Spicy Cajun Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes have become very popular in the last couple years in both households and restaurants. I normally would only see this vegetable on holidays whipped with butter and brown sugar and topped with marshmallows (not the healthiest way to eat this amazing root vegetable) but now they are everywhere. From restaurants serving them deep fried with some sort of dipping sauce to moms now substituting them out for potatoes on a regular basis at home.

Ever since I got my Actifry I have loved making sweet potato fries because I find that they come out crispier than baking them in the oven, plus I get to use less oil too. So that got me thinking about what else I could use this thing for and I thought “well they don't have to be fries all the time do they?” I could make thick wedges or even just cube them up like a hash.

So for a snack one day I cubed up 2 sweet potatoes and I was just going to put salt on them but while reaching in to the cupboard I noticed this Cajun spice that we had. Light bulb! Cajun Sweet Potatoes! What a perfect combination! So I tossed the cubed potatoes into a bowl and put two tbsp of this Cajun spice on top and tossed them around. The smell was amazing but I felt like I could go one step more into making these perfect. That’s when I grabbed the cinnamon. It would be the perfect complement to the spiciness of the Cajun while also bringing out the earthy flavours of the sweet potato. 

Results? Of course amazing! It was the perfect twist to one of my favorite snack foods. They weren't too spicy that you wanted to stop eating them and that cinnamon really packed an aromatic punch, especially while cooking. It kind of reminded me of Thanksgiving! A holiday that I can wait for, because I am really enjoying our summer! 

Spicy Cajun Sweet Potatoes

2 sweet potatoes

2 tbsp of Cajun spice

1 tsp of cinnamon

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp of cumin (optional)

1 tbsp of coconut oil – Actifry – cook for 20 mins or until tender and crispy

3 tbsp of coconut oil – Oven – bake for 30 mins, or until tender and crispy

Creamy Vegan Potato Salad

I haven’t had potato salad in forever! It used to be one of my favourites growing up, but because it is made with mayo I haven’t been able to eat it since turning vegan. Now with the discovery of Vegenaise I am able to make homemade potato salad and enjoy one of my favourites again.

I have been wanting to make this for a while, but I wasn’t ever in the mood to whip it up. With this lovely summer weather and bbq season upon us, it was time to try out this new recipe and see how it held up to my memories of ‘regular’ potato salad. Other than cooking and letting the potatoes cool it was really easy to make, and it turned out great! Devon, Ashley and Chelsea all thought it was delicious, except Devon thinks the potatoes should have been cut smaller.

 

This recipe isn’t just for people who are vegan, it is also great for people who have egg allergies. If you have an allergy to eggs and haven’t heard of Vegenaise I strongly suggest you go down to your local health food store and pick up a jar. They have many variations of mayo, such as Soy Free, Grapeseed oil, Reduced Fat, and Organic. All of their Veganaise products are Vegan, Gluten Free, Non GMO, Dairy Free, and Kosher, which is nice because its able to reach a number of people with food allergies. 

Ingredients - 4-6 people

2 golden potatoes

3 stalks of celery

2 green onions

Dressing

2 tbsp fresh/dried parsley

2 tbsp fresh/dried dill

1/2 cup Vegenaise

2 tbsp mustard

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 lemon juiced

1 tsp of maple syrup

salt and pepper to taste

Mix the dressing together and let sit in the fridge while potatoes are cooking. Cube your potatoes and cook until they are fork tender. You want to avoid over cooking them because they will turn to mush when you mix the salad together. Let them cool completely. Mix the dressing, celery and onion together. Stir until completely covered and refrigerate until cold.

Other recipes I have used Vegenaise in
* Killar Vegan Ranch Dressing
* Chick*n Salad Wraps 

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -N

Quinoa Pizza Bake, Vegan Gluten Free

I wont lie, I have already tried making this before, but last time I made them I put them into a cupcake pan. They didn’t turn out that well. Not that they didn’t taste good, they just didn’t hold their shape and they were hard to get out. I think if I had a mini cupcake pan, it would have worked a bit better, but all I have is a regular one.

Devon then suggested that we put it on a baking sheet instead, mainly because he likes it when the cheesy edges get all crispy. Also the last time I didn’t put in the ground flax, which really helps bind things together. If you need an egg replacer, ground flax is an easy substitute. For one egg its 1 tbsp of flax and 3 tbsp of water, mixed well and let sit for 10 mins. For my recipe I just put the flax into the pot with the quinoa right before its done cooking, that way I eliminate adding more water to the quinoa after its done cooking, and why not save a step.

The ingredients I have listed at the bottom are only guidelines to what could be put into this. If you like pineapple, olives, hot peppers, go for it. You don’t have to mix them in either, you could top the quinoa mixture with the olives and pineapple too. The possibilities are endless!

Ingredients
1 cup of uncooked quinoa
2 heaping tbsp ground flax seed
2 cups of water
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
1 small zucchini, diced
1 red pepper
1 small can tomato paste
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 pkg of shredded Daiya cheese

If your quinoa is not pre washed, you will need to run it under cold water to remove the extra starch. Then add one cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water and cook until almost all of the water has evaporated (it cooks just like rice!), then add the 2 tbsps of ground flax and mix until well blended.  

Pre heat a large frying pan on med/high heat and add the oil. Saute the onions and garlic first until browned. Chop up all of your vegetables into tiny pieces and sauté them for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl combine quinoa/flax mixture with the vegetables, tomato paste, seasonings, and Daiya Cheese and stir until well combined. 

Grease a cookie sheet with coconut oil. Pour the mixture onto the pan and using your hands or the back of a spoon spread out until even. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve! 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo -N

Vegan, Gluten Free Poutine :)

I have always been a HUGE fan of poutine. It was one of my staples when I was going to the UofS, and Exeter had the best poutine! I would frequently get it for lunch, so naturally Freshmen Fifteen caught up to me. It wasn't all poutines fault of course, there might have been some drinking involved along with trips to Wing Nuts, Verns Pizza and DQ. Poutine just happened to be my favourite. 

With the cold weather settling in I am constantly wanting hot, comfort food and on Saturday at work I had the biggest urge to make poutine. I was so excited. I had never made my own vegan gravy from scratch but I thought it shouldn't be that hard. So after work I went out to get some groceries for the amazing concoction, along with some other things we needed at home. 

I told my husband what I was planning on making and he was all in. We also decided on making our own fries, we have our mandolin that makes them so why not. They taste so much better when you do, and if I am going to eat poutine I might as well go all out. 
Devon sliced up the potatoes while I started making my gravy. It was super simple and didn't take that long, unlike the fries. We decided to coat them in vegetable oil (which I never use unless we are doing fries) and threw them in the oven for 40 mins turning them every 15 mins or so.

After the fries were done, I piled the ingredients together making sure I put the Daiya cheese in the middle of the hot fries and the hot gravy. But I then thought I would just throw my bowl in the oven for 5 mins to get the cheese to fully melt. 
This was heaven, I haven't had poutine in over a year! However, I am a little scared because now I can eat it when ever I want! 

This is the W-Sauce I used.
You can find it at Nutters!

Gravy
1 medium Onion, diced
1 cup of Mushrooms, diced
1 tsp of Coconut Oil
2 cloves of garlic, diced
1/4 cup of gluten free Flour, I used Quinoa Flour
1 cup of Vegan Broth
2 tsp of Soy Sauce, Vegan Gluten Free 
1 tsp of Worcheshire Sauce, Vegan Gluten Free

In a small sauce pan saute the onions, garlic and mushrooms in oil until soft. Gradually alternate adding flour and broth to the onions and mushrooms until there are no clumps. Add the soy sauce and the worcheshire and continue to cook for another 5 mins. If the gravy is too thick then add more broth/water until you get your desired consistency. I like my gravy to have a smooth texture so I blended mine in my Magic Bullet until smooth. However, if you like the chunky texture then exnay the blender.

! 

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

Quinoa Stuffing - Vegan & Gluten Free

As Thanksgiving grew closer I started to think of the things that are traditionally served at Thanksgiving supper that I would not be able to have. Last year I was only vegetarian, so it made things a little easier on me. This year however is different. So I started to think of something that could easily be converted into vegan that would still be a big hit among everyone. Then it hit me! Quinoa Stuffing! This works perfect because my sisters and dad all have celiac disease so they are unable to have gluten. So by doing quinoa stuffing I am able to make a dish me, my sisters and dad can eat. Its gluten free and if I use vegan broth then perfect, two birds one stone. 

  In the picture above there were a couple things that I forgot to add. The sage, cumin and the salt and pepper.

Ingredients

·         1 cup of quinoa
·         2 cup s of water
·         1 cup of wild rice
·         4 cups of water
·         1 white onion
·         2 medium carrots
·         3 stalks of celery
·         1 cup of diced mushrooms
·         2 tbsp of coconut oil
·         1 clove of garlic, minced
·         1 cube of vegetable broth
·         1 cup of hot water
·         3 tsp of sage
·         2 tsp of cumin
·         Salt and pepper

First you will need to clean your wild rice and quinoa. A simple way to do that is to put it in a strainer and run cold water over it.

To make the wild rice: combine rice, the 4 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for approximately 45 minutes, until the rice has opened and fluffed out. Strain out any excess water.

To make the quinoa combine quinoa and the 2 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for approximately 20 minutes, until the water has all evaporated.

Next chop up the mushrooms, carrots, onion, and celery into bite size pieces, and place the mushrooms aside for later. Heat up a medium/large sized frying pan on Medium/High heat, add your oil and sauté the onions, garlic, carrots, and celery for about 15 minutes, or until they are soft. Combine the hot water and the vegetable broth in a bowl and stir until the broth is dissolved. Add the mushrooms and broth, spices and quinoa/rice mixture to the pan,  and continue cooking for another 10 minutes. Reduce heat.

Finally in a large serving bowl and enjoy!  

Thanks for reading!!

xoxo -N