September 15, 2012

If you've been vegetarian for a while, you're probably like me. You've eaten a lot of tofu scrambles; some good and some less than great. Ok, some are downright horrible.

The worst ones are boring, bland, mushy, and total dullsville. Since tofu has essentially no flavor of it's own – that's why we can easily transform it into Kung Pao or chocolate cream pie with a flick of the wrist – you have to ADD goodies to it to get awesomeness.

In my opinion, the best tofu scrambles are spicy and flavorful with a little veg thrown in and a nice firm texture with some crispy bits. That's what I was going for with this recipe, and I think I made myself pretty happy.

I should probably call this a tofu saute rather than a scramble since I kept the cubes pretty chunky and didn't break them up much. I'm mostly calling this delicious though. It's not only the best tofu scramble/saute I've ever made, it's the best one I've eaten. Here's how you make it.

Hatch Chile Tofu Scramble with Spinach and Avocado

1/2 cup mild hatch chiles, roasted, cleaned, and chopped
3 large cloves garlic, pressed
1 package firm tofu, diced chunky
3 Tblsp water
1 tsp Braggs Liquid Aminos
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp Penzeys Forward Seasoning
1 Tblsp Frank's Red Hot Sauce
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 cup baby spinach, very firmly packed and roughly chopped
2 Tblsp chives
1 large avocado, diced
Olive oil as needed for sauteing

In a large non-stick skillet, saute the chiles and garlic in 2 tblsp of olive oil for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper while they're softening. Remove from the skillet and set aside while you prepare the tofu.

Add another bit of olive oil to the same pan, and add the chunky cubes of tofu. Arrange them in one layer so that all of the cubes are in contact with the pan. Toss them around every few minutes to get a golden color on all sides. This may take 10 to 15 minutes.

While the tofu is browning, mix your wet sauce ingredients together in a small bowl: the water, Braggs, onion powder, Forward Seasoning and Frank's Red Hot Sauce.

Once the tofu is evenly browned to your liking, add the chiles and garlic back in, sprinkle in the sauce, and stir to distribute evenly. Add in the nutritional yeast and the spinach, and mix together.

Cook over medium low heat until the spinach is wilted and the sauce is absorbed into the tofu. The sauce, yeast and chiles meld together to make the most incredible coating that I wish I had more of.

Add the chives and serve immediately with the diced avocado and a tiny touch of salt on top. Serves 3 or 4.

Notes: 

• Hatch chiles are available for a short period of time at the end of the summer, so if you don't have a stash in your freezer, don't despair. The Hatch flavor is amazing, but there are acceptable substitutes. I would probably add in a jar of diced green chiles from the mexican aisle in the grocery store, along with a finely diced jalapeno or two. Just add any chile you like. Chipotles would be good too, and you can find them on the same aisle packed in a jar with adobo sauce. Just be careful and start with a tiny amount, since these dudes can be super hot.

• I used Trader Joe's super firm tofu, and froze it and defrosted it to get a firmer texture. If you like more of a scramble, just skip the freezing/defrosting step and use a firm tofu. Break it up a little bit as it's cooking.

• I like the flavor of Braggs, but you can easily substitute tamari, soy sauce or plain ol' sea salt.

• Add in any other veggies that you like. I think that onion, asparagus, broccoli, kale and mushrooms are all super happy in a tofu scramble.

• Penzeys Forward Seasoning is amazing (and salt-free), but don't fret if you don't have it. It's a spicy little blend of black pepper, onion, paprika, garlic, turmeric, thyme, basil and rosemary. Just substitute what you like. Pepper, paprika, turmeric and thyme would be a good start. Cumin is also found in lots of tofu scrambles; I'm just not a huge fan, but you use what you like. It's your dish! Make it delicious and make it your own!

Note from LilSis:

I think this looks scrumptious and I would definitely make it for myself, but unfortunately, if I tried to serve this to my meat and potato lovin' guys as a meal; they would probably laugh, thinking it was a practical joke!

~BigSis

August 11, 2012

There's a lot to love about Trader Joe's; not the least of which is that they carry plenty of vegan products and they're easily identified with a “V” on the front of the package.

We've only had Trader Joe's stores here in Texas for two months now, and I've already made three 90-mile round trips to stock up on products that I can't get anywhere else. These are some of my favorite vegan Trader Joe's products so far.

I'm planning to keep updating this list, and to make it easily accessible from our home page. If you have any favorite items I should check out, let me know!

Snacks

• Pretzel Slims: Everything
• Reduced Guilt Pita Chips with Sea Salt
• Wasabi Roasted Seaweed Snack

Pantry Staples

• Brown Rice Medley
• Harvest Grains
• Diced & Fire Roasted Organic Tomatoes with Organic Green Chiles
• Artichoke Antipasto
• 100% Spanish Organic Extra Virgin Garlic Flavored Olive Oil
• Almond Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds
• Cranberry Apple Butter
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Sweets

• Dark Chocolate Nutty Bits

Refrigerated Items

• Organic Tofu Veggie Burgers
• This is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese
• Chunky Olive Hummus
• Cut and Cleaned Bag of Kale
• Tangerine Juice
• Reduced Fat Mayonnaise

Frozen

• Chicken-less Mandarin Orange Morsels
• Falafel
• Dorot Crushed Garlic

For a complete list of Trader Joe's vegan products,
please see the guide on their web site.

~BigSis

August 5, 2012

This is another super simple and delicious summertime pasta salad.

I don't normally eat much pasta; but there's something about the Summer that makes me want to experiment with different cold pasta salads. (And, I'll admit that I've never really been a fan of cold pasta salads.)

We have a lot of cookouts with friends in the Summer and not only are pasta salads easy to throw together, but they also feed big crowds and are a perfect side dish for grilled chicken, fish or burgers.

Last weekend I took Bry's favorite Angel Hair Pasta Salad to his birthday celebration with the family and several of his hungry fellow sailors. It was a hit, as usual, but we managed to save one small dish of leftovers for the birthday boy. 🙂

The Seashells with basil, tomato, and garlic pasta salad that I made for our 4th of July celebration was also a huge hit with all our friends and with a lot of our readers. A big thanks to all our new readers that found us via Pinterest!

I found the original recipe for the BLT Pasta Salad on Food Network; but I adapted it, like I always do.  I don't know why, but I just can't follow a recipe exactly as written. I'll read it a couple of times for inspiration and will almost always change it up.

I decided to nix the milk, sour cream and mayo in the original recipe and try some yummy Caesar dressing instead. Then I thought I might as well throw in some black olives and Parmesan to make it more like a Caesar salad.

It did not disappoint.

Caesar BLT Pasta Salad
(adapted from Food Network)

16 oz. mini farfalle (bowties)
1 lb. bacon
1 pint sugar plum tomatoes, sliced
1 c. Gardini's Caesar dressing
1 c. sliced black olives
1/2 c. parmesan
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. olive oil
Juice of one lemon
4 c. chopped romaine lettuce

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water to al dente, then drain. (I cooked mine the night before and tossed it with the olive oil and lemon juice and marinated it in the refrigerator overnight.) This keeps the pasta from sticking together.

Cut the bacon into bite size pieces and cook in a large skillet until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Discard the bacon grease; leaving just a tablespoon or so in the skillet. Add the sliced tomatoes and minced garlic and toss in the skillet for just a couple of minutes to cook the garlic and soften the tomatoes. Remove from heat and let sit until cool.

Since the pasta is nice and cold from being refrigerated overnight; just mix in the Caesar dressing, bacon, tomato mixture, olives and Parmesan, then toss in the chopped lettuce at the end and it's ready to go! Serve at room temperature.

Again; simple and delicious.

Note: I've made plenty of pasta salads with spinach but this is the first time that I've made one with lettuce; and, at first, I was a bit skeptical as to how it would turn out.  But, my hungry, meat and potato eatin' guys raved about it and all my friends loved it.

Obviously, you want to serve this salad pretty soon after it's made so the lettuce doesn't get all limp and wilted; but we snacked on it hours later and it was still very good.

I really hope you'll try this one. Enjoy!

BigSis' Vegan Twist:  Adios to the bacon and parmesan for starters. I wouldn't sub a faux bacon, since most that I've tried wouldn't stay crispy in a moist salad. Many aren't vegan anyway. To replace the salty flavors from the bacon and cheese, I'd use a really flavorful kalamata olive, some capers, and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.

We also need to cut the Caesar dressing since anchovies are part of the traditional recipe. We definitely want the Caesar flavors in this recipe but without the fishies, so we can make our own dressing or buy one. I think this recipe for vegan Caesar salad dressing sounds awesome. Follow Your Heart makes a vegan Caesar salad dressing if you don't want to make your own. That should do it!

~LilSis

July 24, 2012

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours caught a huge fish just a few miles off shore and we were lucky enough to be there when they brought it in so he sent us home with about three pounds of freshly caught fish.

Due to the type of fish this was, we decided to make fish tacos with it and I made this Pineapple Mango Salsa at the request of my son. I love fresh mangoes but I'm not crazy about them with onion.  As a matter of fact; I don't eat raw onion at all. But, I made it anyway; cause that's what moms do. 🙂

But, that being said, this Pineapple Mango Salsa that I found on Pioneer Woman was a huge hit at our house. I didn't change anything, so if you want to try it, here's the entire recipe for this Pineapple Mango Salsa. Instead of serving it on fish tacos, you could serve this salsa on nachos as Pioneer Woman did.

It would have been nice to photograph this salsa actually on a fish taco, but as usual, when the guys are around, there's barely any time at all for me to snap a pic or two!

~LilSis

July 8, 2012

This seashell pasta dish was a big hit at our 4th of July gathering and it's perfect for any outdoor cookout or picnic!  For outdoor get-togethers, I prefer to take side dishes that don't have to be kept warm or cold; just to make it easier. Since this one doesn't have any mayo, it's perfect served at room temperature.

Seashells with basil, tomatoes, and garlic
(adapted from Sunset Magazine, June 2012)

1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
3/4 t. sea salt
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
1 pt. small cherry or teardrop tomatoes (I used sugar plums)
1 lb medium seashell pasta
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, shaved
1/2 c. thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

Combine oil, garlic, pepper flakes and salt and simmer on very low heat for 5 minutes or so; being careful not to burn the garlic.  Slice half of the tomatoes and stir the tomatoes into the mixture and simmer another 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and place in a large bowl. Place the other half of the sliced tomatoes into the mixture and stir. Let stand for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  (Raw tomatoes get juicy as they stand, which helps create the sauce.)

Meanwhile, cook pasta as package directs for al dente  in a large pot of salted water. When done, drain and toss pasta with tomato mixture, then with the cheese and all but 1 tbsp. basil. Sprinkle remaining basil on top and season with a little salt, to taste.

Voila! Super simple, healthy and delicious. I got so many compliments on this salad that I'll definitely be making it again. 🙂

Note: If you want to make this even easier, the original recipe from Sunset didn't call for simmering the garlic or tomatoes; they were just tossed all in a bowl to stand. Since I feel like some people don't enjoy raw garlic and I added the red pepper flakes to the recipe, I wanted to try simmering them all together before letting it stand and it worked out great.

Enjoy!

BigSis' Vegan Twist:  This recipe would be a piece of cake to veganize. All you have to do is cut the parmesan and make sure that your pasta doesn't have any eggs in it (most doesn't). You could add a cubed vegan cheese, but what I would probably do instead is add some sliced kalamata olives. You'd get nice briny flavor from the ollies, plus great color contrast. I'm thinking that drained capers and snipped chives would also be really tasty.

~LilSis

June 23, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, while BigSis and I had our one afternoon at the beach, I finally had a few minutes to flip through my June issue of Sunset magazine. In it, I came across an article titled Wow ‘Em Cocktails that got me thinking it was time to come up with a new Summertime cocktail.

(I was going to do a Raspberry Fizz until I realized at the last minute that someone, not sure who yet, had polished off my Chambord and didn't tell me.  So, I'll be posting that recipe a little later after I get the chance to pick up more Chambord.)

Since we just celebrated the first day of Summer this week, I was trying to think of something that goes hand in hand with Summer. And since I have a huge bowl of fresh-picked lemons that a friend gave me, staring me right in the face, it hit me!

Lemonade.

And no; not just Plain Jane lemonade.

Let's kick it up a notch and make some Vodka Lemonade! Sound yummy?

It. Was.

Summertime Vodka Lemonade Fizz

4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 shot vodka
1/2 t. sugar
1 or 2 ounces of club soda
lemon and strawberry slices

This is super simple. Just squeeze the lemons and stir in the sugar until it's dissolved. Add the vodka. Put some lemon and strawberry slices in with the ice and pour the lemonade over the ice. Top with club soda and garnish with lemon.

Since I'm serving this poolside, I've used a cute plastic wine glass for my lemonade.

Note: This is pretty tart. Since I don't really care for sugary sweet cocktails, I put very little sugar in my concoction, but you could easily add more sugar to suit your own little taste buds.

Enjoy! 🙂

~LilSis

June 17, 2012

I couldn't stand it. The first Trader Joe's store in the entire big state of Texas opened a full 48 hours ago, and I hadn't been yet. Regardless of the parking chaos and the packed aisles, I had to go. Happy day, oh happy, happy day!

The new store is in Fort Worth, with the next location in Plano opening September 7th, and two Dallas stores scheduled for 2013 and 2014. The Fort Worth store is about an hour away for me, so 3 hours and $124 later, here is a sampling of what came home with me.

 

All 3 of these sound incredible. The bird's nests are kale, carrot and onion.

 

Lots of lunches and snacks here...

 

I couldn't leave without TJ's chocolate chips (vegan but not kosher now).

 

The olive hummus is unbelievable!

 

Can you believe $3.99 olive oil and $1.99 pepper?

 

These heirloom tomatoes were only $2.99 and shiitakes just $2.79.

 

The almond butter with flax is toasty scrumptious, and just $4.99 for 16 oz.

 

The best grain blends ever. My favorite is the Brown Rice Medley, LilSis' is the Harvest Grains.

 

 

TJ's, you're talking my lunch love language.

 

As delicious as they sound, even to a non-sweet eater. And they're vegan!

 

I can't believe I found this again, and it's not even Christmas!

 

Chai $3.49 + Almond milk $1.69 = LOTS cheaper than Starbucks!

 

My favorite almonds ever!

 

$1.99 vegan hand cream that's awesome!

 

Buy these!

 

So that's a quick look at my first trip to the first Trader Joe's in Texas. It's been a LONG time coming, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area is buzzing like you can't believe. Welcome to Texas, Trader Joe's! We promise that you'll be happy that you came!

~BigSis

June 3, 2012

I know pumpkin is more of a fall flavor, but after I made Memorial Day's U.S. Navy Bean Burgers based on Celine Steen's White Bean Cutlets, I wandered through her cookbook (The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions) some more and found her Pumpkin Bisque.

It sounded so simple to put together and I had almost all of the ingredients, so away I went. You literally combine the ingredients in a pot, bring them to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes. Done.

The base for the soup is a can of pumpkin puree with some non-dairy milk (I use almond milk) and vegetable broth. Then you add flavors that are anything but wimpy: peanut butter, onion, garlic, garam masala, cayenne and vegan worcestershire sauce.

I followed the recipe exactly except for omitting the marmite (who has that on-hand in the U.S.?) and the maple syrup since the bisque was already plenty sweet for me.

I love how quick and inexpensive this soup was, but the flavor profile is a bit out of my comfort zone. I measured the spices precisely, but this soup was HOT! That's coming from a spicy Texas girl who isn't afraid of heat. Maybe my Penzeys Garam Masala was dramatically more powerful than most?

Besides the heat, which I cooled with a dollop of Sunflower Seed Sour Cream, it was a little weird to me that the soup was also pretty sweet. I can appreciate the balance of flavors, but I don't think it's really my thing.

But, you never know what you like until you try it, and it's always a good thing to branch out of the ordinary a little bit!

~BigSis

May 28, 2012

Yesterday's burger – the U.S. Navy Bean Burger – got two thumbs up! Next on the menu…Vegan Ranch Burgers.

LilSis' Spinach Turkey Burgers looked really tasty to me, and I thought they'd be pretty easy to veganize. I found this recipe for Vegan Ranch Burgers on VegNews and thought it would be the perfect place to start.

The base for the burgers is TVP (textured vegetable protein) and wheat gluten with a little panko. Flavors come from onion, mushrooms, garlic, dill, chipotle, parsley, nutritional yeast, tomato sauce and tamari.

I followed the recipe pretty exactly except for reducing the tamari by 75%, and adding a couple of big handfuls of fresh spinach. Sounds good, right?

Somehow I managed to mess this up. 🙁  Badly.

I started out ok. I got my mise en place done and started the mushrooms, garlic and onion sauteing. The TVP was nuked in veggie broth for a few minutes, and was standing by. Then everything went into the blender to whiz around. Sweet, this was going well! I'm kind of proud at how efficiently I'm cooking. Maybe I should do a cooking video?

Why isn't this working? Maybe I need a little water; I did leave out 3 tablespoons of the tamari since it makes my eyes uber puffy. I add a couple tablespoons of water, and then a couple more, and a couple more, but the blender still won't budge. Crap! What's wrong?

Oh, oops. The directions say to use a food processor. Not a blender.

I dump everything into the food processor, and put the blender in the sink to soak. Now the concoction seems too wet. Maybe I added too much water? 🙁

Did I also process too long? The mix seems really really gluten-ish. Not in a good way.

I scrape everything out of the food processor, and put the processor in the sink to soak. Maybe the mix will come together if I just chill it for a while. That's the ticket. I'm sure that'll work. It works for cookie dough!

Half an hour later, I take the burger stuff out of the fridge and portion into 6 patties. I'm still hopeful that this is going to turn out well. I'm so confident that I even pull out my scale and weigh the burger balls so they're all equal in size (5.25 ounces, if you care).

I don't have a grill pan, so I oil up a couple of Green Pans, and plop the perfectly-shaped and evenly-weighed patties in. I set the timer for 10 minutes per side, as per the recipe.

So now the patties are sticking? I guess I needed more oil. I used my Green Pans though. For cryin out loud, stuff ain't supposed to stick in a Green Pan!

I add a bit more oil and try to swish it under the sticking patties. The timer goes off so I flip the patties over, and set it for another 10 minutes on side #2.

I'm noticing that these guys are getting pretty dark. Too dark. They're still way mushy though. I'm sure they aren't done. I keep cooking. And cooking. Now they're really getting dark. And they're still wiggly.

Now I give up. I put/slam a couple of patties on a paper plate and nuke the daylights outta them. You just try being mushy now, you stubborn veggie patty nemesis of mine!

Finally! The patties seem firm. Only problem is, now they look like beef. And feel like beef. And they look nothing like the pretty photo on VegNews.

I try to make the patties look pretty so you don't see my disaster…

…but all I've really done is cover up the patty with avocado and tomato. The ugly is still lurking there in-between the avocado and the collards.

The bright point is that the flavors were pretty good. It didn't taste “ranchy” to me, but it was tasty. Not hot and not too spicy; just a nice balance of flavors.

The main issue I had was the texture. First it was mushy, then it was too beefy. I know I took a bunch of wrong turns with this burger, so I can't fault the recipe (I love you, VegNews). I'm finding though that my taste tends away from beefy texture that is too realistically meat-like. I probably am better off with burgers that don't contain TVP or wheat gluten.

The other issue is that I dirtied up a ton of dishes, wasted some good ingredients, and took a big chunk of time out of my day that I could have spent on Pinterest! 🙂

And the worst part? It was all my bad. I'm sure this recipe works beautifully when the cook doesn't screw it up!

The bottom line? I'm not gonna lie…I'm a better baker and LilSis is a better cook! I bet she could take this recipe and throw these dudes on her magic grill and they'd be freakin awesome! I'm gonna go make brownies now…this mess was stressful.

~BigSis

May 27, 2012

Before I went vegan a couple of years ago, I had been vegetarian for over 16 years and had consumed more than my share of Morningstar Farms frozen meat substitutes. I don't really do that any more since I try to eat as few processed foods as possible and less soy, and most of the frozen veggie burgers, patties, and sausages aren't vegan anyway. I'm not really a fan of most of the ones that are vegan, so it works out.

I do get plenty of protein, thank you for wondering. 🙂 One of the ways I do that is through beans, so I was intrigued by this recipe for a burger made with white beans. It's from one of my cookbooks called The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions by Celine Steen. It's a fabulous little cookbook that I've glanced through several times, but this is the first time I've made anything from it.

Celine calls this recipe White Bean Cutlets, and says you can use any white bean. In honor of Memorial Day, I made this with navy beans, and am proclaiming it the U.S. Navy Bean Burger!

This is my own little tribute to my nephew and niece-in-law who are serving in our Navy right now. At this minute, they are separated from each other and from their little baby boy, so a big thank you and God bless you goes out to them.

Now for the burgers…

U.S. Navy Bean Burgers (vegan, soy-free, corn-free)

1 15 oz can navy beans, drained and rinsed
1 tblsp minced garlic
1 tblsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp Beau Monde
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup panko bread crumbs
Oil for sauteeing

In a large mixing bowl, combine the beans, seasonings and olive oil. Mash all together with a fork until few whole beans are seen. Add in the panko and mix together well. Let the mixture sit for 20 minutes.

Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions, and shape into burgers. Saute in a small amount of oil over medium heat for 4 or 5 minutes per side, until golden and crispy on the outside.

I loved these burgers! You can tell how quickly the recipe comes together. In literally 30 minutes (including sitting time) you can have dinner on the table. You've also spent maybe $2 on entrees for 4 people. You can't even do that at Taco Bell!

My cooking style is usually pretty spicy with big flavors, so this mild flavored burger was a departure for me, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The recipe lends itself to a wide variety of variations. I think you could add some cooked chopped mushrooms to the mixture, along with any spice combination you like. I followed Celine's recipe pretty closely this first time, just subbing Beau Monde for celery salt, and omitting 1/4 cup of water I didn't need.

So how do you serve these? I'm not big on bread these days (these already have bread crumbs in them too), so I'm into making collards wraps with anything I'd put in a sammie or on a bun. The bean burgers are delicate in flavor, almost like a fish would be, so I added some Veganaise tartar sauce to my wrap, along with avocado and tomato. With a sprinkle of salt and a dash of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, this is a delicious, quick, inexpensive, and healthy lunch for 4.

I'll be back tomorrow with another Memorial Day vegan burger that's the polar opposite of this one. Did I like it as much? Hmmm…we'll see!

~BigSis