Category Archives: Product Reviews

Buffalo Soy Curls Recipe and a review of Daiya’s Blue Cheese dressing

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Appetizer, Comfort foods, Cooking, Dinner, Dinners, Gluten Free, Meatless Meats, No refined sugar, Original Recipes, Product Reviews, Recipes, Soy Curls, Spicy, veganism and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Whew, this summer has been so busy! So much happening in my life right now.

Girls Rock camp starts on Monday and I am super excited to help feed people there.

Today I was in the grocery and came across Daiya’s new salad dressings. I was intrigued by the blue cheese one. I never really liked blue cheese, and I hated chunky versions of the dressing. I only liked it if it was smooth. But I decided to purchase it on a whim, and then suddenly had the great idea to make something buffalo style to accompany it.

I came up with a recipe for buffalo soy curls.

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The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

  • 1 bag Butler Soy Curls
  • Water to cover soy curls
  • 1/4 cup chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour
  • 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1 bottle Frank’s Red Hot sauce

Directions:

  1. Soak soy curls in a bowl covered with water for 10 minutes.
  2. Turn oven to broil.
  3. Drain soy curls.
  4. Place flour, nutritional yeast, garlic and onion powders, and pepper in a ziplock bag.
  5. Toss soy curls into ziplock bag.
  6. Spray a wide-rim baking sheet sprayed with cooking oil.
  7. Dump out soy curls out of bag and spray the tops of the soy curls with oil.
  8. Place in the broiler for about  5 minutes (watch them carefully, every oven broils slightly different, you may require more or less time).
  9. Toss, flip, or stir soy curls around a bit. Place back in the broiler for 2 minutes.
  10. When the soy curls are starting to get crisp and slightly brown, take out of the broiler and pour the hot sauce on top.
  11. Broil for another minute, then take out of the oven.
  12. Serve with celery and vegan blue cheese.

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REVIEW OF THE DAIYA BLUE CHEESE DRESSING:

Despite my reservations, I was quite impressed. It’s been ages since I’ve had the real thing, but once I tasted it I had to re-check the ingredients to make sure Daiya hadn’t pulled a fast one on me. It’s very convincing and there’s no chunkiness. Woohoo! It’s perfect for taming buffalo stuff.

Hope your summer is going well too!

New Favorite Things

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Breakfast, Chocolate, Comfort foods, Cooking, Desserts, Favorite Vegan Products, Fried food, Gluten Free, Other Vegan Food Blogs, Pizza, Product Reviews, Recipe Reviews, Trends, Vegan Junk Food, veganism and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I want to post more often here, but am finding it hard right now to find time to create my own recipes due to a busy summer full of classes, volunteering, and other events.

So, I figure I might as well post some other vegan food related stuff, as I’ve always done, and not beat myself up for not creating new recipes as frequently.

I actually have a recipe I created awhile ago that I’ve been saving in hopes that I could use it for my youtube channel I want to start eventually. It was a cupcake recipe, that was not gluten free at the time, and now since I cannot eat it, it doesn’t make sense to hold onto for the video. So, keep an eye out for that.

For now, I want to make a post about some of my new favorite vegan food things.

Rice Paper Bacun:

Ohemgee, this is a life changer, and completely gluten free (although some brands of rice paper are not, so read the ingredients carefully!) If you follow vegan food trends at all, I’m sure you’ve heard of this somewhere. If not, here is the scoop: You cut rice paper (the stuff you use to make summer rolls) into strips, soak it quickly in warm water, dip it in a marinade (this is the marinade I use–warning, there are a lot of spelling errors but don’t let those annoy you too much, it’s delicious despite a bit of confusion), and then fry it in a pan with some coconut oil until crispy. You can apparently bake them too, but I don’t think the results would be as good.

Here are two pictures of it, one for breakfast and one used in a salad.

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Red Pepper Jelly:

Somewhere on the vast corners of the (vegan) internet, I got the idea to try red pepper jelly on gluten free toast with Kite Hill plain almond cream cheese.

It is too good for my own good.

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It’s the perfect ratio of spicy to sweet.

Fakemeats.com:

I discovered some amazing new products at fakemeats.com. You can get discounts when you order a certain amount of certain products, like Louisville Jerky. Including their limited edition pepperoni flavor!

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I have tried all but that sausage looking thing so far. All delicious. I proceeded to make a gluten free pepperoni cashew cheeze vegan pizza with the jerky. So good! (This picture is also missing the 6 bags of soy curls I purchased with free shipping at a really good price).

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Best for last:

Finally, and this is definitely a case of saving the best for last…*drumroll please* THERE NOW EXISTS A VEGAN PEANUT M&M ALTERNATIVE!!

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Yes, this is a picture of an empty package. Yes, my mom (who hasn’t had peanut M&Ms for over 20 years because she is lactose intolerant…longer than I can say…) and I ate these all in the car ride home from the grocery. They are that amazing. They taste best when you eat them one after the other…;)

Anyways, there’s the vegan food stuff I’ve been most excited about lately. Let me know if there’s something else I should investigate like these that would be up my alley!

Take care and have a fun week!

 

 

 

Happy Vegan Month of Food (MoFo)! Post #1 My favorite Breakfasts!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Breakfast, Food for Fall, Fruit, Gluten Free, Product Reviews, Recipe Reviews, Recipes, Sandwiches, Summer recipes, Thrive Energy Cookbook, Vegan MoFo 2015, Vegan Month of Food 2015 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hi everyone! I’m very excited to be participating in Vegan MoFo 2015!

Though I’m in the last few weeks leading up to finishing my undergraduate degree and things are pretty intense over here, I’m going to try to post as much as I can. In case you are not aware, the prompts provided by MoFo this year are as follows:

THE LIST:

1 Rise and Shine! It’s MoFo time! Tell us about your breakfast.
2 Recreate a meal from your childhood.
3 Quick, easy and delicious.
4 Tell us about a weird food combo that you love.
5 Best sandwich ever.
6 Re-create a restaurant meal.
7 Make / eat some thing inspired by a book or film.
8 Reach out! Make a new vegan friend & tell us about it.
9 Most retro recipe.
10 Something blue.
11 Focus on a nutrient
12 Tell us about your favourite cookbook!
13 It’s kitchen tour time!
14 Share something vegan (and delicious, duh!) with a non-vegan.
15 OMG, Barack Obama is coming over because he knows you make awesome vegan food! What are you going to make?
16 What’s your favorite late summer food?
17 Make (or eat!) a traditional local dish.
18 Honor a human or non human animal who inspires your veganism.
19 Lunch on the go.
20 Veganize an old family recipe.
21 Autumn equinox eats.
22 Make a dish using all seasonal produce.
23 Fusion Challenge!
24 What [insert well known person] would eat if they were vegan.
25 Share your favorite cuisine.
26 It’s cold and rainy and there’s a snow drift outside your door! What are you going to make using the ingredients you have?
27 Favorite herb or spice?
28 Tacos VS Burritos. Where do you stand on this important issue?
29 What would you bring on a vegan road trip?
30 What three endless food supplies would you take if you were going to be stranded on an island? (Imagine your nutritional needs have been met, these are a bonus!)

This year I am planning a mix of educational posts about different ingredients, creating new recipes, sharing others’ recipes and products, making cute drawings and writing about food, etc.

If you want to know more about the Vegan Month of Food, click here. Also, check out my Instagram @Laurahasheart for some additional posts.

Anyhow! I want to highlight three breakfasts I’ve really been digging lately.

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The first is this this oatmeal with mango mousse and raspberries. This is surprising because I’ve always been grossed out by oatmeal. But, in this recipe, you cook off most of the liquid and it becomes chewy and not as mushy and gross-to-me texture-wise. The mousse is seriously amazing! The full recipe can be found in the Thrive Energy Cookbook by Brendan Brazier. Here is the link to the book on amazon. Note: I actually live in a state (RI) where making money off of referring people to Amazon is not allowed. I am just linking to Amazon because it’s the easiest source to link people to when showcasing books. (What book isn’t on Amazon, anyways?) I get no benefits from doing so.

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Next up, is a perfect Fall breakfast sandwich recipe, which you can find the recipe to here! It’s called the Jack-O-Pumpkin breakfast sandwich. I take a gluten free/vegan English muffin and toast it. While that is happening, I mix up the pumpkin butter and fry the vegan/gluten free sausage (Sol brand is my favorite right now), and make the easy pumpkin butter. When the muffins are toasted, I turn the toaster oven to broil and stick a slice of Daiya Cheddar on one slice of the muffin and put it in for a few minutes until it melts. When the sausage is cooked, I fry up a few mushroom slices. Then I assemble everything together with some fresh baby spinach. It requires a bit of dancing around the kitchen and being mindful of where things are in the cooking process at all times or else it could end in a slight disaster! For those less experienced, I recommend making the pumpkin butter in advance before you start it all!

IMG_4975Finally, I need to rave about FitQuick waffle mix, which can be bought at veganproteins.com! When I had to go gluten free, I was really sad at first because I didn’t know if I’d ever have a vegan waffle as good as I had before. When I decided I needed more protein in my breakfasts to fuel Crossfit, and I actually had some money to spend (being a broke college student sucks sometimes!) I had to try this. I decided to go with the vanilla flavor, but there are lots of other options, even a savory pizza one! They cook in my waffle iron so perfectly and are quite tasty! I love them pretty plain with a tablespoon of Olivio Coconut Spread (an amazing accidentally vegan product I found recently!) and a tablespoon of maple syrup. I pair it with a side of Sol vegan/gluten free sausage.

That’s it for today! Enjoy, and let me know some of your gluten free/vegan breakfast recipes! Also let me know if you try any of this food and let me know how you like it!

Vegan Junk Food Review

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Product Reviews, Vegan Junk Food and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The other day I received a package of goodies I had bought myself from veganessentials.com and was a bit too excited. If you can’t tell, I ordered 2 cans of Jackfruit for some future culinary creations, Kettle Brand Maple Bacon flavored potato chips, cola flavored gummy candy by Goody Good Stuff, and a grapefruit flavored lip balm stick by Crazy Rumors.

Now, I was very hesitant to buy the potato chips because I’ve been hearing in vegnews how good they are, and I am trying to be good about not eating too much junk food and getting healthy. But I figured as long as I do not eat them every day or more than a single serving each day I will be fine. So far, I have been good about that.

My Review of Kettle Brand Maple Bacon Potato Chips:

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I was so excited to try an actually vegan flavor like this!

 Hmm, so I haven’t had many potato chips by this brand recently (or potato chips in general really!) but I really liked the thickness and crispy-crunchy texture of the actual chips. I was sort of disappointed with the flavor, as it is stronger on the maple notes and weaker on the smokey bacon flavor. I was hoping it would be a bit more balanced. However, they’re still delicious regardless. I give them a 4 good bananas, 1 bad rating!

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My Review of Goody Good Stuff Cola Breeze Gummies:

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1 serving of these babies!

Well, first of all, these are not the junkiest junk food you could choose. 9 pieces of them are 99 calories, and they are truly fat free and with very low sodium. However, they’re basically just empty calories from sugar and the stuff they use to make them gummy. Basically they have zero nutritional value, but they’re definitely a nice treat!

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I also noticed a spelling error/typo (as I almost always do on things like these if there is one)…they wrote “demending” instead of “depending.” Anyhow, on to the review of the taste, which is probably what you are waiting for. I was a little disappointed because it has a very strong citrus flavor and a less strong cola flavor which I was really wanting. There is more of a subtle cola flavor. I still would rate it a very good for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s very tricky to find specialty candy like this that is vegan. I believe these are imported from Europe somewhere, so that somewhat illustrates how hard it is to find. Second, they have a great sour type flavor which I really like, and a great texture. I’m going to rate them 4 good bananas, 1 bad.

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This company, Goody Good Stuff, makes other types of gummy candies in different flavors, so if you’re interested in trying them, check out where I found them, in the candy section at veganessentials.com!

That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this post and that it helped you decide whether you should try these items or not.

Also, keep an eye out (next week perhaps) when I finally try the Jackfruit I bought. I’m going to try a recipe I have in the Bake and Destroy cookbook I have by Natalie Slater, review it, and then try to make my own creation after I understand a bit more how it works and what it tastes like! I’m excited for that!