Red Lentil Soup

Red Lentil Soup before boiling

I have made this twice already, it's great for a cold winter day. Plus I accidentally poured like, two pounds of red lentils from the dispenser. So... lots of soup for us!

From Allrecipes.com

• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 pinch fenugreek seeds I don't know what these are so I skipped. :o
  
• 1 cup dry red lentils
• 1 cup butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed
• 1/3 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg



Finished Red Lentil Soup

• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat, and cook the onion, ginger, garlic, and fenugreek until onion is tender.
2. Mix the lentils, squash, and cilantro into the pot. Stir in the water, coconut milk, and tomato paste. Season with curry powder, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 30 minutes, or until lentils and squash are tender. 

I got a huge butternut squash that filled about two-cups, so I added a cup and a half more water, 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, and most of the can of coconut milk.  This way you will be ensured left-overs for the next days lunch.

Vegan Banana Bread!

So, this one is definitely a winner. It rained all day yesterday so I decided to fill my house with warmth from the oven, and delicious aromas from the kitchen.

Vegan Banana Bread with Soy Choco chips

Recipe is from VegWeb.com.

1/3 cup non dairy milk
1 tsp vinegar
1 3/4 cup Flour
1 1/2 cup Sugar (I used coconut sugar)
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 1/2 teaspoons Egg Replacer + 5 tablespoons water
3 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup soy chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease 9x5 loaf pan.  Make buttermilk by adding the vinegar to the non dairy milk, and set aside.

Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

In a different bowl, mix bananas, oil, and buttermilk mixture.

Combine the banana mixture and flour mixture; stir well.  Whisk egg replacer with water until frothy, then stir into the mixture.  Add pecans, chocolate chips or whatever else! Pour into prepared bread pan.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Vegan Eggplant Casserole

Vegan Eggplant Casserole

Okay so I was going to link directly to this page on vegweb, but my browser is saying it is a site under attack. Hmm..

Typing recipe in from my phone then:

1 large eggplant, sliced and cut into 1/4"
3 large potatoes, sliced and cut into 1/4"
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly brush eggplant and potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Bake on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes. Note- separate the eggplant and potatoes in the pan, this will make building your casserole much easier.


One large onion, chopped
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 tbsp fresh basil
2 tbsp fresh cilantro
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp fennel ( I wasn't sure if this meant fresh or the seeds. I used the seeds.)
14.5 ounces diced tomatoes
12 ounces veggie crumbles

Saute onions in olive oil until translucent.  Add oregano, parsley, basil, cilantro, garlic, fennel, tomatoes, and crumbles.

6 ounces fresh spinach
3 cups (or one package) vegan mozzerella cheese (you can find this at Sprouts or Whole Foods)

In 9x13 glass casserole dish, layer in potatoes first. Next cover potatoes with half the "meat" sauce.  Add the layer of spinach. Add layer of eggplant and top with remaining sauce. Top with mozzerella cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and bake for 40 minutes.

Vegan Eggplant Casserole

Serves 4-6  Preparation time 1 hour total.

Vegan Broccoli Mushroom Quiche

Broccoli Mushroom Quiche

This is an easy one that I found at about.com, reprinted from The Compassionate Cookbook. The recipe is as follows:

• 1 pre-made pie crust
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped broccoli
• 1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms
• 1 pound firm tofu, patted dry
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup soy milk

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat and sautee the onion, green pepper, broccoli and mushrooms until cooked, about 8 to 10 minutes.
In a blender or food processor, blend the tofu, nutmeg, turmeric, basil, salt and soy milk until smooth. Stir the vegetables and the tofu mixture together and add pepper to taste.
Pout the batter into the pie crust. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted just off-center into the quiche comes out clean.


I found an awesome pre-made whole wheat crust in the freezer section of Whole Foods. It tasted excellent, and it was a two-pack so now I get to make another quiche this week. Make sure you dry out the tofu a bit before you mix it with the other dry ingredients. My quiche was watery after 30 minutes, so I baked it for an additional 20. Other than that, it was delicious! I am thinking that I may add in some faken bacon next time to add to that breakfasty feel.

Vegan Potato Leek Soup

This is another awesome recipe from vegweb.com.  The recipes is as follows:

1 medium onion, chopped finely
    4 small leeks or 3 medium ones, chopped finely (use white parts mostly)
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    4 medium potatoes, peeled and finely sliced
    3 cups water (the water should almost cover the ingredients)
    salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a large pot, add the olive oil and saute the onions and leeks for two minutes. For leeks, you may use the green part, but this will change the flavor of the soup; you can use the green foliage of the leeks in a stir fry. Add the potatoes to the pot, and also the water.

2. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or until cooked (potatoes are soft) Remove the pot from heat. If you have a hand blender, let the soup cool and then blend until smooth. You may wish to reheat the soup. Season with salt and pepper.

3. If you do not have a hand blender, with a ladle, scoop up the chunky parts and process in a blender or food processor until smooth. You may need to do this in two parts, so have a bowl ready in which to transfer processed soup. Once all the soup is processed, mix it to the liquid left in the pot, and add pepper and salt.


Makes: 5-6 servings, Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes

This turned out nicely and I have made it twice in two weeks. Perfect for a cold day.  After reading some of the comments I decided to add a vegetable bullion cube to the water for flavor. I also invested in an immersion blender (thanks Shane!) so that I don't have to scoop out the chunks and blend in my small blender. That was messy, and way too much work.  Next time I will probably leave some chunks so it's not so pureed.

Vegan Cornbread

This little recipe is from allrecipes as well.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer (dry)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Grease six muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a small bowl, beat together egg replacer and water. In a separate bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add egg mixture, oil and water; stir until smooth. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins using approximately 1/2 cup for each muffin.
3. Bake in pre-heated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 
4.  

Now the pictures people posted on allrecipes.com looked nice and fluffy. Mine came out, well, kind of sad and forlorn. For one thing, they were not even close to done after 15 minutes, and I made sure to preheat AND my oven is always right on target for temperature. It took an extra 10 minutes to get them cooked all the way through. I followed the directions with one change- palm sugar instead of white refined sugar. They were tasty little muffins nonetheless. Perfect for soaking up the eat that was emanating from the potent chili I made.  

Vegan Chlil

This is from Allrecipes.  The directions are as follows:

• 1 (12 ounce) package vegetarian burger crumbles
• 3 (15.25 ounce) cans kidney beans
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 4 stalks celery, diced
• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons hot chili powder
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 1 cube vegetable bouillon
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup hot water

Directions

1. In a slow cooker combine vegetarian crumbles, kidney beans, onion, celery, bell pepper, bay leaves, chili powder, molasses, bouillon, cilantro, hot sauce, salt, pepper and 1 cup water. Cook on high for 3 hours.
2. Dissolve flour in 1 cup hot water. Pour into chili and cook 1 more hour. 

I'm trying not to use refined flour at all, so I decided to  pour the water in first, then whisk in a scoop of cornstarch with the bullion cube.  This was FINE and I didn't have to open up the crock pot after 3 hours (when you open a crock pot you lose at least a half hour of heat). In fact, after about two hours it was done. I don't know if I have a super duper crock pot or something, but my food seems to be finished earlier than what is stated in many recipes.

Some of the comments said that the taste was bland, so I added some basil, way more cilantro (at least a 1/2 cup), and my husband added more chili powder. It was really hot. My sinuses are now cleared.  

Will probably do less chili powder and more beans next time-either another can of kidney or black beans.

Oh, and I didn't add hot pepper sauce because I don't know what that is. :o

This is definitely a great base recipe for vegan chili, I will for sure make it again. I think even meat eaters can appreciate this dish.