chickpeas

Double Down- Saturday & Sunday Wrap Up

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This weekend has been filled with great new recipes, great conversation and the most amazing chocolate I have ever had. On Saturday after a crazy morning filled with bagels, markets and lots of coffee the Hubz and I came home to prepare for our dinner guest. We took a break from cleaning and organizing to enjoy a Dominex Eggplant Burger over greens with tomatoes and avocado served with rutabaga flax fries.

Serves 2- pre heat oven to 425F. Peel and cut 2 small rutabaga into fries and place in a bowl. Toss the rutabaga with 1 teaspoon of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of flax meal, 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast, 1 teaspoon chili powder and a pinch of salt and pepper. Bake for 25-30 minutes until tender and browned.

More cleaning and a little napping happened and then it was time to make dinner for Allie from Healthy Balance, Healthy Life. Allie wanted to make hummus using her new food processor so that set the tone for the entire meal.  I decided to go with a Mediterranean themed meal which included lemon-garlic-oregano marinated tofu, tomato, onion and pepper skewers, olives, pita, tahini-parsley dressing and carrot sticks and radishes with Allie’s roasted red pepper hummus.

tofu and tomato skewers

onion and pepper skewers

The marinade/baste for the veggies and tofu included:

  • 1 cup vegetarian chicken broth (could sub vegetable broth)
  • 2 Tablespoon chopped parlsey
  • 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 2 teaspoons oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 Tablespoons olive oil

Whisk these all together and pour over skewered veggies and tofu and allow to marinate for 2-4 hours.  Remove from the marinade and place on parchment lined baking sheets; pre-heat oven to 425F. Place the remaining marinade in a small sauce pan and place over high heat; bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer until the sauce has reduced by half. Remove from the heat and brush the veggies and tofu. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove and baste with more of the reduced marinade; return to the oven and bake for 15 more minutes.  Remove from the oven once again and baste the veggies and tofu with the remaining marinade.  Turn the oven on to broil and broil on high until the veggies and tofu are lightly browned.

carrot sticks and radishes

yummy mixed olives

tahini-parsley sauce and whole wheat pita

Allie's Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Serves 4- in a small sauce pan heat 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, add 1/2 a minced sweet onion and saute over medium-high for 5-6 minutes until the onions soften. Stir in the garlic and 1 (15oz) can of rinsed and drained chickpeas; cook for 2 minutes. Stir in 1 (12oz) package of defrosted frozen spinach, 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast and salt and pepper to taste; cook until heated through.

For dessert we enjoyed Lulu’s raw chocolate which is easily by far the most amazing raw chocolate I have ever had.  I find a  a lot of raw chocolates do not have enough of a chocolate flavor and are sometimes chalky tasting but this chocolate was amazing and not only is the best raw chocolate I have ever had but one of the best chocolates.  I will blog about these more once I try the other flavors I have.

After our late night chatting and enjoying Proseco with Allie we dragged ourselves out of bed this morning and headed to my parents house for the day.  We enjoyed the day with my parents, grandma and Aunt Carol; we ate, played cards and laughed. When we got home we were hungry and ready to enjoy a nice high-raw dinner.  This week we are going to eat high raw in hopes of detoxing our body a bit after enjoying lots of pasta, bread and drinks this weekend.

Dinner tonight consisted of a spicy carrot-avocado soup and raw tuna salad sandwiches which was served on multigrain Manna sprouted bread.

Spicy Carrot-Avocado Soup (raw)

Serves 2-3

  • 1 & 2/3 cup carrot juice
  • 1 avocado
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/2 jalapeno
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • pinch of cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.

The Raw Tuna Salad recipe came from Ani Phyo's Raw Food Essentials

You can get the Aioli Mayonaise recipe for the mock tuna sandwich here.

Dessert was more amazing raw chocolate

Weekend Wrap Up

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This weekend was freezing in Vermont so the Hubz and I spent more of our weekend inside working on a number of projects.  I am happy to say that I was able to organize the closets in our bedroom and purge a number of items that we had been holding on to for too long.  I also attempted to work on organizing our office but I think I just made a bigger mess.  We are in need of some major organizational materials and have visions of how we want things to look but until we head south and by south I mean to NYC and Connecticut where there is better shopping (Ikea and Target) we will just have to make do. Who knew we were such pack rats?

As for food this weekend I spent a lot of time working on recipes from Veganomicon for the Vegan Cookbook Club.  On Friday night I made Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach; I was lazy and decided to just purchase pre-made seitan to save me time.  Overall I thought the dish was really good but I’m not going to giveaway all my thoughts here you’ll just have to wait for my full review of Veganomicon. For the remainder of the night the Hubz and I just relaxed enjoyed an Ottercreek Black IPA and attempted to watch Dinner for Schmucks but we just couldn’t get into it; it really just wasn’t as funny as I hopped it was going to be.

Saturday was spent making a mess of the office while drinking coffee and watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Unfortunately for the Hubz my way of organizing is to make a huge mess and then clean it up so the state of our office is in disarray right now- however the closet in there is amazingly organized so WIN! We are heading to NYC and CT in a few weeks and will be hitting up Ikea and Target for some items to help in our organizational project but I should probably make one last effort to at least get that room orderly.  The second half of Saturday was spent getting lattes, groceries and gas- exciting I know. I didn’t photograph dinner and I can’t remember what we had so it must not have been that exciting. I did make the Lower Fat Banana Bread (muffins) from Veganomicon though and they were tasty.  I added chopped up dates to them and they were so good.

Sunday I was up early and ready to tackle the closets in our bedroom but first a mini french press of coffee and a two banana bread muffins.  Then I was on to organize and purge items in our closets, as well as take over the walk-in closet which the Hubz ended up with some how when we moved in. I never realized how much I could get a workout just from cleaning and organizing our bedroom; by lunch I was sweaty (TMI) and had worked up an appetite.  Lunch was a pasta dish per the Hubz request and included chickpeas and spinach in a creamy garlic sauce. I tried out my sample of Jovial Brown Rice Pasta, it was pretty good for gluten free pasta, but I prefer the Jovial Whole Wheat Penne.

After spending most of the weekend doing our own thing or sitting behind our computer screens the Hubz and I decided we needed a date night. Instead of spending money to go out we decided to stay in and enjoy a bottle of wine and a home cooked meal; we even showered and got dressed (I’d been in yoga pants all weekend).  For dinner I made the Chickpea Cutlets with Mustard Sauce from Veganomicon with roasted butternut squash and cornbread stuffing on the side.  I thought both the cutlets and the sauce were really tasty however I have a few criticisms regarding the wording of the recipes and the fact that in the directions for the sauce it left out a step that included major ingredients; again you’ll here more about this in my final review of Veganomicon.


Now it’s Monday morning and I am sitting back enjoying a mug of coffee and blogging. I started out my morning with a bowl of creamy oats with a spoonful of pumpkin butter and a little cranberry cinnamon granola on top for crunch.  I picked up this Sticky Fingers  Bakeries pumpkin butter from Marshall’s on sale and it is really amazingly good on oatmeal. Alright that is my weekend wrap up now it’s time to get ready for my work week. Enjoy your day!

Reminder: Check out the Fiery Vegan Valentine Contest.

Indulgence Hangover

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After our night of indulgence I felt like  I was a bit hungover from the sugary and fried foods.  To cure this I went right to a big glass of water things morning and have been making an effort to eat better today.  For breakfast I started out with some Sun Seed Manna Bread with The Nutty Vermonter Maple and Chipotle Triple Nut Butter that I got in my Christmas stocking. I didn’t love the bread because it was really chewy but I think the issue was that I cut my slices too thick.  Generally when I purchase sprouted grain bread it comes pre-sliced and is usually really thin; fail on my part. So I didn’t end up finishing much of my bread with nut butter and stole two left mock prawns from my husbands leftovers breakfast.

For lunch I ran out to the market to see what looked good and came home with a cremini mushrooms, red bell pepper, red onion, radish sprouts and cauliflower. I cut the cauliflower up into small pieces, diced up the red bell pepper, red onion and mushrooms and sauteed with a bit of olive oil until soft; then tossed in chickpeas for protein. I seasoned with a bit of salt, pepper, granulated garlic and red chili flakes. I plated the cauliflower pilaf and topped with a fist full of the sprouts and drizzled with a bit of Drew’s Roasted Garlic & Peppercorn Dressing that I had picked up at the market last week. On the side we had THINLY sliced Manna Bread with nutritional yeast and garlic gold.

For dessert we split a treat sent from JJ’s Sweets– a Java Chocolate Covered Caramel- TO DIE FOR.  They need to start selling these in Vermont…or maybe they shouldn’t because I would buy them all the time.  They are lush and creamy and VEGAN!

I just received a huge stack of $1 off coupons from Nature’s Path and want to give you a few! So email me lindsay@cookingforaveganlover.com with your address if you would like a few!

Disclaimer: I was provided a sample of a selection of Manna Bread and JJ’s Sweets; I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway or add this to my OpenSky shop in return for a discount on this product.

Slow Cooker Smoky Pumpkin Chili

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As soon as the snow comes so do the chilis at our house. Yesterday was going to be a busy afternoon so I decided to get a head start on dinner before I went to work. I honestly rarely use our slow cooker and it has been in a box for the last year, however I decided that I would give it another try. Besides slow cooked food is always better especially when it comes to soups and chilis.
I have to say I used to be a little lost about how the slow cooker worked and years ago i decided I wanted to make chili in the slow cooker so I chopped everything up and placed it in the slow cooker, turned it on and then thought it was just going to cook everything perfectly…including the uncooked rice I had added to the chili. Boy did I learn my lesson- there are certain things that need to be cooked prior to being placed in the slow cooker (like uncooked rice).

That being said I learned my lesson and this chili turned out really delicious.

Slow Cooker Smoky Pumpkin Chili

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 3 celery stalks, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder or you can use 2 chipotles in adobo diced**
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoons pepper
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 (15oz) can of low sodium vegetable broth, reserve 2 tablespoons
  • 1  (15oz) can no-salt added diced tomatoes
  • 1 (15oz) can brown lentils, drained and rinsed
  • 1 (150z) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon lite soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon umeboshi plum vinegar (optional)*
  • 2 teaspoons cocoa powder (make sure it’s unsweetened)
  • 1 cup frozen corn
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, add in the onions, carrots and celery; saute for 10 minutes.
  2. Stir in the garlic, spices and 2 tablespoons of vegetable broth into the onion mixture, cook for 1 minute.
  3. Add the pumpkin, vegetable broth, tomatoes, lentils, chickpeas, lite soy, umeboshi plum vinegar, cocoa powder and onion mixture to the slow cooker.  Stir to combine and then cover and turn the slow cooker onto low for 6 to 8 hours.
  4. After 5-6 hours stir in the corn and taste for salt and pepper.

*You could use red wine vinegar.

**Chipotle is essential to make this chili smoky

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