Roasted Garlic Pasta Sauce

Hey Babes!

I may have already mentioned that I am a pasta FREAK.  I could eat it all day, everyday and I am always finding new ways to top my oodles of noodles.  This is my new favorite pasta sauce.  It is super duper simple to make and it is so delish I actually jumped up and down when fork met mouth.  All you have to do is roast a few heads of garlic and puree them with some olive oil, S&P and a squeeze of fresh lemon and you have a rich, luxurious sauce that will WOW the tastebuddies.  You can use any shape of pasta - I used capelli d'angelo this time, but next time I would choose penne rigate instead.  You can garnish this pasta with whatever you like.  I used julienned roasted bell peppers for this round but you could add steamed broccoli, chopped oilves, roasted eggplant, sundried tomatoes, wild mushrooms, hemp hearts, crushed dried chilies, maybe a teeny splash of white wine, your fave herbs, what ever you like!  Make it your own!



Roasted Garlic Pasta Sauce
Ingredients:
-6 large whole heads of garlic
-1 cup of olive oil (plus a drizzle or two extra)
-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
-the juice of one lemon
-S&P

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.  Place the heads of garlic into a pan (pie plates or cake pans are perf) and drizzle with a few tbsp of olive oil.  Toss them to coat.  Roast in the oven for 50 - 60 min or until the heads are lightly golden brown and they squeeze easily with a pair of kitchen tongs.  Let the toasty bulbs coooool right down.

Slice the heads in half (morbid?) crosswise, between the top and root end, with a serrated knife and squeeze out the soft, buttery cloves into a blender. 

Puree the garlic on low speed in the blender and sloowwwwllly drizzle in the cup of olive oil until you have a nice, creamy-dreamy sauce.  Add the nutritional yeast and lemon juice and blend again. 

Taste the sauce and season with S&P.  Pour over your favorite pasta and toss gently.  Add what ever garnishes your little heart desires (or none at all) and NOSH!

XOXOXOXOXO,

The Vivacious Vegan

Vegan Thanksgiving Feast!

Hey Pals,

Thanksgiving Day is upon us in Canada, one of my aboslute favorite holidays.  Sharing a festive meal with family and friends and enjoying the beauty of autumn can be hard for vegans when the star of the show is a big dead bird.  Making your own tofurkey complete with stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy is very simple and sooooo very tasty!  Surround the tofurkey with a host of yummmmy yegan side dishes: mashed potatoes with veggie stock and Earth Blance butter, roasted yams with a sprinkle of cinnamon, green beans or brussel sprouts with toasted almonds and lemon zest, carrots with agave orange glaze. . .skies the limit!  My Nana used to make boiled, mashed turnips for Thanksgiving. . .ick.

Roasted Tofurkey, Mushroom Sage Stuffing and Gravy 
Ingredients:
Tofurkey:
-2 bricks of extra firm tofu
-1/4 cup soy sauce + 1/3 cup for basting liquid
-1/4 cup nutritional yeast
-1 tbsp garlic powder
-1 tbsp poultry seasoning
-fresh ground pepper
-2 tbsp sesame oil
Stuffing:
-1/4 cup Earth Balance Butter
-4 shallots (or one small onion and 3 cloves of garlic) diced
-2 stalks of  celery, finely diced
-2 cups of wild mushrooms, diced
-6 cups dried bread cubes (available in the bakery of your friendly neighborhhod grocery store)
-2 tbsp finely chopped sage leaves
-approx 2 cups of veggie stock
-S&P
Gravy:
-1/2 cup veg oil
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-1/2 cup all pourpose flour
-1 tsp poultry seasoning
-1 cup dry white wine
-1/4 cup soy sauce
-2 cups veggie stock
-S&P

STEP 1 - Tofurkey Phase A:  Place two paper towels on a plate.  Place the blocks of tofu on the paper towel.  Place another paper towel over the tofu.  Top with a plate and place heavy cans and other objects on the tofu.  Leave for 1 hour so all the extra water drains out.

STEP 2:  While the tofu is being pressed, prepare the stuffing!  Heat the Earth Balance butter in a pan over medium heat.  Saute the shallots, celery and mushrooms with a sprinkle of S&P until the shallots are translucent, the celery is soft and the mushrooms are well cooked.  

Transfer the veg from the pan to a large mixing bowl and toss with the bread cubes and sage.  Add the veggie stock and mix.  You want the bread cubes to be very moist and the stuffing should be pretty sticky, so add more veggie stock as needed.  Season with S&P and set aside.

STEP 3 - Tofurkey Phase B:  Place the tofu, 1/4 cup soy sauce, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, poultry seasoning and pepper in a food processor and pulse until it becomes a smooth paste.  Alternatively, you can use your hands or a potato masher for this job! 

Line a colander with cheese cloth or a paper towel and place it over a plate or bowl.  Put the tofu mixture into the lined colander and press it down so it's nicely packed in there and the top is flat.  Place a small plate on the top and a heavy can or two on the plate and let sit in the fridge for two hours. 

STEP 4 - Tofurkey Phase C:  Remove the cans and plate from the tofu.  With a spoon, caaaareeeefully scoop out the inner part of the tofu, as if you're making a bowl out of it, leaving a 1" border.  Set the scooped tofu aside.  Fill the cavity with stuffing just to the rim of the tofu bowl.  Cover the stuffing with the reserved tofu, sealing the tofurkey and making the top nice and flat. 

Oil a baking sheet well with veg oil and place on top of the colander.  In a quick, fluid motion, flip the colander onto the baking sheet and release the tofurkey dome.  Remove the cheesecloth/paper towel from the tofurkey dome. 

STEP 5 - Tofurkey Phase D: Mix together the remaining soy sauce and sesame oil and baste the tofukey with it.  Cover the Tofurkey with foil and place in a pre-heated 400 degree oven.  Roast the tofurkey for 25 minutes, remove the foil, baste again and bake for an additional 25 minutes or until the tofurkey is golden brown.  Baste again before serving. 

STEP 6:  GRAVY!!!  While the tofurkey is roasting, heat the veg oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat.  Add the garlic and saute until translucent.  Add the flour and poultry seasoning and cook for one minute, stirring constantly. 

Add the wine, soy sauce and veggie stock and whisk to combine (no one wants lumpy gravy!).  Bring the gravy to a boil and cook until thickened.  Add more stock if tooooo thick.  Season with S&P.

To serve:  Slice the tofurkey into wedges and serve alongside mashed potatoes, your fave veg side dishes and a sea of vegan gravy!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!


XOXO,

Vivacious Vegan

VEGAN RANCH DIP!!!!

Happy Friday!!!

I had the day off work today and chose to spend it sitting around watching documentary films (Generation Rx was outstanding and a must must MUST see, especially for parents) and eating snacks on my couch.  In particular, a halo of raw veggies and baked potato chips encircling a bowl of AMAZING VEGAN RANCH DIP!!!!!!!!!

This is good stuff, people.  Real good stuff.  And I whipped it up in under five minutes.  It's not exactly the mayonaisey goop you get in a bottle, it's more like homemade buttermilk-style ranch with lots of dill MMMMMM!!!!  It would be great drizzled on wedges of iceberg lettuce or for dipping pizza crust in or eating with a spoon. . . :)

Vegan Buttermilk-Style Ranch Dip and Dressing

Ingredients:

- 1 pkg soft/silken tofu

- 4 green onions, chopped

- 1 large clove of garlic (or two small), chopped

- 2 tbsp cider vinegar

- 1 tbsp grainy Dijon mustard

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tbsp fresh or dried dill

- S&P

Put all ingredients into a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Season with S&P.  DONE!  BAM!  JUST LIKE THAT!  You can eat it now if you like buuuuuut it will be so much yummier if you let it hang out in the fridge for an hour or two. 

Happy weekend and happy snacking!

XOXO

Vivacious Vegan



Vegan Ceasar Salad

Good Day To All You Sweeties,

Every time I go to a restaurant and ceasar salad on the menu, I cry a little inside.  Ceasar salad is one of my faaaaaaavorite salads EVER and I know I am not alone since ceasar salad seems to be on every gosh darn menu ANYWHERE!  Even Rotten Ronnie's (McD's) has friggin ceasar salad!  Even a large portion of Chinese restaurants in Winnipeg have ceasar salad on the menu!!!  So why do I weep over such a readily available salad?  Why, you ask?  Because while the majority of the classic Ceasar Cardini (creator of the ceasar salad if you didn't already guess that) dressing ingredients are vegan (olive oil, lemon juice, wine vinegar, garlic, S&P, and of course romaine lettuce) the EGG YOLKS that give the dressing its body, the WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE that gives the dressing its delicate ANCHOVY flavour and the PARMESEAN CHEESE are not not not not vegan at all.  And don't get me started on bottled salad dressings and store-bought croutons, TOO easy to make from scratch and soooo much better homemade!

There is hope for vegans who love this salad!  While you may not be able to order it at resto's, you can easily make a deeeeeeeeeelish vegan version of the salad at home that will impress all your friends who are vegans and friends who are devotees to the bottled variety (shudder!) alike! 

Vegan Ceasar Salad
Ingredients:
croutons:
-1 loaf of French bread, cubed
-1/4 cup veg oil
-1 tsp garlic powder
-1 tsp thyme
salad:
-2 heads of romaine lettuce, washed and dried THOROUGHLY, quartered lengthwise and chopped crosswise into bite sized pieces
-2 cloves garlic, chopped
-juice of 1 lemon
-2 tbsp grainy djon mustard
-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
-1 tbsp soy sauce
-1/4 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
-1/4 cup red wine vinegar
-1/2 cup olive oil
-a few tbsp water depending  on how thick/thin you like it
-S&P

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees celcius.  Toss the bread cubes with the veg oil, garlic powder, thyme and season with S&P.  Spread the cubes onto a baking sheet and bake until golden, about 10-15 min, tossing them or twice.  Let them cooooool, man.

Put your romaine into a large salad bowl.  Put all other ingredients other than olive oil into your trusty blender and blend until smooth.  Slowly add olive oil in a continuous stream while the blender is running.  Add a few tsp of water if it's too thick.  Season with S&P.

Add the croutons to the lettuce and a few tbsp at a time, drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss, adding more dressing until you have the desired amount of creamy, garlicky goodness coatin the greens. 

YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM!!!!!!!!!!

XOXO

V.V.

Seitan Kebabs with Chipotle BBQ Sauce

Hey Loves!

It's been waaaaay too long since I last posted a recipe starring one of my fave vegan proteins: SEITAN!!!!!  If you've just tuned in, seitan (pronounced like 'say-tahn', not like 'Lucifer') is a fabulous meat substitute made from wheat gluten.  Seitan, or 'wheat meat', is high protein and fat free and has a creepily meat-like texture.  It is also waaaaaay too easy to make at home!  Check out this recipe here - you can find vital wheat gluten flour at Bulk Barn :)

Bee and I hosted a little BBQ (take THAT Mr. Cranky Neighbor!) the other night and served up some seitan kebabs with a DELISH and super easy home made BBQ sauce.  Seriously people, don't bother buying BBQ sauce in a bottle.  It's always better home made and its SO EASY!!!  We served up the kebabs with corn on the cob, potato salad, ceasar salad (all vegan of course!) and several brewskies :)

                                                    Bee, Buck, CB, ATM & V.V.'s toes :)





Seitan Kebabs with Chipotle BBQ Sauce
Ingredients:
-6 Seitan Cutlets
-2 tbsp veg oil
-1 small yellow onion, finely diced
-5 garlic cloves, minced
-1/2 cup ketchup
-1 tbsp djon mustard
-1 tsp cumin
-1 - 2 tsp chipotle chili powder
-1 tbsp Mexican chili powder
-1 tbsp vegan sugar
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-2 tbsp soy sauce
-1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
-1/4 cup water
-S&P to your taste

Soak six wooden skewers in water for at least half an hour (otherwise they will catch on fire!!!) unless of course you have metal reusable skewers, in which case, proceed to the next step :) 

Cut the seitan cutlets into bite sized cubes and thread them onto the skewers. 

In a saucepan, heat the veg oil over medium high heat.  Saute the onion and garlic until translucent and add all other ingredients.  Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce to a low simmer for half an hour. 

Oil up either your BBQ or your cranky neighbors' BBQ and crank the heat to high. 

Coat the seitan kebabs with the home made BBQ sauce and cook on the BBQ, rotating every few min and basting with sauce until heated through (prob no more than seven min total). 

Serve with extra BBQ sauce and your fave BBQ sides :)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO,

V.V.