Recipes

Recipe: Vegan Lasagna with Red Pepper "Ricotta"

4 Comments

Vegan Lasagna with Red Pepper “Ricotta”

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 a box of no-boil lasagna (4 portions)
  • 3.5 cups spaghetti sauce (homemade or jarred)
  • 2T Nutritional Yeast
  • Red Pepper “Ricotta”
    • 1 block of firm tofu, drained
    • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
    • 1 red bell pepper, diced
    • 3 garlic cloves, chopped
    • 2t Italian seasoning
    • 1t onion powder
    • 1t garlic powder
    • 1t salt
    • 1/2t ground black pepper

Directions:   Preheat the oven to 400F.

  1. To make the ricotta: place everything in a food processor and process until crumbly/texture of ricotta.  If the ricotta seems a little dry while processing you can add water a teaspoon at a time to loosen up the mixture. 
  2. To make the lasagna: in an 8×8 glass baking dish layer the lasagna starting with sauce, noodles, ricotta, sauce, noodles.  You should have 4-6 layers and should end with sauce.  Sprinkle with the nutritional yeast and cover with aluminum foil. 
  3. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or as the directions on the lasagna noodle box recommend. 
  4. Once out of the oven let the lasagna cool for 5-7 minutes.  Then enjoy!

Spicy Sesame Hummus

5 Comments

Spicy Sesame Hummus

  • 1-15oz can chickpeas, drained and liquid reserved 
  • 1T sesame chili oil
  • 3T olive oil
  • 2T lemon juice
  • 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1/4 C tahini
  • salt and pepper

In a high power blender or food processor add all the ingredients and blend until smooth.  Add the reserved chickpea liquid to create a consistency you like- I like mine really smooth so I added about 1/3 cup of reserved liquid.

Mashed White Beans

2 Comments

Mashed White Beans

A great alternative to mashed potatoes is mashed white beans they are creamy and delicious and you can put your own spin on them.  Last night I had leftover Tofutti so I added it to my recipe.

  • 2 cans Cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
  • 8-10 oil packed sundried tomatoes, chopped small
  • 5 scallions, chopped small 
  • 3T vegan cream cheese 
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1t garlic powder

Add all ingredients to a pan over medium heat and mash with a potato masher.  Mix everything together and then heat until warmed. Enjoy!

If you want to check out  our yummy dining at A Single Pebble and Coffee Corner as well as what else we ate the past few days visit Eat. Live. Be Healthy. 

Don’t forget you have until 1/31/10 at 8am to enter to win Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil.

Let Me Introduce You to My Blendtec and My Day

9 Comments

This morning I was lazy and stayed in bed a little later and by later I mean like 6:30 am.  Once I finally dragged myself out of bed I decided to make a green smoothie in my new Blendtec Total Blender.  Let me tell you how excited I was when I came home to this a few weeks ago.  The good people at Blendtec sent me my own red Blendtec Total Blender and I am just loving it. I have mostly made smoothies and  vegan ice cream it in it so far but I am dying to try my hand at making soup in it. This morning was a yummy green…er brown smoothie (1.5 cups water, 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1 small apple diced, 1 small banana diced, 2 handfuls of spinach). The best part about this blender is that I only have to push one button for my smoothie to be made (the button that says smoothie) and it does all the work for me! 

I did some yoga this morning and then an elliptical session where I finally finished reading The China Study – I read a good chunk of it when I was on vacation back at Christmas but just haven’t taken the time to do much reading lately but I told myself I HAD TO finish it this week.  Now I am on to working on a blog post about this amazing informative book. 

For lunch I made up some of Kristen Suzanne’s “Twilight Pecan Shallot Pate”  from her Entrees book.  I served it up on some romaine pieces and let me tell you this stuff is sooo good I will be making it again!

 

After lunch I did some yoga for abs with Rodney Yee and then headed to the co-op to pick up a couple of things.  To my delight there was a package on our steps from Tropical Traditions when I returned home.  Once I got things put away I decided it was to make my Kitchen Sink Cookies since my husband has been asking for about a month for me to make them. 

 

 

Coconut Oil from Tropical Traditions

 

Kitchen Sink Cookies

 

So Kitchen Sink Cookies are crazy easy to make the base is:

1/2 cup nut butter (I used PB today)

2 T water

2 T agave

1t vanilla

1/2 t cinnamon 

Mix this all together and to this add whatever nuts, dried fruit or chocolate you’d like to it.

Today I used: 1/2 cup raw trail mix (goji berries, pistachios, cashews and a few other dried things), 2 T raisins, 1t shredded unsweetened coconut, 1 T pumpkin seeds, 2T sunflower seeds, and 1 T mini chocolate chips

These are best after they have set in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

 

 

Blogger Disclosure:  Cooking For A Vegan Lover received these products at no cost from the company for review.

Dinner for my Mum

4 Comments

Last night my mum and dad came over for dinner for my mum’s birthday.  Her birthday dinner consisted of greens tossed maple balsamic dressing, Thanksgiving Tart from Vegnews and rutabaga and turnip toss.  For dessert we had peanut butter mousse pie topped with peanut brittle and chocolate sauce.

 

 

 

Balsamic Dressing:

  • 2 T olive oil
  • 3 T balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 T Dijion mustard
  • 1 T maple syrup

Whisk together.

 

Rutabaga and Turnip Toss 

  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 2 small rutabaga, peeled and sliced
  • 5 purple topped turnips, peeled and sliced
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 2 t cumin
  • 1 t chili powder
  • 1 t thyme
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1/4 t pepper
  • 3 T nutritional yeast
  • 1/4 c water
  • 1 T earth balance

Heat oil over medium-high heat and add the onion, rutabaga and turnips.  Cook for 7 minutes until slightly soften.  While the onion, rutabaga and turnip cook mix together cumin, chili, thyme, salt, pepper and water together.  After the 7 minutes add the cumin mixture to the rutabaga mix and toss.  Cook together for 3-5 minutes until all cooked through.  Add the nutritional yeast and earth balance toss to coat.