Convenience Dinners

I'm sorry friends... I really am the WORST food blogger.  It's a good thing this isn't my day job! It seems like recently I haven't really had anything great to share - work has been crazy busy so my dinners have consisted of super easy meals (lots of veggie burgers) on the go.  Today I cooked, but believe me it was convenience food at it's finest.
I like to stock up on easy things for nights like this - where I want a nice home cooked meal, but I don't have to time to make it.  Usually I like to pick up:
*Gardein Crispy Mandarin Orange Chick'n (a must try for herbivores and carnivores alike)

*Some veggie burgers - my favorite brand being the Veggie Patties by DonLee Farms which I stock up on at Costco

*Frozen corn, spinach and broccoli- and any other goodies I come across in Trader Joe's or Whole Foods frozen section
Yesterday my black rice & farro from Earthly Delights came knocking on my door, so I knew the rice had to be a part of my dinner tonight.

I wound up making the Gardein Mandarin Chick'n with broccoli over black rice.  It comes with a really yummy mandarin orange sauce that you pour over the chick'n after browning in some oil - I suggest using safflower or sunflower oil since you will be cooking over high heat.  The black rice added such a nice crunch; not crunchy like undercooked rice though, it was a goooood crunch.

If you have a hungry husband like me, one package isn't going to cut it for two of you!  I also made Edamame & Tofu Nuggets with Gyoza dipping sauce - both from TJ's.  After gobbling up two, J asked me how much protein was in them.  It was then that I found out that they are NOT vegan - they have egg white powder in them DOH!  Read ingredients Lindsay!  But they have a decent amount of protein and were pretty good in case you were wondering.  The gyoza sauce was a little too salty and soy saucy for us, if we use it again I may add a little agave and sesame oil to sweeten it up a bit.

Tonight I am putting together crock pot stuffed peppers, so be on the lookout for a new recipe tomorrow!

PS - I have been vegan for 1 MONTH and I am feeling great!  I have more energy, I feel healthier (which is a good thing when you work with kids who seem to have perpetual runny noses) and my hair is shinier and more manageable.  The hair thing may seem weird, but ever since I was introduced to Hot Tools (my high school savior) back in 9th grade, I have needed to straighten my wavy & frizzy hair with every blow dry.  Over the past few weeks it has been so smooth that I haven't needed to straighten it at all!  Very exciting things happening, girls - you understand ;)

PPS - J & I booked a trip to Florida in February so it's time to hit the gym harder than usual, maybe I'll start posting my workouts!  What are your favorite butt kicking pre-vaca workouts??

Peas & Love & Thanks for Reading (that is if you haven't given up on me through all my annoying hiatuses... errr hiatusi??)
-L

Pizza! Pizza! & A Fruity Hoe

Happy Monday everyone!  After a long day of work I love to come home to my pup & husb, cook a nice dinner, and relax on the couch in PJs with a glass of wine... I wish I could say that was my plan for tonight.  J is in class until later tonight and I have a meeting at 8pm - I'm pretty sure wine & PJs aren't allowed ;)  So right now I'm just waiting for my Crispy Breaded Tofu strips to come out of the oven and I figured what better way to kill some time than share to a delish recipe??  Last Friday J and I had a serious craving for some Backyard BBQ pizza from 3 Brothers but it was definitely out of our way, so we decided to take a road trip to my favorite place on earth, Whole Foods, and pick up some ingredients for it.  While in heaven (Whole Foods), J was very excited to see some of our favorite beers Hoegaarden and Lambic, so we picked them up to make some yummy Fruity Hoes to go with our pizza.

BBQ Seitan Pizza

Ingredients:
(The easy way)

• Whole wheat pizza dough (trader joes)
• Sliced Seitan (Westsoy Brand)
• 1/2 Sliced red onion
• BBQ sauce 
• Daiya mozzarella cheese
• Daiya cheddar cheese

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425, put pizza stone in oven to heat up if you have one
• Slice up the seitan and marinate it in about 1/2 cup BBQ sauce 
• Roll out dough on a floured surface and press it out with your hands to form a large circle (or whatever shaped pie you want)
• When the oven/pizza stone gets hot enough (should be at 425) take the stone out & spray with cooking spray
• Carefully put dough onto stone - it should sizzle!  This helps it get a nice crispy crust.
• Poke some holes with a fork in the dough and cook it by itself for about 5 minutes, until its a light brown color
• Add toppings; we did BBQ sauce first, then seitan, onions & cheese and drizzed a little more BBQ sauce on top

• Bake for 8-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly 
• Slice it up and dig in!

Of course we took the easy way out, we could have made our own dough & seitan but who has time for that?!  And I tried to make seitan once and I think I'm scarred for life - BLEHHH!  

Fruity Hoe

Pour half Hoegaarden & half Lambic into a glass
Give it a quick stir
Sip & Enjoy

Well, I put way too much garlic in my spinach - better go brush my teeth so I don't scare everyone away at the meeting!!

Peas, Love & Thanks for Reading!
-L

Why Vegan?

Although the amount of times I get this question has decreased, I still get it on a pretty regular basis.  Clearly when people first learn about my new eating habits, they ask why.   I don't mind explaining it, but I am always nervous that I may be offending others.  Just because I don't eat any meat products doesn't mean that I am judging others in their personal choices.   I always find myself adding "but I don't care if other people eat meat, I just don't really like it"  because I don't want to make people uncomfortable... which almost always happens anyway as they glance down at their ham and cheese sandwich.  I have found that once I say the word "vegan", it's over.  I get an eye roll, uncomfortable head nod, an uneasy "oohhh", or just a look of shock and confusion.  There's so much negative connotation associated with the word because people immediately think of a stereotypical PETA obsessed, red-paint throwing pothead.  I have nothing wrong with any of these things, and I definitely support PETA, but I think the extremists are scary to people who don't share the same beliefs.  Many of the reasons why I embraced this lifestyle was due to the fact that I learned a lot about factory farming and animal cruelty; but I also love food.  I love cooking, I love dining out, I love eating, and now I love the new options I have found for myself.  I love the way I'm feeling and the energy I have gained.  The truth of the matter is, I did so much research before diving in and I learned things that I can never unlearn.  If you are thinking of going vegan I can recommend these books: The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone is a good one to start with, The Ultimate Vegan Guide by Erik Marcus is a 99 cent download on Kindle, Becoming Vegan, and if you have a sense of humor I recommend Skinny Bitch.  Once I started reading about it, I couldn't stop.  If you are interested, be aware that you will read disturbing things and if you're like me you may become completely turned off by consuming all things meat, dairy, and animal related.
I also love this video of Ellen explaining why she has chosen to go vegan:

I must also say that not all reactions to what I eat have been negative, not even close!  So many of my friends and family members have embraced this and are truly interested in learning more.  My parents were a little afraid of veganism, but they are most definitely trying!  They had J and I over for a veggie chili and are open to learning and trying some more vegan dishes.  Many of our friends are trying to limit their meat consumption and genuinely want to know more
I hope that vegan is not always a dirty word, and I hope that with practice I won't feel the need to make  excuses when I am explaining myself.  I am proud that I choose to eat things that are good for my body and that my beliefs come from facts instead of happy-go-lucky advertisements the dairy, beef, chicken, and pork industries have been selling to us all our lives.
In reality there will always be people who think like this:

But that's OK, because I'll probably be around longer than them anyway ;)

Peas, Love & Thanks for Reading!
-L

Rainy Day Cookies

On a yucky, rainy night, what's better than some comfort food & cookies?  Nothing, except maybe a little red wine to go with it.  Tonight was supposed to be my day back to the gym (after resting my back) since Thursday, but as one problem gets better, another introduces itself - whatup awesome hacking cough!? And thanks kids!  So tomorrow, I promise, I will be getting back to NYSC.  I will finally test out my new Vibrams and go to a total body class - my body feels so... unsore and I'm not liking it.
Since my day was a wash anyway, why not make some cookies!?   I've been having fun searching google, not for vegan recipes, but for recipes that I can veganize, yeaaaaaaah.  I figured no one wants to read a blog that just remakes what all the better other blogs make, so I'm on a mission to veganize some favorites.  Todays challenge: Fig & Flax Thumbprint Cookies (this actually isn't a favorite, I just have a gigantic bag of dried figs but maybe it will become a favorite - positive thinking people).  I am literally making this while I type, so I won't have the opportunity to make it, hate it, get discouraged, and never tell you about it.  I guess I could just delete what I've written so far, but I won't do that this time - I promise I'll be honest; if it sucks, I'll change the title to Sucky Rainy Day Cookies.

Fig & Flax Thumbprint Cookies

Fig Preserve
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup dried figs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Directions

• Chop figs, place in saucepan with water, bring water to a boil and let simmer covered for about 25 minutes until the figs are soft

• Pour contents of the saucepan into a blender and blend until pureed 
• Pour back into saucepan and combine with sugar and lemon juice 

• Let all ingredients cook over medium head for about 15 minutes until it looks "jammy"

Cookies

Ingredients 

• 1/2 cup earth balance 
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (separated)
• 1 flax egg (1tbsp ground flax & 3 tbsp water)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tbsp flax seeds (separated)
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions 

• Preheat oven to 350, prepare flax egg & let sit
• Beat earth balance & 1/4 cup brown sugar until creamy 
• Add flax egg, vanilla and lemon

• Wisk flours, 2 tbsp flax cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a separate bowl until well combined

• Slowly add flour mixture to wet mixture and beat until well combined 
• In a small bowl, add 1/4 cup brown sugar & 1/4 tsp tbsp and mix well
• Dip rounded teaspoon sized cookie dough balls into brown sugar & flax mixture and roll

•  Put dough balls onto a baking sheet, press thumb into the middle, and spoon about 1/2-1/4 tsp fig preserve into middle

• Bake for 14-16 minutes 

Enjoy!

Verdict: J has proclaimed that after my 3 hours of slaving away... They DIDN'T SUCK!! Since I made a mini-batch, I will be confident enough to make a full batch soon because I kinda loved these :)

So there ya go, start to finish, my homemade Fig & Flax Cookies... and I didn't have to change todays title.

Peas, Love & Thanks for Reading!!

-L

This Weeks Restaurant Reviews

How do food bloggers do it?  Posting either everyday, multiple times a day, or at the very least every other day!  This week has been so insanely busy I felt like I didn't have a spare second.  On top of that I somehow messed up my back which has laid me up pretty badly over the past few days. I have not, however, missed out on some pretty great restaurants over the past week.  Warning: you may or may not have the reflex of slapping someone after eating at these establishments out of pure joy.
Let me preface this by saying J and I love to go out to eat, me probably more than him, but he's more than happy to tag along ;) I love the whole dining experience, which is probably due to the fact that I waited tables throughout high school & college; and I just really appreciate being on the other side of the table.  (Sidebar: I think that every single person that goes out to eat should have to serve for a little while - they will never act like a rude piece of crap at a restaurant again, but I digress)  Holy tangent, back to J and I loving going to restaurants - this had worried us a little when I started eating a strict plant based diet because we didn't know where we would be able to eat other than in our kitchen and sometimes living room (when we're feeling a little wild).  After doing some research I learned that Long Island is an incredibly isolated bubble with limited options for me and Brooklyn has some really great vegan restaurants.  So clearly when we went into Brooklyn last saturday to see James Katz play (check him out, he's awesome) we had to go find a vegan restaurant for dinner.  We had a recommendation to try Wild Ginger and I am so glad we did!

Wild Ginger - www.wildgingerny.com

Photo from brooklyn.about.com

The decor is a little cheesy, donned with string lights that resembled those from my college dorm room, but I kinda liked it.  We sat on benches towards the back of the restaurant, next to the two oddest girls.  They didn't say a single thing to each other the entire time - except, "this is good", and then back to silence.  I didn't like that - but don't worry I don't think they'll still be there ;)
We ordered indian pancakes with curry dipping sauce - omigah (in case you're wondering that was just my white girl 'oh my god', but really meaning it).  I guess anything deep fried served with a curry sauce would taste great, but this was pretty magical.   Then came our miso soups - which we're pretty standard, but who doesn't love a miso soup?  Of course we washed everything down with hot sake & Sapporos.

J going in for the dip - nice

For dinner I ordered General Tso's soy protein and J ordered a tofu green curry dish and both came with brown rice.  Mine was awesome, it was so crispy and yummy (and definitely far from healthy).  It tasted exactly like chicken - I need to learn how to make soy protein!  J's was good, but he said that my (Trader Joe's) green curry tofu was better, *swoon*.  

Bad food blogger!  Forgot to take the picture until halfway through:
Front & center: General Tso's soy protein, behind - J's green curry tofu

And for once, we had no room for dessert!  Next time we will have to make sure we don't completely gorge ourselves on dinner, the reviews I read raved about their dessert!

My Rating (because as you all know I am beyond qualified to rate restaurants): 

4/5 - we'll DEFINITELY be back!

Over the week J & I took a road trip to REI to pick up my new shoes - whatup Vibrams!  They're cute and you know it, don't hate.  While we we're out that way I really wanted to try a pizza place with tons of vegan options that I had read about.  Here it is again - OMIGAH.  If you are every anywhere near Rockville Centre you have to try this place - SO good.

3 Brothers Pizza Cafe - 3brotherspizzacafe.com

We ordered a small backyard BBQ pie with seitan; it had red onions, seitan, BBQ sauce, and Daiya cheddar & mozzarella on it.  To. Die. For.  We also split a plain (Daiya) cheese slice, for good measure.  

Backyard BBQ Pizza

The atmosphere was like any pizza place, which is fine by me.  

My rating: 

5/5 - I LOVE pizza, and we have to travel to RVC more often (confession: on our way home I told J that I wanted to move there just for the pizza, normal?)

I guess now it's time to get back to cooking some healthier meals and not surviving on left overs this week - but only because we're all out.  Big plans for today - hitting up Whole Foods & going to pilates in a few, I love Mondays when I don't have to work.  

Peas, Love & Thanks for reading!

-L

Quickie Dessert & Addiction Update

Seven days into January, seven days without coffee, first day without a headache!  I really didn't think I was going to be able to do it, and I definitely didn't think it was going to be this easy.  The first few days sucked but then each day got a little bit easier, the headaches got a little less debilitating (my first day back to work I'm pretty sure I wasn't forming real sentences and my students were quite scared of me), and then finally today I am wide awake at 3:41 pm feeling like an actual human without the help of any caffeine - suck on that coffee!  I'm sure I'll still have coffee sometimes, but I'm glad to know that I no longer need something everyday just to function normally.

On another note, there are many nights that J and I are hit with sugar attacks.  These are moments that we must have sugar, and we must have it RIGHT NOW.  Usually when these attacks hit it's a few hours after dinner and we are watching our shows on the couch (FYI: we love The Office, Parks & Rec, Modern Family and our new fave is Up All Night... ya know, just so you can get the mental picture) and I would send J out for frozen yogurt or sometimes even ice cream (tear).  We haven't had an attack recently so I forgot just how extreme they can be.  The other night, all the sudden, it hit!  We NEEDED sweets and the fro yo & ice cream kind were out of the question.... panic attack.  I googled away and found a recipe for 5 minute microwave chocolate cake so I decided to veganize it.  Totally hit the spot, yummy & easy - my two favorite things!

Five Minute Chocolate Cake

(makes 2 decent serving sizes)

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp whole wheat flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa 
• 3 tbsp almond or soy milk
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• Tiny bit of sea salt 
• 3 tbsp chocolate chips 
• splash of vanilla 

Directions 

*Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar & cocoa)

*Add nondairy milk of choice & oil

gewww creepy double jointed finger alert

*Stir together, leaving the batter a tiny bit lumpy

action shot

*Fold in chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and a few small turns of the sea salt grinder

*At this point I realized how large this cake was going to be, so I split the batter into 2 smaller bowls evenly

*Microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, keep an eye on it here!  It will start to rise up over but don't worry it will come back down once you take it out

*Dig in with a cold glass of almond milk, I bet it would be awesome with some nondairy ice cream on top

Enjoy!!

Thanks for making your blographer debut J!

Thanks for reading!

Peas & Love,

L

Comfort Food for a Chilly Night

It is absolutely FREEZING here in NY tonight! On days like this I have such a tough time getting myself out of the house to go to the gym once I get home from work.  Today I gave myself a pass since my usual total body class is bound to be overrun with resolutioners who, lets be honest here, are kind of annoying.  They get in the way, don't understand gym "etiquette", and will most likely not be there anymore within the next few weeks.  Was that really mean?  I really sholudn't talk, I have a resolution of my own... I'll get to that after the recipe!  Aaaanyway, I also figured it would be good to stay home since J texted me to tell me that he would be staying at work until 10 pm (he's been there since 7 am!) so I decided to be a nice little newlywed and cook up some dinner and bring it to him on his break.

I wanted something that wasn't too time consuming but had a good "stick to your ribs" kind of feeling.  I settled on making a thai green curry with tofu and noodles.  I impulsively bought this thai green curry simmer sauce from Trader Joe's and figured it would be delish with some onions, peppers, tofu and noodles!  It was super easy, creamy, filling, and so yummy!  It only took about a half hour and that includes the time it took to pack up the meal and get it ready to bring to the hospital cafeteria, which is obviously the best place to eat a relaxing dinner ;)  This recipe got a "freaking homerun" review from J and it was ridiculously easy to make. The next time you have a craving for some Thai take out, save yourself $20 and make this instead!

Thai Green Curry with Tofu & Noodles 
Ingredients

• Trader Joe's Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce
• 1 green pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 1 package tofu, drained (I tried Trader Joe's sprouted tofu - so good and very high in protein!)
• 1/2 package Udon Noodles

Directions

• Press tofu for at least 30 mins, then marinate in about 1/4 of the jar of simmer sauce 

• Chop up pepper & onion into similar bite sized pieces 
• Get your water boiling for your noodles 
• Pan fry tofu about 5-6 minutes each side with some cooking spray on med-high heat or until golden brown on both sides and tofu has soaked up all simmer sauce 
• Get those noodles going!  Be careful, Udon noodles cook quickly (about 5-6 minutes) if they are finished before the rest, drain and keep them on the burner on the lowest possible setting - you may want to drizzle a small bit of oil in to prevent sticking
• While the noodles are cooking, begin to fry up your onions and peppers in a small amount of safflower oil (or any oil of your choice)
• When they get a little color on them add tofu, noodles and simmer sauce 
• Stir all the ingredients together and let them simmer for about 5 minutes 

• Enjoy!

So now on to  my resolution!  Obviously you know about the meat, dairy & egg thing but I'm not really counting that as a resolution because I don't think those ever stick.  A vegan diet is something that I have been thinking about for a few months (although I refuse to admit it to some....AD) and I started it before New Years, therefore it can't be a resolution, right?  I did, however, give up the unthinkable.  Well it is unthinkable if you know me at least.  (Don't worry mom, it's not wine!)  I decided to give up COFFEE!! It kills me to write it, but four days in, I'm actually starting to feel ok about it.  

I never really thought of giving my fix up, but it kind of freaked me out that I needed something to wake me up everyday.  If I didn't have my 2 cups of coffee in the morning (which only happened maybe 2 times in 10 years) I would get terrible headaches and feel super sick.  Why didn't I start worrying about this sooner, those are withdrawals!  I don't want to have to depend on anything, but to wean myself off I have been having green tea instead.  Yesterday was my first day back to work after the break and it was torture!  Today went a little better but I came prepared with extra tea bags, in my groggy caffeine-less state I neglected to do this yesterday.  So lets see how this goes, I'll keep you updated!

Thanks for reading :) 

Peas & Love 

-L

Massive Amounts of Food Fails

I was beyond excited to start the new year and new blog off with some bangin recipes and beautious pictures of said recipes... aaand I guess you can see that since it is January THIRD, it just didn't work out that way.

Recipe 1:
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream (sounds good huh?)
Verdict:
Yummy cupcakes, absolute failure for the frosting.  I was so excited to make a Cupcake Wars (looks-wise at least) worthy frosting so I booked it to Bed Bath & Beyond and picked up a cupcake decorating kit.  I used ALL my frosting sugar, tried way too many recipes, and kept ending up with a disgusting soupy buttercream that leaked right out of my new fun frosting tools (yum).  They still came with us to our New Years Eve party, and I am lucky enough to have friends that pretended they weren't horrific looking...
Heres the recipe for the chocolate cupcake, I tried a few recipes and these were definitely the best!
By the way - I'm still on the lookout for a good vegan frosting - keep me in mind if you know one!!

Recipe 2: 
Baked Spinach Dip
Verdict:
Honestly not terrible, but this was not included because I refused to post any pictures of this experience.   My kitchen was beyond a mess, there were spinach & bowls literally everywhere and I'm too shallow to let any of you see me like that ;)
Here's the recipe that I found on this great blog: Happy Healthy Life

• Bag of frozen organic spinach - thawed 
• 3-4 cloves of garlic 
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1 TBSP apple cider vinegar 
• 1 cup cashews - soaked in water for about a half hour
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley 
• 3 TBSP nutritional yeast (sounds gross - but it is SO freaking good, gives the cheese flavor!)
• 2 TBSP Vegenaise spread (I definitely put more like 3 or 4 TBSP in)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper 
• Sprinkle of Daiya Mozz Cheese (best fake cheese I have tried

It is pretty easy from here, once the spinach is thawed that the cashews have been soaked you can throw everything in a food processor, blend until smooth, put it in an oven safe dish and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  I would put some more Daiya on top and broil for a few before serving.  We served it with tortilla chips but I bet pita bread, veggies, or whole wheat bread would be great too!  It got a pretty good review from the friends that were open to it!  (Thanks Brian & Kristine!)

So now my kitchen was such a disaster from all my food failures and messes (mostly stemming from getting the right cupcake and being royally effed by my frosting...) and I just wanted to not cook for a while.  After a good spin sesh I was hungry and realized that I had pretty much no options but to cook for my self (thanks, LI, for having so many vegan friendly restaurants) so I decided to try a tofu scramble.  

Of course at the end I was faced with quite a mess, but dear GOD was it worth it!  I tried one bite and my heart almost exploded.  I don't know if I was so impressed because I've messed up so many vegan recipes or if it was really that good, but I think you should make it and be the judge!  

So here it is, the recipe that brought me back to PLB (again)

Tofu Scramble

Ingredients

• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1 block organic tofu (you don't want to mess around with conventional soybeans)
• 2 TBSP safflower oil
• 1 tsp garlic powder 
• 1 TBSP tamari (or soy sauce) 
• 2 TBSP nutritional yeast 
• sprinkle of Daiya cheese
• Salsa

Directions 

• First thing you want to do is drain the liquid out of the tofu and get ready to press it.  Here are the steps I take:
• After it is drained I take an absorbent dish towel and lightly squeeze any liquid I can out
• Then I lay the tofu on a cutting board, cut in in half to make 2 cube like blocks and cut each in half so I should have 4 rectangular blocks 
• I wrap the blocks in paper towels or kitchen towels, put them on a cutting board, and put heavy books on top 
• Then subtly let your husband know that a tofu press would come in SO handy one day ;)

Snug as a bug

I knew those high school yearbooks would come in handy one day ;)

• While you are pressing your tofu its a good time to chop the onion & pepper into similar bite size pieces
• Once your tofu is nice and dry, take a fork (or get down and dirty with bare hands) and crumble the tofu 

JEEZE I need new cutting boards, sorry!

• Saute chopped onions, peppers and tofu in oil for about 5 minutes or until it gets some nice color on it

Spotted: the drippy frosted cupcakes!

• Add the rest of the ingredients and saute for another 5 minutes 
• Serve in a wrap, over a piece of toast, or all by itself with a sprinkle of Daiya and your favorite salsa!

My new favorite breakfast!

So hopefully I have redeemed myself after some non-blogworthy recipes!  Happy New Year everyone!

Peas & Love,
L