photo Archives - Page 4 of 82

Black Pepper Steak and Noodles

Why is it when I don’t have time to blog, I get a bunch of folks wanting to send me products to try? No worries, I’ll eventually get to talk about the goodies. This time VegeUSA offered to send me coupons for free product. I got excited cruising their website. I’ve had a few of their products, but they have a ton I haven’t tried. Sadly, when I got to the store, they only carried two I’d already had. So I decided to get a little experimental with one of them, the Vegan Black Pepper Steaks.

So, I took a partial bag of Trader Joe’s stir fry veggies, fried them up with some onion and then added the black pepper steaks and their juice. Then I added maybe a 1/4 cup of stock to make the sauce thinner. Then I mixed it up with some cooked rice noodles.

It was pretty good, but I think the sauce was diluted too much. Here’s what I should have done. Dress the cooked noodles with a little sesame oil and soy sauce, stir fry the veggies as I did and cook the pepper steaks separately according to package directions. Then mixed the veggies and noodles and put the pepper steaks on top rather than trying to make the sauce cover everything. Oh, look, I’m eating kale again.

The steak has a really nice texture. The sauce is asian-inspired, so you’ll want to keep that in mind when using this in a meal. The next product I try will be the Citrus Spareribs.

The laziest Mac & Cheeze

With all the Daiya hype over the last couple of years, poor Teese has kind of been pushed to the side a bit. Now that Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe is closed and Sevananda doesn’t carry it, I don’t think you can even get it in town. But recently I filled in a survey they tweeted about and was chosen to receive Teese as a thank you: the Creamy Cheddar Vegan Sauce, Mozzarella and Cheddar.

The first thing I did was make Mac & Cheeze for a potluck. Boil up pasta, toss with a tube of Teese Cheddar Cheese Sauce, sprinkle top with bread crumbs, vegan parmesan and a little paprika, and bake until less crispy than pictured here. Normally I might mix something else in there like broccoli, but this is lazy mac & cheeze so no veggies, just straight up.

Here it is hanging out with kale salad, spinach salad, tots and I think that’s a chik patty on that bun. It was a tad dry so I either overcooked it or should have used 12oz. of pasta rather than the full pound.

Just a tad though. Still made awesome leftovers, here with a beer brat and kale salad.

Voodoo Doughnut delivery

Kevin has spent a couple of weeks working in Portland recently. After eating all their awesome vegan food, he brought back a pink box full of Voodoo Doughnuts to share with those left behind.

Ha! I just noticed Tak’s little photobomb. Let’s see what’s in here…

Covered with Coco Puffs? Check. The triangle doughnut is supposed to be a joint.

The Texas Challenge, next to a normal-sized doughnut for comparison.

It’s a little messed up, but this is the Portland Cream. I’m always going to head for the chocolate covered cream filled doughnut first.

“…how I love to lick your creamy center!” Bonus points if you recognize that quote.

Even prettier potato and green bean salad

Whenever new vegetarians or vegans ask about cookbooks, I’m pretty quick to recommend Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein. The recipes are pretty simple, the ingredients easy to find and it doesn’t rely on meat substitutions.

One of the recipes I like to take to cookouts is the Potato and Green Bean Salad. It’s great at room temperature, is pretty and actually has vegetables in it. If you want to take it up a notch, use purple potatoes. See?

This time I totally cheated and used frozen, pre-cut green beans. It made a nice side to my burger along with some roasted cauliflower.

Roasted cauliflower close-up

Casual kelp noodles

How is it that I never posted about the Asian Noodle Bowl with Kelp Noodles in Thrive? Next time I make it I’ll have to fix that because it is awesome. Anyway, that came to mind because I was going to refer to it since I’m bringing up kelp noodles again.

So kelp noodles, also called sea tangle, aren’t the easiest to find, but it is getting easier. In Atlanta, I know three places that carry them: Sevananda (on shelf, not refrigerated), Return to Eden (in refrigerated case at back of store) and Buford Highway Farmer’s Market (last aisle in the back, far left.) They’re at least half the price at BHFM, so if it’s convenient, that’s the place to get them. They seem to keep about forever in the fridge. Oh, and pick up some of their house made tofu while you’re there.

Kelp noodles have a nice crunch and don’t taste like much of anything. So it’s all about whatever sauce or dressing you use. I had some about and wanted to add some interesting texture to my salad, so added them on in. So this is spinach, carrots, cucumber, bell peppers and kelp noodles in peanut dressing with peanuts and gomashio sprinkled on top. Worked out nicely! Hmm, I tucked some cilantro pesto into the freezer. I bet kelp noodles would be great tossed with that and some veggies.