Tag Archives: sweet potato

Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 23: Pre-Thanksgiving

November 23, 2016

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I am finally feeling like I am starting to get my shit together. Sort of. I’ve been actually doing pretty well with Vegan MOFO, and one prompt Alexa was going to write up something but sadly she has been having computer problems. But even still, so far we got a post up everyday, except for one. Last year we missed 3 posts, so maybe this year we will only miss 1 (maybe 2.) Last night I was starting to wonder if my water broke (despite what you see on TV, it isn’t a huge splash) but by the next morning it was very clear it didn’t. At first I was freaking out that nothing was ready. So this weekend I might focus on making phone calls and getting things in order.

Well, I didn’t go into labor, which is good. I still have three weekends to get the nursery totally settled in (so close guys!) and I will be spending family bonding time before the big day.

I think I’ve mentioned in every single Thanksgiving Day themed post, that I don’t like the holiday. Frankly I don’t like the food much. Cranberry sauce? Why are we eating plain jam? Mashed Potatoes? What is this baby food? Pies? Meh, give me cake. I mean it is all find an dandy but I think it marks the beginning of the a marathon of holiday foods that all taste the same. Lots of thyme, rosemary, umami, and root veggies. Meh. I think that is why family does Mexican Christmas Eve. But my husband LOVES the food and holiday. So that means I feed into his love of mashed potatoes and pie even though I would rather not.

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And even more luckily for him, his office has an office Thanksgiving lunch. He use to eat whatever they had before he went vegan. But this is the third celebration since he decided to go vegan. So we started a “pre-thanksgiving” tradition. Every year, before his office party we make a frozen “faux turkey” roast with one or two vegetable sides. We’ve tried tofurky, but so far my favorite has been the Gardein/Trader Joe’s holiday roast. Plus, the Trader Joe’s “brand” is cheaper, though it is really just Gardein with Trader Joe smacked on the outside. I’m cool with that.

This year we kept it pretty simple, we took some vegetables from our CSA and followed the instructions for a big roast. This gave us MUCH more veggies than we first anticipated. So we had some roasted turnips, parsnips, carrots, and celery (not from our CSA.) We then made a side of But I Could Never Go Vegan‘s sweet potato and brussel sprouts dish. The sprouts were from out CSA, which didn’t do too hot this year. Our stalk was more greens than sprouts, so we saved all of those and will probably do a little side with them another day.

This year Jon found out one of his co-workers is actually vegan (we thought he was just vegetarian.) So next year if they are both still working there, I will probably be making a bigger spread to bring in and share with his co-workers. Apparently other people at the office were commenting on how good the food looked.

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Usually we get by for the rest of the week not cooking anything, which is totally okay with me. Leftovers all week leading up to the big cooking holiday? Okay! Actually I do cook, just usually things we aren’t going to eat. Like I cooked a whole pound of chickpeas (to make two chickpea tarts, one for thanksgiving, one for post baby), bake an apple pie, bake a pumpkin pie, you know, prep work.

If anyone wants to know, I’ve made a few other Thanksgiving posts- you can check them out if you so please:

Our Thanksgiving 2015 Plan
Our Thanksgiving Dinner 2014
Recipe for Vegan Green Bean Casserole
How to Serve a Vegan Guest for Your Holiday Dinner
Tofurky or Not Tofurky? That is the Question.

Anyone else with a Pre-Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving tradition?

Posted by Jennifer in Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016 Tags: brussel sprouts, But I Could Never Go Vegan, celery, gardein, parsnips, sweet potato, thanksgiving, trader joe's, turnips, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016

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Vegan Mofo 2016 Day 17: Corn Chowder

November 17, 2016

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I remember reading some blogger saying that every vegan cookbook has some sort of corn chowder. Clearly I didn’t get the memo. I think I’ve only made this corn chowder in my whole adult life. The recipe is originally from Vegetarian Planet, a super old school book my mother gave me when I went vegan. My mother is not a vegetarian, but you can blame her for my open mind to veganism. I probably ate less meat, and I probably ate a wider variety of food than most children. This cookbook has always been on our shelf. I never thought it was weird until my husband shot me a weird glance when I mentioned cooking couscous for dinner. I mean every small American child eats couscous right? No? He also hadn’t heard of knishes before, which is one of the rare potato foods I actually like. But then again, I have a thing for food wrapped around a dough.

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Anyways, what I love about Vegetarian Planet is that the recipes are written by a meat eater, but aren’t bland. Most omnivores who make a vegan recipe always taste like it needs a little something extra, or it is so low calorie it is almost pointless. But Didi Emmons just loves vegetables, and isn’t afraid of a little fat and calories. In fact this recipe calls originally for 6 cups milk with the option of replacing a cup of milk for heavy cream. No thanks, but I like your enthusiasm Didi.

I am also not against “fake” foods, but I do like when vegan cookbooks stay away from them. Why? Well, it just makes everything seem more approachable. I think when transitioning to a new diet, having a whole new world of wheat gluten, soy products, and fake cheese can either be fun, comforting, or intimidating. I feel like if a person who wants to go vegan could easily pick up this book and cook almost anything from it without many new products (you probably would need to remove cheese, or sub soy milk/fake butter.)

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Todays prompt was all about cooking with colors we rarely make, and even though the past two posts have featured some intense yellow, I don’t actually cook with that color that often. This was my attempt to make something yellow. And color perfectionist me is just unhappy with how green and brown it is. Damn my background in color theory. But close enough right?

So how does my recipe differ from the book? Well, the original recipe uses 6 cups of milk, and I couldn’t blow that much cash on a dinner! So I cut down to 4 cups soy milk and 2 cups vegetable broth. The recipe also is suppose to use fresh corn and their stalks. But I made it so you can make it in the winter, when you probably want to eat a rich cup of hot chowder anyways. So it uses frozen corn.

There are also nice chunks of sweet potatoes in there. I wanted to use a white sweet potato, but I grabbed an orange one instead. Oops. That’s the problem with my CSA, I tend to mix up my white and orange sweet potatoes up by the time I get home and they all just get mixed together. It isn’t that big of a deal except for the different cooktimes.

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Anyone else use a non-vegan cookbook often?

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2016 Tags: corn chowder, recipe, soy milk, sweet potato, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016

5 comments

Penne Sweet Potato Casserole with Sesame Crumbs

June 15, 2015

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I am getting so over my current apartment. I know I’ve mentioned how I’ve bought a rowhouse. It is an exciting adult step for my husband and I, and a little scary. We went to our inspection on Saturday, and turned out really well. We are requesting $1,000 worth or repairs before going in, and there isn’t anything we would care about it they said no to (and I think only two requests they legally need to fund us or fix). Going through the house again makes me want to start designing everything.

There is a WHOLE MONTH before we can move in, and it is killing me. I want my dishwasher, god I would love to take a plate and just put it away and out of sight. I would love to only have to handwash a blender and french press in the morning, then a few pots at night. I would also love to wash my clothes whenever I want and not have to worry that if I leave my laundry in the machine and then be a burden to someone else. I want for Toulouse to have stairs to run up and box windows to stare out of.

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To try and keep my mind occupied I am trying to do the Summer Shape-Up on The Fitnessista. It might be fun to have new recipes to try out, and heck switch up my breakfast plans a little even! This is the first day in years I didn’t have a SMOOTHIE! It was oddly really hard, but I think tomorrow my body will cope with it a little better. Funny since I read so many articles about how smoothies are calorie bombs that don’t keep you full for long.

This will also help with spicing up my workout routine. I’ve been pretty much just been running and going to an Orangetheory class each week. So it probably will be nice to get more weight training in, especially since I will be lifting many many many boxes in a month. No need to workout on moving day.

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This recipe was resurrected from the dead this weekend. I originally made the recipe, wrote down notes, and loved it so much that I took photos for the blog. I edited the photos, but waited to post it since I had a few other recipes I wanted to put on the blog. Fast forward a few weeks and I couldn’t find the recipe. At that point summer was creeping in and the desire to cook a casserole had disappeared. So I figured the recipe would never make it to the blog.

Then my husband decided he would clean the computer area. And what did he find? The recipe! I am pretty excited about it because I would like to make this recipe again this winter. I love Korean sweet potatoes. They have a chestnut-like flavor which I totally recommend using in this recipe. If you can’t find any, the closest substitute is a white sweet potato.

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I also love the touch of sesame flavor on the top crumb. The sesame seeds really add an extra crunch that contrasts the creamy sauce and soft noodles. It adds a nice twist to the normal creamy pasta casserole dish. I really don’t think it emulates any western cream based noodle dishes, like alfredo or macaroni and cheese. This really is something that stands on it’s own. Continue reading →

Posted by Jennifer in Recipe Tags: caramelized onions, cashews, casserole, nutritional yeast, oats, onions, penne, rolled oats, sesame seeds, sweet potato

1 comment

Sunshine Latte- flavored with turmeric, vanilla, and sweet potato

March 9, 2015

One weekend reading I featuring a link to Superfood lattes. The one that really caught my eye was the Turmeric Vanilla latte. When I made it, I thought it was alright. I wasn’t jumping through hoops for it. I think I didn’t like the accompanying powder spices in the drink, as they didn’t dissolve all the way.

But I did think that sweet potato would add a nice complimentary flavor to the drink. The chestnut-like flavors from a Korean sweet potato would work wonders with turmeric. And I was correct. The flesh from the root help rounded out the powdered spice, and give a smooth texture to the latte.

So why bother with turmeric? I like naturally healing foods, but I don’t talk about them often. I worry that people will misinterpret the strength of food, and over estimate them. Ignoring medical problems isn’t cool.

That being said, turmeric has a buttload of medical cures. But most people praise it’s ability to decrease inflammation. In fact, I kept putting in a teaspoon of turmeric into my shakes when my legs were hurting me from standing too long at my old job. I just wish I made this latte back then because it tastes much better than my shakes.

This is the best time of the year for this latte. Most of us are coming to an end to the winter season, and all the snow is melting. This latte is bright and cheery just like the spring. I recommend using sweet potatoes with white flesh to keep the yellow glow. But orange fleshed sweet potatoes will taste just as amazing, and give an equally pretty and vibrant color.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe Tags: almond milk, latte, soy milk, soy-free, sweet potato, sweet potato latte, turmeric, vanilla

Sunday Reading 10-12-14 #8

October 12, 2014

Sorry guys about the crazy stuff going on with the site the few days. Yesterday my host went down, and has been running slow in general. Then this morning the database disappeared and I was slightly worried I lost everything. Which wouldn’t of been cool.

Because of that, I didn’t get to post my most recent “Alexa Asks”, which is about calcium and your milks. And poor Alexa has been trying her cauliflower recipe that she originally made for Vegan Mofo. But they will most likely show up sometime next week.

What’s the Difference Between Yams and Sweet Potatoes?

Sweet potatoes and yams were always a confusing matter for me. I remember being told that yams were totally different from sweet potatoes, and should never be subbed in a recipe. But the more I learned about the produce I was cooking with the more I got confused. I could taste or see a difference between sweet potatoes and yams. What’s the deal? The Kitchn settles the potato vs yam debate, and clears up why you are confused about it.

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Be the Deal Breaker: Multiply Your Influence at Non-Vegan Restaurants

Eating out can be scary when you are a vegan. There are lots of questions to ask, and lots of modifications to be made. But Liz Dee write about how you can make a bigger impact by being more vocal. I’ve worked at a restaurant, and I know how annoying special requests can be. But I understand completely that some people simply can’t eat certain things. But no one is going to know that there are more vegans if you simply ask for replace yogurt with soy milk in your smoothie.

I’m Sick of Nutrition Elitism!

Lindsay over at Happy Herbavore wrote a great article about nutritional elitism. She relates it specifically with veganism, and I know it has directly related to me. There is a difference between encouraging people to eat organic and scaring them to eat organic. Working at a health food restaurant I’ve seen the miserably strict. They never seemed too happy and I always wondered if it was because they were so strict with their diets. Our bodies are strong, and eating non-organic, GMO foods isn’t going to kill us.

What Kids Around the World Eat

I love learning about what people around the world eat. Breakfast is growing to be my favorite meal to learn about. I actually do not like breakfast, sometimes I’ll treat my husband to pancakes or french toast, but I can safely never eat pancakes for the rest of my life and be okay with it. In the west breakfast is usually filled with preserved dairy and meat produces. Things that are easy to prepare. But looking at the food served across the globe, some of the plates have more veggies present and a couple look vegan even!

Last Week Tonight: Columbus Day

I’ve never fully cared about Monday holidays. When you work in retail or food, you are usually open. So Columbus Day is usually a day when my husband complains that I don’t have off. But more and more states are choosing to swap it out for a different holiday, mostly celebrating the people who were living in America before Columbus came.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: breakfast, happy herbivore, new york times, nutrition, our hen house, restaurant, sweet potato, the kitchn, yams

Tag Archives: sweet potato

Anyone else with a Pre-Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving tradition?

Anyone else use a non-vegan cookbook often?

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