Decadent Easy Breakfasts

I really like breakfast. The only issue is, I can't have what I really crave, buttered toast with Jam.

SO! I just find other really good things to eat.
Recently I've had my first bowl of cereal in a year. A YEAR! Can you believe that?!
Changing to a dairy free life made things a little challenging, but a year later, here I am, with a gallon of Almond Milk in my fridge and cereal in my pantry!

here is a bowl of corn flakes (unsweet) with classic almond milk, one chopped banana, some almond slices and a little but of brown sugar :)

On another note breakfast can also be exceedingly DECADENT. 

I usually eat smoothies for breakfast, but with a lack of fresh bananas I used my frozen ones. Half a cup of frozen banana slices, half a cup of frozen mixed fruit (strawberries, pineapple, peach...) some almond milk and a blender. This didn't exactly make a smoothie, more of a ... sorbet type thing. So I improvised and added 2 tbsp vegan mini chocolat chips, 2 tbsp sliced almonds and 2 tbsp crushes walnuts.

Yes I did say decanted. More like an early breakfast ice cream but it was tasty :)

Yummy Tasty Vegan "Meat Loaf"

Yes I know the title lies a little. This is definitely NOT a meat loaf. It's more like a veggie loaf. It is really tasty though! And easy to eat warm or cold!

Here it goes!

These are the ingredients:

Loaf

1 Cup dry lentils

egg replacer for three eggs

Coconut oil (preferred)  or extra virgin olive oil for sautéing vegetables 

3 garlic cloves or more

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, diced

3/4 cup oats

1/2 cup oat flour or finely ground oats

thyme, dry or fresh minced

1 tsp cumin

cracked pepper and salt

Glaze

3 tbsp organic ketchup

1tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp pure maple syrup

I also made a cauliflower potato mash on the side using white cauliflower and red potatoes. Just cooking all of that in a pot until mushy and mixing in some almond oil to make it smooth. 

Here it goes!
Rinse lentils, bring to a boil 2 1/2 cups water with the cup of dryer rinsed lentils. When boiling, bring to a simmer and cover for 35 minutes. Getting mushy is perfectly fine since we are going to ground 3/4 of the mixture later. When the 35 minutes are done, uncover and set aside.

Set oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare the egg replacer as it says on box, for three eggs. If no egg replacer you can use 3 tbsp flaxseed meal and 1/3 cup water. Setting aside for 10 minutes in fridge. These are both used as binders.

Cut chop and mince all the vegetables, onions, garlic and extra herbs you feel like putting into the loaf.
Saute all of them, I usually heat up my coconut oil and saute my onion and garlic first, then add the bell pepper, celery and carrot. When those are nicely sautéed I add all the fresh herbs for just a little bit to up their flavor.
Use a Submersion Blender and blend about 3/4 of the lentils.

Combine the vegetable mixture with the lentils, oats, oat flower, egg or flax and mix well.
Taste and adjust the salt and pepper needs.
Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and press the mixture well into it.

Prepare the glaze by adding all three ingredients together, and spoon or brush it onto the top of the loaf.

Put in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool before slicing (I didn't) or it will fall apart a little.

Enjoy! Everyday of the week, hot or cold, in a sandwich, with ketchup or apple sauce!

I made a side salade with apples, endives carrots and Kale with a blend of seeds (Chia Hemp and sesame)

Oven baked Cauliflower!

Vegans all over!
Want a really good really easy very pretty recipe? Well here it is!

THE oven roasted vegan Cauliflower!

You need: 

One Organic Cauliflower

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Fresh herbs - oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary...

sesame seeds (if you have some)

Dijon mustard

Mix equal parts of the olive oil and balsamic, add mustard and herbs to taste.

Cut the bottom off the Cauliflower for it to stand on it's own. Spoon or paint the mixture on it, make sure to get all the crevices. Freshly grind salt and pepper everywhere.

Heat over to 400 degrees and put in the cauliflower for 30 to 40 minutes. 

ENJOY!

Vegan Curry!

Curry! Who doesn't love Curry!
Here is my vegan recipe for curry!


Let's start with the ingredients!

2 cans of coconut milk

blend of red and yellow potatoes

1 can baby corn 

1 grated carrot

one white onion

3 cloves garlic

fresh ginger (as much as you like)

chives (liberal amount)

2 cups white rice

1 can of red curry (put as much as you desire, it's spicy!)
cumin and other spices you think would be good

This will make a curry for probably 5 to 6 servings, with possible extra rice. Feel free to add any other ingredient you want! such as :

bamboo shoots

celery

peanuts

zucchini

squash

...

really any kind of vegetable you love!

I prepared all of my ingredients before hand. Finally chopped my chives and onions, grated my ginger and carrots, cut my potatoes and baby corn and minced my garlic!

Cook the rice and save for later. 

I then started cooking the potatoes in a large pot. On the side I brought my cans of coconut milk to a simmer then added the curry paste. I taste tested every time and added more curry if I thought it needed more flavor. 

When the potatoes were almost done, I transferred them to the simmering curry and added all the ingredients except the carrots. I keep those for last :)

Slowly simmer the curry for as long as you'd like. If you want it soupy (I like it that way) cook everything through and serve, or you can cook it a lot longer and have the curry reduce. It will get spicier though! Add the grated carrots last minute to just warm them up. If you cook them too long they lose their flavor!

Serve on a plate or in a bowl with a rice mountain, curry sauce all around it and large amounts of vegetables!!

I also made sweet and sticky mango rice as desert but that will be another recipe! Here's a sneak peak!

Vegan gluten free chocolat chip banana bread!

I don't bake very often. It's just SO MUCH HARDER than cooking! I respect anyone who can successfully bake a vegan anything! HAHA

Here is a vegan chocolat chip banana bread I ... invented! 

It started out as a gluten free shortcake base that I modified! 

Here are the ingredients!

1 cup gluten free all purpose flour, or more of too liquid

1 cup oat flour

2 1/2 baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 organic sugar

1/2 cup coconut oil

3 tsp vanilla

2 mashed bananas

1 cup almond milk

as many chocolat chips as wanted!! 

Add everything into a bowl (except chocolat) and beat with an electric mixer. 

Pour into a greased baking dish, and cook on 350 degrees for an hour to an hour and a half.

BON APPETIT! 

I didn't cook it quite long enough but YUM!! It was so good!!!

First Vegan dish!

I went all out with excitement for my first vegan dish! TOFU!

well I will say it was an experience and even though it went quite well I'm not positive I will be cooking it again. Just because I'm not so fond of soy generally.

Alright here is what I made!

A pan seared marinated tofu with rice pasta and stir-fry.

before marinating the tofu I took it out and drained it. In order to do that I set the two blocs on paper towels onto a cutting board, placed another board over that and used a cast iron pan in order to drain some of the water out of the tofu. The longer you do this the firmer it gets. I did it for about an hour. If ever I make tofu again I will probably go with an over 4 hour session.

I then cut and marinated the tofu for about an hour in a ziplock bag with red spicy peppers, soy sauce and other tasty things I thought would go well in the dish!

I then put the marinade and tofu in a pan a started searing it.

While doing this I took my frozen stir-fry and started cooking it. adding some of the marinade sauce for flavor. 

A large amount of bean sprouts and sesame seeds were added to the tofu pan.

I then combined the rice noodles (cooked) with the stir-fry.

and VOILA! combine all of it in a plate with your favorite sweet and sour sauce to dip your tofu in and you have made a simple yet delicious tofu dish!

Recommendations!!
cut your tofu pieces in small, I mean very small cubes. Mine were too big and the marinade wasn't able to be absorbed throughout. You should also pierce the tofu throughout in order to get some sauce in there!

Protein still coming around with a vegan diet?

I know ... Vegan. Big step right? How much protein am I getting if I don't eat meat? How about calcium without dairy? and all the other things I won't be getting ?!

Well surprise surprise! I'm actually fine! 

I'm still learning of course but I think I've got a small grasp on things. I'm not going to explain everything but I will link some awesome articles that do that :) I just don't feel like an expert enough yet to be able to tell you all that needs to be said.

Let's start off with protein.

Most people ask if vegans and even vegetarians get enough protein. Well, yeah. I think I do.
Our society is based on a high protein intake, but we don't need as much protein as we think. I found a neat calculation showing this:

How much protein do we need? The RDA recommends that we take in 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram that we weigh (or about 0.36 grams of protein per pound that we weigh) ¹. This recommendation includes a generous safety factor for most people. When we make a few adjustments to account for some plant proteins being digested somewhat differently from animal proteins and for the amino acid mix in some plant proteins, we arrive at a level of 0.9 gram of protein per kilogram body weight (0.41 grams per pound). If we do a few calculations we see that the protein recommendation for vegans amounts to close to 10% of calories coming from protein. [For example, a vegan male weighing 174 pounds could have a calorie requirement of 2,600 calories. His protein needs are calculated as 174 pounds x 0.41 g/pound = 71 grams of protein. 71 grams of protein x 4 calories/gram of protein = 284 calories from protein. 284 divided by 2,600 calories = 10.9% of calories from protein.] If we look at what vegans are eating, we find that, typically, between 10-12% of calories come from protein ³. This contrasts with the protein intake of non-vegetarians, which is close to 14-18% of calories.

This is taken from this awesome website: http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.php

On the other hand it seems like animal protein is considered to be more complete because of the fact it contains the necessary amino acids we need to break protein down... Vegans and vegetarians just have to be a little extra careful with how we eat our protein. That's all!

Also, and this is my personal opinion. It makes total sense that animal protein has the extra amino acids needed to be digested because animals already digested vegetable proteins and we are just eating predigested and transformed vegetable proteins... 

Here's a neat simple and fast explanation of it all :  http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/questions/animal-or-vegetable-the-truth-about-protein


Here are pictures of meat and legumes (great source of protein for vegetarian vegan people)

   

Vegan it is!

Hello everyone!
I know I have been gone for a while now. Things happened, time went by and I got busy.

But, I am glad to say I am back with a huge change in my life! I became a vegan. Well almost vegan (I cheat on cheese sometimes, and I'm not proud of it, but how to resist!)

I haven't had any animal meat since January 28th!

It's been an interesting journey that involved lots of cooking and many nutritional discoveries!

I will be posting as usual lots of recipes, hopefully tips, and information about living as a vegan. I'm not a pro, but I know people who have been doing it for a long time and I'll hopefully get some of their advice !!

Here's a picture of the Vegan food pyramid. I like this one because it includes the amount of water you should drink. And that is not always obvious in food pyramids!