Accidentally Vegan: Pantry Staples

Bread Crumbs- This is the brand I use because they're under $2 a box and I can find them in most store's baking aisle (usually the top shelf). Alone, they have little flavor so I...

1. have one bowl bread crumbs, one bowl mayonnaise mixed with enough soy milk to create a yogurt consistency, and one bowl of flour mixed with ranch seasoning or any combo of spices you have...or even just lightly salted. I dip seitan or tofu pieces in milk, flour, milk, bread crumbs and deep fry, bake, or pan fry. My husband and I like a little more crunch and flavor so we do an extra round of the milk, flour, milk, bread crumbs.

2. melt a tablespoon butter, add about 1 cup bread crumbs, pinch of salt, and maybe some italian seasoning, then sprinkle on top of your favorite casserole recipe before you bake it. The bread crumbs will turn a golden color and add a yummy crunch, a little something extra to your casserole.

Uncle Dan's Classic Ranch- I grew up on Uncle Dan's (as a non-vegan) So when I happened to read the back of the packet and saw it was vegan, I freaked out. You can follow the directions for ranch dip using vegan mayo and sour cream, and I'm not joking when I say you could serve this with veggies to any non-vegan and they would have NO idea it was vegan. It also has directions to make ranch salad dressing. My family likes a zesty ranch with hot wings, so I use the ranch dip directions then add apple cider vinegar until it reaches the flavor we prefer. I use it a lot to flavor breading on seitan. Make sure you check your package because the un-vegan "creamy" ranch is sold right next to the vegan "classic". The price seems a tiny bit high when you look at this small packet, but a little goes a LONG way, one packet lasts me many recipes.

Chocolate Pudding- Many of the Jello brand instant pudding mixes are vegan, but for some reason I find that the chocolate is the only one that thickens up the way I like (it does say right on the box that soy milk wont let it thicken). I use to make a chocolate peanut butter silk pie, but I would have to have the right kind of tofu on hand and clean my food processor, so I came up with a cheaper (less healthy) version that I can always have on hand incase a pie emergency happened.

Add the larger (5oz) box of Jello chocolate pudding with 1 1/2 cups soy milk. Add a cup of peanut butter (we like chunky) to the pot and cook med-high until the peanut butter is melted and everything is well mixed. You can add more peanut butter to taste or soy milk for a silkier consistency. Pour into a ready made graham cracker pie shell and chill for a few hours so it sets up.

Keebler pie shells- I've never tried the chocolate but the ingredients listed online are vegan and I've yet to run into a honey graham shells (we don't believe honey is vegan). The mini pie shells are awesome and sort of fancy up a simple dessert if you serve it to friends (I like the portion control aspect). The pudding and shells are both under $2, so for about $3 I can have a backup dessert ready to go in my pantry all the time.

Chicken Nuggets

This chicken nugget recipe is my new favorite recipe, it's so yummy, the whole family love them, I always have the ingredients on hand, and they're quick. I worked off of the "Souther Fried Vegetarian Chicken" recipe I found at vegetarian.about.com. I use the chicken patty recipe for the seitan in this, and most other breaded and fried recipes because they're drier than the bulk seitan recipe and coat better. I made the addetion of bread crumbs because I always have them on hand and it really added a nice crunch to the nuggets, but that's completely optional.

Chicken Nuggets

• 1 ts salt or seasoned salt
• 1 ts onion powder
• 1 ts garlic powder
• 1 ts black pepper
• dash cayenne (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard
• 2 TB baking powder
• 1/3 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 lb seitan or other chicken substitute, cut into strips or 1-2" square pieces
• oil for frying

Preparation:

In a medium to large bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, flour, black pepper, cayenne and nutritional yeast.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mustard and water. Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and combine well.

Add baking powder and bread crumbs to the flour mixture and combine well.

Coat pieces of seitan or mock chicken with the mustard batter, then coat each piece with the dry flour mixture.

Fry chunks of "chicken" in the oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel, serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce and enjoy!

Tip: If your chunks are turning brown or black rather than a crispy golden brown, your oil is probably too hot! Reduce the heat a small amount and try again.

Despite making larger batches every time I cook these up, there's never any leftover. I would love to freeze some and just be able to toss them in the oven like the carnivores get to do. I would also like to take some leftovers and toss them in buffalo wing sauce and attempt hot wings. If I ever have leftovers, I'll let you know how my experiments turn out.

Accidentally Vegan: Junk Food

My vegan son came home from school and told me when they did a good job and answered questions right in front of the class, they would get rewarded with a treat. He said "I did a good job and answered a question right, but I didn't take a treat because it wasn't vegan". I felt proud that he showed self controle and didn't eat a treat that he had earned, but felt bad that he missed out and stood out as being different or weird to his fellow 1st graders. So I searched the snack aisle for some vegan treats I could send to school with him, I was looking for something sealed, small proportions, and something that would show his classmates and teachers that vegans don't only snack on carrots and celery. 

I found this Nabisco multi pack of cookies. The animal crackers weren't much of a surprise, but chocolate grahams that didn't contain honey or milk? Well that was surprise, as was the mini shortbread cookies which are traditionally made with a ton of butter. Are they healthy? No, but that's why I titled this post "junk food" because my kids eat pounds of fresh fruits and veggies every week, and deserve little treats every now and then, especially when everyone else in their class or soccer team is enjoying a snack.

Swedish Fish are one of the rare gummy treats that are vegan (along with sour patch kids and Dots). I get the kids a bag after they've tolerated a day long trip to my favorite maze, Ikea.

Skittles weren't always vegan in the US, but have recently adopted a new, gelatin free recipe. I still check the bags for the clearly marked "no gelatin" label on them incase any old bags remained in storage and found their way to the shelf.

Oreos are the more well known vegan treats, I tend to get the much cheaper store brand cookies that also tend to be vegan (always check your labels) but knowing Oreos are vegan is always nice when you're on a road trip and only have gas stations and vending machines at your disposal.

I saved the best for last, the most amazing thing I've discovered to be vegan is not only very tasty, a rare find, but super inexpensive, it's a

VEGAN CHOCOLATE BAR!!!

This is the dark chocolate bar from Ikea, and it's only $.99 (although it's always been on sale when we shop). I don't even like dark chocolate but these are delicious. I even have a non-vegan friend who uses this chocolate over others to melt into molds and make chocolate pops out of.

Pizza

Buying pizza is a rare treat for my family, I guess I should say it's a rare treat for me because it means I get hot food that I didn't have to work all night making, but for my husband it means dry dough sparsly covered with overcooked veggies and a large bill since the meat lover's pizza was only $5 but the vegetarian was $14 plus the $1.50 per extra veggie, per pizza. Another great shortcut to pizza is simply topping english muffins, but the most inexpensive (and tastiest) option is to make our pizzas from scratch.
Now, I've done a lot of experimenting with pizza dough, my bread machine over worked it, most doughs require lots of kneading and time to rise, and a ton of recipes yield dough too elastic to work with, but I've finally landed on a recipe that works well for me.
We purchased 2 pizza pans on clearance at our local grocery store, they're thin and cheap in quality, but sprayed with non stick cooking spray and sprinkled with cornmeal, the pans release nicley and cook the pizzas evenly.
Quick pizza dough


1 package (2 1/4 te) active or quick rise yeast
1 te sugar
1 Cup warm water
2 1/2 Bread flour
2 TB oil
1 te salt
* garlic powder, rosemary, or italian seasoning to season crust optional

• Dissolve yeast, sugar, and water for 10 minutes
• Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth (I use a stand mixer with a dough hook)
• Let rest for 5 minutes
• Preheat oven to 450º
• Lightly grease pizza pan *a dusting or cornmeal is optional
• Roll out pizza dough on a floured surface to the approximate size of your pan, then place the dough in your pan and use your hands to form the pizza to your pan
• Top your pizza then cook for 15-20 minutes

Picture courtesy of wannabeavegan.wordpress.com

The dough will look more like a sticky mess than a dough ball when it's done mixing, but with floured hands and a floured surface, it becomes a malleable dough and lends itself easily to be stretched out. This crust yields one pizza, but I like thinner crust so I make two batches at once and divide it by three.

Toppings-
I'm a traditionalist, I prefer "meat" and "cheese" over spinach and mushrooms, but That's what's so good about making this dough, everyone gets their own pizza to top any way they like. My husband likes it simple homemade chorizo sausage cut up like pepperoni, onion, and Daiya cheese (a once a week splurge). My kids like pineapple and olive, homemade chicken that I whirl up in our food processor, and a spicy cheese spread my husband makes.


Variations-
I've made this dough into calzones before, you can fill them with almost anything, but my family likes seitan or chicken cut into cubes and marinated in equal parts melted butter and hot sauce for a hot wing calzone. We then cook it up the same as you would a pizza and dip it in homemade ranch sauce.


You can make this dough into bread sticks as well, roll the dough out and cut into bread sticks, place on  a pan that has been covered in foil and lightly greased. Bruch the bread sticks with melted butter and cook the same as you would a pizza, but keep an eye on them so you don't over cook

Bake Sale

Son #1 goes to a really great, small school. The teachers and faculty are all really nice and have never said anything negative about Son #1 being vegan, but in my head I always feel like people think vegans only eat salad and seeds and my poor son can't eat any of the sweet treats all the "normal" kids get to eat. So when I heard that our school was having a bake sale, I just HAD to show that I could make vegan treats that weren't just good for being vegan, but just good. My dilemma was baking a large quantity of something then packaging them in an appealing way, all while on a budget. I decided to make 160 (4 batches) of my Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies. Except for two runs to the grocery store to re-up on some brown sugar, I had everything I needed for 160 cookies already stocked in my pantry.

I went back and forth about weither or not to label the cookies as "vegan". I would have loved for people to try them and maybe change their minds about vegan food, but on the other hand I worried the word "vegan" might scare people away from buying them. In the end, the bake sale was all about raising money for the school, and that's what was most important.

Here's how I did it:

Labels- I found free label templates online and changed the color and font to what I wanted. I'm fortunate enough to have a husband who works in printing, so I just emailed him the file. My husband printed business card sized labels on a heavy paper stock. I cut the cards out at home, some companies charge extra to make cuts.

Bags- I have a free Michaels app on my phone which gives me 50% off coupons that I used to purchase a pack of 50 bags for about $1.50 after the discount.

Ribbon- Michaels has thin ribbon for $.99 so I purchased one in the robins egg blue I used in the cards, and brown to match the cookies and font. I took the length of the ribbon (printed on the box) and divided it by 50 (the amount of bags I would be making) the resulting number was how much ribbon I had to work with for each package.

Assembly- I put 2 cookies in each bag, then I folded the top of the bags down twice and stapled them closed. I used a hole punch to make a hole through the card and bag, then tied the label in place with a few knots in the ribbon, I made sure to place the staples in such a way that the card would cover them up.

In the end, all the cookies sold half way through the bake sale and everyone seemed to enjoy them :)

Coleslaw

I love coleslaw, and now that I make my own vegan mayonnaise, I'm free to make as much as I want. One of my favorite things to do with coleslaw is to add it to sandwiches. I get some hearty bread and make ribs or battered tofu and fill it with this sweet and zesty coleslaw for a wonderfully complex flavor that also helps to stretch your sandwich with an inexpensive filling.


Coleslaw

• 1 head of cabbage, shredded (you can substitute 1 bag of coleslaw mix for the cabbage and carrots)
• 3 carrots, shredded
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 
  

Mix the mayo, sugar, and vinegar.

Add the carrots and cabbage to the mixture and toss to coat.

One of the most important steps is to let the coleslaw refrigerate overnight to really let it soak up the flavors, it will taste completely different the next day.

Thrifty Thursday: Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

This was a simple recipe I thought up while trying to create a dinner out of what ever ingredients were left at the end of the week. For starters, we always have a few heads of broccoli in the fridge, it's always pretty cheap (at least where I'm from) and if I don't end up using it in any recipes, my family loves it steamed or even raw with some dip. Secondly, we always have some homemade seitan in the house, it's pretty inexpensive and easy to make and freeze.
This recipe makes a ton, it tops off a large casserole dish and weighs more than my 1yr old. I've even divided it between a 9x13 and an 8x8 and it seemed to last longer even though it was technically the same amount of food.


Chicken and Broccoli Casserole


3 heads of broccoli, chopped using only the florets
3 cups of rice
5 chick'n patties
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 can vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups plain soy milk (or vegetable broth)
1 1/2 te salt
1/2 te garlic powder
1/2 te onion powder
Pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper
Shredded cheese (optional)

• Melt butter in a sauce pan then add the flour. Mix until all the flour is absorbed and looks like a clump of dough.
• Turn off heat and slowly add your vegetable broth and soy milk in SMALL batches and fully incorporate before adding the next batch. If you add too much liquid and lumps form, you can whisk them out before continuing. As the gravy gets thinner, you can start adding more liquid per batch.
• Add the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, cayenne, and pepper. You want the gravy slightly salty as it will be flavoring all the rice and broccoli.
• Return to a medium/low heat and stir frequently to avoid lumps, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan. Cook for about 15 minutes, if it starts to bubble, reduce heat and simmer.
• While your gravy is heating, cut up your broccoli florets into manageably bite size pieces and steam for 10 minutes until fork tender.
• Cut up the chick'n patties into bite sized pieces.
• Cook your rice last to avoid clumping, I use minute rice, but any rice you have will work fine.
• Once everything is cooked, put the rice, chicken, and broccoli in a large bowl and stir, then add the gravy and mix until it's of uniform consistency. Fill a casserole dish and pat down with a spatula. Top with shredded cheese if you have it.
• Cook the casserole, uncovered, in a preheated 350º oven for 15 minutes.