By Toni Okamoto
I love soup every day of the year, but especially when it’s cold outside. We’ve been suffering with bitterly cold temperatures below 60° here in California, and we’re coping by stocking up on the soup (and the parkas, scarves, gloves, etc).
If you, too, are in need of some warm wintry recipes, here are our favorites:
Curried Butternut Squash Lentil Soup
By Toni Okamoto
I was browsing for sales at my local super market and found vegan yogurt for only 75 cents! Since it wasn’t my favorite brand of yogurt, I decided to dress it up as a nice breakfast parfait to add some different taste and textures. All you need is fresh fruit, granola, and some vegan yogurt and you have an amazing morning meal!
Click the image above to learn how to easily make one for yourself, and be sure to also check out our yogurt taste test video to see which brands I recommend!
By Toni Okamoto
The name Chilaquiles is derived from the Nahuatl (language of the Aztecs in Mexico) word chil-a-quilitl, which means “herbs or greens in chile broth.”
It used to be one of my favorite breakfast dishes as a child. It’s traditionally made with eggs and cheese, but since I no longer eat those things I did my best to improvise on this tasty plant-based version.
Like a lot of my other dishes, this Chilaquile recipe can be changed using the produce you have on-hand. I think as long as you have the tofu, the tortillas (or tortilla chips), and the spices, you can really add any other veggies (i.e. chopped spinach, corn, diced tomatoes, canned or fresh jalapeños, etc.). You can also replace the fried tortillas with a handful of crunched corn chips.
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By Toni Okamoto
A friend of mine recently contacted me asking how she could replace bacon fat in a recipe. I was stumped! I asked the Vegan Outreach office staff if they knew of a good replacement, and our office manager, Josie, sent me a link to this product: Magic Vegan Bacon Grease. Immediately I wondered what crazy ingredients it included for taste, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that they only use: Coconut Oil, Non-GMO Soy Protein, Sea Salt, Pure Maple Syrup, Black Pepper, Onion, Garlic, Torula Yeast, and Natural Smoke Flavor.
Prior to my friend’s question, I had no idea that bacon grease was an ingredient that people regularly used in cooking. Turns out it can be used it in any dish that you’d add oil to usually. With a quick Google search I found recipes for cookies, salad dressings, brownies, pasta dishes, etc.
Still a little skeptical, I decided to try the Magic Vegan Bacon Grease out for myself. I made a fantastic veggie-loaded Tofu Scramble, served with Biscuits & Gravy.
The first noticeable thing on their website was the image of ingredients with the text “Is it really so strange?“. I decided to assume that it was a Smiths reference because that usually means that a company is awesome. And I was totally right … an awesome company made an awesome product!
Right now, the product is only sold in few places, you can see the store locator here: http://veganmagic.cc/where.html I highly recommend giving it a try!
Gravy: The gravy turned out amazing! I’ve made this recipe a million times only using regular oil, but the vegan bacon flavor really added a kick. I served with store-bought biscuits from Safeway.
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Directions:
I start by either boiling or microwaving the water and bouillon cube until it’s a well mixed broth, then set it aside.
Over medium heat, put Magic Vegan Bacon Grease, oil, and onions into a small sauce pan and cook until the onions become translucent. Lower the temperature, add flour and stir until your roux has a smooth consistency.
Add broth and stir over low heat until it thickens.
Tofu Scramble: I was a little nervous about the flavor overpowering my breakfast, but there were so many flavors in the tofu scramble that the vegan bacon grease seemed perfectly subtle.
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Directions:
In a large frying pan, cook the tofu, onions and garlic in Magic Vegan Bacon Grease for a few minutes — stir so that it coats the tofu. Add turmeric, oregano and nutritional yeast and stir again. Add most of your veggies. If you are using veggies that cook longer such as broccoli, carrots, or potatoes you want to let them cook for about 10 minutes before adding in veggies that cook fast. Including: mushrooms, kale, spinach, and tomatoes. You should cook the whole mixture for about 15 minutes.
By Josie Moody, Office Manager
I often refer to myself as the, “Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” kind of cook. I look at what I have in the fridge, and see what I can literally throw together to make a delicious meal. For me, no dish illustrates this better than my vegan breakfast hash. I really think I’ve never had the exact same ingredients every time I’ve made this meal. The only ingredient that I always include is the pre-cooked polenta, which I buy at Safeway and has a long shelf life.
This is a hearty meal that can can be served at any time of day, and is easy to make for a group of people. The best part is that you don’t need exact measurements of anything and it’s a great way to use that produce in the fridge whose days are numbered.
Ingredients:
To prepare: Wash all of your produce. Skin and cube potatoes, chop veggies, cube polenta, de-spine greens and chop into strips. Open and rinse canned beans.
To cook: steam potatoes and fresh vegetables, if using, either with microwave steamer or in steamer basket over a pot of boiling water. Set aside.
Warm beans by either putting in microwave or heating on stove over low heat, stirring occasionally. Do the same with vegan meat, if using.
Put a dollop of olive oil on the bottom of a frying pan. Turn on to medium-low heat, and add polenta. Make sure the cubes are coated in oil, and cook until they start to turn golden, flipping occasionally. Add greens. Keep stirring and add more oil if needed. After greens start to shrink, add potatoes, then vegan meat and nutritional yeast (if using), beans and steamed vegetables. Continue to cook over medium-low heat until everything is warmed.
Put on a plate and serve. Feel free to top it with vegan cheese, salsa, avocado, vegan sour cream, or any of your other favorite vegan condiments. We even added tortilla chips here. Get creative, and enjoy!
By Toni Okamoto
Avocado Sunflower Seed Pesto is inexpensive to make and really quick to throw together for dinner. It’s incredibly creamy and the combination of fresh basil, garlic, and lemon is the perfect flavor explosion!
It’s also easy to make gluten-free simply by choosing a GF-friendly pasta.
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By Lisa Rimmert, Donor Relations Manager
If you’re already vegan, or you’ve been following our blog, you’re probably well aware that most – if not all – animal foods can be made vegan and taste great, including the most decadent dishes like ice creams and other desserts. That’s the point one instructor and his Culinary Nutrition students set out to prove when they created a 1,251 lb vegan banana split. Yes, you read that correctly.
Last week in Denver – where I live – I attended a community event at Johnson & Wales University at which Chef Sacks and seven students unveiled what they hoped would be the world’s heaviest vegan banana split, and that’s exactly what it was.
The enormous dessert consisted of more than 700 lbs of ice cream (made from a base of beans), over 200 lbs of bananas, and a variety of toppings like cherries, coconut and soy based whipped cream, cookies, nuts, and more. Ice cream flavors included pumpkin ginger, jalepeño corn, shoo-fly pie, and black bean molé.
The reason for making the banana split vegan, said Chef Sacks, was to “share with the rest of world that vegan cuisine is limited only by one’s imagination.” He added, “It is not a sensory sacrifice! It is a truly exceptional way to appreciate our food.”
The event was a project of the University’s vegetarian cuisine course, in which students learn to prepare nutritionally balanced vegetarian dishes. They also explore the importance of why people choose vegetarian diets. The banana split took five and a half weeks to create.
Despite below freezing temperatures, the unveiling and final weigh-in brought dozens of community members, each of whom had the chance to add a cherry as the “finishing touch” before the banana split was weighed. It has been submitted for entry in Guinness World Records.
Chef Sacks said he considers the event a success. I have to agree. It was pretty thrilling to see so many people eating and enjoying vegan food. Chef Sacks said, “I really loved watching all the younger kids gorge themselves on bean-filled ice-cream. If they only really knew!”
Johnson and Wales University made available one of the recipes, and we’ve shared it below. Enjoy!
RECIPE: Pumpkin Ginger Vegan Ice Cream
Number of servings: 10
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Allergy info: contains soy if using soy milk.
By Toni Okamoto
This chocolate pie is one of the easiest I’ve ever made! There are only four ingredients, and all of them can easily be found at your local neighborhood grocery store. For the crust, I bought one that’s pre-made from Keebler. It was only two bucks!
If you don’t want to use the Keebler crust, I have purchased vegan cookies and crumbled them to make my own easy crust.
Enjoy!
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(click image to watch video)
By Josie Moody, Office Manager
*At least that’s what they’d have us believe!
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By Toni Okamoto
If you’re looking for a perfect summer dessert, this is it! It’s fresh, healthy, and doesn’t require an oven! I brought this particular batch to a potluck and it was a huge hit, too. Make yours today and share your photos with us on Instagram by adding the hashtag #VeganOutreach!
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*Tip: Chocolate will harden faster if the fruit has been refrigerated or chilled.
