Pasta "Bolognese"

Another meal not cooked by me, but I had to share :)  Last night we had dinner at my girlfriend's place, and she made us another meal using Yves Ground Round, as in the post previous to this.  THIS time, however, we played a little trick on one of her boyfriend's friends, who joined us for dinner.  A self-professed carnivore, we wanted to know if he would have any idea the "meat sauce" wasn't made with actual meat.

Long story short, he didn't. In fact, he devoured his plate, had seconds, and kept telling my girlfriend how good it was.  After he was stuffed, she told him, and he took it very well and was impressed. The point? Trick your relatives. Just kidding. The point is that we need to move past the idea that your friends and family "won't like" what you make if it's vegetarian.  There's simply no need for people to feel as if they will somehow be "deprived" without meat. On the contrary, I've discovered so many more textures and flavours since becoming a vegetarian. Not once have I ever felt deprived.

No particular recipe required for this.  Make your regular spaghetti sauce as per usual, but substitute with ground round. You may want to add a veggie "beef stock" bouillon cube or two to really get that beefy flavour. We ate this on rigatoni with bread and an amazing salad whipped up by my boyfriend.  Other than the dressing which had some feta in it, the entire meal was vegan.

Tonight is my three year anniversary with my boyfriend, and we searched high and low for a restaurant with sufficient vegetarian options, and settled on Wild Rice, which looks amazing :)  Will give a full report on Monday - hopefully the restaurant is bright enough inside that I can take some pictures, too!
http://www.wildricevancouver.com/
Have a great weekend!

"Beef" Stroganoff

Sorry I've been so lax with posting! We've been making a lot of favourites lately, and eating out too much :)  However, last Thursday, a girlfriend brought over a wonderful "beef" stroganoff that had two non-vegetarians sputtering with disbelief over how good it was.  She used Yves "ground round" which I don't normally use, but it turned out amazing and I might start experimenting with it some more.

1 package Yves veggie ground round
all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, sliced
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1.5 cups veggie "beef" broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream or vegan equivalent
cooked egg noodles (she used the "no yolks" brand)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 tsp garlic powder

Season the veggie ground round with salt, pepper, garlic powder, then dust with flour. In a large skillet, brown in the olive oil and butter. Remove from pan. Add the onion slices and mushrooms to the pan. Saute for a few minutes, until the onion is tender. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon flour. Put the ground round back into the pan with the onion and mushrooms. Add the mushroom soup and veggie beef broth. Cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, covered. Adjust seasoning to taste, adding salt and pepper, as needed. Stir in the sour cream the last few minutes, right before you serve. Serve over cooked noodles.

French Onion Soup

Ah, well despite the fact that it is sunny RIGHT NOW, we had a stretch of weather here in Vancouver that included pouring rain and hail (twice).  Summer seems to be arriving in fits and starts.

The boyfriend and I have dinner almost every Thursday with a friend that lives in the same building complex - she is kind enough to watch over our kitties whenever we go away for the weekend, so we try to make them dinner as recompense as often as we can :)  Recently, she jumped at our mention of french onion soup, which the boyfriend has become quite skilled at preparing. With this crappy weather, we jumped at the idea, too.

This recipe has been adapted from a Tyler Florence recipe, so original credit to him (especially the directions), but after making it several times, we've changed up the ingredients list a bit:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (or margarine)
4 yellow onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 bay leaves
2 fresh thyme sprigs
Salt and pepper to taste
1.5 cups red wine
3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
8 cups vegetarian "beef flavoured" broth
1 baguette, sliced
grated gruyere/vegan white cheese

Melt the butter/margarine in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Preheat the oven to "broil".  Now add the broth, bring the soup back to simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

Our friend seemed to really enjoy it, and to me, it tastes every bit as good as the french onion soup my mom used to make when I was a kid, but without the animal juices ;)

And now, since this is my blog, and I do what I want, two pictures of my kitties that our friend takes care of:

Lentil is the black one with a couple of white tufts on his chest, a wonky ear and no voicebox, and Toa (Maori for "warrior") is the white and ginger one with a slight binge eating disorder. They are both just over 4 years old and I adopted them both from the wonderful cat rescue organization here in Vancouver, VOKRA.  http://www.orphankittenrescue.com/

Have a great weekend! :)

Hearty Lentil and Vegetable Soup

It's funny, when I ate meat, I didn't like soups at all. I found them to be completely unsatisfying, and never filling.  These days, I love soups, stews, chilis...anything that can be eaten with a spoon.  They are SO easy to make protein rich and they are ALWAYS filling.  Last night, the boyfriend made his amazing lentil soup - I think he adapted it from a Food Network recipe, but I'm not sure.  It is especially lovely drizzled with some olive oil and red wine vinegar OR a few dashes of Frank's Red Hot sauce!

2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
1 med. sized onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 cups vegetarian chicken-flavoured broth
1 can diced tomatoes (14oz)
1 cup red lentils
2 bay leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
salt and pepper

Soften the vegetables with cumin in a large pot with olive oil. Add salt and pepper. Add the broth, tomatoes, lentils, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables and lentils are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. In a blender, purée until smooth. Add more broth if necessary. Add parsley and adjust seasoning to taste. The boyfriend made his usual oven-toasted pita chips brushed with olive oil and salt to go with it and we were both stuffed after only one bowl.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers

These turned out SO WELL.  I made a version of these about two years ago using texturized vegetable protein or TVP (post on that soon) and followed a recipe - they were just okay.  This one I created out of my very own little head, and turned out to be AMAZING. I'm actually incredibly proud of this one, so let's get to it:

1 small onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
6 peppers of varying colours, tops sliced off and insides removed - dice the pepper bits from the tops
1 block extra firm organic tofu (firm should be fine)
1-2 tsp oregano
.5-1 tsp cayenne
1-2 tsp dried basil
.5 tsp turmeric
1 can/jar pickled jalapenos, diced
1 cup uncooked brown rice
14 oz diced tomatoes
cheese - either vegan Daiya, regular cheddar or mozzarella
salt and pepper to taste

Put 1 cup raw brown rice on to cook. This will result in approximately 3+ cups of cooked rice.  I cooked mine in vegetarian "chicken flavoured" stock for extra flavour.  Preheat oven to 350F.

Finely dice all the veggies (onion, celery, garlic, pepper tops) and saute in olive oil until tender, then add the tofu, which has been diced and mashed with a potato masher to the texture of ground beef.  Saute all together until the tofu starts to stick to the pan and brown.  Add spices and diced tomatoes to taste, cook for another few minutes.  Add cooked rice until you get the desired texture. Measurements are not exact, but I'd say I added about half the rice that was cooked, until it looked like this:

Add the chopped jalapenos then taste again for spices/flavour, adding more or less, to your tastes.  I used about 2/3 of the can of jalapenos from the brand/picture below, which I think MADE this dish.  I think any pickled jalapenos (the ones you can put on your sandwich at Subway) will work just fine. We always keep them in the house. This particular brand had slices of pickled onions and carrots inside, too, all very spicy.

When you're happy with the taste of the filling, fill prepared peppers halfway full, then put in a layer of shredded cheese to cover the filling. Fill the rest of the peppers up with the filling, then top with cheese again.  Bake for anywhere between 30 min to an hour, depending on your oven.  I cooked ours for about 45 minutes, and they could have used maybe another 5 minutes or so as the outsides were still a bit too crisp for our tastes.

Yes, that's a Pilsner beer in the back.  Don't judge. We were watching hockey.

I had leftover filling (maybe three peppers' worth?) and rice after this. Froze the rice for future dishes, and we bought more peppers yesterday to have the leftovers for dinner tonight, this time switching up the cheese.

Enjoy!

Cinco de Mayo and the BEST guacamole

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Although celebration of this date is not terribly widespread in Canada, I always use it an excuse to eat tacos and drink margaritas.  Tonight we're having a couple of friends over to watch the Canucks game (playoffs, round 2 baby!), so we should have a good crowd.

Tonight I'm making my usual tofu tacos (recipe here: http://wayoftheveggie.blogspot.com/2011/03/tofu-tacos.html) with option of hard or soft taco shells, my FAVOURITE guacamole and, of course, margaritas. Tonight we're just using margarita mix since we only have tequila, but my favourite recipe for margaritas is fresh lime juice, tequila and cointreau (about equal parts of both liquors, maybe a bit less cointreau) blended with ice.

My favourite recipe for guacamole comes from the Barefoot Contessa/Ina Garten, I've had raves on it, and a friend who doesn't even normally like guacamole now makes it all the time. I've copied and pasted her recipe for you here below - enjoy!

• 4 ripe avocados
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon)
• 8 dashes hot pepper sauce (I use sriracha)
• 1/2 cup small-diced red onion (1 small red onion)
• 1-2 large garlic cloves, minced
• salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 medium tomato, seeded, and small-diced

Cut the avocados in 1/2, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh out of their shells into a large bowl. Immediately add the lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper and toss well. Using a sharp knife or potato masher, slice through the avocados in the bowl until they are finely diced. Add the tomatoes. Mix well and taste for salt and pepper.

Summertime Eats!

Okay, so it's not quite summer yet, but the food I ate this weekend is really getting me in the mood :)

After that fabulous dinner at my friend's on Friday (post below), I had my regular tofu scramble breakfast the next morning, then hit up the pitch & putt golf course in Stanley Park with my boyfriend.  After playing 9 holes, we felt snacky and hit up one of the hot dog carts in English Bay.  We grabbed two spicy veggie dogs (Mr. Tubesteak has two different kinds: regular and spicy veggie) and enjoyed.  All carts have veggie dogs these days, and these hit the spot!

I volunteered for VOKRA the next day (http://www.orphankittenrescue.com/) selling cupcakes and hot dogs to raise money for the organization, and had yet ANOTHER veggie dog. This time an Yves veggie dog. Meh.  Yves fake meats are not my favourite.  But hey, they're full of protein and with enough sauerkraut and mustard = good.  Yves' stuff seems to be fairly popular, though, so I guess people like them.  It's a matter of trial and error to see what suits you.

After golfing, I had some eggplant I wanted to use, so decided to try a recipe for eggplant croquettes I had seen.  My boyfriend whipped up an AMAZING quinoa salad with cooked quinoa, two small bell peppers (one red, one yellow), one seeded tomato, a handful of chopped parsley, 3 green onions, 1/4 of a red onion, some lemon juice and salt. The croquettes were quite good and would make excellent burger patties for a bbq.  Super easy to make.  I used three japanese eggplants and one egg, and would probably use less bread crumbs next time. My boyfriend loved them. I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of his salad!  It is, in fact, my lunch today :)

Recipe for the croquettes here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Eggplant-Croquettes/Detail.aspx

**Update May 5 - I fried up the leftover eggplant croquette "patties" last night and we ate them as burgers: on a bun with lettuce, cheddar cheese and red onion. I liked them better this way and will probably only make them as burgers from now on.

After a long day of volunteering yesterday, I came home to an amazing dinner of risotto cakes and salad, made by my man!  These cakes are SO good and we've had them several times, recipe here: http://www.barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=109&S=0  Although you can't see it in this picture, he added about half a can of black beans to the salad (which included avocado, red onion, parmesan, salt, pepper and an oregano dressing) for a little extra protein. The beans probably weren't needed considering I'd had my regular tofu breakfast, a blueberry smoothie and a veggie dog already that day, but it sure tasted good!

Ah, the things I will eat this summer! The options are truly endless :)