One for you, one for me

The past few weeks have been flying by, but have been quite productive and beautiful weather-wise. I'm excited to say it's finally June and feeling like summer is just around the corner.
On the school front, I am also in my last week of this quarter - so that is quite a relief to have some "free" time coming up until the next quarter begins!

Onto the food - I have a fun recipe that we made this past week based on ingredients we had that needed to be used. We had an opened bag of Daiya in the fridge from Jason's mom when we were visiting, so I knew that could not go to waste. We had made pizzas not tooo long ago, but I wanted something more fun - thus I decided on Pizza Stuffed Peppers!

I took a picture of the inside as well...but let's just say sometimes the inside isn't always the most photogenic. Bulgur + cheese + toppings + tomato sauce = not the most beautiful. However, beauty is not everything - these peppers were delicious!

Pizza Stuffed Peppers: (Serves 2)

2 large bell peppers
1/2 cup bulgur
1 1/2 cup water
1 can of pizza sauce (I love Don Pepino!)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 zucchini, chopped
1 T oregano
1 t dried basil
1/3 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup pineapple, chopped (optional)
Vegan mozzarella cheese to top
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil water to cook the bulgur. When water is boiling, add bulgur and reduce heat to a simmer. Let cook until the water is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes.
Preheat a cooking pan over medium heat and use non-stick spray, water, or a bit of oil to heat in the pan. Add the onion and the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the zucchini and seasonings. Finally add the sun-dried tomatoes, pineapple, and bulgur to the pan. Add the pizza sauce and stir to make sure everything is incorporated and warm. Turn off the heat.
Chop the tops off of the peppers and de-seed them. Grab a baking dish (I used a loaf pan) and pour some pizza sauce on the bottom to line it. Place the peppers on top of the sauce.
Spoon the bulgur mixture into each pepper. Bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, take them out and top each pepper with cheese. Bake for another 10 minutes until peppers look softer and cheese is melted.

These are a great weeknight meal, but I think next time I might try them in the crock pot to have them ready when we get home.

Happy hump-day! :)

Things will never change if we remain the same

In hopes that Spring is coming, we've made a few salad-y type dinners recently that have made the days seem a bit warmer! We actually traveled to Florida last week - and while we enjoyed the 85 degree weather, it had snowed at our house in PA! I'm ready for spring and warm weather.

I love the idea of making home-made hummus  - however all of my past attempts did not meet my expectations. Perhaps I just love Sabra hummus and the creamy texture, that when I made it at home the texture never seemed quite the same. However, I read online that the "trick" to Sabra-like hummus is to de-skin each chickpea. To me, this seemed pretty easy at first. However, after skinning 2 cans of chickpeas (who knows how many hundred chickpeas that is!) - by the end I was hoping this would be worth the effort!

I made roasted red pepper hummus - adding the red peppers in at the end. This was well worth the effort and I could definitely tell a difference between skinned-chickpea hummus and just throwing the chickpeas in as is.

What goes better with hummus than Falafel and Tabbouleh! I used a boxed mix for the falafel by Fantastic Foods - which is my usual go-to for quick falafel.

I also decided to make the cauliflower tabbouleh from Oh She Glows. She calls this recipe her Detox Tabbouleh - but I loved that it used so much cauliflower instead of a grain since cauliflowers are delicious and on sale! :) I'm usually not a huge fan of raw cauliflower - I prefer it cooked, but it tasted really great in this recipe with the vinegars and cilantro.

Sabra-Like Hummus:
1 15 oz can chickpeas
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 Tablespoon water
3-4 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 Tablespoon tahini
1/4 t salt and pepper
6 oz roasted red pepper

Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Then peel each of the chickpeas "skin" off and discard. Add garlic clove to food processor and pulse until chopped. Add the chickpeas, water, lemon juice and pulse until broken up. Add tahini, salt and pepper, and roasted red peppers and let run until creamy.

This kept in the fridge for a week and was great on top of salads.

Another salad friendly dinner we had was the Caesar Salad with Eggplant Bacon from Appetite for Reduction. Of course, anything I make from this book I have no doubts it will be amazing.

I am not the biggest fan of eggplant, but the eggplant "bacon" on this salad was delicious even for non-eggplant lovers. The caesar dressing was a great vegan friendly-creamy alternative and pulled the salad together.

Vegan Caesar Chavez Dressing (From Appetite for Reduction):

2 Tablespoons of chopped shallot

2 Tablespoons of raw cashew pieces

1 Tablespoon of tahini

1 Tablespoon of miso

1/3 cup water

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/8 tsp salt

freshly ground pepper

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until creamy. 

The original recipe calls for capers - however we have a slight aversion to capers so we chose to leave these out and it was still delicious!

Las Vegan Pt 2

For part one of our trip March 2014 to Las Vegas - see here
To see the recap of our trip to Las Vegas June 2013 - see here

After we had Lakeside for dinner our first night, we had high expectations for the rest of the places we set out to try.

Wandering the streets and gambling a bit was a fun way to spend the day - and we actually did well this time money-wise! We're probably the cheapest gamblers you'll meet - I usually walk away when I lose $10...but this time we both were pretty lucky - and Jason did really great before I even got there! Must've been making up for previous trips... :)

All that wandering we stumbled upon an amazing vegan-friendly ice cream shop! This was called Ice Pan and was located upstairs in Harrah's.

Quite a cool concept - you choose what flavor you'd like your ice cream to be, choose your milk (of course, I chose soy), and choose your toppings. The employees were so fun and friendly and really knew what different vegan options I could do and made their own suggestions.

Ice cream action! He basically poured the flavor and milk mixture onto the frozen plate and then continuously moved and slapped the batter until it magically became ice cream! So magical...

End result - perfect delicious vegan ice cream. Mine on the left is peanut butter oreo ice cream and Jason's on the right is mint chocolate with oreo. They were really excited to add oreos to ours...so we couldn't say no. 

For dinner on our last night, we set out to Slice of Vegas Pizza located in Mandalay Bay.

So many fabulous vegan options! I didn't know where to start...

When a place has vegan wings...I usually always have to try them. Which is odd - I don't think I ever ate wings pre-vegetarian days...although I was only 11 so wings probably don't seem that delicious to a 10 year old. But I do love hot sauce - and anything with hot sauce now. These were awesome and I was excited for the vegan ranch sauce it came with as well!

My pizza - after debating doing a "Create your own" I chose the Vegan Faux Pie. This had Daiya cheese, red onions, zucchini, squash, roasted pepper, and eggplant. So delicious! And even better with the leftover hot sauce from the wings. :) Hot sauce = good on anything.

Honorable mention places: We went back to Ronald's Donuts again. Can't go to Vegas without a trip there..we also ate dinner one night at Mint Indian restaurant - that despite their "V" for vegan all over the menu..I wasn't anymore impressed than I am with places near us at home. 

Although who knows when we will be back to Vegas this time..we both had a blast and definitely preferred the 80 degree weather in March over the 112 in June!

We interrupt food for...the big 3-0

No, not my 30th birthday (I still have 5 years..thank you...)
but my parent's 30th anniversary.

I try not to get into too much personal stuff on the blog, sticking mostly to food and restaurants - however this warrants a post. I consider myself very fortunate to not only have parents together for 30 years, but to have them be two amazing parents that have stuck by me for my whole life and stuck by each other.

 

 

 

Having parents like mine truly make going home feel like "home" - and having them come up to visit us helps me know that they are only a quick drive away and continue to be a huge part of my life. Shopping trips with my mom are always a fun adventure and meeting up with my Dad for dinners mid-week is something I always look forward to. It's the simple things that remind me of my childhood and how much I looked up to them.

 

 

You both have made a wonderful family and we are all so lucky to have you as our parents!

I really look up to their marriage and getting through things together as a great incentive for my own marriage. Although they have 28 years of being together ahead of us, I know it was their parenting and seeing them together that has molded me into who I am today. So Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad and I hope you cherish the next 30+ years! :)

I love you both so much.

Las Vegan pt 1

So we went to Las Vegas back in June 2013 to celebrate my husband's 30th bday...we both had a fabulous time but left thinking we were glad to go, but would be okay if we never had the opportunity to go back since there are so many places we want to travel to! Don't get me wrong - Vegas is a fantastic city with plenty to do and see (and vegan friendly!), but I guess since we went when it was 112 degrees we mostly saw the inside of casinos since walking around would get quite exhausting in the heat.

Fast forward to last weekend - Jason had the opportunity to go to Vegas for a business conference - and I was more than excited to jump on board to accompany him mid-way through the week! He left on Sunday - I met him there Wednesday evening and we spent the rest of the week/weekend relaxing and enjoying the beautiful 85 degree Vegas..ahh much better!

It was really fun to be back so soon and feel familiar with the area and where we liked the previous time we had gone. We didn't feel like such newbies this time around!

Onto the food..since Vegas is SO vegan friendly, I was excited to try out some new places and revisit some of the places we went to during out first trip.

Steven Wynn - the owner of the Wynn and Encore and many other casinos in Vegas went vegan a few years ago and thus added a vegan menu to every restaurant in his hotels! Last time we tried Sinatra which was Italian based food and amazing, so this time we made a reservation for Lakeside (a seafood based restaurant) located in the Wynn casino.

Growing up I remember many a night eating creamy Campbell's New England clam chowder as a child. Although not the most gourmet meal, this meal reminds me of the comfort of home and I was excited to see it as a vegan option at Lakeside! However - due to my high dislike of mushrooms - I asked the server if it was too mushroomy for my taste - and he concluded that it was very mushroom-filled. I knew I would not feel the same comfort from the can that I remembered as a child, so unfortunately I did opt out of that. But for mushroom lovers - do try it! I've heard good things..

As Sinatra started with a bread basket and vegan butter, so did Lakeside. This is fabulous for vegans that usually feel left out of the typical bread & butter basket.

To start, we split the Truffle Arancini with roasted garlic aioli.

These were cute little balls of risotto goodness with a magical vegan garlic sauce. We definitely loved these! Great way to start the meal.

For my entree - I was back and forth between a few dishes - wanting a good mix of veggies with whatever protein. I ended up choosing the Walnut Crusted Gardein Chicken Breast (can they really call it this??) with red pepper coulis and balsamic sherry reduction - and ordered a side of their Grilled Green Asparagus to split with Jason - because I had a fear of not having enough vegetables (vegan problems...).

Somehow even their asparagus was out of this world amazing. No doubt about it - Wynn restaurants are 100% gourmet delicious Vegan food that both omnivores and vegans can enjoy in harmony. So zen..

And as much as Jason had to twist my arm to get dessert (I am a sweet tooth lady and never say no to vegan dessert...) we tried the vegan Carrot Cake option to end the meal with. It was a small piece that was perfect to split and end with - absolutely delicious!

                           



I have two other amazing "Las Vegan" reviews - but I shall save them for the next post to prevent it from being too filled up. But get excited for ice cream made in your face and vegan pizza! :)