Kale and Potato Gratin

Recipe

Another huge bag of kale to eat this week! 

I also roasted some beets. So yum.

Ultimate Vegan Lasagna

Recipe

I picked this recipe because you don't have to cook the noodles before assembling the lasagna. Huge time saver.

I did not use vegan sausage but instead added mushrooms, zucchini and carrots. I also used cashew cream  instead of vegan cream cheese.

'Cheesy' Mushroom Quinoa

Recipe

Last of the kale was used up in this meal!!! I made a few substitutions: red kidney beans instead of white and I did not have bok choy so instead added broccoli and spinach.

Simple, easy and tasty.

Eggplant Bacon and Butternut Pasta

Recipe

Still working on using up the enormous bag of kale we bought at the farmers market. I came across this non-vegan recipe and saw the vegan potential!

I used eggplant bacon, cashew cream (1 cup water, 3/4 cup cashews blended until creamy), veggie broth and vegan mozzarella. This dish was so good I can't wait to make it again!

Pumpkin and Cannellini Beans with Kale

Pumpkins and kale are all over the farmers market right now, and sold in large quantities, so they will be on the menu a lot in the near future!

Recipe

So good and met the quick-to-fix criteria. 

I planned to use this really delicious vegan cheese that is meant for the grill instead of holoumi but unfortunately the store was out. So I used tofu marinated in soy.  I will make this again as soon as that cheese comes back in stock, though!!!

I also cooked the kale down in a bit of margarine first, just to soften it up. 

Barley Pumpkin Kale Soup

Recipe

The weather here in Denmark was really nasty today. Cold, gloomy and raining. Pretty typical for this time of year, though.

The theme of my cooking lately has become 'whatever is quick'. My three and a half month old is getting a tooth already (i.e. many sleepless nights).

This soup was awesome because everything got washed, chopped and thrown in at the same time. It was supposed to cook for about an hour. Mine cooked for over three because that is just how long it took for me to have time to eat it!

It is very hearty and nutritious, which is good because I feel like I am running on empty lately. :-)

Vegan Quiche

Recipe

I used eggplant bacon, broccoli, red pepper, red onion, and spinach for the veggies. I also did not follow the suggested crust recipe, but instead made a simpler one out of flour, butter, salt and water.

I had to cover the edges of the crust with foil after about 45 minutes of baking because it was getting too brown while the filling was still very under cooked.

The flavor was excellent! I added more veggies than the recipe called for so next time I will make a bit more of the filling, as there was plenty of room in the crust.

Sweet Potato and Kale Quesedillas

Quick and tasty, after a long day with a fussy 3 month old! :-)

Sweet Potato and Kale Quesedillas 

Dinner Greek Style

Vegan Spanakopita
Greek Salad (lettuce)
Greek Potato Salad

YUM!

Baked Polenta with Sausage and Artichoke Hearts

This is a Martha Stewart recipe that I 'veganized'. I used vegan chorizo for the sausage and veggie broth instead of chicken.

I made my own polenta, which was really easy. 3 cups dried polenta, 1 cup water, a veggie bullion cube and a sprinkle of dried basil. When the polenta was cooked and getting stiff, I spread it out on a plate and let it cool. It then cut into squares nicely.

I marinated the artichoke hearts in olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper and sauteed them before adding them to the sausage.

I left the parsley off because I didn't have any fresh and didn't have the energy to thaw my frozen stash.

Puff pastry pizzas

I used to make homemade pizza dough in my sleep. Not so much these days! So, for dinner tonight I used puff pastry and made two different kinds of pizza. The first is pear, potato, pesto and shallots. We used to get this pizza when we lived in Eugene, Oregon, from a restaurant called Pizza Research Institute. They have amazing, unique pizza. The second is more traditional with tomato sauce, roasted zucchini, red pepper, red onion, mushrooms and some vegan chorizo. Both were fantastic.

Back...sort of!

Life has been busy and I have been updating a different blog recently...one documenting a new addition to our family. I had a baby in June and have been blogging about that to keep family in the loop. We are still living in Denmark and still vegan!!!
Dinners have been all over the map lately, in addition to a lot of eating out. We have a Thai restaurant nearby that is pretty good. There is also a very good sushi restaurant with a great vegan sushi platter and a pizza place that knows us by heart, as we are the first and only people to order pizza from them without cheese!
But, being vegan is still important to me and I won't let this blog go - even though posts will be very sporadic.
I have been trying to space cooking out throughout the day when the baby naps. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Tonight, we are having portobello steaks (marinated in white wine, soy, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and liquid smoke, then roasted) and green bean casserole. Both were YUM!

Chick*n

One of the blogs that I follow - Vegan Dance if You Want To - recently posted a link to a brand of vegan chicken that she recommends. She also commented on the 'mysterious pink mechanically seperated meat' that any and everyone on Facebook has seen. Nasty!

While I have eaten this brand before, Gardeins, it is not available in Denmark. We do have some interesting replacements here though.

I am a fan of a brand called goodsoy. They sell dried soy products. I especially love them because they have an incredibly long shelf life, come in a variety of sizes (crumbles, bites, nuggets, fillets, etc.) and come back to life with a bit of veggie broth. I have bought the 'steak' variation as well. Same flavor, different color.

Here are a few meals I have made using the goodsoy dried soy products.

Chick*n Parmesan: Noodles, fillets breaded in breadcrumbs, nutritional yeast, and seasonings, tomato sauce and shredded vegan mozzarella.

Super Easy Vegan Chili (soygood crumbles)

Breaded fillets: breadcrumbs and seasonings

Caldo Verde with Crumbled Tempeh

I have been cooking up a storm lately, just not blogging much. I have decided that to catch up, each time I post something new, I need to also post something old!

John picked this recipe from the Appetite for Reduction cookbook. I am not a huge fan of tempeh but was excited that he was helping out with meal planning!

It turned out so good. I was not sure what to expect, but it is a soup (I now know that Caldo Verde means green soup!) that is spicy and tangy and really filling. It consists of onion and garlic, fennel, thyme and red pepper flakes, along with veggie broth, potatoes and kale (recipe calls for chard). The tempeh is boiled to remove the bitterness and flavored with lemon and tamari.

I did skip the step at the end where you are supposed to puree half the soup for a more creamy consistency. I just did not have the motivation to get the blender out and then have to wash it. Regardless, this soup is fantastic.

Carbonara Style Spaghetti

This recipe was 1) so good and 2) so easy that we not only made it for dinner but then again for lunch the very next day!!!
The basics are spaghetti, a cream sauce and vegan bacon.

The cream sauce consists of an onion cooked in coconut oil and a blend of 6 oz rice milk, 1.5 oz shredded cheddar style 'cheese', and 4 TBSP soy creamer. When the sauce is poured into the hot spaghetti, the 'cheese' melts down a bit and it thickens up nicely.

I made a batch of eggplant bacon and it was absolutely perfect sprinkled on top. I can see this recipe showing up weekly around here now!

'Veef' Stew

John made dinner tonight! I suggested a vegan beef stew to use up the 'Veef' that we had in our freezer. I Googled and found this recipe, although it was incomplete. John said it listed several ingredients that were never in the instructions. I guess it was not difficult to figure out when to add them but still annoying no less.

We used shallots instead of onions and sweet potatoes and no celery seed. Here is the recipe. It really was excellent. Very hearty and flavorful and filling!

Happy New Year!

This was the view from our patio last night! Hundreds of people were setting off fireworks all over the city for hours!

This poor blog has sat neglected for far too long. I have been taking pictures of nice meals I have made; they just have not made it up! Eventually I will catch up, or more likely, not even try! But I am going to start posting more regularly!

...starting with our New Years Eve dinner. We had a frozen piece of 'salmon' that I just kept putting off. I guess mainly because I had no idea what to do with it.

We finally decided it would be nice pan fried with jasmine rice and Hollandaise sauce. On the side, roasted Brussels sprouts in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The sauce was great. The 'salmon' was what I expected. It was covered in a layer of seaweed to give it a fish-like flavor. Appearance wise, it looked just like salmon. But it was mushy and had that universal 'fake meat' flavor. I would have no problem eating it again, but it will not make it into a permanent rotation around here.