Cream of Brocolli Soup!

This is by far the best version of vegan cream of brocolli soup that I have made so far, I loved it! I didn’t follow a recipe when making this, I made it up so all of the measurements are approximate…You can tweak to your liking. I like to think of this as a super awesome guideline rather than an actual recipe!

• 1 giant head of brocolli, thick bottom stems removed
• 1/2 medium yellow onion
• 1-2 tbsps olive oil
• 1 23oz Unsweetened Mimicreme
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• salt, to taste
• cracked black pepper to taste
• 1/2 pkg Daiya cheddar shreds

Heat olive oil in large stockpot, over medium-high heat. Pulse onion in food processor for a minute or two, you want nice tiny pieces. Remove onion & toss in stockpot. Now pulse the brocolli for about a minute, you will have mostly small pieces but some nicer large chunks are okay too. Toss that in the stockpot and season with a generous pinch of salt & pepper. Stir & put a lid on it. Let the veggies soften, this will take about 5 minutes. Now add you vegetable broth, stir and put the lid back on, wait another 5 minutes or so. The brocolli should be a nice bright green & should be tender but not soft & mushy. Add the Mimicreme, turmeric, garlic salt and stir. Let the soup come to a soft boil and turn the heat to low-medium. Taste & add any additional spices. I found that even the unsweetened Mimicreme is a tad on the sweet side so I added quite a bit of salt & pepper, keeping in mind that the Daiya will add a bit of saltiness as well. Once the soup has simmered for about 15 minutes or so, it is probably good to go. Toss in your Daiya shreds, stir and let them melt right in (takes about 5 mins). Your soup is now ready to serve…Let it cool first though so you don’t burn your tongue! This soup will keep for 5 days in the fridge. I didn’t freeze mine but I miagine it would be okay.

Galaxy Nutritional Foods Cream Cheese Review!

Galaxy Nutritional Foods has an awesome variety of delicious, vegan, cheese alternatives. With both soy & rice based cheeses, they have an option for everyone. Their newest product is the Vegan Cream Cheese, which comes in two flavors, Classic Plain and Chive & Garlic. Both are dairy, cholesterol and gluten free as well as Kosher certified.

Both flavors are nice and rich, with a smooth, creamy texture. Originally I had planned on making a cheesecake but decided instead, I wanted to make a citrus infused, cream cheese glaze for some carrot cake cupcakes! I used the Carrot Cake recipe from Vegetarian Times February 2009 issue and then my own spin on the VCTOTW Cream Cheese Frosting.

I am very pleased with this cream cheese, it worked out perfectly. I have a couple ideas for the Chive & Garlic flavour but would love to hear suggestions on what you guys would like to see me make next!!!\

Until next time,
                            xoxoxo  <3 Momo  

Giveaway at Vegan Planet Blogspot!!!

Be sure to check out the Vegan Planet giveaway!!!

Spiced Steel Cut Oats with Berries

I have never been a big fan of oatmeal. I like food with a bit more texture so when I tried steel cut oats, I was pleasantly surprised! They are a little chewier than traditional oatmeal, I like that they don't turn to mush. They are pretty simple to make, takes a little more time than regular oatmeal, but that gave me a chance to putter around the kitchen and get other things done like emptying the dishwasher and switching my laundry. You can cut down the time by prepping the oats the night before. Pour boiling water over oats and leave overnight...then in the morning you can cook them for about 10 minutes and season how you like! I am big on pumpkin pie spice (ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg & allspice) so that is what I used for mine. You can add any spices you like.

Spiced Steel Cut Oats with Berries:
serves 1

1/2 cup steel cut oats
1 1/2 cups water
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1 tsp sugar
2 tsps coconut flour
1/4 cup almond milk
1/4 cup berries

Over medium heat, bring water & oats to a boil, stirring and scraping the bottom of any sticking oats. Turn heat down a bit and let simmer until it thickens, approx 20 mins. At this point I added the ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, sugar & coconut flour. Remove from heat, top with berries & soymilk. Enjoy!
* If you like your oats a little softer, you can add an extra 1/2 cup of water to start and cook a little longer.

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!

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

I got the recipe from Vegetarian Times. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10896 . I omitted the cheese, added corn, veggie ground round and used fresh spinach. I also topped them with spelt breadcrumbs and used double the garlic that the recipe called for. I think I will make these again but next time I will add more quinoa, they were pretty mpist. They are great served with a vegan cheesy sauce!

Bottle Drive for Justin!

15 year old Justin was diagnosed on Christmas Eve with a rare form of Cancer. We are collecting bottles to raise money for the family's costs of traveling, accommodation, food etc to and from Vancouver while Justin undergoes Chemo and radiation treatment!


Saturday Jaunary 8th
439 Davida - right near Tillicum Mall
10 am - 3 pm

 Thank you for the support!