So there was this yummie vegan breakfast sandwich on Pinterest that I found ages ago…and eat constantly now because my hubby makes it SO good!!! You take tofu and cut two slices and coat them with nutritional yeast, turmeric, garlic and then just lightly pan fry them. In between the slices you put cheese, some kind of Daiya is my preference. For Easter I used the Havarti with jalapeño in it. Mmmmmm…it is GOOD! And also in between the slices, 2 pieces of Yves Canadian “Bacon” also lightly pan fried. Smack it all together and you can put it in between two slices of toast, a pita, a bagel (as I did on Easter) and I usually just use Ezekial Bread and lightly butter the slices. Easter was “brunch” so I used a bagel and put on some “cream cheese” and chives by Galaxy Nutritional food brand. That is my favorite “cream cheese” since I have become vegan. Absolutely wonderful!!!

Dinner time was also awesome food time. We made ciabatta sandwiches with Field Roast Grain Meat Company’s Celebration Field Roast slices. Tossed a bit of Koop’s spicy horseradish mustard and Vegenaise on the ciabatta and it was miraculously delish! We had a side of pasta salad, which was made with whole grain pasta elbows, red, yellow and orange baby bell peppers, cilantro, green onions, some Vegenaise and again, Koop’s spicy horseradish mustard. I didn’t use any vinegar, but we did leave it to ‘sit/soak’ in the fridge overnight as it was and it was absolutely wonderful. My husband, who didn’t even want ‘pasta salad’ loved it. And then we had it for lunch for the next two days with different Gardein chick’n as sides. Easy, affordable and delicious!

We had a real ‘cold’ spell here in Florida, and the low last night was 42 degrees! I am no fan of the heat, but I had to turn it on because it was JUST that cold in the house that night. So we hit up my favorite quick recipe finder, my pinterest board and found this delicious Thai Curry soup.

It seems that we can’t really keep things as they call them to be…so we’ve been altering the recipes to my pregnant needs lol. The link above will take you to the original recipe, however this is what we made: (it made 4 large servings for about 440 calories each.)

• 2 tbsp Thai Red Curry Paste
• 1 tsp fresh grated ginger
• 2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
• 1 15 oz can Whole Foods Brand Light Coconut Milk
• 1 15 oz can Whole Foods Brand Light Coconut Milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1 small can (6 – 8 oz) Bamboo shoots
• 1/8 cup fresh basil leaves chopped
• ½ cup chopped spinach (we used 365 Organic frozen spinach)
• 1 cup of water chesnuts
• 1 cup of Pineapple chunks
• 2 cups Four Seasons Blend Organic Veggies (Whole Foods brand)
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1 Block Firm tofu (we baked this and seasoned it…see recipe below)

Before you do anything, if you want to season your tofu, while it is still one block drain it by pressing as much water as possible out with a towel. Then cube it into bite sized cubes and lightly toss them with olive oil. We then added some basil leaves (dried) seasoning, and some of the curry paste about 1 tbsp, and tossed the tofu in this. We then put it in an “envelope” of aluminum foil and baked it on 425 for about 30 minutes.

Next steps we followed according to the recipe we loosely followed:

1. Place the curry paste and ginger in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the broth, coconut milk, and 1 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil.

2. Add the mushrooms, green beans, and carrots to the saucepan and simmer until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the tofu and snow peas and simmer until the snow peas are bright green, about 1 minute more.

3. Stir in the lime juice. Sprinkle with the basil and serve with the chili garlic sauce.

Begin with a block of your favorite firm or extra firm tattoo. While it is still a single block, use a towel to drain as much water as possible out of the tofu as you can. Then you will want to cube the tofu into bite sized cubes. Next step is to create an “envelope” of baking foil if you will, to bake the tofu in. You want to put the tofu in, and drizzle it with your favorite oil. We use either olive or safflower. Just use enough to lightly coat the tofu, maybe 2 tbsp at most. And then we take Frontier organic garlic powder and coat the tofu in it. Now I am a HUGE garlic fan…we put garlic in pretty much everything we cook (nothing we bake mind you) but EVERYTHING. If you like garlic on a mild scale, don’t use this brand of garlic powder. It is HIGHLY potent powder, so you can either use half of what we do, or use a different brand. We use about 3 tbsp of the Frontier brand…and wow does this stuff kick butt with garlic! The entire house smells like garlic…no joke, but for me it’s heaven. Vampires might not desire to be present, so if you don’t like them like I don’t like them…pour it on!! We then toss the garlic powder in, drizzle some Bragg’s over the top and sprinkle everything with nooch. Then we put it in the oven for about 45 minutes at 425 and ta-da! Garlic Roasted tofu! And it’s heaven for me! I hope you enjoy!

So I found this Avocado Jalepeno Grilled Cheese sandwich on Pinterest and I was totally craving it the minute I saw it. Though we didn’t have thick crusty bread, or jalepenos, we DID have the Daiya Havarti wedge…with jalepeno in it. And some Ezekial Bran for Life bread. To me ANYTIME is a good time to have Ezekial bread. It is hearty and filling and loaded with great nutrition for me and my baby.

This sandwich became a total improvisation since we didn’t have the ‘meat’ they suggested either. BUT I used the Daiya Havarti wedge as well as the cheddar shreds and I had ‘meatless deli turkey slices’ from Yves and of course we always have avocado so I threw on some ‘butter’ to my Ezekiel bread, slapped on two slices on each side of the ‘turkey’ and sliced the avocado on top of the ‘turkey’ and then sliced up the wedge & put on the cheddar shreds. Then I threw it all on the George Forman Grill. I think it is pretty funny that originally the grill’s purpose was for meats, chicken, sausages, etc. NOW that I am vegan, I LOVE using it as Panini press! It makes sandwiches hot and melty and delicious!

This Avocado Jalepeno Grilled Cheese sure did not let down. Absolutely delicious! I might have to try the recipe ‘as-is’ next time to see what the pin was all about, but this was definitely delightful and easy!

So, Annie Shannon in my opinion needs a cape, a superwoman costume…something.  Because she is like a vegan superhero.  Annie is THE real deal.  She veganized the Betty Crocker cookbook for goodness sake!  Anyhow…whenever we’re having mega-meat eaters over for dinner, we always go with a recipe courtesy of the vegan goddess Annie Shannon.  I am just going to start calling her Super Annie from now on…or Super A!  Anywho…we perused the Meet the Shannons website and found ‘Mexi-Shells’ so we only changed the liquid smoke…and removed.  Oh, and we had to use Field Roast Grain Company sausage (and that is NOT a bad thing!) Mexican Chipolte flavor.  We topped with fresh cilantro…and as you can see from my photo, I LOVE cilantro.  I actually used ‘Culantro’ because we have it in our garden.  And if it’s fresh, free & organic that sounds delish to me!!!  We also topped with loads of yummie Daiya cheddar, mozzerella and Galaxy Nutritional Parmeasan.  If you think by the photos below that it looks good, oh just multiply that goodness by a hundred and that is what we all thought of it.  Plates were empty and there were no Mexi-Shells to be saved.  Dinner was a raving success thanks to the genius of Super A!!

So we decided that for a lovely dinner we would make Olives for Dinner Rosemary, Soysage, Spinach and Mushroom with Farfalle. It seemed like a quick recipe, and though we made a few replacements, it was all things we had handy. Though the recipe used Gimme Lean Soysage, I am not a huge Gimme Lean sausage fan as it tastes a bit sweet and is only really good for breakfast sausage in my opinion. We had some Field Roast Grain Meat Co. Italian Sausage links in the freezer, and decided to defrost those bad boys and use them instead. While they are more calorie rich, they are also great to use in any type of pasta dish as it gives you the authentic ‘Italian’ flavor I was looking for.

So, the ingredients we used were:

• 4 links of Field Roast Grain Meat Co. Italian Sausage
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 2 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 8 ounces baby bella mushrooms sliced; we used regular sized portobellos and used 2 ½ caps (they were really large)
• 2 shallots finely sliced
• 6 cloves of garlic; we used 8…can’t have too much!!
• ¾ cup of walnut halves; we used chopped walnuts…I think the flavor was better
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance butter
• ½ cup dry white wine
• 8 oz. farfalle pasta; we love Archer Farms Organic Whole Wheat brand
• 8 cups raw spinach; we used 4 cups spinach & 4 cups fresh chaya
• And olive oil for sautéing

The step by step directions are on the recipe via Olives for Dinner.

It was definitely easy, and turned out great. The photos we took were not so great, but I can definitely say we will make this again. It is super easy and absolutely delicious and filling. Everyone ate a large serving and there was still 2 servings left! We served it for 4 people and left 2 servings for an additional couple of meals.

Check out our photos below and definitely try this!! It was tasty and delicious!

So every Monday I try to make a really ‘meaty’ dish using a Gardein www.gardein.com product. With mushrooms being really really good right now, and my local Super Target having a great price on Portabello caps, which were literally soft ball sized, I started there and with the Beefless Tips since I knew I wanted something ‘beefy’ and then set upon the search in the pantry for what else I was going to make. Now these mushrooms were serious, so I thought hmmmm…what if I just roast them with a slight drizzle of olive oil & some fresh chopped garlic, for about 15 minutes, and cook up the beefless tips in the meantime. Then I threw some Israeli Couscous in and added that to the meal. So what you’ll need to replicate this meal, for 2 servings:

• 2 large portabello caps
• 6 cloves of garlic, fresh, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp safflower oil
• ¾ cup dry Israeli couscous (we like to buy ours bulk at Whole Foods, it is cheap and tastes GREAT!)
• 1 bag of Gardein Beefless tips
• 1 bunch of spinach
• ‘Beef’ seasoning of your choice
• ½ cup sweet white wine or chardonnay
• ½ – 1 cup nutritional yeast

After you’ve cleaned & washed your spinach and your mushrooms, take your mushrooms, put them on a sheet of foil. Drizzle about ½ tbsp. of olive oil on each mushroom, and an entire clove of garlic on each one. Then you will put them either into a toaster oven, which I did…because we live in FL and cooking ANYTHING in the oven in August is like adding to the existing heat outside IN your house, or put them in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until they have become moist and smell delicious! If you like them more ‘aldante’ then definitely keep an eye on them and maybe do 10 minutes instead. Obviously the thickness of the mushroom will dictate the cooking time as well.

Take your safflower oil and put that into a skillet, and let it warm. When your oil is ready put the garlic in and let that soften for about 3-4 minutes. (Start cooking your couscous as soon as you put the beefless tips in…it typically takes 8-10 minutes and you don’t want to overcook that as it becomes a sticky mess.)Then put the beefless tips in; followed directly by the wine. Once you’ve added the wine, put in your seasoning. I have seasoning left over from my non-vegan days that I actually purchased in 2008 in Milwaukee, WI. It’s so yummie, with rye seeds, paprika, cayenne, and salt…I can’t quite figure out what else is in there. But the seasoning is vegan, most are, and I found a comparable version with the Grillers brand. Anywho…add your seasoning, and then add your nutritional yeast. This gives the sauce a bit of thickness, almost like a gravy, and really adds to the flavor, then you want to lower the heat to a simmer, and just let the beefless tips soak up the wine and spices. I cook them until they are tender and I feel the spice is right!

When everything is ready, about 15 total minutes of cooktime between your three items (mushrooms, beefless tips & couscous,) take your mushroom out, plate it, then serve the couscous (after draining well,) on top and the beefless tips on top of that with your sauce. Voila! A hearty Meatless Monday meal for anyone!

These photos do NOT do it justice. MAN did my husband and I think I kicked some butt on these