Vegan Recipes and Plant Based Cooking

Just wanted to see if I could make a decent vegan 'meatball'. Turned out pretty good. I was inspired by the show I've been watching lately, Masterchef UK Professionals. They used white bread to thicken a gazpacho. I thought to myself that maybe it could also do the trick for binding pureed beans. And besides, I had some left over bread to use up. Why balls? I thought they'd look nice. Meatball Ingredients 1 can pinto beans, lightly rinsed 1 piece of white bread torn into chunks 1/4 cup rolled oats, plus 1-2 tbls set aside 1/4 cup finely minced red onion, plus l tbl more set aside 1/4 cup finely minced celery, plus 1 tbl more set aside 3 cloves finely minced garlic 1/2 inch chunk ginger 2 tbls beer 1 tbl pickle brine 1 tbl canola oil squirt or two of sriracha 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp cayenne powder 1 tsp sesame seeds 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp cumin 2 tsps black pepper 1 tsp salt Buzz up all ingredients, except those marked as set aside, in

Cabbage was abundant and cheap recently because of St.Patrick's Day. So I found myself with a lot of it to somehow make enjoyable. Normally I'll just use it raw. But I've been watching this show from the UK. Masterchef Professionals UK Season 9 and on it one of the chefs did roasted cabbage. He quartered the head, drizzled it with olive oil, seasoned and roasted it on a sheet pan in a pretty hot oven. It sounded like a brilliant idea, so I thought I'd give it a try. For the sake of having more charred bits of cabbage I decided to roughly chop it first. I then tossed it with some olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika. Into a 450 F oven on a rack one step up from the bottom it went. The first time I tried it I set the timer for 10 minutes. It wasn't really browned much at that point. So stir and return to oven. I let it cook another 7 minutes and it was pretty nicely done. Not every piece with be browned. Some will be really darker, others golden and still more ju

I've heard a lot about celery root and its puree on various cooking shows. I'd never tasted it or tried it or even seen it in real life. I wasn't even planning on purchasing it when I went to the store. I just wanted something new to try. I saw turnips and was going to give those a go. Right next to them I noticed the celery root and because I'd heard so many good things about it I was swayed to go with that. I briefly googled recipes. Lots of milk, cream, potatoes. Wasn't into that. I did notice a few incarnations using cauliflower. So I decided that since cauliflower and cabbage are in the same family and I had lots of cabbage that would be the main pairing. For flavor without the use of cream or butter I went with an onion based broth. I went with a fairly light, weak broth as to not overtake the celeriac. Broth Ingredients Small sweet onion skin and 1/4 cup of the flesh diced 3 cloves garlic roughly chopped 2-3 ribs/seeds jalapeno and 1 tbl of the di

3 stalks chopped Celery 1/2 medium Onion diced 5 cloves sliced Garlic 1 Jalapeno minced 1/2 Habernero minced 1/2 cup Broccoli stems chopped Water as needed 1 tbl Spicy Mustard 1 tbl Butter 3 seeds Allspice 3 Bay Leaf Salt and pepper 1/2 cup dry Lentils 1/2 cups dry pearl Barley In 2 cups water simmer butter, allspice, bay leaf, salt, pepper, celery, onion and 2 ribs/seeds from jalapeno and 1 small rib/seeds from habernero. Simmer 10 minutes. Remove pepper ribs, bay leaf, allspice. Add mustard, diced pepper flesh, garlic, broccoli, lentils and barley. Add 2 cups more water. Cover and simmer until lentils and barley are tender, adding more water as needed. Remove to heat safe storage container. Refrigerate overnight. Depending on how much liquid is left, add more water to come half way up and let sit at least one hour.

I wasn't sure what to do with my rice and beans. I usually go mexican or indian, but I was looking for a change up. With baby bella mushrooms and red wine as my inspiration I put this combo together. I was quite pleased with the results. I hope you will be too! I'm always vegetarian, but kind of a lazy vegan lately. This recipe is definitely vegan  and really showcases how easy it is to coax a heck of a lot of of flavor from relatively simple ingredients. Ingredients 1 cup crimini mushrooms roughly chopped 1/2 cup carrots roughly chopped 1/2 cup white or sweet onion diced 3 cloves garlic minced 1/8 cup minced hot peppers (equal portions jalapeno, serrano, habernero) few ribs seeds from previous  mentioned hot peppers 1/2 cup dry white rice 1 can rinsed black beans 1/4 cup red wine 1 tbl olive oil 1 tsp rosemary 1 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp sage 1/4 tsp dill 1/4 tsp cayenne powder 1/4 tsp parsley 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper 2  1/2 cups water, maybe more I