Portobello Mushroom Burger

Have you ever tried to make vegan/vegetarian burgers? There are so many recipes out there that call for different ingredients, everything from quinoa, sweet potato, black beans ect. If you are adventurous you will try some of these recipes out and pray to the vegan gods that they turn out. If not then you will have a stir fry with the mixture instead. I have made a couple and they haven’t been that bad, nothing life changing but not a waste of ingredients. I know I haven’t tried all of the recipes out there, so there is still hope for finding that perfect vegan burger. But what happens when you are craving a BBQ burger but you don’t feel like making something up. Well Portobello Mushrooms to the rescue!

I have only ever cooked these in the oven like a pizza, but I know other people have tried this method before and it was successful for them, so why not me! I had two in my fridge and they were getting old so I wanted to use them up quick before they got moldy. I didn’t have any pizza sauce so I couldn’t make pizzas, so why not try something new like BBQing them like burgers. Devon was feeling a little adventurous and said he would give them a shot, seeing as I had two to eat up.

Result? Super delicious and very satisfactory. I had been craving something BBQ’d for a while because the weather had got so nice and I could smell other people BBQing in our neighborhood, thankfully this totally hit the spot. They only took 15 mins on the grill to prepare, so while those are cooking I cut up all of the veggies I wanted on the burger and BAM supper was ready with not a lot of mess or prep work to clean up.

 

Scrape out the insides of the mushroom and lightly coat with coconut oil. Season with salt, pepper, and Montreal Steak Spice. Cook hollow side down for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes on the other side. For the last 10 minutes, fill with Daiya cheese and let it melt! I put down tin foil on the BBQ to avoid cross contamination and the mushroom cooked just fine.

Top with your favorite toppings like tomato, lettuce, avocado, mustard, ketchup on a bun or in a lettuce wrap! Eat while hot and enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Vegan Lasagna with Cashew Cheese

I honestly was never a huge fan of pasta… or bread… or pastries… basically any grains for that matter. I would only buy donuts to lick the icing off, or I would only eat a bagel so I could have a one inch layer of cream cheese on it. If it didn’t look weird I would have probably ordered just the icing or just the cream cheese from Tim Horton’s. So ya, breads in general are not my thing, and I do count myself as lucky because according to some women they can be quite addicting.

However, vegan lasagna is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I have always liked lasagna, not loved, but liked. It was never a meal we ate as kids, seeing as my dad had celiac and my sister and I were not that adventurous when we were making meals. They usually consisted of meat and potatoes, rice and stir fry or hot dogs and fries, not a lot of imagination for a couple of teens. But my parents were thankful that they didn’t have to cook meals when they got home from work.

I think the appeal of making vegan lasagna is the fact that it's so not vegan. You have anywhere from 3 to 10 types of cheese and then hamburger or pork as the key ingredients, which of course are everyone’s favourites. So this was kind of a test for me, to make lasagna that super ooey gooey, cheesey, deliciousness that everyone would love. Naturally my inner self yelled, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED and I set out on the net to check out some recipes. Unfortunately, none really caught my attention, so I just took all of my favourite aspects and blended them into one amazing lasagna recipe.
This is probably one of the best things I have EVER made, vegan or non-vegan. My husband even agrees that this is the best vegan thing I have ever made... even better than my chili, SHOCKER I KNOW! Because my chili is fricken fantastic. So I hope some of you are adventurous and try out my recipe, it’s totally worth it and you don’t even have to tell anyone its vegan, just let them decide if they like it or not!

Cashew Cheeze

1 cup of cashews, soaked overnight

1/2 cup of fresh basil

¼ cup of fresh lemon juice

2 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp of nutritional yeast

¼ cup of water or vegan broth

Place all of the ingredients into a blender or a food processor and blend until smooth.

Lasagna - 8 x 8 pan

½ pkg of vegan, ready to cook, lasagna noodles, gluten free or not!

1 jar of vegan tomato sauce

1 medium zucchini, sliced thinly lengthwise
1 tbsp of coconut oil

½ of medium onion, diced

1 pkg of mushrooms, diced

2 red bell pepper, diced

8 cups of fresh spinach

2 cups of Daiya Cheese, mozzarella flavour.   

1) Make a base layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan, followed by a layer of noodles.

2) Spread half of the cashew cheeze across the noodles.

3) Layer of zucchini slices.

4) Layer of sauted vegetables
5) Layer of tomato Sauce, which I had forgot to do, oops!

6) Another layer of noodles

7) The rest of the cashew cheeze!

8) Layer of zucchini slices.

9) Layer of tomato sauce
10) Place the last of the vegetables on top of the sauce.

11) Final layer of Daiya cheese!!

Bake Lasagna at 400 degrees F. for an hour.

For 40 minutes, covered in tin foil, the last 20 minutes to be uncovered. 

Thanks for reading!!
xoxo -N

Confession of a Salad Eater...

I'm not going to lie to you guys, my confession is I LOVE FOOD. Oh right I already stated that... crap. Well I will say it again. I love food. I love the different combinations, flavours, colors, textures, ect ect ect. It really is something I am constantly thinking about during the day. What can I make for lunch, or supper, or my second supper?? I take a lot of joy in creating great tasting meals for me and Devon, and even greater joy when they turn out.

Some days however my stomach has ADSHD (Attention Defecate Super Hyperactive Disorder). I literally cannot decide what to eat for supper, I want too many things!

Last night was one of those nights...

I started out during the day with cantaloupe for breakfast, a great salad for lunch, a couple apples for a snack at work, then a second snack when I got home of blended apples, grapes, dates and a little bit of spinach, just to tie me over until supper. I guess I should just clarify that my breakfast is at 7am, my ‘lunch’ is at 9:30am my snacks are between noon and 1pm and my second snack is at 3:00pm. It’s a really messed eating schedule, but I have found a way to work around it (‘It’ being my angry, hungry stomach.)

The Raw Vegan Wraps I picked
 up at Alternate Roots

So last night we ended up going to the mall to pick up the new HALO for my husband and we stopped to get some things at Zellers. Unfortunately one of those things was a bag of plain, ripple Ruffles chips. I can see all of your heads shaking, I know I know, chips are bad, but honestly, to me, they taste so good. They are my one craving that will be very hard to crack. I originally thought dairy was going to be the hardest, but sadly no, chips are.  So I sneak them home, from whom, not too sure, but I feel like I should hide them or something. I set them on the table and start to make supper. I have decided I am going to make Raw Vegan Wraps, using these new Coconut Curry wraps I picked up on Tuesday from Alternate Roots. I sliced up tomato, cucumber, zucchini and added some leafy greens, wrapped them up and gave her a try. They were really good!! Unfortunately my ADSHD stomach was like, nope you want something more... so I opened the chips! Yup I did it, eating my super healthy wraps with a side of potato chips. I should have felt the irony, but I just couldn’t muster it up. Maybe it was all the crunching....  After a couple of trips to the bag of chips, I sit down at the computer and get to work on my Harry Potter post. After 20 mins, my stomach literally shouts at me, YOU WANT A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH!! Damn, I thought she was asleep. I already gave her something healthy and something greasy, What more does she want? Apparently she wants a grilled cheese.

So off to the kitchen I go to make myself a vegan grilled cheese. Basically it’s the same thing as a regular grilled chhese, you just use coconut spread, like Earth Balance in place for your butter, Daiya Cheese in place for the cheese and make sure your bread is Vegan. BAM. Grilled Cheese. Which of course turned out quite yummy.

So now I have given my stomach 1 healthy and 2 unhealthy things tonight. She MUST be done now.... NOPE. Not done just yet. Because of the 2 to 1 ratio, she thought it was time to end on a good note. She wants a salad now (recipe at the bottom of the page). One of the really good ones with tomatoes and dates on it.  Fine! FINE! I will make one last meal but that is it! No more..... Haha who am I kidding.

So that is my confession. Yes, I really do love my healthy food, I think it tastes amazing, its satisfying and is better than most junk food out there. But sometimes your crazy ADSHD stomach just won’t shut up and so you give in. And that’s okay. Now, right now is where I would probably say, “as long as its in moderation its okay!” but I won’t. Why? Because my mother in law brought it to my attention that NO not everything is good in moderation “Heroine isn’t good in moderation, Crack isn’t good in moderation, killing people isn’t good in moderation.”
There is one thing that I do believe. If I can continue on this path of eating more Raw food, I know my cravings for the other junk will subside. It’s just a matter of wanting to get there, because if you don’t truly want to do something you will never fully follow through.  

My Go To Meal #3

"The Salad"

6-8 cups of leafy greens, I used Kale and Romanie

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1/2 of a cucumber, shredded

1 small zucchini, shredded

1 yellow pepper, shredded

5 dates, diced

1 lemon, juiced

If you wanted to put other ingredients in it like mushrooms, carrots, beans or even QUINOA (which I do when ever there is left overs) by all means do that. These are just my staples that I always have on hand. Throw it all together and you got yourself a great meal. Yes this is one meal, not to be shared between four people! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo - N

Mexican Style Quinoa and Black Bean Stuffed Peppers, Gluten Free and Vegan

This month, something was brought to my attention that just made October so much cooler. October is Vegetarian Awareness Month!! For those of you who don’t know me, I love October. And when I say love, I mean LOVE LOVE LOVE. My birthday is in October, thanksgiving, my dogs birthdays and Halloween! Now this just puts the cherry right on top!
One of the main messages that Vegetarian Awareness Month is promoting is Meatless Monday’s. This is where you go all of Monday without eating any meat. I know for those of you who are meat eaters, it sounds hard, but I swear it isn’t. I even bet some of your favourite meals are vegetarian. When you actually start looking for amazing meatless meals, you will find that the options are endless.

Some simple ideas can include:

Taking your favourite Fettuccini Alfredo and instead of adding meat, add mushrooms
Vegetarian Pizza – You could do a mushroom, peppers, tomato, olives, ect. There are a lot of ingredients that go really well on a pizza. Now is the time to be creative.
Do breakfast for supper! Who doesn’t love pancakes for supper? Pair those with some scrambled eggs or omelets and you got a great meal!

Last night for supper I was in the mood for something Mexican inspired. So I checked the fridge and I was in luck, I had red and yellow peppers! And one of my favourite dishes to make is quinoa stuffed peppers. They are quite simple to make, and if you want you can do any flavour of stuffed peppers, such as Italian or Greek.

Ingredients2 yellow peppers
1 cup of cooked quinoa
1 tbsp of coconut oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup of zucchini, diced
1 ½ cups of mushrooms, diced
1 medium tomato, diced
1 cup of black beans

1/4 cup of Daiya Cheese
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of coriander
2 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of onion salt

 

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees and heat up oil in a medium sized frying pan on Medium/High heat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté them for 10 minutes, or until they are soft. Stir in your mushrooms, zucchini and tomatoes until evenly distributed, sauté for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add your spices, mixing them well into the vegetables. Finally stir in the quinoa and black beans. Continue to cook on low/medium heat for another 5 minutes.

Then take the peppers and cut them in half length wise. This will make them easier to stuff, they will lay more evenly in the pan and they are easier to eat. If your peppers are odd shaped and do not stay upright in the pan, stick toothpicks in the sides of the pepper to stabilize them.

Once your vegetable mix is ready, place your peppers in a baking pan – I used an 8 inch square cake pan. Then spoon the mixture into the peppers, almost to the point of over stuffing them.

This is the point when I remembered that I had just bought a new package of Pepper Jack Daiya Cheese. I love this stuff, it melts like cheese, tastes like cheese and would be the perfect touch to my stuffed peppers.

I took about ¼ cup of the cheese and evenly distributed it on top of the peppers. This is one of the reasons why you should make sure your peppers lay flat in the pan. Because if they didn’t your stuffing and cheese would fall out.

Now they are ready to put in the oven! Now because the inside veggie mixture is already cooked, the bake time isn’t very long. We are only baking the peppers until they are soft, which takes about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese melts. This step is really up to you, the longer you have it in the oven, the softer the pepper. I like my pepper to be a little crunchy, so I only bake it for 15 minutes.

Once your peppers are cooked to your liking, take them out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes. Then serve!





Thanks for reading!!

xoxo -N