, and healthy.

I have been very lazy lately when it comes to making bread; therefore we have not eaten sandwiches, french toast, and I have had no breadcrumbs to use in my casseroles. Sure you can buy bread at the store, but the price and the long unidentifiable list of ingredients just turns me off. This meant I had to get out of my lazy stage and make some bread. Come on, I have a bread maker for Pete's sake. In the end here is my multigrain bread recipe that became almond butter toast shortly thereafter. I am back in the good graces of the family.

I have been lucky enough to do some recipe testing for Melody. This is her new Marinara Sauce. I have been making the same spaghetti sauce for almost 25 years and dear hubby would have it no other way, that is until this came along. It is simple, flavorful, and has a nice little kick to it. My DH loves it. He says it is a HOME RUN! Here we added ground seitan to it for our spaghetti dinner. I have already made it twice and have 3 jars of it stashed away for calzones and lasagna. Way to go Melody!

I found this great recipe from an article, but forget which one. I found it on the internet! It is called, Dana Sly's Blue Ribbon Vegan Cornbread. The recipe does have 1/4 cup of canola oil in it, but it is so worth it. I substituted whole wheat pastry flour and sucant, which in my opinion made it wonderful. Even 4 pts on Weight Watchers and I am still game. The found flax seed in it produces such a wonderful taste and texture. It is so moist that there is no need to add Earth Balance. What a yummy lunch, broccoli and cornbread. My kind of lunch, simple and satisfying.

Sometimes nothing hits the spot better than a nice big bowl of fresh, homemade vegetable soup. This is a take off of another wonderful recipe from Susan. I added black beans this time and I love the contrast of colors. mmmmm good!

When I make vegetable soup it makes a ton. Here is another yummy bowl with the addition of brown rice, Swiss chard and some of that yummy cornbread!

Comfort food is the best thing ever. No Internet, no TV equals comfort food. Susan over at fatfreevegan.com has some great recipes. I know I have posted my version of her macaroni and cheeze before, but this time I added ground seitan. Oh my Gosh! The most wonderful flavor and satisfaction came out of this meal. Thank you Susan for your great macaroni and cheeze and Joanne for your great seitan recipe!

Were having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave! Bring out the grill! Once again a family favorite, Susan's BBQ Ribz. We were watching Emeril Live on the food network the other night and Emeril was making homemade ketchup, which he turned into a spicy and I mean spicy BBQ sauce. It is time consuming, but so worth it. The recipe calls for 3 Tablespoons of red pepper sauce ( we used Sriracha) along with a Scotch Bonnet pepper, also known as a habinero pepper. Let me tell you, with the combination of these two hot ingredients, you have one very spicy BBQ sauce. It is fantastic. Here is our meal with spicy ribz and grilled pineapple. If you have never tried grilled pineapple you should!

Yes, we are still having a heat wave so back to the grill we go. This time along with leftover Ribz, we had broccoli, potatoes, and grilled zucchini. I am so in love with grilling and roasting vegetables. The wonderful sweetness of them really comes forth. Boy I can make myself drool, just writing about them.

With the Internet down I have been able to cook from a cookbook, which I love. Joanne Stepaniak's, Table for Two. This cookbook has a variety of dishes, which are very low in fat and most recipes make only 2 to 4 servings. Beware some of her recipes that serve 2 are very large servings, of course whoever cried over leftovers. Leftovers make some of the the best breakfast and lunch meals. Here we have Cabbage and Pasta Bake. It is a mixture of whole wheat pasta, green cabbage, spices, and seitan. The recipe calls for tofu, but I am in love with the ground seitan from this same cookbook so I used some of it instead. This meal gives you the since of peace, a real comfort food. I did increase the spices and nutritional yeast, which gave it more pep. I think an addition of green beans or peas would help give the dish more color, texture, and flavor.

We were given a whole bunch of very ripe bananas. Who in their right mind would turn them down? They are so versatile, but baked goods are my favorite way to use them. This recipe is another yummy creation from Joanne Stepaniak's cook book, Table for Two, Banana Nut Muffins. These muffins are made with whole wheat pastry flour and sweetened with organic apple juice concentrate. I love them. Their fragrance is amazing! I don't feel guilty at all when I eat them. The recipe gives the option to use raisins or currants along with the bananas. I left them out this time because DH requested that I do. I think if you soak the dried fruit before adding them it will make the muffins more moist. I will definitely add them and see if my theory really works.

The smell of sweet ripe bananas in the house makes my dear hubby crave banana bread. When he saw the muffins he was a very sad boy. You ask yourself, "How do you know he is sad?" It is the droopy eyes, the pouting lip, and the quiet hints of how he loves banana bread. What else is the dutiful, peace making wife to do? Make delicious, moist and not so healthy banana bread for the love of her life. My man loves white flour and white sugar, which is a rarity in this home. He says the sweeter the better. This recipe comes from The Vegan Family Favorites a comfort food cookbook, which is very omni friendly.

Whenever I come home our fur kids get a treat. We have been out for a couple weeks and the kids were not happy. I mean they really pout when they do not get a cookie. It is all about routine with them. Needless to say, thanks to Vicki they once again have goodies. I don't have a cute "bone" cookie cutter, but I don't think they mind. Although the picture is not so great, my new son-n-law said, "Momma, these smell really good." Brandie said, "Honey, momma made them go ahead and have one. Pretty cool that we can eat the fur kids goodies, 100% vegan and healthy.

I just couldn't leave out our precious Joshua. He always has such a thoughtful look on his face.

Brandie's Engaged and I Got Mail!!!

I am sorry I have not blogged for a couple weeks. We have had a whirl wind of events in this home of ours. Dh's birthday is on June 13th and Brandie's (our daughter) is June 15th. Daddy and Brandie have been celebrating their birthdays together forever. So this year was no different, except that Micah, Brandie's sweetheart, wanted to propose. We all went to Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate. After all the presents were open, sneeky mom took Brandie to the restroom while Micah hid the ring inside a rose. Brandie was completely caught off guard. She had no idea. Micah pulled the rose from her bouquet, which she did not like, and asked her if she had ever noticed how beautiful a rose was on the inside. She was pouting and complaining that he ruined her bouquet. She finally said no and Micah asked her to look. Oh My Goodness! Her face was in shock. She looked up at her dad and asked,

"How'd that get in there?"

Then Micah pulled her out of the booth, got down on one knee, and proposed. DH got the whole thing on video. Everyone in the restaurant was whistling, clapping, and celebrating with them! It was a night to remember!

Micah popping the question!

Brandie saying, "YES!"

Brandie's chin was quivering from tears of joy and Micah

was just beaming and happy that part was over.

The Happy Couple! We are so blessed that they wanted us to be a part of this wonderful night. Oh, the wedding date is September 15, 2007! Brandie does not want a fall or winter wedding and waiting another year until summer is out of the question.

I think I might loose my mind, but hey it will be worth it.

More pictures to come, but onto food!

I Got Mail!

I got my new DVD in the mail! The Everyday Dish by Dreena Burton, Julie Hasson, and Bryanna Clark Grogan. I stayed up until 1:00 am watching it. I love it! I am going to make everything. Here is my first recipe from the DVD.

Bryanna's Vegan Chicken Cutlets getting ready to be baked in the oven.

Baking seitan is the best! These are so easy to make. Anyone who has been leery of making seitan, FEAR NO MORE!! Order it now you won't be sorry!

Here is our first dinner with these cutlets. We served them with gravy, potatoes (russets and sweet potatoes) , sliced tomatoes, and steamed broccoli.

These cutlets are so easy to make and they are fantastic!!!!!!!

Our next dinner: BBQ Seitan "Chicken" Cutlets served with mashed russet and sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, corn, steamed Swiss chard, yellow squash and apple sauce.

My DH who is an omni man enjoyed this meal.

Now I have to choose which recipe to make next!! Get this DVD, You won't be sorry!!!

Evolution of my First Seitan Roast

I love this time of year. I love fresh fruit. Here is a pretty picture of my breakfast. Fresh strawberries, organic fresh blueberries, and fresh pineapple. All of them were so sweet. They just sweetened up my morning!

Here is my first Seitan Roast ready to be put in the crock pot. I got the recipe from Ellen's Kitchen. We think it needs quite a bit more seasoning to eat on its own, but the texture is great. But look below for our dinners so far. Oh, by the way this is a very easy recipe and it cooks in the crockpot.

Ready to begin is cooking in the crockpot. Boy that garlic looks like little biddy eyes looking at you.

Here is my seitan "roast" fresh out of the crock pot. That is garlic on top, not creepy eyes looking at you. :o)

Our "roast" sliced and ready for the dinner table. It looks so pretty. Scary, I told my husband, it looks so real.

I was in the middle of cooking dinner when we got a long distance call from my father-in-law. He is a great man. Anyway I spent so much time talking to him before I passed the phone to DH, that the veggies got a little, lets say "WELL DONE". Thank goodness they were forgiving when I added some tamari, garlic, and some toasted almonds. Also pictured is our sliced seitan "roast" with gravy, baked Yukon Gold potato, cherry tomatoes, and the disaster "hemp biscuits". I got that recipe from Dairyfree.com, but the taste of these is very bland. They are more like a cracker than a biscuit.

This roast is so versatile. Here we cut it up in little pieces and cooked it with some rice and vegan gravy. My favorite was the sauteed zucchini, fresh spinach, and green onions. Look how yummy green they are. The organic grape tomatoes we get are sweet as sugar. :o)

Calling all seitan makers!

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I have been having a hard time focusing on much these days. To much going on. My back won't quit giving me grief, which in turn makes me miserable, and I get in a rut and don't want to do anything since I hurt. So that is why I have been invisible to everyone. I did cook this weekend, but have not been able to get the pics posted. I hope I will be able to get to it tonight. DH has school so I am alone on this LOVE day, but we are going to celebrate on Friday. I am desperate to make some seitan. All of my attempts have been complete failures. I am posting an all out cry for help!. Please if you have a successful recipe can you please link me to a post, send me the recipe, or attach it to your visit. I am sure this is just me and it really can't be that difficult. I bought more wheat gluten to make it, but want a tried and true before I yet waste some more ingredients. Also does anyone know where to get vegan beef bouillon? Thanks everyone for coming to my rescue. I hope I can help someone out too some day!