Vegan Mac and Cheese

Good news and bad news! What, you want the bad news first? You sicko! Okay, here goes… our Molly puppy is sick!

For those who want to know more, keep reading below. Otherwise, skip to the cute picture of Molly and continue on to the good news!

Still here? Okay, well it turns out Molly got two kinds of worms from the Humane Society, and girardia, which is an intestinal infection, and we found out yesterday from our vet. Side note: our vet and the vet place we take Molly to really, really suck, and I can’t wait until we’re done giving her meds and getting her shots from them… then we’re going to a real vet!

Anyway, we started Molly’s meds yesterday: she gets powder meds on her food once a day for the worms and pill meds once every 12 hours for the girardia. She is so not a fan of taking the pill meds, so Blake and I have had to get very clever with how we break up the pills to get her to eat them… so far, we cut them up and mix them in with her dog food. Today she figured out what we were doing and wouldn’t eat them, so I gave her parts of the pills one at a time with a piece of kibble… she couldn’t eat the kibble without also swallowing the treat!

She should be done and clean this Saturday, which is good timing because that’s when she’s going on a road trip to meet her “grandparents”, my parents, in Tucson. And yes, we do refer to Molly as our baby!

So close yet so far...

Time for the good news: vegan mac and cheese! Yes, that’s the good news I made some yesterday from Chloe Coscarelli’s book Chloe’s Kitchen (if you are vegan/vegetarian and looking for a new cookbook, I highly recommend this one! Her instructions make sense, aren’t hard to follow, don’t require a lot of time or fancy equipment, and taste really really good. I’d say it’s on par if not better than Lindsay’s Happy Herbivore books!)

Without further ado, the recipe (credit here and here) with my changes.

Ingredients

• 1 pound/box quinoa elbow macaroni (again, going with the low carb thing on Blake’s doc’s recommendation)
• 1/4 cup vegan margarine (I use Earth Balance)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 cups soy milk (you can also use almond or rice milk)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast (I love Bob’s Red Mill, but you can also find nooch in the bulk bins of your Whole Foods/Sprouts/natural health store)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• Handful of grape tomatoes (or basically whatever veggies you want– I’m trying to use up the tomatoes we got from Market on the Move!)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon agave (I used the light colored agave)
• 2 tablespoons bread crumbs (I used Panko)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (not too much salt when cooking with quinoa– I’ve noticed it tastes a little crunchy if you heavily salt it)
3. Add macaroni and cook according to pasta directions (if you’re adding extra veggies to make this healthier, especially hearty veggies like broccoli, add them in in the last 5 minutes and cook until tender). Drain and return to pot.
4. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, make a roux by whisking the margarine and flour over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. Add your soy milk, nutritional yeast, tomato paste, salt, garlic powder, and tomatoes (if using) to the saucepan and bring it to a boil, whisking frequently. Reduce heat to low and let simmer until sauce thickens. Adjust seasoning to taste, and stir in lemon juice and agave.
5. Toss the noodles with the sauce and transfer into the 9 x 13 pan.
6. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of the pasta and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is browned lightly.

And that’s it! Yum, huh? I had never made a roux before, and that was definitely what I had the most trouble with:

Yup, all those explosion-y stains on the stove top are from the roux… it bubbles so watch out! That said, it was very, very easy to make, and it thickened up quickly. You definitely have to keep an eye on it!

The final product:

I would say 4/5 stars for this recipe, definitely. It’s good but it’s actually a little sweet for my taste… I would leave out the agave for sure, and definitely add some more veggies to it.

I ended up pairing it with some roasted asparagus… yes, I love asparagus!

I’m currently in the midst of making my own black bean chili slow cooker recipe, so I’ll let you know how that turns out tomorrow!

 

Day 19: Think Positive & product review

Hey everyone! Sorry to be MIA for a day or two… I’ve been sucked into some projects for school (I’m taking 2 really cool classes this quarter: Project Management and Professional Communications) and, while they’re a lot of work, they’re really fun, interesting, and practical for my future jobs. I’m learning so much already, and it’s only week 4! We’re on the quarters system, so only 6 more weeks of school left… then I’ll be finished with graduate school! Yes, I know, that’s blowing my mind too. However, I’ve had so much to do that I haven’t really been able to think about it much, which is good!

Anyway, on to Day 19 of the VegNews challenge: Think Positive. I find this challenge to actually be challenging for once… even though I’m a pretty optimistic person…

Leaving my family to go back to school in Denver

Smiling and laughing even though at that point I was leaving to go back to school after winter break (and, mind you, a terribly awkward photo because when I have to get on a plane, I always freak out and inevitably I always forget something I desperately need – like the phone charger!), but I haven’t been very optimistic lately.

I think one of the reasons for this setback has to do with the product review I have for today: Cherrybrook Kitchen. Here’s the back story: My roommate and I have been (good-naturedly) teasing our friend for not having any survival/adult skills, like cooking. To prove us wrong, he invited us and some friends over to his house for dinner. We accepted, of course, and volunteered to bring the dessert. I thought of making a chocolate cake, because apparently a friend has a great recipe, but timing didn’t work out and she wasn’t able to send me her recipe.

However, while I was trolling Whole Foods for vegan yummys, I stumbled across Cherrybrook!

Dairy free! Vegan!

(source)

And right next to, vanilla dairy-free, egg-free frosting. I couldn’t have been more excited! I went home and proceeded to make the cake exactly according to the directions: cake mix, vegetable oil, and water. Easy-peasy, right? So far so good! I didn’t have a cake pan, so I put it in a loaf pan, and when it came out and cooled, I put it on a cutting board because the cake was so long.

It sorted broke in transit...

The cake had a weird indent in the middle of it, but my roommate and I tried a piece and it wasn’t too bad.

Then came the frosting… oh, the horror. It was super crunchy, so I had to stir it vigorously for a couple minutes, but even after stirring it still looked atrocious.

No dirty minds, please! Or, if you weren’t thinking like that, sorry for bringing any bad images to your mind. My roommate and I haven’t quite matured when it comes to inappropriate jokes

Anyway, we persevered because we thought, hey, how bad could this vegan cake be? We diligently put the broken part of the cake back and covered the whole thing in frosting. In our optimism, we even lightly dusted the top of the cake with cocoa powder.

Final product...

So how did it taste? It. Was. Atrocious. That’s all I can say about it. I tried, and my roommate tried, to be fair. We really, really did. We said to one another, “this might be delicious maybe if it had more vanilla” and “what in the world is missing from this cake?” It was TASTE. The whole thing tasted like cardboard. I wanted to die.

So we ended up going to Safeway at the last minute and bought a Tres Leches cake. And yes, I know leche means milk. This cake was not vegan. But, by the end of the night, I ate a piece because you know why? I was starving and my friend’s empanadas were terrible. Apparently the meat empanadas he made were good (according to my roommate) but he definitely burnt the heck out of my vegetarian ones and they were also cardboard.

Friday was a hard night, my friends. I came home and consoled myself with Silk vanilla soy yogurt and berries for “dessert”… and a glass of red wine. It was just one of those nights.

By the way! I’m instituting a new rating system! Instead of stars, I’m giving food/products/restaurants I review carrots. So what does Cherrybrook Kitchen get? One carrot!

Cherrybrook Kitchen's Choc. Cake and Frosting gets 1 carrot/5 carrots!

Apparently, I’m not the only one who didn’t dig this cake: check it. (And this reviewer looks professional so I take comfort in the fact that it’s not my horrid baking skills!)

Typically I’m a good baker so I’m taking VegNews’ suggestion to stay positive. I will bake again!

Day 13: Be persistent & Black Bean Brownies

After yesterday’s day of mistakes, I’m definitely ready for today’s VegNews challenge: Be persistent. I woke up this morning really not wanting to go to the gym (it’s Sunday after all! Can’t I get a break?!) But then I heard my roommate get up and I remembered what I had ate the day before, so I got my butt up and out of there.

Like VegNews notes in the challenge, balancing “work, family” and they say “activism” but I’ll say “school/social life” is a big challenge. It’s especially difficult when you’re trying to weigh having a good time out with your friends vs. your diet, and it’s difficult when you have to choose between the gym or getting in some extra homework time. There have definitely been days when I just want to throw in the towel and eat something unhealthy, or not get up and go to the gym, but then I always regret it the next day. I either feel gross (from drinking too much or eating too heavy/greasy food) or I just feel lethargic (from not exercising). That’s not to say I won’t “make mistakes” or prioritize friends/school over gym time, but it’s a balance. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not. Knock on wood, this month has been good to me so far!

As usual, I didn’t regret going to the gym. I warmed up by running on the stairs (6 times, 3 flights each,  12 steps per flight… took me about 10 minutes… it hurt!!) and riding the bike (15 minutes). I then did a leg workout that consisted of:

• 2 sets of 10 leg curls (50 lbs.)
• 3 sets of lunges (body-weight)
• 5 sets of squats
• 3 sets of 50 lbs each on the adductor and abductor machines (vag machines)
• crunches (side planks, planks, regular crunches)
• And a butt workout, of which I’ll share later…

I feel like I did more, but that’s all I remember right now so.. there you go!

Today we’re celebrating our friends’ birthdays that we missed (they are December babies, and we weren’t in town for their birthdays), and I decided to make Black Bean Brownies from Happy Herbivore…

Scene of the crime!

I liked the fact that I could throw all the ingredients into the blender. That was awesome! However… I think I used the wrong type of oats. It called for instant oats, and I used regular oats… :-/

Minus the oats, I have to say the black bean brownies did not come out the way I expected them to. I had heard that black bean brownies can be really good, but these are just weird…

As you can see, I took a chunk out to test them before presenting them to my friends… I’m still going to give them to my friends, because oh well, but I don’t think I’d make this recipe again ever. It’s too sweet, has a weird consistency (not cake-like, probably because there’s no flour in this), and just… not what I expected.

I guess I’m still looking for the perfect (vegan) brownie recipe then!

Okay, off to get ready for our fiesta – then I have work!

Question for you all: Have you ever made vegan black bean brownies? What recipe did you use, and how did they turn out?

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo review

The other night, Blake and I went to see the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ movie, at my insistence. Blake has never read the Lisbeth Salander/Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson, but I had and I’m a huge fan of the books, so I begged him to go see it.

(source)

For those of you who’ve read the books, you know they’re pretty serious and dark and twisted. Larsson is a great writer, in my opinion, and he blends horror/mystery/intrigue really well. I also think he was exceptionally good at character development and getting into the character’s psyche without revealing too much, which I absolutely love. Obviously, no one is a fan of a one dimensional character, and that’s why I think so many people were drawn to Larsson’s ‘Girl’ series– a strong, empowered female character coupled with a male character who was full of flaws yet a genuine “good” person, along with all the terrible, evil characters that made the series.

Anyway, to get back to the movie, for those of you who’ve read the book, you’ll already know there are some seriously dark and twisted plot twists in the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ book. Like, stomach-wrenching terrible scenes. For that, I was worried that the movie might be too graphic. Added to that, I read some reviews that said the film was mediocre and Daniel Craig played a boring Mikael Blomkvist (the second main character). A couple reviewers said the one scene I was in particular dreading wasn’t “that bad”, and my curiosity got the better of me, so we went.

About that one disturbing scene: It really isn’t as bad as it was in the book. In the book, there’s one scene where something horrible happens to Lisbeth (the main character), so terrible that it’s actually painful to read. In the movie, the director decided not to make that scene any where as sadistic as how Larsson made it in his book. On one hand, being there in the movie theater, I was really grateful. Seriously, I was sweating hardcore leading up to that scene because I was so nervous about what was to happen.

On the other hand, without showing a little more sadism (yeah, I’m arguing for this scene to be a little more graphic), how Lisbeth gets her revenge isn’t as satisfying. The director showed the full version of how Lisbeth gets her revenge on the person who was cruel/sadistic to her, but the director chose not to show why exactly Lisbeth decided to extract such an intense revenge.

Blake noted that how Lisbeth got her revenge and what she did to the man who harmed her was “too much” and “unnecessary.” When I told him exactly what had happened to Lisbeth in the book, he changed his mind and said that character in the movie deserved “exactly what he got.” I’m hoping people in the movie theater who haven’t read the book jump to conclusions that Lisbeth is a sicko, but then again, showing everything that happened in the book would a) make it too long and b) be really graphic.

Anyway, once that scene was over, the movie progressed pretty much exactly like the book. The ending isn’t exactly like the book, but it’s a minor tweak and really isn’t too much of a big deal. If you’ve read the book, you’ll be confused for a second, but if you haven’t, you won’t notice a thing.

For those who’ve read the book, the beginning is easy to follow (Mikael’s trial with Hans-Erik, the Millenium newspaper/journal, Mikael’s career and Mr. Vanger’s proposal to Mikael), but for those who haven’t, it moves very fast and it’s easy to lose track of who is who and what has happened to whom. I’m not going to argue that everyone should go read the books (unless they want to), but it would probably be helpful for them to do a little Wikipedia “research” just to get the very basics of the story.

As for the actors: Rooney Mara is AWESOME! She’s not exactly who I had in mind for Lisbeth, but she quickly became Lisbeth to me as the movie progressed. She’s absolutely great. Daniel Craig wasn’t boring, although Blake kept whispering to me about how “James Bond is a big baby.” Well yeah, that’s because he’s not James Bond in this movie Stellan Skarsgard, who played Martin Vanger, was SO great. He is an amazing actor in every movie I’ve ever seen him in, and he was fantastic as Martin in this movie. Christopher Plummer, who played the patriarch Henrik Vanger, was also great in his supporting role. Really, there were no “bad” actors in my opinion, although the man who played Lisbeth’s guardian (the character of Nils Bjurman) wasn’t who I pictured and was just so gross from the beginning, it was obvious he was going to be a “bad guy.”

I thought the music in the movie was a little jarring at times, but the guy from Nine Inch Nails (along with someone else) did the score, so I guess that’s to be expected. Blake didn’t notice the music at all, so maybe that was just me.

All in all, I’d give the movie 8/10 stars. I enjoyed it immensely and I thought the director did a great job of developing the characters. I can’t wait for the sequels!

Black Bean Burgers

Happy Wednesday! Oh man, I had the most brutal work out class today. The class is called “Core-ruption” and it’s designed to work out your abs and your core. Typically, most of the classes I’ve gone to here at school have been 75% cardio, 25% weights, which is fine with me. However, I do mostly only cardio on my own, and I’ve been noticing some “bat wing” (floppy arms) tendencies lately, so I decided to use more weights.

Oh. My. Gosh. All we do in this class is weights! Today we started with the ball, doing lunges sideways (both legs) and forward and back. Then we did some abs/inner thigh work with the ball in between our legs for a minute and a half. Let me tell you, in that minute and a half, I almost died. My legs were okay, but lifting the ball up and down was killing my abs!

Next we worked on arms with weights… the lady who taught the class was not letting us “go easy” (which for me is 5 lb. weights), and instead demanded we step it up… so I went with the 7 1/2 lb. weights, which was still probably the lightest weights out of what everyone else in the class was using. However, 7 1/2 lbs. is TOUGH!! I couldn’t actually finish out the triceps exercise, which was a bummer, because I love working out my triceps!

We finished the class with some push ups, more abs, and stretching. I’m not feeling it yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be tomorrow. Actually, I did this class two weeks ago, and even though I was sore, I was sore in a good way. I like knowing that, deep down, there’s some kind of magic working in my muscles where they’ll come out stronger and more toned!

For dinner last night, my apartment-mate Kelly insisted on burgers, so we made the Black Bean Burgers recipe from Happy Herbivore. The only things I changed/added were:

• doubling the recipe so we would have leftovers
• Adding minced green onions because we had a bunch that were getting old

And voila!

The final product

The greasy looking stuff is Pam. You’re supposed to spray each side of the patty so it sticks together and cooks. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the cooking in progress… surprisingly, my entirely not vegan roommate wanted to make these vegan burgers by herself, so I made the salad and roasted some asparagus while she made these bad boys!

It sucks this photo came out so blurry… it looked okay on my phone, but not so good when blown up. Anyway, this was my burger BEFORE I added my favorite thing ever… sauteed mushrooms!! Yum! Black bean burger with sauteed mushrooms and a little bit of veganaise. That plus a salad and roasted asparagus? Yes please! Another successful meal, thanks to Happy Herbivore!

The best part about these burgers is that they held up really well the next day too. Kelly had a burger for lunch, and I decided to crumble my burger up, and throw it in a multigrain tortilla along with some of the leftover salad for a yummy and easy lunch meal! So tasty and filling.

Overall, this might actually be my favorite recipe so far of this entire book. Obviously, I really loved the banana bread, so that’s my favorite “sweet” recipe so far, but for a substantive, lunch/dinner meal? Oh yeah, Black Bean Burgers!

Okay, back to homework. Pretty sure the guy in the apartment complex next to mine is singing opera. That should complement this law textbook really well, huh?

Tofu Scramble and Cajun Home Fries

Oh my gosh, right now I’m watching the men’s final of the US Open, and I am SO excited! Rafael Nadal (2) is playing number 1 Novak Djokovic… I’m rooting for Rafa, as always! At first, I thought Rafa was going to be swept in three sets, but currently he’s doing pretty well. It’s in the third set right now, but now it’s 3-4 Rafa! Yay!

Anyway, while tennis plays in the background, let me show you some delicious food I made the other day from Happy Herbivore (my new favorite cookbook!)

First on the list was Tofu Scramble. Here’s how it started out…

Just tofu! In the recipe, it calls for 1 lb. of extra firm or firm tofu, but I decided to put in a little more tofu so I could have leftovers. Accordingly, I added more spices and whatnot…

After the spices! Mmm… look at all the turmeric and nutritional yeast! My friends unfortunately find it hilarious that I eat “nutritional yeast” (they think the name is gross) but I’m really liking “nooch”, as I call it. It has a good flavor and is a great cooking substitute for cheese… and did I mention, a TON healthier for you than actual cheese? Yum! Unfortunately, nutritional yeast is quite expensive, even from the bulk bins at Sunflower… although Cait (from Cait Hates Cake blog) recommended I buy my nooch from KAL’s on Amazon.com. I think I’ll try that next!

Scene of the crime!

Cooking really goes better when you actually use all the spices, am I right? Yum!

The finished product! I chose to add: spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms to my tofu scramble. I put in about a cup or so of each, a little more spinach. I wanted more mushrooms, but my roommate wanted to use the same veggies I did and she doesn’t like mushrooms, so I didn’t put in quite so many.

On my plate! The second dish we made were the Cajun Home Fries. We didn’t use russet potatoes, I think we used the Yukon golds or something. We used the softer yellow potatoes, because that’s what we had. We definitely used all the spices that Lindsay recommended, plus a little more (because we used more potatoes than what the recipe called for.) The home fries were SO good! Lindsay is not joking when she says you will eat all of these in a second. Home fries were one thing we did NOT have leftovers of!

My complete Sunday meal: Tofu Scramble, Cajun Home Fries, and orange juice. Yum!!

Still 3-4 Nadal. Come on Nadal!! You can do this!!

Oh, and in other important news: graduate school started today! I’m in my second to last quarter… then I’ll be DONE with school! (For now…) So excited to get back to school and start cracking out some papers. I’m feeling super motivated this quarter, which is really good, because I’ve got loads of stuff on my plate. Very exciting stuff coming up for me this year, I’m sure!

Red Lentil Dal from HH review plus BANANA BREAD!

As I mentioned yesterday, I made the Red Lentil Dal from the Happy Herbivore cookbook for my roommate and other friend last night. I made it almost identical to the recipe, except instead of using dry red lentils, I used organic canned lentils I had leftover.

Other than some minor issues (our stove is not even, so for the first step where you cook the onions and garlic in water until they’re translucent, it took a while because the water kept pooling in one small corner of the pan) and that it seemed to take a long time for the water/liquid to cook out, I thought it came out really well! In fact, the only complaint we had was that Kelly, my roommate, had not cooked the rice long enough so it was a little crunchy. Luckily, I was not in charge of rice-cooking, so my vegan dish was not blamed for the “crunchy rice.”

Food Review: Candle Cafe Seitan Picatta with Lemon Caper Sauce

Finally, my review of Candle Cafe’s Seitan Picatta with Lemon Caper Sauce! If you didn’t know, seitan is pronounced “say-tan” and is one of my favorite veggie words to say. I say it all the time, even if I’m eating tofu or tempeh. I just like the way it sounds… and it makes me giggle. Really, try saying “I’m eating a seitan sandwich” without giggling…

All right, well without further ado, here it is! Drumroll please…