Sunday, October 6, 2013

Happy October 6th!

Greetings Internet.

It's Gina. I have not posted in a long while. I was busy doing things like decorate for the fall season, watching bad horror movies, losing hours of my life to Pinterest, you know, the usual. I would like to say that I am not one of the people who get swept up in fall and scream incessantly about all things pumpkin themed on every social media site that exists but that would be a lie. I do love myself some pumpkin everything however this year I have tried to keep my internet mouth shut about it because between all the political posts on Facebook that annoy the shit out of me and probably everyone else (Does ANYONE check Snopes before they repost ridiculous shit like "OMG the gov is going to come and eat breakfast with our family every morning and force us to do their laundry and slap us in the face two times every day under Obamacare!!???!!!) AND the fall/Halloween/pumpkin everything posts, I just don't want to add to it. I haven't even HAD a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks yet. Take that! I bought some gluten free, dairy free, pumpkin spiced creamer for my coffee and I am set. I also hope at some point today to force my husband to go to a craft store with me and buy large black construction paper and then force him to draw ghosts and stuff on it which I will then cut out and tape to our windows so it looks like shadows at night. But enough about me, let's talk about food.

I bring to you today several exciting recipes. These are super spaced apart timewise because I haven't posted in forever and pretty much just looked through all my pictures to see what wasn't posted. So here is a delicious meal we made sometime in July.

We subscribe to Vegetarian Times magazine and this is a recipe we found in there and wanted to try. It turned out really well and it was our first time making quesadillas. As with any of these recipes, we veganized it.


Ready to cook! 



Grilled Tomatillo Sauce 

Just a little chipotle sauce to make this meal even better.


Tofutti Sour Cream! 

Jason could not contain his enthusiasm and reduced himself to shame eating. 




The next one I want to share is a recipe I found on Pinterest called Flaky Spinach Pie. Can you guess what this dish involves??? What's that? A spinach and cheese filling between a flaky pie-like crust? You're so smart!  It was my first time working with phyllo dough and I must admit, I was pretty nervous about it. I watched a thousand You Tube tutorials on how to work with phyllo dough and then just decided to jump in. It wasn't too hard, definitely a bit time consuming but the end result was pretty wonderful.

Hello Phyllo. 


This was my "egg" mixture to brush onto EVERY SINGLE LAYER OF PHYLLO

  Once I had layered one million sheets of phyllo I then added the spinach, cheese, etc. mixture. 




Oh yeah, this is what I used instead of eggs FYI. 

This was how it looked before I put it in the oven. I thought I may have overdid it on the egg mixture on the last layer. Meh. 

Ta Da!

Crispy, gooey, and wonderful. 


Next we have the always fun Vegan Fourth of July. I think Jason and I stayed home and cooked ourselves dinner for some reason. I don't remember because it's October and who waits that long to post about Fourth of July? So all I really have recipe wise to share with you is the potato salad. I LOVE this potato salad and everytime I make it for a party it goes very quickly. It was a bit challenging to find a recipe with no eggs to veganize and I found this one and never looked for another recipe again. It's super easy, too. 

Once you have the potatoes cooked you just chop em up and then mix all of the above together, refrigerate and you are done, my friend. 

Tofurky braut, potato salad and baked beans.


For desert I took my Aunt's famed "Dirt" recipe and made it vegan. I then blacked out and ate all of this.  Hint : It's easier to make something chocolatey for a dessert when it mostly consists of food processed Oreos, which just happen to be vegan. The pudding however is tough. Almond milk does NOT solidify it well. It was still awesome though. 

Looking at these pictures makes me want to make this all over again. 


Last weekend Jason and I were out doing something (I draw a blank on what it was) and decided that we were going to go grab breakfast afterwards. We decided we would go to First Watch in Robinson (about 10 minutes from our house) since it's relatively healthy and has some options for vegetarians and vegans. It was packed when we got there and we were like F that noise and for those unfamiliar with where this location is, there is an enormous Market District Giant Eagle right by it. So we walked over to Market District thinking we could find something to eat there because they have all these mini restaurants inside. No dice on the vegan front. We got REALLY hangry. (hungry+angry) and almost ran screaming down the aisles of the Market District while knocking over everything in sight. I decided I would take matters into my own hands since everywhere to eat ever sucks. (That's how I felt at that moment anyway.) Jason was not keen on my ideas right away. I grabbed an everything bagel for myself and then had to force Jason (ALMOST kicking and screaming) to pick a bagel for himself. Jason tends to become extremely indecisive when he is weak with hunger and he could not decide if he even wanted a bagel. I had glorious plans unfolding in my mind though. I grabbed some hickory smoked tempeh and we headed home. 
I made the tempeh, toasted the bagels, added some vegenaise, arugula, cheddar daiya and hummus. What resulted in this desperate plan derived from intense hunger was a magnificent and rather simple breakfast sandwich that we devoured and soon after became our normal selves again. 



Early this week I found a new blog I really enjoy called Vegan Yack Attack and for dinner one night this week we tried out a recipe on there called Three in One Artichoke Arugula Soup and it was simply divine.
It was a cheap recipe and it only took about 15 minutes to get ready and cook.


This morning I made Mexican Tofu Frittata because we had pretty much all the ingredients in our house already and I love a good frittata. What I really liked about this recipe is that you food process the tofu, cheese(I used cheddar and moz daiya) and spices together and then mix it in with the onions, pepper, and black beans after it's processed so it's nice and smooth and a lot more like an egg mixture.





Awesome breakfast and full of protein!

In closing, I apologize for not posting forever. I will try to do better. It is now time to leave you with a picture of a cat and then I will continue to read The Shining and drink COFFEE (pumpkin flavored ;) )



Max finished his dinner.