Vegetable Salad

When I was a kid, my mom often put me in charge of making the family salad for the dinner table.  Everyone seemed to appreciate how many goodies I added to the iceberg lettuce that was always the base for our salads.  As I grew older, my penchant for goodie-filled salads sustained itself, and I found myself always digging around for the extra yummies I put in.  One day it dawned on me what I was doing, and I thought: why don't I just make a salad from the goodies themselves?  It was so obvious!  So, the Vegetable Salad was born, and it has enjoyed a showing quite often.  Of course you can use any combo of goodies you like; these are just the ones I used for this particular salad.  Free your inner goodie-lover!

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients:

1 can of green beans, drained
6 mushrooms, thickly sliced
2 tomatoes, wedged
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
3 green onions, sliced
1 carrot, grated
1/2 cup sliced roasted red bell peppers (jarred)
2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced
Your favorite dressing or lemon juice

Directions:

Dump all ingredients, except the dressing, in a large serving bowl and toss well.  Serve with your dressing.  Enjoy the goodies.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

Open-Faced Broiled Tomato and Cheese Sandwich

This was another sandwich born of opportunity, necessity and availability.  Hungry for lunch one day, I poked around, pulled out some simple ingredients and broiled a sandwich that we all appreciated.  Hope you do too, and enjoy it for dinner too sometimes.

Open-Faced Broiled Tomato and Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients:

Several thick slices of bread - I used my Basic White Bread  
Vegenaise or Nayonnaise
2 or 3 fresh, ripe tomatoes, peeled if desired, sliced thickly
Salt and pepper to taste
At least 1 cup of Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet cheese, Mozzarella style, finely shredded

Directions:

Place oven rack second from top and heat the top broiler.  On each slice of bread, spread the vegenaise (or nayonnaise) a little more thickly than usual.  Top with three to five slices of tomato.  Salt and pepper the tomatoes to your taste.  Top with a sprinkling of cheese.  Place all the slices on a cookie sheet, and broil for three or four minutes, until the cheese melts.  Serve immediately.  Feeds five hungry vegans.  Perfect for that nagging hunger question.

Fresh Summer Fruit Salad

We make a lot of fruit salads, and the summer seems to offer such a wonderful variety of natural sugary goodness.  This is an example of one of the salads I made a few weeks back, when the fruit was still at its most flavorful.  I added a bit of coconut and raisins for some extra variety.  I served this with some of my homemade rolls .  It makes for a nice lunch or a light dinner. 

Fresh Summer Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1/4 of a large watermelon, approximately four cups, chopped
1 cantaloupe, seeded, cut away from rind and chopped
2 mangoes, diced   * See tip below on how to prepare a mango
2 bananas, sliced
1 nectarine, chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 small snack box of raisins, approximately 1/4 cup

Directions:

Put all ingredients in a large bowl.  Gently toss together and serve immediately.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

* There are two ways that I have found the easiest to get at the succulent mango.  One is to peel the ripe fruit with a paring knife.  Once you get the peel going, it is easy to just grasp ahold with your fingers and pull it off the fruit.  Once the fruit is peeled, you can take a larger knife and slice the two wide halves of the mango away from the fibrous pit inside.  Then you can go around the edges and slice away any large chunks of mango still attached to the pit.  Anything left over but too small to cut off, can munched on directly.  Just wash your hands afterwards.  The second way is to leave the peel on and slice away the wide halves like above.  With the fruit still in the detached peel, you take your knife and carve cubes into the mango.  Then, laying the peel flat, carefully slice under the mango cubes, releasing them from the peel.  For the remainder of the mango still attached to the pit, you may do the same or peel and cut away as in the first option.  One of these choices should appeal to you more than the other.  Either way, don't let the fact that you have to work a little harder deter you from getting at a fresh mango.  They are worth it!

Dark Chocolate Mini Cupcakes with Frosting

For this recipe, I simply veganized Hershey's chocolate cake recipe and turned it into scrumptious mini cupcakes.  Yummers!  Here's the easy recipe, along with their veganized frosting.

Dark Chocolate Mini Cupcakes with Frosting

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:
Non-stick spray
A little flour for dusting
2 cups vegan or raw sugar
1 and 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup dark cocoa
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. EnerG Egg Replacer
4 Tbs. water
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Frosting:
1/2 cup vegan margarine
2/3 cup dark cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup soy milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
For the cupcakes: Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray the mini cupcake wells with non-stick spray.  Sprinkle a little flour in each well and swoosh around to cover the spray.  Pat out the extra flour into your sink.  In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  In a mug, whisk together the egg replacer and the water.  Pour that mixture and the soy milk, oil, and vanilla extract into the large bowl with the dry ingredients.  Mix with an electric blender on medium speed for two minutes.  Pour in the boiling water and mix on low, until the water is blended in.  Batter will be thinner than you might expect, but it's okay.  Fill each cupcake well about 3/4 full.  Bake for 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into one of the middle cupcakes comes out clean.  Cool in pan on a cooling rack for ten minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan and put directly on rack to finish cooling.  Repeat with the rest of the batter.  Makes six dozen cupcakes!

For the frosting: Melt the margarine either in the microwave or on the stove top.  Put melted margarine in a medium mixing bowl.  Whisk the cocoa into the margarine.  Alternate adding the powdered sugar and the soy milk into the cocoa mixture, mixing on medium low speed with an electric blender.  Add vanilla and beat for at least two minutes on medium speed, until the frosting has a creamy consistency.  Spoon by dollops onto cooled cupcakes.  Eat and enjoy.  Feeds five hungry vegans for several desserts.

Black Bean Mole' over Coconut Couscous

I cannot take the credit for the creativity of this dish.  I got this out of a newspaper clipping several years ago.  All I've done is veganize the toppings and bring out larger quantities of them, adjust some of the ingredients, give directions on how to toast the coconut, and make the directions in more my style, with slight changes.  But, my family, all of them (gasp!), loves this dish, and it's so fun and different, that I just had to share.

Black Bean Mole' over Coconut Couscous

Ingredients:

Couscous:
1 cup uncooked couscous
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mole':
1 Tbs. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 - 15 oz. cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 - 16 oz. jar of mild or medium salsa
1 and 1/2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

Toppings:
1 pkg. Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet cheese, Monterey Jack style, finely shredded
1 container of vegan sour cream
6 green onions, sliced
2 tomatoes, diced - we used a combination of red and yellow tomatoes

Directions:

For the couscous: Prepare the couscous according to package directions.  Set aside in a covered pot.  While the couscous is being prepared, take a small pot and heat it over medium heat.  Add the coconut and cinnamon and stir.  Continue to stir until the coconut begins to brown, or toasts.  It should emit a nice fragrance, not a burned one.  Once toasted, stir into the couscous and recover.

For the mole': Heat oil in a medium pot over medium heat.  Add the garlic and cook for less than a minute, until it releases its wonderful aroma.  Do not over cook - garlic is quick to burn.  Add the rest of the mole' ingredients and stir well.  Lower the heat to medium low and cook for another five minutes, or so, until all is heated through.  
Serve mole' over couscous and load up the toppings.  So, so good! Feeds five hungry vegans.

Liebster Blog Award

A thank you goes out to Farrah at Carrot Top Vegan who bestowed the lovely Liebster award on me.  I'm not really sure who the original Liebster is, but I'm sure they are a very intriguing person.  So, this award needs to passed on to five bloggers who have less than 200 followers and who show their support during MOFO.  So, I thought I had better get on this, instead of procrastinating past October!

The amazing, stupendous bloggers that I have chosen are...(drum roll, please!):

1.  Maud at Food Feud

2.  Carissa at Coffee and Sunshine

3.  Millie at Nuestra Cena-American & Latin Vegan Cuisine

4.  Molly at Vegan Flower

5.  Jessica at Veggie Cookie

Be sure to check out these wonderful blogs, including Farrah's, and if you feel inclined, add yourself as a follower!

Zukes with Anaheim Peppers and Garlic

So, if you read my previous post, you will remember that I had a side dish that I really liked.  Here is basically my lunch the next day, an exact replica of the dinner the night before.  I think you'll really like the zucchini dish that I made to go with my Radical Rice Salad.  I've made it again since the first time I enjoyed it.  What's nice about Anaheim peppers is that they're just slightly hotter than bell peppers, so they can suit taste buds that can't tolerate heat, but for those heat-lovin' people that are in the same family as the former, it gives them a little pepper variety beyond the classic bell.

Zukes with Anaheim Peppers and Garlic

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil
2 Anaheim peppers, ends trimmed and sliced in rings - you can scoop out the seeds with a spoon and rinse the rest out, or leave a few seeds in for heat, like I do
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
6 medium or 4 large zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat oil in a large pan.  Add the garlic and peppers and cook for one minute over medium heat.  Add the zucchini and cook for five to ten minutes longer, until the zucchini is fork-tender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve with Radical Rice Salad, above, or another hearty grain dish.  Feeds five hungry vegans.

Radical Rice Salad

I like to jazz up different ways to make salads, so they're not boring.  This is one way to do that, that I make several times a year.  The more goodies tossed in this particular salad, the better, in my opinion!  I threw together a veggie dish on the side that tasted way better than I anticipated, so I will post that easy recipe next.  Enjoy!

Radical Rice Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup of uncooked brown rice, prepared according to package directions
3 cups fresh veggies - we used: broccoli florets, chopped small; carrot, grated; green onions, sliced; tomato, chopped
1 small can sliced black olives, drained
1/2 can quartered artichoke hearts in water
1/2 can garbanzos, drained
1/2 cup of your favorite salad dressing - I used a tangy French dressing
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Directions:

Once rice is cooked, add it and all the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl and mix well.  Best served chilled but can be served at room temperature in a pinch.  If chilling, use non-breakable bowl before putting in refrigerator.  Stir before serving.  Serve with a side of sauteed veggies.  Feeds five hungry vegans well. 

Lentils with Tomatoes and Veggies

This is such a simple, rustic dish, perfect for the coming cold days, that I make often.  It's versatile, and you can use up veggies that are dwindling in your produce bins.  Served with a side of pasta, this makes a complete meal.

Lentils with Tomatoes and Veggies

Ingredients:

1 lb. lentils, picked through for grit
Enough water to cover lentils by one inch
3 cups of veggies: we used broccoli stalks and florets and fresh green beans
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 and 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 large tomato, diced

Directions:

Cook lentils in water in a large pot over medium heat for about 45 minutes, until the lentils are tender.  Add more water, if necessary, to keep the lentils from drying out.  Add the veggies and seasonings and cook another ten minutes.  Limit adding water at this point because you are not trying to make soup, but you don't want it to be bone dry either.  Add the tomato and turn off the heat.  Serve with a side of pasta, and you've got a tasty meal!  Feeds five hungry vegans.