Haven't been on in a while, but made this delicious dinner the other night and thought I would share. The Cajun Chickpea Patty is my own spin on a similar recipe I discovered on vegandad.blogspot.com. Hope you have as much fun making them and eating them as my family and I did.

Cajun Chickpea Patties

Ingredients:

1 tbsp oil

1/2 C diced onion

1/2 C diced green pepper

1/4 C diced fresh chives

2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans) - rinsed and drained

4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

2 tsp Cajun seasoning

4 tbsp flour

2 tbsp corn starch

additional oil for frying

1. Heat oil in frying pan over med. heat. Saute onion and green pepper for 5 - 7 minutes, until softened. Remove from heat.

2. Place chickpeas in a food processor along with the onion mixture. Pulse until chickpeas are no longer whole, but don't process them too much. Place chickpeas in a bowl, add Cajun spice, parsley, and chives. Mix well. Add flour and cornstarch and mix well. Place in fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Heat oil in frying pan over med/med-high heat. Shape chickpea mixture into 8 - 10 patties and fry in batches, about 2 - 3 minutes per side or until crispy and golden brown. Flip a few times if they are browning too quickly.

*Cajun Spice (from Cooks.com)

1 C salt

6 tbsp black pepper

6 tbsp red pepper

2 tbsp garlic powder

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp sweet basil

2 tbsp thyme

Put all ingredients into a large jar (mason jar or old speg. sauce jar) and shake well.

Spinach Rice Pilaf

2 tbsp olive oil

1/3 C orzo

1 clove garlic, finely chopped or minced

1 cup rice

1 can vegetable broth + 1/2 C water

salt and pepper to taste

fresh spinach, chopped (about 4 cups)

1. Place a med sized pan over med - high heat, cover bottom with olive oil. Add the orzo to the pan and toast until golden brown, about 3 - 4 minutes.

2. Add the garlic to the pan and continue cooking for another 30 seconds. Add the rice, stock, water, salt and pepper to the pan and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to med-low and simmer until all of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is soft, about 15 - 20 minutes.

3. Fluff the rice and fold in the spinach. Serve.

Roasted Peppers, Onions, and Garlic

With Sausage (vegan)

Over Corn Meal Cakes

This is a great, quick and easy dinner. It is full of flavor and the crunchy corn meal cakes add great texture.

Ingredients:

3-4 peppers (green, yellow, red, orange - you choose) cut into strips

1 onion sliced with slices then cut in half

4 - 6 garlic cloves

2 TBLS oil (canola, safflower, or coconut whichever you prefer)

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 Pkg. vegan Italian sausage (cut diagonally)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl or 1 gallon zip lock bag mix together peppers, onion, garlic, oil, salt, and pepper. Toss to evenly coat. Place the mixture on a large cookie sheet covered with foil and sprayed with nonstick spray. Spread the mixture out evenly. Cook for 20 minutes.

Stir in the sausages and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the peppers and sausages begin to brown.

Ingredients for Corn Meal Cakes

2 cups corn meal

1/4 to 1/2 cup hot water

oil (enough to cover a shallow skillet)

While the sausage is cooking, place approximately 2 cups of corn meal in a bowl. Slowly stir in hot water until the mixture is wet. Using your hands, form approximately 2 inch patties and place into a shallow skillet with about 1/4 an inch of hot oil. Turn patty after a couple of minutes. Cook until both sides are golden brown, turning as necessary.

Serve the pepper/sausage mixture over the corn meal cakes.

Cold Bean Salad

This bean salad is so easy to make and so delicious. It is great for a quick lunch, a cool dinner, or as a side dish. It is makes a great dish to take to parties, back yard BBQs and pot lucks. My daughter gave me the recipe for the basis of the bean salad and then of course I tweaked it, but just a bit.

Here is what you will need:

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 can black beans

1 can kidney beans

1 can corn

1 can garbanzo beans

1 can soy beans

1 can sliced black olives

1/4 to 1/3 cup diced red onion (depending on taste)

Italian dressing

Open and drain all cans. Dump into large bowl and add diced onions. Pour Italian dressing (to taste) over the ingredients and mix well. Cover and store in refrigerator. Serve cold. Keeps in refrigerator for about 5 days.

Vegan Oreo Cheesecake

The other day my husband mentioned that he sure would like some cheesecake. So off to vegweb.com I went and sure enough there were several recipes for cheesecake. We all love Oreos and the recipe for the Oreo Cheesecake had the least amount of exotic ingredients. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

19 Oreos

2 1/2 C vegan whipped topping

2 tablespoons vegan butter, melted

1 - 8 oz container vegan cream cheese

3/4 C sugar

Crush 15 of the cookies and place in a pie pan. Add melted vegan butter. Mix with crumbs. Use back of spoon to press buttered crumbs on to pie pan to make a crust. Put the crust in the freezer while preparing the filling.

In a large bowl combine the rest of the ingredients, except for the left over cookies, and mix thoroughly (I actually got out my hand mixer and mixed to get a really smooth texture). Spoon into pie pan, crumble remaining cookies over the pie and freeze for at least one hour.

Several things here that I need to note:

1. I couldn't find any vegan whipped cream so I made my own using another recipe from vegweb.com:

1 pkg. soft (silken) tofu

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 C sugar

1/4 C soy milk

Combine all the above ingredients in a food processor or mixer until smooth.

*This recipe makes about 2 cups worth of whipped topping, but it worked fine for the cheesecake recipe.

2. I served the cheesecake frozen.

3. Lastly, it was tasty, but really didn't taste like a traditional cheesecake.. It was more like an ice cream pie. It is also good served with a little chocolate syrup drizzled over the top.

So, on that note, try it out. Tweak it and mess with and see what you can come up with and most importantly enjoy and have fun.

Beef Stroganoff

Although I am living the vegan lifestyle, not everyone in our house has chosen to take that particular path. One of those being my husband. He has begun to make slight rumblings about missing some of his old favorite meals. The other night at dinner he mentioned how much he missed beef stroganoff and wondered if there might be a way to make it using the "Beefless Tips" by Gardein that we were having for dinner that night. So on my next trek to the local grocery store I decided to check it out. I found a season mix (one of those little packet thingys) for beef stroganoff that was vegan. The instructions for preparing it included adding sour cream at the end just before serving, but our local store of course doesn't carry vegan sour cream, but I purchased the mix any how, knowing that I would figure something out later. Next came the noodles. There was absolutely not a hope in hades that I would find "eggless" egg noodles at this establishment and I new that going in, but I checked each and every package just in case - no luck. So I went with a box of rotini noodles. You can choose what ever shape of noodle you want, I just thought the curly ones were at least a little similar to the shape of egg noodles. Then I made sure to grab a bag of the Gardein "Beefless Tips" from the freezer section before heading to the check out.

It was an easy and relatively quick dinner to fix that turned out absolutely delicious. I knew it was a hit when my son, who is quite a picky eater, asked for seconds. As far as the sour cream thing is concerned, I just added 1/4 to 1/2 cup of soy milk (probably closer to a fourth, but I didn't measure) to the sauce just a few minutes before adding in the noodles.

It is so easy to make:

Heat the beefless tips in a small amount of olive oil for about 10 minutes or so. Then follow the directions on the stroganoff seasoning packet and sauté for approximately 15 - 20 minutes. In the mean time put a medium pot of water on to boil. Bring it to a boil and add the noodles. Boil for 10 minutes.

Just before adding the noodles stir in 1/4 cup or so of soy milk into the sauce. Combine the cooked noodles with the sauce and tips. Let them sauté on low for about 5 - 10 minutes. Serve with your favorite veggie (we went with peas - they go well with the dish).

Sit back and enjoy.

Banana Nut Bread

So, I got up yesterday morning, always a good start to any day, shuffled into the kitchen and discovered that all the bananas were exceptionally ripe. Well, no one is going to eat those I thought and began wondering what I could do with them beside the obvious of throwing them out. Then it hit me - banana nut bread. Only one problem, I had never made banana nut bread in my life, let alone a vegan version of it. I scurried over to the computer and went to my go to site for recipes - vegweb.com. This site is so awesome! It has never disappointed me yet. Type in any recipe that you are looking for a vegan version of and you will get not one, but usually many recipes with comments from members who have already tried it. I just love it. Anyhow, there were several versions of banana nut bread. I chose the one that was the easiest and that I already had most of (it never hurts to change things up a bit) the ingredients for. This recipe is so sinfully simple, but so scrumptious. You mix it all in one bowl, pour it in the loaf pan, pop into the oven and 50 minutes later you have a moist, mouth watering banana nut bread ready to be devoured. Here's the recipe just in case you want to give it a go yourself:

Beautiful Banana Bread

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

3 bananas
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon (depending on how much you like cinnamon)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas well with a fork or potato masher. Add applesauce, maple syrup, sugar and flax seeds and mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon and mix thoroughly (or you don't have to do this step if you don't feel like it, it works just as well to just dump all the dry ingredients into the wet without mixing first). Mix the dry and wet ingredients thoroughly then add the nuts if you are using them.

Put into a regular sized loaf pan sprayed with non-stick spray and bake for 50 minutes to one hour (or until the loaf starts to turn golden brown and the toothpick test is successful - just keep an eye on it).

Remove loaf pan from oven and cool on wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer loaf to wire rack and cool completely, or as long as you can wait.

Okay, as you know I can't really follow a recipe exactly as it is written. So, my bread didn't have flax seeds in it and I was short on walnuts so I added some pecans to the mix. It turned out great and I dare you to wait until it's cool to try it :-)

Vegan Chocolate Chip

Cookies

I will be the first to admit that I absolutely love snacks and dessert. But not the garden variety store bought ones, I much prefer homemade. I have tried a couple of chocolate chip cookie recipes since living the vegan lifestyle and as of now my favorite by far is the recipe found in Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. It's a one bowl, simple recipe with the most exotic ingredient being tapioca flour which I substitute with corn starch and all turns out just fine. These cookies are so easy to make and so delicious. Everyone in the house devours them. The whole batch is usually gone by the end of the day. On that note, however, I should point out that the recipe really doesn't make that many cookies: approximately two dozen and with all our kids and their friends, two dozen is like five dollars worth of gas - you think it will last you a couple of days, but no way.

So, if you don't have it and you are a cookie fiend like me, buy it, borrow it, beg for it, whatever it takes and pick up Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar - it's a great little recipe book (at least I think so).