stuffed shells with creamy tomato sauce

Italian Night

I have made stuffed shells before, and the filling is the same spinach-tofu blend I use for the lasagna, but I have never made a creamy tomato sauce.

Outstanding!

The whole pan disappeared in about 15 minutes, not good for the digestion, I'm afraid. The sauce is my regular tomato sauce, but at the end I added a cup of cashew cream (strained) and heated it until it thickened.

Stuffing the shells is the most time-consuming part, so just make sure the under-cooked shell is open all the way (not curled under), before scooping the filling into it using a teaspoon.

You can blend your tomato sauce before pouring it on the shells in case you have a daughter who picks out any vegetable pieces large enough to grasp.

De-licious!

Cost Breakdown:

shells: $2

tomatoes: $3

tofu: $2

spinach: $2

garlic, onion, spices: $1

cashew: $2

Total to feed a family of 5:

$12.00

Spinach-Tofu Filling for pastas Recipe

stuffed poblano

It is summer and peppers are abundant! A few weeks ago I watched a Guy Fieri show where he was roasted peppers in the oven. I usually roast them on the stove over the open flame, but tonight I chose to do it Guy's way. Bad idea. I remember he mentioning that you have to be careful not to overcook them since the flesh of the pepper will sort of 'disapear.' Well, I overcooked them! I had to toss the peppers and start again.

Roasting them on the stove makes you keep an eye on them and they are ready fast and don't overcook, just char properly because you must stay by their side and consistently turn them.

I stuffed these poblanos with sauteed pinto beans and kale with sofrito. The sofrito I made a few weeks ago from the Viva Vegan! cookbook and it was still in the fridge.

I made a sauce for the peppers using aji amarillos - dried yellow peppers- carrots, onions, herbs, and to thicken it, cashew milk. I added roasted pumpkin seeds for crunch.

Cost Breakdown:

peppers: $5

kale: $3

pinto: $2

carrot, onion, garlic, herbs: $1.50

pumpkin seeds, cashew: $1.50

rice: $1

Total to feed a family of 5:

$14.00

banana french toast

The family has loved the 'Fronch Toast' recipe out of Vegan With a Vengeance, so when I saw 'Banana Rabanada' in Vegan Brunch, we had to give it a try. It is French Toast with bananas and cocoa. Now those two are a match made in heaven, so this recipe was bound to be great.

It was. Very simple to make. The only problem I had was with my cast-iron griddle - I should have used a little more fat to keep them from sticking. The sugar in the bananas were caramelizing the toast and making them stick too much.

Cost Breakdown

bread: $3

almond milk: $1

bananas: $1

cocoa: $.25

maple syrup:  $2

Total to feed a family of 5:

$7.25

viva vegan! + papas rellenas

I mixed my days up a bit so yesterday's lunch happened today.

This is another recipe from Viva Vegan! by Terry Hope Romero (Again, the link is through Vegan.com). It is mini potatoes stuffed with mushrooms and olives. Again there is a sweetness added, from raisins. I'm sensing an ethnic trend.

Since these mini potatoes were hollowed out, and I hate wasting food, I mashed the insides of the potatoes with paprika, almond milk and olive oil, and seasoned it well. This echoed the ingredients in the filling. While the potatoes have a great flavor, the filling was a little dry so the mashed potatoes topped onto the filling after the papas were baked was a welcome addition. And no waste.

Very good flavors over all and a great idea. 

Cost Breakdown:

potatoes: $4

nuts, raisins, olives: $2

mushrooms: $4

onion, garlic, spices: $1

Total to make 15 potatoes:

$11.00

alfredo primavera

When I was in my twenties, many moons ago, I worked with my brother who was the executive chef of some posh restaurant on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. I told you we have this culinary-curse. We worked long hours and were exhausted. Before we'd leave for home after yet another 14 hour day, he'd always make me Primavera Alfredo. Tons of cream and cheese and some vegetables to honor the 'Primavera' part - summer squash, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli.

I had tried for years to make Alfredo vegan. So many recipes with tofu and soy cheese and soy cream cheese - oh! the variations! No good. Hadn't found a single one that was up to par.

Until the humble cashew. As I've blogged before, nuts are our friends. Nuts are healthy, terribly delicious and marvelously versatile - much like soy. Since soy is something I love but know that, say it with me,...too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing, I wanted an alternative. Besides, soy always left a gritty texture in the sauce, unless it was silken and silken tofu and I do not get along. It has an odd flavor that I just can't get past.

On to the Alfredo...easy, creamy and delicious! Just make sure to strain your cashew milk before using it otherwise you will get the same texture as with the tofu - gritty!

Use whatever summer veggies you have (or spring veggies as the name 'Primavera' implies), but if you use eggplant, salt it a little and let it drain for 15 minutes - the eggplant will hold its shape better. Use tomatoes in the sauce cautiously as you are not going for tomato sauce here. In fact, adding them raw at the end is great.

Cost Breakdown:

cashews: $2

nutritional yeast: $.50

summer veg: $5

pasta: $3

Total to feed a family of 5:

$10.50

raw spaghetti and vegan meatball

It sure looks like spaghetti and meatballs! However, it tastes like squash and nuts. Not that that is a bad thing, but in this case looks are certainly deceptive. I suppose when I look at a plate of spaghetti I expect it to be hot and with a deep tomato flavor.

The recipe I used for this meal came out of Raw Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet. The spaghetti sauce called for 1 tomato and 1/2 c of sun-dried tomatoes. Although my mind said 'that's too much,' my hand still added it. I love sun-tomatoes but they dominate! The proportion of fresh v. sun was out of whack. So I remade the sauce, but I was running out of steam, getting tired.

The 'not meatballs' were once again made using nuts and well, ...they tasted like nuts.

I need to stop using raw cookbooks. I need to stop replicating cooked food because I am expecting one thing and another is delivered.

This is getting frustrating. I wind up making two meals on Mondays because the raw is under-appreciated by the kids and it is getting exhausting.

Next week I'm going back to the raw basics. Salad. Maybe an easy soup, and a cracker. Back to the raw-ing board.

Cost Breakdown:

squash: $1

walnuts: $1

tomato and sun-tomato: $2

basil, parsley, lemon: $1

Total to make 2 servings:

$5.00

lasagna bolognese

I had this scheduled for Sunday Dinner, but we had a guest tonight and she wanted the lasagna - "whatever the guest requests..." is our motto.

This is a favorite of Cat and she is the one who wanted this put on the menu. She likes this one better than the American Lasagna with the tomato sauce.

This is more authentic in that it has a white sauce (bechamel), ground 'meat' and a sprinkle of parm. Although I used Boca for my meat, it is easy to use seitan ground up or even a vegetable - although this I have not been allowed to test yet since I have vegan children who do not like vegetables - ironic, hmm?

The ground meaty sub is cooked for 2 hours on simmer in a creamy broth (this is the bolognese part) and a smooth velvety white sauce tops it in the layers of lasagna noodles. The bolognese sauce, white sauce, noodles and Parma! (a parm sub that is so good for you - having only walnuts (Omega-3 Fatty Acids), nutritional yeast (B12) and sea salt) are the only other components to this lasagna.

This lasagna can be totally soy-free and wheat-free with a proper wheat-free noodle.

It is a hit every time, although I remember the first time making it with some trepidation - it is not a traditional American Lasagna with the tomato sauce and cheese.

Different but just as good, if not better.

Cost Breakdown:
noodles: $3
ground soy: $5
carrot, onion, garlic, herb: $2
cashews: $3
wine and stock: $1
Parma!: $1
Total to make 10 servings:
$15.00

sofrito crusted corn on the cob over red couscous

I made this light lunch today of Corn on the Cob and Couscous. I slow cooked onions, garlic and parsley and coated the corn with it. I let it marinade while I cooked the beets and peppers for the couscous.

I roasted fresh peppers and boiled small beets. I made the couscous using tomato juice for the liquid, added the veggies and sprinkled the done couscous with roasted slivered almonds. The almonds gave the couscous such a wonderful taste and crunch. Really excellent.

Grilling corn is imperative summer food. If you haven't had grilled corn, yet, you a depriving yourself.

Very tasty and colorful lunch. We were very pleased with the flavors and textures.

Cost Breakdown:

corn $2

couscous: $.50

beets: $2

peppers" $2

almonds: $1

parsley, onion, garlic: $2

Total to feed a family of 5:

$9.50

raw thai salad

Raw Night

I needed something quick for dinner - I am in the middle of cleaning my house from top to bottom, so this is what I came up with: cucumbers, peeled and sliced into thin strips with the peeler to the middle where the seed  are. I added strips of red pepper, thin slices of red onion and grated a carrot. I made a dressing using a young coconut meat, agave, nama shoyu, lime juice, olive oil, chilies and cilantro. To add some crunch I chopped up some almonds.

This was excellent - I really enjoyed it. Refreshing, cooling for the summer, quick and tasty. The dressing was especially nice - the young coconut is a very mild coconut flavor but just enough.

Cost Breakdown:

cucumber: $3

young coconut: $2

red pepper: $1

carrot, lime, cilantro: $2

almonds: $2

Total to feed a family of 4:

$10.00

warm walnut spinach salad

Lite

Our lunch on Sundays is lite because our dinner is a family favorite.

W had a warm spinach salad today, inspired by Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. She adds sweetener to her dressing, but I omitted that because I soaked my walnuts. The pungency that you taste when eating the walnut is tannic acid. If you soak the nuts in filtered water for a few hours to overnight, the tannic acid is rinsed away. It is not only better for you, but it also tastes better.

We added apples, radishes and cherry tomatoes. A toast with a little garlic rubbed on it completed our lite lunch.

Now we are ready to stuff ourselves with Reuben. Kidding. You should never 'stuff' yourself. Bad example for the kids.

Cost Breakdown:

apple: $1

tomatoes: $1

radish: $.50

spinach: $2

lemon, walnut, oil: $2

bread: $1

Total for a satisfying lunch for 4:

$7.50

raw alfredo primavera

Raw Night

To the delight of my children, I made another raw meal. For us, Mondays are the ideal day to make raw because that is when I go to Whole Foods and the vegetables are extra fresh - very important when they are naked, so to speak. It is especially important that summer squash be fresh because the older they get the more bitter they become. Not a good thing.

I lost a part to my spiral slicer, so I just used my knife to cut the squash into thin, long strips. I tossed the slices in a little olive oil and dehydrated them for about an hour. Sort of the extent of my cooking tonight. I also tossed some spinach with diced red onion and dehydrated that, too.

The olive 'bread' I tossed in the dehydrator the night before; it didn't need to be crispy because I wasn't shooting for a cracker.

The Alfredo sauce was really excellent. I wouldn't say it is 'Alfredo' sauce, but calling it Macadamia Pasta Sauce fits better for how it tasted. The sauce had a little garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and coconut vinegar. Mixed with the squash strips, tomatoes, olives and the spinach, it tasted very flavorful and quite good. Another raw surprise for David. It was harder to sell to the kids, though, who passionately dislike squash of any season. This meal was inpired by recipes in the cookbook Eating Raw by Mark Reinfeld.

Cost Breakdown:

nuts: $4

vegetables: $6

olives, oil, lemon: $1

flax seeds, sunflower seeds, olives: $3

Total to annoy 3 kids and feed 2 adults:

$14.00

Macadamia Pasta Sauce Recipe

hungarian cream of mushroom soup

Three-fifth of us love mushrooms. We love shiitakes, oysters, bellas, chanterelles, morel,  even the simple button. I suppose where ever a fungus can grow, and I believe that is on every continent but Antarctica, the people of that region have held a love of the 'flower' of the mushroom, because we do not actually eat the main part of the fungus, which is underground and can be miles and miles of tendrils of mycelium. Uh, perhaps a little too much botany...anyway, they are good as far as I am concerned.

This Hungarian soup would use sour cream, as Hungarians are wont to do, but we are leaving the milk for the cow's baby and using cashew cream, which is much better for you anyway. Almond cream or Brazil-nut cream would also would just fine. Nuts have this really cool property where they thicken the liquid they are in as they are heated, therefore helping to thicken and bind this soup. The Hungarian paprika from Szeged  (sold in any grocery store, please do not pay the price from the link) is a must. And if you also have the Hot Hungarian Paprika, this is where to use it - the kick from it is delightful after the sweetness of the mild paprika. Kate came into the kitchen yelling for water because it was so spicy! I thought, great, she didn't eat it. To my surprise, her bowl was empty.

I guess the spice was too nice to keep her from devouring it. 

Cost Breakdown:

Mushrooms: $7

cashew: $1

onion and paprika: $1

homemade stock: $.75

Total to feed 5 people:

$9.75

 

HUNGARIAN CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

raw kale salad with sun-dried tomato + chili-crusted cheese

Kale salad was the first food I remember eating raw (Excluding the obvious raw fruits and vegetables. You know what I mean.) I was fortunate enough to be friends with a few ladies in California who were interested in raw preparation and invited a chef to show us how to cook live food. The first thing she made was this salad and David and I were hooked. In fact, he ate too much the first time I made it!

Lesson to those wishing to make this :)

To prepare kale raw, you need to massage the kale with the dressing; this breaks down the cell walls of the kale, not just making it more palatable but ensuring that your body can get to those powerhouse nutrients. 

The cheese (dip or spread) I made using nuts and sun-dried tomatoes, lemon, grape tomatoes, and then I rolled it in chili flakes. The cheese might be spicy (and of course you do not have to roll it in hot chili) but the kale and the crackers cool things down. The cracker is sun tomatoes, peppers, flax seeds, ground and dehydrated. I will make a whole batch and they keep really well in a tightly sealed jar.

Cost Breakdown:

2 bunch kale -$4

shiitake -  $2

onion, garlic, tomato: $2

crackers: $2

avocado and lemon - $2.50

  sun-tomato and almonds- $3

Total to feed a family of 8:

$15.50

Raw Kale Salad Recipe

Raw Sun-Dried Tomato Dip or Spread

Raw Flax Crackers Recipe

baked pasta with rapini and shitaki

As I was perusing the Food Network for research, I came across an Ina Garten recipe for baked pasta. She used 6 T of butter, 3 c of cream and several different varieties of cheeses. Except for the quantity of fat and cholesterol, the dish sounded good. Veganizing it was easy and cutting the fat was a breeze. The dish doesn't really look that photogenic, but it is fabulous! Crunchy on the top because the pasta was baked for 10 minutes, but creamy on the inside. So good.

 I subbed whole wheat pasta for the macaroni, used rapini instead of radicchio as well as switching everything out but the sage and shitaki. The kids thought the rapini was too bitter (nothing new there), although ate pretty much everything else. Whatever wasn't eaten by the kids was taken care of by David who volunteered to be the human food-disposal tonight.

Cost Breakdown:

cashews and Earth Balance: $2

rapini: $3

shitaki: $3

pasta: $3

sage: $1

nutritional yeast, Follow/Heart, Daiya: $4

Total to feed a family of 5 + Dad's lunch:

$16.00

(Food TV recipes tend to be expensive, it seems.)

raw eggplant manicotti

I have decided to serve one meal a week...raw. Now if you are an adult, it may sounds intriguing, even adventurous; but, if you are a kid, not so much. Or if you are my husband. Once a year, he says, is more than enough. Unfortunately for my family, the raw meal stays. At least for now. If they start withering away, I'll reevaluate.

Tonight I made a raw eggplant manicotti. 'Cooking' raw is actually quite easy and uncomplicated, as long as a plan is in place. The eggplant needed a few hours to marinate and a few hours to dehydrate. Dinner was actually ready on time.

I totally dug this dish, but my family collectively thought otherwise.

Baby steps.

Cost Breakdown:

eggplant: $2

sun-tom: $2

tomato: $2

nuts: $4

lemon: $.50

spices, herbs and oive oil: $4

Total to feed Mom thrice and Dad once:

$14.50

Raw Eggplant Manicotti Recipe