Category Archives: Vegan Mofo

Thursday

My friend Justine came to visit and we ended up taking the train into Philadelphia and going to Little Baby’s Ice Cream, something she has wanted to do since Wolfie was a teeny little bb. They are known for their crazy flavors, and I love how they do fun flavors for both the dairy and non-dairy. Plus almost half of the menu is vegan so year. Wolfie got the chocolate milano and I got the balsamic banana. Justine got a mix of chocolate milano and red eye. If you check the place out, be warned, the baby size is very baby sized! 

In the morning I quickly put started jars of pickled jalapeños and a cayenne hot sauce. The pickled jalapeños are just sliced jalapeños in a brine, nothing special. They are just good to have on hand during the winter instead of buying one pepper for a recipe. The hot sauce we will see how it turns out. It is just cayenne peppers, some tomatoes, and lots of garlic cloves and scapes. After 4 days I plan on blending it. 

For dinner I made a massive pot of chili, using 6 cups of pinto beans, 2 asian eggplants, 3 lb roughly pureed tomatoes, 3 italia peppers, and quinoa. It made a bunch, and it was pretty tasty. My Mom gave me some avocados, so we sliced them and topped the chili with them. 

Friday

I had to work today, so I packed (and didn’t photograph) the last bit of the tomatillo chili I made last week with some rice. Wolfie didn’t nap at my Mother-in-Laws, nor did he nap well last night, so he was an emotional roller coaster. I was too tired to think, so I quickly made the chili mac casserole. It definitely tastes amazing this time around, but I didn’t photograph it because it never looks amazing lol


Tuesday

Tuesday has been busy. Monday was a DISASTER of a day. No nap, Wolfie tried pooping on the floor (yes, you read that right), lots of screaming, and crying, yuck. But he fell asleep and slept through the whole night! I first in a long time. Then we had fun at a friend’s birthday party. We quickly made some cupcakes in the morning, but it ended up being unnecessary as they reserved a Mr. Softee truck, and got a Bomb Pop, which was MASSIVE! And he even managed to eat pretty much the whole thing (ignoring the amount the melted and dripped down his hands) But what did we eat from our CSA?

Well, what isn’t pictured is the stuff I ate during the day. I had a peach smoothie that morning. Although peaches weren’t included in my weekly tally, I did end up picking 9 pounds of peaches at an orchard near our CSA. Two of those pounds were made into a sorbet, and we have been mostly just snacking on them. But some did freeze up in the fridge, so we used them up in smoothies, which is a great way to use up veggies and fruit when they accidentally freeze. I also had leftover stir-fry and snacked on cherry tomatoes.

For dinner we made some dal from a kids book named Bilal loves Dal. It is a pretty simple slow cooker recipes, simple enough they have a recipe for kids to make. It didn’t use many veggies, other than some sautéed tomato and onion. Wolfie did help dump all the ingredients in the slow cooker so he was pretty excited to taste it. I served it next to a green bean dish from Vegan Richa. The green beans were fairly quick to make, and it was really tasty. I just had some brown rice cook up in the rice cooker and served some of the leftover tomatillo and chickpea curry.

Wednesday

Today wasn’t nearly as crazy as previous days, but Wolfie didn’t nap which really eats away at my ability to cook food AND blog. So hopefully this post goes up. The day was mainly snacking on some of the cherry tomatoes, ground cherries, and peaches. I didn’t really get to eat a proper lunch, and just wolfed down a bagel with hummus, using no produce. Dinner was a Vegan Richa recipe for a chickpea and eggplant dish. It was pretty eggplant heavy since one eggplant was more than what the recipe called for. But I served it with leftover curries and brown rice, in a sort of self serve sort of dinner.

Clockwise starting with Brown Rice- green beans; daal, and eggplant and chickpeas


watermelon

Oof, what a morning. Wolfie didn’t want to eat breakfast and was HANGRY, and it was sooooooo humid at the farm. Yuck, yuck, yuck. It effected some our picking, as we didn’t get our full pints of ground cherries and blackberries, but we will survive. I have a good bit leftover this week, but some of it was a little bit that we didn’t get to eat, or because I never got around to chopping up a bunch of peppers for preserving.

We also had the option to choose cantaloupe or a watermelon, but Wolfie was super hyped about the watermelon. So I already chopped it all up and he already ate some. He also ate some of the ground cherries at the farm. And I ate a large amount of cherry tomatoes while putting together this list. And I used a bunch for the dinner tonight, so like, totally inaccurate list of produce lol. But here it is-

What’s Leftover

New Produce

When we got back from the farm I was starving, so I quickly toasted a bagel, and slathered on some hummus I bought and topped it was some thinly sliced tomato. It was heavenly. I partly did it because the tomato had a few bad spots coming through, so better use it now. Wolfie chowed down on a bowl of watermelon for lunch, as did Jon. And Jon and I totally had some leftover pizza as well (for like a mid snack?)

For dinner I made a moo shu styled stir-fry. I used the Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook as my base sauce, though I totally skipped the sriracha for Wolfie. I added some pan fried tofu, and served it with rice. What veggies were in it you ask? Spring carrots, cabbage, a green bell pepper, an italia pepper, and scallions. It was pretty good, except the carrots weren’t jiving. They were spring carrots so the earthiness was a little too pronounced. Oh well. Wolfie actually ATE THE VEGGIES!!! So I am taking it as a win!

Would you pick watermelon or cantaloupe?


Thursday

Yesterday I had to go into work so I made a wrap using the old okra peanut stew/casserole, tofu, and some vegan cheese. It was actually surprisingly good. I didn’t take a photo because I was hungry, and it wasn’t the most stellar looking food. I also ate some ground cherries and blackberries as a snack. As for Wolfie? He tried out the new beet berry jam. I can’t fully tell if it was a hit or not seeing how much made it to his face lol

When I got home I was a little rushed to put together a dinner, but I was able to whip up the Tomatillo and Chickpea Curry I have posted on the site. I did have to make some subs, like I didn’t have green beans or coconut milk. But I added some tahini to make up for the missing fats, and I really liked that addition. I was also super lucky to have those small potatoes from earlier, so it sped up the cooking process by not having to chop anything else other than the tomatillos.

Friday

Today is Jon’s birthday so I let him choose what to have for dinner. We went for pizza, and I normally like to make my own dough but I bought the Wegman’s brand instead. I sautéed the onions from the farm, trying to caramalize them along with a green bell pepper, and a red italia pepper. I also put slices of the big cherry tomatoes on top. We have been craving a pizza for awhile, so it was a nice treat.

And even though it didn’t use anything from the farm, we did make a cookie and cream birthday cake. We used a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, doubled the batter, but used only one frosting recipe. Pretty much you use oreos in the batter and icing. It is always a family favorite. Wolfie helped mix up the batter, and was asking for cake ALL DAY. Oof. It was always pretty tasty, but I might of overbaked it a little. I also was not impressed by Wegman’s new vegan butter, the icing was runnier than normal, making it hard to frost, and had to chilling the fridge for a little before applying more.


My beets have been building up in the fridge, and I have been struggling to find recipes that use them. Most call for beets to be roasted, because let’s face it, it is best way to eat them. Sadly it is hot and I am not having my oven on for longer than 30 minutes. So, I figured I would try a sweet route- make beet jam. There was leftover blueberries and strawberries that Wolfie wasn’t really eating, so I figured why not toss them in with the beets.

While that was bubbling up, I had a tomato starting to go bad. I figured I would thinly slice it and make a quesadilla with it for lunch. Nothing terribly crazy, and I wish I added at least some sriracha but oh well. It was okay, pretty much the downfall is that Aldi’s vegan cheese doesn’t work well with quesadillas since it is fairly runny.

While starting to make dinner, I noticed all the okra was frozen (my fridge does this a lot, I also had to toss out frozen lettuce) and I wasn’t sure how baking it would effect it. So I tried my best to wash them off, and quickly chop them. Tossed them on a baking tray to freeze. At the very least I can try and make that pomegranate okra dish this winter, which called for frozen okra anyways.

So I ended up taking the leftover chili and made chili mac casserole. I chopped up the rest of the tomato from lunch, and yet another tomato that was starting to go bad, and sprinkled them on top. Sadly I am super unimpressed by the tomatoes this year, they have really large cores, making a big tomato half usable. You can even see the core in the chopped tomatoes below. Very unimpressed this year.

This dinner turned out kind-of disappointing. Lacking flavor, and I know the cheese sauce was lacking because I ran out of cashews. Bummer. But still was filling and good. And I eventually added more sriracha when I went for seconds.


Today is pretty much a leftovers day, so there isn’t much to report so I thought I would try and post about my favorite gear for a CSA. Clearly you can make do without any fancy stuff, but these are the items I find most helpful.

A Large Salad Spinner

We barely survived with a small spinner for quite some time. It was largely because we had small apartment. But having a large easy to use salad spinner is a MUST. You will get lots of greens and they will be dirty. I think I once washed a head of lettuce 4 times with new water. Oof. It has also proven to be helpful with other vegetables like green beans, or peas.

A Container that Keeps Vegetables Fresher Longer

I find having a container that has a basket that sits in second container is perfect for lettuce or greens. Sure you could wash your greens in the spinner and pop it in the fridge but it can take up a lot of space. Also by having this container you can wash some greens, store them for the week, and wash and clean another batch to store in the salad spinner (or use that night)

“Berry” quart container

Elizabeth’s Embellishments | Crate and Barrel | Food 52 | Creative Co-op Collection | Crisp Kitchen

I LOVE our reusable baskets. If you have to pick your own produce, then your local CSA probably wants their pints and quarts back. By the end of the season the baskets start to look pretty sad. These baskets were very on trend a few years ago, but now they are falling out of fashion (probably because most people don’t like to transfer their food from one container to another) I would like to buy more of these containers, and might have to visit crate and barrel and check out their super cheap ones, as one basket is proving to not be enough.

Waterproof Boots

You can just wear regular old rain boots, but I recommend getting some really nice ones. I’ve heard great things about Muck Boots, and although they are not a vegan company, most of their boots are.  If you don’t have tons of cash to drop, looking at the selection of boots in the gardening section is another great option, as you are battling mud more than water.

What do you guys think is a CSA/farmers market must have?


Oh boy this week is going to be CRAZY! So I am hoping I can keep up with everything. Needless to say I am probably not going to eat much of CSA shares outside of leftovers for lunches (if I am lucky) So you will largely see dinners. So here we go:

Sunday

I honestly can’t remember what I ate for lunch. I can say that Wolfie ate the last bit of beet pasta, I have been giving Jon little bits of green bean and cucumber salad for lunch, and he had a wrap with tofu and leftovers. Nothing super exciting.

I got to make this AMAZING dish! This is always one of my favorite dishes from Vegan Eats World. Part of the reason is that I love the sweet and tart taste of cherry tomatoes when they get warm/cooked. It also uses up some green beans. I love how she uses small potatoes which makes my life easier, and oh yeah, that BAKED TOFU! I took the time to bake the tofu and made my house super hot, but no regrets. There’s leftovers and I am SOO excited about eating the leftovers this week.

Monday

Tonights dinner was super yummy, even if it doesn’t really look so hot. It is a Chorizo Chili with Tomatillos and Sweet Potatoes, a recipe I heavily modified from Sunbasket. I used Trader Joe’s soyrizo, so that’s the obvious swap. But I doubled the sweet potato, cooked in some red lentils to prevent it from being too soupy and to sub the black beans. They also just say “spice blend” so I just added whatever I thought sounded good. I am thinking about maybe using the leftovers for a crazy chili mac. *crosses fingers* I will totally have to do it, mostly because I just noticed the list for the week is all chilis and stews. Oops.


Oh boy. I am pooped. It has been a crazy past few days, and 95% of it toddler centered lol. I am not much of a mood to get into specifics, other than it has been effecting my time available for blogging. Mostly I am rushing a sewing job for a birthday gift, so the past two days my free time has been centered around tracing patterns and cutting out fabric. I am REEEAAALLY hoping the sewing part will go fast. *crosses fingers*

What’s Leftover

New Produce

I took way more okra than I intended. Oops. I wanted to try baking them in a recipe from Superiority Burger, but I have way more than needed… I think. I also took a bunch of peppers to make a fermented hot sauce and just pickle some jalapeños because it is handy for the winter. I purposely saved my green beans for a dish to make this week, so I am pretty excited to make that.

So here is the run down update of what I ate the past few days. It was too crazy so no photos, and I will try and post today’s food for tomorrow

Friday

I had work so I took the leftover soup and tossed it into a high protein bean noodle with some cherry tomatoes. I forgot to take a photo, nor was it particularly pretty anyways. Then for dinner we took the leftover peanut stew and tried baking it into a casserole with some rice, added tomato paste, cherry tomatoes, and some tempeh lightly grilled and spiced with a 5-Spice Blend. It really didn’t help that much. I did finish that cucumber sorbet and it was AMAZING! I ran out of a full fat coconut milk, so I used reduced fat and added an avocado. It helped improve flavor SOOOO much.

Saturday

Saturday was a pretty over the top day, so we weren’t in the kitchen much. I had another okra cheese quesadilla, and dinner we used one of the new big tomatoes for a frozen burger. Jon ate a salad with his burgers. The plan was to eat some leftover green bean salad but that didn’t really happen. Yikes.

Has anyone else heard of ‘Italia Peppers’? Is this sort of a Jersey Italian thing?


Last night Wolfie saw me chopping up the beet and got very excited, and thought he was getting some. I felt bad when I told him he couldn’t have any, but told him that he could eat some in his smoothie the next morning, he was pretty excited. So that’s just what I did. I chopped up half a beet into the smoothie he shares with Jon. Then I tossed some into my smoothie. I didn’t take a photo because mornings are chaotic, but it was a chocolate-beet-strawberry smoothie. Tasty stuff.

Jon continued to have his pickled peas, salsa verde sides for lunch, but no leftover wrap. Yesterday I had a stroke of genius of making a quesadilla with the leftover okra dish and some vegan cheese. So this afternoon I tried it out and it was really delicious, although overstuffed. I will probably be finishing up the last bit of the leftovers this way this weekend.

It is also worth noting, there is no ice cream. I know! I am a shameful person! But I went into the freezer to start it up, and saw I never put the ice cream maker in the freezer. I could scream! So I guess it will get churned tomorrow. If it is any good I will try and post a recipe.

Today was a pretty hard parenting day, so I really had to push myself to make this soup tonight. It is pretty simple really though. Just one pound carrots, one pound golden beets, 1 onion sautéed, 1 tbsp red curry paste, boiled in 4 cups stock and blended with 1 cup almond milk. The original recipe roasted the roots, and used coconut milk but it was too hot and I accidentally used all my coconut milk to ice creams (so too hot.) It was tasty, and simple to make, but peeling so many tiny carrots was a pain. *cries* I served it with some of a half baked loaves of bread from Aldi, which is cheap but really nice. I super recommend getting them since it takes less than 10 minutes to bake, and the crust is always super perfect.

And if anyone follows me on Instagram you might of remember seeing one of my stories about a cute Hello Kitty soy sauce container. Well I got it, justifying it as the “fancy serving soy sauce.” And finally it had it’s day in the sun. The recipe didn’t call for salt, so I forgot to put it in. I used homemade stock, and I never salt it like commercial stocks and broths. So we just added soy sauce to make it saltier.

And now I am super pooped and will be saying good bye without spell checking or ending question lol


Anyone want to adopt my kid? Because I really would like some sleep. lol Last night Wolfie was terrified of the fireman demonstration at the library where they dressed up in their full gear, including the respirator. Apparently giving him nightmares so bad I refused to go back to sleep. So we got him a night light so cross your fingers tonight.

Today for lunch I had a bagel with tofutti but Jon had some leftovers. He had that salsa verde, pickles, and a wrap made with rice, beans, halved cherry tomatoes, and the leftover stew from last night. I love adding cherry tomatoes to burritos because they cook up a little when microwaving the wrap. It really will help with the flavor of the wrap. 

I was sitting around thinking about the kohlrabi I had in the fridge, and I decided I would try and make a pickle to use on a bahni mi sandwich. Sadly it went bad which I am honestly not surprised about that. But I did manage to make the basil cucumber sorbet I wanted to make. I need it to chill overnight and I will pop it in the ice cream maker tomorrow afternoon so it can set for the evening. Yummy.

For dinner I made a beet alfredo. It was good, though I am not sure how much the beet actually brought to the table. It feels a little bit more like a fun way to get kids to eat pasta. It felt a little lacking, so I tossed in a teaspoon of miso, and I used leeks instead of onions. It only uses one beet, so it doesn’t bring that much nutrition to the table. That is kind-of the problem with beets, a little goes a long way. Our CSA is having a strong beet crop this year, so that is a little tough since the other crops are hurting. I am starting to think about maybe doing a beetroot jam, or maybe a strawberry beet sorbet. 

Last week I made a cucumber green bean salad tossed in a miso dressing. It was pretty tasty, though I cooked the green beans instead of just “smashing” them. It makes a lot, so we have been eating it from time to time as a side dish. 

Well for anyone who is keeping track at home here is the total list. I know for a fact we won’t be using the green beans, as I am saving them for next week. There were hardly enough to really use. 

2 garlic scapes
1/2 cucumber
2 green bell peppers
1 kohlrabi R.I.P
1 small head of cabbage
2 lb 4 oz okra
4 lb 3 oz beets (half golden, half red)
1 lb 4 oz carrots
1 bunch of scallions
1 pint blackberries
1/2 pint ground cherries
1 quart sun gold tomatoes
1 lb 5oz tomatillos
3 1/2 oz green beans (1 pint)
12 oz mixed stir-fry greens (1/3 a bag)
3 small leeks
3 slicing tomatoes
4 small salt & pepper cucumbers
1 small striped eggplant (10oz)
4 hot peppers
3 cipollini onions

How do you like using beets? Any recipe recommendations?