Author: Lindsay Ingalls

tsp spices Giveaway

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The winner is Leslie from Pixiepine Blog

leslie // 16/11/2009 at 10:21 AM | Reply (edit)

Hi- I signed up for the newsletter. I would love to try to Cookie Jar spices. That variety looks great!

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tsp spices are a great addition to anyones busy kitchen.  These individually package teaspoon portions of organic spices make cooking easier and allows your spices to last longer.  How many times have you bought a spice for a recipe and only used one teaspoon of it and then it goes bad by the time you need it again.  Well with tsp spices you’ll never have this problem as they are packaged for your convenience and freshness.  Another great feature is how easily you can take them on the go with you.  Heading away for the holidays and need to bring along some spices for your holiday dinner then just grab your tsp spices and go no more lugging bottles around with you.  

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Now it’s your chance to win one of tsp spices 6 tins from their holiday collection.  To do so please do the following:

  1. Visit tsp spices site here and leave me a comment letting me know which holiday tin you would like. 
  2. Visit tsp spices website and sign up for their newsletter (You MUST do this to be able to win the giveaway so leave a comment letting me know you have done this.)

Once you have done BOTH of the entries above you can then do any of the following extra entries however you MUST do both of the entries above and comment about them to have an extra entries qualify. 

  1. Become a fan of tsp spices on facebook  (leave a comment)
  2. Become a fan of Cooking For a Vegan Lover on facebook (leave a comment)
  3. Follow me on Twitter
  4. Follow my blog 

The giveaway will end at 9AM on November 19th, 2009.

Vegan Yum Yum

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Lauren Ulm a well known vegan food blogger has released her first cookbook Vegan Yum Yum featuring “Decadent (but doable) Animal-free Recipes for Entertaining & Everyday.”  I just received a copy of this book and went right to town on cooking up various recipes.  There were a few recipes from the blog that I love that made the book which I’m very excited about as well as a variety of new recipes that are just as wonderful. I have tried the following recipes from the book:

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All of these recipes are absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to cook all of the other recipes in this book. One of my favorite features of this book is that there are many recipes that are for 2 servings and is great for my husband and I and all are easily doubled or tripled.  I also really enjoy the fact that recipes are all easy to make and are great for everyday eating and for entertaining. I would recommend that you pick yourself up a copy of this book.  It is bound to be a go to cookbook for all vegans. 

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Check out the Vegan Yum Yum Flickr Site for more photos http://www.flickr.com/groups/veganyumyum/pool/

Pick up your copy here.

Vegan Care Package Giveaway

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As many of you know I have hosted a Vegan Care Package Giveaway just as I did last year.  I am so excited that this year I was able to have over 20 participants and one of them was Nora from Pride & Vegudice, my exchange partner.  I was lucky enough to receive a variety of wonderful items many that I have never tried which is the best part about these giveaways. 

 

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Included in the Exchange was a variety of different teas, a Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Blueberry bar, Reed’s Ginger Snacks (which I hate a bunch of to help my upset tumtum the other day), chocolate cocoa nibs, sprinkles, an Honest Foods bar – choco peanut butter and Chocolada Almond oatmeal as well as the items featured below: 

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Chreesy Mashed Potatoes with yummy (Vermont made) Road’s End Chreese. I love this stuff but never buy it so it’s a wonderful treat to have….makes me want to go buy some Road’s End Mac & Cheese yum.

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How amazingly fun and I am so excited to eat it.  I haven’t had maple cotton candy in years so this will be a yummy treat.

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Chocolate Peanutbutter from Whole Foods- my husbands eyes light up when he saw this.  

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Chocolate Cream Wafters?  Holy can’t wait to eat these up! 

 

I love everything in this exchange it was wonderful.  The best part of this is that many of the items I have never tried or never buy which is a great part of these exchanges.  My husband and I loved the Chocolada Almond oatmeal and it was so good and I can’t wait to buy myself some more. I am really looking forward to seeing what other participants receive.  Now I must be off to try some of this yummy looking cotton candy.

Recipe: Pulled Mushroom Sandwich

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The other night for dinner my husband asked if we could have Pulled Mushroom Sandwiches.  Now these are a play off of a pulled pork sandwich and are delicious!  We received a bunch of shiitake mushrooms in our CSA this week and I had some left over cremini mushrooms as well so it was a prefect time to make these yummy sandwiches. I served them with a side of sweet potato fries and steamed brussels sprouts. 

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Pulled Mushroom Sandwiches with Quick Napa Slaw and Spicy Agave Mustard Dipping Sauce (for the sweet potato)

Makes 4 Servings

Pulled Mushrooms:

  •  
    • 8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
    • 8 oz shiitake mushrooms, sliced 
    • 1 lg onion, thinly, sliced
    • 6 cloves of garlic, minced
    • 1/2 T safflower oil 
    • 2 T garlic A-1 steak sauce
    • 2 T BBQ sauce
    • 1 T dijion mustard
    • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat the oil in a cast-iron pan over medium high heat and add the mushrooms and onions.  Sauté for 2 minutes.
  2. Turn the heat down to medium low and stir in the garlic. Cook for 20-25 minutes until the mushrooms and onions have caramelized, making sure to stir occasionally. 
  3. While the mushrooms and onions are cooking in a small bowl mix together the steak sauce, bbq sauce and dijion mustard.
  4. When the mushrooms and onions have caramelized add the steak sauce mixture and stir together. Turn to low and let simmer while you prepare the slaw.

 

Quick Napa Slaw

  •  
    • 1 cup shredded napa cabbage
    • 1 T reduced fat vegenaise
    • 1 T Drew’s Smoked Tomato Dressing
    • Salt and Pepper to taste
  1. Toss everything together.

To assemble the sandwich:

Take 2 rolls and place 1/4 of the slaw on the bottom.  Top with 1/4 of the mushroom mixture.

 

Spicy Agave Mustard Sauce- this goes great with the sweet potato and brussels

  •  
    • 1/4 cup of Dijion mustard
    • 1 T agave
    • 1 t chipotle chili powder
  1. Mix together.

The Alchemist Pub and Brewery

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Last night my husband, Neil, decided he would take us out for a date night at The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury Vermont- “The Alchemist is a 7 barrel brew pub specializing in hand-crafted beer and casual pub fare. All of our ales flow directly from our basement brewery, which was designed and installed by our brewer and co-proprietor John Kimmich.  We use only the finest imported malts and domestic hops available to bring you the tastiest and finest selection of beers in Vermont!” (from their website).

We settled on getting the oatmeal stout and the red….however we were brought a porter and a harvest.  They quickly apologized about that mistake and gave us our correct beers on the house. IMG_5152IMG_5153

For dinner I ordered the Marinated Tempeh Sandwich without the walnut pesto and subsituted the maple balsamic dressing.  Neil ordered the Blackened Tofu Burrito without the cheese and sour cream.  We also ordered a side of fries with their house made mustard and ketchup.

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Although our meals were really good we didn’t make it through the first bite of the burrito because they had forgotten to not put the cheese on.  So we sent it back and it was quickly replaced with the correct vegan version.  The tempeh sandwich was so good and the fries were amazing- nice and crispy fresh cut. The burrito was good we really liked the blackened tofu but it was missing something in it, maybe the salsa would have been better in than on the side.

Overall we just fell in love with the places great atmosphere, food and beer.  We extremely impressed with the service as well and appreciated the 2 free beers and the free burrito (they covered that as well since they had made the mistake- we really didn’t expect that but it was a great treat).

Neil's Vegan Care Package

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Yesterday Neil’s vegan care package came from Your Daily Vegan as part of our 2009 Vegan Care Package Swap

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Included in the package are the following:

IMG_5171Drew’s Smoked Tomato Dressing

IMG_5173Suzanne’s Ricemellow Creme

(I see fluffernutter sandwiches in our future)

IMG_5180Spicy Apple Ginger Chews

IMG_5181Rice Milk Bar

IMG_5183Pizza Sauce

IMG_5182Crispy Cat Bar

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Vegan Strawberry Jello

IMG_5190Quinoa Spaghetti

IMG_51932 Chocolove Bars &

Newman’s Own Cinnamon Mints 

The 30 Minute Vegan

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The 30 Minute Vegan is filled with a variety of great easy, quick, and delicious recipes that are (mostly) under 30 minutes. I received this book to review and had the most difficult time choosing recipes to try from it, not because I couldn’t find any but rather because I want to make everything.  That was my first indication that it had the potential to be a great cookbook.  However, the true test would be to see if any of these great sounding recipes actually turned out to be as good as they sounded.

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After hours (yes hours) of flipping through this cookbook I finally decided that I would make the Batter Baked Tempura with the Spicy Mustard Sauce, We Will Rock You Three Layer Nachos and Eggless Egg Salad.  The Batter Baked Tempura was delicious especially with the mustard sauce, however I am not sure if it totally resembled tempura but rather it was more like baked onion rings/veggies.  Nevertheless it was amazingly delicious and unfortunately was the only item I ended up taking the time to photograph.

The We Will Rock You Three Layer Nachos were next on my list of items to make and they were so good.  I made both the tempeh bean mixture and nacho cheese sauce which I put over baked blue corn chips and baked then topped with salsa, pickled jalapeno and avocado.  The recipe made so much sauce I only used half of bean mixture and nacho cheese for the nachos and saved the remainder to make a Tex-Mex Mac and Cheese the following night with mushrooms, onions and cherry tomatoes.

My husband’s favorite recipe that I made was the Eggless Egg Salad and it was certainly one of the best recipes for it that I have tried.  I served the Eggless Egg Salad in whole wheat pita halves.  The great part about this recipe is that it made enough for 2 days worth of lunches!

Overall I love this book and find that although not all of the recipes are 30 minutes with prep time and cooking they are still quick, fast, healthy and fun. You can order your own copy of The 30 Minute Vegan on Amazon. 

30minYou can also check out other reviews of The 30 Minute Vegan on the following sites:

Happy Herbivore

Basil & Spice

Vegan Guinea Pig

Chow Vegan where you can find reviews & recipes for Mango Gazpacho& Baked Tempura

Vegan Fusion – The authors blog

Vegan Crunk