Vegan Buffalo Pizza

Well its time for another pizza recipe! Yup another amazing vegan pizza recipe for you pizza loving people out there!

One of the best things I have learned recently was that Franks Red Hot Sauce is vegan! Even the Buffalo Flavour, which I thought would have had milk ingredients in it, but thankfully it does not (horay!) I remember before, when I was silly and didn’t read the ingredients, I would just smell the hot sauce and imagine all the wonderful things I could put it on. Like broccoli, potatoes, and cauliflower.

So when I found out that I could eat it I went crazy and started putting it on everything, such as my all time fav - Steamed Cauliflower with Daiya Cheese and Hot Sauce, super creamy and really satisfying. But my newest creation had me blown away! It was spicy, flavorful, surprisingly light, and a total flavour explosion. My Buffalo Pizza!

If love experimenting with different types of pizza, I highly recommend you try this one out. And what nice about it is you can control how spicy it is. Don’t like spice – omit the jalapeno sauce. Love the spice – add jalapenos on top of the pizza too! The world is your oyster!....mmm whats a vegan equivalent to oyster…. Olive? They are salty right?.... I like it!

Okay the world is your olive! Go on and try my awesome pizza! 

 

Pizza Dough

1½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp ground flax
2 ¼ tsp quick-rising yeast
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup very warm water
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp. date syrup *recipe below

In a medium bowl, combine flour, flax, yeast and salt. Mix well.
Measure warm water in measuring cup, then stir in olive oil and honey. 

Pour mix over dry ingredients and mix using wooden spoon to form a ball. 

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 2 mins. 

Grease inside of another bowl with olive oil and place dough inside. 

Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place until double in size (about 20mins).

While the dough is rising I cut up the vegetables to have ready.

Roll out dough over lightly floured surface into a circle. 

Pinch the outer edges up into a crust.

Put on toppings and bake at 425 for 15-20 mins.

Date Syrup - makes 1 cup

10 dates

1/2 cup water

Blend in high speed blender until smooth, store the rest in the fridge!

Buffalo Pizza - Personal Sized Pizza – ¼ of pizza dough batch

¼ pizza dough

1 cup of sliced cremini mushrooms

1 orange pepper, diced

½ yellow onion, diced

¼ cup Franks Red Hot Buffalo Sauce

¼ cup Daiya Mozzarella

Cashew Cheese

1 cup of soaked cashews

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 lemon juiced

1 clove garlic

Pulse in high speed blender or food processor until smooth. If you have time spread out mixture in a metal bowl or on cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes to reduce some of the moisture. Scrape once or twice to avoid possible burning.

Jalapeño Sauce

1 jalapeno

1 green onion

Small handful of parsley, de stemmed

3 dates, or 3 tbsp of date syrup

Enough water to process

Set to high in a high speed blender or food processor and puree until smooth.

Make your pizza dough and place in the oven on low to rise.

While its rising sauté your vegetables in the hot sauce for 5-10 minutes until they are almost cooked.

Remove dough from oven and divide into quarters.  Take ¼ of the dough and roll it out thinly.

Spread the cashew cheese on the bottom. Then the vegetables and Daiya.

Place in the a 400 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Top with Jalapeno sauce and for added pizza flavor, dip in pizza sauce! Enjoy!!!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Vegan Sloppy Joes

Holy moly! These were so good! I had Chelsea and her boyfriend Taylor over the other night for supper to taste test one of my new recipes (now that I look back that was a mistake because I could be eating leftovers right now).As I am typing this I am wishing I made more so I could have one for lunch, silly me, I guess next time I will have to!  When I thought about making these I knew my sister would love them, she is vegan like me, so she appreciates the veganizing of traditional favourites. They were a huge hit with everyone including the meat loving men!

I honestly feel that this is something that anyone would love! Don’t tell them what’s in it because they might have some preconceived notions about lentils. Just let them try it before you tell them and I know they will be hooked on my new take on a Sloppy Joe!  

While I was making these I was snacking on my favourite blue corn tortilla chips and Bush’s vegetarian baked beans. I literally cannot keep these in the house because I eat the whole can by myself as soon as I get home. Not the healthiest snack, but something that I treat myself to on occasion. So as I was devouring my snack I realized that these would taste pretty good in the Sloppy Joes, so I used all of my will power and saved half of a can to throw in. I found that the sweetness of the brown sugar really complimented the spiciness of the chili powder. If you don’t have these at home, or dont like them, no worries because they would have tasted just as great without them!

Side note about Bush’s Baked Beans, all of their products are gluten free, do not contain any dairy, casein. And their vegetarian style does not contain any animal or animal by products! Yay! For more info go to their website.

 

I also thought I would bring to your attention a little nutritional information about my Sloppy Joes. I was thinking about this when I was eating them last night. They were not as heavy as I remember and that was because I had switched out the meat for lentils. So I naturally had to do a nutritional comparison between canned lentils and cooked ground beef, and this is what I found.

All the information is approximate depending on the brand and type of product you are using.

Canned Lentils – 250g

160 calories

1 gram fat

6 grams fiber

12 grams protein

Pan Cooked Ground Beef – 250g

445 calories

18 grams fat

0 grams fiber

66 grams protein

As you can see the calories are over double in the ground beef and 18 times more in fat. Plus the kicker as always, there is no fiber in meat which we all know is good for proper digestion. I know you are saying ‘but there is 66 grams of protein in the hamburger’ and to that I say, 'do you really need that much?' In my opinion no you don’t, at least not in one cup of anything. For more information on daily intake of protein for vegans please check out this awesome video by FreeLee.

Vegan Sloppy Joes Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2 yellow onions, sliced

1 small pkg of cremini mushrooms, diced

2 red peppers, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tbsp chili powder

2 tsp paprika

1 tbsp oregano

1 can organic lentils, rinsed

S&P to taste

Optional - ½ -1 can of Bush's Vegetarian baked beans

Directions:

In a frying pan or pot over medium heat, add ¼ cup of the liquid from the tomatoes. Add one onion, peppers, ½ pkg of mushrooms, sauté for 7-10 minutes. Make sure you stir continuously adding more liquid if needed. Add tomatoes and spices and cook for . Pour mixture into a blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.

Using the same frying pan or pot, add some water and cook the garlic and the rest of the onions and mushrooms until soft. Add the blended mixture and lentils, reduce heat to medium and let simmer until it becomes thick, around 15 minutes.

I didn’t use all of my sauce because my frying pan wasn’t big enough, but that just made it so I could add more sauce to my plate to dip it in!

Serve on any type of bread with a salad and enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -N

Vegan Meatless Balls, Gluten Free

You gotta love living in Saskatchewan! All of this snow, that I feel will never melt, does not represent Spring at all. So with all of this snow and cold weather, I am still craving hot comforting meals instead of the fresh, cold, spring salads that would be typical for April.

I won’t lie though, I am happy that it is still winter for one reason and one reason only, Lucy is not covered in mud. With Spring, comes melting snow and muddy backyards, two things that do not go well when you have a long haired, large dog. So in a small way I love the snow and my clean dog and house, but truthfully I would love to put my winter jacket away and not have to worry about breaking my ankle on the ice.

This recipe came about on Saturday afternoon while watching the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  It’s about a guy named Joe who wants to transform his life from fat, sick and nearly dead into fit, happy and healthy. He was 310 pounds and wanted to make a big change in his life, so he did a juice cleanse for 60 days to see what would happen. I won’t tell you anymore but you can guess that it turns out great. I really really really suggest you watch this with your WHOLE family. Yes even your kids. Joe lays out the movie in a way that anyone can grasp, including little cartoons explaining your immune system.

So anyways we are sitting there and I start to crave a smoothie so bad, I mean the guy is drinking freshly squeezed juice and it looks so good! Well, great minds think alike because Devon says “I'm craving a smoothie” Boom, I hop in the kitchen to whip us up a delicious snack and a commercial for Diners, Drive Ins and Dives comes on with a clip of spaghetti and meatballs.

Devon – ‘Now I want a smoothie and spaghetti and meatballs.’

Me – ‘Okay, let’s have them for supper, but could we just try making vegan ones?’

Devon – “Ya sure let’s give them a shot!’

So Devon searched the internet for a recipe and came across this one on My Vegan Cookbook and I had to agree it looked good. Now knowing me I don’t follow recipes, so I got the gist of it and went my own way. I didn’t make a ton of crazy changes but the main thing I changed was making them Gluten Free. Chelsea was coming over for supper that night and it would be good if she could actually eat the food we made.

If you have any leftover rice this is a really good recipe to try, because you want the rice to be a little dry and really who likes eating left over plain rice? The lentils you can either buy canned or you can use dry lentils and boil them on the stove for 45 mins to an hour. I would also suggest using fresh parsley rather than dry, because these are only cooked for 20 mins you still get the freshness of the herb after they are cooked.

 

These do get quite messy when you are rolling them, but hey no big deal because there is no raw meat or eggs in them, so just lick your fingers and see how it tastes. That is probably the biggest benefit about making vegan meatballs, is that while you are stirring in the ingredients you can taste test all the way through. Again there are no worries about eating raw meat or eggs, its already cooked rice and lentils with some herbs and spices!

I am honestly really happy with this meal, probably one of my favourite things I have ever made. We made it with zucchini noodles and an organic pasta sauce, two simple ingredients that don’t cost that much! The next time you are buying tomato sauce, read the label to see if there is any added sugar. That is one of the main reason I buy organic, is because there is no sugar added to the sauce, and I can pronounce all of the ingredients. I have copied the lists of ingredients from Prego and the Presidents Choice Organics Primavera Sauce so you can see the difference in what they put in.

PREGO TOMATO PUREE (WATER, TOMATO PASTE), DICED TOMATOES IN TOMATO JUICE, SUGAR, CANOLA OIL, SALT, DEHYDRATED ONIONS, SPICE, DEHYDRATED GARLIC, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORING.

Presidents Choice Primavera: Water, tomato paste*, diced tomato*, carrots*, celery*, zucchini*, red peppers*, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, green bell peppers*, minced onions*, garlic, parsley*, oregano*, black pepper*

* = organic

This is something we can simply change in our grocery carts that is one step towards making healthier decisions.  Plus I hate it when labels say ‘Natural Flavourings’ What the heck is that? If you are vegan, gluten free or have any allergies you have to be wary of this because fish, gluten and nuts are all natural. So if you are concerned call the company and ask to make sure you can eat it.

Ingredients – 10 Large Meatless Balls

1 ¼ cup of cooked rice, white or brown

½ cup of cooked lentils (do not use kidney beans or black beans)

5 mushrooms, minced

2 tbsp of parsley, minced

1 lemon, juiced

½ cup ground flax

¼ cup brown rice flour

½ garlic clove, minced

2 tbsp of soy sauce

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp of chili powder

Dash of red pepper flakes

Dash of liquid smoke (optional)

1 jar of your favourite tomato sauce

1 zucchini per person, thinly sliced using a mandolin or a vegetable peeler

Combine all ingredients together and mix until well blended. If you find it too wet, add more ground flax, if too dry add some water.

Roll into balls, place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 15 mins. Add tomato sauce into a frying pan and heat up. Add the meatless balls and simmer for 5-10 mins, letting them soak up the juices. Serve over a bed of zucchini noodles!

Thanks for reading,

Xoxo -N

Vegan Cashew Curry Sitr Fry

You know those days where you eat at like 3:30 in the afternoon and when supper comes along you don’t feel hungry but you still feel like you should eat something? That is what happened the night I made this. It was 8:00 and I was searching the kitchen for something to eat and was coming up with nothing. Not that we didn’t have any food in the house, I just was being indecisive about what I wanted. So I walked back into the living room and started to watch You Gotta Eat Here and what came on has changed my life forever!

It was a recipe for Cashew Curry sauce that was vegan! Holy Moly it looked amazing and really easy to make. I was super intrigued and it even caught the eye of Devon, the curry hater. So now I was torn, because it was 8:20 and kind of late to be making supper but I really, really, really wanted to make this… sooo I did! We decided to serve it over rice, and we were kind of pumped because we found white rice in the cupboard, something we haven’t had in a long time.

The whole meal only took around 35 minutes to make and it was well worth it. My thoughts of eating so late were silenced by the amazing flavours this supper had. I think I said “I love this” about 8 times while eating it, and now as I type this I am thinking about making it again for supper tonight. The sauce is creamy, thick, FULL of rich flavor and its not that high in fat which is a HUGE bonus. Aside from the oil there is only the cashews in the sauce which add fat, there is no milk or cream, the usual culprits in fatty sauces.

The only changes I made to the sauce from the show was that I reduced the cashews from one cup to ½, I didn’t put in cinnamon and nutmeg, and she used 2 large onions and no spinach. As I was making it I thought that 2 onions was a bit much, so what would be a good substitute for it? I didn’t want to add more cashews and I didn’t want to add something that would drastically change the flavor of the dish. That’s why spinach works so well, it adds great color, nutrients and body to the sauce without having to sacrifice any flavour or add any extra fat. It’s really a win, win here!

If you are a curry fan or are someone who is interested in trying it, I would say you NEED to try this! It wont disappoint you or your family and friends. Enjoy!  

Ingredients: 2 - 4 people

Cashew Curry Sauce

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 large yellow onion

½ cup of cashews, soaked overnight or for at least 4 hours

1 sm can of tomato paste

1 ½ cups of water

2 cups fresh spinach

2 tbsp curry powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp coriander

Red pepper flakes to taste

Heat up large frying pan, add oil. Sauté onions until they are golden brown, about 15 minutes on med heat. In a bowl whisk together the tomato paste and water until well blended, add to frying pan and stir in. Add in all spices, spinach and cashews cook for 10 minutes. Pour into a high speed blender and blend until smooth.

Stir Fry Vegetables and Rice

1 cup of rice

2 cups of water

2 tsp of oil

1 head broccoli

½ head cauliflower

4 stalks celery

½ sm. container white mushrooms

1 clove garlic, minced

½ cup water

While the onions are cooking, I chopped up all of my vegetable and cooked my rice. Sauté the vegetables and garlic until fork tender, about 10 minutes. You could have these cooking in a separate frying pan while the cashew sauce is cooking, to save on time.

Add sauce to the vegetables in the frying pan, and stir in. I try not to waste anything, so after I am done pouring the sauce out, I take ½ cup of water and add it back into the blender, turn it on high to get all the sauce off the sides and pour it back into the pan. Just to make sure its all in!

Serve over rice, quinoa or noodles! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo -N

Pineapple Cashew Ginger Stir Fry

While walking through the grocery store yesterday, I was completely lost on what to make for supper. Isn't that always the way? You are faced with literally every possibility, and yet I was coming up blank.
That's until I saw the pineapple. They looked really delicious and I even found one that was really ripe. Now what to do with it?... stir fry!? Why not? I am a huge fan of stir fries but unfortunately my husband isn't. If it was just me I was cooking for I would eat one every other day, they are that good.
So my mind got to work on what I was going to mix this with... I had broccoli, cauliflower, celery and mushrooms at home so I didn't need any more veggies from the store but I wanted more flavor. What goes with sweet pineapple? Ginger?!... Perfect! So I picked up a piece the size of my thumb, grabbed the can of baby corn and I was done with supper ingredients!
This was really simple supper to throw together and it didn't take long to prepare or cook. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of my latest creation. It was both sweet and savory and I know it's good when both Devon and I go back for seconds! I hope you enjoy it!
 
Ingredients
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1/4 head of cauliflower, chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
5-7 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 fresh pineapple, chopped
1 small can of baby corn (optional)
Ginger thumb sized, grated
1 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon broth, vegetable flavor
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of cashews, soaked
Salt and pepper to taste

First get your rice (or whatever you choose) cooking, I use a rice cooker for my brown and wild rice and it takes an hour to cook. Then chop up all vegetables and fruit. Put aside a large handful of pineapple. Heat up a large frying pan on medium/high, add oil. Once melted add garlic and onions, sauté for 5 mins until browned. Add broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and sauté for 10 mins. Dissolve broth in water and add to pan with the soya sauce. Add mushrooms, pineapple, corn, and ginger. Continue cooking until vegetables are fork tender. Stir in cashews. With your hands squeeze the juice out of the pineapple and top your dish with it. Serve over rice, quinoa, or rice noodles! Enjoy!!

Thanks for reading!
Xoxo -N

Broccoli, Mushroom Coconut Soup

So I just had to share this right away because I love it so much, and it only took me 35 minutes from stove to bowl. Mmmmmmmm. I thought up this recipe last night when I noticed a head of broccoli in the fridge that was close to death and I didn't want to throw it out. Its super easy and few ingredients. Enjoy!

Broccoli, Mushroom Coconut Soup
2 heads of broccoli
3 stalks of celery
5 green onions
1 sm package of mushrooms
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp  of coconut oil
1 cup vegetable broth
2 cups of water
2 young coconuts, or 2.5 cups of canned coconut milk (clearly this is not a low fat soup)
Pepper to taste

Heat up a soup pot and oil on med/high. Chop up all of the veggies into bit sized pieces. I started with the onions and celery and threw those in to the pot to sweat while I chopped up the broccoli and mushrooms. When done chopping, add all of the veggies, the broth and the pepper into pot and cook for 10 minutes. If using young coconuts open them up and scoop out all of the meat and the water from one of the coconuts, drink the rest of the water from the second young coconut while you are cooking! Blend up the meat and water until smooth in a high speed blender. Add the coconut milk and water into the pot and set to simmer. Then your final step is to take half of the soup and puree it in a blender until smooth, add it back into the pot and Viola Done!  I am really impatient so I just let it simmer for 5 minutes, basically making sure all of the veggies are cooked and the coconut milk and broth have blended well. I can only imagine what this will taste like tomorrow, if there is any left. 

Devon suggested I use cooked and blended, cauliflower next time I make this to make the soup thicker. I totally agreed and was actually planning on it, but I guess I was wrong in thinking we had a head of it in our fridge. So next time that is the plan and when I do I will let you know how it goes! 

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did! 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo Nikki

My Mama's Cabbage Rolls Veganized!

One of my families’ favourite things to eat growing up was my mom’s cabbage rolls. On our birthdays we would get to pick what meal we would like her to make and I always picked cabbage rolls. I would even get upset if there weren’t any at Christmas or Easter, that’s how good they are. My mother learned from my amazing Grandma Violet (she is Swedish) who is also a great cook, so no wonder they tasted great. I find that your grandparents/parents heritage determined what type of cabbage rolls you grew up with, ours were covered in tomato juice and had a hamburger and rice filling. When I would try other families cabbage rolls often they would taste weird and sometimes even gross. It was hard to measure up to my moms!!

So with the holiday coming up and with a lot of traveling ahead of us I started to think about what my sisters and I were going to eat. We come from a family of farmers so we were certain that the food was not going to be vegan friendly. But no problem there because we are used to taking our own food to parties anyways! I had already decided to take my Quinoa stuffing but I didn’t think that it would be enough because we are really big eaters. That’s when cabbage rolls popped into my head. I haven’t had them in over a year and I really missed them. I wasn’t going to ask my mom to make them, so I ventured into the long process myself hoping and praying that they tasted at least half as good as my moms.

I had bumped into my friend Karen at the grocery store the day I was picking up my groceries and she told me that Whitney from Grounded Nutrition had an amazing vegan recipe and I should look it up. I knew my sister had been talking with her this past year so I asked her if she had the recipe and luckily she did!

I had already formed a plan of attack in my head and when I looked at Whitney’s recipe it was similar to what I was going to do except for one big difference. She layered sweet potatoes in hers! WOW that was a game changer! I was really excited to add those to my recipe because I knew that they would really add some great flavour to the mix!

I couldn’t wait for my sisters and mom to try them, I was really hoping they enjoyed them as much as I did (I got to try them the day before and nearly ate the entire roaster!) Good thing I didn’t because they were all really impressed with my efforts, and they even said that they tasted like my moms! WOO HOO!



Photography by Ashley Clark

After we got home from Christmas all I could think about was how delicious they were so…… I made 3 more batches! I went to Superstore on Boxing Day and got a whole bunch of groceries and 3 tin foil disposable pans and got to work!

The good thing about making 3 batches all at once is that there is only one mess and it doesn’t take that much time (probably 2 hours of work, but I took my time) The weird thing is I forgot at least one ingredient per batch! The first one, had no parsley or oregano, the second one had no parsley, and the third had no garlic. So they are all going to taste slightly different but I am not worried about it!

Vegan Cabbage Rolls – 1 Large Roaster Full

1 large head of cabbage

1.36 liter can of tomato juice,

1 cup of quinoa, uncooked

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 cups of mushrooms, diced finely

2 cups of celery, diced finely

4 green onions, diced finely

3 carrots, diced finely

2 large sweet potatoes, sliced thin

1 clove of garlic, minced

½ cup of fresh parsley, chopped up finely

4 sprigs of fresh oregano, de-stemmed chopped up finely

Cook your quinoa in 2 cups of water in a medium sauce pan for 20 minutes, and chop up your veggies, garlic and herbs. For the cabbage, remove as much of the stem as possible so you are able to peel the leaves off easily. Place cabbage in large sauce pan and fill it half with water, and set to boil. Check the pot every 5-7 min, removing any leaves that are soft and that peel away from the head easily. BUT BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THEY ARE HOT!  I dunk the hot hot leaves in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process because I don’t want them to get too soft and mushy. While you are waiting for all of the leaves to fall off I throw the cooked ones in a strainer to drain the excess water. And I then cook the veggies, garlic and herbs and oil in large frying pan until the veggies are almost fully cooked. Stir in quinoa and set aside.

Once all the leaves are cooked, cut off the hard stem at the bottom in the shape of a V. Next take the sliced sweet potatoes and cover the bottom of the roaster, then fill each leaf with a spoonful of filling and roll like a burrito. Place the cabbage rolls on top of the sweet potatoes until the roaster is full. Layer another layer of sweet potatoes and if you have any cabbage left layer that on the very top. Pour the entire can of tomato juice into the roaster and you are done! Cook at 350 degrees for 2.5 hours and serve!



Photograpghy by Ashley Clark

Thanks for reading!

xoxo - N