Vegan Oreo Cheesecake

Did you know that Oreos are vegan?? It's a little unsettling...but apparently they are, so I wanted to make a dessert with them. This recipe is super simple, but what is difficult is deciding what kind of ingredients to use. There are many different brands of vegan products, and every grocery store carried different types. I encourage you to try different types and see what your personal preference. 

This recipe calls for vegan butter, make sure you get actual vegan butter, and not margarine. I prefer Earth Balance, but I encourage you to find your own preference. 

As for the cream cheese, the only kind that my super market carries is made by Galaxy, and I like it. Hopefully, your grocery store has a better selection!

Ingredients


19 cream filled sandwich cookies, divided (I use Oreos)2 tablespoons vegan butter, melted
1 (8 ounce) container vegan cream cheese3/4 cup sugar

1. Crush 15 cookies and place in a pie pan. Add melted vegan butter. Toss crumbs around to coat. Use the back of a spoon to press buttered crumbs on to pie pan to make a crust. Put the crust in the freezer while you prepare the filling.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients except the leftover sandwich cookies and mix thoroughly.
3. Spoon into prepared pie pan and set in the freezer for at least 1 hour. Top with additional whipped topping and garnish with additional cookies.

I made this for my extremely picky roommate for his birthday, and he loved it!

Vegan Banana Pancakes

I wanted to post a breakfast recipe, since my posts have been focusing mostly around dinners and snacks.
These banana pancakes are great for breakfast, but I had them for dinner last night :)

One thing I really like about this recipe is that it doesn’t use any butter (obviously because its vegan) and it doesn’t use and fake butter substitutes. If you remember from a couple weeks ago, I have a real issue with those :(  Check out that week’s blog if you get a chance (it was on a quick veggie dinner) here if you missed it.

This recipe calls for whole wheat flour, which if you aren’t already, you should always use when a recipe calls for flour. White flour is so processed that many of the nutrients are removed before you eat it. Whole wheat flour is exponentially better for you.
  
Ingredients
2 bananas
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt

Combine together the dry ingredients until they completely mixed.

Add all of the wet ingredients and mix until there are no bumps. If the mixture seems to dry or runny, add some more almond milk or flour appropriately.

Finally, slice the banana into 1/4 inch thick slices and gently add to the mixture.

On a hot skillet, add a little olive oil and let heat up to medium heat. Place the batter on the pan with an ice cream scoop into dollops about twice the size of a quarter.

Once the pancake starts to form small bubbles on top, usually about 4-5 minutes, flip over and let the other side cook.

Serve with some more maple syrup!

This recipe can be great for kids because it’s healthy, and you can make shapes! I’ve become an expert at the Mickey Mouse pancake :)

Vegan Pasta Alfredo

Hello all!

So this recipe is a little different than my past few. This is a recipe designed to taste like it’s not vegan, even though it is! It turned out well, so I encourage you to try it.

Unlike my last few recipes, this one is more important that you stick to the recipe, because the sauce can be a little temperamental. Keep some cornstarch nearby and add a pinch if the sauce seems too thin. 

Just as a note for vegan cooking, make sure that you use the freshest ingredients you can. Especially when it comes to herbs, make sure that you buy fresh not frozen, it makes a difference!

Ingredients

1 cup raw cashews
2 tablespoons raw pine nuts
1 1/2 cups water
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/16 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
4 cups cooked fettuccine (or other pasta of your choice)
3 tablespoons freshly minced parsley
¼ cup corn
¼ cup peas

Blend together the cashews and pine nuts. Add the water, lemon juice, garlic, nutmeg and salt.

Add the peas and corn, and then move the mixture into a saucepan over medium heat for about 7-8 minutes. Make sure you are stirring so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. 

Serve over pasta (I suggest whole grain!). If you're still eating white grains, check out this article, it may change your mind! This recipe is a great replacement for a fatty dairy-alfredo dish.   

Honestly, I can taste the difference, so don’t try to trick yourself into thinking it’s a regular dish. It’s the healthy sister of a fatty meal!

Shrimp Scampi

It's seafood time!

I love love this recipe because its simple, healthy, low calorie, and has seafood :). This is a great alternative to the traditional shrimp scampi that has TONS of butter and is over pasta which is high in carbs.

For this recipe, I used frozen shrimp from Target, which was peeled and deveined. If you can buy organic, I encourage everyone to. Besides the health reasons, I think organic just tasted better.

Ingredients

2 tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tbs. parsley
1 clove garlic
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
6-8 pieces of frozen shrimp
1/2 cup precooked rice


So start by heating up your frying pan with your olive oil on medium heat. Once it's nice and hot, throw in the garlic and parsley. Let the ingredients get hot so all the flavors can start to blend together. After about 3 minutes, lower the heat to low, place your shrimp in the pan and cover them with the wine.

How long you leave your shrimp in really depends on their size and how large they are. Mine took about 10 minutes. Flip or toss your shrimp 5 minutes in and add the lemon juice and half of the vegetable broth. Keep cooking until the shrimp look done (they should change from a grey to a pink).

Then put in your cooked rice and the rest of the broth. Mix it around with a plastic spatula or a wooden spoon until almost all of the liquid has evaporated. This last step gets a really good flavor in the rice.

So give this recipe a try. I want to hear what you think!

Variation On a Quick Dinner/Rant About Margarine

Hello all,

So last night I was still feeling sick and I was just not in the mood to cook. However, I was still hungry, so I mustered up the strength to throw something together. This is a variation on my last post, but completely vegan. I started with some olive oil and fried  up some onions and peppers.

I want to use this as an opportunity to talk about margarine. Up until a few weeks ago, I thought that margarine was awesome! It has significantly less calories than oil, and of course butter, its cheap and its easy to spread on bread and other foods. HOW WRONG WAS I! I didn't realize, or care to look up, just how bad margarine is for you. I don't want to lecture you, so check out this article from Wellness Mama to see what I'm talking about. Throw out your margarine now :)



OK, back to dinner. I have a serious love for pesto, as everyone should, so for this dish I mixed a traditional pesto with a tomato pesto from Wegmans. It's a nice change to a lovely condiment. Then I added some instant brown rice and that was it!

If you take anything from this post, don’t let laziness effect the way you eat. Quick, simple, homemade meals and snacks can make a big difference in your overall health. It only took about 15 minutes, and its vegan and healthy! Give it a try and let me know what you all think!
k!

Quick dinner on the go

Hello everyone!

I hope your Christmas and New Years went well. Break is over! It's time to get back to the grind. It's this time of the year that I really start to get lazy with eating. No excuses! Last night, I barely had any time to make dinner, so I whipped up a quick tilapia and veggies dinner.

No real recipe for this one, just use the ingredients that you prefer. For the veggie side, I used peppers, red onions and mushrooms. I advice to put the red onions on the frying pan first, and then let them cook until there is almost no purple color left, and they are basically clear. Onions can be very bitter, but if you let them cook, they will caramelize and be very sweet :)

As for the fish (I know it isn't vegan, but its so good for you!), I just grabbed the pre-packaged kind from Wegmans. I threw some lemon juice and basil on, and put it in the oven for about 20 minutes on 350 degrees. I can never keep fresh herbs in my pantry because they always go bad. I recommend using the herbs in a tube from Gourmet Garden.They taste pretty good and last so much longer.  I say 20 minutes for the fish, but it can vary depending on the thickness of the cut, so make sure your fish has cooked all the way through before you take it out. Darker colored fish, like salmon, can be pretty easy to tell when cooked all the way, but light fish like tilapia, can be trickier. Since I'm usually just cooking for myself, I don't usually care about the presentation of the dish, so just go ahead and cut into the fish a little while it's still in the oven. Make sure its tender all the way through before you take it out.

And voila! Nothing too exciting, but it took me about a half an hour, and it's super healthy, and low carb!

Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns

I'm pretty excited about this recipe. It came out really well and all of the people that tried them said they couldn't even tell they were vegan! So give this recipe a shot if you have a sweet tooth (like me) and want to satisfy your cravings in pretty health way.

I got this recipe, like most, from Pinterest. It's a great social networking site, so I suggest everyone checks it out! I altered the recipe slightly, so I've posted it below as well.

One way that I found to save some money is to buy whole flax seeds and then throw them into the food processor or blender. At my grocery store, ground flax seeds were about twice the price of whole seeds.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it does take some time, so make sure you set aside at least 3 hours.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Earth Balance buttery spread
1/3 cup almond milk
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp flax seeds + 3 tbsp warm water
1 (1/4th oz) package dry yeast
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground ginger

filling:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Earth Balance buttery spread, softened
2 tsp cinnamon

for glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp almond milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract


This recipe basically has 3 steps, the dough, the combination and the decoration.

Step 1: The Dough

Heat the almond milk and the Earth Balance together in a small pan on the stove over low/medium heat until the Earth Balance melts and the milk is warm to the touch. Remove from heat, let cool a little (temperature should be around 100 degrees—like warm bath water. If it’s hotter than that, the yeast will die and the rolls won’t rise!) sprinkle in the yeast and stir so yeast will dissolve. Let yeast mixture sit for five minutes (it will look very creamy after a few minutes).

Meanwhile, combine the pumpkin and flex mixture (when you combine the chia seeds and water be sure to let the mixture sit for five minutes to gel a little bit). In another bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. Add flour mixture to the pumpkin. Pour in yeast.

Knead dough by hand for about 10 minutes or with a KitchenAid for six on medium speed with either a paddle attachment or dough hook. The dough should be smooth and elastic when you’re done.
Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a dishcloth and set in a warm area to rise for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Step 2: The Combination

While the dough is rising, mix together the softened Earth Balance, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Remove dough and punch dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll out to a large rectangle and spread brown sugar mixture on top keeping an inch bare around the sides.

Gently roll up dough so it resembles a log. Slice dough into 1/2 inch slices and place in a greased 9-inch casserole dish. Cover with a dishcloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake rolls for 25 minutes. Let cool while you make the glaze.
For the glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, almond milk and vanilla extract. If glaze seems too runny, add a little more powdered sugar.

Step 3: The Decoration

I have found that the best way to design frosting on anything is to place the glaze in the a small plastic bag and snip the tip off. This way you have total control over the icing and its not too messy.