Kale Chips, Pumpkin Cornbread, Beyond Meat, and Skillet Lasagna

Hello on the 18th day of the Vegan Month of Food! Tonight's post features several different items from the health food store, and most importantly, the redemption of yesterday's skillet lasagna!

Skillet lasagna, take two!

But first, let's start with today's snack experiment. I'd bought kale at the health food store simply because it was on sale. It was a variety I'd never had before, lacinato kale, but it looked interesting. I've had kale chips before, but I've never made my own, so I figured I'd give it a try. 

I added olive oil and salt to the batch as a whole, then nutritional yeast to half, and my French fry spices (pepper, garlic, cumin, chili powder) to the other half. I let them bake about five minutes on each side, and kept flipping them and repeating the process until I felt they were done. I spread them out on paper towels to try to soak up some of the extra olive oil (I'm thinking I maybe should have used less), and then tried them out.

Well, the initial taste, with the crispiness and the spices/flavor, was good, but the actual kale just didn't taste that great.

Kale chips with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, and chili powder.

So I might just have to play around with the recipe a bit, maybe use a different variety of kale, but it was a fun experiment, all in all.

Kale chips with olive oil, salt, and nutritional yeast.

And now on to dinner... Earlier this week, I saw this post by Hannah at House Vegan, wherein she presented her recipe for pumpkin cornbread. Having had such success with making the classic cornbread from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food in the first week AND having just bought a can of pumpkin (again because it was on sale), I decided that this was the perfect recipe to try. 

I used coconut milk for the non-dairy milk, and left out the sugar because it was technically a “pumpkin pie mix” (pumpkin puree with added flavors, including cane sugar). And I loved Hannah's optional ingredient of sunflower seeds on top; I knew that was definitely something I would want to include! I baked it for 20 minutes, and it smelled so good! The first slice was a bit crumbly, but I didn't mind at all; it tasted delicious & that's all that matters to me!

Since I'd planned to have the pumpkin cornbread with some of the leftovers from yesterday, I figured I'd also add in another of my finds from the health food store: Beyond Meat chicken (grilled). This was my first time trying Beyond Meat and it was really good.

All together, this was a great meal, and the pasta was definitely a lot more enjoyable this time around.

Maybe the skillet lasagna is just one of those dishes that tastes better as leftovers? And/or the fact that the cornbread and chicken were just that awesome!

Buttons and Leela brought back their kitty loaf poses with perfect timing. (Buttons did hers yesterday, Leela did hers today.)

Buttons is a cute lumpy loaf.

And Leela is giving loafing her utmost concentration.

Oh, and I can't believe I almost forgot to mention it, but I got an e-mail today letting me know that I was one of the winners of the Vegan MoFo mug! I'm so excited and can't wait to get it in the mail! I'll be sure to take a picture of it once it arrives. In the meantime, you can check out the shop; lots of cute stuff!

Peace. :)

Skillet Lasagna

Hello on the 17th day of the Vegan Month of Food! Tonight continues my health food store vegan week with a pasta mix that Zach thought would be interesting; I made it for our dinner tonight.

It's one of those simple toss-it-in-the-skillet kind of things: Combine pasta & seasoning, water, and crushed tomatoes (I used pasta sauce instead) in the pan, bring to boil, cover & lower heat to medium, & cook 20 minutes.

So I did just that, and then some... but even after 10 extra minutes, the pasta was still a bit stiff... Well, we were hungry, so we just figured, heck with it, and I added in 6 oz. of Daiya shredded mozzarella, stirred that in, left it to melt for another five minutes, and then we sat down to eat.

Another not-so-photogenic meal... whoops...

I don't know, I didn't think it was that great, but Zach was a good sport about it and said it was “okay.” We determined that it was the spiciness of the seasoning mix that made it less than ideal, plus the fact that some of the pasta was still a bit, ah, “crunchy.” So, my takeaway from this is that I'm just going to stick with making my own instead of using seasoned mixes. In the past we've enjoyed simple pasta dishes with Daiya-cheesy spaghetti sauce. No need for all the silly additional seasonings. Ah well... now to figure out what to do with the leftovers, haha!

Oooo, steamy...

Lunch today was half of the other ramen I bought (millet & brown rice ramen). I added some carrot slices and had my leftover tempeh from yesterday on the side. Didn't like this ramen as much as the first, though. The forbidden rice ramen is still the one to beat!

And for a snack, a gala apple from the health food store with some more dollar store trail mix, yum! 

Buttons and Leela continue to be cuties.

Buttons likes sprawling out at the top of the attic steps.

And Leela enjoys curling up in the corner next to my nightstand.

Peace. :)