Tag Archives: Sunday Night Scramble

Meatless Monday and Sunday Night Scramble: Tacos

28 Nov

Once again, I’m presenting a two-fer tonight.

Vegan MoFo has been fun, but it’s actually made me eat a little worse in an attempt to present interesting eats this month. In an effort to clean things up a bit, I’m going to do a week of eating based on Dr. Joel Fuhrman‘s Eat to Live starting tomorrow. So tonight, I wanted to finish off some not-so-healthy leftovers. The contenders: incredibly greasy (and delicious) fajita vegetables, half a can of black bean chili, and flour tortillas. The solution:

Fajitas! Wait, no, Quick and Easy Vegan Tacos! I mixed the rest of the salsa and some Chipotle Tabasco into them, too.

These could easily be made healthy by using a whole-wheat tortilla (Whole Foods makes my favorite kind), plain black or other beans, and veggies you saute yourself in a small amount of olive oil or vegetable broth. Defrosted frozen vegetables work well, too. There are also lots of fat-free refried beans on the market that are vegetarian, though the sodium count can be high. You can mimic them by lightly blending a can of beans and adding your favorite spices, such as cumin and cayenne. Guacamole would be a tasty addition, and I would have thrown in some nutritional yeast if I’d been thinking straight.

I hope your weekend was fabulous!

Homemade almond milk and Sunday Night Scramble

15 Nov

So what was with that bowl full of wet almonds I posted over the weekend?

I decided to try making my own almond milk. I’m not a big soy milk fan. In fact, it’s probably my least favorite vegan dairy alternative. It mimics the real stuff well in appearance, nutrition, and texture, but the flavor is not my thang. Almond has a much better flavor, but all the packaged stuff is full of fillers and preservatives. Blech. It makes me think of a line from my favorite movie: “There’s no food in your food.” (Can you name the film?)

How do you make almond milk? It’s so flippin’ easy I’m almost embarrassed to call this a recipe.

Step 1: Soak one cup of almonds in enough water to cover overnight. (See above.) Mine stayed in for about 18 hours.

Step 2: Drain the almonds and throw them into the blender with two cups of water.

Step 3: Blend until smooth.

Step 4: Add two more cups of water. Blend until smooth.

Step 5: Strain the liquid through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Or be super-cheap and ghetto and line with a paper towel instead. I will use the good stuff next time.

Step 6: Store in an airtight container.

That’s it. It took about three minutes in the blender. With a container full of freshly milked almond liquid, I had to make something, right? I decided to transform some leftovers with it. I ended up not with some dignified rice dish or soup. No no, friends, meet my new BFF the Pumpkin Cookie Shake.

This does not contain ice cream. However, I don’t feel as though I can sully the word “smoothie” by slapping the moniker on this definite dessert.

In a blender, combine:

  • 1 frozen banana, in chunks
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons canned pumpkin
  • 1 Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie (or other cookie)
  • 3/4 cup fresh almond milk
  • Sprinkling of cinnamon

Blend until smooth.

Drink and marvel at how amazing you are for creating this luscious dessert. The result is incredibly rich and creamy and wonderful. Not that there is such a thing as a leftover cookie, but it’s a fun way to transform a cookie you just haven’t eaten yet. ‘Twould also be good with vanilla added and really any other cookie you have already made.

Meatless Monday meal idea and a Scramble all in one

7 Nov

Good morning! How did my American readers outside of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and most of Arizona enjoy falling back? I celebrated by getting up shortly before 7 a.m. Even with the time change, that’s a bit early for a Sunday.

Anyway, today I present to you a Meatless Monday meal idea that doubles as a Scramble meal (one that I actually had on Friday for lunch rather than Sunday night). It’s so easy that it almost doesn’t count as a recipe! This recipe is a tasty, fun way to use up leftover homemade salad dressing (like what I had from last week), which is why I decided to try it.

Vinaigrette Roasted Veggies

  • A serving size of leftover raw, cooked, or frozen veggies
  • 1-2 tablespoons of vinaigrette

Yeah, that’s all you need. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it or lining it. Gather your vegetables. Chop the raw ones into small pieces so they’ll roast faster. If you’re using frozen veggies, defrost them with a quick trip in the microwave, or begin thawing them in advance of the recipe. I had one raw potato and some frozen green beans to use up. Put them in a bowl and top with enough vinaigrette to coat:

Toss or stir to distribute the vinaigrette. Now spread them around on the baking sheet:

And put them in the oven until they are roasted to your preferences. Mine took about 20 minutes.*

I served mine up topped with cracked pepper and a small minced garlic clove. Delicious and perfect for a cold day.

*My potato and green beans were fine to sweat it out together. However, if you decide to roast two veggies with very different cooking times (e.g. a whole potato and some asparagus), then you’ll want to keep them separate on the sheet so you can remove the quicker-cooking vegetable when it’s done.

Still have more leftover dressing? Make Vinaigrette Garlic Bread!

  • Slices of bread (anything crusty works well; I used my focaccia)
  • Vinaigrette

Preheat the broiler and place a rack on the top row of the oven. Slice off as much bread as you want and spread some dressing on top:

When the broiler is good and hot, place the bread (on a baking sheet, a piece of foil, or directly onto the rack) under the heat.

It’ll only take three or so minutes for the edges to begin to brown. When they do, it’s done! I sprinkled black pepper and nutritional yeast on top, which was an excellent choice:

You can also pre-toast or pre-broil the bread on the other side before adding the vinaigrette, which will result in a firmer toast. Just make sure to watch it carefully. Mine stayed fairly soft in the middle. The bread is a great treat on its own, but it would also be good served with the veggies or on the side of a nice hearty vegetable soup. Though high in sodium, Amy’s Organic Fire Roasted Southwest Vegetable Soup is a favorite of mine.

If you want to celebrate Meatless Monday but don’t want to invest a lot of time or creativity, give these ideas a go!

Sunday Night Scramble and Indian Food

2 Nov

Today I bring you a Sunday Night Scramble for the ages.

I should first share my blurry lunch:

We were in the mood for India Palace, so we followed the craving all the way out to south Tulsa. Practically years away. They do a buffet during lunch hours, so we partook. I had a plate of salad (lettuce topped with their bean salad, mint chutney, and tamarind sauce) as well as the vegan offerings: vegetable pakora, Punjabi curry, and the standard mixed vegetables, which I can only guess is the Navratten curry. I had naan (two pieces) and a little rice on the side, plus more mint chutney for the pakora. My taller half had the same but with creamed spinach and mango custard for dessert.

Though I didn’t exactly gorge myself, it was a substantial meal. You can probably understand why my dinner was:

Half a kabocha squash topped with Chipotle Tabasco sauce, nutritional yeast, and black pepper, with homemade Rees’ Cuppage on the side. I did not eat all of them, nor did I eat one. The count was three or four total for the day. Given that it was my Halloween treat, I am cutting myself a little slack.

I was hoping to tell you all how I made delicious milk chocolate cups, but I did not. I only succeeded in messing up the texture of half this batch. I will gladly keep experimenting, though. You know, for you. Not for me. No no.

Happy Tuesday, all!

Sunday Night Scramble and First Watch

18 Oct

I apologize for the delay in my vacation post. It turns out that I have no idea where to start: city by city? food by food? just one big general post? I’m still working it out. I plan to have something posted this week, though.

In the meantime, here are my two meals today.

We decided to have brunch at First Watch today, one of my love’s favorite places. I did my research ahead of time and determined that the oatmeal was vegan as long as I held the milk topping (which I would anyway). However, I noticed something on the menu I had overlooked before: the Not Guilty Your Honor wrap. I held the feta and ended up with this massive amount of yummy:

The wrap contained spinach, tomatoes (which did not meet my standards, so my taller half ate them), roasted red peppers, cucumber, and mushrooms in a wheat tortilla. In the round container is surprisingly good hummus, which you can also see atop a portion of the wrap. On the side is breakfast potatoes, their marinated salad (appears to be cucumber and tomato in a poppy seed dressing atop lettuce), and some melon. It was a ton of (mostly) healthy and all-vegan food. Yum!

And for the Sunday Night Scramble, I present yet another pasta dish:

Whole wheat linguine topped with 2 teaspoons of peanut butter, one clove of roasted garlic, black pepper, crushed red pepper, and a lot of nutritional yeast. It was predictable for me but still delicious. For dessert, I ate way, way too much peanut butter (PBOD).

And now I’m off to finish making soup for the week. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday night!

Sunday Night Scramble #2

21 Sep

Apparently all I needed to do was rag on myself for not jump starting these features better. Here’s my second Sunday Night Scramble!

This week, I specifically wanted to use up the rest of this partial onion, which I knew wouldn’t keep too much longer, and the last of the seven summer squashes (sounds like a book title). I also bought this Amy’s dairy-free burrito and, due to my taller half’s love of all things chipotle, summa this Tabasco sauce:

Little ingenuity went into the preparation of the burrito. Basically, I microwaved it according to the package instructions and then topped it with some of my love’s coworker’s famous homemade salsa and chipotle Tabasco. I decided to saute the zucchini and onions in about two teaspoons of olive oil (a splurge since I usually spray the pan with Spectrum cooking spray and then use veggie broth) along with some garlic. Once it was all softened and splotched with brown flecks, I topped it off with black pepper and more of the Tabasco. My plate:

YUMMMMMMM! Seriously, this meal was perfect. Though the Amy’s burrito is high in sodium, it’s pretty healthy otherwise. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the brand’s frozen stuff, so this burrito is a surprise score.

Sunday Night Scramble

30 Aug

We buy groceries for the week either on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Since we tend to eat out for lunch both days, I have a terrible habit of forgetting about weekend dinners when picking up items from the supermarket. As a result, I end up cobbling together meals from whatever I happen to have around the apartment. Let me introduce you to today’s Sunday Night Scramble.

A whole wheat pita stuffed with corn and black beans. First I heated about 1/4 cup of frozen corn in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then I added half a can of rinsed black beans (that were refrigerated) for another minute. I stirred in about a teaspoon of chipotle powder, a teaspoon of cumin, and a few dashes of cayenne, as well as one minced garlic clove. Meanwhile, I toasted my pita halves in the, well, toaster. Then I filled them with beany-corny innards and topped it all with nutritional yeast. It was delicious and done almost entirely on one Emmy break.

And then there was this:

A double mug cake. I used the Vegan Feast Kitchen recipe again, with the same variations, except this time I threw in a few dashes of cayenne pepper for a Mexican chocolate feel. Winner!

That, my lovey-dovies is how I stayed sated tonight. Yes, veggies and fruits were sadly unrepresented, but tomorrow is another day.

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