Tag Archives: Vegetarian

Super Simple Vegan Sweet Potato Pie

The softer, orange-fleshed variety of sweet po...

I love desserts, but sometimes finding acceptable vegan substitutes for classic favorites can be difficult.  Imagine how thrilled I was to find this delicious sweet potato pie, 100% plant-based and with directions to make vegan pie crust from scratch!  Minimal processing involved:  all you need is a fork, a rolling-pin, some measuring tools and a food processor or blender.  It turns out dense and creamy, with a flakey, crispy crust.

Ingredients For Vegan Pie Crust:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (with extra for rolling)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup ICE COLD water (very important)
  • 3/4 cup solid vegetable shortening (like Crisco)

Making pie crust always leaves a little up to luck, but if you want some excellent Pro Tips on how to do it right, click here.

Combine all of the flour and salt into one bowl.  In a separate bowl, take about 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix it in with the cold water using your fork, until it looks like a collection of little flour pebbles.  In the remaining flour mixture, cut in the vegetable shortening, also using your fork, until it is crumbly and pebbly as well.  Add in the flour and water mixture and combine JUST until the dough holds itself together.  You can choose to chill the dough for a few hours before rolling, which really helps solidify the fats that became warm in mixing (let it sit on the counter for 20-30 mins after you take it out of the fridge).  Roll it using a rolling-pin on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness.  Roll once more to a 1/8 inch thick circle and gently transfer to an ungreased pie pan, tucking and trimming to fit.

Now time for the filling!

Ingredients for Pie Filling:

  • 1 (14 oz.) container of soft (silken) tofu
  • 1 (14 oz.) container of firm or extra firm tofu
  • 1 (24 oz.) can of sweet potatoes in syrup, drained
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Blend all of the ingredients together in a food processor or blender until smooth and free of lumps (I used a blender and needed a dash of soy milk to get it all started).  Pour into the pie shell and bake for one and a half hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  You’ll want to cover the exposed crust with strips of tin foil, removing them for the last half hour of cooking.  It’s a little tedious, but it’s worth it because then the crust turns out perfectly golden brown!

Do you have a favorite vegan recipe you want to share?  Don’t be shy–contact us!

Vegan and Vegetarian Friendly Travel Tips

Depending on where you go, vegan and vegetarian options can be pretty lackluster, especially in countries offering a meat-based diet.  What’s a wanderlusty vegan or vegetarian to do?  Follow these tips while you travel, and you’ll stick to your plant-based lifestyle with relative ease.

1.  Research, research, research!  The internet is a fabulous tool that has been connecting animal-free gourmands with their meatless heavens for a while now.  If you’re travelling in the U.S., just hop on Yelp and plug in “vegetarian restaurant” and see what pops up.  Romping internationally?  Happycow.net and Tripadvisor.com are easy to use and offer great suggestions.

2.  Stay Stocked.  There are bound to be moments—in airports, on trains, helplessly lost in the concrete jungle of Paris’s banlieues—when you’re nowhere near a veg-friendly restaurant, or even a grocery store!  Make sure you have emergency supplies of satisfying snacks like nuts, protein bars, etc.

3.  Connect.  Head to Meetup.com, which connects people based on interests, or Couchsurfing.com, which connects travelers to locals in their destinations, to connect with other vegetarians and vegans in the area.  If you feel weird about meeting up or staying with them, you could simply message for tips and recommendations.

4.  Use your dictionary.  Learn how to ask whether or not animal products are present in what you’re buying or ordering.  Make sure you’re able to recognize the names of ingredients you don’t want to eat on grocery labels too.  (Not every country will have a label designating whether or not something is vegan or vegetarian, so it’s best to learn the words for what you don’t want to consume.)

5.  Pack your own airline meal, or request the vegetarian option when you purchase your ticket.  Some airlines allow this at the booking stage, but not all.  If you don’t see the option, make sure you pack something to eat on the plane just in case the options aren’t completely friendly to your needs.

Finally, be brave!  Sticking to basics will keep you going easily while you’re discovering new places, but if you spy something kind of funky looking but are sure it’s animal-free, dive in!  You might have found a local staple to add to your diet.

Roasted Butternut Squash, Quinoa, and Cranberries

I loved butternut squash every time I’ve had it but I’ve never mastered cooking it myself. It’s funny shaped, hard, and I don’t have a really sharp knife. Every time I’ve tried to cut it up, I’ve gotten about half way through it before I sort of give up. I was at Costco the other day, and (score!) I found butternut squash already cut up in the refrigerated section so I brought it home.

In trying to figure out what to do with it, I stumbled upon this recipe from the Gluten Free Goddess. (Who is amazing. If you haven’t heard of her, you should definitely check out her blog.)

I essentially stole her recipe, but simplified it a little. She is a goddess, after all, and I’m just a simple slow runner. :-)

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 cup red quinoa
  • 1 Squash, cubed
  • 1 handful of dried cranberries
  • 1/2 red onion, diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced (I like garlic)
  • Olive oil
  • Sea salt & pepper
  • Garam masala powder
  • Ginger
  • Maple syrup

Here’s what you do:

  • Cook the quinoa in a rice cooker. If you don’t have one, get one! If you don’t want to get one, I suppose you can cook the quinoa on the stove, but I’ll make fun of you
  • Put the squash, onions, garlic, cranberries in a glass casserole dish
  • Drizzle with olive oil and a little bit of maple syrup (not too much or it will be too sweet)
  • Toss to coat
  • Sprinkle with ginger, garam masala, salt and pepper
  • Stick it in an oven that has been preheated to 375, bake until soft but not falling apart
  • Note: how long you let it bake depends on how small you cut the squash – mine took almost 40 minutes. I recommend pulling it out and re-tossing every 15 minutes so the top doesn’t get dry

Here’s what mine looked like before I put it in the oven:

Once the squash is the texture you want it, stir in the finished quinoa and pecans. Here’s what mine looked like:

I took it to a dinner party as a vege side and it was a hit! Enjoy!

Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Omelette

I got home from my run yesterday evening to find that someone (glaring in Jason’s direction) had eaten pretty much everything I had planned on having for dinner. This happens frequently as Jason works out as much or more as I do and he is blessed with an absolutely ridiculous metabolism. He eats about 3000 calories a day. Seriously.

Anyway, with my plan huevos rancheros ruined (no salsa, no eggs, only a drop of olive oil) I had to be a little creative. Here’s what I did find:

Ingredients:

  • One small sweet potato
  • 3/4 cup of a zucchini
  • 1/4 cup black beans
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1/2 cup All Whites egg whites
  • Goat cheese
  • Sea salt, pepper, and Old Bay
Instructions:

Put whatever olive oil is left and a little butter in a skillet and heat on medium high. Skin and slice the sweet potato. The smaller you slice, the faster it will cook. This is important if you just ran 5 miles and are starving.

Throw the potatoes into the heated pan with the olive oil and butter. Cook for approximately 5 minutes or until the potatoes are still just a tiny bit crunchy (almost done).

Toss in chopped garlic, chopped zucchini, and season with Old Bay, sea salt and pepper. Cook approximately two minutes. At this point, my veggie mixture was a little dry so I dumped on a tiny bit of the white wine I was drinking. It seemed more appropriate then water and healthier then more butter.
Add black beans to the pan. Poor egg white over mixture. Stir until the eggs are cooked. I put the finished mixture on a plate and sprinkled a hefty amount of goat cheese on top. This would also be delicious in a warm corn or flour tortilla. Enjoy!

Accidentally Delicious: Sweet Potato and Veggie Omelette

I got home from my run yesterday evening to find that someone (glaring in Jason’s direction) had eaten pretty much everything I had planned on having for dinner. This happens frequently as Jason works out as much or more as I do and he is blessed with an absolutely ridiculous metabolism. He eats about 3000 calories a day. Seriously.

Anyway, with my plan huevos rancheros ruined (no salsa, no eggs, only a drop of olive oil) I had to be a little creative. Here’s what I did find:

Ingredients:

  • One small sweet potato
  • 3/4 cup of a zucchini
  • 1/4 cup black beans
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1/2 cup All Whites egg whites
  • Goat cheese
  • Sea salt, pepper, and Old Bay

Instructions:

Put whatever olive oil is left and a little butter in a skillet and heat on medium high. Skin and slice the sweet potato. The smaller you slice, the faster it will cook. This is important if you just ran 5 miles and are starving. (I’m training for a half Ironman)

Throw the potatoes into the heated pan with the olive oil and butter. Cook for approximately 5 minutes or until the potatoes are still just a tiny bit crunchy (almost done).

Toss in chopped garlic, chopped zucchini, and season with Old Bay, sea salt and pepper. Cook approximately two minutes. At this point, my veggie mixture was a little dry so I dumped on a tiny bit of the white wine I was drinking. It seemed more appropriate then water and healthier then more butter.

Add black beans to the pan. Poor egg white over mixture. Stir until the eggs are cooked. I put the finished mixture on a plate and sprinkled a hefty amount of goat cheese on top. This would also be delicious in a warm corn or flour tortilla. Enjoy!

Quinoa with Roasted Veges

Last week, a friend emailed me the article “Winning Without Wheat” from the March 2010 issue of Men’s Health. In summary, the article is about the effects gluten has on digestion and endurance and how the Garmin Transitions team went gluten free for the Tour de France.

Always inspired by better digestion, and armed with a recipe from the Gluten Free Goddess, I decided to power my workouts a little differently this weekend. Instead of throwing some pasta in a bowl, dumping some sauce over it, making garlic bread and calling it dinner, I went a gluten free route - Quinoa.

Quinoa is a seed that comes from a grain-like crop closely related to beets and spinach. It is also one of the only plant based protein sources. Quinoa has a lot of fiber, magnesium and iron. When cooked, it has a fluffy texture similar to couscous and a nutty flavor.

Quinoa with Roasted Brussel Sprouts, Leeks and Slivered Almonds

First, go buy a rice cooker. It will greatly simplify your life and make you happy. Then dump in these ingredients:

  • 1 cup of quinoa
  • 2 cups of water
  • A dash of olive oil, and a tiny bit of sea salt
  • Your new amazing rice cooker will do the rest
In a glass casserole dish or roasting pan, combine the following:
  • 4 Tbs. Olive oil
  • 2 Tbs. Balsamic vinegar
  •  1 pound of brussels sprouts, quartered
  • 1 leek, wash trimmed and diced
  • 1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds (find them in the bulk food section)
  • 1/4  cup plump golden raisins
  • Sea salt to taste
  • 2-3 minced garlic cloves (less if you don’t like garlic as much as I do)
  • Note: the original recipe calls for dill, but I don’t really like dill, so I used parsley
Throw this all in an oven pre-heated to 400 degrees for about 25 minutes or until the brussels sprouts are browned a tiny bit. Toss once or twice.
I ate this for dinner… and for a snack later… but I could also see this working very well as a fantastic side dish next to some grilled salmon. Next time, I’m also planning on throwing in a little crumbled goat cheese. Or soy sauce. Oh the possibilities! Enjoy (and thanks Gluten Free Goddess, the original recipe is here).

Quinoa with Roasted Veges

Last week, a friend emailed me the article “Winning Without Wheat” from the March 2010 issue of Men’s Health. In summary, the article is about the effects gluten has on digestion and endurance and how the Garmin Transitions team went gluten free for the Tour de France.

Always inspired by better digestion, and armed with a recipe from the Gluten Free Goddess, I decided to power my workouts a little differently this weekend. Instead of throwing some pasta in a bowl, dumping some sauce over it, making garlic bread and calling it dinner, I went a gluten free route - Quinoa.

Quinoa is a seed that comes from a grain-like crop closely related to beets and spinach. It is also one of the only plant based protein sources. Quinoa has a lot of fiber, magnesium and iron. When cooked, it has a fluffy texture similar to couscous and a nutty flavor.

The yummy recipe for quinoa with roasted brussels sprouts, leeks and slivered almonds here.

Spinach and Kale Smoothie. You Heard Me.

The ninja and I attempted The Clean Program a couple of months ago. While we didn’t last very long on the cleanse, the one thing we took away was the morning smoothies. I love them. I don’t think there is any better way to start the day then with a refreshing and healthy dose of fruit and protein. Recently, a friend introduced me to the spinach and kale smoothie at Whole Foods. I thought it was going to become a staple afternoon refreshment until I saw the price. $8. For a smoothie. “Seriously?” I thought, “I bet I can make that at home.” Here’s what is delicious:

Ingredients (all to taste):

  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Almond butter
  • Cocoa powder
  • Milk – I usually use almond or coconut. Dark chocolate almond is especially decadent.
  • Frozen Fruit – Raspberries are my favorite because they add a tartness but I also use blueberries, blackberries, or mango. I always use frozen fruit because I like my smoothies to be very cold but don’t like using ice in the food processor.

Throw that all in a food processor and pulse a couple of times before blending until smooth. Dump that delicious smoothie in a pint glass and enjoy!

Vegetarian Chili

I was craving some serious comfort food on these last few cold nights and created this fantastic recipe for vegetarian chili. I’m sure it would have been even better in a Crock-Pot, but I certainly didn’t hear anyone complaining about it. (The ninja was sweet enough to handle the onions)

 

Ingredients:

  • 2 Morningstar Veggie Sausage Patties, chopped
  • 1 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 (15 ounce) cans dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 (15 ounce) can white kidney beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 (15 ounce) can corn
  • 1 (29 ounce) can diced tomatoes
  • 1 (12 fluid ounce) can tomato juice (I used left over diced tomatoes from Masala Channa and pureed them in a food processor)
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 3 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 2 bay leaves
  • salt and pepper to taste

First I sauteed the onions and garlic for a few minutes in a large pot with some olive oil. Then added all the other ingredients. Simmer for about an hour. Serve with grated cheddar cheese and warmed corn tortillas.