Yellow Rice and Vegetables on Pita

Hello on the 18th day of the Vegan Month of Food!  Today I have a post about a quick and easy lunch, the same general idea as a previous post with brown rice, but I felt that this was a colorful enough meal to include anyway.

Yellow Rice and Vegetables on Pita

Ingredients:
--Carolina Yellow Rice mix
--1 T olive oil or vegan margarine
--1 2/3 cup water
--carrots 
--snow peas
--pita

Prepare the yellow rice according to package directions.  Add in chopped carrots and snow peas.  Toast pita lightly and top with rice.  Serve with a side salad of mixed greens.

Goodnight, and looking forward to tomorrow when I'll share my exciting dinner from tonight...vegan sloppy joes!

Peace.  :)

Mushroom Vegetable Soup

Hello on the 17th day of the Vegan Month of Food!  Tonight's post is about a veganized version of my dad's beef vegetable soup.  My sister and I have veganized his recipe in the past (simply leaving out the beef), but this time I decided to add mushrooms, both because I still had more I needed to use up and because I figured that they would contribute a "meaty" texture to the mix.  I didn't have his recipe on hand, and had to scramble a bit (and half it), but it turned out alright.

Mushroom Vegetable Soup

  

Ingredients:
--4 cups of vegan "beef"-flavored broth
--1 cup elbow noodles
--1 can corn, drained
--1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots)
--mushrooms 
--spaghetti sauce 

Bring the broth to a boil, add the elbow noodles, lower heat to medium.  Add the corn and mixed vegetables.  Eventually bring to medium-low to simmer.  Chop up mushrooms (I used 2, but I'm not sure what that came out to, measurement-wise, maybe about 1/2-3/4 cup worth?) and add to the soup.  Finally, add about 6 T spaghetti sauce.  Simmer for a little while longer, and then serve with rolls or crackers.

I enjoyed it, but the soup tasted different (from the vegan versions we've made before).  Next time I'll make sure to dig out the recipe beforehand, and to make sure that I have a can of mixed soup vegetables on hand so I don't have to make do with corn and frozen mixed vegetables.  Also, adding the mushrooms was an interesting experiment, but it might not be one that I repeat for some time, as I didn't really enjoy the texture/taste.  So, all in all, it worked, but I wasn't thrilled with it, so I might still label this as a recipe fail.  Ah well, that's what experimenting is all about.  

And now some photos of cat-acrobatics...

...also known as the cat-pretzel.

Peace.  :)

Simple Spaghetti

Hello on the 16th day of the Vegan Month of Food!  It's hard to believe that we're already into the second half of this adventure; I'm looking forward to keeping the momentum going as we continue on.  Spaghetti might not be the most exciting dish, but it's one that you can make in a pinch and it is certainly nice and filling, which was just what my mom and I were looking for the other night.

Simple Spaghetti

Ingredients:
--spaghetti noodles
--spaghetti sauce
--broccoli 
--cauliflower
--vegan mozzarella cheese

Prepare the spaghetti noodles and heat up the spaghetti sauce.  Boil the broccoli and cauliflower.  Strain and serve the spaghetti noodles, sprinkling the vegan mozzarella cheese on top, adding the spaghetti sauce, and stirring it all together well.  Top off with the broccoli and cauliflower, and enjoy with vegan garlic rolls.

Mr. Boogie and I are getting tired, so we're heading to bed.  Goodnight. 

Peace.  :)