Quick Dinner Contemplations. Or, How Can I Make Brussel Sprouts Unhealthy This Time

January 12, 2016 | nouVEauGAN

Jen’s making dinner tonight, which means:

Dinner will be served in 40 minutes or less, (even if the food isn’t ready:) )
A lot of vegetables will be involved
Pre-packaged items will be involved (probably cheese)
It’s possible that something might burn

As a general rule, any beautiful, interesting dishes are a vision of Ash, but I like to share the sloppy stuff I make too, because they are definitely easy options for anyone in a hurry. And will taste good, I promise.

On tonight’s menu: Kite Hill spinach and ricotta ravioli with vegetable sauce and roasted brussel sprouts.

Kite Hill FTW!

Cut off their nub, then down the middle

Go Veggie parm is the best

How do I know the sauce is veg? The V sign on the back (or, read the ingredient list… a lot of sauces have milk in them.)

Organic? Sure. Why not.

Basil growing in our herb garden

First up: brussel sprouts. One of the best things that came out my plant-based transition is the discovery of roasting veg. I go on these great roast-sprees sometimes, shoving carrots, beets, cauliflower, garlic, squash, brussel sprouts (and any other unassuming vegetable casually passing through the fridge at the moment) into the oven to pre-make meals for later. It’s my firm belief that the reason veggies like brussel sprouts have a bad rap is because people try to boil them down to a goopy, bitter blahfest, instead of helping them realize their full potential in the oven.

Anyway, starting with the sprouts makes sense because that will take the longest. My favorite recipe is Barefoot Contessa‘s. So easy: mix halved brussel sprouts in olive oil, salt, and a lemon squeeze, then roast for 40 minutes at 400. Depending on the size of the brussel sprouts, you might go less (tonight’s were a 30-minute job, partially because I was hun-gray).

While that action is in progress, you can kick off the raviolis. These Kite Hill raviolis literally take 5 minutes because they are made already and refrigerated! Kite Hill is an amazing plant-based food company that primarily specializes in delicious cheese. All of their products are at Whole Foods. That’s just so you know. For now, start boiling some water and set them aside.

For sauce, I’m proudly ‘that guy’ that uses stuff in a jar. Tonight, we went with 365 Portobella Mushroom sauce (showing off its Vegan branding on the back). A lot of pre-made pasta sauces have milk in them, so I always check out the ingredients list or hope for the vegan insignia on the back of the bottle, like this one has.

Even though I can’t be bothered to sweat for something I can get in a jar, doesn’t mean I’m completely lazy. Chopping up 1 zucchini, 3 baby portobellos, and 5 cherry tomatoes to sautee with the sauce makes a world of difference. Once the vegetables have spent 5-10 minutes on the stove with some olive oil, we stirred in about half the jar of 365 sauce with a teaspoon of Go Veggie dairy-free parmesan, along with some chopped up basil from our herb garden. Then, set to dumping our raviolis in the boiling water.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Tomatoes, zucchini, baby portobellos getting to know one another.

Once the raviolis have spent about 5 minutes in boiling water and the sauce has heated, you’re done! Don’t forget about the brussel sprouts for chrissake!!

It’s raining. Guess that makes it time for a grilled cheese sandwich (dairy-free)

January 11, 2016January 11, 2016 | nouVEauGAN

Whenever Ash goes out of town, decisions in the kitchen get questionable pretty quick. But, my culinary laziness coupled with dreary Sunday weather make an excellent occasion for dairy-free grilled cheese sandwiches!

Voila. A melty, gooey, savory snack that takes me home:

Realistic recipes book review: “Vegan Bowls”

Image | January 2, 2016 | nouVEauGAN

We love. This book. The “Vegan Bowls” concept is straightforward : balanced meals that fit in a bowl. Authored by Zsu Dever who “hails from a long line of culinary professionals and restaurateurs”, we appreciate that she knows what she is doing in the kitchen, but keeps things simple for the rest of us.

She opens with some basic recipes on staples like vegetable broth and corn tortillas, but isn’t a bully about making things from scratch. The information is there for those who want (or need) to make everything from scratch but readers can buy veg broth just as well. Ma’am speaks my language already.

The rest is organized by bowl type: grain bowls, sauteed bowls, pasta bowls… you get the idea. There’s something for everyone and the options are diverse, both regionally (e.g., Asian noodles vs Irish stew) and by mealtime (e.g. salads and soups vs breakfast).

For our first attempt, we took on paella. This is a familiar, personal dish for both of us – Jen having studied in Spain, Ash being Persian (hence, speaking the first language of saffron). This recipe didn’t disappoint! We’ve tried a couple variants on vegan paella over the past year, and this one is definitely the favorite.

The recipe is perfect as-is, but to suit our taste, next time, we’ll probably turn up the spice to give it a little more heat and a touch more saffron. Jen didn’t love the lima beans in this context so may try a substitute bean next go-round. The zucchini we’ll chop down to size even more than was recommended and roast the tomatoes (instead of sautee) .

Bonus: this recipe taught us a new, important word: soccharat – the flavorful crust that develops from rice at the bottom of the pan. Always wondered what that was called.

A new favorite breakfast, one year later

January 1, 2016 | nouVEauGAN

January 1, blog post 1. This time last year, we were still having omelets for breakfast and instructing a general attitude of weariness (and occasional kerfuffle) toward vegans. How things have changed in the last 365! More on that some other occasion, but now is the time for useful information.

We are starting our 1st waking hour of the new year with a tofu scramble. Thus, for our 1st post, it only seems natural to share our favorite scramble recipe. There are tons of options out there, but our favorite comes from The Minimalist Baker. Her recipe: http://minimalistbaker.com/southwest-tofu-scramble/

It’s cheap, it’s bumble-proof, it’s quick, so with 20 grams of protein (!!) in a sitting, it’s a no-brainer way to start the day. If you like egg scrambles, you will love this. The Minimalist Baker’s recipe is amazing, but the other great thing about this is its flexibility. As new and bumbling vegans, keeping things novel is important, so we try variations on this when it strikes our fancy. Successful versions have included:

add some extra spices we love (like cajun spices and cayenne)
mix and mingle different veggies (e.g., spinach instead of kale, HOW SCANDALOUS)
use extra firm tofu instead of firm
since we often live our food lives inside a tortilla, we also made this bad boy scramble into a burrito with generous heaps of avocado and a little salsa to spice things up.

Hot tip: listen to the author’s step 1 and drain/ press that tofu! Do not be a hero, a rebel, or stingy with your time here, unless you like weirdo textures in your scramble. (Hot tip 2: you don’t like weirdo textures.) Now that we have you committed to step 1, our personal preference is to drain/ press the tofu a little longer than the recipe calls for (20 minutes at least, longer if you want a firmer consistency… we’ve gone as long as an hour).

Enjoy! Happy New Year!