Shabbat Cooking!

Shavua tov! Hope everyone out there had a good weekend! It's been a while since I've shared a post like this and I hope to get to posting more often. As I may or may not have mentioned, I live in an area where there are many singles and we often do communal meals. This Friday night I ate with some friends, old and new at a couple across town and when I told them I was a vegan, they suggested I bring something that I'd be able to eat. Right away, inspiration struck and I decided to try out Somer's Early Retirement Quiche made with broccoli from Kittee's blog, which can be found here. I loved this recipe! Because I chose to just add chopped frozen broccoli, it gave this dish the flavor and texture of broccoli kugel, something I dearly miss from my pre-vegan days. I would omit the smoked paprika next time as it throws off the flavor a bit. I also left out the crust, but I tell ya, this recipe is a keeper!

For lunch, I was hosted by a lovely family that lives nearby. They didn't ask me to bring anything with but I figured I'd make some sort of dessert. When I go away, dessert is usually not vegan so I decided to rectify the situation and make something that I could eat. I had just made a batch of chickpeas so I decided to use those and found this recipe on Pinterest. Holy cow, is it good! I couldn't photograph it because it was eaten on Shabbat but my my, I am now a believer is beany baked goods! Except for the crust, no one could tell that there were chickpeas in here, I certainly wouldnt have guessed. But the texture was there and so was the delicious peanut butter and chocolate flavor. These are also gluten free and honestly, pretty good for you-- totally guilt free!

Coconut No Bake Cookies

So, it's erev another Jewish holiday, Shavuot. My whole facebook has gone and filled itself up with very decadent looking cheesecakes. Vegan, you ask? Not a chance. While I did find some pretty great looking vegan cheesecakes, I really haven't been in the mood to fiddle around too much. So when I saw this recipe for Coconut No Bake Cookies by Minimalist Baker on my Instagram, I was there. Easy peasy, chocolate, peanut butter, coconut and oats. Nothing could be bad. And in fact, they are delicious. I usually don't eat sugar and desserts even of the relatively unprocessed, raw kind, but I figured that it's the holidays and why the heck not. YOLO, right? You can find the recipe here.

Meal Plan: April 19th- April 23rd- Curried Peanut Sauce Bowl with Tofu

This week's recipe comes from the Bowls chapter of Isa Does It. To me, bowls are consummate comfort food but are still a little bit intimidating to me because they have a bunch of components that have to be made. I am not the person who likes to make a million things for one meal. I chose to begin my foray into this chapter with the Curried Peanut Sauce Bowl. And oh me oh my what a good pick that was. I love me some tofu and I love me some rice but put this curried peanut sauce over the top and I am right in heaven. I could eat this sauce with a spoon and if I didn't need it for the rest of the week, that's exactly what I'd do! I gotta figure out what else I can smother this stuff on. Isa, you done good!         So this week, I didn't spend any money at the grocery store. I've been eating leftovers of the tamale shepherd's pie for lunch and I pretty much bought everything I needed for this in previous trips. (I've been trying to be thriftier than usual because I just booked a ticket to fly to the states in August and I gotta save every shekel! As it is, this month is stacking up to be pretty expensive!)                                                                               The original recipe called for kale but I stopped by my local vegetable store on the way home on the day I made this and they were all out so no kale here. It definitely could use some color but maybe I'll add that the next time I make this. I used a natural peanut butter to make this (no JIF or Skippy here!) and I dry fried the tofu and the garlic and ginger for the sauce-n o damage done to either. I also found that two tbsp of tamari wasn't enough for me. I think I may have added an extra tbsp and a half or so to get that perfectly umami flavor.