Back with a Vengeance

After 3 or so weeks of being away from home and rarely eating vegan, we are home now and committed to it more than ever. We felt so gross from eating too much take out (although I will miss my black bean gardenburgers and milkshakes from Burgerville, and bean and cheese burritos from Cha Cha Cha). We're also on a budgeting kick, and we've already burned through our allotted budget for eating out, like 5 days into the month. This is mainly due to meeting friends for food in Portland and since we bought their food I don't know if I should count half as "eating out" and half as "gifts given" but for right now it's all in the eating out category, so we are eating at home for as long as we can hold out this month.

Never fear! I have been bitten soundly by the meal planning bug and have really been keeping on with it so far.

Homemade Vegan Pizza!!!

First I made whole wheat pizza dough with the aid of our bread machine. This was the first time I tried making dough in there, and I have to say it worked AWESOME! It took an hour and a half to do its thang, and then it was ready to be rolled out onto the pan. I used the recipe for whole wheat crust that came with my bread machine, but I added 2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten to make it fluffier. Awesome.

Then I made Tempeh Sausage Crumbles from Vegan with a Vengeance. I love this stuff. Then I sauteed mushrooms with garlic in some olive oil. Rolled out the dough, spread on some organic tomato sauce, then the sausage crumbles and mushrooms. Then I stirred up a packet of Road's End Oranics Mozzarella Chreese sauce and poured it over the whole pie. Baked for 15 minutes and voila! Vegan pizza extraordinaire!!! It was so good, I can't wait to make this again.

A close-up of how the Chreese sauce set up

Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash

We didn't use up all the sausage crumbles in for the pizza, and I also had some leftover vegan cornbread from a few nights ago, so I whipped up an improvised stuffing out of the crumbled cornbread, sausage crumbles, dried tart cherries, and sauteed onion and savoy cabbage. Oh and some veggie broth and sage. Then I microwaved the acorn squash (first time cooking it that way...although it was quick as hell I still think I like them baked more). It was pretty good! The stuffing stuff was really yummy. I think next time I would salt the squash or something, because it was kind of bland. But overall a good time.

Curried Veggies and Seitan over Brown Basmati Rice

Tonight I made this curry explosion using a jar of sauce we got at Cost Plus - Spicy Tomato and Cardamom sauce I belive. Vegan. Rock. Anyway, I sauteed some onion then added these crazy purple carrots and some quarterd red potatoes and steamed that in some veggie broth until the potatoes were good to go. Then I added sliced mushrooms, garlic and the rest of that savoy cabbage (which we got for free from the farmer's market, btw!). Then I added the sauce and some slightly thawed chopped spinach and the seitan and let it sit on warm for a while, until the baby was done eating. It was also pretty good - not the best thing I've ever eaten, but good nonetheless. The sauce had some kick and had a kind of tamirind taste, too.

Later this week I hope to do some more baking in the bread machine, especially since I have my trusty magical vital wheat gluten! Yay!