Vegan Taco "Meat"

This vegan taco meat/spicy meat sauce was a serendipitous experimentation that either my roommate or I make just about every week. This tastes great on tacos, nachos, spaghetti, rice...pretty much anything you might want to top with spicy meat sauce. My roommate adds beans to make a chili-esque concoction. 

Ingredients:

1 package of soy crumbles

1 jar of salsa

1/2 jar of pasta sauce

1 bottle of beer

1 package of taco seasoning

1 onion, diced

1 green pepper, diced

salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder to taste

After cooking the soy crumbles, you will want to add the salsa, pasta sauce, and about half a bottle of whatever kind of beer you have laying around. Let simmer while chopping the green pepper and onion. 

Add the chopped onion and green pepper as well as the taco mix. If the mixture is getting too thick add more beer. Let simmer for a little while -- I'd say about 20 minutes. Mix often and add spices if you feel it necessary.

Voila! Delicious meal accomplished. To fully appreciate this meal I would suggest pairing nachos with Rum Runners, the season finale of LOST, and 2 beautiful roomies.

Vegan Mozzarella

I did it! I finally made vegan cheese. Meltable, delicious vegan cheese. The very cheese I’ve had all the ingredients for since the beginning of the semester but never got around to making. All I have to say right now is I’m so happy of myself! If you believe in yourself (and read the following post), you can learn how to make vegan cheese! And thumbs up for rock and roll!


I adapted my recipe from a recipe I found here.


Ingredients
1 package Extra Soft Silken Tofu
1 cup Vegan Heavy Cream
1/2 Tbspr Salt
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Rice Vinegar
6 tsp Agar Flakes
1/2 cup water

Blend until smooth the tofu, heavy cream, salt, garlic power, and vinegar (I used a magic bullet for this--it blends it a very creamy consistency). Transfer to a small sauce pan and stir in the agar flakes and water. Bring to a boil on medium, stirring frequently. Boil until the agar flakes are almost completely dissolved (about 20 minutes), adding water if necessary doesn't boil down too much. 

Pour into a large loaf pan and place in fridge until completely cooled.

There you have it. It does taste slightly tofu-y, but not over-poweringly so. It’s good vegan equivalent to mozzarella. It slices/shreds really well and melts pretty well too. When it’s melted it doesn’t have that stringiness that real cheese has, but it still taste delicious.

I ended up using my cheese on a pizza with sauteed onions, mushrooms, and spinach. I definitely recommend you do the same.

Spinach and Mushroom White Sauce Pasta

Gotta be honest, I'm quite proud of my brilliance concering the creation of the recipe. I made it when having one of those experimental cooking moods where I don't use any sort of recipe but just throw things together. Usually, this dos not turn out well for me. I tend to be a little over excited and add too many ingredients. This though--this was wonderful. Both my vegans and non-vegan friends agreed that it was superb. My sister said it was the best white sauce pasta she ever tasted. Yeah, she's definitely right.

Spinach and Mushroom White Pasta

(Serves 8)

1 (16 oz) box of pasta

5 medium cloves of garlic, minced

1 large onion, diced

6 oz. of spinach

8 oz. white mushrooms, sliced

2 cups vegan heavy cream

1.5 cups vegetable broth

1/4 cup dry white wine (I used chardonnay)

3 Tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

2 tsp dried herbs (I used rosemary)

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt and Pepper

Start off by boiling water for the pasta, so you can make your sauce while your pasta is cooking.

Heat up some olive oil in a deep skillet on medium heat. Add onions and garlic, cook for a minute or so. Add mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes (you'll want to cook it until the oninons are transparent and the mushrooms have significantly reduced in size).

Stir in the spinach and cook until wilted.

Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until heated all the way through and the sauce begins to thicken (around 5-7 minutes). Adjust spices to taste.

Pour the white sauce on top of your cooked pasta and mix thoroughly.

Beware of four-eyed velociraptors and their suspiciously smiley sidekicks who might try to steal your delicious creation. It's just one of the hazards that come with cooking such appetizing food. Sigh.

Bon Appétit!

Vegan Heavy Cream

Holy scheisse, who knew cashews were so freaking phenomenal? Seriously, you can use them to make loads of vegan "dairy" products. Way to go cashews. This time around I used them to make heavy cream, which I then used to make white sauce for a killer pasta dish (fret not, I will post the recipe for that soon). Seriously, so good.

Vegan Heavy Cream

(Makes 2.5 cups)

2 cups raw (whole) cashews

1 cup almond milk

1/4 cup water

Place your cashews in a bowl and completely cover them with cold water. Let them sit 4-6 hours (or overnight).

Drain water from cashews and transfer to a food processor with the liquid ingredients (you might want to only start out with half the liquid and you can add more based upon how thick or creamy you want it). Process until smooooooth (add more liquid if needed).

NOTE: The second time I made this,I used a magic bullet instead of a food processor and the resulting heavy cream was much more smooth. I definitely recommend using a magic bullet if you have one.

Lime Roasted Brussel Sprouts

This is a recipe I created a while back, and have perfected over time. Generally, I have these at least once a week every week. In fact, half of my diet consists of roasted vegetables. I roast everything. When my dear Christy Lu stayed with me a few weeks back we paired these with some delicious vegan apple ginger burgers. Unfortunately (for those of you who need to strictly follow a recipe), this recipe is more "add stuff together until it looks good" and less "measured out." It's pretty simple though, and I have faith that you can make it just as delicious!

Lime Roasted Brussel Sprouts

(Serves 8-10)

1 16 oz bag of brussel sprouts

2-3 red onions, cut into fourths

limes to taste (I use about 2)

lots of garlic

salt & pepper

Christy used 1 tsp of chili pepper as well. I'd add more if you really want it to effect the taste.

First, you'll want to cut the sprouts in half. I cut off the tough parts at the base of the sprouts as well.

Then you'll want to slice your onions into fourths.

Mix the brussel sprouts, onion, garlic cloves, lime juice, salt, and pepper. I cook them at 400 degrees until everything is tender and the garlic cloves are browned on the outside and completely cooked all the way through. It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

Voila! Roasted deliciousness!

Ginger Apple Burgers

Since, the ultimate vegan burgers were such a delicious success, Cassie and I ended up using that recipe as a base for a new burger creation. In my pre vegan inclined days, one of my favorite burgers were turkey apple burgers (the recipe created by a close fried of mine). I haven't had those burgers in ages, since I've stopped making recipes that call for meat. I'm thrilled to say that the vegan version of these burgers are just as delicious.

Ginger Apple Burgers

(Makes 6-8 patties)

1 small green apple, cubed

1/2 cup diced onion

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup bread crumbs

1/3 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

1/2 cup sun flower seeds, toasted

1 cup cooked cannelloni beans, mashed

1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger

1Tbsp lemon juice

1Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cayenne

Salt and pepper

Prepare your flax egg first. Simply add 1/2 cup of warm water to he ground flax seed and let sit for 10 minutes while you prepare your other ingredients.

While your flax egg sits, combine the rest of the ingredient in a mixing bowl. Add the flax egg and mix. I ended up mixing the ingredients with my hands because it was much easier and quicker than using a spoon.

Now, with slightly wet hands, form the burgers into patties. I had 7 patties in the end.

Cook the patties on a skillet on medium heat with a little olive oil, about 5 minutes on each side.

While I was cooking the burgers, I chopped up some mushrooms and sautéed them in garlic and olive oil to top the burger with.

I also topped them with spinach and veganaise and served chili-lime roasted brussel sprouts on the side.

Vegan Jello Slices

Be forewarned, I’m feeling very sentimental. It might be the lack of sleep I’ve had over the past few days or the exhausting day I’ve had today but no matter the reason, that’s how I’m feeling right now. So, if you want to skip the emotional mumbo jumbo I am about to spew all over this blog post and just head straight to the recipe, there will be no judgment from me.

You see, I just spent the weekend with one of my closet friends because it’s the last time I’ll get to see her before she moves to New Zealand for a year. Which therefore means it was the last time I’ll get to see her for a year (if not longer).

Needless to say, my heart is aching just a bit.

I love this friend more than I can begin to describe. She’s the most wonderful combination of intelligence, grace, strength, beauty, compassion, and passion. She has encouraged me through some of the darkest moments of my life and has helped create some of the best.

It really does. New Zealand, Ireland, France, the Netherlands. Orlando, Naples, L.A., Tampa. The people I love are in too many places that are not Gainesville, FL. Life, sometimes you just need to chill on this people scattering thing, ok?

Now, don’t get me wrong—I could not be more thrilled for Kaitlin. I can’t wait to hear about the epic adventures I know she has waiting for her. I can’t wait to see how she will change and grow into an even more amazing individual from this coming year. However, needless to say, my life will be a little less wonderful over the next year. And I think that’s reasonable to feel upset about.

Ok, I’m done. Taking a very sharp turn, I will now return to our regularly scheduled program: vegan jello slices.

The trend of using the ingredients I bought for vegan cheese for recipes other than vegan cheese continues. This weekend, I brought along the ingredients for vegan cheese with the intention of making it. However, you can’t just eat vegan cheese in and of itself (well, I mean, you could but why would you?) and we didn’t feel like making another recipe that called for cheese. So, instead, we decided to make vegan jello, a recipe that, like vegan cheese, calls for agar agar. I like this recipe very much because it appeases both my love of delicious food and my love of aesthetically pleasing food.

Cran-Raspberry Jello Slices

(Makes 12 lime slices)

3 limes, halved, scooped out (directions below)

1 cup cranberry juice

2 tsp Agar Agar flakes

1 Tbsp agave

1/4 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen), chopped

Mango Pineapple Orange Jello Slices

(Makes 4 orange slices)

2 navel oranges, halved, scooped out

2 cups pineapple juice

1 Tbsp Agar Agar flakes

1 honey mango, diced (yields ½ cup)

½ orange cut into small cubed (yields ¼ cup)

Make the jello molds by cutting the citrus in half and then scooping out the center with a grapefruit spoon. This process was much easier for the oranges than for the limes. For either fruit, however, be prepared to get squirted often with citrus juice during this process.

Chop up the fruit for the jello (which can be omitted, if you prefer).

Divide evenly amongst the molds. The first time I made these, I placed the molds in a baking dish. However, the second time I placed them in a small muffin tin and it worked much better to keep the molds from tilting and then having the juice spill out.

Place all the other ingredients in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and let cook for 5-7 minutes. Make sure that all the agar agar flakes have dissolved before removing from heat.

Just when you thought we couldn't improve upon this recipe, we added a shot of vodka to the cranberry juice. There's no stopping us.

Pour the juice into your prepared jello molds. I transfered the juice to a measuring cup with a spout and then poured the liquids to avoid any spillage.

Leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Once the jello has...well, jello-ified cut the fruit down the center lengthwise (again, this was easier with the oranges than the limes but altogether not that difficult). If you'd like, you can leave them uncut and they'll be fruit bowls instead of fruit slices.

Vegan Sour Cream

I’ve heard and read that cashews are often a very good substitute for making vegan dairy products (such as vegan cheese or heavy cream). I bought raw cashews at my local super market (Ward’s, you are a godsend!) recently intending to make vegan mozzarella. However, I instead used them to make sour cream for my Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. Though I would like to try vegan mozzarella eventually, I thought that putting it on hold to make chocolate alcoholic cupcakes was definitely a worthy cause.

Vegan Sour Cream

1 cup raw cashews

¼ cup cold water

3 Tbsp almond milk

3 Tbsp lemon juice (about 1 small lemon)

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

¼ tsp salt

Place raw cashews in a bowl and cover with water. Soak for a few hours or overnight.

Remove cashews from water and transfer to a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients.

Process until smooth and creamy (3-5 minutes). Add more milk if you find it needs to be creamier.

And there you have it. That’s it. It’s super simple and pretty good. Though, I wouldn’t serve it to non-vegan friends and try to pretend like it was real sour cream. I did try it on some tacos today and quite liked it. However, most likely I’ll be sticking with using this in recipes, such as baked goods, where it's a little more hidden.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

It's the first Thursday back from spring break and what did I do? Skip both my double period classes AND consume three types of alcohol before 2pm. To answer the question I know you are now asking: yes, bad-ass is my middle name.

But whhhhy the truancy and outrageous alcohol consumption, you ask? Well, first off, my middle name kind of demands it. Second off, Saint Patrick's Days is two days away. So, really, what better food to make than Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes?

What exactly is an Irish car bomb? Geez, you're just full of questions today, aren't you? An Irish car bomb is when you take a shot of baileys and a shot of whiskey and drop them into a pint of Guinness. I've never had one myself because that sounds downright disgusting. However, mix those ingredients with loads of chocolate, butter, and sugar and put it into cupcakes form and then it's a whole different story.

Originally, I set out to make these cupcakes vegan. However, it wasn't until I was already on the way to the grocery store to buy the necessary ingredients that I realized something: this calls for Baileys...which is Irish cream. Irish cream. Yyyyyeah that's definitely not vegan. I didn't have time to research vegan Bailey's recipes and go back to the grocery store, so I decided to just buy normal Bailey's and let these cupcakes be mostly vegan. However, there do exist vegan bailey's recipes. I found a few here, if you're interested in making your cupcakes completely vegan.

As a side note, I definitely recommend consuming these cupcakes right before a midterm. No one ever told me being slightly tipsy while taking an exam could be so pleasant. Thanks for holding out on me, world!

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

(Makes 12 cupcakes)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup dark cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup Guinness

1/3 cup vegan sour cream

1/3 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Whiskey Ganache Filling

4 ounces dark chocolate

1/3 cup vegan milk

1 Tbsp Earth Balance, at room temperature

1 tsp Irish whiskey

Bailey's Frosting

1/2 cup Earth Balance, at room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

1 50ml bottle of Bailey's, or 4 Tbsp homemade vegan Bailey's

For the cake batter, mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients and then combine. Either line the cupcake tins with liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray. Fill about 3/4 of the way and bake 350 for 15-20 minutes. Let cool before removing the centers to fill with ganache.

For the ganache, melt the milk and chocolate in a double broiler (or, if you don't have a double broiler, in a ceramic bowl set on top of a pot of boiling water, which is exactly what I did). Remove from heat and mix in the earth balance and whiskey. Let cool until it's thick but still soft enough that it can be piped.

For the frosting, beat the earth balance on a medium-high speed until soft, about 3-5 minutes. Turn the speed to medium-low and slowly add the powdered sugar. After the powedered sugar is mixed in, pour in the Bailey's, mixing on medium-low for another minute or so.

Mmmmm. Creamy beige.

Now, for filling the cakes with the ganache. I found a recipe that said to use a 1 inch round cookie cutter to cut the centers out of the cupcakes...which I definitely don't have. So, instead I used this random gadget I found in my kitchen drawer. I haven't a clue what it's for. I decided it's clearly a 1 inch round cookie cutter replacer. If you don't have either of these objects, I'm sure a knife would also work just as well. Anyhow, I took the cookie cutter replacer and pressed it about half way into the cupcake. I then scooped out the center with a spoon.

Place the cooled down ganache in a piping bag (or if your desire not to do anymore dishes than necessary outweighs the fanciness you feel when you use a pastry bag, simply transfer the ganache to a ziplock back and cut a hole in one corner). Fill each cupcake to the top with the ganache. Top with Bailey's frosting and, if you're feeling really festive, green sprinkles.

Happy Saint Patrick's day everyone and póg mo thón! (By which I mean no offense, but it's the only Gaelic I remember of the very little I was taught...plus, ending a blog post about cupcakes by saying póg mo thón only adds to my bad-assery, amiright?)