Chinese "Chicken" Salad.

Made with romaine, red/yellow bell pepper, celery, carrots, red onion, cilantro, chow mein noodles and Gardein chipotle lime crispy fingers!

Tossed with creamy sesame dressing.

Gardein Mandarin Orange Chick'n

I've had gardein meatless products before so I was sure this was going to be good. I found it in my grocer's freezer and all you have to do is saute it frozen straight out of the bag until it gets browned and there's a sauce pouch that you defrost in hot water and goes into the pan at the end. Took about 8 minutes to do, just like it says on the bag!


Here we are on top of steamed rice with a side of broccoli and a healthy squirt of Sriracha. It was very tasty. The sauce was pleasant and not too sweet and the texture of the fake meat was nice and chewy, not quite like real chicken but close enough for me. Yum. I don't eat fake meats often so this was a treat.

Walnut "Chicken" Salad

Sandwich adapted from the tempeh-walnut "chicken" salad from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I changed it up a bit depending on what ingredients I had today. Instead of tempeh, I used chicken-less strips (like Trader Joe's brand or Gardein) and chopped them up into bits before adding things like Vegenaise, celery, walnuts, dijon, lemon juice etc. I left out the red bell pepper because I didn't have any and used extra celery instead. It was very tasty on soft white bread. I think I may make this for my next tea party.

More cooking with Gimme Lean "Sausage".

After being impressed with this meat alternative with last night's pancakes, I decided to use it in the spaghetti sauce I was making for dinner tonight. I really liked the texture. It's nice and firm with great sausage like flavor. It added a good body to the sauce and made it quite flavorful along with mushrooms and red wine. If you are interested in buying this meatless sausage, you can find it at most chain grocery stores in the same refrigerated case where they keep the tofu and other vegetarian products. I bought mine at Vons supermarket.


I sprinkled a little 'Parmezano Sprinkles' (almond/miso/nutritional yeast mixture) on top.


'Sausage' Mushroom and Red Wine Spaghetti Sauce

2 TB olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
8-10 button mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tube of Gimme Lean Sausage Style, crumbled
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 tsp oregano
1 veggie bouillon cube or 2 tsp. veggie broth powder
1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes (or whole peeled tomatoes, blended in blender)
1/2 tsp salt
freshly cracked black pepper to taste
1 tsp sugar

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add onion, carrot, celery and mushrooms and saute until onion is translucent. Add the sausage crumbles and cook on med-high heat until nice and browned. Add the wine, oregano and veggie cube. Stir until wine cooks out. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper and sugar. Bring to a boil then turn heat down to low and simmer for 1 hour. If it seems too thick you can add a little water and let it simmer longer. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Asian Food Night.

So this is what made for dinner last night from some of the stuff I bought yesterday. (Speaking of which I didn't show you all my purchases - I found two cans of coconut juice under the seat in my car!) Anyway on to the food...


I made this simple vegetable stir fry with broccoli, baby bok choy, onions and that mushroom oyster flavored sauce.


Sweet and sour pineapple tofu. I tossed them in cornstarch first before I fried them in oil. This makes them nice and crisp on the outside. Then they get covered in this pineapple sauce recipe here.


Here is the mock chicken from a can experiment. I stir fried it with broccoli and onions in oil and used a black bean garlic sauce. To be honest, this didn't go over very well for me. It had a weird aftertaste that I can only attribute to it being in a can. If you're going to cook with gluten/seitan (aka 'mock meat'), make it yourself. I recommend Julie Hasson's fool proof recipe. It says 'Spicy Italian' but you can easily change up the spices for a different tasting mock meat. And they're in sausage shape but once you slice it up, you can use it for anything!

Veg friendly finds at the asian grocery.

I took grandma to a doctor's appointment today and after I dropped her off home in Torrance I swung by the 99 Ranch Market around the corner from her house. I love going to asian markets. Whenever my mom goes, I always tag along. So many interesting things to look at and buy. I only had 20 bucks on me so I couldn't go crazy but I think I did pretty well for the amount of money I had. Here's my haul.

In the front: broccoli, red bean cakes, soybeef jerky, chinese hot mustard, two kinds of tofu, firm and extra firm. In the back: baby bok choy, cans of mock meat, almond cookies, vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce and potato fries.

I know I should be buying more produce than packaged products but these things are what lures me into these stores! You'll see what I mean as you scroll down.


These are so yummy. They are a tender flaky pastry filled with a generous amount of dense red bean paste sweetened with sugar. So good. I just had one at lunch. *smacks lips*


Soy beef jerky! I got this honkin' package for $2.89. What a deal! I tasted one. They are very chewy and more sweet than salty. Not bad at all.


Ingredients for the jerky. Gotta check labels. Just because it says 'vegetarian' doesn't always mean it's vegan. So after a quick perusal of the ingredients, I found no dairy or eggs in them so into my shopping cart it went. Hey and look! Free flossing pick included!


Mock Chicken and Mock Popk!!! (I'm sure they mean Pork!) I have to admit, I bought these for the novelty. I usually make my own mock meat so I don't necessarily need to buy stuff like this. But I couldn't help buying them just because. I'll probably use them in a stir fry with some kind of sauce.


Ingredients are pretty much the same for the mock chicken as well as the mock pork. By the way, these canned mock meats are pretty high in fat because oil is added to them.


Mushroom stir fry sauce. Really good stuff. I like to use this in veggie stir frys. I didn't take a pic of the ingredients but in case you're wondering they are: Mushroom extract, salt, sugar, modified starch, caramel color, hydrolysed vegetable protein and sodium benzoate.


Thousand layer cookies?? Don't know about that. But I do know that I love anything with almonds in them.


Ingredients for almond cookies. I bought these because they were practically the only cookie on the shelf without butter, eggs and milk. I think asian food companies like to put 'milk powder' in everything!

So that was my asian grocery adventure. I would love to have gotten more items like the vegetarian ham tube (which was $16!!), more bean cakes and other exotic items. I plan to use the tofu, broccoli, bok choy and the stir fry sauce for tonight's dinner. Will try to photograph it and post it in tomorrow's blog entry.