Fajitas

Seitan-based fajitas. Possibly the best thing I ate so far in 2016. Maybe even 2015 as well. Served with Laura's homemade tortillas and fresh avocado, they were pretty much perfect.

Vegan Fajitas

Vegan Fajitas

If you would like a Step-by-Step for making fajitas, click here. We've made these many times, from meat versions to vegetarian ones, but this time, totally vegan.

Dairy Sub
We substituted the sour cream for a Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream (disagree, but it's not terrible - works for fajitas). It's a soy-based, dairy-free sour cream substitute. It has the texture and most of the the tang you get from sour cream, but has that soy bean flavor too, and I haven't really warmed up to it. If you're serving it with stronger flavors it's perfect. And if you're serving it with beans (like with chili) the flavor blends in better, too.

Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream

Fajita Filling
We added seitan, which was actually delicious and very much like beef but without the animal fat.

The veggies were the typical onion/pepper variety, along with some limes which were used with cumin to cook the veggies in and squeeze over the filling before wrapping.

Fajita Filling

Everything Else
Laura made the tortillas, which were unbelievable. It's hard to go back to store brands once you've had them homemade, too. Even when she really doesn't feel like making them, she usually does anyway, just because it's so worth it.

They were served with fresh avocado, salsa and the sour cream sub. Best thing I ever ate. Total 10.

Vegan Tortilla with Avocado & Lime

Philly Not-Cheese Melts

So yep, these can go on my "Favorites" list any day...

Philly Melt

Seitan

Loving the seitan. This time, we bought the gluten flour but somehow forgot to use it and made the seitan with regular flour - and it was delish! It was kind of a happy accident.

Seitan is wonderful because it takes whatever flavors you give it, and has a much, MUCH meatier texture than soy, and allows us to have those meals that are kind of lame without the "meat". Like these Philly melts.

If you're interested in making it, this is the recipe we used.

Seitan

Philly Melts

A Philly Melt is short for Philadelphia Steak and Cheese Sandwich and is a steak and cheese oven sub topped with sautéed onions and peppers, and in this case, mushrooms. Alas, I did not stop loving them when I stopped eating meat and dairy. So, using substitutes for the meat and cheese is the answer to maintaining a vegan diet while not having to give up all your favorite meals. We used Earth Somethingorother "mozzarella" for the "melt" part. More on that and other subs in a later post.

Verdict?
I'm dedicated to keeping this blog real, so I can't lie and say this is exactly like the real thing. Or that it's better (just my opinion, Laura disagrees). But, it was still fantastic, and granted us our daily doses of protein and Vitamins A and C as a bonus!

The sub looks bad in the photo because I forgot to take a pic while it still looked pretty. I had already cut it in half and since it was overstuffed, the filling, sauce and breadcrumbs went everywhere. Still looks yummy, eh? It really was...

Philly Melt

Homemade Perogies

Week nine of our vegan diet and so far it's going pretty well. I mean, I love the food I eat (a bit too much, maybe, but all my dietary choices have been like that), but it can be challenging to keep up in the kitchen. I don't feel like cooking every night, and neither does Laura. We really try not to eat a lot of highly processed food, so meal prep can be a time suck. I'm sure we'll learn lots of tricks and find recipes that are quick to make. But, this weekend I made these Smashed Bean Burgers and man, they took awhile. Partly because we don't use canned beans, though. A can of canned beans would make this recipe a cinch. More about the making of them below.

Smashed Bean Burger with Perogies

Sometimes You Just Want a Good Sandwich

Choices seem limited in these early days. You have to really switch gears because your old favorites probably need some serious tweaking. Sandwich? Brain comes up with: peanut butter, toasted tomato or cucumber and....umm...maybe...?...jam. Molasses? PB and molasses? I don't know. However, there are a lot of great sandwiches that look very appealing to me. A lot of them have sprouts on them so I think it's time we grew some more sprouts. I want to try this Smashed White Bean & Avocado Club sandwich - looks delish to me. This Mashed Chickpea Salad sandwich looks awesome too - just looks a bit on the time consuming side. A Sunday endeavor...

Kitchen Time

It's the weekend, so we're in the kitchen cooking. Today the menu is perogies and bean burgers. The burgers aren't the same as our beloved Butter Bean Burgers, but they're still awesome, with a similar flavor and texture to falafel. We're also going to be making corn chowder and biscuits. There should be enough food to freeze a couple meals to have for lunch and enjoy later in the week as well.

Preparing food at home rather than relying on ready made items allows you to:

• Make food that you really like, the way you like it best
• Skip or substitute ingredients you don't enjoy
• Avoid preservatives
• Eat fresher food
• Make way more for less money (usually)

Laura's Perogies

Laura made the perogies and they turned out fantastic - definitely worth documenting the recipe since she made it up so there's no record of it.

Laura's Perogies

Filling
Sauté:
1/2 small onion, finely diced
Once softened, add in:
4 oz white mushrooms, diced fine
4 oz portobello, diced fine
1-1/2 tsp salt

Mix sautéed mixture with:
5 potatoes, cooked and mashed
4 scallions, green parts, snipped
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp vegan butter (Earth Balance)
3 heaping tsp nootch
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
2 - 3 splashes almond milk

Perogie Filling

Reminder for next time: The filling could have used twice as many mushrooms.

Dough

Recipe here for Perogie Dough. We substituted the vegetable oil with olive oil. 

After the perogies were wrapped, Laura rolled about 18 of them and popped them into the freezer, leaving the rest of the filling in the fridge to wrap later. The dough is wrapped and resting in a bowl on the counter.  We cooked a dozen of the frozen ones for lunch. First you boil them for two minutes, then fry them for four or five minutes on each side until brown and crispy and heated through. I fried them on medium low heat. They were fantastic, and completely dairy free! 

Smashed Bean Burgers

This recipe came from the Thug Kitchen cookbook. I am not going to post the recipe here, but if you happen to have it and find the burgers aren't forming and are falling apart I'll share with you a tip I learned in this frustrating process. As stated above, we don't usually use canned beans, which are nice and mushy. I cooked mine from scratch and probably should have overcooked them, because they were difficult to mash and there were still a lot of whole beans in there. When I went to make the patties, they just kept falling apart. Here's what to do if you have the same problem: take at least half of your mixture and put it in the food processor for half a minute. It will make a formed ball of nice sticky dough. Then mix it in with the rest of the mixture and it will make beautiful patties that hold together very well. 

Bean Burger Patties

I had tried to cook three of the patties before we came up with the amazing solution and when I flipped them they all just crumbled. But...they were still delicious. So, that mixture will be used in wraps tomorrow night, probably with some chopped cucumber, tomato, onion and tahini sauce. Looking forward to it...

Cooked Crumbled Bean Burger Mixture

Update: So, we totally had the wraps on Monday with a tahini sauce, and they were fabulous!

Bean Wraps

Freezer to Oven

On a good note, we now have 5 burgers to freeze and grab next time we don't feel like cooking. And, the perogies mixture will make about 4 dozen to freeze as well. This is the key to being able to eat freezer to oven, and still eat healthy whole foods. It requires a few hours of time on the weekend, but it is worth it to not have to cook every day during the week.

What Vegans Eat

What do vegans eat, anyway?

Lots of people don't know what vegans eat and many don't know there is a difference between being vegan and being vegetarian.  This blog entry should clarify things for you - even though I'm pretty sure my ten followers already know. Still, maybe you'll learn something, and if not, then at least you'll gain some insight into my brain through my words. And, who doesn't want that?

Fresh vegetables

What Most People Eat

Grains, nuts,  beans, lentils, produce, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt and honey
Keep in mind that meat includes organs and broths made from animal parts as well.

What Vegetarians Eat

Grains, nuts, beans, lentils, produce, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt and honey
Keep in mind this is a generalized list. There are many types of vegetarians, like lacto-vegetarian, fruitarian vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian and a bunch more. You can google these yourself if you're interested in learning more; for my purposes, I am clarifying the differences between being vegan or vegetarian as it pertains to my own experience.

Vegetarians don't eat meat, but they do eat animal by-products, like dairy. Actual meat is the only thing necessary to abstain from to be a vegetarian, and to be quite honest, it was pretty easy.

What Vegans Eat

Grains, nuts, beans, lentils and produce
Keep in mind that these are categories and contain many, many, many types of food, including pretty much all spices. There is still a LOT of food for us, and much of it is whole and healthy. We eat well, but our meals generally require a bit more preparation since they don't make a lot of vegan processed food. And, what conveniences there are out there, we pay dearly for - or don't, since Laura and I rarely buy that stuff, preferring to eat whole foods when we can.

Our grain pantry

Where's the Protein?

It's true that people actually ask this. I've had people ask me how I get enough protein and I've also had my plate scrutinized then been asked, "Where's the protein?" I don't know quite what to contribute this to, whether it's genuine curiosity, actual concern or maybe even disdain. Maybe all, depending on who it is. Rest assured, it's not difficult to get sufficient protein. It may not be present in significant amounts in every meal, but in the course of the day, we're getting what we need. More concerning to me is getting my B-12 so for this I take a supplement. I also take a multi-vitamin just for good measure.

Lentils, sweet potatoes & spices

Where Vegans Shop

We shop at the Bulk Barn a lot because it's way cheaper, has a lot more variety and you can buy whatever amount you want. Because of this, we use Mason jars to keep or food fresh and more organized than a pile of bags shoved in the cupboard.

We ran out of room in the pantry and had to create a new storage space, so we now keep some of the beans in a basket on our divider. Makes it easy to find them.

Basket of beans

I buy our produce at Sobeys, what we don't grow ourselves. Laura makes a lot of our bread and we grow some of our own food, too. We buy our dairy subs at Sobeys and baking supplies at BB or Sobeys as well. Atlantic has more options as far as some things go, but Sobeys is closer, so it's my go-to for most things. A lot of ingredients are only found in the Natural Foods section, or the "special" freezer. More on that in future posts.

I Miss Eggs

I miss eggs, and sometimes I miss cheese and butter. Not like a craving, but more like, something yummy to put on my everything bagel. Because as much as I like my Skippy peanut butter, it just doesn't go on everything bagels. My favorite thing to have on onion flavored bagels was eggs and cheese, either as a breakfast sandwich or an egg salad for lunch. I miss breakfast sandwiches. I also miss Hollandaise sauce. Eggs Benedict. It's not horrible, and there are still lots of options for breakfast. But, sometimes, I do miss eggs.

Vegetarian breakfast of Eggs Benedict

Future Blogs

Vegans don't eat meat, milk, honey, eggs, yogurt or cheese. Do we miss it? I can only speak for myself, but (with the exception of eggs) I really only miss it in the sense that it's so much easier to find sustenance wherever you are. I intend to do a blog post about the challenges I've faced and still face. And I also plan to create some posts about our many substitutes, for those recipes that contain animals and animal products - some of which I still miss. So, we can still have those meals, we just substitute plant-based products. Stay tuned for more about that. And, I plan to do a blog about why I have chosen to be vegan. It's not just about the attention...

Garden Berry Crisp

I called this "Garden Berry Crisp" because all the berries in it are from our 2015 garden. We were supposed to have made a couple batches of jam, but never did, so the berries will be useful for desserts and smoothies instead.

Garden berry crisp

Almost-Vegan Dessert

Everything in the recipe is vegan with the exception of the sugar. Booo. I hate that regular sugar isn't vegan, since it's strained through bone char or something in the processing of it. I don't plan to be that picky when eating other people's desserts, like at restaurants, potlucks, family dinners, etc. Some people are that strictly vegan, but it doesn't sound very practical for me, although I actually do avoid desserts and products made with dairy of any kind, at least 99% of the time.

Bubbling berry crisp

Frozen Coconut Milk

The crisp was really delicious, and very sweet since there was two cups of sugar in it, one in the berries on the bottom and one in the topping. We had it with So Delicious frozen coconut milk, which is similar to ice cream and I love it because it's soy-free as well as dairy-free. It's a decent ice cream substitute.

Frozen coconut milk & berry crisp

Our Berries

The berries included about 2 cups of blueberries, 1 cup haskap berries and 1-1/2 cups Alpine strawberries. Some of the strawberries were red outside but white inside. That doesn't mean they weren't sweet, as Alpine berries are sweet even when half ripened. The white ones turn a brownish color when cooked.

Hot berry crisp with coconut ice milk

Served with tea, it made a fabulous dessert.

Seitan Fried "Chicken"

This meal was actually seitan fried "chicken" with mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, corn and biscuits. Laura's doing. My part was shopping and peeling potatoes.

Seitan Fried "Chicken" 

What is Seitan?

It's a meat substitute made from the gluten or protein of wheat. It can be made to mimic pretty much any kind of meat; beef, chicken, pork, etc and can take many forms from roasts and flanks to wings and fillets, or even ground meat or jerky. It takes whatever flavor and color you use to flavor it and has a deceptively meaty texture. Ours was kind of yellow from the turmeric.

Seitan before battering & frying

Seitan Fried "Chicken" 

Sooo. I thought this was really good, especially for a first stab at it. I even went back for seconds! I can see how the flavor and texture could both be better, but it was still pretty freaking good. The flavors used were turmeric, garlic powder and onion powder in the seitan itself and in the crispy batter she used her dried herbs from last summer's garden. The flavor was pretty good, but the turmeric sort of took over a bit.

As for texture it was a rather believable chicken texture, but of a fatty chicken. A little on the rubbery side. Regardless of this, I still liked it better than grocery store substitutes. And, Laura is researching ways to improve it as we speak, so next time it will be even better.

Laura making seitan

Here is the recipe she went by, after watching many videos about how to make it. When you put it in the hot oil, it expands A LOT. More than you'd expect. This could be partly why it seemed "fatty", because it really fluffed up in the oil.

Easy but Not Cheap

Laura said it was easy to make. I would have to add that it's also somewhat pricey if you're comparing to other flours, but cheap in comparison to meat. We found the wheat gluten at the Bulk Barn after striking out at Atlantic SuperStore and Sobey's. We paid $7.14 for 3 1/2 cups. She used 2 cups in her recipe. Still cheaper than chicken. And kinder.

Laura being silly

Best Served with Potatoes

Like anything. I'm kidding of course. I think anything is best served with potatoes. And corn. Or some other yummy veg. As for Laura, biscuits and gravy are her chicken sides. Altogether, it was a fantastic meal.

Seitan with potatoes, corn, gravy & biscuits

Next Time, Maybe This!

Balsamic BBQ Seitan & Tempeh Ribs

Hummus & Homemade Pitas

We eat hummus a lot. Laura makes super good hummus. She is pretty handy at making pitas too. I love hummus as a spread in a veggie wrap.

Laura's Hummus & Pitas

Hummus Recipe

1 can of chick peas, rinsed
1/4 cup tahini
2 large cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Pour into food processor or blender and whiz it up. Add water as needed - just a splash at a time until it starts to blend well.

Optional:

Add 1/4 cup vegan (coconut) yoghurt. Makes it a bit creamy and adds probiotics.

You can make a more basic hummus with lemon, garlic and chick peas. Nearly as good!

Pita Bread

Laura uses this recipe. She says they're easy to make.

Dough rolled out

Pita frying in olive oil

Pita nearly finished