One of my staples...Veggie Fried Rice

Veggie fried rice has definitely become a staple, easy, go to recipe when I want to eat something filling. I've gotten into the habit of always having rice at hand because the best fried rice is made from day old rice.

You can use any type of rice you prefer, brown, Jasmin, basmati...or just plain white and you can add any type of veggies you prefer. My favorites are green and yellow squash, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, snap peas, tomatoes and baby corn. You can also add tofu to the rice but I prefer my rice soy free.

Directions:

In a pan sautee all of the chopped up veggies in olive oil or grape seed oil until they are tender. In a separate pan heat up grape seed oil, once hot fry the day old rice until it's a little brown. Then add the veggies to the pan, once all of the ingredients are mixed add a few dashes of low sodium soy sauce (add as much as you want but taste after a few dashes to make sure it's not too salty). If you are vegetarian you can add egg to the fried rice but since I'm vegan I make it without the egg.

Rice Lover!

-V

Vegan Southern Fried Chicken

I regret not taking any pictures of my Vegan Southern Fried Chicken with potato salad that I made yesterday. It tasted really good! It's another recipe that I tried from Chef Roberto Martin's book, "Vegan Cooking for Carnivores".

I had to make some adjustments to the recipe because I couldn't find a few of the ingredients that he listed but it still tasted amazing. Every Wednesday I've been cooking for the Gonzalez family and it has now become known as Vegan Wednesdays and the Vegan Southern Fried Chicken received the approval from the Gonzalez's so I was happy with all my hard work.

The "fried chicken" uses Gardein's chick'n scallopini and rice paper as the "fried chicken" skin. The secret to how good it tastes is definitely in the spice blend. It's good enough to use on real chicken when frying it up.

But the biggest hit was the potato salad. I learned this recipe from my aunt and vegan or non-vegan versions are delicious!

Violeta's Potato Salad

Ingredients:

6 to 8 large red potatoes, diced in large chunks prior to cooking, with the skin on
2 to 3 stalks of celery, diced small
1/2 a white onion, diced small
Vegan Mayo
Yellow mustard (French's is my favorite brand)
Garlic Salt, Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil the diced potatoes in salted water until you are able to stick a fork through the potato (not mushy because then it will become chunky mashed potato salad). In a colander throw the diced celery and onions so that when you drain the potatoes of the hot water in the colander, the celery and onions get "semi" cooked with the hot water. Let the potatoes, celery and onions cool for about 15 minutes and then throw in a bowl. Add the vegan mayo, about 3 to 4 heaping tablespoons, about 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of the yellow mustard, about 1 tablespoon of the garlic salt and a large pinch of kosher salt and pepper. Mix everything together until the potatoes look a bit creamy. Taste at this point and see if you need to add more garlic salt, salt or pepper.

Enjoy your potatoes!

-V

Sage Vegan Bistro

Today I went to Sage Vegan Bistro in the Echo Park area of L.A and let me tell you....I LOVED it! I walked out with phone numbers for new vegan friends, about 5 vegan restaurants to try and a few recipes that I need to cook up.

I went with my cousin who is not only a picky eater, he loves loves chicken and so eating lunch without chicken was asking a lot from him but I was lucky that he was feeling adventurous and decided to accompany me to the restaurant.

I ordered the Jamaican Jerk Burger with German potato salad and it was ORGASMIC!!! It tasted so delicious. My cousin had the Bacon Chili Cheese burger and it was also very very good. I will definitely be going back to try everything on the menu.

We also had dessert, a banana split Sunday which did not look like vegan ice cream and tasted better than any ice cream I have had.

Go check it out if you're in the LA area.

-V

Breakfast...my least favorite meal of the day.

My favorite breakfast meal always consisted of chorizo from El Salvador, fried plantains, sunny side up eggs, Salvadorean crema, refried black beans and maybe a cheese pupusa so as a vegan my least favorite meal of the day has now become breakfast. I just haven't found a way to spice it up....I've done the vegan pupusa and well any kind of bean has now become a staple in my diet but not for breakfast. It just doesn't taste the same without my Salvadorean chorizo BUT I still try.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that plain, boring oatmeal could taste really good for breakfast. My aunt recently introduced me to ground flaxseed and I love how much nutty flavor it can add to boring old oatmeal. I use the ready made steel cut frozen oatmeal from Trader Joe's. I usually thaw the individually wrapped packages two at a time in the fridge and in the morning I just throw the thawed oatmeal in a sauce pan, add non-dairy milk like Almond, soy or rice milk, mix in a heaping tablespoon of ground flaxseed and a teaspoon of organic sugar.

Once everything is mixed in and warmed up I'll pour it in a bowl and add some fresh or frozen fruit and sliced almonds. Always happy at how good I can make something taste.



Happy Breakfasting!

-V

Cold Lentil Salad..mmm yummy!

I went camping to Jalama Beach this weekend and needed to take food that would be easy to make and not require a lot of cooking. My best dish of the weekend was cold lentil salad. I found a package of steamed, ready to eat lentils at Trader Joe's that you can either consume hot or cold. If you want hot lentils you just throw the entire packet in boiling water to warm up the lentils, which I did but then let the lentils cool down before making the salad.

The ingredients for the salad are very basic:

1 package of steamed lentils, cold
1 steak tomato, diced small
1/2 red onion, diced small
1 bunch of cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
Kosher Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and voila! cold lentil salad is done. It was delish! and very nutritious.

Happy lentiling! :)

Feeling Lazy

Feeling lazy to cook... settled for sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with lime juice and salt. Also a vegan patty with gluten free bread. The vegan patty I found at Trader Joe's, it's the masala flavored vegan patty and it was delicious!

I used Hummus Dairy Free dressing to spread on the bread as well which made my sandwhich delicious!!!

By the way I tried the non-chicken strips from Trader Joe's and they were gross, but the beef less ground beef is delicious!!!

Vegan Jackfruit Carnitas

In all of my recipe research I kept running into recipes for vegan carnitas made out of something called jackfruit. I had never heard of jackfruit before but once I saw the pictures of the finished product it looked sooo much like pork I had to try to make it myself.

I found the cans of young jackfruit in brine at my local Asian Market so I bought two cans. Most recipes suggest using young jackfruit in water because the brine has a strong vinegar taste, but advise that if you can't find the cans of jackfruit in water to use the ones in brine and soak the jackfruit in water for at least an hour to get rid of the vinegar taste. In my recipe I did soak the jackfruit in water for an hour but my finished vegan carnitas still had a strong vinegar taste to them. I will try to find the jackfruit in water because this is definitely a recipe I will make again. However I will make in bigger batches because total prep time was about 4 hours.

Most recipes recommended using a crock pot so that you can cook all of the ingredients for 8 hours but I found a stove top recipe that required two hours of simmering and about 1 hour in the broiler/oven to make the vegan jackfruit carnitas crispy. I had to do the stove top recipe because I do not own a crock pot.

This is what the can of jackfruit looks like:

The ingredients pre-cooking:

The ingredients all mixed in the pan:

Spice blend (flexible, if you don't have a couple of the spices on hand just work with what you've got):

2 tablespoons mild chili powder

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon oregano

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

For Carnitas:

Two 20 oz can of Jackfruit in brine or water. If using the jackfruit in brine make sure to soak the jackfruit in water for at least an hour prior to cooking.

Homemade spice blend (see above)

1 tablespoon cooking oil (I prefer olive oil)

1 small white onion diced (the original recipe said diced in large pieces but after making the recipe, I would do the onions diced in small pieces)

1 teaspoon lime juice

4 cloves garlic, minced

One 12 oz can of mild salsa verde

Directions:

Add the spice blend to the drained jackfruit and make sure that each piece of jackfruit is well coated with the spice blend (do this in a bowl prior to cooking). You can use a masher to mash in the spice blend and to mash the jackfruit. The jackfruit will start to disintegrate but this is what makes it look like pork.

In heated pan with olive oil mix in the diced onions, the coated jackfruit with the spice blend, the lime juice and the minced garlic

Sautee the above ingredients for about 5 minutes on high heat

Then add the 12 oz can of mild salsa verde and reduce heat to the lowest possible setting and simmer for two hours

Let stand overnight and when ready to eat place in oven for at least an hour to make the "carnitas" crispy

Enjoy in a taco, a burrito, a salad, or any recipe where you would enjoy carnitas.

Finished product:

Happy eating!

-V