Vegan Recipes and Plant Based Cooking

I'm not a fan of sweet potatoes. They always seem too sweet to me. Be they plain or candied or french fried, I was never impressed. I know they are very good for you. Full of vitamins A and C and lots of fiber. Theoretically I adore them. In actuality though, not much of a fan. That is until I bought some frozen sweet potato crinkle cut fries and decided to eat them chilled. I cooked them first. In the oven. According the package instructions. Then I let them cool. Until they were room temp. Then I put the in the fridge and waited for them to chill down. They were so different that way. It was amazing. Suddenly I was enjoying eating them. And totally getting that they are a perfect half and half blend of carrot and potato. Alls I can say is, if you've never liked sweet potatoes before you have to try cold sweet potato fries. They are so different. They are just the right amount of potato texture and just the perfect amount of sweet. I guess the cold changes them a lot.

Here's a re imagined potato salad that's sure to please. It's vegan and it's delicious. While traditional potato salad relies on fatty and non-animal friendly mayonnaise, this version goes a more salad truee route. My vegan potato salad is just as the name suggests, a salad with a base of potatoes. It's dressed not with mayo, but with a sweet and tart balsamic vinaigrette dressing. We start with oven roasted potatoes that have chilled for a while in the fridge. We add them to the bottom of a bowl. Then we top with some diced raw onion, diced red pepper, sliced black olives, chopped lightly cooked broccoli and a spoonful of black beans. We drizzle with vinaigrette dressing. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and lemon pepper seasoning. Top with some almonds and toasted panko bread crumbs. It's the tastiest and healthiest potato salad you'll ever eat and it's also 100% vegan. Variations might include roasted garlic, roasted peppers, cilantro, garbanzo

I made the easiest pasta salad ever and it still was great. Thanks mostly to an improvised dressing that really satisfied my cravings. The pasta salad was simply just quick cook rotini. I put the hot pasta in a pyrex container and added half a bag of frozen cauliflower/broccoli mix on top and closed the lid. I let that sit for about 20 minutes on the counter. When I made a bowl for myself I dressed it this way. I had some onion slices lying about, so I used them. I also had some left over black beans which I added to the mix. For lubrication and liquid: 1 packet hot sauce from Wawa (or 1 teaspoon other hot sauce), 1 teaspoon white vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon McCormick grinders lemon pepper seasoning or equivalent. It was much better than expected. I was really just throwing things together that were laying about. But it turned out quite delicious. I'd do it again, on purpose next time.

Here's a neat little trick I came upon quite accidentally one day when bringing my home made lunch to work with me. I had made a nice sandwich of whole grain white bread, beans, hummus, onion and lettuce. I packed it inside a rather oblong reusable plastic container. So I also put a few cookies in there too. These were your typical cripsy, crunchy, eggless vegan cookies. Which is fine by me. A crispy cookie is sometimes just the thing. When I went to eat the cookies they were no longer crunchy at all. They had turned chewy and soft. The moisture from the bread and sandwich ingredients had been absorbed by the cookies. Neato. I've tried it on other occasions with other moist giving foods and other varieties of moisture stealing cookies. It has worked with soft bread, cooked rice, roasted potatoes and donut holes as donors. It has worked on oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip and it's even worked to make wheat chex soft. If you eat wheat chex you understand what an amazing

I decided to try something different and yet familiar. I wanted to do a risotto, but without arborrio. I also wanted to do a curry. So I went with a hybrid of sorts that turned out quite satisfying. If you like a little heat and a lot of spice, you'll enjoy this. Tender rice and meaty chick peas round it off. Ingredients 1/3 cup lentils 1/2 cup white rice 1 can vegetable broth 1 can plain petite cut tomatoes 1 can drained, rinsed chick peas 7 cloves of garlic sliced thin 1 jalapeno pepper minced 3-4 tbls curry powder 2 tsps cumin seed 1/3 cup frozen cauliflower juice and zest from one lemon olive oil water In a large chicken fryer type saute pan heat lentils, cumin seed and broth until it just begins to come to a boil. Add 2 tbls curry powder and rice. Stir often, simmering over medium heat. Keep covered when not stirring. Let rice and lentil mixture simmer in liquid until mostly absorbed. Add can of tomatoes juice and all. Continue stirring and simmering and letting the

I find it a curious thing. When a person eats a hard cooked egg they tend to consume just the one. However, when a person wants scrambled eggs, they usually opt for two. It's a curious discrepancy. How it is that in one instance a single egg will suffice, while in the other, two are neccesary. That's the kind of messed up stuff that society does to the brai. So for my own satisfaction I tried something different. I scrambled teo eggs as most poeple might. But I only used half of them at the one meal. I assembled a sandwich. Using whole grain white bread toast, roasted garlic hummus, pepper jack cheese and a single scrambled egg. It was kind of like a fancy grilled cheese. First I cooked the eggs and then set them aside in a small pyrex container. Then I assembled the sandwich. A slice of bread, some hummus, a little bit of the egg, a slice of cheese and then another slice of bread. I then added the constructed sandwich back to the hot pan in which I'd cooked my eg