Chick*n Cord on Bleu - Vegetarian Style

Steam:
-Broccoli
-Cauliflower

Chunk:
-Cucumber
-Avocado

Bake/Toast:
-Trader Joe's Chicken-less Nuggets
-MorningStar Farms Bacon Strips

Garnish:
-Hot sauce
-Ranch

NOM NOM NOM!!

White Fish and Baked Potato

The new meal category.

Tonight I had white fish from Trader Joe's. It is freshwater farmed and only 2.5g of fat per 4oz. serving. It retails at about $4.50 for a frozen (resealable) pack of 3 fillets - I only used one of the three.

Marinade:
-olive oil
-garlic
-black pepper
-lemon juice

Side:
-baked Russet potato
-1 oz. Daiya cheddar shreds
-1/2 avocado
-salsa
-Tofutti Sour Supreme Better Than Sour Cream

I thawed the fish by leaving it on a plate on the counter for a couple hours. I marinated the fish in olive oil, black pepper, garlic powder and lemon juice. I baked the fish in a glass casserole dish at 350 for about 20 minutes (til it was cooked through).

Poked lots of holes in the potato with a fork. Microwaved the Russet potato for 6 minutes wrapped in a paper towel (scrub it clean first). Put it on a plate, forked through the center, topped it with Daiya cheddar shreds, flipped it over, microwaved for 1 min, cut through it again and topped with avocado. Generous dollop of Mrs. Renfro's Habanero Salsa on top.

Slide the fish onto the plate next to the potato.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Vegan Meal: APDT - Avocado Potato Daiya Tomato

Bake/microwave/grill a Russet potato. Keep the skin on. Make sure to scrub it clean before cooking.

Break in half with a fork in a shallow bowl, put Daiya Cheddar Shreds on it. Flip over. Microwave 1 min. Cut through the potato with a fork to open it up again. Pour avocado pieces and cherry tomato halves over the bowl until full.

Enjoy.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Crap, It's Not Vegan

Vegetarian items I REALLY enjoyed that are (unfortunately) not vegan:

-MorningStar Farms Veggie Sausage Links
MorningStar Farms Bacon Strips
Dairy, Eggs

-Quorn Chick'n Cutlet w/Gruyere
Dairy



If you've got any vegetarian favorites that don't fit into your vegan diet, memorialize them here!!!

Vegan Review: Tofutti Sour Supreme Better Than Sour Cream

So I am a sour cream FIEND. I LOVE it. I love the tartiness of it, the creaminess of it, the pristine white of it, the coolness of it paired with something hot and spicy. I love sour cream like a Greek loves tzatziki. It's pretty much the thing that's always kept me from going vegan, even more than cheese.

So I didn't have very high expectations from a vegan version. Even fat free versions of sour cream are kinda gross, so a full-on imitation was gonna have some caveats to cross.

So I got the Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream at Ralph's for $3.99. This is a tofu-based sour cream imitation. Cashew-based is the other fake sour cream variety that I have yet to try.

I opened the tub. It's nice and white and sure LOOKS like a thick sour cream. It stirs up like a thick sour cream. It doesn't really have the tart sour smell of it, though. So then I tasted it. Just a little bit on my finger. Ehhhhhh, NOT sour cream. But maybe I can make it work anyway.

So I put a dollop on my plate during my Daiya quesadilla experiment. NOT BAD!! I mean, I couldn't eat it the way I eat regular sour cream, where it's right on top and first you get a flash of that flavor before it melds in with the others underneath it. I had to kind of hide it under the salsa, where I still got the visual cue I like from sour cream, the creamy coolness of it, but not quite the right tart and flavor. But hey, if I'm really serious about going vegan, it could do!

I'll have to try a cashew version (gotta go to Whole Foods for that) and see if the flavor is improved.

Vegan Review: Daiya Cheddar Shreds

Ok, so in my quest to go mostly vegan, one of the HARDEST things to give up (or find a suitable replacement for) is cheese. I've had some soy cheeses I use in burritos and sometimes even quesadillas, or on veggie burgers or in wraps and sandwiches. But there's something missing. After a little online research, I came across Daiya cheese, which is vegan and soy-free. The secret ingredient is stretchy tapioca.

Since I live in Southern California, we've got all kinds of Whole Foods, neighborhood health stores and even our big chain grocery stores carry stuff like this that is all but impossible to find in other parts of the country. I found it at Ralph's. So upon looking at the bag, I noticed it looked similar to the shredded soy cheese I get at Trader Joe's, but it also boasted $2 more on the price tag (Daiya retails for $5.99 at Ralph's for a 2-cup bag of shreds, soy shreds at TJ's retail at $3.99).

So the price tag hurt a little. Then I opened up the bag. It had a similar scent to the soy shreds, kind of a dry parmesan-y cheddar-y scent. So far not seeming much different from my soy shreds. But then I went in and grabbed a handful to put on my pre-heated whole wheat and flax seed tortilla and it was surprisingly fluffy, which is a lot different from the soy shreds, which are dense and dry. So my brows peaked a little.

Then I toasted it inside the tortilla to make a quesadilla. I could actually feel the Daiya bubbling inside the tortilla like real cheese does, which was exciting! Once the cheese was bubbly and the tortilla toasted, I took it off the heat, plopped it on a plate and cut it in half.

NOT BAD. When it's hot the cheese does get a little TOO melty, almost liquidy. It tastes pretty good, not EXACTLY like cheese, but pretty good. I'll have to try it again before I say it's BETTER than my soy shreds, but it's definitely at least as good. In fact, a good idea might be to use part Daiya and part soy shreds, as the more dense and firm melted soy shreds might help with the almost-too-melted quality of the heated Daiya. I'm going to try that next time!!

At any rate, I enjoyed it with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream, Mrs. Renfro's Habanero Salsa, half an avocado and a handful of pickled jalapenos. Especially with all the trimmings, this "cheese" is pretty damn tasty. Gotta try it as a bean and cheese burrito....


Also I should note that I have had the mozzarella version of the Daiya cheese, as well. In fact, I had it last night from Z Pizza. Z Pizza is a kind of California boutique-type pizza chain. They have a vegan pizza called The Berkeley that they make with the Daiya mozzarella variety. I had pretty much the same reaction - pretty damn good, but the cheese IS more melty than firm so at times it could almost feel like I was eating a cheese SAUCE, as opposed to shreds. But don't get me wrong, still delicious!


EDIT (9:30pm) - Had the Daiya cheddar shreds on a baked potato and you know what? Held it's melty for quite awhile!! It stretched, oozed, stayed melty even after several minutes. Since I was also eating corn on the cob and slicing avocado pieces to go with it, it had the chance to set more than it did when I had the quesadilla and I gotta say - it was super good.

Bottom line: REALLY good cheese substitute.



UPDATE: Made a black bean and cheese quesadilla (pictured above). Accoutrement: sliced avocado, picked jalapenos, Mrs. Renfro's Habanero Salsa, Tofutti Sour Supreme Better Than Sour Cream

UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS!!!!

A Daiya convert for sure!!

WTF, THAT'S NOT VEGETARIAN?!?!?!?

So I was having a discussion with my very good vegan friend Nat and we had some epiphanies about some stuff that we always thought was vegetarian (and sometimes had been consuming as though it was!), but as it turns out, is NOT:


-Smart Ones: Santa Fe Rice and Beans, Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli in Cheese Sauce
BOTH contain beef and chicken stock, and the Santa Fe has other animal fats and gelatin added. Lean Cuisine varieties of the same meals have NO non-vegetarian ingredients.

-Green Giant SteamFresh Veggies in Cheese Sauce
Gelatin.

-Mushroom gravy sauce packets
LOOK CLOSELY, many contain beef fat even though it's mushroom gravy. You can always make your own! Or, at holiday times, stores like Whole Foods often have a vegan mushroom gravy in a box that's decent.


If you've run across anything that is shockingly NOT vegetarian, leave a comment and I'll add them to the list!