"Whole lotta bakin' goin' on!"

I will be out of town for a few days, so I made a ton of food for my partner to eat. Mostly I did this so he doesn't have to spend money on eating out ;)

I decided a pan of veggie filled lasagna was in order. (sorry for the poor pictures, at night my camera gives everything a nice seventies glow)




No recipe here... just cooked lasagna noodles, tomato sauce spiked with extra garlic, tofu ricotta from Veganomicon, sauteed veggies (spinach, onion, zucchini, broccoli, green peppers) and topped with some nutritional yeast.

I made more blueberry muffins (same as the ones in the last post!)


I used this vegweb recipe (www.vegweb.com) :

Very Simple Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup nondairy milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin pan (optional).
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in nondairy milk and oil.
Fold in blueberries. Pour into baking cups and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Makes: about 8 muffins

I generally use water instead of milk and they still come out yummy.

Next I made a couple of breakfast burritos:


Pinto beans, tofu scramble, avocado, salsa, homemade cheezy sauce.

For dinners I also made a huge batch of fried rice and sesame broccoli:


Cashew fried rice with seitan and tofu 'egg', broccoli with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.

Since I'm visiting my parents for the holidays but not staying for xmas celebrations, I will be bringing a little gift for their table: pumpkin walnut bread with dried cran-cherries


I got the recipe from here:
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/11/vegan-pumpkin-walnut-bread/

It's easy, yummy and very pantry friendly too!

And some seitan sandwiches for lunches:

These have seitan seasoned with steak sauce, grilled onion, vegan mayo and dijon horseradish mustard.

Phew!

Off to the Olympic Peninsula tomorrow bright and early, hopefully I will find some decent food!

Living on crumbs, black coffee and free wifi...

Hopefully this post isn't too much of a downer, I just need to vent! :) At least there are MUFFINS!



Well, it's been a rocky past couple of months and apparently that isn't going to change with the coming New Year. I'm not the only American who is struggling with the economic woes of the times, but damn it's frustrating!

After being layed off at the end of the summer, I found a job promising part/full time rather than accepting unemployment money. This has actually ended up being 16 to 20 hours a week...I'm trying to find another job but it's almost more difficult *because* I have a part time job already. I can't afford to quit and then look for one, so it's really become quite the chess game.

Living paycheck to paycheck in a city with one of the highest unemployment rates, previously thinking at any point I could go back to school and get a career...I have to say I'm getting a bit nervous!!!

One thing is for certain though, I will be sticking with my vegan diet. Anybody who thinks it's too expensive is a naysayer!
I can't afford organic everything or prepackaged Tofurky and the like, but I can eat quite satisfactorily I think on a very tight budget.

Here's something cheap and filling I had this morning:

Peaches and Cream Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Brown Sugar:




Oatmeal with frozen peaches, cinnamon, brown sugar and almond milk.



So I guess you will see some new directions for this blog with the new year:
THRIFTINESS
BUDGETING
MAKING-DO

I'm trying to budget all meals for two people for each month on $225 (hopefully less).
It will be an interesting if only necessary challenge. I'll probably be looking into homemade stuff more too (such as soaps, etc), so stay tuned!

In the meantime...would you like a muffin?

Biscuits and Gravy!

Whoops...I overcooked the biscuits I was going to eat with jam. Since I only like really good fluffy biscuits by themselves, I decided I would just make some gravy to pour on them!



The biscuit recipe is veganized from Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook (just use EB instead of butter). The gravy is basically any normal non-vegan recipe with soymilk instead of cow. MMM!

I leave you with this 'hit' song of some friends of mine. They are called Robot Pi and made this awesome Biscuits and Gravy song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Th2oNHN38

Ranch Bake

Finally recovering from mofo and thanksgiving.....I wanted to share what I made for dinner tonight!

I found this recipe on VegWeb: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=21952.0
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=21952.0

The recipe has a lot of prepackaged stuff in it, but I made my own ranch and seitan so it wasn't expensive to make at all! I did make a few changes (of course). I didn't presoak the bacon bits, I subbed about 3/4 cup homemade seitan for the lightlife chick'n and I omitted the vegan cheese. I just added a little more ranch sauce.

Here it is right out of the oven:


Hit the spot on a chilly rainy day....


The ranch sauce is something I modified from an older recipe. It's not a perfect substitute, but it works for me and it's mostly easy pantry ingredients. I can't remember where it came from. Here's my (approximate) measurements.

Vegan Ranch
1 TBSP vinegar (apple cider or red wine)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk
1/3 cup vegan mayo
1 TSP onion powder
1/2 TSP garlic
1/2 TSP dill
1/4 TSP black pepper
1/2 TSP thyme
2 TSP nutritional yeast

Blend until well-mixed.


One thing I liked about this ranch bake recipe was the dough! I can see it coming in handy for making all kinds of wrapped-and-baked stuff. It's quick and easy to make, and tastes great. MMMM!