Chili "Chik'n" Tacos

This was adapted from Clean Eating Magazine to make it vegan.

1 package of Morningstar Chicken Strips
1 green bell pepper, cut into strips
1 red onion, sliced
1 lime, juiced
Shredded lettuce
A small handful of chopped cilantro
1 avocado, chopped
1/3 cup vegan sour cream
Sea salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
Flour tortillas

Place avocado and sour cream in blender with a dash of salt and 1/2 the lime juice. Blend until smooth.

Heat a cast iron skillet to medium-high and toss in still frozen chik'n strips. Sprinkle with chili powder and sauté until browned. Squeeze 1/2 a lime over the chik'n.

Warm tortillas in oven or microwave.

Assemble tacos by placing the avocado cream in the center of a tortilla then top with chik'n. Add green pepper strips, onions, cilantro and lettuce. Sprinkle with sea salt. Enjoy!

The avocado cream made this special. It cooled things off nicely. I had 2 and was left very satisfied but not overly full. I will certainly make these again. It was super quick too.

Tofu Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Tofu Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Source: www.food.com

Course: Desserts

Prep Time: 10 Min

Cook Time: 20 Min

Total Time: 30 Min

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 1 (12 1/3 ounce) package silken tofu
• 1/3 cup natural-style peanut butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

Directions

1. 1 In a large bowl, cream Tofu, peanut butter, brown sugar and vanilla.
2. 2 Add flour, baking powder, oats and stir thoroughly.
3. 3 Drop onto cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
4. 4 Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 102.6
Fat: 23
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 68.8 mg
Carbohydrate: 17.4 g
Fiber: 0.8 g
Protein: 2.9 g

Powered by

I had some silken tofu approaching the expiration date sitting in my fridge so a quick Google led to this recipe. Since I had all of the needed ingredients I set to work. I did use Barney Butter Almond Butter instead of peanut butter. This made 33 cookies instead of the 24 it said it would produce. The texture is like a cross between a cookie and cake. They are only mildly sweet so if you are used to super sweet cookies, this would take some getting used to. There was absolutely no taste of tofu at all. My 2 year old liked them and she never likes anything.

Blueberry Strawberry Muffins

Blueberry Strawberry Muffins

Source: vegweb.com

Course: Breakfast

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons powdered egg replacer (I use Ener-G)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup evaporated cane sugar
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 – 6 ounce container blueberry flavored coconut milk yogurt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon almond milk
• 6 sliced strawberries
• 1 cup blueberry granola

Directions

1. 1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a muffin pan with 8 liners.
2. 2) Mix together water and egg replacer in a small bowl. In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour and baking soda. In a separate bowl, combine yogurt, vanilla, and almond milk. Add all wet ingredients to dry bowl and stir until just mixed and then gently stir in the strawberries.
3. 3) Divide batter between 8 cupcake liners. Top each muffin with blueberry granola. Bake for 22 minutes or until done.

Amount Per Serving

Powered by

I had some problems with this recipe. Namely that the batter was far to dry following the above ingredients. I found myself adding 3 more splashes of almond milk to make it more like a muffin consistency. But that worked fine. I also found I didn't care for the granola topping. It ended up with a slightly burnt taste in spots. So next time I'll forgo that. They don't need it. I used Silk Blueberry yogurt instead of blueberry coconut milk yogurt as it was what was available. Next time I'll add in some blueberries to the mix. The muffins are just sweet enough and very moist. I was able to make 9 muffins rather than the 8 the recipe suggests.

Beanball Sub Review

BEANBALL SUB

Source: Veganomicon Cookbook

Course: Main Course

Ingredients

• 1 (20-ounce) can kid­ney beans rinsed and drained about 3 cups
• 2 ta­ble­spoons soy sauce
• 2 ta­ble­spoons steak sauce or toma­to paste
• 2 ta­ble­spoons olive oil plus ad­di­tion­al for fry­ing or bak­ing
• 2 cloves gar­lic grat­ed or minced fine­ly
• ¼ tea­spoon grat­ed lemon zest
• ½ cup plain bread crumbs
• ¼ cup vi­tal wheat gluten
• ½ tea­spoon dried oregano
• ¼ tea­spoon dried thyme
• Marinara Sauce
• 2 cups fresh spinach leaves well washed
• 4 hoagie rolls split open
• 1 recipe pine nut cream

Directions

1. Mash the kid­ney beans in a mix­ing bowl un­til no whole beans are left. (We start with a pota­to mash­er and then use a fork to get any rebel beans that refuse to mash.) You don’t want them to be com­plete­ly smooth, you should still be able to rec­og­nize that they are kid­ney beans. Add the soy sauce, steak sauce, 2 ta­ble­spoons of the olive oil, the gar­lic, lemon zest, bread crumbs, wheat gluten, and herbs, and use a fork to mix ev­ery­thing to­geth­er. Use your hands to knead the mix­ture for about a minute, un­til ev­ery­thing is re­al­ly well com­bined and firm.
2. Roll the bean mix­ture in­to wal­nut-​size balls (you should have twelve to fif­teen of them).
3. Grease a rimmed bak­ing sheet with olive oil. Place the balls on the sheet and then driz­zle them with a lit­tle more oil, to coat. Bake for about 15 min­utes, un­til light­ly browned on the bot­tom, then flip them and bake for an­oth­er 10 min­utes.
4. PRE­PARE THE recipes of the first three com­po­nents. Pre­heat oven to 350º F. Place Bean­balls on a tray and top with about 1 cup of mari­nara and all of the pine nut cream. Bake for 20 to 25 min­utes, un­til pine nut cream is light­ly browned. Spread more mari­nara sauce on one side of each roll and dis­tribute the Bean­balls even­ly among the sam­mich­es, lay­er­ing the spinach leaves over them. Top lib­er­al­ly with more mari­nara sauce. Close your sammiches, slice in half on the diagonal, and serve.

Powered by

Notes: I skipped the pine nut cream to save time and I need to plan to make it when I can use the rest of the cream in something. I used Daiya mozzarella instead and it was great. The bean balls were so easy to make. Next time I'll double the recipe and freeze some. I left out the olive oil and just used olive oil cooking spray to coat the pan and they came out fine. I want to try them with spaghetti. The texture was very much like a meatball. Veganomicon is THE cookbook. Even non-vegans would love it.

Faux Chicken Stuffed Baked Potates

chicken-less stuffed baked potatoes

Source: thetolerantvegan.com

Course: Main Course

Ingredients

• 4 Russet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper I used orange
• 2 tablespoons Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread or another vegan butter substitute,
• 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons water
• 8 ounces vegan “chicken” strips chopped into 1/2″ pieces. I used Trader Joe’s Chicken-less Strips
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 3/4 cup Daiya Cheddar Style Shreds
• 1/2 cup vegan sour cream

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Bake the potatoes in a microwave and let cool completely.
3. Saute the chopped onion, garlic, bell pepper and Earth Balance in a skillet until soft, 4-5 minutes.
4. In a small bowl, stir together the tomato paste and 1 1/2 tablespoons of water. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, stir together the fake chicken, parsley, oregano, sea salt, pepper, chili powder, tomato/water mixture and 1/2 cup of cheddar. Stir in the onions and bell pepper.Cut a thin strip in the top of each potato, roughly 1/2″ wide. Use a spoon or melon baller to scoop out the insides of each potato and add it to the chicken mixture.
6. Stir the potato into the chicken mixture until fully combined.
7. Spoon the mixture back inside each potato, stacking the remaining mixture on the top.
8. Sprinkle the tops of the potatoes with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheddar.
9. Place the potatoes in a baking pan
10. and bake for 20 minutes.

Powered by

This was excellent. I didn't have green bell peppers but did have a jar of roasted red peppers. So I used that and added some corn. This is quite a meal. I couldn't finish mine. Hearty and satisfying.

Applesauce Spice Muffins/Coffee Cake

Applesauce Spice Muffins

Source: vegweb.com

Course: Breakfast

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups flour (I use unbleached but whole-wheat would probably work just as well)
• 5 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
2. Combine all dry ingredients together. Sift well.
3. Make 3 wells for the vanilla, applesauce, and vinegar.
4. Pour cup of cold water over the whole thing and gently mix all ingredients together.
5. Pour batter into muffin tin…you can lightly grease the pan, put those little muffin paper cups in, or just pour the batter directly into the tin. They might stick somewhat if you just pour it directly but that's okay.
6. Bake at 350 and check after 20 minutes. They may or may not need more time.
7. Serve warm with some vegan margarine spread on top. :)
8. The applesauce makes these a little dense so if you don't like that and don't mind using oil... substitute oil for the applesauce. You can either do 2.5 tablespoons oil and 2.5 applesauce or 5 tablespoon oil.. it's really versatile so do as you please.

Amount Per Serving

Powered by

Notes: I made this in a cast iron skillet as a coffee cake. I didn't need to adjust the time at all. I also added a splash of vegetable oil. It was dense but really delicious. The batter was pretty sweet but the cake itself came out only lightly sweet. It's perfect for breakfast, especially if buttered with some Earth Balance Spread. I think next time I'll add some diced apples. The original recipe used white vinegar but I had the apple cider so went with that.

Black Bean Taco Filling

I've been absent due to some dental issues and I also haven't been cooking anything too exciting lately. Tonight I made a taco filling that I found on all recipes.com. I used it in a soft flour tortilla and it was simple but tasty.

1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped fine
1 minced clove garlic
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup salsa
1 tbl cumin
1 tbl paprika
1 tsp chili powder
salt to taste
Daiya cheddar cheese


Saute the onions and peppers. Mash the black beans and add them to the cooked onions. Add the salsa and spices, stir, cover and simmer 5 minutes.

That's it. Use for tacos or burritos and top with your favorite toppings.