Pasta with Tomato and Pepper Sauce

I looked up a couple recipes, and used them as inspiration to come up with my own.  I didn't measure anything, so if you want to make this, just use the following ingredients as inspiration and create your own delicious pasta dish!

What's in this:

Whole wheat rotini
Chopped onions
Thinly sliced yellow and orange bell peppers
1 fresh Roma tomato
1/2 can diced tomatoes
Salt, Pepper and Italian Seasonings

Serve with a nice, healthy green salad and enjoy!

Perfect Hominy White Bean Chili and Cornbread

I have been wanting to make this recipe Robin Roberston's Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook for a long time.  I know the point of a slow cooker is to help when you don't have time to cook, but I haven't even had time to throw this stuff in a slow cooker! 

I finally made it, and added some kidney beans in addition to the Navy beans and hominy.  I topped the warm, spicy chili with fresh slices of avocado and made vegan corn bread on the side.

The cornbread recipe came from the back of the package of Arrowhead Mills Organic Yellow Corn Meal.  Super easy. 

If you want the recipes, go buy this book because it is amazing, and maybe pick up some of that corn meal.

Michele's Veggie Vegan Lasagne

I have never made lasagne in my life.  I've always just made stuffed shells and that's it.  What was I waiting for, because this was amazing!  I followed the recipe from Skinny B**** for the tofu ricotta and then just added a bunch of layers of veggies and tomatoes.

Yum.  Can I have some more please?

Tofu Ricotta
Courtesy Skinny B

14 to 16  ounces extra firm tofu, crumbled
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

In a food processor, combine the tofu, garlic, olive oil, oregano, and salt and pule to puree.  Use immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week. 

Michele's Veggie Vegan Lasagne

1 package lasagne noodles, cooked according to package

1/2 cup Great Northern Beans
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1 fixed recipe of Tofu Ricotta (see above)

1 cup mixed frozen veggies
1 cup frozen kale
1/2 cup frozen spinach

1 can stewed tomatoes in their sauce

Directions
In a food processor, mix the beans, nutritional yeast and pepper.  Add to the tofu ricotta in a large bowl and mix well.

Cook frozen veggies, kale, and spinach, drain and add to ricotta mixture.  Add about 1/4 of the can of tomatoes without the juice.  Mix everything well.

In a 9 by 13 casserole dish start creating the lasagne layers!  This is how I did it:

1.  A little bit of the tomatoes and their juice
2.  4 lasagne noodles
3.  A medium-thick layer of the tofu ricotta/veggie mixture.

...And start over again until everything is all used up and in nice layers!

Spicy "Beef" with Broccoli

It all started with Trader Joe's Beef-less Strips.

What could I make with these?  My grocery shopping has been sporadic lately, and I have not had planned meals in mind when shopping.  So what to make, what to make?

I came up with my version of spicy beef with broccoli.  It's a good sign when we polish off the entire meal in one sitting.  Yum.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup red bell pepper, chopped
7 mushrooms, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 package TJ Beef-less strips
1 tablespoon mushroom flavored saute sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2  tablespoon garlic-chili sauce
2 cups (or more) fresh broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces.

Heat a skillet on medium heat.  Add coconut oil, onion and red bell pepper.  Cook until slightly softened.  Add mushrooms and carrots and cook a few minutes longer until all veggies are softened, but not too soft.  Stir in the beef-less strips and the three sauces.  Stir to coat everything well.  Turn heat to low.

In the meantime, steam the broccoli until "al dente."

Add the broccoli to the veggie and "beef" mixture and stir right before serving.

Serve over a bed of rice.

Baked Potato Stack

I'm calling this a baked potato stack, because we basically stacked a ton of toppings on top of the baked potatoes and it was delicious.

On my potato, I split it in half and put different stacks of toppings on each side.

Stack 1:  Sauteed mushrooms and green cabbage with dijon mustard
Stack 2:  Cooked mixed veggies and salsa
Stack 3 (on its own):  Roasted brussel sprouts

Yes, I realize I had two different types of cabbage in this meal, and that fact didn't occur to me after I had already started roasting the brussel sprouts and sauteeing the green cabbage.  Oh well!  We didn't suffer too much, you know what I mean.  

A Yam and some Asparagus

This is what's for dinner:  a yam and some asparagus.  How much more simple, healthy, and delicious can you get?

I cut the yam into wedges, drizzled olive oil, salt and pepper on them, and roasted at 420 for 40 minutes.

For the asparagus, I drizzled them with olive oil and cooked on low in an electric skillet until they were soft, about 20 minutes.  I made a "hollandaise sauce out of vegenaise, mustard and fresh lemon juice and drizzled it over the cooked asparagus when they were done.