Leafy Greens Chips

I’ve been getting a lot of lovely beets, turnips, and kohlrabi from my CSA. In the spirit of reducing food waste I’ve been eating the greens as well as the root vegetables. But one can only saute greens so many times before getting bored and looking for (leafy) greener pastures. So when I came across this leafy greens chips recipe and had a bunch of beet greens on hand, I decided to try it out.

https://www.thepaleomom.com/beet-and-kohlrabi-greens-chips/

I used beet greens the first time I made this. I appreciated the tip of cutting around the tough center stem of the greens while making the chips because when I have made kale chips before I didn’t like the texture of the stem and ended up nibbling the leaf around it. These were a good salty, crunchy snack. I haven’t ever purchased kale chips from the store, so I’m not sure how they compare.

I’ve also had a lot of radish greens, but I didn’t try making chips with them because I thought the pieces would be too small.

Asparagus and Dill Soup

I had an abundance of asparagus and dill from the CSA. We’ve had asparagus the last several weeks so I wanted to try something besides my go-to of sauteing or roasting it. To the internet I went! It seems like a lot of other people end up having asparagus and dill at the same time because I found several soup recipes and decided to try this one.

https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/white-bean-asparagus-dill-soup/

For the vegetable broth I used my homemade vegetable broth from vegetable scraps. (When I was preparing the dill I also saved the stems of the dill to put into my vegetable scraps bag I keep in the freezer.)

In the beginning when it wanted onion I had spring onions and celery on hand, so I used that. Instead of canned white beans I used dried red lentils and increased the simmer time to about 15 minutes so they’d have time to cook. I added fennel seed as spices.

For the rest of the fresh dill: I saved a little bit to use in some quick pickled radishes I was going to make later. For the rest I dried it in the oven using this method.

The soup was good and the flavors melded nicely. I didn’t blend any of it, but since red lentils become a little creamy when cooked the soup texture was a little creamy. It was filling enough to be an entree for me, but a smaller portion would also work well as a side dish.

 

Vegetable Broth

As one cooks more from whole food ingredients the vegetable trimmings pile up. The vegetable broth recipes where you put in perfectly good vegetables and then throw them out later have seemed wasteful to me, so making broth out of the onion skins and peels of the vegetables seemed like a fun experiment to try. And you’re not really supposed to put onion or garlic skins in the vermicomposting, so this is a way I could get some more use out of them.

https://www.garlicandzest.com/scraps-vegetable-broth/

Here is a tutorial for how to make vegetable broth from scraps. The particular vegetables and spices used is flexible.

Some places recommend not to add brassica veggies like (cabbage or broccoli) because it can tend to make the the broth bitter. And be warned that if you put any red beets in there it will turn your broth red. I usually just toss whatever veggies in there and it’s ended up okay. The stems of fresh herbs are also nice to use. Depending on what I have on hand I’ll add some whole spices, black peppercorns at the very least. I don’t add salt to the broth as I am making it, I usually wait to add it until I am cooking whatever recipe the broth ends up being in.

I keep a large ziplock plastic bag in my freezer and toss in the vegetable scraps as they are accumulated. When either the plastic bag is full or I’ve run out of broth I’ll make another batch on the weekend. I often make it while I am cooking something else because all you need to do is keep half an eye on a simmering pot for half an hour.

After I’ve let the broth cool and strained out the solids, I cool the broth completely. Then for easy access later I measure out 1 cup (or whatever quantity unit you’d like) portions into old plastic containers (like what yogurt or hummus had come in) and also fill an ice cube tray. I put the lids on the containers and stack them in the freezer until frozen solidly. Then I set them out on the counter for a bit until they’ve melted just the slightest bit until I can slide them out of the container and put into another large ziplock bag. (If you are too impatient to get them out this can cause the still-frozen plastic containers to crack, which is why I use resused containers. Hey, at least I get a few extra uses out of them before they go in the recycling bin.) That way when I have a recipe that calls for a cup or two of vegetable broth I can easily get out that amount from the freezer. And I also have the ice cube amount for when I just need a dash of broth.

You can match the flavor of your broth to your taste. It is infinitely cheaper (you’re making out of what would have otherwise been garbage) than storebought packaged broth or bullion cubes. It also doesn’t have any added salt if you don’t want and no preservatives (aside from the freezer).

Hummus and Veggie Pizza

I like the recipes on the Budget Bytes website because they are delicious but simple and quick to make. The recipes also give the cost breakdown, and I like how if you change the servings it’ll scale the quantities of ingredients for you. I also like recipes that give you estimates of prep time and cook time. Even if I don’t end up clocking in at exactly that time, it lets me know at a glance whether this is a dinner I can quickly throw together when I get home or if it’s an all day affair that needs constant tending.

While browsing the vegetarian section of the site I came across a vegan pizza that uses hummus instead of sauce and cheese. I hadn’t seen that before, but I was game to try it and it’s become an oft-repeating favorite at my house. And the leftover pizza is also great.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/hummus-grilled-vegetable-pizza/

I forgot to take a picture before I started eating…

On the pizza pictured above I used a store-bought cauliflower crust, homemade hummus, kale, bell pepper, onion, some leftover stir fried broccoli, pickles. I don’t precook the vegetables before putting them on the pizza because 1) I’m lazy and hungry and that takes too much time I want PIZZA NOW, and 2) If I cut them small enough or use leftover vegetables they crisp up enough when I cook the assembled pizza.

I sometimes make this with a homemade crust and sometimes I use a pre-made crust. For this recipe I would follow the cooking directions from the crust recipe or box. You are mostly just warming up the hummus and vegetables, so cooking the crust is the crucial component.

Chickpea Sandwich Spread

As we were trying to lessen our meat consumption my partner and I explored different meat-free sandwiches. My partner’s go-to work lunch was a deli meat sandwich. We tried the commercially available vegetarian deli slices but they were pretty expensive and we didn’t really like them that much. I’d heard of people making chickpea salad and using it in the same way as egg salad or chicken salad.

So I looked up a recipe. My partner doesn’t really like mayo (vegan or non-vegan) so I was on the hunt for a mayo-free recipe and landed on this one.

https://simple-veganista.com/chickpea-salad/

Although it looks pretty for the picture, it’s easier to mash the chickpeas before you add all the vegetables. Do as I say not as I do, kids.

You can use canned or homemade chickpeas (learn how here). I like how the recipe is flexible, aside from the chickpeas and the hummus/tahini/mayo you use to bind everything together you can just throw in whatever vegetables and spices you want. It varies depending on what I have on hand, but here is what I often use when making this:

• stone ground mustard
• dill pickle relish
• grated carrot
• chopped cabbage
• grated radish
• green onion
• garlic powder (fresh garlic is a bit too pungent for my taste in this since it isn’t cooked)
• liquid smoke
• dill, thyme, oregano, or basil
• salt and pepper
• paprika
• tumeric
• cumin

Let your imagination run wild! You can do anything you want. This your world, you’re the creator. Find freedom [in this bowl]

Walnut Taco Meat

I’d eaten a collard burrito wrap at a restaurant that used walnuts for the taco meat and enjoyed it so I looked for a similar recipe online to make at home.

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-recipe/walnut-taco-meat/

 

The first time I made this recipe I didn’t have a food processor, so I finely chopped the walnuts with a knife then mixed them together with the spices in a bowl. Recently, I got a food processor and used it to make this recipe. It goes way faster and the texture is more uniform and ground-meat-like. The food processor I got is a $40 Cusisinart that holds about 4 cups. I’m really happy with it so far.

 

I’ve used the walnut taco meat on tacos, collard burrito wraps, nachos, and on pizza. The texture is similar to ground meat and it has a savory taste. So far I’ve mostly stuck to the spices given in the recipe (except I don’t really have chili power so I used paprika and a little bit of red pepper flakes). In the future I may try mixing up the spices to give it more of an Italian taste or make it for topping chili.

Buying a lot of walnuts can get pricey, but it is still much less expensive than packaged vegan ground meat substitutes. I also like how this recipe has a short, simple ingredient list.

Tempeh Reuben

My partner likes Reuben sandwiches, so when we had a tempeh reuben at a restaurant and enjoyed it we wanted to make one at home. Here is the recipe I used.

https://www.mydarlingvegan.com/vegan-tempeh-reuben/

I didn’t have/want to make Russian dressing so I used some bottled vegan thousand island dressing that I had. I also did not have any vegan worcestershire sauce, so I substituted a dash of soy sauce to add to the savory complexity of the recipe.

Having to marinate the tempeh for at least 30 minutes can make it a bit tricky for when you want to have a fast dinner. But I have started marinating the tempeh in the morning before work and used the tempeh at dinnertime and it’s been fine, the flavors don’t get too strong or anything.

I usually use thousand island dressing, sauerkraut, pickles, vegan cheese slices (whatever kind I happen to have), and  some nice rye or sourdough bread for this sandwich. The step of cooking the assembled sandwich in the pan like you would a grilled cheese is highly recommended. It toasts the bread and blend the flavors. The sandwich wasn’t as good when I skipped that step.

Liquid smoke isn’t an ingredient I had used before exploring vegetarian recipes, but I like it a lot. I found it at the grocery store in the condiment section near the BBQ sauces and not the spices section like I would have expected. When buying liquid smoke look at the ingredients to make sure it’s just condensed smoke. Some of the cheaper ones had caramel coloring and flavor added.

Pumpkin Bars

I love pumpkin bars so much I want to marry them. But I’ve never made them at home and I had some extra canned pumpkin from making a pumpkin spice latte so I decided to try my hand at it.

https://servingrealness.com/easy-vegan-pumpkin-bars-cream-cheese-frosting/

I normally only skim the pre-recipe story on cooking blogs or even skip right over it, but I really enjoyed Nick’s banter on this one.

I made a half batch of these, because as much as I adore pumpkin bars my family does not share the sentiment so I didn’t want to eat an entire batch by myself. I only had whole wheat flour on hand so I used only that instead of mixing white and wheat like the recipe wanted, which may have been why the pumpkin bars turned out a little dense but they were fine. I still did not have pumpkin pie spice blend so I used a mix of: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon, and allspice. For the vegan cream cheese I used plain Miyoko’s cream cheese which does cost a bit more than other brands but is made of mostly just cultured cashews so is well worth it in my opinion (unless you’re allergic to it).

Compared to these, store-bought pumpkin bars (I got some for *ahem* “research”) taste artificially sweet and are almost too soft.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Pumpkin spice season is upon us and I was getting that craving. I usually drink nondairy milk so with the upcharge for that a PSL at Starbucks would be in the 5 to 6 dollar drink category. Ouch. I wanted to try out making my own at home.

https://veganhuggs.com/vegan-pumpkin-spice-latte/

I don’t have pumpkin pie spice blend so I used the spices suggested in the note and added a bit of cardamom. I also don’t have a way to make espresso at home so I just used some strong decaf coffee. I also didn’t put the drink in the blender (so many caveats, did I even follow this recipe?) and instead whisked it a bit and that got a few bubbles on top – but I don’t like a lot of foam on my milk and espresso drinks. I also only used half the amount of vanilla extract (because I’m stingy) and maple syrup (because I don’t want it to be too sweet).

I put the leftover pumpkin spice milk in a jar in the fridge and used it later for a bonus iced pumpkin spice latte.

The drink was nicely spice forward, though I tend to be kind of heavy handed with the spices and I did decrease the amount of sweetener. I got a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks later on (for research purposes) and in comparison that PSL was almost cloyingly sweet and had a much fainter pumpkin spice profile.

Mug Cake

I like mug cakes because I can quickly satisfy a sweet tooth with a single serving item instead of making an entire batch of something sweet.

I had used packaged mug cakes before but I hadn’t make one before. When searching the internet I found this peanut butter cake mug recipe:

https://www.kitchentreaty.com/easy-vegan-peanut-butter-mug-cake/

I had all the ingredients on hand. (Which was another reason I picked that recipe, a lot of other quick vegan dessert recipes used dates or other ingredients I didn’t have.) I added a little bit of cocoa powder and cinnamon. It was a nice treat that hit the spot.