A friend came over for lunch who supported participating in vegan week, so I whipped up this simple pasta dish. My photo doesn’t look as delicious as the website I got the recipe from, but that’s ok. This was a simple light dish. I didn’t have fresh basil on hand though, so it fell a little flat. The artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives were great. But I think it really needed the fresh basil to make it a better dish. It was still tasty, just a little bland.
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This is our first dinner for vegan week. We don’t plan on turning vegan, we just wanted to try some new recipes. So why go vegan though? Well, one reason is we decided we wanted to reduce the amount of meat and dairy we consume. We’ve heard a lot about the benefits of a wholefoods plant based diet and wanted to see how we could incorporate more of that into our current eating habits.
Also, when I think about vegan food, I think about tempeh burgers, bean burgers, mushroom burgers, and soy hot dogs. I like vegetarian meals, but going vegan seems so much more restricting. I know my perception of a vegan diet is a little flawed. There is so much more to this cooking I don’t know about and I really wanted to explore and educate myself.
I have also been bored, unmotivated and uninspired in the kitchen lately. I wanted to try something new to reignite my efforts in the kitchen.
I know eating vegan doesn’t necessarily mean healthy. I could eat french fries all day and be vegan, but that wouldn’t be very healthy. So I wanted to avoid the soy cheeses, soy hot dogs and a lot of those types of processed imitation products. I wanted to focus on fresh natural ingredients as much as possible. I tried to select a diverse menu from simple typical dishes, to some of the more complicated unique (in my eyes) recipes. I also didn’t want to break the bank either. I had in my head that eating vegan would be expensive. But I came in under budget for this week’s grocery shopping even after I had to by some specialty products I don’t have in stock.
So hopefully after a week we’ll get a good idea of what we like, don’t like, and what we think is practical for us to incorporate into our regular habits. And hopefully learn a thing or two in the process.
First up for dinner was potato broccoli soup, portobello mushroom paninis and a salad. Day one went really well! Everything had a ton of flavor and was very filling. The soup was great, but definitely better as a side. I couldn’t eat the soup and a main dish just because it had such a strong flavor. I know Ellie loves mushrooms so I thought starting with the mushroom sandwiches was the way to go. She ate her whole mushroom and most of the bread. She said she liked the soup but only ate a few bites. The artichoke tapenade for the sandwich was great. Extremely flavorful. Prepping and preparing these meals were very simple and not super time consuming either. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
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This is a nice variation on potato pancakes with a combination of sweet potatoes, potatoes, and parsnips. The beet puree has a bit of apple in it making it a little sweet. We really liked the combined flavor of the potato cakes, beet puree, and the dill on top. I served these with roasted asparagus and a salad.
Ellie gobbled up the asparagus and the beets, but not the potatoes. She’s strange like that. This was a very satisfying filling meal. This will definitely be made again.
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I only picked this because it was in the budget cooking section of the magazine and I had all of the ingredients on hand except for one. I really wasn’t expecting to care for this much and was just looking for an easy weeknight filler meal.
But to my surprise, I really liked this. Super simple and easy, but it had great flavor. I wouldn’t make it for guests or anything, but it was a nice hardy winter evening dinner.
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Most of my experience with cauliflower is with dip on a raw veggie tray. Anything tastes good goobered up in a ranch veggie dip. I don’t hate cauliflower, but it’s not something I would seek out or get excited about. Aya loves cauliflower though. So much it’s in her top three favorite vegetables. Wanting to please Aya, I decided to give this soup a try.
When it comes to cooking vegetables, roasting is always the best way to go, in my opinion. Cauliflower was no exception. I was surprised how great it tasted roasted. And once it was blended and cooked in soup form, it was outstanding! The dried bread and bacon garnish added just enough extra flavor. We both really liked this.
I served it with turkey sandwiches and a spinach salad.
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