Visas and Veganry

Hello my lovlies!

Jex and I are wading through the wonderful world of "Visas for a foreign country". It's awful! (^_^) no really it's not very fun. Mostly because the agency we're working for has to go through another agency because of all the hullabaloo with the Thai government right now and it's making everything take that much longer. Time is something we're kind of running short on. Doesn't help that they send us the Visa package on a long American Holiday weekend so I can do NOTHING to start the process till Monday.

That being said I'll just skip to the reason I hopped on the blogger (other than trying to find my zen because of the above). I want to share with you the Awesomesauce I cooked up a couple Vegan Vendzdays ago. Why not wait till Wednesday? Because I have no idea if I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off or calling 400 different people and agencies and dancing around the house to horrid hold music for hours this coming Wednesday, that's why.

Ashes' Protein Stuffed Mushrooms

1/4 of a med onion chopped
1/4 cup or a little less shelled pecans
Six good sized Stuffing Mushrooms or One Sm Portobello mushroom
Fresh ground Sage, Rosemary, and Salt to taste.
Coconut oil for cooking the onions.
about 1/4-1/2 cup of water for steaming the mushrooms.

Chop the onions coarsely and throw them in a sm pan over med heat. Stir every now and again, cooking till they're almost golden brown. While the onions are cooking shell the pecans or if you bought shelled pecans throw them in a food processor with the spices and pull the stems from the mushrooms (I saved the stems for omurice the next day, but you can throw them in the pan with the onions if you like. Just add a little extra oil).
When the onions are the desired level of gold throw them in with the nuts and spices. Blend away!
Fill each mushroom with the mixture. It should be fairly moldable, not super crumbly. If it's too crumbly to work with add a touch more coconut oil.
Using the same pan you cooked the onion in place each mushroom stuffed side down, turn the heat up to med and brown the tops, about 2-4 minutes. Flip the mushrooms over and turn the heat up to med high. Add the water (I use less water for smaller or portobello mushrooms and more water for white mushrooms, also less water if you cover your pan, more if you can't or choose not to cover your pan).
Let the mushrooms hang out for 5-10 minutes, serve warm with your favorite sides.

I pared our mushrooms with some garlicy green beans and pan fried carrots.
I'm also thinking about trying to make a miso version of these mushrooms.

Till next time,
The light heart lives long~

Vegan Wednesday

Good evening! I thought I would share the experiments going on in my house today.

Breakfast is not very vegan friendly. It just isn't. Every culture I've been exposed to eats some kind of meat in the morning. The United States and the United Kingdom both have classic bacon and egg breakfasts, though rashers (UK) and streaky bacon (US) differ a bit, still the same concept. German breakfasts are equally not very vegan friendly. We eat breakfast sandwiches with butter, cheese, deli meats and some kind of crunchy green thing like lettuce or pickles, maybe an apple too. Japan has miso soup, the broth of which is made with tiny little dried fish. Some kind of leftover meat from the night before and rice with a raw egg yolk (My favorite!).

Vegans can have non of this. Out of the four above Japanese breakfasts come the closest to vegan. I've tweaked the broth for miso soup and it was palatable (but not awesome), rice, pickles, and grilled veggie slices (I like sweet potato and asparagus) are all great first thing in the morning. If that's all you eat though, it gets kind of old.

So, instead of a fruit smoothie, or some strange almond milk pancake (those never turn out well for me), I decided to try some stuff from one of my favorite vegan cooking sites Olives for Dinner. I love her because she typically doesn't use things like vegan sausage, earth balance (pretend butter), or vegan cheese slices (dear god, why?!), and the food still turns out pretty tasty.

This morning I fed Jex Coconut Crepes with Smokey Herbed Mushrooms.
I have never actually made crepes before. My sister and I made them together once (I think) but she was the baker in the family, still is, so she did most everything and I pulled out and put up all the ingredients. But I'm confident in the kitchen, this should be easy enough.
Oh no Batman!
Crepes are kind of hard to make. For me anyways. The first four were mangled beyond recognition before I was able to get the hang of it (then I promptly did a victory lap around the house). Even with all the mistake making I had enough batter to make enough crepes to hold all the mushroomy goodness.
Don't worry. As long as you spray/grease your pan between crepes, let them sit long enough on the pan, and have a goodly amount of time to make breakfast in the morning you should be able to pull it off.

It freaked Jex out a little when the crepes were savory instead of sweet. Which kind of made my day. *laughs*

The black bean soup I made for lunch wasn't the best ever, but I'm really not a big fan of the veggie broth I had in the fridge. 'Better than Bullion' how could you make something so nasty?

Then we have dinner. My crowning achievement for the day; General Tso's Cauliflower. Oh my goodness those little fried Cauliflowers were yummy! Even with the bad luck I have with battering things for frying they turned out perfectly crispy with a warm, soft, center. Mmmmmmm.
Rice flour is hard to find where I live (so is everything else I need/want) so I simply added equal parts starch and flour to make up for it.
I found the sauce entirely too gingery. Dear god, a 1/4 cup of ginger. Half of that was a touch too much in my tongue's opinion. With a little tweaking to one's own palette though it should turn out very nicely the second time around.

Eat well my friends!
~the Light Heart Lives Long~

Recipes and Race Day

Hi!!!

Doing the Vegan dance is hard. We get invited over for some homemade Tuna Casserole, I have to bring a sack lunch, or we get invited out to some bar and grill where NOTHING is remotely even Vegetarian, let alone Vegan to hang out with Jex's unit mates; not being allowed to bring my own lunch I end up ordering one of those tasteless iceberg lettuce salads with a slice of lemon instead of their questionable dressings.

But that's not all. Recipes are kind of a pain too. A lot of the Vegan cookbooks I found were crap. I'm sorry but if I can't eat butter I'm not going to buy a "Vegan Buttery Stick" or any of the other pretend meats, cheeses, and egg substitutes. For one thing their probably incredibly processed, for another I'll just eat the real damn thing for cheaper. Skinny Bitch was an especially big let down. I live in a town just barely big enough to have a ligit mall. Even if I was going to eat all the Vegan pretend foods there is really nowhere to buy them.

So I've made stuff up as I went along, it's still hard some days but I'm getting the hang of it. Below is my recent favorite made up recipe. Hopefully you guys like it too.

Nonbasa
This is a spin off a meal that my dad would make for us from time to time that he called simply Kielbasa, because that was the main ingredient of the dish. 

1 Med Zucchini, cut into inch thick slices, then quartered
1/2 an Apple (Fuji, McIntosh, or Granny Smith)
1 small onion, quartered then sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 cup Mushrooms (optional)
2 cups Cabbage (optional) 
2 Table spoons Coconut oil
Salt, pepper, and cayenne (red pepper) to taste
A cap full and a half Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar

In a med skillet with a decent lip, or wok, melt the Coconut oil on med-med hi heat and toss the onions and apples to coat. Stirfry about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the vinegar, stirfry for another 3 minutes or so before turning the heat down to low and covering. Cook until cabbage and zucchini are tender, about 15-20 minutes. Uncover and add the vinegar, toss and taste, adjust seasoning to taste. Serves 1 very hungry new Vegan. 

Here are a few of my favorite places to get ideas when I have no idea what to make for dinner, or if I feel like branching out.

Olives for Dinner - I think this one is my favorite because the food photography is gorgeous.
Love and Lemons - I like the recognizable meals, like bean burgers and various kinds of root veggie fries that this blog has to offer.

Also, guys tomorrow is race day!!!! I'm going to die!!! I'm also hoping to get some pictures. Yay!

Till next time.
The light heart lives long <3 p="">