Oven Baked Dirty Rice

I was gifted with an amazing new vegan cookbook called The Complete Vegan Kitchen and I couldn't wait to use it. Tonight I made the dirty rice that was super easy and baked in the oven. I love these kinds of recipes where you throw stuff in a dish and sling it in the oven. I added black beans to my rice to add some protein. A very quick, tasty and complete meal for midweek. Can't wait to try more recipes from this book!

Black Bean "Chilaquiles". Sort Of.

A bag of fresh tortilla chips from my local latin market gave me the inspiration to throw this together. I didn't have any vegan cheese so I made a creamy sauce made from plain soymilk, onions, garlic, pureed dried chilies and nutritional yeast. I layered the chips with the sauce, black beans cooked in a zesty tomato sauce and corn kernels and baked in the oven for 20 minutes. Came out tasty!


With a dollop of Vegenaise on top. Yummeh.

VeganMoFo: Navajo Stew and Dumplings

I have been so lazy for MoFo it's not even funny! There were a few dishes I opted out of blogging about because they were disgusting (the blandest rice casserole on the planet) and a few that I felt were too ordinary (beans on toast?). So today I was determined to make something new that I have never tried before. I veganized a navajo stew recipe from a southwest indian cookbook and instead of using mutton or whatever it was, I added extra vegetables and black beans. I also gave it a kick with chipotle chili powder. This stew is very rich and flavorful and the cornmeal dumplings were a nice touch. It is also good on top of plain rice.

Junk Food Alert!

I had nachos for dinner. Yes these are very junky but what the heck! I was in the mood for them so I made sure that this was on the menu tonight. I made "taco meat" out of tvp and taco seasonings and cheez sauce from 'The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook'. It's the "instant cheez-it sauce" and I added a few TB of salsa to it. With some black beans, jalapenos and a vegan mayo "sour cream" (just mix it with lime or lemon juice), I had a drool worthy plate of nachos!


There's this recipe for microwave chocolate cake on vegweb that I had made a couple of times before. I was in the mood and I needed it now. So I whipped this up in 3 minutes in my microwave. I added vegan chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Sweet coconut on top made it a fun dessert to indulge in. This is something I will not do often because it's junk food, but when you want it, you gotta have it!


And you're wondering, is it good? Why yes. Yes it is. It's very fluffy and soft and gooey from the melted chocolate chips.

Beans on Toast, TVP Tacos and Refried Beans

Leftover Heinz beans from last night made an excellent breakfast on toast spread with Earth Balance and sprinkled with black pepper. And I didn't forget the tea.



I couldn't wait to make refried beans from scratch again and this time with black beans. The easiest way for me to do it is to put the dry beans (1 lb. plus 8 cups water) into the crockpot the night before and let them cook. This morning all I had to do was reserve about a cup or so of the cooking liquid, drain the beans and heat them with sauteed onions, garlic, liquid smoke, the bean liquid, olive oil and salt/pepper while mashing with a potato masher. Seriously perfect beans. I also made red chile sauce with the dried guajillo, new mexico and arbol chiles. For the tacos, I used textured vegetable protein. The tvp meat was sauteed with olive oil, onions, garlic and taco seasoning.

EDIT: Still cooking from my pantry!
Pantry staples used: dried black beans, dried chiles, tvp, liquid smoke, olive oil, spices, Heinz Beans, white bread
Other items: onions, garlic, lettuce, tomato
Items purchased: taco shells, Earth Balance

Cooking out of the pantry: Enchilada Casserole and Sweet Corn Cake

So, day one of cooking from my pantry! I was lazy today to look for a new recipe so I reverted back to my old standby. This time I added tvp to the filling to bulk it up a bit. To go with the casserole, I made a side dish of mexican sweet corn cake which is a recipe from The Tropical Vegan Kitchen.

Pantry staples used:
quinoa
1 can black beans
tvp
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
dried herbs/spices: cumin, oregano, new mexico chili powder
6 whole wheat flour tortillas
masa harina
cornmeal
sugar
canola oil

Other vegetables/fruits and fridge items etc:
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
1/2 onion
10 oz. frozen corn
Vegenaise
Earth Balance margarine

Ingredients I needed to purchase: none


Mmm, casserole!


Mexican sweet corn cake. This was really delicious and sweet.

Revamping Leftovers: Black Bean Tostadas

Mmm, looks good doesn't it? The black bean soup from the weekend got very thick overnight in the fridge so I decided to use it for these delicious tostadas. I fried up a couple of corn tortillas, topped them with the beans, added shredded lettuce, chopped red onions, sliced radishes and hot sauce. They were great!

Panera-esque Black Bean Soup & Spiced Pita Crisps

I'm so bad about using up the dried beans that like to hang out in my pantry. I usually go for convenience and use canned beans. But this weekend, I decided to put a bag of black beans to good use by making this soup. I've only been to Panera Bread once and had the black bean soup in a bread bowl. My husband wasn't fond of the food there but I really enjoyed my soup. Since he doesn't ever want to go back, I thought I'd re-create the soup at home. Luckily I found a recipe online to guide me. I did a few things different, one obviously being the use of dried beans instead of canned and adding carrots to the mix instead of the red bell pepper. I also added more cumin, threw in some cayenne, lemon pepper and black pepper. It was beautifully thick and perfect with the spiced pita crisps. The crisps recipe is from Veganomicon in which I used whole wheat pita, chili powder, garlic powder and salt.

Note: I cooked the dried beans the day before in the crockpot. 1 lb. dried beans plus 8 cups of water in the crockpot on low for 8-10 hours.

VeganMoFo: Quinoa Black Bean & Chorizo Enchiladas

Gotta make do with what you have! I still had 1/2 a tube of soy chorizo that I needed to use so I made some quinoa, heated up a can of black beans that I sauteed with onions and garlic first, then added the chorizo to it. Corn tortillas and tomato sauce completed my enchiladas. The topping looks like cheese but it's actually vegan mayo that was mixed with lemon juice, chili powder and a bit of tomato sauce. It really gives the enchiladas more flavor (not to mention fat!).


I was so eager to show you the insides so I cut into them too soon. They fell apart. But you can see what's in there. I ate this bit and it was delicious!

Black Bean Moroccan Veggie Tacos?

Dinner tonight was really tasty! I cooked up some chopped onions, added a can of black beans and leftover Moroccan veggie stew from the weekend (which consisted of the last bits of sweet potato, carrot, black olives, zucchini and chickpeas), mashed them all together while adding taco seasoning and La Victoria medium taco sauce. I stuffed them into crunchy taco shells, added lettuce, cilantro, tomato, fresh salsa and went to town. The sweetness from the stew added a little something something to the black beans. Yum. I'll probably never get the chance to have this again so I enjoyed three hearty tacos.