Monday Dinner - Chinese Crispy 'Pork' (October 11)

Asian Night

Tonight I made a meal based on a recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan's Authentic Chinese Cuisine cookbook.

I am a huge fan of Bryanna and her website, Vegan Kitchen Feast, and I love this book. I read a few of the reviews on Amazon about this book and I even made a recipe from it that was being critiqued by a customer and I did not have the same experience that she did.

Which brought to mind the importance of seasoning food.

Many folks who are just starting out on the 'health' road via vegetarianism also cut out salt - something that they had not done before. This does not only make food bland, but it makes vegetarian food bland - and then it is vegetarianism that gets the ax, not the true culprit - salt.

If you are just beginning to be veg, it is important that you not sabotage your new diet by not making it taste as good as it can.

If you are fresh off the processed-foods-wagon, just eating freshly made food will automatically lower your sodium drastically without the need to eliminate all salt. Then in time, when  your palate adjusts to the new menu as well as the lower sodium in your new food, you can continue to rid yourself of even table/cooking salt.

So, please season your food. You are already doing well by cooking your own whole food, so don't undermine your chances of success.

Tonight's meal used TVP chickn cutlets. In order to rehydrate your TVP properly, it must be soaked in boiling liquid for two hours. Once the liquid boils you do not have to keep cooking it, but you do have to soak it for a long time otherwise it will be tough in spots.

I have made a How-To Breakdown for this and it will be up this weekend.

Everyone loved it, with the obvious "I don't like peas," " Ginger is too spicy!" etc.

Cost Breakdown:

TVP: $6

onion, garlic, ginger: $1

pepper, peas: $2

tomato paste, tamari: $.50

rice: $1

Total to feed a family of 5:

$10.50

4.5 out of 5 stars

How-To Breakdown

Sunday Lunch - Leek and Potato Soup (October 10)

A simple recipe originally from Julia Child, who I am sure received it by way of some French chef, this Leek and Potato soup is the epitome of simplicity.

This is a tried and true dish of leeks and potatoes and a little almond milk to finish it, if desired.

Use only the white parts of the leeks to maintain the crisp color and fry the light green leek parts as garnish. I also put a little Better Than Sour Cream on my photo, but it certainly does not require it.

You can leave this soup rustic or blend it to give it a smooth consistency.

A beautiful fall soup.

Cost Breakdown

leeks: $4

potatoes: $3

Total to feed 8 people a soup course:

$7.00

Leek Potato Soup Recipe

Thursday Lunch - Sausage Biscuits (October 7)

So what happens when your daughter starts experimenting with Tofurkey and a biscuit? Fabulosity, that's what. Cat chopped up a package of Tofurkey Italian sausages, pan-fried them and added them to our homemade-ridiculously-easy biscuit mix.

She topped it with a nutritional yeast gravy and served it up.

Although the biscuit is not quite as flaky as one without the Tofurkey, it was really good. Kind of like a 'sausage and biscuits with gravy' except the sausage is in the biscuit and not the gravy.

Nice, Cat!

Cost Breakdown:

Tofurkey: $4

flour, Earth Balance, baking powder: $1

almond milk, nutritional yeast: $2

green slad: $3

Total to feed a family of 5:

$10.00

Flaky Biscuit Recipe

Wednesday Dinner - Stuffed Shells with Creamy Tomato Sauce (October 6)

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

Creamy Tomato Sauce Recipe , 

See the variation at the end of the recipe.

Monday Dinner - Thai Curried Coconut Eggplant with Noodles (October 4)

Asian Night

Mikel requested this as a repeat. I had made it once before - last year. Having made it before, I felt free to experiment a a bit. The original recipe is from Buddha's Table, a vegan Thai cookbook, but whereas most of the recipes form this book have been a knockout, I had cryptically written "Find galanga next time?" as my note. Yeah, not too helpful regarding our thoughts of the recipe, I'm afraid.

Having made more than a few of his recipes, and realizing that while having the original-authentic ingredients is ideal, substituting appropriate equivalents is at least acceptable. So galanga became ginger and lemongrass became lemon zest. Also, the original recipe is a bit complicated so I simplified it.

The outcome was outstanding - even David loved it and asked if there was more.

I'm positive he didn't last time.

I salted my eggplant slices to remove a lot of the moisture so the eggplant would keep its shape during cooking. I stir fried my eggplant until golden and removed them to set aside. I repeated the same for any of the vegetables I wanted cooked.

I had made red curry paste for another recipe a few months ago and froze half. This was what I used as my red curry paste which I fried in a little oil. I added some vegetable broth and coconut milk, added back the eggplant slices and simmered the curry until the eggplant was tender.

As accompaniments, I had bean sprouts, tomato slices, yellow and green pepper slices, lime, green onions, the stir fried green beans, cabbage and garlic slices.

I poured the curry sauce over the noodles and added the accompaniments to the dish.

Cost Breakdown:

noodles: $2

peppers: $1

tomato, green onion, garlic: $1.50

bean sprouts, green beans: $2

lime, cabbage: $2

coconut oil: $1

red curry paste: $1

Total to feed  a family of 5:

$10.50