Don't Put This In Your Mouth!

I've been undertaking the very risky task of experimenting with new recipes while feeding a toddler. As any parent knows this is a risky proposition. Come to think of it, testing out new recipes is a risky proposition for anyone! If the recipe is a total disaster then you're left trying to figure out what's for dinner with very little time to spare. In my pre-mommy days I would just go grab some Chinese food takeout or order a Papa John's pizza (sans the cheese of course) and call it a night. But that doesn't exactly fly when feeding a little one.

This week has been a week of awful recipes. I decided to finally clean out my big box of recipes I've been meaning to try and go through the recipes I've earmarked in cookbook after cookbook. Unfortunately not one of them, nope not one, turned out well. The worst of all of them was this recipe for Soy-Free Vegan Ground Beef that I found on Veg News website. The picture looked like a warm, savory, delicious dish and despite the very skeptical comments left under the recipe and more than one commentor saying that it turned out awful I still tried the recipe. I figured the folks who didn't like the recipe had bad food processors or just didn't know what they were doing. But in reality, the recipe is just flawed. I have an amazing, large capacity Cuisinart food processor and even with this powerhouse of a processor this stuff just came out a pink mess. I immediately felt foolish for even trying the recipe as more than one of the commentors on it said this happened to them as well.

I soldiered on and tried to bake it up anyway - not willing to accept the fact that I just wasted a perfectly good head of cauliflower that my daughter who had loved and 2 cups of walnuts which are not cheap. But after 1 hour and 15 minutes in the oven I had to accept defeat. This recipe, just wasn't going to work out. It was completely and totally inedible. Although, I have to admit, by the end of the 1 1/4 hours in the oven it did look pretty darn spiffy. So readers beware, don't get sucked into the same false sense of security that I did. That somehow you will be able to outfox this recipe and make it taste delicious. Unfortunately, it just can't be done. Oh well...on to the next one.

Cookbook Review: The Sexy Vegan's Happy Hour at Home + A New Recipe!

When author Brian Patton aka The Sexy Vegan began dating his soon-to-be wife, he offered to entertain her with Friday night Happy Hours at her apartment or his. After a long workweek, she was ready to kick back and enjoy a cocktail or glass of wine, and it was the perfect way to enjoy summer evenings. After a couple weeks, these evenings weren’t just for two because her friends begged for invitations after hearing rave reviews of Brian’s delicious tapas and appetizers.

Brian created so many recipes that he decided it was time to put them into a book.  The Sexy Vegan’s Happy Hour at Home is divided into 20 Menus, each with 3 or 4 recipes, and libation suggestions. The dishes in each menu complement each other, using similar spices and overlapping ingredients, making the menus efficient. Designed around specific themes, each menu has a unique twist but can easily be combined with other finger foods to provide everything you need to entertain vegan and non-vegan friends and family alike.  

I fell in love with Brian's first cookbook last year and was so excited when I found out he had another book on the horizon (and a new wife, and a new little vegan baby!) I was even more thrilled to get a chance to cook my way through the book and fall in love with the new collection of recipes from The Sexy Vegan's Happy Hour at Home. Being a mom to a toddler I don't get too many happy hours (and by that I mean I get none) but these recipes are perfect for any occasion, including a regular ole family dinner - which is how I used the recipes in our house. My daughter is quite an adventurous eater but when it comes to faux meats she turns up her nose (and why shouldn't she?!) so I was thrilled to see that this book is free of the fake stuff and uses healthy, basic ingredients to make extraordinary dishes. The lentil patties that go into the Little Mac's are her new favorite burger and she asks for them constantly. 

I loved every recipe in the book except two - the yamburger sliders and the tamales  The yamburgers because they were nothing but slices of yams and I expected more from the recipe and the tamales because they really shouldn't be called tamales at all. The taste, textures and ingredients are not even close to a tamale. But that's a personal bone to pick with me because I grew up on authentic tamales and am pretty inflexible about changing them up even the slightest.

This Little Macs recipe is from the book’s The Happiest Meal Happy Hour Menu that also includes a recipe for Baked Sweet Potato “Fries” with Adobo Dipping Sauce.

  

Little Macs with Very, Very Special Sauce

One 15-ounce can black or green lentils, drained

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon low-sodium tamari

1 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

16 small slices vegan cheddar cheeze

8 tiny sesame seed buns (about 2 inches wide) plus the bottom halves of
8 other tiny buns (to use as the middle bun)

1/2 cup Very, Very Special Sauce (recipe follows)

2 cups shredded romaine lettuce

2 small dill pickles, thinly sliced

1/2 cup minced white onion

8 long toothpicks or skewers

To make the burger patties, in a medium bowl, combine the lentils, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, tamari, and Worcestershire. Mash it all together with a fork or your hands until about 70 percent of the lentils are mashed. Add the wheat gluten and continue mashing until there are no dry parts remaining and you have a ball of dough. Scoop out a heaping tablespoon of dough and place it on a large cutting board or other work surface. Repeat until you have 16 lumps of dough. Roll each lump into a ball, then flatten it into a 2-inch patty.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil to medium-high, and add the patties (you may have to fry them in two shifts). Fry on one side for about 5 minutes, or until browned. Then flip, top each patty with a cheddar slice, and fry for another 5 minutes.

In the meantime, get your tiny buns ready. Slather the top and bottom bun halves, and one side of the middle buns, with the Very, Very Special Sauce.

By now your patties should be ready, so it’s time to start assembling. Place one patty on each of the bottom bun halves. Top the patties with half of the lettuce and half of the pickles. Place
the middle bun pieces, sauce side down, on top of that, followed by the remaining patties, lettuce, and pickles, and the onion. Finally, cover with the bun tops and use toothpicks or skewers to hold them together. 

Very, Very Special Sauce

1 cup vegan mayo

1/2 cup sweet pickle relish

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup yellow mustard

In a small bowl, whisk all this stuff together.

Excerpted with permission from The Sexy Vegan’s Happy Hour at Home ©2013 by Brian Patton.  Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com

Brian Patton is author of The Sexy Vegan’s Happy Hour at Home and The Sexy Vegan Cookbook. He is also executive chef for Vegin’ Out, a vegan food delivery service in Los Angeles. As the quintessential “regular dude” vegan chef, he started posting instructional cooking videos on YouTube as his witty, ukulele playing alter-ego The Sexy Vegan and quickly gained a large following.  Visit him online at http://www.thesexyvegan.com. 

Final Week of Feeding A Family For $50 A Week!

So here we are, week 5 of the $50 a week grocery experiment. The past 4 weeks have been an incredible learning experience for me. They have taught me discipline, helped me become a better and more creative cook and made me organize myself in a way that I had not really done before. Although this was intended to only be an experiment for the month of July I have decided that I will continue to eat, cook and shop this way until we add another member to the family (which will be no time soon I promise you!) My cabinets are still stocked with food, and I could still probably last for a month or so if the zombie Apocalypse were to happen but there are entire sections of my pantry that are now bare. In truth, did I need 6 types of gluten free flours on hand including xanthum gum? Did I really need every type of dried bean that nature ever produced? Really...every single kind? How many types of hot sauce does one person really need and how many types of nut butter does a person really need to keep around the house? Soy, Peanut, Almond, Sun, and White Chocolate Peanut Butter all seem a bit much to have loaded up in one pantry.

I feel like the way I eat, shop and cook now is in a way that makes sense, isn't wasteful and fully utilizes the resources I have available. I've begun to depend on my garden in a way that I did not before. I used to have so much extra crops that I would end up pickling and canning all summer and winter long. But this year, I've only pickled one jar of green beans and everything else has gone to immediate use. I plan on still doing a good bit of preserving, after all it is another great way of extending out the seasons bounty in a frugal way, but nothing to the amount I did last year.

This final week presented it's own unique challenges. This week my daughter is off of school which means instead of being responsible for cooking 2 meals a day and 1 snack for her I am now responsible for 3 meals a day and 3 snacks. On top of that one of her classmates is going to be staying with us for 2 days so we have an extra mouth to feed for 2 meals and 2-3 snacks. So for this week I'll be not only giving you what I'm making for breakfast, lunch and dinner but also what we're having for snacks.

Breakfast

• Oatmeal and Fruit
• English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches (with vegan egg patty and daiya cheese that I found in the freezer) - for the kiddo I'll be nixing the Daiya and instead slathering both sides in EB, egg patty on the side with fruit
• Banana waffles, white nectarines and Naked Tofu Scramble
• I have all the ingredients I would need to make breakfast sausage but I'm not sure if I have the time so I'm not counting on this one

Lunch

• Macaroni and Cheese with Marinated Roasted Tofu and Steamed Carrots
• Homemade Super Low-Sodium Ramen Noodles with Tofu and Braised Green Beans
• Southern Style Meatballs with Steamed Veggies and Dinner Rolls (I froze some a couple weeks back and still have plenty to go around)

Dinner

• Smothered Pork Chops with Green Bean Casserole and Dinner Rolls
• Baked Beans, Corn Muffins, and Steamed Veggies
• Soft Tacos made with Adzuki Beans (I randomly have a bunch laying around) with Salsa and Sour Cream, steamed corn and some type of green veggie

Snacks

• Homemade Graham Crackers
• Hummus with Pita Chips (I bought a ton of pita chips a couple months ago and they still haven't expired so there's no better time than the present to use them!)
• Fruit (grapes, strawberries, watermelon)
• Blueberry Smoothies (I got a bunch of blueberries on sale in June and froze half)
• Beanfield's Bean and Rice Chips (Pico De Gallo flavor) - I bought a 6 pack of these last month and we're still working our way through them. I'll be blogging about these soon.

And that's it! I didn't make the crab cakes from last week until Sunday so we'll be munching on those throughout the week as well. For 5 weeks of shopping my goal was to spend $50 a week or $250 in total for the month. This week I ended up spending $43.57 at Whole Foods and $17.68 at Publix. Which means I spent $61.25 this week. I really took for granted how much money we save every month when my daughter is eating at school 5 days a week! We are very fortunate that her school provides great vegan meals and we only have to bring a back-up snack in case the class is having goldish crackers or something with dairy in it as a morning snack. I've decided, in an effort to save even more money, I'm going to start making her snacks from scratch and sending those to school with her. Now that I've taken my IBCLC exam I have more time on my hands so this shouldn't be too difficult and if I would have done that this month I would have saved about $15 in the budget. Overall for 5 weeks I spent $273.63. So I went a little over $23 over budget. For a first timer to this new budget I think that is pretty darn fantastic. I'm tempted to change my budget to $60 a week but I really want to continue to commit myself to making the most out of each ingredient, even while working on new books and recipes, so I'm going to stick to $50 a week for now. I hope this has been helpful to you! Next week I'll be going step-by-step through exactly how you can make the changes necessary in your own life to get your grocery budget in check so stay tuned!

Week 4: Feeding the Family for $50 A Week!

Week 4 is here!!!! I have to admit, the level of planning and preparation it takes to go to the grocery store these days is starting to wear on me. I always thought I planned out my meals ahead of time and stuck to my list but in reality I made a very rough plan of the meals I wanted to eat, never based on what was actually already in my pantry and I never stuck to my list. Now I find myself scrambling to put together a weekly menu on Saturday nights in preparation for Sunday grocery shopping. As I eluded to last week this week I'm starting to work out recipes for a new project I'm working on so I can't just rely on what is in the pantry and growing in the garden to help get me by and keep me under budget. But, that doesn't mean that all plans go out the door. I just have to be smart about the ingredients I use and make sure I make the most out of every dollar I spend. So here goes nothing.

I ended up having to make a couple more purchases than I planned on, I accidentally bought my daughter crackers that had been made in the same facility as peanuts. She doesn't have a peanut allergy but they are her snacks for school and we can't take the chance so I had to re-buy her snacks plus we seem to be doing through almond milk at a frantic pace around here so I had to double up. Out of the blue my daughter who hates all other types of milk besides breastmilk suddenly decided that she likes coconut milk after watching me make a smoothie with it last week so I ended up buying So Delicious Coconut Milk as well, which was not originally on my list. We also ended up picking up this beet/green juice that my daughter loves. Can you see a pattern in why I ended up spending more money than I anticipated this week?!

This weeks' menu:
Breakfast:
Homemade Bacon
Buttermilk Biscuits
Smoothies - just throwing together whatever is in the fridge and freezer
Fresh Fruit - watermelon, grapes, apples, blueberries from the garden


Lunch:
A lot of leftovers. I have a lot of different types of lettuce growing in the garden so I'm making wraps quite a bit these days. I made some beer battered tofu Sunday night that will probably make it's way into the wraps. Caesar dressing is my favorite in wraps I'll be using the recipe from Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Food.

Dinner:
BBQ Seitan with Dirty Rice and steamed cauliflower
Fried "Pork" Chops with Au Gratin Potatoes and steamed Brussels Sprouts
"Crab" Cakes with fresh baked dinner rolls or farro and Green beans from the garden

All in all I ended up spending $72.13 this week. After going 3 weeks of being under-budget I have managed to go over-budget by $12.38. But there is still one week left to redeem myself and bring myself back within the constraints of my budget for the month. So just in case you're keeping track July has 5 weeks so my monthly budget is $250 ($50/week) I'm currently at $212.38 so next week I'm going to be pulling every cheap trick I have out of my hat to get back on track! We'll see how it goes!!!

Week 3: Feeding The Family for $50 A Week!

Week 3 - the week that almost broke me! As I looked my shopping list up and down this week I could tell this was going to be a tough one. Before I even started shopping for the stuff we needed to make this week's meals I had to replenish my stock of some big ticket items like Vegan Worcestershire sauce, soy flour, earth balance margarine and extra virgin olive oil . Even though I hadn't planned my menu out yet I knew these were things that I needed to keep in the pantry just in case as they go in quite a few things I cook. Sure, I could go weeks without using them but the food hoarder in me just can't stand the thought of going to make a recipe I love and being one important item short. So the food hoarder won and these items stayed on the list. My daughter also fell in love with farro last week (it wasn't one the menu but I had some in the house so I used it as a side instead of brown rice for our stir-fry and it was a huge hit!) So farro was added to the list as well. And on top of that my daughter was also out of snacks at school so I had to buy extra snacks for her. Needless to say the list was looking rather expensive and most of the things I needed on it were from Whole Foods.

On Sunday, our grocery shopping day, I marched off to Whole Foods with my little one in tow ready to tackle this grocery list and brace myself for the financial impact. After 2 weeks of doing this I've realized one thing for sure. I mostly follow the menu's I've set out but the days I do things and when I cook things tends to be all over the place based on how much time I have that day and how much prep time I get without a toddler crawling on my head. So this week, instead of listing what we're going to eat day by day I'm going to list in general what the menu plan is for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week. I should also add that we do snack a lot as well, with a toddler snacks are a way of life. So I always buy at least 2 types of fresh fruit every week and usually make some type of muffins based on what is in the fridge or the garden. 

Breakfast:

Biscuits

Waffles

Breakfast Sausage from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food

Fresh Fruit

Breakfast Sandwich (I never ended up making these last week so hopefully I'll get around to them this week)

Hashbrowns

Tofu Scramble

Lunch:

Usually left overs and a hodge podge of things that are in the freezer

I'll likely also be making some wraps and having leftover black bean soup a lot

Dinner:

Square Pan Pizza with Yellow Heirloom tomatoes, broccoli, bell pepper and basil - everything 100% homemade from scratch, basil comes from the garden

Pigeon Peas and Rice with Steamed spinach

Pinto Bean Burgers with chickpea fries and veggies

Indian Spiced Chickpeas with farro and veggies

The vegetables for the week are variable and depend on what the garden yields this week I bought frozen spinach and kale this week as well as fresh broccoli to put on the pizza which we had tonight so there is plenty of broccoli left over to munch on for another day or so. Green beans are still the main crop high yielding crop in the backyard garden with carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and corn soon coming up on the horizon. I also bought some red potatoes this week. They were on my list but for the life of me I can't remember why. Maybe I'll make some cheese sauce out of them of just roast them up and have them as a side with dinner one night. I do have an abundance of fresh rosemary that is just begging to be roasted with potaotes.

Somehow, even with only shopping at Whole Foods and my list of big ticket items by grand total for the $56.77. A little over budget for the week but still under budget for the past 3 weeks. I'm so happy I started off this experiment way under budget it has given me lots of wiggle room to play around with as the weeks go on. Three weeks down, two more to go! Geesh, why did I have to pick the month with 5 weeks in it to experiment!