trader joe's Archives

Lazy vegan pizza

vegan pizza

Lazy is probably going to work its way into many of my post titles this month. Since I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 or so years working in a kitchen long hours, cooking when I get home has to be fast and easy.

As I said in an earlier post, Trader Joe’s is great for lazy food. That includes lazy pizza. In the refrigerated section, by the cheese in our location, they’ve got vegan pizza dough balls. Just let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes, spread out on a pizza pan, throw on sauce and toppings, bake and eat.

Feeling extra lazy? Why yes, yes I am. Then they also have vegan pizza sauce. Your only challenge is to have some vegan cheese on hand. Which I did this time, some Daiya mozzarella.

And I thought about grabbing some sliced pepperoni from work, but instead tried to be a little less lazy and made the TVP Pepperoni from Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites. This stuff is so easy to make that it’s lazy. Seasonings, TVP, boiling water, soak, it’s pepperoni! And it’s delicious! One recipe made enough to generously top two 16″ pizzas with a little extra left over. I’ll probably throw it in a pasta sauce.

Lazy, cheap vegan curry

Yes, we do have a pretty decent range of vegan options when eating out in Atlanta, and you’ll be seeing many of them this month. But if you like to cook, Atlanta is also well-stocked with almost any international ingredient you might want. And we have most of the major chains that carry the foods vegans want and need, like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

This post starts at Trader Joe’s. I go there every six weeks or so. They’ve got great prices on frozen fruit for smoothies, tempeh, tofu, chorizo and non-dairy milks. And lazy food. The lazy food isn’t necessarily that cheap, but it’s cheaper than going out.

So I got my staples and I’m in the canned food aisle looking for lazy food that’s vegan. An employee asks if I need help because I might have been at that hangry stage and unable to make any decisions. So I said I was looking for lazy food. That’s vegan. One of the things he showed me was this vegan Curry Simmer Sauce.

trader joe's vegan curry simmer sauce

I did a quick mental inventory of what kinds of vegetables were in the fridge. Yes, this will work. When it came time to make it for dinner, I started a pot of rice. And then heated a little bit of olive oil in a pot. To that, I added half a chopped onion. Once softened, I poured in the jar of sauce plus the one cup of water it says to add, then a sliced carrot, a diced russet potato, a can of chickpeas and about a cup of frozen green beans. If this doesn’t sound lazy enough for you, you can always just use a bag of frozen peas and carrots and a can of chickpeas. The onion isn’t necessary at all.

vegan curry

All this simmered covered until the potatoes were tender.

Remember earlier when I was talking about international ingredients? If you’ve ever been frustrated because your curries don’t taste like the ones you get in Indian restaurants, one thing you are probably missing is asofoetida or hing. This is the one I have. I added about a half a teaspoon to the curry, but it would be fine without it.

asofoetida or hing

I got this jar at the now closed Taj Mahal market, but Patel Brothers is sure to have it. Another place to try is Buford Highway Farmer’s Market.

The curry came out nice. Much better than those vacuum sealed meal packets you can get. And five minutes of chopping made a much fresher tasting meal than that. This is a great option if you don’t have the space or patience to keep a bunch of spices around. Oh, and this jar was less than $3 and with the vegetables I added made 4-6 servings.

Trader Joe’s vegetable green curry

And, back to lazy food. Trader Joe’s has recently started carrying a couple of vegan heat & eat Thai curries. I failed to take a picture of the bucket for some reason, but you can see it here. To make it even lazier than actually making rice, I dumped it over a packet of Seeds of Change Uyuni Quinoa & Whole Grain Brown Rice.

The vegetables looked a little anemic coming out of the bucket, but tasted pretty good. There’s very little heat, which was disappointing. And it’s mostly sauce. I added a side of corn so it would feel like I was getting enough veggies. It would probably be good simmered with half a pound of cubed tofu. No, it doesn’t measure up to restaurant Thai or what you can cook on your own with a nice pre-made curry paste. But for instafood, it’s perfectly acceptable.

Trader Joe’s Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels

Every once in a while, new vegan products show up at Trader Joe’s. Recently there were the falafel balls. And the latest find was these Chicken-less Mandarin Orange Morsels. Yes, more lazy food!

So, I made some brown rice and steamed up some frozen Trader Joe’s mixed vegetables and baked up the nuggets. Pretty lazy! And really tasty! The chickeny bits had a nice texture and the orange sauce was good. It seems like more and more lazy food is happening these days…

Falafel salad and hummus

Here’s another great use of those Trader Joe’s frozen falafel balls. Just break them up on top of a salad. Use tahini sauce as the dressing. We have a falafel hut here that has a falafel salad on the menu. It’s awesome when you’re feeling a falafel but not the bread.

What goes with falafel? Hummus! I just ate it with some tortilla chips. This one is home made all the way back to dried beans. Canned beans sometimes aren’t cooked soft enough. Cooking your own gets them as soft as you want. The top is sprinkled with sumac and a little olive oil.