Three new recipes, or three new uses for noodles

A few weeks ago, while still on my "expand my food horizons" kick, I decided that I wanted to try some new recipes for the week. After doing a google search for "vegan menus," I found a great little site called Veg Cooking. It's run by PETA, and while I don't 100% condone everything PETA does, I do like that they are a great resource for vegetarian/vegan information. I browsed their menus and made my shopping list for the week. Anyway, as I think I mentioned before, I do all my grocery shopping on the same day, which requires trips to at least 3 grocery stores. I think it's easier that way, although the food might not be as fresh as it could be. At least I know what I am going to be cooking for the week and I don't have that moment standing in front of my fridge thinking "crap, what should I make..." Anyway, as I was shopping for these new recipes, I was proud of myself for buying stuff I rarely ever cook with, like artichoke hearts, green onion, fresh bell peppers. Yes, this is out of the ordinary for me.

So the first recipe I tried was Creamy Pasta Salad With Artichoke Hearts.

I've never made pasta salad before, but how I known how easy it is, I would have started a lot earlier. Super easy, fresh, lemony. I made it for lunch on a hot summer day so it was perfect. I tried recreating it the following week with some chopped up frozen bell pepper strips instead of the artichoke hearts, but I think the chokes add to the flavor much better.

My second recipe that week was a Hamburger Macaroni Casserole.

Now this recipe I was skeptical about. Tomato soup? French fried onion strips? And what does corn have to do with hamburger? Still, it sounded kind of good. And it WAS. Not just kind of good, it was really good. We did make one addition to the recipe. My sister had some leftover Daiya Cheese, so we sprinkled it on top. Now, the thing with vegan cheese is, one it is hard to find a good brand that really tastes and melts like cheese, and two, it is expensive. Daiya cheese is about $10 a pound, so it's too expensive to make a ton of cheese enchiladas with. It is so creamy and yummy though. (edit: It's November and since this original post, Daiya has become much more affordable and accessible to me! Yay!) If I could only find a good bacon substitute that is fatty and greasy like real bacon, I would be set. But really, I loved the recipe. I'm assuming it's a vegan hamburger helper knockoff. I did use 2 cans of tomato soup instead of one (it looked like it might have turned out dry with just one), and a whole can of corn. Another bonus: it makes a lot, so everyone in the house had leftovers for lunch the next day.

The last recipe of this blog is "Better than Beef" Stroganoff.

Looks kind of gray and bland huh? I will admit, I had high hopes for this recipe, and it wasn't bad, I just don't think I would make it again. It tasted OK, but I think the canned mushrooms mixed with the canned gravy just made everything taste like it came out of a box. Lots of sodium. I was also out of onions, so they didn't make it to the pan. On the bright side, the sauce was creamy and the recipe was super easy.

So those are my three recipe reviews. I would definitely recommend the first 2, even if you use real mayo and beef instead of the vegan stuff, and if you think you can dress up the Stroga-not, let me know how it goes.