Spaghettios & Lentil Meatballs

I'm a huge sucker for Chef Boy R Dee canned spaghettios.  So when I went vegan, I was excited to find a good homemade spaghettios recipe! This recipe made a very large batch, it's healthy and the boys loved it!  The meatballs are made out of lentils, which is my new obsession.  and I have more lentil recipes coming!  (chili, sloppy joes, soup, tacos...seriously, I can't get enough.)  

Lentils in soup? check.  Lentils in potstickers? check.  Lentils in meatballs?  check! 

Spaghettios & Lentil Meatballs

From theppk.com

for the sauce:

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 chopped onion

3 cloves garlic, minced

pepper

1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 24oz cans crushed tomatoes with basil

1/4 cup cashews, soaked in water (for at least 1 hour, up to overnight)

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

for the meatballs:

1 clove garlic

1 small onion, quartered

1 1/2 cup cooked lentils (brown or green)

3 tbsp nutritional yeast

2 tbsp vital wheat gluten flour

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp olive oil

2 tbsp water

1/2 cup store-bought breadcrumbs

1 lb small pasta of your choice

olive oil

For the sauce:  In a large pot, saute onions in olive oil with a pinch of salt over medium heat until translucent and soft.  Add the garlic and saute for another minute.  Add in the pepper, oregano, salt and brown sugar.  Cook for 2 minutes, until the sugar has melted.  Add the tomatoes, cashews and nutritional yeast.  Cover and cook for 20 minutes.  

In a food processor, immersion blender or regular blender, puree the sauce until smooth.  Keep the sauce warm on the stove until ready to use.

For the meatballs:  In a food processor, chop the garlic until minced.  Add in the onion and chopped until finely diced.  You don't want any big chunks.  Transfer the onion/garlic mixture to a large bowl and set aside.  

Again in the food processor, process together the lentils, nutritional yeast, wheat gluten, soy sauce, tomato paste, olive oil and water until smooth.  Add this mixture into the bowl with the garlic and onions, and add in the breadcrumbs.  Mix together with your hands until it all sticks together.  

Preheat oven to 350.  Roll the meatballs into cherry sized balls.  Preheat a large skillet over medium heat with olive oil.  Brown the meatballs in the skillet, working in batches so not to overcrowd them.  Once all the meatballs are browned, transfer them to a baking sheet.  Bake 18-20 minutes.

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Add the cooked pasta to the sauce.  Add baked meatballs in and toss, being careful to not break the meatballs.

Enjoy!   

Sweet Potato Pancakes // Sausage Gravy & Biscuits

Our family loves Brinner.  Breakfast for Dinner = Brinner.  Our brinners usually consist of bacon, pancakes or waffles, eggs, biscuits and sausage in some sort of fashion.  One of my favorite brinner meals that we have had is chicken & waffles.  But now that I am vegan, brinner is just a little bit trickier. 

I made sweet potato pancakes, and I also made biscuits and sausage gravy.  Yup.  Vegan sausage gravy over biscuits.  That kind of sounds like an oxymoron, but it works folks.  

It was delicious and was enjoyed by all.

Sweet Potato Pancakes (with Cinnamon Honey Butter)

from epicurious

for the pancakes:

2 large eggs (flax eggs for the vegan version)

1 cup buttermilk (almond/soy milk)

2 1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 cup bisquick

pinch nutmeg

1 small sweet potato, cooked soft and mashed

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and oil.  Stir in the pancake mix and nutmeg, until just combined.  Fold in the mashed sweet potatoes.  Batter should be thick, but pourable.  A little bit more milk may be needed if its too thick.  

Heat a greased griddle over medium-high heat.  Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of batter onto the griddle, and cook until a few bubbles show up in the batter.  Flip over and cook on the other side until golden brown.  Repeat with the remaining batter.  

for the butter:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp

1 1/2 tsp honey

1/8 tsp cinnamon

Beat together the butter, honey and cinnamon until well combined.  Store in fridge until ready to use.  

Sausage Gravy and Biscuits

from theveganhousewives.com

1 lb pkg sausage (I used Gimme lean which is vegan...feel free to use actual sausage if you eat meat)

2 pkgs premade biscuits (Publix Buttermilk biscuits are accidentally vegan)

5 cups almond (or regular) milk

5-6 (or more) Tbsp flour

salt and pepper

Add a Tbsp of oil to a large, deep skillet and cook sausage until cooked through.  With the burner on medium-high, add in the milk and stir.  Add in the flour, and break apart the clumps with a fork.  Allow the mixture to simmer for a while.  A few bubbles here and there are ok, but it shouldn't be boiling.  Simmer until the gravy has thickened (you may or may not need a little more flour).

While the gravy is cooking, bake the biscuits according to the package directions.  

Serve gravy over biscuits.

Maple Cream Cookies

I've been wanting to make these cookies for a very long time.  Ever since I first had Trader Joe's Maple Leaf Cookies, I have wanted to try my own recreation of them.  Once a month at my work, we have a big pot-luck style feast to celebrate the birthdays in that month.  I thought bringing these cookies would be appropriate, since it's also the beginning of the best season ever.  Hoodies.  Bonfires.  Haunted houses and halloween parties.  Thanksgiving.  Hot drinks.  Pretty leaves.  Perfect weather.  best. season. ever.  

These cookies smell like pancakes.  Crumbly, buttery shortbread cookies with maple-flavored cream cheese icing in between them.  They're awesome!  and possibly maybe even a little better than the Trader Joe's original.  But only because they're homemade.  I didn't have any leaf cookie cutters, but I did have a leaf press that I usually use on pie crusts, so I used that instead. 

Maple Cream Cookies

Adapted from Gourmet and Martha Stewart

For the cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temp

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup (use grade B if you have it!  That's the good stuff)

1 egg yolk

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

For the maple cream:

1 pkg cream cheese (8 oz), at room temp

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temp

2 tbsp maple syrup

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar

For the cookies:  Beat together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy.  With the mixer running, add in the egg yolk and slowly pour in the maple syrup.  In another bowl, whisk together the flour, nutmeg and salt.  Add to butter mixture until just combined.  The dough will be pretty clumpy.  Press together lightly and wrap tightly (ha, rhymed there) with saran wrap.  Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment paper (or your favorite non-stick method of cookie sheet preparing).  Roll out the cookie dough to about 1/8 of an inch thickness.  I did this in portions, so that the dough I wasn't using wouldn't get too warm while waiting to be cut.  Cut into desired shapes, and repeat with remaining dough, until it's all used up.  

Bake for 8-11 minutes, until edges are lightly golden.  Allow to cool completely before icing.

For the maple cream:  Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth.  Add remaining ingredients and  mix again until smooth and spreadable.  

Spread about a Tbsp of icing on the bottom side of one cookie, and sandwich the cream with another cookie.  Make sure the cookies are completely cooled before you do this step, otherwise the icing will melt and become too runny.  

Enjoy!!!  

Braided Pesto Bread

Bread is one of my favorite things ever.  I love all kinds of bread.  Cinnamon bread, sweet rolls, biscuits, I love all of it.  So why wouldn't I love some bread with pesto and cheese thrown in it?!  And it's super pretty. A fat wreath of warm soft gooey bread.  It looks like it might be kind of tricky to make, but it's really not!  It's pretty easy, and delicious.  I served this bread alongside of spaghetti and a salad.  

Braided Pesto Bread

From Confectionsofafoodiebride

For the bread:

1 cup warm water

2 tsp active dry yeast

2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for rolling out the dough

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

Other ingredients:

1/2 cup pesto

2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Pour warm water into the bowl of a mixer, fitted with the dough hook (or just a big bowl if you are kneading by hand).  Sprinkle yeast over the water.  Let it set for 10 minutes, until the mixture has become frothy.  Add in the flour, oil and salt, and mix with the dough hook (or mix together by hand).  Continue to knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until the dough is elastic and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl (you may need to add a little more flour if it's still too sticky).

Form the dough into a ball and let it rise in an oiled bowl for about 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size.  Preheat oven to 425.  

lightly flour the counter you plan on rolling the dough out on.  Roll the risen dough into a rectangular shape, about 18x12 inches.  Spread the pesto over the rolled out dough, leaving about 1/2 inch clean border around the edges.   Roll the long side of the rectangle toward you, and pinch the seam closed.

Slice the roll lengthwise down the middle, making two long halves.  Pinch the ends of each together.  Braid the 2 pieces together, and try to keep the cut sides of the dough outward, so that the green layers are seen.  once it's all twisted together, pinch the ends and bend around into a wreath, pressing the 2 ends together.

Transfer to a greased baking sheet and let it sit for 30 minutes.  Top with shredded cheese and bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown.  

Kale Chips

Kale Chips.

I feel like I jumped on the kale chip bandwagon about a year too late.  They were huge a while back, and I never really paid attention then.  I guess I just thought that it was just a fad and I really didn't know too much about kale anyway.  

So then I decided to see what all the hype was about, and it sucked me in as well.  I'm now a huge lover of kale, especially kale chips.  And the nutrients that kale has is also amazing.

So much good stuff in there! I've really tried to use kale in recipes more, and eat it at least once a day.  I typically make smoothies including kale to get my daily dose, but I also make kale chips often.  The other day I made sweet potato ravioli with a pesto made from kale (recipe coming soon). 

I feel like kale is one of those things that people either love or hate.  I love it, Jeremy hates it.  He'll drink the smoothies that I make with kale, cause you can't taste it.  He won't touch kale chips.  He did eat the sweet potato ravioli with kale pesto, and when asked how he like the kale pesto, he said "I could still taste the kale."  Silly boy. 

Kale chips are probably the easiest thing ever to make, and there are so many variations.  There are spicy kale chips, cheesy kale chips, chocolate kale chips (sounds really gross-has anyone tried this?!), even kale chips on popcorn.   *You can click here to find a whole bunch of different types of kale chips recipes.

Here is how I typically make them:

Kale Chips

Couple stalks of kale

few tbsp olive oil

salt

pepper 

garlic powder

paprika

Wash and dry the kale.  Tear off the leaves from the stem into bite size pieces.  toss in a bowl with olive oil and a few dashes of each of the spices.  lay out on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 for about 10-15 mins, until crisp and lightly browned.  

Basil Zucchini Risotto

We got a lot of zucchini and summer squash in our CSA boxes this summer, so I was always looking for new ways to use them up.  I love basil, and have a love for ALL THINGS RISOTTO, so when I saw this recipe on PostPunkKitchen, I knew it was probably going to be a favorite.  Although risotto is usually thought to be a "heavier" dish, this one tasted very light and summery.  It's awesome for a summer night dinner on the patio.  Jeremy isn't a fan of squash at all, and really doesn't even like things that it touches, so I got to eat this multiple-bowls-of-deliciousness all to myself : )  Oh, and did I mention that it's vegan?  Because it is.  But you would never know.

Basil Zucchini Risotto

from ThePostPunkKitchen

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 med yellow onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 cup arborio rice

1 cup dry white wine

4 cups (maybe a little more) of vegetable broth

3/4 cup pesto

1/2 tsp salt

pepper to taste

1 lb zucchini, sliced and quartered

olive oil

salt pepper

3 cloves garlic, minced

Warm up the veggie broth in a saucepan, and keep it work with the burner on low.  Preheat the oven to 425.  

Saute the chopped onion, a dash of salt and olive oil over medium heat, until onions are soft and translucent.  Add the rice and stir to coat the rice in oil.  Add the wine and stir occasionally until it is mostly absorbed.  Add a few dashes of black pepper and 1/2 of the salt.  Turn heat down to med-low.  

Add the warm veggie broth a cup at a time, stirring almost continuously after additions.  Once most the liquid is absorbed, add another cup, and so on.  After 2 cups, stir in the pesto, then continue stirring in the remaining liquid until almost all liquid is absorbed.   

At some point while your risotto is becoming creamy and delicious, toss the zucchini slices with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic and spread on a baking sheet.  Roast for about 6 minutes on each side, until softened and lightly browned.  Set aside.

With the last cupful of broth added the risotto, also add the rest of the pesto.  Taste for salt and add more if needed.  Risotto is ready when the mixture is creamy, and the rice is chewy-yet firm.  

Top risotto with pieces of zucchini and drizzle with extra pesto if you'd like.   

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This recipe isn't vegan.  Sometimes, when I know Jeremy wants to eat meat on occasion, I'll make him some.  He was sick a couple weeks ago, and so I thought it'd be nice to make him some homemade chicken noodle soup.  This soup looks similar to Campbell's canned chicken noodle soup, but tastes so much better.  (I did taste the soup, to make sure it was edible).  Baby boys also loved it and couldn't get enough.  The recipe made a huge batch so we froze some and will now have it for a cool fall day in the future (which is coming soon, yay!).  

  

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

from thepioneerwoman

1 whole  fryer chicken, cut up

2 carrots, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

1/2 whole medium onion, diced

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp turmeric

pepper to taste

1/4 tsp thyme

2 tsp parsley

1 lb noodles

3 Tbsp flour

1lb noodles of your choice (I used linguine, I think)

Put all the chicken pieces in a big pot, cover with water and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.  

Remove the chicken from the pot and shred the meat from the bones.  Return the bones to the broth and simmer on low, covered, for 45 more mins. 

Remove the bones with a slotted spoon.  Add the carrots, celery, onions, and all spices to the pot of broth.  Stir and simmer 10 minutes. 

Cook noodles separately until almost done, then add to soup, along with the shredded chicken meat.  Cook for 8-10 mins.  Mix the flour with a little bit of water and stir until smooth.  Add to soup and stir.     Simmer for just another few minutes, until broth has thickened a bit.  Adjust seasonings to taste.