startingwithlunch

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Dinner tonight:

Vegan Crab Cakes and Black Bean soup from Eat Vegan. I think Ray spent approx 3 hours on these two dishes, but they certainly lived up to hype even with the store bought mango salsa (normally, with that kinda leg work, you suck it up and make the salsa from scratch too). 

10/10 though. We will definitely make this again. Also, this is not health food. This is fried deliciousness. 

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Meal prep Sunday for two recipes from Salad Samurai:

Sesame Noodles in the Dojo

Vanessa Kabocha Salad

I separated the components for easy assembly at work throughout the week. The Vanessa salad in particular seems like it’s going to hold me over for a more than the 2-3 servings it suggests. Pics to come.  

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My favorite pasta is orecchiette. When I saw this minestrone recipe, I knew I’d make it with orecchiette.

It’s cold in Houston (not exaggerating this time), and this easy soup hit the spot. It also freezes well. Highly recommend.  

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If you take nothing else from my blog, know that my favorite meat alternatives primarily come from Nonna’s Italian Kitchen. I know this is just a pic of some tofu, but “The Breast of Marinated Tofu” is one of the easiest most satisfying staples in my house. 

Tonight I added this to some fried rice. 

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#rawchallenge2018 = 3 work days. breakfast, lunch, and snack… RAW VEGAN.

Day 3

Finally! A meal to love!

Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen pulled through with the zucchini noodles topped with sun-dried tomato marinara. As recommended, I made the vegan parmesan. I really loved this dish. Not super filling, but luckily, with Anna out, I had TWO servings. I ate the second serving around 3 hours later. 

Look, the sauce is worthy on its own. The dish overall though would make an amazing side to some protein. On it’s own, for this challenge, this was the most satisfying meal. On its own, in the future, I’d still be hungry. 

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A (not so) brief commentary on the seitan I’ve been praising. 

The recipe for that sparked this post is the Black Bean and Seitan Stew from AfroVegan that we had the other night. I used the “wrong” seitan for it. How? Isn’t all seitan the same. No, my friend, it is not. There are a lot of different ways to make seitan that result in wildly varying tastes and textures. With that, I think most of us that make it regularly have a few favorites that we return to time and again. 

It’s actually pretty important to know what you’re making with the seitan you’re preparing because of these textures, and I didn’t do that on Saturday when I was lazy and just made the chickeny seitan from The Vegan Slow Cooker. I like the seitan recipes in this book because I can get back to napping on the couch ASAP, but on this particular day, I kinda jacked up the ratio of wet to dry ingredients... ROOKIE MOVE. And I felt it as I dropped it into the broth. I turned to Ray like “uhhhhh these are going to be very loosely formed.” And yeah, they came out as very light fluffy (can you say fluffy in broth?) dumplings???

Flash forward to cooking day, and I realize I have to cut into medallions then coat these bad boys in cornmeal and then pan fry them. There is no way they will hold up! I AM SO ANGRY WITH MYSELF. 

But I am a person of action.   

I pressed the seitan in a tofu press, and then sliced them into medallions (carefully). You can see where some bits were too crumbly in the photos, but the rest were able to be dressed and fried pretty well. They looked like chicken nuggets, but I think (because of the vinegar) they taste like fish sticks. 

They definitely fill a niche when you’re vegan but you’re not doing it for the beach body...

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#rawchallenge2018 = 3 work days. breakfast, lunch, and snack… RAW VEGAN.

Day 2

Improvement on pics?? Yes?

Again, this is from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. My colleague and fellow raw food challenger was out with the flu today, so for breakfast, I had a banana and kiwi. It was LOVELY.

For lunch (and later, snacks), I had the baja wrap which requires a bit of legwork because you’ve gotta prep the baja cheeze (pretty good, but brazil nuts are expensive), the taco “meaty” filling, and the corn salsa. nothing super hard, but not exactly fast. Fortunately, these components made for a better whole than Day 1′s lunch. 

Overall, I liked this meal a lot more than the lunch yesterday, but the taco “meaty” filling was pretty salty and super heavy on the oil. Just something to keep in mind. 

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Ad hoc dinner. 

Nuggets (and lemony cream sauce) inspired by the seitan in  Afro-Vegan ‘s black bean and seitan stew (but made with The Vegan Slow Cooker chickeny seitan. 

Leftover salad from Baja Wrap components from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen.

Roasted vegetables in Cast Iron (I think this set)

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Need

Falafel and Sweet potato fries from Veggie Grill🌿

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#rawchallenge2018 = 3 work days. breakfast, lunch, and snack... RAW VEGAN. 

Day 1

i don’t like taking pictures. i don’t like eating raw food. why do i do this? 

These dishes are all from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen which is my only raw food cookbook. The lunch wraps were definitely modified because I didn’t want to eat collard greens for lunch, but It was kinda wild to use the dilly cheeze spread as a protein source? I did not think it was dilly or cheezy enough.

Ani puts together better-than-expected food for someone dabbling in the raw vegan world, but you will still have to be of mind to power through an entire day without any warmth. My colleague (in it to win it on this challenge with me) and I have 2 more days to go. *cry* 

Bright side: vegan dinner is so much better when you haven’t had anything cooked for an entire work day!

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OMG so good. Afro-Vegan repeatedly proves that comfort food can go vegan exceedingly well. 

This was the Black Bean and Seitan Stew. I would have never picked this recipe because I wouldn’t have gotten past the thought that it would have just had seitan dumpling like things in a soup. Lemme be clear though, this was not your standard seitan in a some broth. The fried seitan is tangy from the apple cider vinegar and crispy from the cornmeal coating. Topped with the Salty Lemon Cream (silk tofu based), it’s decadent. 

About the seitan... I didn’t know what Ray was making when I prepped seitan Saturday, so I made the chickeny seitan from The Vegan Slow Cooker so that I could be lazy. This wasn’t really the right seitan for this dish at all. I should have used a tighter one as these act more like dumplings. I pressed the seitan, then cut them into small medallions, but they swelled in the vinegar and ended up looking like chicken nuggets. They were super good, but consider the frying portion of the process when you prepare/buy your own seitan. 

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Meal prep for #rawchallenge2018.

Details coming... all from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen.

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Vegan Paella from the Smith & Daughters Cookbook.

There was an easy way to make this dish, but Ray prepped it the hard way. Overall, it’s a hearty, flavorful meal that countered this freaking freeze going on outside. 

Because I got the Joule for Christmas (Thanks, Mom and Dad!), we added some sous vide carrots on top. Good times.

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Up next from the Hummus Sapien Weekly Meal Plan Menu:

Made the Sheet Pan Mexican Veggies!

A few things: 

I didn’t have algae oil (huh?), so I used olive oil. Awesome.

I didn’t make any slaw, rice, or tortillas even though I had all these things on hand. Because I was tired. That’s all. Tired.

I liked these veggies. The seasoning was great, and it was easy to throw together or modify. I anticipate making these again. That being said, I could go without the avocado crema. Just didn’t do much for me when guacamole is so easy to make.

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Another pick from the Weekly Meal Plan at the Hummus Sapien

We made GARAM MASALA VEGETABLE BOWLS WITH HONEY CASHEW CREAM.

Plating is not something that comes naturally to the residents of this household, but the end product was actually pretty damn good. I’m super happy with how well this dish showcased the veggies while coming together with cashew cream. 

Recipe wasn’t hard, but it’s a bit time intensive. All and all, I’d make it again.

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 Vegan Pot Pie as mentioned per the Weekly Meal Plan at the Hummus Sapien.

I know the year got away from me in a lot of ways. Really, it did. It’s now the holiday season, and for us in Houston, it’s been so mild... perfect weather really. But we’re getting a cold front this week. I have winter veggies, and I needed to meal prep. Thankfully I follow a blog that does a weekly meal plan. 

Anyhow, I made the pot pie. It’s awesome. Highly recommend, etc etc.  It makes a lot of food. 

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beets and things