Lazy Vegan Tofu and Broccoli

My friend and I had a very nice dinner last night. I didn't take any photos of my delicious vegetarian combination plate (think: grape leaves, spinach pie, hummus, baba, falafel, etc.) because I just happened to be seated next to one of the local television personalities in this area... and I didn't want her to think I was pulling out my camera to take a photo of her! LOL Despite that excitement, the biggest news of the night was that I asked my friend to be my maid of honor for my wedding next year... and she said yes! :) I'll be so happy to have her by my side; we've known each other since high school!

Instead of sharing last night's dinner with you, I'm pulling out a dish I prepared a while back but never got the chance to blog about it. It's a Vegweb.com dish that's super easy yet delicious. Titled "Lazy and Hungry Tofu Plus Broccoli" on Vegweb, this dish is simple and a quick dinner if you need something made in a short amount of time. The only change I made was that I used peanut oil because I didn't have sesame oil on hand. I chose to serve this with brown rice that I cooked using veggie broth instead of water. Deelish!

Lazy Yet Fancy Cream of Tomato Soup

I'm continuing my "lazy cooking" theme this week by jazzing up one of my favorite foods: cream of tomato soup. This particular dish is so easy yet it impressed an omnivore, too!

I began by making elbow macaroni. I know I could've done without the pasta carbs, but to me, cream of tomato soup just isn't cream of tomato soup unless it has elbow macaroni in it! LOL While the water was boiling for the pasta, I opened a standard can of condensed tomato soup. Instead of using water, I mixed in one can of plain soy milk with the soup. I mentioned yesterday that I was saving leftover diced canned tomatoes and its juice from the tempeh dish I had prepared. I dumped those diced tomatoes and juice into the soup and stirred well. Then I added in some dried basil, oregano and a bit of rosemary to taste and heated the soup on low while the pasta cooked. I added my preferred amount of pasta to the soup and voila! A super easy yet fancier cream of tomato soup. :)

My sister currently lives upstairs from me (we live in a multifamily home) and I joined her for dinner because her hubby wasn't going to be home till later that evening. She had prepared a chicken breast and side of veggies for herself. When I appeared with my bowl of yummy soup, she said "Wow, that looks gooooood. Can I taste it?" She said my soup looked more appetizing than her meal. :) Score another one for the veg*ns!

Tempeh Tuesday #1

I'm back from vacation. As promised, I'll post about my trip but I'll need an extra day or two to ready the photos and write it up.

In the meantime, I'm going to post my lazy cooking habits since coming back home. LOL. Sometimes it's difficult enough coming back from a trip and getting back into the groove of the reality we call everyday life, without having to worry about cooking elaborate meals. So, my theme this week is EASY. I'm trying to use ingredients I already have in the cupboard and just keep things simple.

I had three packages of tempeh in my fridge because I'm trying to motivate myself to cook this soy-based food more often. I decided to make the tempeh sausage crumbles from Vegan with a Vengeance. I love this recipe soooooo much. The crumbles are so good. Much much tastier than any similar product that can be purchased pre-made in a store, and they're really not that difficult to make. So, I prepared the tempeh as directed in Isa's book. I also made pasta: Meijer Organics whole-wheat cappenilli, which I coated with a bit of olive oil when it was done. I opened a can of diced tomatoes that was pre-mixed with olive oil and garlic and, with a slotted spoon, scooped out some tomatoes (leaving most of the juice) as a topping to the tempeh and cappenilli. Simple yet tasty. :)

I did save the remaining tomatoes and all the leftover juice... I have plans for those later this week. ;)

I titled this post "Tempeh Tuesday" because I'd like to make Tuesday dinners my tempeh night, in an effort to try more tempeh recipes and learn to cook it better. (Did I ever mention I once tried to steam tempeh in the microwave and it came out as a hard, black block of yuck?) If you have a really great tempeh recipe, I'm all ears. I'd love some ideas from my blog visitors if you have any recipes to share. Please send them to: veggiecookster [at] gmail [dot] com. If I cook up your recipe, I'll give you credit and link back to your blog, so be sure to include the URL in your e-mail. :)

4th of July lunch

My BF and I decided to have an impromptu burger lunch today. An omni, he grilled a meat burger for himself, while I enjoyed the Black Bean Chipotle vegan burger by Gardenburger. I topped my burger with an onion/mushroom/garlic mixture that we sauteed in a pan on the grill, and added cold tomato, more onion, red leaf lettuce and mustard on a sesame seed bun. We chose to have cucumber slices as a side (I sprinkled mine with a little bit of salt, yum!). Simple and quick!

On a side note, I was at my BF's house, which is near a Whole Foods. I get excited when I visit him because I do not have a Whole Foods near me... so every chance I get when I visit, I stock up on veggie items my local grocer doesn't carry, like nutritional yeast. Today I bought a few new-to-me items to try... Vegan Gourmet's Mozzarella and Lightlife's wild rice organic tempeh. I'll most likely blog about them once I give them a try!! :)

Jamaican Veggies with Spicy Chik'n

Tried to keep it simple last night. My local market had fresh veggies cheap this week, so I bought a lot. I decided to chop up peppers, eggplant, onion, yellow squash, zucchini and sunflower seeds and sautee them. I used a Jamaican seasoning blend I found here. Funny story behind that. I made some homemade seasoning blends for my Daddy-O for his birthday. I had tiny amounts left over from each batch, so I put them in sandwich baggies, figuring I could use them down the road. Well, the next night, when I had finished cutting up a yellow pepper for a salad I was taking to work the next day, I realized that in my haste, I tossed the half cut pepper into the baggy with the Jamaican spice blend, instead of the empty baggy just a few inches away. D'oh! Therefore, last night's dinner became Jamaican so I could use that half pepper with the spice all over it. :) I served the veggies over a Boca Spicy Chik'n patty (have I mentioned how much I love the spicy patties?) for a quick, delicious veggie meal!

I spy... a new veggie convenience food for hiking!

This past weekend, while cruising the aisles of my local Meijer store, I did some lollygagging in the "world cuisine" aisle. You see, they just built a Meijer near me, so I'm in love. I haven't had the time to properly browse all the nook-and-crannies yet. But, I spent a few extra moments looking at the ethnic foods.

The Indian Tasty Bite meals caught my eye. Mainly, because the packaging claimed that no refrigeration was needed, it cooked in just five minutes AND they were vegetarian/vegan. Awesome! I was tickled with this because I love to camp and hike. Last year, Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpacking by Christine and Tom Conners, was the bible that my boyfriend and I worshipped to get us through the week in the woods. We have a trip coming up at the end of August, and I've been meaning to flip through the bible again to start getting our meal plans in order. BUT, these Tasty Bite meals intrigued me because if they were good, they also could be used on our trip and could save me a little bit of preparation! So, I bought two meals--"Kashmir Spinach" and "Peas Paneer & Basmati Rice"--to try.

Over the past couple of days, I have tried both meals. And while not extremely stellar, restaurant-quality food, I could definitely see us eating these meals in the woods. They were uber quick to prep. Basically, boil water and then drop the meal pouch into the boiling water for five minutes. Then, carefully slice open the pouch, pour into a bowl (or, if in the woods, you could eat right out of the pouch) and enjoy!

Personally, I found the Kashmir Spinach to be a bit on the light side (I had it for dinner). Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but if I was eating this out in the woods after a day of hiking, it might leave me hungry. What would've made this dish much better would've been a big hunk of bread for dipping into the spinach, since it had a soupy texture to it.

The Peas Paneer was more filling. I don't think I cooked the rice correctly though. The peas and rice were in two separate pouches, and when I dropped both of them into the pot, the rice pouch was sticking out of the water more than the peas. I think this is why the rice was a little hard... half the package seemed to feel softer. But, with the peas and sauce over it, it really wasn't a big deal.

The packaging claims that technically, you can eat the contents of these meals without heating them up. This would make the Tasty Bite meals ideal for vegetarians to have on hand in case of a power outage or an emergency situation/emergency stash of food.

Overall, a really cool find! I will definitely be buying these meals for camping, etc. Can't wait to try the vegan versions. Meijer had a decent selection, so if you have a store near you, check them out!

Using leftovers before they go bad...

After such a well-thought out dinner last night, I discovered I had some leftover food in my fridge that was going to go bad if I didn't use it.

So, I sauteed some onion, green pepper and mushroom till soft. Added some seasoning and sunflower seeds. Finally, some rice and black beans leftover from the wonderful taco ring recipe yesterday. Topped it all off with a bit of soy cheese and mmmm. Yum! Easy and quick dinner for one! :)

Catching up: Lemony Asparagus Pasta

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been busy since getting back from Michigan's lovely U.P. I made this recipe a few days ago and am finally getting around to posting it.

Very easy and quick recipe. I chose this one in particular because my folks gave me and my sister A LOT of fresh asparagus that they got recently from a local farm. I hate wasting food, so I knew I needed a recipe where asparagus was the focal point, and this one was the winner because it seemed uber easy... and it was! The recipe called for whole wheat Penne pasta, but I used whole wheat Rotini because it was what I had on hand.

Five stars for ease of preparation, but I dunno... seemed like it was missing something to me. If I make this again, I may add in other fresh veggies, too, for variety. Really mix it up!