Saturday, January 21, 2012

Vegan ranch dressing

Why did I never think of making it? It has changed my life. I use the recipe below. Easy, fast, yummy.

Ingredients:

1 cup vegan mayonnaise
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tsp fresh chopped parsley
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp fresh chopped dill or 1/4 tsp dried
Preparation:

Blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth and creamy.
To use your ranch dressing as a dip, just add a bit extra mayonnaise and a bit less soy milk to make it thicker. Place the dip in the fridge; dressing will thicken and set as it cools.

Enjoy your homemade vegan ranch dressing.

More salad dressing recipes

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/saladdressings/r/veganranch.htm

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Another try

So I disappeared from my blog. I never forgot it, but I was hesitant to come back. I know I don't have any sort of following, but I felt like in some ways I set the idea that this was a vegan cooking blog and well, I'm not vegan anymore. Why you ask? Well, I came to the conclusion that I really needed to stick to avoiding my allergens. Most of them I could do and easily still be vegan but the big one was wheat. No bread, no wraps, no faux meats that use wheat, no soy sauce. No pizza crusts, no breaded items like onion rings. No bun for your veggie burger or veggie dog. No croutons on your salad. It's hard to be a nut free wheat free vegan. Not impossible but difficult. My eating choices were extremely limited. On top of that, we were in family planning mode and I wanted to be able to give my baby all the nutrients she needed.

So now I eat meat. There's still lots I don't eat (dairy, egg, nuts, shellfish, and the wheat thing) so lots of times my cooking is creative, and it is often vegan. I sometimes feel guilty about it but for the most part I'm ok with the choice I made.

Oh yeah, as part of my disastrous domestication, I have a daughter now. She is 5 months old and I have to say, she is amazeballs.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Another quickie.



Somewhere over the rainbow.... there's probably a glass of soymilk or something.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Daiya. It's to Daiya for.

Oh, I'm so punny.

So it would appear a lot of people come to my blog because it's the first page that comes up if you do a google search for Daiya vegan lasagna. While this makes me happy, it also makes me embarrassed because if you recall, my only posted lasagna attempt looked a lot like vomit. If any of you vegans saw that gooey mess and thought "hm, I would like to try that" I would like to hear how it went. Hopefully you had more sense than I did and you added more layers and/or used a taller dish.

Anyway, Daiya is really taking off now that it's in all the Whole Food's stores nationwide and more and more veggie restaurants are picking it up. (I mean, seriously, vegan/gluten free mac and cheese at Veggie Grill? Amazeballs.) So with more people trying to figure out what to do with their blessed packages of fake cheesyness, I thought I would post a list of my 10 favorite things to do with Daiya. Some with pictures. The rest you will need to use your imagination.


BTW, my cheesyness? 100% real.


1. Vegan daiya cheesy pasta, as mentioned above.

2. Grilled cheese. Duh. Add some tomato soup. Yum.

3. Quesadillas. I know this picture of quesadillas is rather uninspired, you can imagine it is a lot fancier if you prefer. I think I just really wanted to eat it.
daiya quesadillas

4. Daiya Cheese sauce. Cheese sauce usually is 1/2 cup of soy milk and a pinch of salt, boiled, then brought down to simmering. When it's simmering, stir half a pack of cheddar daiya in, along with margarine if you want. Of course, this is just a base, you can probably add jalapenos or drained salsa for queso dip or whatever you want to do with it. I like to use it for baked potatoes.
baked taters with daiya cheese sauce

5. Or you could use it for nachos.
vegan daiya nachos

6. Of course, daiya pizza is good too.
>daiya pizza


7. Vegan Potato Cheese soup (good use if you make too much cheese sauce)
vegan  daiya potato cheese soup

8. Chili cheese veggie dogs/fries. A staple in my home.

9. if you have leftover veggie dogs, make vegan cheddar pigs in a blanket. Kroger crescent roll dough is vegan (you may wanna doublecheck to make sure, I got it at Ralphs here in CA). Add some daiya cheddar and cut up hot dogs, and voila!

10. Or you can bake with it. I experimented baking some cheddar daiya into some corn muffins. It was pretty good, but I think I need a new muffin recipes. Maybe I should contact Betty White.
cheddar corn muffins

Thursday, April 15, 2010

So with any luck....


 


this is the very beginning of an awesome herb garden. Hopefully basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme and cherry tomatoes are to come this summer. Gardening is domestic, right? Even if it is just herbs on the patio of my 3rd story apartment.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Tofu lettuce wraps a la me

I know, I know, not a whole lot of updates. I need to step up my blogging game. Luckily, I have moved and have a beautiful new kitchen, so I'm hoping that will inspire me.

So, as usual, I've fallen a cooking rut recently, but I did make a recipe recently that turned out pretty well. For those of you who have been to PF Changs, you have probably tried the lettuce wraps, available in tofu or chicken. They are sooooo yummy, I crave the tofu wraps constantly. Well, being as cost conscious as I am (read: stingy and cheap) I wanted to be able to have them in the comfort of my own home. I know that they use oyster sauce in the tofu and a bunch of other stuff I can't put my finger on, so I just kind of put together my own variation. Super easy, super yummy, definitely not the same, but still good.

Of course I didn't measure anything so everything should be added according to taste. Sautee the following items together.

1 block of extra firm tofu, drained and diced
Few splashes of soy sauce. Don't add too much at the beginning.
Olive oil
Pepper
Red Pepper Chili flakes
Powdered ginger (I'm sure fresh ginger would be awesome)
Onion Powder
Shredded carrots, diced into small pieces
1 can of water chestnuts, drained and diced
Minced/chopped garlic

Sautee over a medium heat until the tofu is nice and brown. During this process, your pan may dry up and make the tofu stick to the pan, so you will need to add some splashes of soy sauce and olive oil as you go on (which is why I advise to be conservative with the soy at first, to avoid overly salty tofu). PF Changs serves their wraps with some full leaves of lettuce and wedges of lime. Simply spoon some of the tofu mix into a leaf of lettuce, squeeze some lime juice, and enjoy. We had ours with rice, as you can see in the pictures below.

The mix
the mix

The wrap

omnomnom

Monday, February 15, 2010

Happy Birthday February people!

Yet another office birthday cake. Chocolate with cookies and cream filling again. Didn't feel like buying a bunch of ingredients, so I used the mixes and frostings in my cupboard.