Sweet & Sour Soy Curls

Not too long ago I entered a giveway on Vegan Food Rocks blog and I won some Soy Curls.

Pretty much the best thing that has happened this month. They are awesome and now I am on a mission to find out where I can get them. They arrived pretty quick after she let me know I had won and also included some recipes for me to try. The first one I decided to use was the Sweet & Sour; Great idea, so great. I cannot get the taste out of my mouth/head....I can feel it in my bones. I couldn't find the recipe on the Butler website but it is pretty simple. I opted to use pineapple in liru of the sugar since I like to use natural sugars whenever possible and when is pineapple a bad idea? Never, really. I really enjoyed the texture of the product and the flavour is really dependant on what you season with, like cooking with tofu. Of course, I didn't take a picture, what was I thinking? This dish wasn't really pretty....I was in a hurry, had to get to work, blah blah blah. You need to take my word for it, or you can go read the Vegan Food Rocks blog post, she has pictures.

Sweet & Sour Soy Curls
serves 2

1/2 cup wild rice
1 cup soy curls
2 tbsps Braggs
2 tbsps nutritional yeast
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
3 tbsps crushed pineapple
salt & pepper
olive oil, for cooking

Get your rice cooking since it takes forever, or you could use whit eor brown rice for shorter cooking times.
Rehydrate the soy curls in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes. While those are soaking, heat a tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Throw in your chopped onion & peppers, season with salt & pepper, cook until translucent. Add the soy curls, Braggs, nutrional yeast and pineapple. Cover pan and cook in the flavour for about 10 minutes. I turned my heat up a bit so everything got nice and crispy on the edges. Serve over rice.

This was one of the easiest meals I have ever made and I think I just may make it again for dinner tonight! Enjoy :)

Mixed Berry-Apple Crumble

Almost two weeks ago, I picked up a bag of delicious little gala apples for $3. I ate one or two and the rest of them sat untouched in a plastic bag on my kitchen floor. Oops. By the time I remembered I had them, they were a little bruised, my cats were probably using them as toys. I was going to make apple pie but didn't feel like fiddling around making a crust so crumble/crisp was the way to go. I also had a giant bag of mixed berries that I thought would go really well so I decided to use them too! Apples, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries....yum! This dish is not diabetic friendly. I could have probably done with a littler less sugar but I have a crazy sweet tooth. If you like, you could omit half of the suagr and yield similar results. The recipe below is from vegweb.com, I added some nutmeg and a bit more cinnamon....I also misread the margarine amounts so that was freestyle. For some reason I read it as 1 tbsp which made no sense so naturally I added enough for the mixture to "crumble". As well, I used 5 small gala apples.

Mixed Berry-Apple Crumble
4 large cooking apples
2 cups of mixed berries (I used frozen mixed berries)
1 cup of rolled oats
1 1/2 cups white flour
2 cups vegan brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 - 2/3 cups vegan margarine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325'F (175' C). Peel, Core and slice the apples. Put the apples in a big bowl and mix in the berries. Mix one cup of sugar into the fruit along with a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg; mix. Place the fruit mixture into a 12 x 9 dish. Mix the oats, flour, remaining sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon in a large bowl. Add margarine, use your fingers to mix into oat mixture until it resembles a crumbly consistency. Pour evenly over fruit mixture. Pop in the pre-heated oven for 35 - 45 minutes. I checked mine at 35 and left it in for the remaining time. You want the top to be a nice golden brown and the edges will be bubbly.

Serves 8 or 3 ravenous roommates (with leftovers)
Preparation time: 10-15 mins to prep

Lemon Chick'n Scallopini wiht Steamed Asparagus & Garlicky Red Quinoa

Garden was on for super cheap at the grocery store, I decided to try the Chick'n Scallopini. I am a big fan of the Crispy Tenders as is my boyfriend, which is awesome because he is not vegan. Asparagus was also on sale, I had some red quinoa already and a giant bulb of elephant garlic. When I think chick'n filet dish, I want lemon and Italian spices which is just what I did. I found this recipe for lemon chick'n rub. Awesome. I tweaked with it a bit. Instead I did the zest of one lemon, 1 tbsp dried basil, 2 tbsp garlic salt, 1 tbsp Italian spice, and a bunch of fresh ground black pepper. I didn't have any vegetable broth to do the quinoa in, which is coincedentally what is brewing away in my kitchen right now, so I opted for a large chunk of elephant garlic and some spices in water. Turned out wonderfully. The asparagus was super easy to do, steam and serve. For the scallopini, I brush each side with olive oil, rubbed with the lemon mixture and sauteéd on each side for 2-3 minutes. A very simple, low fat dinner that is omni approved! Hope you enjoy as much as we did.

Pizza!

Something I find myself doing a lot is browsing vegan recipes. I think that is why I am hungry so often, I am always looking at food, I can't help myself. There are so many great blogs out there with pages and pages of fantastic vegan recipes. One of my favorites is Melo Meals, every single recipe I have tried is delicious, they are all low fat, most of them gluten free and super cheap. I just discovered she has started a recipe index!! Yes! Which led me to the chickpea flatbread. I got a great big bag of chickpea flour from a coworker a while ago to make pakoras and it never occured to me to do flatbread, thanks Mel! So now I have no excuse not to make the pizza! My fridge is full of awesome pizza ingredients at the moment; spinach, mushrooms, onions, elephant garlic,  mozzarella daiya...If only I still had basil, I would do an edamame pesto base instead of tomato sauce. Next time! Unfortunately I also did not have tomato paste, so tomato sauce it is...not as good as paste but works in a pinch. Here is my pizza creation!