cooking in the vegan kitchen

Experimenting With New Recipes

I love to cook and experiment with new recipes and one of the joys of being vegan is changing things up while cooking.  For example, say a recipe has asparagus in it and maybe you have yet to become a fan of asparagus – so add something in its place, sliced zucchini, green beans, red pepper…the choices are endless!  Experiment and have fun while cooking.  I love when J tells me a meal is “two thumbs up” and I have no idea or memory of what all exactly I added in it lol!    Don’t be intimidated by ingredient you don’t know either.  That’s what the Internet is for, Google for an image to see what you’re shopping for and then ask a store clerk if you are unable to find.  There may even be a substitute for that ingredient you do have in your kitchen, use that instead.  Please, don’t be afraid of the recipe or your kitchen. Think of a recipe as a starting place and who knows where it may end.

 

Tools of a Vegan Kitchen

This is another exciting part for me – lots of cool kitchen gadgets and appliances!!  I have for years been using the little old cheap blender that I think I may have received as a wedding gift almost 19 years ago.  My dream was a Vitamix blender…the blenders of all blenders.  I have read many blogs telling amazing tales of their great feats.  Mixing nuts into cheese sauces, incredible smooth hummus and smoothies to dies for!!  Yes, please sign me up!! Now these baby’s don’t come cheap normally $340-$1000 but I knew that I didn’t need a restaurant top of the line one, so I did my research and found that Bed Bath & Beyond had a model in my price range along with being able to use a 20% off coupon!  They also will take it back if I didn’t like it – yea, that didn’t happen.  Out of the box this thing was a beauty!  My first green smoothie took seconds and was the creamiest smoothie I have ever had!! I was in appliance love.

I do not own one of these yet, but it is on my “need” list – tofu press.  I use lots of tofu and have heard great things about having a press.  Right now I wrap my tofu in a clean towel and place something heavy on top of it (that normally falls off and scares the crap out of me) to remove the liquid.  A tofu press I think over all would be better for my blood pressure as it would not only remove the liquid but the “scare the crap out of me” factor.

A great food processor is also a must for the vegan kitchen.  It will save you so much time and clean up! The other pro is that they are really easy and quick to clean, so you don’t have that dilemma – to chop or to process?  Right now I have a very basic food processor; it does the job however I think this might be my next buy - Cuisinart Prep Plus. 

This really is not a gadget or appliance, but it is my new love in the kitchen – parchment paper.  Cooking in the oven on this stuff is amazing!  We have really cut out all oils from our diet and by using parchment paper I do not toss my veggies in oil or use spray oil on my baking sheets anymore.  So, no more olive or coconut oil.  The other night I made vegan spinach balls that were supposed to be fried in oil on stove top, instead I baked them right on the parchment paper and had the perfect non-meat vegan balls!!  Golden brown and perfect. I have started using this more and more and oil less and less.

This really should be my next kitchen buy – a label maker!  I only say this as I had taken frozen enchiladas out of the freezer the other day for a quick dinner last night.  I made some wonderful refried black beans with green chilies in them, opened up the enchiladas to heat up and to my surprise it was lasagna.  LOL!  Can’t say we have ever had lasagna and refried black beans for dinner, but hey it was still yum!

 Now get in there and start cooking up vegan!!

Tomorrow I will post my review of a new recipe I am cooking  up tonight: Sesame-Honey Tempeh & Quinoa Bowl, along with the start of my journey of becoming a runner!