Weekday Quick Meal & Garden Pictures!

My weeks have been very busy lately, and I haven't quite been keeping up with my blog. I've been running, playing soccer, working on my garden, and just plain running around. This meal idea is actually from Tuesday night, and I'm just now getting around to posting it on Saturday. :) Hey, at least I'm posting it! It's very easy to make, fairly quick (about 20 minutes to make), and quite delicious.

This idea isn't entirely original, and it is partially stolen from a soup commercial and partially part of following the meal plan advocated by Alicia Silverstone in The Kind Diet. She says that at every meal, 1/2 your plate should be veggies, 1/4 whole grains, and 1/4 protein. I've been trying to include all three in each meal and making an effort to try new whole grains and to eat a variety of different foods.

So for this particular dinner, I cooked a can of Amy's Spicy Chili, some jasmine rice, and a bag of frozen Ranchero style vegetables. If you don't have Ranchero Style Vegetables, you can also just use a bag of mixed vegetables and add some spices (such as red pepper, cumin, and turmeric).

Tip: Start cooking your rice first because it will take the longest. (I used a rice cooker.) You then can wait about 8-15 before you need to start cooking your veggies and chili. Take that time to check your email, feed the dog, empty the dishwasher, whatever needs to be done around the house, or just sit down and enjoy a glass of wine or something!

My carnivore husband loved this meal, especially the vegan chili! He did, however, add some shredded cheddar cheese to his chili and make his dish not entirely vegan. But if that's your thing, go for it. I'm sure it was just as tasty.

Also, I promised you guys that I would post some pictures of my garden plot. So I took some for you. These were taken at night because it's been getting dark so early lately. I plan to take a few better ones after I mulch tomorrow.

Cantaloupe: I got both my cantaloupe plants on sale from the garden store at the end of the season for super cheap. They were half dead, and I didn't expect much from them, but I managed to nurse them back to health and Look! A cute little baby cantaloupe! Maybe it'll be big enough to eat before the frost hits us...

Kale: I planted this about a week and a half ago, and it's really shot up since then. I've heard that kale actually tastes best after the first frost. So this is one of my fall plants that I'm really looking forward to.

Carrots!: I love carrots!  I actually planted about five rows and two different varieties, so I'll have plenty to spare and share with friends. ( 4 rows and 2 varieties of kale, too.) I'm excited for when these babies are ready to harvest!

Strawberries?: I planted 8 of these plants with the hopes to have some next year since I didn't get my garden plot until pretty much the end of the summer. But lookie here, I have another strawberry fruit. In October! I hope they do this well next summer.

Blueberries: I also bought 9 blueberry bushes and 1 raspberry bush to be harvested next summer. They're hanging in there. The leaves have been changing colors due to the fall weather, but I've been told that as long as there are green branches, I will have lots of blueberries next year!

If you have any ideas for any over winter plants that I can add to my garden, let me know in the comments.  I'm new to this gardening business, and I'm just figuring out how much work and fun it can be.

Tofu & 5 Color Pepper Fajitas

So, to expound upon my earlier fajita post, I'm going to describe my less-lazy fajita process. Also, I tried Agent Dana Scully's favorite veggie-friendly brand of creamy products: Tofutti!

 

X-Files Tofutti Quotes:

Mulder: Did you bring enough ice cream to share with the rest of the class?
Scully: It's not ice cream... it's non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle.
Mulder: Ugh... I bet the air in my mouth tastes better than that.

Scully: I don't care. Mulder, this is a needle in a haystack. These poor souls have been dead for 50 years. Let them rest in peace. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Mulder: Well, I won't sit idly by as you hurl cliches at me. Preparation is the father of inspiration.
Scully: Necessity is the mother of invention.
Mulder: The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Scully: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.
Mulder: I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicles.
"The X-Files: The Unnatural (#6.19)" (1999)

See! Also, Mulder, you are dead wrong, just like you were with quite a few of your alien theories...but we love you anyway!

Oh, yeah, yummy fajitas. So...feel free to add some variety (or to have less variety with the peppers if you can't find all the colors). Squash and sweet potatoes are also excellent for a fall fajita, but we're still feeling the dog days of summer down here in the not-so-deep South (Virginia). My opinion is that the more colors you add to your mix, the more healthful and pretty your fajita becomes. Seeing 5 different colors of bell peppers just makes me happy. My favorites in order of taste are: 1) red (sweet) 2) orange 3) yellow 4) green 5) purple. I have yet to see a blue bell pepper, but if I ever do, I'll have to change the name of this fajita!

My Ingredients:
Soft tortillas (I prefer whole wheat, but white flour is fine, too.)
Broccoli heads, about one stalk, washed, chopped, and ready
5 small or medium-sized peppers of your choice (I used red, orange, yellow, green and purple.)
1/4 medium yellow or purple onion (substitution: onion powder*)
1 diced clove of garlic (substitution: garlic powder*)
1/2 pack of organic extra firm tofu
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 splashes of water
Spices: (I don't measure. Feel free to use your own discretion.)
Cumin
Chili powder
Crushed red pepper
Paprika
*Onion powder (provided you didn't already use fresh onions)
*Garlic powder (provided you didn't already use fresh garlic)
Salt


Cook tofu until crispy and golden brown.  (A little longer than this picture below.)

Cook your veggies until they start getting a little browned on the edges.

Then, add your seasonings and mix well.

Add ingredients to your tortilla and Woila!

*I'm a lazy butt, so I didn't chop up any onion or garlic. I just used the powder, but I bet it would taste even better with fresher ingredients!

Quick Eats: Grilled Cheeze and Tri-Pepper Fajita

Here are the products that I used for my grilled cheeze:

I assume that most people understand how to make grilled cheese, so I'm not giving any instructions for this one!

Also, let me state that my grilled cheeze technically isn't completely vegan because my bread is "Honey Wheat". I bought this bread on my first vegan grocery shopping trip, and I was so concerned with reading all of the labels for milk, eggs, and byproducts that I forgot about honey. (It's surprising how many products contain dairy or its byproducts!) Many vegans choose to abstain from honey because it is produced by other creatures for their personal consumption, not ours.  For more about why most vegans don't think we should eat honey: Vegans and Honey. There is a little bit of a debate surrounding this issue, but after this first grocery hiccup, I'm planning on avoiding honey. However, when I realized that I accidentally bought honey bread, I decided that I wasn't going to waste a whole loaf of bread because I'm mostly concerned about avoiding the dairy products and byproducts at this point.

Here's my delicious grilled cheeze:

 

 I'd never had vegan sliced "cheese" before I made this, and I was curious to see how it was.  I'm not a big fan of American "cheese" because I feel like it's kind of weird and tastes like plastic.  So it didn't surprise me that much when I actually liked the vegan cheese better! 

 

While I was looking for vegan cheese, I found a lot of items that were "lactose free" but not completely free of dairy by-products.  Also, I made another grocery blunder and bought 2 packs of Quorn products that were on sale without reading the ingredients.  They're aimed towards vegetarians, but they actually contain egg whites.  Luckily, my husband (non-veggie) likes Quorn stuff, and he's already finished one whole package of the products.  He also already tried this cheeze and liked it!

 

So apparently, it is not safe to assume that vegetarian products are also vegan.  In fact, I found that most of the ones aimed to imitate meat products are not vegan!   I guess I'll just have to continue to read labels until I get used to this and find some safe go-to products.  For what it's worth, I try not to get too many convenience foods.  Part of this challenge is to try new recipes and eat more whole foods, but 1) it was my first week as a vegan and I wanted to try some new things and 2) sometimes you just need something quick and easy to make for those busy days!  I know myself and how much free time I have, so realistically, I'm planning a gradual change and giving myself some leeway as I get started.

 

Also, I ate the grilled cheeze as an easy-to-prepare meal before I went to my garden plot, but I didn't have very much to eat at lunch and breakfast today, and I was still hungry.  So when I got back home again, I made a bell pepper fajita.  I usually prefer to make tacos with tofu, too, but I'm all out of tofu right now. So just peppers today. 

 

A colorful display of peppers!



 

Cooked some frozen tri-colored peppers in a little bit of olive oil, added some taco seasoning (onion, garlic, cumin, and crushed red pepper powder) as they finished cooking, put them in a warmed wheat tortilla shell, and sprinkled some noosh* on top of the peppers. 

 

Yum, yum!

*Noosh = nutritional yeast.  It has a kind of cheezy, nutty flavor and contains B12 and lots of other important vitamins and minerals.