Tofu Katsu and Cake

One of the meals I miss since being vegan, is the Japanese dish Kastsudon. I figured, why not try and make the cutlet part out of tofu? I froze the tofu and thawed it out to make it a bit chewier and then covered it in panko with the help of soy milk. The panko didn't stay on as well as I liked so I'll have to try a few more additions to make it work a bit better. I used a spicy curry with mushrooms for the sauce. I was very happy with how the meal came out and will definitely try it again soon!

I also mad a quick and simple pineapple upside down cake. Everyone seemed to get to it before I could take a picture however...

Adobo, Lumpia and soap!

When I was a kid, one of my friend's mom would always make wonderful Philipino food. Two of my favorites were adobo and lumpia. I wanted to try and veganize the meal and gave it my best shot today. The lumpia was actually really good. I used fake ground beef with sauteed onions for the filling and used the rooster sauce as, well, the sauce.

The adobo however, came out way to salty and will have to be worked on. I'm not sure if it was just the fake chikn or the amount of soy sauce used.

The picture isn't the best, but you get the idea.



I'm also working on making my holiday presents. Soap is by far my favorite to make and is one of the most relaxing things for me to do. I use an olive oil base, so there are no animal products in my soap. I have so far green tea soap, holiday wassel , chai tea, and lemon grass apricot. Hope you enjoy!

A little slow...

So I've been a little bit slow at getting back to my blog. I've cooked some meals, but haven't imported the images onto my computer yet. I have a lot of great new ideas and a couple extra things I want to look into, but to say the least, these last couple of weeks I've been either really busy or really lazy.

I PROMISE to get back going soon and into my normal habit of things. But for now, I thought I'd share so pictures from Nebraska with you all. Hope you enjoy! (Some of the pics need to be expanded before they look right lol. The sitting picture however is just low quality :( )





This is the river where my great uncle had his ashes spread. He grew up near this river and would play in it when he was a kid. It was a beautiful and moving ceremony.

This is my favorite picture out of all of them. My cousins foot and a curious prairie dog!

Flower by Devil's Tower.

Yay bison!

Sitting down!

My grandmother loved this tree so I took a shot for her. It is a twisted and mangled looking tree with lots of character. The trees surrounding this one were normal and straight. I like to think this tree has a story :)

Badlands.

Finally Back!

Hi everyone!

I finally am back. My trip to Nebraska was a lot of fun and I was able to get a lot of great photos and meet a lot of amazing people. As soon as I came back, I started to move into my new place. I'm really excited about the new place because of the size of the kitchen. This is a huge difference to me as I was working from a single hot plate before :) As soon as I get completely moved in, I'm going to be posting a ton of new dishes! Keep watching!

Finals are over...

So I've been a bit out of the blogging due to finals. With really no time to cook, I didn't have much to show you. However, I can happily say they're now over. I had my share of many sleepless nights and can now finally enjoy a small break.

I'm going to be going on a trip to Nebraska for about a week and a half. I'll be flying from California to Denver, CO and then driving to South Dakota and then to Nebraska. Hopefully, I will be able to take pictures of what I ate during my trip so I can update everyone when I get back.

Since I don't have any good food images, I'll update with a happy image of one of my finals that I spent hours and hours on.

I'm just kidding. That was me messing around when I should have been doing my projects....

Here's the real one.

This is a 3d model I did in 3D Studio Max and Photoshop CS2. This was for my 3d environment class and was built from a concept that was given to me. It is designed to go into games and was made with 4 texture maps.


For those of you who read this whole post, I'm sorry if this didn't make much sense. I'm walking in my sleep right now :)

Polenta

Polenta. A very interesting meal. I found some at the store and figured it would be a fun thing to try, never having made it before.

I start cooking by sauteing onions and such and I realized I didn't have an ingredient. So, logically, I asked my boyfriend to go to the store for me. On his way out the door, I asked him to take out the trash. Unfortunately for me, the trash was where the polenta cooking instructions were. So I gunned it. I have no idea if this was how it was suppose to taste, but it wasn't bad. It had a nice corn meal like texture and added a sweetness to the dish. Maybe next time, I wont throw away the directions. :)

Potato Curry and Cranberries

I made a potato curry with brown rice the other day. It was pretty good, but I feel that it would taste better with peas in it to give it a bit more flavor. I was also strangely craving cranberry sauce and had a can of it in my cabinet. It has to be one of the most unhealthy type of cranberry sauce, but I figured why not. So I had some :)

Sunday Morning French Toast!

Today, I wanted to make a good breakfast. I'm not normally a breakfast person and will just have a breakfast bar or piece of fruit. However, due to the massive amounts of stress during my final week (this week X_X), I felt I should relieve the stress by making some french toast.

This recipe is basically soy milk, flour, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together to make the french toast mixture. I actually think it came out better then the non-vegan french toast because it doesn't have the strong taste of eggs (obviously).

I had french toast with maple syrup and powdered sugar while my boyfriend, who couldn't wait for me to take the picture before he ate two pieces of it, had strawberry jam and powdered sugar on his.

Cookie, my landlady's goat, came over for a visit as well. We had to hold her back before she ate the toast herself :)

Shitake Tofu

I had a few things left in the fridge and decided to throw it all together to make dinner today. Shitake mushrooms with tofu and green onions. I made it with a lot of sauce to be able to pour it over the rice. I know I'm obsessed with Asian cuisine and stir fry-ish foods, but really, I can't help it!

I started listening to the Vegan Freak Podcast and find that it's packed with a bunch of helpful and informative information about veganism. I'm new to the whole podcast thing, and will have to listen to other vegan blogs and give you guys the get go :) I find they're always best to listen to when at the gym. Gives you fuel for working out!

Asian Noodles

Being part Japanese, I was heavily raised on tofu, noodles and vegetables. Without my grandma being able to cook now, and without my favorite childhood recipes; I am slowly trying to piece together and prepare these old dishes.

This dish was basically a stir fry with somen noodles instead of the rice and was more "soupy". The tofu was my trial of frozen tofu and it came out great. It completely gives it a different texture and taste. I'll have to have more frozen tofu adventures in the near future.

White Chili

My favorite soup when I was a kid was the amazing white chili. It was a clear/white base with great northern beans, chicken and lots of lime. I've not had this chili for years, and since going vegan I had pretty much shoved it out of my mind. It came to mind that I wanted to try and make it again, veganised. Here is my first shot, it didn't come out as well as I wanted it to, but it wasn't bad. Maybe after a couple more tries I'll get it just right!

Cupcakes, Kevin and the Did You Knows!

Over the weekend, I was at my friend Amy's house and we had a little bakefest. We made two types of cupcakes (unfortunately, I was only able to get one type of cupcake in picture because I destroyed my camera phone...but that's another story.) We made cupcakes from VCTOTW, the chocolate cherries and the Lime coconut. They were soo good! VCTOTW is seriously, one of my favorite books.

Here is a picture of the chocolate cupcakes and little Kevin eating his.

The only issue I have with making the cupcakes, is that the frosting seems to melt within five minuets of sitting out. I use Earth Balance so I am wondering if that is the reason. If anyone has any solution to this, PLEASE let me know :)

On another vegan food blog, Vegan Vice, she lists a series of "Did You Know" facts she got from a Native Foods flyer. I found it to be very helpful for quick facts about food and the effects it has on our planet. I've listed the list from her website below.

Pollution: The meat industry causes more water pollution in the United States than all other industries combined because animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population does - 86,000 pounds per second. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 50,000 people, but without the sewage system. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the runoff from factory farms pollutes our rivers and lakes more than all other industrial sources combined.

Land: Of all agricultural land in the United States, nearly 80 percent is used to raise animals for food. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals. Twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a pure vegetarian.

Water: Raising animals for food consumes nearly half the water used in the U.S. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. Also, the EPA reports that chicken, hog, and cattle excrement have polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.

Global Warming: Meat production causes global warming. The massive amount of animal feces produced in factory farms is the largest source of airborne methane in the U.S. According to the EPA, methane traps heat in the atmosphere more than 20 times more effectively than carbon dioxide does.


Energy: Raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all the raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. Satisfying our appetite for flesh requires fuel to produce fertilizer for the crops that are fed to animals, oil to run the trucks that take them to slaughter, electricity to freeze their carcasses, and much more.

Animals: You can't be concerned about the environment without caring about our fellow inhabitants, the animals. They're made of flesh and blood, have complex social and psychological lives, and feel pain, just as humans do. More than 27 billion animals are killed by the U.S. meat industry each year, and they're killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person.

"If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you can do."---- Sir Paul McCartney

The Great Mendoza Pasta

This is a super easy dish to make! My friend Paul had shown me this pasta, and I had altered it to make it really stand out to my tastes and to also make it vegan. The cheesy top is the vegan Parmesan, which actually really tastes like Parmesan.

Tacos and Mexican Rice

Tacos with Mexican rice! I ran out of tomatoes for the actual tacos because I put too many in the rice itself. The dish came out great. I used Gimme Lean for the taco "meat" and added my own make of taco seasoning.

The rice was a simple mix of spices, black beans, tomatoes and chilies.

Chana Masala

I have my camera working..somewhat... I need to find a charger for the poor thing!

This was a tasty curry dish made of chickpeas and onions. It came out smooth with a nice rich taste to it.

I really love chickpeas and am messing around to see what new foods I can make with them. Hopefully, more to come soon!

Missing

Hey guys,

Sorry its been so long since I've posted. My camera is out of commission right now and until I can get that up and going again, no food post :( I'm working on it! Stay tuned!

Spicy Gnocchi

For some reason my camera is taking really blurry pictures and I'm not sure why. So you're going to have to forgive me until I can figure it out.

I made Spicy Gnocchi the other day and added extra garlic and spice. It came out great! I actually wish there was more left. It was just a standard basil and garlic flavored gnocchi and pasta sauce with added spices for yumminess.

Chris Day!

So it was Chris week over at my house! A special week just for the cheering up of my honey. I made him asparagus and mushrooms today, as they're his favs! It actually turned out really well!

Spicy Forrest

Before I created this blog, one of my favorite Vegan Bloggers had this Spicy Buffalo Chick'n Wrap that I was dying to try. You can check out the Website here: Journey of a New Vegan .

I changed up the recipe a bit and created a Lettuce Wrap with Spicy Strips. My boyfriend called it the Spicy Forrest, hence the name. I used New Vegan's ranch recipe and I have to say, IT IS AMAZING! Everyone needs to try it out :)

Anyhow, here are the pics :)

This is the chick'n cooking in it's yummy sauce!

And here is the finished product!

Cupcakes

I finally got my copy of Vctotw in the mail! I was so excited, I wanted to try them right away. (I had been waiting for weeks!)
I made the Coconut Lime cupcakes from Vctotw and they were absolutely amazing! I only had one picture really come out so my apologies! Anyways, I didn't think it would come out half as good as they did. Honestly though, I've never had a better tasting cupcake EVER. They were moist and fluffy. Just perfect for a summer snack. I can't wait to try more from the book :)