Week 2 review / Week 3 partial review/plans

Sooooo, I couldn't be arsed blogging on Sunday, so here's the review of last week and what we've done so far this week!

The Tofu Reuben on Monday night was really good.  I took leftovers to work the next day.  We used biocheese (I think?)

Tofu Reuben #vegan #menuplanning2016 recipe here: http://www.health.com/health/m/recipe/0,,50400000133001,00.html

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 11, 2016 at 3:45am PST

The Lemongrass Tofu Bahn Mi was amaaaaazing as always:

Lemon grass tofu bahn mi #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 13, 2016 at 1:55am PST

The rest of the week went downhill 'cause I went out for drinks on both Thursday and Friday night. Lawyering requires frequent consumption of alcohol.

Saturday night we had the Caesar salad wraps with blackened tempeh from the Real Food Daily Cookbook. Dressing was different, but fairly tasty. Terrible photo:

Blackened tempeh Caesar salad wraps from the Real Food Daily cookbook. Freaking yum. #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 16, 2016 at 3:30am PST

On Sunday night we made pizza. We actually made 11 mini pizzas. They freeze really well and are good reheated (we have one of those convection microwaves). We only ate four. I made some of the mozzarella from scratch using Miyoko's latest mozzarella recipe:

Cam and Amy's pizza shoppe from bottom left: pepperoni with homemade cashew mozzarella, BBQ soy strips with cheezly, rosemary potato with homemade mozz, and herb with cheezly. Mozz recipe by @miyokoschinner. Pizza sauce made from scratch from fresh tomatoes by me. Pizza dough recipe by @isachandra. #vegan #omnomnom #omnomnom #omnomnom #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 17, 2016 at 2:05am PST

On Monday this week we finally had the Perfected Chickpea Salad - I made them on wraps. Really good. It was so nice I had it for lunch twice!

Perfected chickpea salad wrap from the Oh She Glows cookbook. Yum! #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 18, 2016 at 1:11am PST

Which leads me to all the tacos! My copy of Taco Cleanse FINALLY arrived, so it's all tacos for the forseeable future. This was the infinite "Fish" tacos using Gardein. The coleslaw recipe says it makes enough for 12 tacos. That should read at least 24-30 tacos. It's really delicious though.

Infinite "fish" tacos. Recipe by @tacocleanse. #tacocleanse #vegan #menuplanning2016 Holy crap these are gooooooooood #omnomnom not-fish by @gardein

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 19, 2016 at 3:34am PST

We've been eating more tacos over the last few days to use up all that delicious coleslaw. I'm thinking of doing the scramble tofu, 'bacon' and 'cheese' tacos for breakfast on Saturday and maybe the 'brisket' tacos on Sunday night. I don't feel cleansed. Yet. :) Otherwise, I have no real cooking plans - going to wing it! It's the week for breaking new years resolutions anyway.

Week 2, in which I run out of ideas and question whether this has any point at all

Dear reader, this week's theme is sandwiches.

Because:

1. Starting in a new team at work
2. They are easy to take to work the next day
3. We love carbohydrates.

The menu:

Sunday:Gardein crabless cakes with homemade tartare and chips 

Monday: Tofu Reuben (over tempeh right now)

Tuesday: Lemongrass tofu bahn mi (recipe downloaded from the web a long long time ago on a different pc)

Wednesday: leftover bahn mi (see, the laziness has already set in)

Thursday: Caesar salad with blackened tempeh pg 96 Real Food Daily cookbook

Friday: Perfected chickpea salad sandwich pg 405 The Oh She Glows Cookbook 

Saturday: TBA, probably a stuffed pasta.

I cheated this week, for we have already consumed dinner tonight (Sunday). I do hope you forgive me.

Happy vegan eating!

@gardein crabless cakes with chips, homemade tartare and salad #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 10, 2016 at 2:29am PST

Week 1 roundup

Hi everyone!

Hope your week was awesome.

Our food adventures were okay. Here are a few pics:

Pineapple cashew quinoa chickpea stir fry. Recipe from Veganomicon #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 3, 2016 at 2:57am PST

Macaro-no cheese from Keep It Vegan. Not as mac and cheezy as my normal recipe. Knocked it up a notch with Nooch, mustard powder and more stock powder. #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 4, 2016 at 12:48am PST

BBQ soy curl bowl from the Herbivore Clothing cookbook #eatlikeyougiveadamn #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 7, 2016 at 12:37am PST

Friday night #vegan pizza montage #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 10, 2016 at 3:01am PST

Friday night apple and blackberry crumble with homemade cashew cream #vegan #menuplanning2016

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Jan 10, 2016 at 3:02am PST

Highlights of the week - the pizza and crumble on Friday, the well-dressed bowl on Wednesday. The black bean burritos (not shown, but 'grammed here) was back to it's usual awesomeness.

Disappointment of the week - the macaro-no cheese.  That thing just tasted like coconut-pumpkin soup.  I added a ton of nooch, nutmeg, salt, pepper and mustard powder.  Even after that, all I could taste was coconut.  If making this in the future, I'd advise skipping the coconut, it just overwhelms everything.

I'll post the Week 2 menu in a separate post.  Happy vegan eating everyone!

2016 - I'm baaaaack

Hi everyone!  Long time, no blog!

I am heading into a crazy busy first half of the year due to the work project that I'm on.  So I thought it would be a good time to re-start blogging!

Anyway, since I last blogged, we bought a house!  We adopted three ridiculously cute fur babies! I now work at a different job!

My hope this year (apart from losing a bit of weight because I eat when I'm stressed, and work was INSANE from October to December) is to start doing some menu planning.  Cam's doing a lot of night shifts and I work late a lot, so having some dinner menus planned may help (and will aid me by having awesome lunches to take the next day!).  I can only hope.

Anyhoooo, here's this week's menu:

Sunday night: Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry from Veganomicon (p175-6)
Monday night: Macaro-No Cheese with Crispy Kale from Keep It Vegan (p76) - will probably add some tofu or tempeh to up the protein content.
Tuesday night: Black bean tacos
Wednesday night: Well-Dressed Tofu Bowls from The Great Vegan Protein Book (p130)
Thursday night: Curry-Barbecue Soy Curls Bowls from Eat Like You Give A Damn (p142)
Friday night: Pizza in the pizza oven!
Saturday night: Complicated dinner

I love making a complicated meal on a Saturday night when I have the time.  I usually make a dessert as well.

Here's hoping that I stick to the plan!

And to close, here's my three fur babies!  The black one is Neil DeCat Tyson, the tortoiseshell one is Cat Sagan and the orange one is Catpurrnicus.  Yes, we have named them all after scientists.

We officially have a kitty stack!

A photo posted by Amy Tuite (@ironchefvegan) on Nov 28, 2015 at 7:25pm PST

VeganMofo 2013: Day 3-in which I succumb to the deliciousness that is sugar

Dear Reader,

There are two things I love about being vegan: the first is carbohydrates, the second is sugar (yes, I know carbohydrates convert to sugar in the body).

While spending more than a few hours reading vegan blogs on the weekend (for the first time in forever), I decided that I should, nay must, make a cheezecake.  A work colleague had gifted me a medium quantity of home grown limes and lemons.  The lemons have almost all been consumed in Mexican food (I got them last week and there was 8 of them, which gives you an idea of how much I make burritos for dinner!) but I hadn’t touched the lemons.  Normally I stay away from lemons – a childhood of lemon scented dishwashing liquid leaves me incapable of smelling lemons without thinking of dishes – but I really wanted cheezecake.

Alas, I had no biscuits in the cupboard (I generally make ours and SOMEONE consumes them all within 24-36 hours of them leaving the oven) so it had to be a mousse.  I saw the Little Lemon Mousse Pies in Vegan Pie in the Sky and figured that the filling would work on its own (and I’d been able to successfully hide the raw cashews from Cam for nigh on three weeks!).

I also had an embarrassment of strawberries.

Here’s the result:


It was of a goodly and delicious quality.  I’m definitely making it again!

Pumpkin Pie and Ice Cream

So it’s been a while.  I got jealous of all the posts from Americans with Thanksgiving meals, so I made pumpkin pie.
Crust: The basic crust from Pies and Tarts with Heart
Filling: Pumpkin pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky
Ice Cream: Vanilla from Vegan Scoop
FINALLY, a crust recipe that doesn’t go to mush!!!!  It was really good. Next time I think I’ll go for the Toasted Cinnamon Ice Cream from Vegan A La Mode.

Hoping to do more posts soon!

Vegan Ice-cream

Hey everyone!   So it’s been a month since Mofo.  What have I been up to?  Making vegan ice-cream!

On Theresa’s suggestion I got a Red Cuisinart one from Peters of Kensington.  This thing rocks my world.

I started off with recipes from Vegan Scoop by Wheeler del Torro.  Damn good book.  Only thing is, most of the recipes call for Soy Creamer as well as Soy Milk.  I’ve been increasing the arrowroot (tapioca) powder by about 8g per batch and it seems to work well.

Here’s the only batch I’ve photographed so far.  It’s Butterscotch icecream with chopped chocolate honeycomb (purchased from Green Edge).  Damn fine icecream.

I’ve also started using the Hannah Kaminsky book Vegan A La Mode.  I’ve tried the Toasted Cinnamon ice-cream so far.  The photos are still on Cam’s camera.  Her recipes (so far) don’t seem to need Soy Creamer and use Cornflour as thickener.  I want to make a few more recipes before I do a proper comparison.

I’m planning to make a whole lot of pies, seeing as I was the lucky winner of Theresa’s giveaway, for Carl Sagan Day (from Pies and Tarts with Heart by Dynise Balcavage)!  Now to choose an ice-cream recipe that goes well with apple pie.  I may have to make two flavours, just in case