More Kid Food..

Hey there.. I can't believe I started this post on the Feb. 15th and just never got back to post it. Well, after some editing I will give you a very condensed version of what I have been cooking in the last couple of weeks. Dear Honey has been traveling an obnoxious amount the last few weeks, so posting is hard because 1) I really don't have time and 2) when he isn't here I am just far less motivated to make any thing that requires a lot of dishes (he always cleans up after dinner- ohhh I do my share while I cook- I am a firm believer in washing as you go) .

Exhibit A.. A no dishes to do kind of dinner...Chili baked potato w/ follow you heart vegan nacho cheese.. cue the choir- this is one of the only vegan cheese the boys will eat. Yes, that is suppose to be sour cream on there, we had a little incident w/ the fridge when one of the little ones thought they would turn the dial to the coldest setting and see what would happen. There were a few casualties like the sprouts and lettuce . Well, and the sour cream it still taste the same but the texture did change that's for sure. Oh ya, let us not forget the brand new $6.49 bottle of Vegenaise mayo.. me oh my it will never be the same.
"chicken" fried seitan sandwich- I have a real weakness for this one. Poor honey missed out, he has been asking for some chicken fried seitan for weeks now.

A real garlic lovers dream!!! Dreena's Basic Creamy Garlic Sauce from the Everyday Vegan. I didn't have any wine so I substituted more veggie broth. I also didn't have any fresh herbs instead I used some simply organic all purpose seasoning. Good stuff, the little ones thought it was a bit too "spicy" from the three whole bulbs of roasted garlic the recipe called for. It really was creamy though despite the fact that it had no cream in it! Another winner from The Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking (truly there have been no duds- if you don't have it I highly recommend it!) Belizean Beans and rice. I didn't have any white rice so I cut back about 1/4 cup of what the recipe called for and used brown rice instead. Man this would be a very good candidate to bring along to a pot luck. It basically consists of pinto beans, green pepper, onion, coconut milk, rice and some seasonings.
So, a while ago I tried the fish sticks from the Vegan Lunch box cookbook and thought I should try marinating the tofu w/ the recipe in the Cooking Southern style cookbook. So I did just that using the marinated from one book and the coating from the other. WOW!! I made the kids and I a "fish" sandwich on a whole wheat english muffin, melted a slice of cheddar tofutti. Good stuff, very good stuff. The kids gave the "fish" two thumbs up.

Okay there is a bit of what the kids and I ate while Honey was gone... stay tuned for more grown up food to come now that Honey is home YEAH!

Vegan comfort foods...

Well, Daddy's home for a bit.. Here is one of his favorites .. From The Vegan Family Favorites again w/ the veggies and dumplings. I added seitan and corn.

Veggies and dumplings in the pot
A close up

Eggplant Parmesan

So eggplant was on sale here in our neck of the woods and I wanted to try something new. Here we have Susans (fatfreevegan) Vegan Eggplant "Parmesan". My picture looks nothing like hers though. I even woke up at midnight the night I cooked this going over the recipe in my head wondering what I did wrong. I followed all of the steps and the recipe to a t, but mine turned out mushy. VERY edible mush, though. The only thing I could think is maybe I cut the eggplant too thin. It worked in my favor though, because the kids-who claim not to like eggplant ate it up. Honey suggested adding some no bake lasagna noodle to it and making eggplant lasagna.
Mushy eggplant parma Tater tot biscuit from Cookin Southern vegetarian style
That salad looks kind of out of place there huh? Oh well- I just thought we could all use some roughage (who doesn't). Everybody LOVED the tater tot biscuits. Who would have thought to combined those two things together? I did replace 1 cup all purpose w/ whole wheat pastry flour and they still got fluffy. From the same cook book I made the Cole Miner's "Chicken Fried" Steak and Gravy. The patties are made from chick-peas and quick oats, onions, garlic, tahini, dijon mustard. Coated w/ nutritional yeast flakes, flour and sesame seeds.

Last night we ate yummy enchilada's, blogger is being finicky and not letting me up load a picture right now...

Have a great weekend. And thanks for all your well wishes from my last post.

Nothing fancy...

Well, Daddy was gone all week, this leaves me very unmotivated to do any gung-ho cooking. Rather, I prefer to do low stress, easy dinners. Exhibit -A. Tofu nuggets, some baked red potatoes w/ some leftover cheese sauce, and green beans. Funny the kids didn't really enjoy the potatoes like I thought they would. Speaking of the cheese sauce I updated my recipe from the last post to clarify PLAIN rice milk. Sloppy lentils I basically followed Jennifer's recipe my changes included adding 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup carrots, 1/2 onion and two handfuls of fresh spinach. Which I cooked in veggie broth then pureed before adding the lentils. This was a real hit w/ the kids the first night - left overs the next night ehh.. not so much. But, they really don't like left over anything. Silly kids. I was hit by a cold this day- I spent most of the day on the couch and was sooo not motivated to cook anything. I seriously debated (w/myself) serving the kids peanut butter and jelly. Just to avoid having to do any dishes. I didn't so from out of the pantry we have some organic spaghetti sauce from a jar, frozen crumbles and whole wheat pasta.

Here we have an adapted soup from Vegetarian Soups for all Seasons. The Curried Lentil, potato, and cauliflower soup w/ spinach and lots of garlic.. My changes though include substituting 2 cups of broth w/ one can of coconut milk, sweet potato instead of white, 2 TB soy sauce, 1 stick lemon grass and about six lime leaves (honey brought some fresh ones back w/ him!). This was a good soup.. But, Emma and I added a splash of some spicy chili dipping sauce to ours that seem to give it just the flavor it was missing.

This weeks dinners..

Looks like breakfast huh? Nope it was a dinner. Biscuits from Cookin' Southern, carrot potato hash browns from Vegan Family Favorites, vegan sausage, and the real winner Bryanna's Hollandaise sauce from her website. It was freaky good! The perfect combo of texture and taste w/o eggs. I am just amazed by how she can brilliantly veganize things. The kiddo's have been begging for mac and cheese. I used my ol'standby recipe only I had a carton of rice milk that needed to be use so I replaced 1 1/2 cups of water w/that and the other 1/2 cup I used veggie broth. Man what an awesome replacement it ending up being! Nice and creamy! On the side was a big veggie salad w/ a bits of "beefy" seitan. Happy kids, very happy!

improved "cheese" sauce
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt & garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 cup plain rice milk + 1/2 cup veggie broth
1 tsp prepared mustard
2 tbs. earth balance
Combine dry ingredients and rice milk and broth and heat until bubbling and thick- keep stirring it gets thick quick. Remove from heat add mustard and earth balance.

This makes a lot..I probably used half for 4 servings of noodles.

For the baked mac I added some home made bread crumbs from some left over home made bread in the freezer. Just toasted it and put in in the food processor w/ a bit of olive oil and simply organics all purpose seasoning. I bake at 350 until the top gets toasty and brown.


I had a real hankering for a mock meatball sandwich. I used the Lentil-rice Ball recipe from the Vegan Lunch box. I thoroughly enjoyed them- the kids not so much. I think it was just the brown lentils they don't really like. My honey is gone out of town again and missed this one. Poor guy this was a sandwich right up his alley. Maybe when he gets back I will try them again w/ red lentils..hmmmmm anyway while we were eating it Emma asked why I just couldn't have used seitan.. soooo
The next day her and I made the 'beefy' seitan again from La Dolce Vegan . Then we sauteed up some onions, mushrooms, and red pepper added some pineapple and pizza sauce, melted some vegan rella and had us a pizza sandwich. Yum!
Here we have Wendy's (red) Lentil and brown rice Casserole from La Dolce Vegan. I had my doubts but, it was easy just dumping all the ingredients into a casserole dish and cooking it. I happened to love this one too, the kids ehhh.. But, they ate it.