Monte Cristo!

I made these a lot when I was younger because my late uncle used to work at The Ramada Renaissance hotel and the chef made these for him everyday. He taught us how to make these with eggs of course and real turkey/ ham and cheese. But these days it's so easy to veganize. I used the batter recipe from Vegan Comfort Classics by Lauren Toyota (great book I got for Xmas)! Inside I used vegan mayo, Tofurky slices and Follow Your Heart cheddar. Yummy!

Watergate Salad!

This bright green mess is actually delicious! It's a 70's recipe called Watergate Salad and it can be veganized!

You will need:

3 boxes of pistachio instant pudding

Soymilk 

1 container of Coco Whip

3/4 bag of mini marshmallows (use less if you want)

1 can of pineapple chunks 

For topping:

Redi Whip coconut whipped topping 

Maraschino cherries

1. Empty pouches of pudding into a large bowl. 

2. Add soymilk little by little and start stirring. You will have to do this by eye. What you want is pudding consistency. Not too stiff, not too loose. Cover and chill for 1/2 hour.

3. Drain pineapple chunks and chop into smaller bits. Thaw the container of Coco Whip.

4. After chilling pudding, fold in the pineapple, Coco Whip and marshmallows. Spoon into a container. Top with more marshmallows, cherries and Redi Whip topping. Chill or serve.

Some ingredients. I bought extra Dandies for the house!

 

Another vintage recipe: Cauliflower and Spinach Noodles.

This, my friends is my attempt at veganizing a 1970's recipe that I found in a little Betty Crocker book from my vintage cookbook collection. Isn't it tempting? 

So to veganize it, I only had to make a vegan Hollandaise sauce which I found in 1,000 Vegan Recipes. It's cashew based with some lemon, nutritional yeast, mustard, turmeric and cayenne. Super easy to whip up, then heat in the stove with vegan margarine added to it.

It looks pretty yuck my was actually edible. Tastes like Mac and cheese with watery cauliflower in it lol. Oh, I used green spiral pasta instead of noodles.

This was fun to do and I plan to do more.

Oriental Treasure (lol) cookies.

These are really delicious! What intrigued me besides the name (lol), was the soy sauce in the dough as well as in the topping. They create a great balance of salty and sweet. I used 2 oz of applesauce for the egg and crushed my almonds for the topping which gave a nice crunch.

One pot lasagna.

With almond cream this time instead of cashew. This is The Happy Pears recipe which you can find on YouTube. 

Crimble Baby.

Had a great Christmas with our lil man even though I got sick with a cold. Started felling crummy later in the evening. 

Christmas Eve was fun. We went to our friends house for dinner. Hank had egg nog with daddy.

My husband carving the vegan turkey!

Trader Joes Breaded Turkeyless Roast.

 Yorkshire pud! Our friend is English and he makes these vegan for us every year.

My plate.

I mean... They are delicious! Delia Smith recipe.

Yearly baking using my 1967 Pillsbury cookie book. Peanut blossoms!

Coconut cherry drops.

All together. Also pictured Maple Memory, Oatmeal chip and Christmas sugar topped cookies.

Just had to show you the best Christmas cracker prize ever. 

 Sausage pastry puffs on Christmas morn.

Today I made chicken noodle soup fromVeganomicon  using leftover roast and wide noodles. Hit the spot!

Bonus pic of H in his triceratops hooded blanket. 

Holidays = Time for Baking.

These are Oatmeal chip cookies veganized from my 1967 Pillsbury  Bakeoff Cookie book. I used vegan margarine and Ener-g egg replacer.

Important not to overbake which will crisp them up too much. I did this on the second tray,  oops!

I portioned out some dough and didn't add any chips or oats so Henri could sprinkle them with Christmas sugar!

If you bake them just right, they are tender inside and a tad crisp on the outside.

Curry and Cherry Bon Bon Cookies.

Easy curry using Madras curry paste. So yum. I put in red lentils, cauliflower, potatoes, red peppers and peas.

Delicious on rice!

These are the cherry Bon Bon cookies from The Vegan Family cookbook by Brian McCarthy.

There's a maraschino half in each. These cookies are so buttery and sweet and melt in your mouth.

Cupcakes and Pasta.

It's the holidays! is such a great excuse to bake. My son and I made these yesterday.

This was my primavera pasta lunch at our fave Italian place. It was yummy.

Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

When you don't have time to stuff and roll a bunch of cabbage leaves, this is the perfect recipe!

Beautiful layers of tender cabbage

 leaves and a hearty tomato sauce, rice and ground veggie beef mixture!

Yes, H liked it and had some for lunch!

Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

1 small head of cabbage, cored and peeled of its layers

1 jar of marinara sauce (I used Kirkland brand so it was a massive 2 lb. jar. Maybe use 1 1/2 or 2 regular sized jars.)

2 TB olive oil

1 onion chopped

3 cloves garlic chopped

2 ribs celery chopped

1/4 cup each of fresh parsley and cilantro chopped

1 package veggie ground beef (I used Yves brand. Trader Joes has one too.)

1 1/2 cups cooked rice 

Salt pepper to taste 

Tomato sauce topping:

1 - 14oz can tomato sauce 

(Mix in a bowl with garlic powder, salt, pepper, pinch of sugar and dried dill)

1. Blanche cabbage leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350 f and prepare a casserole dish sprayed with oil.

3. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium heat and sauté onion, garlic and celery until tender.

4. Add veggie ground and break it up with a wooden spoon. Add marinara sauce, herbs and season with salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar. When sauce starts to bubble. add rice and cook for about five more minutes.

5. Layer the casserole with the  cabbage first and then some tomato rice mixture between each layer. End with cabbage on the top layer.

6. Pour tomato dill sauce all over the top and spread to cover. Cover dish with foil and bake for 1 hour.

Peanut Blossom cookies veganized!

You know this cookie right? I ate them a lot growing up though it was always other people that made them, not me. I found the recipe in my 1967 Pillsbury's Bakeoff Cookie book. Veganizing them was no problem.

Use this to replace the egg. Use soymilk for the soymilk. Use vegan shortening (which I believe most are, including Crisco).

Instead of Hershey kisses, you can use these for the chocolate centers...

These are great too, just use two per cookie. These are less dark than the Chocolove.

Not bad eh?

They were delicious!