Some of our family’s favorites

Awhile back I had a hankering for some tomato soup. Well, in the name of blogging I tried a new recipe from the 125 Best Vegan Recipes cookbook. All though, it wasn't bad I really should have just made everyone in our house all time favorite cream of tomato soup.

That's okay, we all ate our soup and quesadilla then the next night I recycled the left over soup into a pasta bake.. This went over much better! Topped w/ veganrella and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast flakes..

From my last post I did it again, I made the Lunch box roast beef and like I said I should have done the first time, this time I did make two.. One for honey to grill and one so the kids could take some yummy sandwiches to school. Like Ms. Megan said -it is a time investment to make.

So really making two roast is the way to go!

Well, I have sense learned that if I do make this again it will be only for my family. I am MSG/nitrate/ sulfate sensitive and evidently it was the marmite which is yeast extract sent me off to migraine land. I was clearly in denial hoping it wouldn't get me. The first time we ate it I wanted to believe that my migraine was hormonal but, after eating it again it is confirmed.. It was the seitan pot roast.. bummer because it re ally is good. I was trying to come up w/ some sort of replacement for the marmite, does anyone have any suggestions? I might try using the vegan worcesterchire sauce? or just leave it out and see what happens.

Honey giving the grilled seitan roast beef a thumbs up..

Behold the grilled beauty! We served them hamburger style on buns w/ all the fixins.

Again from the Vegan Lunch Box the triple chocolate cupcakes. I made them as only double chocolate- I left out the icing part. That way one, they travel better and two this recipe makes 24 so I could freeze some of them.

I am not much of a baker unless I have too. And well, the kids were invited to a birthday party, so I had too. This recipe intrigued me because there were no egg substitutes required- no soy yogurt, flax seeds, egg-replacer nothing. There is also nothing nutritionally redeeming about them either.

One thing I learned- I should not try and cook all of the cup cakes at the same time. Evidently my oven has hot spots and some of the cupcakes got a bit too toasty. Very good moist vegan chocolaty goodness!

On one of the days Daddy was out of town I made the kids and my favorite alphabet soup..From the Vegetarian family cookbook. Heck after all that seitan I was ready for some veggies! I was out of the little alphabet noodles and replaced them w/ some animal shaped + spiral rice noodles.. all was well.

After readings SaraJanes post about her Vegan "Chicken" and Dumplings I had had another hankering. After the whole tomato soup thing I didn't try hers (which don't get me wrong looks fantastic! I didn't have the soy cream or even plain soy milk). Our family's favorite comes from the well, the cookbook Vegan Family Favorites (ironic?). It is so easy and so good. This time I added some frozen 'chicken' tofu, onion, garlic, corn and instead of veggie broth I used water w/ no chicken flavored cubes. Perfect! The kids have never had real chicken and dumplings so, when Emma asked what we were having for dinner I told her using my exaggerated quote fingers "chicken" and dumplings to which she replied ohhh you mean dumpling soup Yum!Notice the fine silverware setting? Eli and Emma came up w/ a new game to play this weekend. When they set the table they set all six places when we only need four.. See that way we can play sit anywhere you want night. Evidently we should be wild and crazy once in awhile and not just sit in our normal spots ALL the time!

vegan lunch box -seitan pot roast..ohh baby!!

Excuse my very long absence. Life is good it has just been busy and it seems I have just been cooking ol'stadbys that I have already blogged about. Nothing really seemed that blog worthy.
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Until last night.
If you have the Vegan Lunch Box Cookbook YOU MUST TRY THIS! pg 119. The wheat gluten pot roast and gravy. Man oh Man! The recipe says it serves 4 w/ leftovers for lunch. But, really it was all we could do to stop stuffing our selves and eating the whole darn roast in one night. My family really loved it. If I knew how good it was going to be I definitely would have made two roast. The only minor substitutions I made was instead of red wine I used 1/4 cup red wine vinegar w/a 1/4 cup water and instead of fresh thyme I used a 1/2 tsp dried. On the side is of course mashed potatoes (1/2 white the other 1/2 sweet I use the pressure cooker w/ about a cup of veggie broth salt and pepper)

sorry about the bad photo
Okay so we did manage to save enough for three sandwiches (lucky kids and honey!)... BEHOLD the beauty! That seitan looks kinda freakishly like the real deal doesn't it? My hubby believes that this would pass with any skeptical omni test. He also wants to try doing this recipe only try to shape the seitan more like a tube to be cut up into burgers and then grilled... mmmm that boy is always thinking.
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Well, I started a post about our summer vacation many moons ago but, never got around to posting it. Here is little Emma enjoying her very first doughnut from Ronald's Doughnuts in Las Vegas.
It was cute - all though she has never seen the Simson she started chanting just like Homer Simson ...mmmmmm doughnuts


Emma has dairy allergy's and has never had a doughnut! The poor kid huh? Well, a couple of years ago her and I were in Seattle and I had tried to make it to the vegan doughnut shop there. But, I got lost and frustrated because of my poor timing we had hit five o clock traffic so we never made it, she still remembers to this day.

I think I made up for it though.

So here she is standing in front of the surgery goodness! All but three trays on the bottom are vegan. The lady behind the counter was SOOO NICE!!
So if you are ever in the Las Vegas area I recommend hitting up Ronalds - as a bonus it's not to far from the Trader Joes.

still cooking

Awhile back I made the lentil balls from the Vegan Lunchbox and thought that my Honey would love them (he was traveling). The kids were not that thrilled about them and I thought it was the brown lentils so this time I tried it w/ red lentils. I cut down on the cooking time but, they ended up being a bit too mushy and well, just plain not as good as the original ones.

I made some more "beefy" seitan from La Dolce Vegan and covered them in some homemade bbq and baked them. Really good flavor but, the seitan didn't firm up enough for Honey who suggested a light fry after baking would have made this over the top good!
Sweet potato curry. One of Emma's favorites.
Ginger hoisin noodles from the Everyday Vegan. I double the recipe for the sauce and marinated the tofu in it- then lightly fried it up. I used udon noodles instead of rice, which was okay but, would have been better w/ rice noodles I think. Emma LOVED these noodles. Very kid friendly.
From the Real Food Daily- I made the basic seitan in the morning (4 lbs worth!) then marinated it using the Salisbury seitan recipe then smothered it w/ some Golden Gravy(all from the same book). The kids I must say had to be coaxed to eat this one. I thought it was good. I think it was the texture of this seitan more then the flavors the kids didn't like. Everybody in our house prefers the Vegan w/ a Vengeance seitan.. So now what do I do with the other two pounds of seitan? Along side I made Granny's hurry-up dinner rolls. Which were okay.
Roasted pepper Cannellini bean Sauce from Vive le Vegan. Honey liked it - The kids and I -not so much. I added some red pepper flakes to mine.
So, I saw Bazu's post w/ her walk the other day I thought I would share w/ you what our walk looks like.. I am 5'11 and the wall of snow is about eye level. It has been one heck of a crazy year here. We are working our way to braking the snowiest year on record here in Juneau. So far this is the fourth snowiest year w/ about 177 inches the record is 194 inches. The weather forecast calls for yet another storm headed our way and snow likely all week... uuuggghhhh! Yes, I know I live in Alaska but, we live in the rain forest not way up north.

Well, truth be told I don't fair well in hot weather - but, right now I am dreaming of a warm sandy beach and a cool drink something w/ an umbrella in it!

Snow ball fight anyone?

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.

Tofu sramble success!!!

I made the tofu scramble from VWAV last Saturday night. We had a weird kind of day, we just hung out and snacked all day. Except Eli who went to a birthday party where he got to make his own pizza (very exciting). Anyway, there was just no need for a big dinner production, when I got hungry I made this scramble thinking I would offer it to everyone and they could eat it or not..(oh ya, I was in a mood). This is what Mom wanted- this is what I was cooking and everyone was welcome to join me. Now, mind you I have been pureeing my veggies for my kids sake FOREVER! Not this time can you see the tofu, mushrooms, green peppers, onions -OH MY! Nothing hiding there huh? I cooked it in our quesadilla maker w/ a bit of veganrella. Everybody came to the table and never said a word about what was inside their tortillas.. Even Eli ate it!

Looks kinda creepy huh? I used up some of my seitan from last week in this Vietnamese "beef" noodle soup from Vegetarian Soups for all Seasons. I have made a soup like this before using a recipe from the Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow cooker and all though they are very similar I think I prefer the slow cooker recipe.
My first recipe from the Vegan Lunch Box- the "fish" sticks. Pretty good, a nice change from the baked tofu nuggets. I think they would be a better using a "fishy" marinade I found in the Cooking Southern Vegetarian Style cookbook. Maybe next time. Along side we have some carrot-potato pancakes from Vegan Family Favorites. Those were awesome! I must say that is one recipe that everyone wished I had doubled!
And finally, a Vive le Vegan recipe, the Sweet curry chickpea casserole. This one just didn't strike my fancy. I loved the idea, loved all the ingredients but, I think we would all prefer the Sweet potato curry from Vegan Family Favorites. Or really a combo of the two.

So, lastly I was invited by Laura from the Jewish Vegan to participate in a vegan/vegetarian recipe exchange I was wondering if I could recruit anybody out there in blogland? Anybody interested? You would be asked to send a recipe to two people then pass on the e-mail to ten of your friends. In return if everybody does it you should get a boat load of new recipes. If your interested please e-mail me at vegan325@hotmail.com.