Sushi

Laura made us some veggie rolls yesterday and they were fantastic, as usual.

Veggie Sushi

Mmmmm, Sushi

Laura made me two different sushi rolls. The one shown on the square plate has avocado, mango, green onion and cucumber. The one on the round plate below has mushrooms, green onions and cucumbers.

Veggie Sushi

I love sushi so much. After she makes the rolls, I always throw the rest of the rice and leftover veggies into a couple of bowls and have sushi bowls because they're just as delicious, but not as pretty. I've never rolled sushi, but Laura does a great job of it.

Laura rolling sushi

Sushi wrap in progress

Sushi Prep

So, when you don't use raw fish in your sushi, it automatically becomes vegan. We did used to use cream cheese in our sushi back in the vegetarian days, but I honestly don't miss it (especially after the reaction I had to dairy last night when I decided a cheat day was in order and got a hot chocolate from Tim's...nope).

In the pic below, Laura has all the veggies chopped or sliced and the mushrooms cooked on one plate and the sushi rice all prepared on the other.  Just past that is a sushi mat with a sheet of Nori and a layer of rice spread over it.

Prepared veggies and cooked sushi rice

In this pic, taken another night, the sushi ingredients are mango, cucumber, avocado, flat-leafed parsley and basil.

Sushi ingredients

Nori (Seaweed)

Laura doesn't like Nori. Nori is seaweed and gives the sushi rolls kind of a fishy flavor, which I love. It's briny and delish. She makes her own rolls using rice wraps, which are just clear sheets with little or no flavor. No flavor is better than bad flavor, right? If you don't like it, eat something you do like.

Sushi rice on a sheet of Nori

Pickled Ginger

Laura combines soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic powder for a dip and serves them with wasabi paste as well. The ginger (shown above the plates in the pic below) is for palate cleansing. We finally found some pickled ginger that doesn't contain aspartame. In fact, it's not sweetened at all, which was fine. I still have never found out why most ginger is sweetened with aspartame. 

Sushi that Laura made for me

Pretzels

We had amazing pretzels tonight, and I feel they are definitely blog-worthy, if for no other reason than to hold onto the recipe.

Pretzel with honey dijon

Bread Maker Extraordinaire

Laura is an ambitious bread maker. She makes a lot of the bread that we eat and has never shied away from trying new recipes. She has not only made all types of regular bread for us, including white, wheat and oatmeal breads, but she has also made rolls, biscuits, pitas, tortillas, naan, rotis, bagels, English muffins, crackers, pizza dough, French and Italian loaves, baguettes and pretzels. As long as I keep bringing home flour and yeast she keeps making fresh bread.

Mall Pretzel Recipe

The pretzels she's made in the past, while okay, tended to be a bit on the tough side. Today, though, she made soft, chewy delicious pretzels that rivaled any I've had at Mr. Pretzel or anywhere else. In fact, the recipe is called "Mall Pretzels". Soooo effing good. So, I think this pretzel recipe is definitely a keeper. I highly recommend it.

Mall Pretzel Recipe

To make them vegan you need to substitute the butter for a non-dairy margarine and use a vegan sugar as well. To be perfectly honest we used brown sugar as the recipe calls for and brown sugar isn't considered to be vegan. It's not an animal product itself but is sifted through bone char. We just happen to have some left in our pantry to be used, and I'm not sure our vegan-ism is going to be that strict.

Honey Dijon, Please!

Of course we ate them hot, fresh out of oven. They were still steaming as we pulled them apart. To serve with them, she mixed dijon mustard with honey, which is always my choice of dip at Mr. Pretzel. However, honey isn't vegan either. It's not made from creatures, but is made by creatures, and essentially we're stealing honey that bees make for themselves, just as people steal eggs from chickens. Maybe by eating it we can't really call ourselves vegans. But, where we are now is a place where we are making more effort toward that end. And every step makes me feel better about my choices!

Pretzel, honey & dijon

Mushroom Stroganoff on Red Quinoa

Our wonderful friend, Lisa Lyon Coloma, posted this awesome vegan stroganoff recipe (well, it was a vegetarian recipe but we replaced the sour cream with Tofutti vegan sour cream) and we thought it sounded good so we tried it tonight. And, since we had pasta only last night, we opted to serve it over a grain tonight. Red quinoa was the winner.

Mushroom Stroganoff on Red Quinoa

Thank You Lisa!

The mushroom stroganoff sauce is really fantastic and I am soooo glad there is enough left over to take for lunch tomorrow. I will probably think about it all morning...on the drive to work...while I eat a comparatively boring breakfast...while I try to focus on work. But, I digress. The recipe for it comes in the form of a video which showcases how simple it is to make. And it really is a no-brainer. I didn't make it, however, Laura did, while my part was simply the shopping, washing the mushrooms and cooking the quinoa.

Mushroom Stroganoff Recipe

How to Cook Quinoa

To cook the quinoa, it first had to be rinsed under running water, then simmered in two parts water to one part quinoa for about 18 minutes on medium-low heat until the water was absorbed.

Herb & Garlic Linguine with Mushrooms

Laura made this for lunch yesterday simply to have more of the "parmesan" she made. So, she designed a meal around it and we had it again tonight for dinner. She was right; it's amazing. And the best part - besides the taste - is the simplicity of it.

Herb & Garlic Linguine with Mushrooms

"Parmesan" Cheese

I think the "parm" recipe is worth sharing. While not exactly like parm, it has a very similar texture, a nearly identical appearance and a fantastic flavor. Best of all, it works well in the same types of meals you would add parm to. I can't say it tastes exactly like parmesan cheese, but we both think it's fantastic, and probably better for some dishes. It's also high in protein which is important for vegans - though we are getting more protein than our meat-eating friends think, since protein is present in a lot more food than most realize. (stop worrying about us, we're fine haha)

Herb & Garlic Linguine with Mushrooms

Ingredients
1/2 box linguine
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp frozen fresh basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 crushed dried red chili
3 - 4 large cloves of garlic

Directions
Slice the mushrooms and mince the garlic. Sauté the mushrooms until most of the moisture has cooked out. Add the olive oil and herbs, stir into mushrooms and remove from heat. Add the garlic and continue stirring about 30 seconds. Toss with cooked linguine.

YAY Pasta!

Pasta is a weakness of mine and I'm rather happy that it's not something I have to give up to be vegan. They make all kinds of egg-less pastas now, as well as lots of variety for pasta sauces from a simple pesto to veggie-filled marinaras, and there are substitutes for cheese and meat if you feel they're that necessary to the dish you're serving. So, bon appetit! Chow down.

Roasted Veggies with Butter Beans, Barley & Lentils

This is a meal I make a lot, only now with a vegan diet, it's even more important to include some high-protein items. So, tonight I threw some pot barley, red and green lentils and butter beans in with my roasted veggies.

Lentils, barley, onions & dried herbs

I pre-soaked and rinsed the butter beans, then added them to the barley, lentils and onions, and about 3 cups of veggie broth for absorption. Potatoes, carrots and parsnips were placed on top with some dried herbs tossed over them. (oregano, bay, thyme, sage, parsley & rosemary from last summer's garden)

It was cooked in a 300 degree F oven for an hour (to give plenty of time for the broth to be absorbed), and then for an additional 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Nearly all of the liquid was absorbed by the barley and lentils.

Roasted veggies with butter beans, barley & lentils

This was one of the best-tasting roasted veggie dishes I've ever made. It was also substantially high in protein, magnesium, Vitamin A and iron.

Avocado Tacos

If you've followed my vegetarian blog, then you've seen this one before. You basically batter and deep-fry slices of fresh avocado and use them as your filling instead of seasoned ground meat. We had them two or three times last year and they're pretty good.

Previously blogged here - click for recipe

Avocado tacos

Better than Ever

Tonight they seemed even better than before, for some reason. It might have been the squeeze of lime but I am inclined to think it was more the mango salsa, which was sooo good.

The "sour cream" was a vegan product, so I only took a bit. It's okay. It's not as good as the real deal, or at least that's my current opinion. (I've been finding that the more you eat a food, the more you learn to like it. I hope that's true for the cheese-less cheeses as well.) It has the right texture, but it's not as sour. But it did serve its purpose as a taco condiment.

Vegan Pizza

Yes, it's cheese-less pizza. I know that does not sound good to anyone who isn't vegan or lactose intolerant, because two weeks ago it didn't sound great to me either! However, it is surprisingly delicious, thank God.

Vegan pizza slices

The Making of Pizza

Pizza Crust Recipe

1. Healthy sauté until soft: 1/2 red onion, half red pepper and 8 oz. mushrooms sliced.
2. Add 3 "ice cubes" of basil/olive oil and mix with the sautéed veggies when melted.
3. Cut orange pepper in half and remove ribs, seeds. Flatten sides skin up on greased cookie sheet and broil until skin is bubbled and half blackened. Remove from oven, place in ziplock bag, seal and let sit for 15 minutes. Remove from bag, peel, slice and mix in with cooling basil/mushroom mixture.
4. Roll or toss pizza dough, place on pan, shape and cover with sauce.
5. Add toppings: layer baby spinach/kale over sauce, arrange sautéed vegetables on top of that. Dot with olives, halved. Crumble dried oregano and hot chilies over top.
6. Bake at 350 until crust starts to brown.

Vegan pizza

Not saying I don't miss the parm, but it is still very palatable. And I didn't miss the mozza.