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).

Blogs and Helpful Sites

www.thekindlife.com The Kind Life is Alicia Silverstone's site. It is a great blog and you can sign up to receive automatic updates. She provides everything from personal triumph stories, recipes, restaurants, and new finds in vegan cosmetics and clothes to gardening and guess blogs from her husband.

www.vegnews.com This site is ran in conjunction with VegNews Magazine. It has all sorts of helpful and interesting articles. If you do not subscribe to the magazine, then you should definitely check out the site.

savvyabby.blogspot.com Savvy Abby is a blog that sprang from VegNews Magazine. You can also find a link to it on their home page. Abby finds and shares with her readers all kinds of great and inexpensive finds.

vegweb.com This is my go to site for recipes. It is awesome. You can peruse the hundreds of recipes available or if you are looking for a vegan alternative to one of your favorite dishes, you can type it in and will most likely find many, many alternative recipes. It is absolutely fantastic.

www.happycow.net Happy Cow is the compassionate eating guide. It is a site dedicated to finding vegan restaurants and health food stores in your area or an area you may be traveling to. Wonderful information, especially if you travel often.

www.goveg.com GoVeg is run by PETA and is an excellent source for those who are just beginning to live the vegan lifestyle or are just wanting some more information about what it means to be vegan. You can sign up on line to receive their free vegetarian starter kit.

www.veggieboards.com Veggie Boards is a site for discussion and information. It has many different threads going at the same time, so it is almost certain that someone out there is asking the same kinds of questions you are and there are always lots of opinions on what the answer may be.

The following two sites, www.goodguide.com and www.cosmeticsdatabase.com are excellent resources. They help in finding the right products for you. Information is provided on the companies themselves concerning animal testing, ingredients, and environmental factors so that you, the consumer, can make an educated purchase the next time you go shopping.

I hope you find at least some of these sites helpful. I visit quite a few of them regularly and benefit greatly from their information.

Tofu Veggie Burrito

Need something quick and easy for lunch or a simple, but nutritious dinner? I've got just the thing for you: tofu veggie burritos. These are so fast and simple to make, yet full of good for you stuff and the whole family loves them.

All you need is a package of extra firm tofu, a can of corn or two cups frozen corn (thawed), and a package of spinach leaves. Throw in a little chili powder, salt and pepper and some salsa and you are ready to go.

Start by cutting the tofu into a few medium chunks, then squeeze the liquid out of each chunk and crumble the tofu into a bowl. Next heat a little oil in a medium size skillet and add the crumbled tofu. Season with salt, pepper, and chili powder (approx. 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. each of pepper and chili powder). Heat thoroughly and then add in the corn and continue to heat a few moments longer. I always add a little extra chili powder and pepper at this point. If you don't put in enough seasoning, your burritos will be pretty bland. Next throw in the spinach leaves and continue heating and stirring until the spinach is cooked. Heat up some tortillas and fill with the stuff you just made. Top it off with some salsa and you have yourself a wonderfully delicious meal. We actually eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner :-) Enjoy.

Anniversary Cajun Style

Last night was my 20th wedding anniversary. To celebrate I decided to take us back to the place where we spent our honeymoon: New Orleans. So I put on some Zydeco music and made a big pot of gumbo for dinner and bread pudding for dessert. I am the first to admit that I am not very good abut following recipes. I use them more of a guideline. I like to look over a recipe then take it and tweak and make it my own and that is what I did with my vegan version of gumbo. I took an old favorite recipe from a very old cookbook,

Nibbles Cooks Cajun, veganized it, tweaked it and made a delicious pot of gumbo.

Ingredients

6 Tbls. flour 1 sm. can tomato sauce

1/2 cup oil 1 cup red wine (any cheap wine will do)

4 Tbls. vegan margarine 1 tsp. thyme

5 cloves garlic 1/2 tsp. chili powder

1 onion, chopped 1/2 tsp. oregano

1 bell pepper, chopped 3 bay leaves

2 cups frozen okra 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 cans veg. stock 1 1/2 tsp. Pickapeppa or A-1

2 cans diced tomatoes 1 tsp. Louisiana Hot Sauce or Tabasco Sauce

1 tsp. garlic powder

In a large pot mix the oil and flour together to make the roux.

In a separate pan sauté garlic, bell pepper, and onion in the margarine.

Place vegetables in roux.

Add the remaining ingredients and stir together. Cook for approximately 2 hours.

Serve over rice.

Next up is the bread pudding. I have to say that there really is no recipe for this. My grandma told me her recipe which was very vague; some of this, a little of that and of course it contained milk and eggs. So with her recipe in mind, I made my own vegan recipe. I am not very good at the measuring thing when making my own concoctions. I just put the stuff in until in looks, feels, smells right. So, this is my first attempt at putting on paper something created in my head.

Ingredients

1 loaf cinnamon raisin bread (or just raisin bread and you can add in the cinnamon)

3 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups soy milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9 inch cake pan with nonstick spray. Break the bread up into small chunks and place in the pan. Mix 1 tsp. of cinnamon with the chucks.

In a separate bowl mix together the soy milk, vanilla, sugar, and 1 tsp. of cinnamon.

Pour liquid mixture over the chunks of bread. With the back of a spoon, smoosh down the bread chunks so that the liquid is evenly distributed through out the bread. There should be liquid remaining in the bottom of the pan. You want it to be wet so that your pudding will be moist. If it doesn't look moist enough, add in some soy milk. Sprinkle the top with the remaining 1 tsp. of cinnamon.

Bake at 350 for 20 - 30 minutes. Do not over cook or it will be dry. Serve warm. For an extra touch mix together some powdered sugar and soy milk to make a sweet icing to drizzle over each piece as it is served. Enjoy with a mug of hot tea or coffee.

Famous Vegans

You may from time to time feel like you are alone living the vegan life style, but let me assure you, you are not. Not only is there a huge online community of vegans out there, there are probably some in your own neighborhood that you have no idea about. There are also many famous vegans that you may not be aware of. So today I am posting a partial listing of some famous vegans. Some you may already know about, others you may be a little surprised to see on the list. This is only a partial list, there are many more out there living the vegan life style, just like us.

Adam Yauch, musician of Beastie Boys

Alanis Morissette, singer

Alex Greenwald, actor, musician

Alicia Silverstone, actress

Alyssa Milano, actress

Andy Hurley, musician and drummer of Fall Out Boy

Anthony Kiedis, singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Benjamin Spock, M.D., pediatrician

Brian Bell, musician of Weezer

Bryan Adams, singer and songwriter

Carrie Anne Moss, actress in Matrix trilogy

Casey Affleck, actor

Casey Kasem, US radio host

Cedric Bixler-Zavala, singer of The Mars Volta

Chrissie Hynde, rock singer

Coretta Scott King, activist and wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

Coral Smith, MTV personality

Danny Nova, singer and songwriter

Darren Boyd, actor

Dario Argento, writer

Daryl Hannah, actress and environmental activist

Davey Havok, singer of AFI

Ed Begley Jr., actor and environmental activist

Ed Templeton, professional skateboarder

Ellen Degeneres, TV personality

Emily Deschanel, actress

Emilie Autumn, musician

Eric Roberts, actor

Erykah Badu, R&B singer

Fiona Apple, singer and songwriter

Fiona Oakes, athlete, ex-Olympian

Forrest Kline, vocalist and guitarist for Hellogoodbye

Fred Mascherino, musician of Taking Back Sunday

Georges Laraque, NHL player

Heather Mills, model, celebrity, and activist

Howard Lyman, former cattle rancher turned activist and author

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, punk rocker and vegan cookbook author

James Cromwell, actor and animal rights advocate

Jason Mraz, singer

Jenny McCarthy, actress, model

Joan Jett, punk rock musician and singer

Joanne Rose, actor

Joaquin Phoenix, actor

Leonardo Da Vinci, Renaissance painter and inventor

Liam Wilson, musician

Linda Blair, actress

Lisa Edelstein, actress

Liv Tyler, actress and model

Lori Petty, actress

Luke Cummo, UFC Ultimate Fighter

Moby, musician

Morrissey, English singer and songwriter,

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, musician of The Mars Volta

Rikki Rocket, drummer of Poison

River Phoenix, actor

Rob Bigwood, athlete, Pro-Arm-wrestler

Robin Gibb, musician, of Bee Gees

Saint David, Patron Saint of Wales

Salim Stoudamire, athlete, Atlanta Hawks Guard

Sandra Oh, actress

Saul Williams, musician, rapper

Sandra Oh, actress

Scott Goldberg, filmmaker

Sinead O'Connor, Irish singer and songwriter

Summer Phoenix, actress

Thom Yorke, singer of Radiohead

Thomas Dekker, actor and musician

Tim Commerford, musician, Rage Against the Machine

Tim McIlrath, musician of Rise Against

Tobey Maguire, actor

Vanessa Williams, actress and dancer

Victoria Moran, writer

Weird Al Yankovic, comedian and musician

Woody Harrelson, actor

This list was compiled using information from www.happycow.net (which is, by the way, a great site).

Breakfast

(The Vegan Way)

Danishes, cinnamon rolls, biscotti, whatever sweet pastry I could scrounge up and a hot vanilla latte was my idea of a good breakfast before I went the way of a vegan. Breakfast. The first meal of the day should probably be a little more nourishing than a pastry and a cup of joe, but being vegan, eggs and bacon were definitely off the menu, so what is a girl suppose to do? Well here a few of my favorite vegan breakfasts.

Pancakes! I know, you're thinking how can you make vegan pancakes and still have ones that are fluffy and flavorful. Well, it is quite easy. I use the old standby Bisquick and the recipe on the box. I just substitute a half of a banana (squished really good) for the egg and use soy milk instead of cow milk. Mix it all up like normal and you have a delicious batter, but I make it even better by adding vegan chocolate chips or for a more healthy version I put pecans, walnuts, flax seed, dried blueberries, wheat germ, whatever I have in the pantry in a ziplock bag and smash them with a rolling pin or whatever I have handy. Add this little mixture to the batter and it makes a tasty and textured pancake that is great with hot pure maple syrup drizzled over the top.

A great Sunday morning special is hash browns, Heinz Vegetarian Beans, and whole wheat toast with a cup of hot tea. This makes a very tasty and filling breakfast - one of my favorites.

Then of course there is the old faithful - oatmeal. It doesn't have to be just plain, bland oatmeal either, you can dress it up by adding bananas and peanut butter, or brown sugar and pecans, or cinnamon and walnuts, you can even mix in a little jelly if your heart desires. Oatmeal is wonderful breakfast food; it is filling and gets your day off to a great start.

Last but not least is good old breakfast cereal and believe it or not there are a lot of vegan cereals out there and I'm not just talking about the expensive ones at the health food store. Here is a partial list of vegan breakfast cereals - so knock yourself out!

Apple Jacks Cocoa Puffs

Froot Loops Fruity Pebbles

Cocoa Pebbles Reeses Peanut Butter Puffs

Frosted Flakes Cheerios

Honey Nut Cheerios Frosted Cheerios

Multi-grain Cheerios Life Cinnamon

Life Corn Chex

Trix

Top your bowl of cereal with soy or rice milk (whichever you prefer) and add a serving of fruit, a slice of toast, and a cup of tea and you are good to go.

So, as I have discovered, eating a vegan breakfast isn't so hard after all and I have never eaten such easy and healthy breakfasts as I have since living the vegan lifestyle.

Food and eating. Books and reading. Those are two of my favorite things. So today I thought I would share with you the books that I have read on this journey into the vegan lifestyle.

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone is the first book I read when I began this journey and it is truly a wonderful book. Alicia is not pushy or confrontational. Her book is just as kind as she is to the planet. The first half of the book is informational and truly enlightening. The second half of the book is full of recipes. I have not tried them all, but the ones I have tried are exceptional.

Next I read Jonathan Foer's book, Eating Animals. It is not for the week of heart, as he delves deep into the horrors of factory farming and trawling. He also discusses the role of the USDA (which in my opinion, is pretty much worthless) in the production and distribution of the food that we eat. I highly recommend this book to everybody!

I then read Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman. Howard Lyman is a 4th generation rancher turn vegan. His is a very moving and interesting story. It is a rather short book and a great read.

One other book that I read and enjoyed was Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. It too is a rather short book, but a good one. I felt their snarky attitude and sarcasm was refreshing.

And if you don't have time to sit down and read a whole book, then I strongly suggest watching the movie Food Inc. - heck watch it even if you read the books. It really is a must see for everyone. I think every person in the world should be forced to watch it - that's just me though. You can rent it on DVD or watch instantly on Netflix. Watch it!!!!

That's all the info I have for today. Happy reading :-)