Being Vegan Is About More Than Just Food

Hello, Hello! I hope everyone is having an awesome summer and enjoying the fairer months and the seasonal foods. I do very well when it comes to eating vegan food. I have never conscienceless eaten something non vegan, but have made a few accidental mistakes which I am sure has happened to everyone sometime or another. I do, however, use a few products that depend on exploiting animals. My old running shoes are made of leather and I am waiting to wear them out. I stopped using all my non leather belts, except a peace sign one that my dad made and I cannot bear to part with it. I used soap and shampoo that is most likely tested on animals and use a bunch of other things that I am sure are tested on animals that I am not in charge of buying so they are out of my control. I know when I am able to choose the cleaning products I buy, I will get ones that are not tested on animals. Over the past few weeks I have needed to buy new shoes and soap and I made a conscience effort to buy vegan.
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I heard about Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap from a friend and I think it is really amazing! You are supposed to be able to use it for 18 different things, but just a word, DO NOT TRY IT FOR TOOTH PASTE OR YOU WILL BE SORRY! I have not tried washing my hair with it yet but it works great as soap and shave gel.


Shoes!
I love shoes and have been buying vegan shoes for a while. I always had canvas Converses in the past but I wanted to try somthing different. I saw a girl wearing these Keds slip ons in the mall and so I went online to find them. They are very comfortable and have no leather in them.


I am starting my volunteering at the wildlife sanctuary soon and I really need hiking boots (last year I had to wear sneakers which was horrible). I went on a quest from non leather boots and found them on Zappos.com in the vegetarian section. I recomend checking Zappos whenever you need vegan shoes. They were majorly on sale with free overnight shipping both ways.

AND NOW FOR THE FOOD

My two newest vegan loves are Newman's Own plain popcorn (which I melt EB to put on top) and Rice Thins rice crackers.

My aunt came yesterday and bought me two HUGE bags of dark chocolate covered espresso beans and dark chocolate covered cranberries! Need I say more?

TLT (Tofu lettuce and tomatoe) on pita

Italian-flavored tempeh nuggets over salad

I found the recipe for the nuggets in the Students Go Vegan Cookbook (pg. 124). They were so easy to make and came out perfect. Don't forget to simmer and steam your tempeh first to get the bite out.
One last thought to end my long post. Many people feel they need to be protesting animal rights on the streets, this is great if you have the courage and drive to do it, but I think everyone with a vegan blog is positively protesting in favor of the animals. When we get people interested in good tasting vegan food, we get them interested in why we eat this way. Isa Chandra Moskowitz (author of Vegan With a Vengeance and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World) writes on this idea of “culinary activism” here. Good job everyone and keep up the amazing work!

SUMMER TIME... and the livin's easy

Guess what? I am officially on summer vacation! For Father’s Day I made my dad biscotti and we ate it with espresso (I have an espresso machine). The farmer’s market was up for the first time but it was pretty bare. I plan on going every weekend. Yesterday I went to the beach with my friends for the first time of the year. It rained but we still had a great time. We stopped at this great soft serve Italian ice place with ices that were so creamy, they tasted like ice cream.


Grilled pizza


Stir fry


Biscotti (from Vive le Vegan) and espresso


Peas from the farmer's market

I forgot the name of these but the are from onions

I love the beach!

Seven Things and Why I love My Brother

Sorry I have been MIA for a while. My teachers have been piling on the work at school and I just have not had a break. I have final exams this week and next week, but I am finally on summer vacation on the 20th!
Midwest Vegan tagged to say seven random things about myself:

1. I have no cousins. I love my family so much and I do not really mind not having cousins, but people always think it is strange that they have 20 or more cousins and I have none. My aunt has a dog so he is kind of my cousin.

2. I have never been on a plane. My dream is to fly to California someday.

3. I like going to the dentist. I love the feeling of getting my teeth cleaned. I have never had any major work done or had braches. It’s weird, but I really love my teeth.

4. I like black coffee.

5. My favorite shows are Gilmore Girls, Entourage, Little People; Big World- to name a few.

6. My favorite sport is skimboarding. When people think of skimboarding they think of 7 year olds sliding around on the sand. I take it to the next level and do it as an extreme sport. To learn more about it you can go to skimonline.com.

7. My favorite bands/musicians are: AFI, Hellogoodbye, Jack Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Acceptance, Dashboard Confessional, Eric Clapton, Led Zepplin, Sublime, Cream, Blinl-182, Ok Go, 30 Seconds to Mars, Dispatch, My Chemical Romance, OAR, Paul Anka, Panic! at The Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Yellow card, The Postal Service, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Phantom Planet, The Starting Line, The Used. Chevelle, Greenday (old stuff), Queen, Coheen and Cambria, Story of the year, Motion city soundtrack, Say Anything, Reliant K...to name a few.

My brother is home from college and I came home one day after school to find that he had cooked blueberry muffin bread. We had no cow’s milk (only soy) and the only butter we have is Earth Balance so they were vegan! The next day he decided to make vegan banana bread, even though we had cow’s milk. I was so happy that he cared enough to make vegan food so I could eat it too. Both the breads turned out fantastic!

My brother is amazing!

Strawberries are in season! I also put grape fruit in the bowl with them.

Where My Muffin Tops At?

Hey everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the almost-summer and supporting your local farmers market. I still have a few more weeks until the farmers market starts up, but I cannot wait! I recently made muffins, but I disappointed because they don’t have tops and come out like cupcakes. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to add to the recipe so I will have enough batter for there to be tops on the muffins? A few more weeks until I am out of school so I an start posting (and commenting) a lot more.

Tempeh Burritos

(From my cookbooklet: Powered By Plants)

Marinade:
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder (or more for added spice)
3 tablespoons salsa
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice (you can use lime)

Combine all ingredients in a shallow bowl big enough to fit all the tempeh and stir.

8 ounces of tempeh (1 package)
6 corn or whole-wheat tortillas

Cut tempeh in half length wise. Place the tempeh in a pan with enough water to cover and simmer for ten minutes. Remove the tempeh and pat dry with a paper towel. Cut the tempeh in strips 1/2 an inch thick. Add the tempeh strips to the marinade and stir to coat the pieces. Marinate at room temperature for an hour, turning the tempeh at least once.

In an oiled frying pan on medium high heat, cook tempeh for 30 seconds. Turn the heat down to low and cook, covered, for 3 minutes. Remove cover and use a spatula to flip the tempeh and cook on medium heat for 3-4 minutes, or until the tempeh is browned. Remove tempeh from pan.

Heat tortillas in a dry skillet until heated and soft. Fill with tempeh and your choice of fillings, fold your burrito, and enjoy!

Full Meal Muffins

From vegan lunch box

Stir Fry

My weekly staple

Can You Believe I Have Not Had a Cookie In A Year? Yeah, I Had To Change That

I have been craving good old chocolate chips cookies and I finally made some that my whole family devoured. I get out of school on June 20th so be prepared for a lot of food experiments once the summer is in full swing.

Pasta with tomato sauce

Always a classic



Sitr Fry

Black bean burgers

Recipe

This is a Powered by Plants recipe. It amazes me how much these resemble hamburgers. I used some Anne's Smokie Maple BBQ sauce.

Tofu and veggie skewers

Chocolate chip cookies

This recipe is from Eats Like A Bird (thank you so much). These cookies are just the way I like them, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.


So moist and yummy!

We had some really nice weather last week with almost 90° temperatures; I even got a slight tan! It was nice enough to use the grill for the first time of the season. I made grilled pizza and wow, did it taste good! I also finished my cookbooklet and am going to start giving it out to people.





Grilled Pizza

Recipe




Tofu Burritos

I have been going a little burrito crazy lately. I used tofu that I had been marinating in BBQ sauce, soy sauce, and a little garlic and cooked it in a cast iron pan with a few shakes of Tabasco sauce. Then I warped the burrito with lettuce and dipped it in salsa.

Stir Fry

I think I stir fry in my wok at least once a week. This stir fry has tofu, snap peas, broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, and spinach.

The cookbooklet is nice and compact and contains six of my best recipes:

black bean burgers, tempeh burritos, granola, fruit and nut energy bars, lasagna, and sesame peanut noodles.

Happy One Year (vegan) Anniversary To Me!!!

Thanks for everyone's nice comments. To summarize, I went to the doctor and he told me I had lose joints all over which explains why I can pop all of my joints. It seems that I have medial tibia stress syndrome in my left leg that may have irritated a nerve, causing the tingling sensation. Today was day two of physical therapy for my shoulder (which seems to be helping) and I have to get special made orthodics for my shoes or I will continue to get shin splints and maybe even stress fractures (yikes!). I am not allowed to run until I get my orthodics so I joined the YMCA and I have been doing the elliptical. When I do get my orthodics, which won’t be for a few weeks, I have to start out VERY slowly only running on grass and working up from there. My track season is basically over but if I battle hard over the summer, I will be running cross country in the fall.

Back to the food. Today is my one year vegan anniversary! (I only know it because it is also the day of my friend's birthday). What a year it has been. I think since becoming vegan, I have changed my entire outlook on life and have learned so much about the animal product industry. Some people thought my veganism was a phase, but I know I will stay vegan for life. I am working on putting together a small booklet of a few of my best recipes to hand out to people who have inquired about eating vegan. I will post the recipes some time soon. Here are two dishes that I am including:

Tempeh Burritos

I used the Tempeh Taco recipe from the Students Go Vegan cookbook as a base for this recipe. I wrapped up the tempeh in a tortilla with lettuce and tomato with salsa on the side.



Sesame Peanut Noodles

Original post

I changed the recipe around from the one in the original post. I also used whole wheat spaghetti.

Here is the lasagna recipe I promised. I am also going to use this in the booklet. (Midewest Vegan, this recipe has tofu in it but not the tofu ricotta kind. I don't like the tofu ricotta kind so I used a creamier sauce like kind that I really like.)

Lasagna With Spinach and Mushrooms

1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
9 lasagna noodles (uncooked)
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed

Tomato sauce:

1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion in a saucepan until it becomes translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Add the remaining ingredients, and cook for 15-20 minutes. Sauté the mushrooms over medium heat and add them to the tomato sauce along

“Cheese” filling:

1/2 cup extra-firm silken tofu
1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 tablespoons sesame tahini
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 1/2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons corn starch

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until silky smooth. It should be soupy. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Spread half the tomato sauce mixture in the bottom of a 9x12 inch glass pan. Place a layer of noodles evenly over the sauce leaving a little space in between them. Put all the spinach on top of the noodles and spoon half of the filling evenly over that. Follow with another layer of noodles and then put the rest of the filling on top of the noodles. Top with a final layer of noodles and pull the sauce over this. (The order is sauce-noodles-spinach-filling-noodles-filling-noodles-sauce). Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 30 more minutes, or until the noodles are cooked through. Waiting 15 minutes before cutting the lasagna will help it hold it’s shape.

*I almost forgot, April 22nd is EARTH DAY! How is everyone celebrating?

Hello everyone. I have been cooking and eating all kinds of good food but my mind has been else where and I forget to document most it. I already mentioned that I got a new stove, but the hood (you know, the thing that sucks the smoke out) was installed recently. We never had a hood before but now I can cook things in my wok at extremely high heats and not worry about smelling up the whole house with smoke. I will take a picture of them and post it next time. I have to ask if you could please continue to keep me in your prayers because I have been having pain in my left shin since it started to throb with pain last Friday in track practice accompanied by a strange tingling/throbbing that I still have. I have been unable to go to track practice since then and have missed our first scrimmage, our first two meets, 5 practices, and I was not able to get my uniform and track clothes. I am trying to be strong but it is slowly wearing away at me. I am going to a really good specialized doctor on Wednesday and I am hoping he can tell me exactly what is wrong with me. In the mean time, I am on spring break so I am just trying to keep occupied with cooking and trying to find cross training things to do.

I have been doing a lot of cooking but I recently photographed my lasagna and my granola. The granola is my own recipe and the lasagna is an adaptation of two recipes put together that I will some day type up and post.

Lasagna

Granola

recipe

Pi Day! (3.14)

Hey everyone! I have been very distracted and very forgetful when it comes to taking pictures of my food. This month has been big for injuries. I hurt my rotator cuff a few weeks ago and then recently re-hurt it because I went back to working out with too much weight too soon. I also injured my calf last Tuesday in track and have not been able to run since then. I am finally getting better and hoping I will be back to normal by the end of next week.

On a lighter note, my math class celebrated Pi day (3/14 as in Pi is 3.14.....). It is a little elementary but we have been working so hard in class that we deserved a break. I made a chocolate silk pie but I forgot to take a picture of it because I was rushing around to get it finished. I wrote out the pi symbol in chocolate chips. I did not tell anyone it was vegan except my teacher after she had eaten it. She said she loved mine because it was dark chocolate. We got a new stove and the first thing I baked in it were muffins. They came out so moist and yummy. Hope everyone is having a good pre-spring.

Chocolate Silk Pie

Crust-

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup canola oil

about 2-4 tablespoons cold soymilk

Combine the flour and salt in a large mxing bowl. Cut in the oil with a fork until the mixture froms coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the milk or water over the flour mixture and mix with the fork until moist. From the dough into a ball with year hand and place it between two sheets of waxed paper. With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a circle about one inch larger then your pie plate. Flip the crust into the plate very cerfulling and flatten the crust against the plate. trim the edges and flute them (you can use your fingers to make that cool little ribbed effect). Prick the sides and the bottom of the crust with a fort.

-To fully bake crust (for this recipe and all other pies that DO NOT need to be baked)

Bake in a pre heated 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or until it turns deep golden brown and is crisp. Cool before filling.

-To prebake crust (for pies you need to bake)

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until it turns golden brown. Cool before filling.

Filling-

12 oz. silken SOFT tofy

12 oz. vegan chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt chocolate in microwave or in a double boiler, let cool untill its warm, not hot. While chocolate is melting, put the tofu into a belender or food precessor, and blend until smooth. Add the chocolate and belend again until the mixture has no white color left in it. Add the vanilla and blend again. Pur into pie crust and refrigerate for 1 hour, and serve at room temperature, if you can wait that long.

serves- 9 but could very likely serve 1

Full Meal Muffins

Amazing recipe from Vegan Lunch Box. They came out perfect! No added oil, sugar, salt, and they are wheat free. They also have zuchinni in them, are you intrigued yet?

Burgers, Bars, Bowls, and Pasta

Tofu Burger

I sated the tofu in a little bit of soy sauce added spinach, tomato, and avocado.







Fruit and Nut Bars
I Changed this recipe a lot.


1 cup whole spelt flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup chopped dates (about 3 whole dates)
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped sunflowseeds
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead with your hands until well blended. Press the dough into a parchment paper lined (or lightly oiled) 8 in. by 8 in. glass pan (or some would call a square casserole). Cut into squares before cooking. Bake for 25 minutes. Keep in the refrigerator.

I made the bowl in ceramics.

Pasta fagioli with spinach
Falafel Burgers

I used Isa's recipe from Vegan With a Vengence (pg 98-99) but I baked them at 350 degress for 10 minutes on each side.

I Am Still Here!

Don’t worry everyone, I didn’t abandon my food blog or leave the country. I had finals/midterms at the end of January so I had to focus my time solely on studying for them. I am still cooking, cuz a girls gotta eat, but I have been forgetting to take pictures or just did not have enough time to get them out of my camera. I am hoping I can keep up with posting this month (at least once a week) but I have to see how my new classes go as far as homework and tests. This is going to be my first year doing spring track which means once March comes around, I am going to have practices and meets all the time.


As a healthy vegan, I work out regularly and can not stress enough the importance of working out. I think healthy food and healthy living go hand in hand, so I would like to share my work out routine. It has changed a lot over the years, but this is what it is currently:

• Monday- Weight training, ab and leg workouts, and stretching/yoga
  

• Tuesday- Punching bag (it sounds weird, but it is a great cardio workout/stress release), running around my hilly street, stretching/yoga
  

• Wednesday- Weight training, ab and leg workouts, and stretching/yoga . Running at school for weekly track pre-season.
  

• Thursday- Punching bag, running, stretching/yoga
  

• Friday- Weight training, ab and leg workouts, and stretching/yoga
  

• Saturday- Punching bag, running, stretching/yoga
  

• Sunday- Running
  

I am interested to know what other people do to stay healthy and active. For any vegan athletes, this web site is really good http://www.veganfitness.net/.
Okay, back to the food. The weather is getting colder and colder so I pulled out my trusty chile recipe to warm me up. I also used one of my new cookbooks for the first time and made tempeh tacos. Wow, one whole month and all I have to show for it is two recipes. I cannot wait until summer...

Chile
I have finally perfected this recipe and it never fails me.
Original post with recipe here.



Tempeh Tacos
From the Student's Go Vegan Cookbook (by Crole Raymond).
This recipe came out amazing and yet was incredibly simple to make. I used toasted whole wheat pitas instead of taco shells and added some shredded lettuce and tomatoes.