Hope everyone had a happy, safe vegan Holiday! 

 

Banana Bread

Due to having the flu, I had about 4 bananas that were almost ready to be thrown out (among a ton of other food). So what else can you do with almost rotten bananas? Banana bread!! 

(Yes, that is steam still coming off of the bread...mmmmm)

This has to be the best banana bread I've ever made. This loaf lasted not even 4 days. It was extremely moist when first made and was still fairly moist a few days later. 

You'll need

4 bananas

1/3 cup melted Earth Balance butter

1 heaping tablespoon apple sauce

1 cup sugar or agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cup flour

1 pinch of salt

1 loaf pan

How to make

Preheat the oven to 350F. Now for this recipe, it works best if you break it down into steps. It mixes up better and seems to cook smoother. Start off with the melted butter and bananas. You can mush the bananas by hand if they are ripe enough. Then add the sugar, apple sauce, and vanilla. When that is all mixed, add the flour and other powdered ingredients. Pour into a buttered loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

When it cooled, I cut it in half and put it into a sealed container to keep some moisture in it. It will probably last a week as long as you wipe out the excess moisture in the container once every day or two.

Snacks!!

Everyone loves snacks! If you are feeding a child, you need good, nutritious snacks. Here is a short list of our daughter's favorite snacks, the healthy and the unhealthy! 

Ritz Crackers - Most peanut butter crackers tend to be vegan

 Annie's Chocolate and Vanilla cookies - They are pretty good!

 The famous super pretzels, along with any pretzels not made with butter.

Yogi Granola Crisps. They are a nice size for kids to hold and chew on and they taste pretty good!

Fig Newmans - NOT Fig Newtons. They are good, a little dry. We found an off brand at the dollar store that is vegan and much better, but these will do as well.

 Kix - any kind of Kix will work but she loves the berry ones

 Thomas' mini bagels. Cinnamon raisin is her favorite so far

Chocolate Chip Teddy Grahams - Read the label before you buy any of the other flavors. Most are vegan but always double check!

 Pistachios! We eat these together :)

 Oreos - We like to mix these with vanilla vegan ice cream for a delicious treat.

 

Reeces Puffs Cereal! Sooo delicious.

i should add that these snacks are in addition to fruits and veggies as well!

Neti Pot

I apologize for the severe lack of updates lately. I've been hit with the flu pretty hard and today is one of the first days I have been able to stand for more than 5 minutes at a time. I'm pretty sure my couch has a nice me-shaped indentation in it from this past week.

Instead of a food post, because I haven't eaten anything in roughly 7 days and I don't think I could even look at food right now, I'm going to post about something that has been helping me for years with getting rid of colds (and preventing them).

Most people look at me with a shocked and disgusted face when I recommend these. Even my own boyfriend refused to try it for years until recently when he came down with a sinus infection that he couldn't shake. Within days of using this, it was gone.

What is it? Its a Neti Pot. The neti pot works by sending a warm stream of saline through your nose, into your sinuses, and back out your nose. It works wonders and I don't know how some people live without it.


It can be made out of anything - they all work just as well. I personally use a small plastic one with a handle. You can buy a kit at Walgreens or Cvs that comes with a neti pot and saline packages. You mix 1 pack with 8oz of warm water then pour into your neti pot. Tilt your head to the side, breathe out of your mouth, and let the water pour through your nose! Do both sides to make sure you get everything out.

Basically, this is what you are trying to achieve... (and no, this isn't me - I don't look this good while sick)

Good luck, have fun, and hopefully I will be back next week!

Rich, Easy Vegan Mac and Cheese

This is the quickest, easiest recipe for vegan macaroni and cheese ever. It isn't as complicated as the last one, and tastes really rich and delicious. I've been sick lately and this has been my comfort food. It might be too rich for some, but I love it. This recipe can be altered for any size serving, but I only made one bowl.

What you'll need

Pasta noodles

Earth Balance butter

Daiya Cheddar cheese

Soy or Coconut milk

How to make

Bring water to a boil and toss in your noodles. While that is cooking, pour about half a cup of soymilk into a pan. Depending on how rich you want it, put between a tablespoon - 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance butter. Once that melts, pour in about a cup of Daiya cheddar cheese. You can put in as much as you want, since some like it cheesier than others.

 

When the noodles are done, strain, put into a bowl, and pour the cheese on! Simple, right? This recipe is very comparable to Amy's Vegan Mac and Cheese, except much cheaper!

Pumpkin Cookies

This recipe comes from my boyfriend's mother, slightly modified to be vegan. She is a great cook and is a very hard act to follow! 

What you'll need 

• 1 cup canned pumpkin or pumpkin pie mix
• 1 cup vegetable based shortening
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

How to make

The original recipe calls for canned pumpkin, but we decided to use pumpkin pie mix this time. It came out a lot better than usual. I've never seen cookies fly off the plate so fast!

Preheat oven to 350. Mix everything together in a big bowl and blend well. Its up to you whether you want to share the beaters or not.

Drop spoonfuls on to the cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

The original recipe calls for Penuche frosting, which tastes great as well. We used your basic frosting and colored it orange to match the holidays. If you want to use the Penuche frosting, the recipe is as follows:

• 3 tablespoons vegan butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soy milk
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Combine 3 tablespoons of vegan butter and the brown sugar together in a saucepan. Heat to a boil, let cool for one minute while stirring. Cool for 15 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of soy milk and beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar as you go, approximately 2 cups, until it is thick enough to be spread.

 Once the cookies are done, cool and frost!

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

 

I was so excited to try out this recipe at Thanksgiving! It turned out really good and I would definitely make it again! There are two ways to make this - with pre-made crust or to make the crust yourself.

What you'll need

Filling 

(you can used canned pumpkin pie filling, but that isn't any fun!)

• 2 cups canned pumpkin
• 1 cup soy milk
• 3/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tablespoon dark molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Crust 

(we used pre-made crust)

• 1/2 cup unbleached flour
• 7 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon. salt
• 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoon canola oil
• 3 tablespoons soy milk plus 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3 to 4 tablespoons water

How to make

*If making the crust yourself, preheat to 425F. If using pre-made crust, heat to 350F*

We used a pre-made crust! Completely vegan and made of graham crackers 

To make the crust, mix all ingredients together and roll into a ball. Roll flat into a 11 inch circle with a rolling pin and line a 9 inch pie plate. Crimp the edges by hand or with a fork. Cover and refrigerate. 

Agave nectar was one of the ingredients we used instead of sugar. If using this, reduce the amount of liquid by a tiny tiny bit - about a tablespoon or two - and increase cooking time by 3 minutes or so.

Mix all of the ingredients together for the filling. Make sure you mix thoroughly.  Pour gently into pie pan and bake! 

*If making the crust yourself, you must bake for 10 minutes with filling at 425F, then reduce to 350F and continue to bake for 50 minutes. If using pre-made crust, simply bake for 50 minutes at 350F*

When finished, cool for 10 minutes, refrigerate, and enjoy the next day! 

Where we went wrong... 

Don't get me wrong, it tasted GREAT the first bite, but it was wayyy too sweet! We couldn't figure out why until I looked at the pictures I had taken - We used Pumpkin Pie Filling instead of pumpkin! Oops!! The next one tasted great, although there were no pictures of that :)

Coming soon...

Sorry for the lack of updates and recipes lately. We've been away on a family trip and haven't had time to cook! 

Coming soon on the list of posts...

• Vegan Chocolate Pudding
• Electronic Cigarettes - What are they, how to use them, and how to buy one
• Vegan Thanksgiving ideas
• Eating on the go - What to pack
• Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Tofu and Broccoli

This is my go-to recipe when we are short on time and hungry! From the sound of this blog, it sounds like we are always starving and rushed for time but I swear we are not. 

This is also my daughter's favorite recipe ever. She never says no to it. This recipe involves two basic, cheap ingredients - tofu and broccoli. This recipe reminds everyone of Chinese food, probably because it uses soy sauce.

You'll need

 Extra firm tofu

Broccoli

Salt/Salt substitute

Pepper

Vegetable oil

Lemon juice

Soy Sauce

Garlic

How to make

Start the broccoli in a little water and oil. While that is cooking, start on your tofu. Cut it into blocks and press out the water. The dryer the tofu, the better. Toss that into a second pan with lemon juice, soy sauce, pepper, salt, and garlic. Put as much as you want of each - There is no wrong way to make this recipe. 


After about 5 minutes of cooking the tofu, add the broccoli in. You can add some more soy sauce so the broccoli tastes of it too. We use low sodium soy sauce. You can also season this with stir fry sauce but we like the taste of the soy sauce.

When everything gets a bit of a golden brown hue to it, you're done. The tofu will firm up a bit and turn a golden brown and the broccoli will turn brownish from the soy sauce.

That's it! You're done. Cut it up into small pieces if you are feeding it to a child.
 

Mmmmm Cookie Dough

If you are an ice cream eater, try Purely Decadent ice cream! Its absolutely vegan, organic, and delicious. We love the cookie dough one!

 

What's for lunch?

Our local grocery store finally started carrying this! Its delicious, although expensive and a pretty small serving. You could easily eat two of these in a sitting, so they are great for lunch when you're not too hungry but still want to eat something. Oddly enough, this is the one food my daughter won't eat.

Dinner for Three in Under Fifteen

Yesterday was one of those days where cooking really didn't have a spot on my list anywhere. I had roughly twenty minutes until my hungry boyfriend would be walking through the door and about five minutes before my one year old exploded from 'I'm hungry right now FEED ME' syndrome. While she had a little pre-dinner snack, I quickly whipped up a delicious dinner. It was done and on the table within fifteen minutes and even my meat-eater boyfriend loved it.

You'll need

Boca Chicken Nuggets

Mashed Potato Flakes

Vegan Stuffing mix

Vegetable broth or water

Earth Balance Butter

Salt

Vegetables of your choice

Basically, there is no instructions with this one. All of it was heated up according to the directions on the boxes. The boca nuggets were cooked last in the microwave along with the mashed potatoes. The stuffing was cooked first and made with vegetable broth. I made real chicken (more like heated it up without touching it at all) for my boyfriend. We used broccoli and green beans for our vegetables. It was delicious and everyone enjoyed it! 

This stuffing was the only vegan one I have found. It is really delicious, although a little dry. I added a lot of the butter substitute to it to moisten it up. We don't really use gravy although I may invest in finding a good recipe for a vegan gravy to use. This whole bag was more than enough for 3 people and we have a whole container left over!

 I am a huge believer in using mashed potato flakes! It takes way too long to make real mashed potatoes, although I do cook them sometimes. In our produce section, they sell little packets of seasoning for mashed potatoes, so I always grab a pack of the garlic and herb seasoning. Its delicious!

I need to have my boca chicken! I should buy stock in this stuff.

I try to have every meal contain some kind of fruit or vegetable. I am a huge vegetable eater and it seems that I've passed that trait onto my daughter!

The finished product of my daughter's dinner. We were too busy eating to take any pictures of ours :) 

Vegan Sloppy Joes!

I'll start off by saying I haven't had sloppy joes in about 12 years, so I had no idea what to expect. They came out delicious and all of the meat eaters said it tasted very close to the real thing! This recipe makes about 2 full sloppy joes, 3 if you don't pack them completely.

You'll need

1 package of extra firm tofu

1 tsp onion powder

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup tomato/spaghetti sauce

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tsp dijon mustard

salt - to taste

pepper - to taste

2 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1 tsp sugar

How to make

Take the tofu and drain it. If you haven't worked with tofu before, you'll need to learn how to press out the water. Its easy and quick, not like some people make it seem. You can cut the tofu into blocks or crumble it and manually press out the water. You can also let something hard sit on top of it and drain it onto a paper towel. I prefer to press it out since its quicker and I know the water is all coming out. 

Once you press all of the water out, crumble it. It should look something like this

Mix all of the ingredients into the pan and toss the tofu in. Depending on how well you pressed out the water will determine how long you cook it for. If it seems too soupy, keep cooking it until the water cooks out. 

Once it is all done, throw it on a bun and serve! 

My daughter loved it on a bun ripped up and spoon fed to her!