French Toast with Nutritional Yeast

There's no reason to give up delicious French toast for breakfast just because you're vegan.  I've been making this for years, and it's a Saturday morning favorite.

French Toast

Ingredients:

2 cups soy milk
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 Tbs. nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbs. cinnamon
Canola oil for frying
Several slices of thick bread - we use French bread, but you can use any thick-sliced bread you like

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the first six ingredients (soy milk through cinnamon).  Heat a tablespoon of canola oil in a large pan over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, dredge a slice of bread at a time into the batter mixture and lay in the pan.  Cook for three minutes on one side and two to three minutes on the other side.  Repeat with other bread slices and oil, as necessary.  Should make twelve to fifteen pieces of French toast.  Serve with your favorite syrup.  My recipe for homemade maple syrup is coming!  Serves five hungry vegans. 

Red Potatoes Two Super Easy Ways

Boiled and Fried, yup. This is a post at which most readers would scratch their heads and wonder what's up. So, why am I doing a post on boiled and fried red potatoes? Because I am a conscientious blogger, and if there's even one reader who has never known the succulence of a boiled red potato or the crispy delight of a fried red potato, then I am duty-bound to introduce them to these culinary wonders. Not much recipe writing here, just some guidance, and a tip on hot sauce. Read away, dear ones!

Freshly boiled red potatoes. Large ones cut in half, small ones keep whole. Boil for fifteen minutes, until fork tender.

Here are some boiled red potatoes served with a fruit salad and sauteed veggies. The potatoes are topped with vegan margarine, salt and pepper, hot sauce, and sometimes nutritional yeast flakes, vegan sour cream and garlic powder.

This is one of my family's favorite hot sauces, well, really G's and mine. It's too hot for the little blessings. We call it rooster sauce in our home and always have. See the rooster pic? When I first started seeing the term "sriracha sauce" online, I had to check our rooster sauce to see if it was the same thing, and it was. So, on a previous blog, I mentioned it in its proper name, but it felt weird. Then, at home, I asked for the sriracha sauce to be passed to me, and G literally did not know what I was talking about! Me and my snooty blogger self, how could I? So, from now on, I am referring to this as rooster sauce on my blog - I've got to have sanity between my two worlds. If you forget what rooster sauce is, I'll remind you. Delicious, by the way.

Fried red potatoes. They look a lot like boiled red potatoes, I know, but they are different, I promise. My favorite way to make these is to make an overabundance of the boiled version (see overflowing bowl above). Then, the next day for breakfast or lunch, cut up said leftover boiled ones, and fry them in either olive oil or canola oil. You don't have to fry them for very long to get them a tad crispy because they've been pre-boiled, see? Top with salt and pepper, rooster sauce, and sometimes, even ketchup. So good.

That's it, folks. Hope you liked my little tour of one of my favorite spuds. Simple stuff, but good. And both of these dishes can definitely feed five hungry vegans.

Baked Monster Zucchini

We are growing zucchini for the first time this year in our garden. I've heard stories about mass quantities of zukes and how big they get. But, I figured people just weren't harvesting them, and that's how they got overgrown. Oh, how wrong I was! We will go out one day and see a tiny zuke, and think, okay in a couple of days it'll be ready to harvest. But then the zucchini fairy comes while we're all asleep and sprinkles special tnt powder on it to make it explode into a giant zuke the very next day! We've seen this time and again, so watch out for that sneaky fairy. So, one day we got this especially humongous zucchini, a monster if you will, that actually hung down to the ground. I thought it would be put to good use by baking it. I came up with my very own recipe, and I'm very proud of it, I might say! For the stuffing and for the cheesy sauce, I tried to think of good flavors, and I think it came out good enough to share with you. Now, I must confess, my children are regular kids, vegan or not, and they were not too thrilled with seeing a giant stuffed zucchini on the table as their dinner. However, they did like the stuffing and the sauce, so I got a passing grade there. One thing about super big zukes is their skin has toughened. I might recommend peeling your monster zucchini after washing it, and that might make for a more tender dish. Anyways, enjoy the pics and the recipe below!

Baked Monster Zucchini

JK, 3 y.o., trying to hang on to the monster zucchini in the garden. It was very heavy for him, but my super hero managed to do it for Mommy.

What the scooped out zucchini looks like. These are on a cookie sheet and completely take up all the room!

The stuffing smashed in the hollows and topped with the cheesy sauce.

With the red sauce right before being popped into the oven.

A hearty slice of Baked Monster Zucchini with some more cheesy sauce drizzled on top, with a simple pasta dish on the side with olive oil, garlic and parsley. Mm-mmm.

Baked Monster Zucchini
Ingredients:

1 super large, monster zucchini
Olive oil spray

Tofu Stuffing:

3 pkgs. extra firm tofu, frozen the night before and completely thawed
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 Tbs. chili powder
1 Tbs. dried basil
1 tsp. onion powder
1 Tbs. garlic powder

Cheesy Sauce:

2 and 1/2 cups of water
2 Tbs. corn starch
1/2 cup of nutritional yeast
1/8 cup of soy sauce
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. garlic powder

1 28oz. jar of Classico Spicy Red Pepper Sauce

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and trim the zucchini. Slice down the middle lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds, being careful to leave the zucchini flesh in place on either end. This will serve as a barrier for the stuffing mixture. Lightly spray a large cookie sheet with olive oil and place the zucchini halves on it.

For the stuffing: Take the tofu out of their packages and press with your hands all the water out of them. This will be fairly easy to do once they're thawed. It doesn't matter if you squeeze them, since they will be mashed anyways. Place in a medium bowl with the rest of the stuffing ingredients and mash with a potato masher until thoroughly mixed. Take a spoon and fill the zucchini halves with the stuffing. All three packages will fit into one large zuke. I had to take my fingers and really mash it in, but it all fit, and you'll appreciate all that good stuffing.

For the cheesy sauce: In a medium pot, whisk together the water and corn starch. Turn heat onto medium and add the rest of the cheesy ingredients. Whisk frequently, until sauce comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium low and whisk constantly for two minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. Drizzle half of the cheesy sauce over the zukes, and leave the other half for the table.

Pour the jar of Classico sauce over the zucchini halves. Bake for one hour. The smells will ignite your taste buds! Let the zucchini rest on the stove for about five minutes. This will give you time to reheat the rest of the cheesy sauce. Transfer the Baked Monster Zucchini to a serving platter to make a nice presentation. Serve with a simple pasta dish. Feeds five hungry vegans for a few meals.

Pintos with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

So, this dish is a little different because there's several things for which to include recipes. The reason is because I have a large list of menu ideas taped to the inside of my kitchen cupboard that I refer to constantly. These are dishes that I've created or modified, and instead of wondering what to make every night, I make a weekly menu from it, along with a new recipe or two. Well, this dish is one of our basics that we have frequently. My husband introduced me to dried beans; I had no idea they existed before him. And for years he put up with my canned beans. Not only that, but I would drain whatever liquid was in the pot before serving them to him. So, for two or three years he ate dry canned beans without complaint. Then one day, he asked in frustration, "Why do you drain the beans?" I was surprised and thought about it and said, "Because my mom did." That's when he took me under his Southern tutelage, showed me, to my astonishment, bags of beans and instructed me to not drain them. Instead, a natural gravy would form from the long, slow process of cooking the beans. The longer the better because then he doesn't have to bother to chew, which he finds overrated and unnecessary if the food is cooked properly. Have I mentioned he's high maintenance? There's so much I could tell! Anyhow, he says this natural bean gravy hits a spot in his tummy so sweetly that reminds him of his childhood where his family, with nine other siblings, ate beans every night of the week. So, now we have beans all the time, and I throw along mashed potatoes and gravy. The only other acceptable potato subsitution would be fried, and then he likes it cut a certain way, and then...oh well, you get the idea. After that, we add any steamed veggie we have handy. So, let me show you our easy, basic way to make our staple meal. Hope you like it!

Pintos with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Ingredients:

Beans:

1 pound of dried pinto beans
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 Tbs. garlic powder
1 box of vegetable broth
Water to cover

Mashed Potatoes:

10 russet potatoes
1 stick of vegan margarine
1 cup of soy milk
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 Tbs. garlic powder

Gravy:

1/4 cup vegan margarine
3 Tbs. flour
3 cups of vegetable broth
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. nutritional yeast flakes
A few shakes of liquid smoke
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Directions:

For the beans: Our family eats beans so frequently that we are not bothered by gas issues. If you are, I would suggest soaking them overnight first, then draining them. For us, I put them in a medium pot and sort them for grit. Pour water to cover about one inch over the beans and bring to a boil. Let boil for five minutes, then drain and rinse thoroughly. Pour the beans back in the pot along with the box of broth and water to cover again. Cook on medium heat for two hours, stirring and adding water as necessary. Lower the heat to medium low, add the spices and cook for another hour. Your beans should be nice and tender, with water about a half an inch above the beans when done.

For the mashed potatoes: Peel the potatoes and cut into large chunks. Put in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and let boil for fifteen minutes. Drain (you can save the potato water for soup, if you wish) and put the potatoes back in the pot off the burner. Add the margarine and mash with a potato masher. Add the milk, and more if necessary, to get a creamy mixture. Add the spices and mash again until there are no chunks. No extra margarine is added at the table, just a few shakes of salt and pepper. My oldest blessing shuns the gravy and just adds white vinegar - yuck!

For the gravy: Heat the margarine over medium heat in a small pot. When melted, add the flour and whisk. Slowly add the broth while whisking. Add the rest of the ingredients and continue to whisk over medium high heat. When it begins to boil, turn down heat to low and whisk for one more minute. This will thicken up even more the next day.

Add whatever vegetable or salad you like and enjoy this simple, budget-friendly meal that feeds a large family with enough for leftovers. Feeds five hungry vegans for a couple of days.

Pasta with a Kick

This is a simple recipe that I created from what was on hand once, and I've enjoyed making it since then because it's so tasty. You only need three ingredients, so that's even better!



Pasta with a Kick
Ingredients:

1 lb. of your favorite pasta (we used radiatori)
2 cups of fresh pico de gallo (we use the kind with no liquid)
1/4 cup of nutritional yeast flakes

Directions:

Prepare pasta according to package directions, and drain. Pour into a large serving bowl and stir in the pico de gallo and nutritional yeast flakes. Mix thoroughly to coat. This is surprisingly tasty, trust me. You can add more or less flakes to suit your taste. I have found adding that 1/2 cup, though, makes the dish sticky, so I wouldn't recommend going to that amount. Feeds five hungry vegans. Enjoy!