Buddha Bowls

Buddha bowls are by far my favorite meals. You may not have heard the term "Buddha bowl," but I'm sure you know the concept: it's an entire meal in a rice-based bowl. I have a ton of different ways to make these bowls, but the basic ingredients are the same: brown rice, roasted veggies, roasted protein (I usually use tofu, but chickpeas, tempeh, or beans would work as well), and a well-crafted sauce (my favorite is a homemade spicy peanut butter sauce, but I also like goddess dressing - this is my favorite brand - or a teriyaki-based sauce). Let's jump into the recipe to make your own Buddha bowl.

Seitan Stir-Fry

My favorite vegan restaurant, Blackbird Pizzeria in Philly, makes their own take-home seitan now! I was so excited to get a package of the rosemary garlic one, and I made an easy and delicious stir fry with it. You can put it on a roll, eat it over rice, or just eat it by itself. This recipe is about two servings.

Sweet and Spicy Mushroom Dumplings

Can we talk about the magic that are dumplings? They are like little savory pillows of happiness. I think a lot of people get intimidated when thinking about making dumplings or mandu (Korean-style dumplings), but once you get an assembly line going, you'll be ready. Not to mention, there are great dumpling wrappers that you can buy to cut down on making your own. This recipe makes about 45 dumplings and is adapted from The Woks of Life (love that blog name!). I split the 45 dumplings into steamed and fried, and I'll show you how to make both.

Thanksgiving Quiche

Need something to do with those Thanksgiving leftovers other than sandwiches or Thanksgiving pizza? Grab some of those veggies, potatoes, and stuffing to make a delicious and filling Thanksgiving quiche. This recipe makes one quiche.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
One (1) 9" frozen pie crust -- you can also use homemade pie crust, especially if you have some left over from the holiday.
Four (4) large eggs, scrambled
One & a half (1 1/2) cups of chopped veggies -- I used mushroom, potato slices, onion, and green beans. I'm thinking corn, peas, or any other veggies you might have left over would be a great addition.
One (1) cup of cheese , shredded-- I used sharp cheddar cheese. You can use as many types of cheese as you'd like.
1/2 cup of stuffing
Small handful of Craisins
Two (2) cloves of minced garlic
One (1) tablespoon of butter
Salt & pepper to season 

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425F degrees.
Saute your veggies in butter and garlic until mostly soft.

Place these veggies at the bottom of the pie crust and cover with cheese.
Pour scrambled eggs on top of veggies, until it almost reaches the top of the pie crust, but not quite.

Cover eggs with stuffing and top with Craisins.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until completely cooked through (this may vary based on oven).

Remove from oven and enjoy while it is still warm.

Homemade Green Bean Casserole

If you don't like green bean casserole, but have only tried the Campbell's soup version, I highly urge you to try this recipe before you completely nix the idea. This fresh twist on an old classic is a great addition to your Thanksgiving table. This recipe makes about eight servings and is based off of a recipe over at The Novice Chef.

Guest Post: An Omnivore’s Quest for the Best Vegetarian “Meatball” - Part II

Welcome back, Chris! I look forward to one of your Friday Night Meatball get-togethers because these sound amazing.
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You may recall back in September I wrote a guest post for this blog in which I compared three vegetarian meatball recipes, in the hope that one of them would be my go-to recipe for vegetarian friends at our version of Friday Night Meatballs. You may also recall that none of the three recipes completely captured my endorsement.I’m back now after more time in my secret subterranean meatball laboratory*, and I’m happy to report that I have a recipe for vege-meatballs that I can proudly serve my guests. The recipe is a modification of Whole Foods’ Spaghetti and Vegan Meatballs recipe. This recipe won my competition but had some flaws that I couldn’t tolerate. 

With a scale of 1 (hideous) to 5 (excellent), the original recipe scored as follows: 

Preparation 4.5, Flavor 3.5, Texture 4, Sturdiness 3, Versatility 5. 

This gave it an overall score of 4.0, and a clear win over the other two recipes.  My modifications needed to focus on flavor and sturdiness, hopefully without compromising the other characteristics too much.  Sturdiness, in particular, was a big problem – the Whole Foods meatballs could not be trusted not to turn to mush in my marinara.

The original recipe has a body of black beans, brown rice, cremini mushrooms, sunflower seeds and spinach.  It adds garlic, onions, basil and oregano for flavor.

Guest Post: An Omnivore’s Quest for the Best Vegetarian “Meatball”

Please welcome my friend & amazing home (& Instagram) chef, Chris. He decided to do the dirty work for us in finding the best veg meatball in all of the land. Welcome, Chris!

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I love meatballs.

I love vegetables too, and eat lots of them, but I’m a pretty committed omnivore. And I reserve a special place in hell for the commercial vegetarian burgers and meatballs that attempt to duplicate the taste of meat – usually with a list of unpronounceable chemicals. Why bother, when vegetables taste so great? Now if a veggie meatball can taste great without loading up on artificial flavorings, and come close to the texture and, well, meatballness of a real meatball, then we’re talking.

A friend alerted me to a wonderful blog post by Sarah Grey on the Serious Eats website. The post, Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life With Pasta describes her 9-month experiment with “Friday Night Meatballs” in which her family extends an open invitation to friends, relatives, social media contacts, and whoever to come by every Friday night for a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. It is a simple yet powerful idea; have company for a sit-down meal once a week, where those from all areas of your life meet and break bread, and take a regular break from your busy life and social isolation.

To keep it simple week after week, you need to serve something that (a) is easy to prepare in large quantity ahead of time, (b) you can specialize in and do well, and (c) almost everyone likes. Meatballs with pasta fits these requirements very nicely.

So my wife and I, with the cooperation and help from a few good friends, decided we wanted to try this. I’m hoping it changes our lives, just a bit.

This leaves a small but important dilemma. While I cook meatballs very well, a significant fraction of my friends are vegetarian, lactose-intolerant, and/or celiac. And both of my recipes feature copious amounts of meat, cheese and bread.

My turkey/spinach meatballs.
Needed an ironic photo for a vegetarian blog.

Hence, my search for the ultimate vegetarian meatball recipe.

Sauteed Mushroom, Pistachio & Feta Salad

I'm sure y'all remember that Simpsons episode in which Lisa becomes a vegetarian. The rest of the family berates her with a chant of, You don't win friends with salad!

I am here to tell you that, actually, you can win friends with salad, if that salad is full of hearty mushrooms, creamy cheese, and a spicy Indigo Frisee mix. So, drop on by your local farmers market & start making friends.

Spinach, Mushroom & Cheese Crepes

I can't believe that I have been writing this blog for a year-and-a-half and have never blogged about crepes. First off, I LOVE CREPES. Like, I probably have an unnatural obsession with them. There was a time when I first moved into my own apartment that I ate Nutella crepes every morning. Coincidentally, I gained a lot of weight then, too. But that brings me to my second point: I've been making crepes long before I really knew how to cook much else. I guess it's because it's a pretty easy recipe and most (if not all) of the ingredients are things that people just happen to have in their cupboard at any given time. It's important to note that I am not a "fancy" crepe maker. I don't own a griddle or one of those crepe-smoother-outter things (which are apparently called 'batter trowels'), but don't worry -- they will turn out tasty with or without the extra equipment. This recipe makes one thicker crepe (which is what I made for myself) or two thin crepes.

Spinach, Scapes & 'Shroom Pizza on a Cauliflower Crust

The past two weeks I've received the following items in my CSA share: zucchini, cucumbers, spinach, arugula, garlic scapes, cauliflower, and radishes. I feel like I've been making pizza a lot lately, but they are a great way to showcase all of the new produce I've been getting! This pizza incorporates three of this week's items, pretty well, if I do say so myself. The pizza's base is a cauliflower crust (the first time I blogged about it was for a Kale & Pistachio Pizza). I hope you enjoy! This recipe makes a pizza the size of a 9" x 13" pan.

Garlic Scapes, Shiitake Mushroom & Goat Cheese Pizza

I have so many exciting things to share with you! First & foremost, I am now a shiitake mushroom farmer. My partner & I bought a mushroom-growing kit and last week, we harvested our first batch (about thirty mushrooms!). Keep an eye out because I am going to dedicate an entire post to this exciting venture. Second, my CSA with One Straw Farm began last weekend! Each Saturday, we meet them at one of the farmers' markets and pick our four produce items for the week. Not only that, but we have resolved to make a new recipe each week with something that we picked up. This week, we got strawberries, broccoli, radishes, and garlic scapes. In case you weren't already aware, GARLIC SCAPES ARE MAGIC. The pizza below incorporates the incredible garlic scape and our homemade mushrooms. I can't take any credit for this recipe; my partner whipped up this entire pizza. Trust me -- if you can get your hands on some scapes, be sure to make this!

Chik'n & Mushroom Arugula Salad

This salad was a spur-of-the-moment, let's-clean-out-the-fridge salad. Sometimes that can go poorly, but this time it went wonderfully. The flavors worked really well together and we didn't waste any produce. This recipe makes two servings. Enjoy!

Portobello Sliders

Inspired by a recipe on The Curvy Carrot's website (what an awesome blog name, by the way), I made these delicious and filling portobello sliders for dinner. My recipe is slightly different from hers, since I had different ingredients on hand. My recipe makes four sliders (and feeds about two people). Enjoy!

Portobello & Veggie Fajitas

Veggie fajitas are awesome because they're really filling and fairly low-calorie. Not to mention that they're super-easy to cook, as long as you have a skillet of some sort on hand. This is a highly customizable meal, so throw in any types of veggies, top with any type of sauce, and season as mild or spicy as you'd like. This recipe makes two generous servings.

Guest Post: Veggie Quesadilla with Baja Sauce

Here's another guest post, this time from the wonderful Ben! There is more information about Ben at the end of this post. Thanks so much for sending this recipe in, Ben. I hope you all enjoy!
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Quesadillas are my comfort food. I love that there are so many possibilities and you can cater to a wide variety of cravings. Having the quesadilla in my corner is very comforting since I can often use extra ingredients from previous recipes. Using as much of the vegetables in the refrigerator's crisper before it spoils for as many meals as possible is both exciting and frugal. So once a week, I can usually clean out my crisper and have a delicious meal in the process.

For this week, I had several bell peppers, an onion, a handful of mushrooms, and some cheese, all of it leftover from a pizza I made. I also had some leftover corn and rice from a meal the other day so I reheated that for a side. The ingredients below made two large quesadillas. 

Guest Post: Kale, Mushroom & Sage Risotto

Hey all, here is the first post from a guest blogger. Everyone welcome MV Banks! If you're interested in learning more about her, see her bio at the end of the post.
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When I went gluten-free by doctor’s orders about a year ago, risotto was there for me when all other tasty carbs abandoned me.  Risotto is a time-intensive, but worthwhile dish, that has no gluten whatsoever, but still allows me that familiar Italian style that I find myself craving without pizza and pasta in my life. I love it because it allows me an excuse to hover over a warm stove when I refuse to turn the heat up in my apartment.  I love it because I can throw questionably turning vegetables in and no one is the wiser.  

I’ve had some kale from the market in my fridge for a while now that was becoming a little undesirable. I figured I’d sautée what was salvageable and throw it into a risotto of some sort.  Due to the regularity with which I make risotto, I can’t say I took this from any particular recipe.  At this point, I essentially have the necessary ratios memorized and throw in whatever suits my fancy on that particular day. Today, my fancy included kale, mushrooms and sage.

Miso Soup with Udon Noodles

This is a brothy, vegan soup to keep you warm and full in the colder months. This recipe creates six to seven cups of soup. Here's the recipe's original source.

Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto

Risotto is probably one of my favorite carbs. This is probably one of my favorite dishes.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients
One (1) box of risotto -- I use Lundberg's Alfredo risotto.
1/2 bundle of asparagus
One (1) carton of button mushrooms
Two (2) tablespoons of butter -- I used vegan butter
Two (2) cloves of minced garlic

Directions
Cook risotto according to the box.

While risotto is cooking, wash and chop veggies. -- I left the button mushrooms whole, but if you are using larger mushrooms, you may want to chop them so they cook all the way through quickly.
When your risotto only has about five minutes left to cook, heat butter and garlic in a pan.

Place vegetables in the pan and saute for a few minutes. -- You'll know when they're done when the asparagus is a bright green color.
Spoon risotto onto plate and cover in veggies.
Eat ravenously.