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. :)

Snack Time!

Hello on the 12th day of the Vegan Month of Food! Tonight's post showcases just three of the many vegan snacks you can find at the dollar store: Soft pretzels, trail mix, and wheat crackers.

I gave the soft pretzels a try last night.

I'm used to the Super Pretzels kind, so I noticed that compared to them, the dollar store soft pretzels are a bit thinner, as well as being more of an oval shape than they appear on the box, haha. I had my soft pretzel with a bit of mustard to dip it in, and I enjoyed it.

Apparently Buttons was interested as well...

Maybe I'm just not that picky, but I don't really find much of a difference between these and the Super Pretzels (other than their outward appearance), so I'll probably start going with these instead and save a bit (of course, that will be after I try out these two pretzel recipes from fellow Vegan MoFo bloggers at KZ Cakes and AfroVeganChick).

The next dollar store snack is the fruit & nut trail mix.

It's pretty good, a nice combo of salty & sweet, but nothing overly exciting.

The last of my dollar store snack items, the wheat crackers, are ones I've had before (my mom was the first to find them), so I already knew of their awesome tastiness.

You can snack on them plain, have them with soup & dunk them, or even try out various toppings if that's your thing (like adding little pieces of vegan cheese on top, perhaps?).

Lunch today was a repeat of yesterday's, burrito with leftover brown rice & black beans, with tortilla chips and salsa.

Dinner was chicken (TVP) noodle soup (featuring the dollar store items of pasta, salt free seasoning, and wheat crackers on the side).

Here's a silly sleepy Leela, who thinks cat beds are great in theory, but that nothing really beats the floor when it comes to napping surfaces.

Peace. :)