Tag Archives: Cooking

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!

Gluten Free Green Smoothie Waffles!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Breakfast, Cooking, Gluten Free, Green Smoothie, Healthy, No refined sugar, Original Recipes, Recipes, Smoothies, veganism, waffles and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello, I’m sorry I’ve been fairly inactive lately. I’ve been focusing on graduate school and another blog of mine, streamoflaura.net, as well as dreaming up a concept for a youtube channel! I’ll try my best to keep you posted on all of that.

Here’s a new recipe I recently created though! There are plenty of green smoothie pancakes (although I haven’t found a good gluten free one yet), but as far as I could tell, no green waffle recipes! So, I made it!

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups non dairy milk of choice
  • 1 banana
  • 1 serving of vegan vanilla protein powder (I used Aloha)
  • 2 cups baby spinach
  • 1/2 cup sweet white rice flour
  • 1 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1 tbsp tapioca starch
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat waffle iron accordingly.
  2. Place ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. You may need to scrape the sides with a rubber spatula several times to ensure everything mixes properly.
  3. Spray iron, and scoop or pour out about 1/4 of the batter. Cook in your waffle making appliance according to directions, waffle irons vary.
  4. Makes about four waffles.
  5. Serve and enjoy.

Gluten Free and Vegan Boneless Spare-no-ribs

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Cherries, Chinese, Comfort foods, Gluten Free, Meatless Meats, Original Recipes, Recipes, Soy Curls and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently bought four bags of Butler soy curls from Veganessentials.com because they are my favorite gluten free vegan meat substitute. I use this recipe I love for Sweet and Sour Soy Curls, and while I was making it, I realized that soy curls are the perfect shape, size, and texture for trying to replicate Chinese boneless spare ribs. It’s mostly a coincidence that I happen to have perfected the recipe and am posting it on Chinese New Year, although once I realized the coincidence it pushed me to post this faster than I normally would.

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Today starts the year of the Red Monkey according to Chinese astrology. I was born under the year of the rat. When I looked up my Chinese horoscope for the new year for fun, it said I might have a good year, with some luck in career stuff, education, and romance. I hope so!

Gluten Free and Vegan Boneless Spare-no-ribs

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups Butler Soy Curls
  • Enough water to cover dry soy curls in a bowl
  • ¼ cup mirin wine

Marinade:

  • 1 tbsp gluten free hoisin sauce
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2 tbsp ketchup
  • 2 tbsp cherry jam or preserves
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • ½ tsp five spice powder
  • 3 cloves minced garlic
  • 2 tbsp corn starch
  • 1 tsp potato starch
  • 1 tsp egg replacer powder without water added
  • 1/3 cup coconut oil

Sauce:

  • 2 tbsp cherry jam or preserves
  • 1 tbsp agave nectar
  • 1 tbsp molasses
  • ¼ cup rice vinegar
  • ¼ cup gluten free soy sauce, tamari, or liquid aminos
  • 1 tsp minced ginger
  • 2 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water

Directions:

  1. Reconstitute the soy curls in the liquid for at least 15 minutes.
  2. Drain and squeeze as much liquid out as possible. You can use a clean dish towel to help with this process. Place in a ziplock type bag or bowl.
  3. Prepare the marinade in a food processor or whisk vigorously until smooth.
  4. Pour into the ziplock bag or bowl with the soy curls.
  5. Shake or stir the soy curls so that they are fully coated with the marinade. Allow to marinate overnight or for at least 2 hours.
  6. Before frying the ribs, make the sauce. Stir all ingredients in a small saucepan together and heat over medium heat until warm.
  7. Add in the cornstarch and water and continuously whisk until it thickens and bubbles.
  8. Set aside.
  9. Toss 2 tbsp cornstarch, potato starch, and powdered egg replacer into the bag/bowl and again coat the marinated soy curls.
  10. Heat the coconut oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Allow it to get hot. Place the soy curls into the pan (they should sizzle if the oil is hot enough), and stir until coated and brown. The coconut oil should have fully absorbed. Don’t stir too long or they might start to stick together too much.
  11. Turn the heat to low and stir in the sauce.
  12. Serve and enjoy!

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What the sauce looks like when done.

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Dig in!

I hope you enjoy this recipe! 😀

Vegan Mofo Day 4: Post #4: My blog’s 2 year anniversary is today!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Anniversary, Childhood Favorites, Peanut Butter, Vegan MoFo 2015 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Hey y’all,

Today is my blog’s 2 year anniversary! I made a cute card for the occasion 🙂 It seems like it has been longer than two years, honestly. I’m so proud of how far I’ve come, too. And although I am currently frustrated with being gluten free AND vegan now, I have a feeling this year I will work out some of the problems I’m having with learning to bake vegan AND gluten free. I am going to try to learn through various cookbooks, which is how I learned to cook/bake in the first place. Then once I feel confident enough, hopefully I can go back to creating my own original, unique recipes. I look forward to sharing these adventures with you! This will also hopefully make my blog more accessible to more people!

This is also my second year participating in Vegan MoFo! Woohoo! I’m finding it a little more challenging than last year however, especially as I am finishing my last few bits of work for school before I have my degree!

Today’s theme was to tell everyone about a weird food combination I love. Well, I don’t really have a really weird one, but some people may find this weird: sometimes I get cravings for a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich. I didn’t make one today, because I’m trying to eat a little bit more healthy than usual, and I don’t have that particular craving/am not in that kind of mood…but an especially crispy potato chip (I like Utz’s chips that have ridges in them best for this) can trigger this desire. I like it best with white bread and smooth peanut butter. I think this comes from eating chips with my sandwiches as a kid (I was rarely even allowed to eat chips!) and making sure each bite of my sandwich included a chip at the same time. Eventually, as I became more autonomous in making my own choices about food, I just put the chips directly into the sandwich.

It’s childlike, weird little things like this that can make me happy.

Oh, and here is a picture of some raw brownie cupcakes I made today that I’ll pretend were in celebration for today.

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Vegan MoFo Post #2: Childhood Favorites: sharing a recipe from my zine!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Childhood Favorites, My zine, Nut free, Pasta, Recipes, Vegan MoFo 2015 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey all,

Welcome again to Vegan MoFo 2015!

Today’s prompt is to recreate a meal from my childhood. I’ve actually already done that multiple times, and wrote about the stories behind them, in my zine that accompanies this blog!

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You can buy it from my Etsy shop here. Please keep in mind, that I wrote these recipes earlier in the year, before I went gluten free, so almost all of the recipes are made with gluten, many are not very easily adaptable either. I can no longer eat most of them either. Such sadness.

But, if you can eat gluten, here is one of a few recipes I will be highlighting from the zine this month!

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Vegan Sausage Macaroni Skillet:

This used to be our favorite meal in our family, until my mom became allergic to milk. For awhile my mom would make it for us on special occasions, or if she couldn’t eat. Since going vegan, I remade it! It came out just as good, and healthier of course. My mom still couldn’t eat it because she can’t have soy. And now I can’t either until I find a good gluten free substitute for the Gimme Lean. Maybe that’s next on my recipe agenda…

Ingredients:

  • 1 package Gimme Lean Sausage style
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 green pepper, chopped
  • 1 15 oz can stewed tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp vegan white sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1 cup vegan sour cream (I used Tofutti)
  • 1/4 cup plain almond milk or other non dairy milk of choice
  • 1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
  • Oil, as needed

Directions:

  1. Break Gimme Lean up into pieces, and fry in a pan with a bit of oil until browned and a bit shiny. It should become firmer than it was before it was cooked.
  2. In a large skillet over high heat, add some oil and saute onions and peppers until they are shiny and start to become translucent. Add the sausage at this point.
  3. Stir in the tomatoes, uncooked macaroni (I promise it’ll be cooked when done), sugar, salt, and pepper.
  4. Remove from heat and stir in the vegan sour cream and almond milk.
  5. Serve and enjoy.

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Have fun!

Vegan Sausage Pancake Twinkies

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Baked Goods, Breakfast, Favorite Vegan Products, Nut free, Sunday Brunch, Twinkie and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_3857So…I’ve been running training for my half marathon that’s slowly approaching in July. When I run, I burn a lot of calories and need to eat more than if I’m not exercising. I especially need carbohydrates.

I had been wanting to make cornbread and vegan hot dog twinkies, but they were out of the Field Roast brand I like when I went to the store. So, I decided to buy Field Roast mini breakfast sausages and use them instead. Besides, I thought they’d be the perfect size, and they were!

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I made them with Bisquick mix…which is actually vegan! Or at least, some versions are!

This recipe on a canoe pan, aka twinkie pan…I’m not sure what you could do instead if you don’t have this kind of pan, but they were pretty cheap on amazon when I got mine, and worth it for all the twinkie like foods you can make with it!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups vegan Bisquick
  • 1 1/2 cups almond milk or nondairy milk of choice
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • 2 eggs worth of egg replacer (I used Ener-g powder mixed with the amount of water recommended on the box)
  • 8 Field Roast mini apple maple sausages

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Mix the Bisquick with the nondairy milk, brown sugar, and egg replacer.
  3. Pour or spoon batter into the cavities of the pan, about 3/4 of the way up. Save a little batter to cover the sausages with if needed later.
  4. Place the sausages in the middle of the canoe cavity. Push down until covered by the batter. You may need to spoon some extra batter on top to achieve this.
  5. Bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until puffy, firm, and golden.
  6. Enjoy with maple syrup and Earth Balance melted together.

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Coming soon will be some healthier recipes, haha. Despite the appearance of this recipe, I’ve been on a big healthy food kick lately…can’t wait to share more of those types of recipes, and I have a few up my sleeve right now. 🙂

Another post about food and Girls Rock! Rhode Island.

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Events, Food for good causes, Girls Rock RI, More about me and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello hello!

This past week I finished off my time of being the food/hospitality coordinator for the Girls Rock camp.

As you’ve been reading on my blog in the past perhaps, I have done this before for the Ladies Rock camp, which is one of their many programs they offer to women and girls in my state.

The Ladies Rock camp is 3 days long. Many women go from not having any musical experience in what they are trying to having enough to pull off an awesome performance on the third day and wow the crowd that has assembled to support them and cheer them on.

The past two Ladies’ camps I had organized all the food (for campers and volunteers), by getting donations of products and food from restaurants, asking volunteers to cook for us, and cooking and baking a lot myself.

It is very similar to my role at this Girls’ camp, except it is 5 days long, and a team of 25-30 volunteers get a separate lunch from the campers who also get lunches provided from them.

Many volunteers and campers (at Ladies rock mostly) have special dietary needs, like gluten free, vegetarian, or vegan, so I fit in well. It is usually easiest to try to make the bulk of the cooked meals vegan and gluten free, because then they accommodate everyone.

This year’s girl camp took about a full month of planning, organizing, and well, hustling basically, to get it all set up. I was very nervous about pulling it off prior to the start of camp, but it turned out ridiculously amazing by the end of it.

Before you read a bit about what we ate (I might forget some of it as there was so much food and my memory is a bit foggy!) check out this blog that was written about day 4 of camp, there is a section about me and my food and role at the camp (read the whole thing though!)

Monday- Breakfast was mostly bagels and pastries from White Electric (local coffee shop extraordinaire), and fruit. We had vegan chili, tortillas, and vegan brownies I made from this recipe here. Campers had sandwich supplies and lots of yummy snacks! There was also a snack time for campers and plenty of snacks of all types for everyone throughout the day, donated so kindly from Chex Finer Foods.

Tuesday- We had a similar breakfast as Monday. We had this salad I made, this recipe for chana masala , rice, and other various snack and meal options.

Wednesday for lunch? PIZZA DAY! We had a ton of wonderful pizza donated by Providence Flatbread Company! They make gluten free pizza, vegan pizza, and vegetarian pizza, as well as put their own spin on other classic pizzas. It was a huge hit.

rock! gluten free pot pie

rock! gluten free pot pie

Thursday was also a special day. I had made some savory pot pies. One was gluten free and a bit difficult to describe, but it was a gravy based veggie selection with some daiya cheese on the bottom. The next was a broccoli, nutritional yeast cheese sauce, and tempeh bacon one. The final one was the vegan samosa pot pie from the cookbook Bake and Destroy by Natalie Slater. I used her crust recipe for all the pies except the gluten free one. For the Gluten free one I made it with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Crust Mix.
There was also a pea and Orzo salad with and without cheese made by a volunteer, and biscotti! The campers received lunch donated from Blaze restaurant, which was really great and generous. Check them out, they are actually where I went for my college graduation dinner and are awesome. They have a great vegan selection on the menu!

For snack Thursday we had an exceptionally special treat. Providence’s own, the world’s first vegan soft serve truck, Like No Udder, paid a visit and donated an ice cream or lemonade to all campers and volunteers. I was ridiculously excited about this, as you can see by the picture below.

vegan ice cream truck!

vegan ice cream truck!

On Friday everything was winding down, but the food didn’t stop coming. I had gotten up ridiculously early because I was so excited, and went to make this jackfruit untuna for the vegans because I was concerned they may need more selection. Since I was up so early, I also had time to make waffles for all the volunteers, which was a big hit. For lunch there was a cous cous salad, 2 different green salads, pasta salad, brownies, cookies, a large selection of fruits, and leftovers! Campers finished off the wide selection of sandwich supplies for their lunch.

I am so thankful to all of the volunteers, businesses (including New Harvest, who donated coffee) and parents or volunteers who helped with the cooking/procurement of food. It was a great success.

Now, last but not least in any sense, I leave you with the culmination of the camp, the grande finale, which is a link to the final showcase! I highly recommend you watch it, it shows why I am involved with this organization quite clearly and is totally amazing to watch.

Vegan Bacon Flavored Kale Chip Recipe

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Kid Friendly, Original Recipes, Vegan Bacon and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I love anything faux bacon for some reason. I love the smoky and savory flavors with a hint of sweetness, I guess.

So last night I made my own recipe for another one of my favorite things; kale chips.

This recipe, though it works best in the dehydrator (I have never had success making kale chips in the oven, no matter how low I put the temperature, they always become burnt and have a strange overly cooked greens taste), is not truly a “raw” recipe, because it uses maple syrup, liquid smoke, and smoked paprika, and maybe a few other things that I’m not sure if they are raw or not. So if you care about being 100% raw, this recipe is probably not for you.

Otherwise, I definitely advise trying these if you are a fan of vegan bacon and kale chips!

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Vegan Bacon Flavored Kale Chip Recipe

Ingredients:

  • one bunch kale, or at least 6 cups chopped kale
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
  • 1 cup raw cashews soaked in water (for at least two hours)
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp liquid smoke
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp onion powder
  • 1/4 cup water

Directions:

  1. Prepare the kale by washing it and breaking it into chunks if not already chopped. Make sure there are no large stems in any of the pieces. Place in a large bowl.
  2. Place the cashews (after being soaked, drained, and rinsed) into a food processor and add the rest of the ingredients.
  3. Pulse until thoroughly combined and into a thick sauce like consistency.
  4. Pour over kale and coat the kale thoroughly with your hands.
  5. Place on the sheets of your dehydrator, at about 115 degrees Fahrenheit, overnight (about 10-12 hours, maybe more if still moist).
  6. Enjoy!

 

 

Busy weekend!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Events, Food for good causes and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just finished out this past weekend in an amazing way. I am now fully exhausted, but it was worth it!

I helped to provide the food (as food coordinator) to Girls Rock Rhode Island’s Ladies Rock Camp again!

I wanted to make a quick post about what food I made and share a picture of a surprise I made for the campers…

If you want to know more about Girls Rock Rhode Island check out my post from last time I participated, here.

On the menu:

For breakfasts I made two kinds of muffins, a batch of chocolate chip coffee muffins and some lemon poppy seed muffins.

We also had plenty of donations of bagels, yogurts, pastries, fruit, and other stuff that was delicious!

Oh and coffee! It was provided by a local company called New Harvest.

For lunches-The first day I made an adapted version of the raw pad thai I posted here awhile ago. There were breads, chickpea salad (for sandwiches) and some volunteers made some rice, curry, and pasta salad. We also had a very generous donation of a bunch of snack items that were constantly put out with meals! I also made the Rosemary Chocolate Chip cookies from the book Isa Does It. The second day I made a taco salad and oat chocolate chip cookies. People so generously donated 2 big batches of chili (with some Daiya cheese on the side! I was so excited!), and two quiches! The final day we were so lucky to have The Providence Flatbread Company donate a huge batch of pizza for us! I tried the vegan pizza they made, and it was delicious! The gluten free pizzas went over really well too! Here is their website if you want to check them out! 

Dinners-The first night my friend Andrew made some awesome lentil stew and hummus and we also had some sandwich type salads and stuff. The second night more pizza was ordered, but I was not there so I do not know how that was!

Leftovers were at the final night at the showcase where all the women did an awesome job performing! I hope everyone really enjoyed the food (from what I heard it was great!) and congratulations to everyone who got on stage and did something so brave, inspiring, and empowering for themselves!

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The surprise cupcakes with a special message for campers!

Playing a bit of catch up-tofu, hibachi, gyros, and taco salad

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Breakfast, Eat To Live Cookbook, Isa Chandra Moscowitz, Japanese food, Recipe Reviews, Recipes, Veganized Recipes, Vegetables and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have been a bit missing in action lately. Sorry!

Next weekend I am playing food Coordinator again at the Ladies Rock camp through Girls Rock RI so that will be super fun, but I will also be super busy.

Here is what  I’ve been cooking up!

photo 3 (2)This is what I made for breakfast today. It was the Curry Scrambled Tofu with Cabbage and Caraway from the Vegan Brunch Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moscowitz. My kitchen still smells absolutely amazing from cooking it, and it’s now 3:30pm (I got up at 8 to cook it). Yay. Also, I love that it’s a fusion of Russian and Indian food together, which are two cuisines I would not think to pair together but love individually. They work together too, to my surprise. I always reduce the salt when I cook by a lot…I am not a fan of it and try to cook without it when possible. I did not always do that, though.

photo 2 (2)I made vegan hibachi vegetables with a vegan version of my favorite Japanese dipping sauce (called “yum yum sauce” on recipe sites). Basically for the veggies you just cut 4 zucchini into bite size pieces and 1 1/2 white or yellow onions and stir fry it with 2 tbsp Earth Balance and 4 tbsp soy sauce until cooked thoroughly (I think 5-8 minutes?). For the mushrooms just chop them and cook them in 1 tbsp Earth  Balance and 1 tbsp soy sauce. For the Yum Yum sauce I used this recipe  and made vegan substitutions with vegenaise and Earth Balance and used a bit less water (or you can just add more vegenaise after and stir it up to make it thicker like I did). It’ll need to rest overnight before you eat it so the flavors set.

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Tempeh Gyros with tofu Tzatziki! From this recipe! They were so good and quite healthy! The Tzatziki is made with silken tofu and you can’t even tell it’s not made with yogurt of some type. The only thing I realized is that there is an error in the recipe and they do not tell you what to do with the cucumbers they allude to later (like how much to use and how to cut them up) so I just omitted them and put sliced cucumbers into the sandwich.

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I used the recipe from the Eat To Live Cookbook for the taco salad. It’s really healthy, but could use some kind of improvement in flavor I think that I cannot quite pinpoint. Maybe some more spices or some cherry tomatoes, I do not know! It has corn, black beans, red onion, red and green bell pepper, and a “guacamole” dressing.

That’s all for now! For dinner tonight I am making the Bacon Cheeseburger Pie from Betty Goes Vegan, so I will let you all know how that goes sometime soon!