Pasghetti

I made this a week or two into my journey and decided to post this as a reminder to ALWAYS CHECK INGREDIENTS!!!  I bought these meatballs that were delicious!!  But then I realized they had egg whites in them.  BOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  It was a good lesson to me on how sneaky these premade companies are with sticking egg products in these vegetarian labeled meals.  I now know to make sure I only buy pure vegan stated brands for my lazy meals.  I forget that vegetarian means eggs and cheeses!  Since coming to this realization I've found that a good portion of the things I stocked up on that first (and very expensive) trip to the store is not vegan.  But you gotta live and learn!  I've since discovered Natural Grocers and don't have to worry about it much anymore.  This store should just be called Vegan's heaven.  for every regular item, there are 5 vegan options.  It's pretty ridiculous.  I just want to buy a cot and live there.  Seriously.  I'm in love.  But moving on, my recipe for that spaghetti sauce is one I want to remember because I've never added mushrooms before and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I started with a premade sauce (short on time and lazy that day) chopped up about 4 plain jane white mushrooms as finely as I could, added my dried oregeno and basil from the garden, garlic, salt, pepper, and some fire roasted tomatoes.  Let it simmer for 30-45 mins while I had Stinky take a bath and did random things around the kitchen.  Then I boiled my quinoa spaghetti noodles for about 4 minutes, drained them and returned them to the pot with spaghetti sauce to finish cooking them (approx 4 minutes)  I learned this trick from Anthony Bourdain.  Finishing your noodles in the sauce helps them soak up that sauce.  

I really love these quinoa noodles but am still learning how to cook spaghetti with them.  One thing I notice is it seems to take more to make the same amount it would with regular pasta.  I'm not sure if they shrink up or part of them get drawn out in the water.  I have no scientific explanation for this but everytime I make them, I end up making a second batch because it's never enough.   

 

WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME???

Dilemmas in veganism...

I guess this is a good problem to have.  But my fridge and pantry are overloaded!!!!!  It looks so purty though.  All those colors....

catching up

A few recipes from the slacker....

Here are a few recipes from my first few weeks.  

This was my alfredo made with zucchini noodles and vegan (cauliflower) alfredo sauce.  I actually made Braden a traditional spaghetti but he wanted to eat all my "cchini noodles" and alfredo. A month later and he still prefers zucchini noodles over regular.  What did I do right with this kid??!!

 I try to only use sweet potatoes when cooking but had a ton of red potatoes on this occasion and no tortilla chips, so I used the taters as my chips.  They were of course delicious! How can you go wrong with potatoes?!!  Words from a true carb addict.  I used Quorn grilled chicken (NOT a fan!), corn, black beans, Daiya cheese and my own mexican seasoning.  It turned out DELICIOUS!!!!

Asparagus - baked at 350 with coconut oil and lemon.  Plain and simple.  As long as I take it out when I'm supposed to instead of finishing that glass of wine.  

Yet another failed attempt to be a nice mom and give my kid real pasta.  He retaliated and ate all my "chinni noodles".  I also gave him sugar snap peas, asparagus, tomato sauce and salad.  He not only ate his cheese free salad, but proceeded to eat mine before I could get to it.  Once again I wonder what the heck I did to have a kid that loves this food.  He must be a born vegan!!