Franks and Beans

This is one of those recipes that we used to have when I was growing up but then I just kind of forgot about it. A couple years ago, my dad was over helping with one of our endless home improvement projects and I needed to throw something together for lunch. This has become one of his favorites which is why we had it last month for his birthday as well as a couple weeks ago when we visited my brother's family at their new apartment.

Kay and Grandpa on his birthday

It is very versatile because we have found that most non-vegetarians will eat vegetarian hot dogs without batting an eye if you just don't say anything. The first time I tested this was 2 years ago at Kay's birthday party. No one had any idea. Then a few months later we had a family get-together. My niece is usually a very picky eater (maybe not always but at least when I try to feed her!) but it seemed crazy to get regular hot dogs for just her so my mom and I decided to give her the veggie hot dogs. I worried a little when she didn't want a bun, ketchup or mustard. She ate it completely plain though and didn't seem to mind at all. (I have to say, they've come a very long way since I first tried them 19 years ago. Those things were disgusting!)

Kay and her cousin playing Wii

Therefore this makes a really good meal when you have a mixture of people. It is also really easy. That first time I literally just threw things together!

Franks and Beans

1 cup onions, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon oil

15 oz can of vegetarian baked beans

15 oz can of kidney beans, rinsed

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons mustard

1 tablespoon ketchup

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

6 hot dogs, cut into bite-sized chunks

Heat the oil in a large saute pan. Saute the onions over medium-low heat until browned. Add the remaining ingredients, stir and simmer for 15 minutes or until heated through and the flavors are blended. Stir every now and then so it doesn't stick.

Kay: I like mostly the hot dogs but my dad likes mostly the just the beans so it works out good.

Dana: This recipe can get unhealthy really fast depending on the ingredients you use. Make sure you check the salt content in all items and get salt free beans if you can.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I am so happy that school has started again and we are back to a more regular schedule. Kay started at a new school this year and it starts much earlier than her last one so that has been a bit of a shock to our systems. I think we are all finally starting to adjust though.

During the summer, I work in the office two days a week and my parents spend the day with Kay. On their second to last day, which also happened to be my dad's birthday, they took Kay and two friends bowling, out to lunch and to a ceramic painting store. Then for dinner we made one of my dad's favorite meals (upcoming post) with these cupcakes for dessert. They were a huge success. My parents liked them so much, my mom made them again a couple weeks later.

They are very peanut buttery. We may have even eaten them for breakfast. The recipe is out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (fantastic book!). I reduced the sugar quite a bit, omitted the salt, and used rice milk just because we prefer that in baked goods. Normally I would have substituted part of the all-purpose flour with some spelt or white whole wheat but this time I left it alone (it was for a birthday after all!) We used natural, organic, crunchy peanut butter.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

3/4 cups rice milk

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons ground flaxseed

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Mix the milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle (this creates non-dairy buttermilk).

In a large mixing bowl, cream the peanut butter, oil, sugar, molasses, vanilla, and flaxseeds until well combined. Add the milk mixture and mix until well combined.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.

Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full (we use an ice cream scoop). Bake 23-26 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to cooling racks.

Top with ganache and chopped peanuts. Place in refrigerator to set the ganache.

Quick Melty Ganache

3 tablespoons soy milk

1/3 cups chocolate chips

Heat the soy milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until just about to simmer. Remove from heat, add chocolate chips and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Set aside and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Kay: comments to come after school.

Mom (Dana): When I was typing this, I kept putting Peanut Butter Pancakes instead of Cupcakes which has given me a whole new idea!!

Potato and Black Bean Quesadillas

Last night I was going to make either potato enchiladas or black bean and potato tacos (which I haven't posted yet but plan to) but we have both of those so often. It was much warmer yesterday and I didn't want to turn on the oven so I came up with something similar but in a quesadilla instead.

Bill had two races in Chicago today (see Flickr for pictures) and we must have walked 5 miles! I was so happy to have these leftovers at home!

Potato and Black Bean Quesadillas

2 pounds potatoes (about 4)

2 tablespoons vegetable broth

1 can chopped chilies

Juice of one lime

1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder

3/4 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

tortillas

Cut the potato into chunks. Boil until soft and then mash along with the vegetable broth. When the potatoes are relatively smooth, add the chilies, chili powder, cumin, and garlic powder. Stir in the black beans.

Warm a lightly oiled skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan and cover half of it with the potato mixture. Fold the tortilla in half. Cook about 3-4 minutes per side until nicely browned.

Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Kay: I thought these were a little spicy. I didn't see the salsa so I ate mine plain.

Dana (Mom): This made a lot of filling. I'm going to try freezing some of it to see how it holds up. You can use any kind of bean that you like or have on hand. If I had extra spinach in my refrigerator, I probably would have chopped that up and added it as well.

Pesto

I didn't get very good pictures but that is the pesto peaking out under the peas.

We finally had our first CSA pickup last Friday. Actually, with how cold and rainy it has been, I'm shocked anything has grown. We received Swiss chard, shelling peas, fava beans, arugula, and basil. Kay and I cooked the fava beans which were such a pain but then we sat down and ate all of them within 5 minutes! I'm not sure what we'll do with the arugula since none of use care for it. The other ingredients were all incorporated into our dinner on Monday.

We grow our own basil so whenever I get a bunch from the CSA, I make pesto. Kay and I don't really like peas but I remembered a salad recipe from Ina Garten that used pasta, peas and pesto so I decided to turn that into a warm meal. Shockingly, Kay loved it. I think it had something to do with the huge amount of garlic I put in the pesto. I cut all the ingredients in half, based on the amount of basil I had but forgot to half the garlic!

Pesto

1/4 cup walnuts

1/4 cup pine nuts

8 cloves garlic, chopped

5 cups basil leaves

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

3/4 cup olive oil

Place the nuts and garlic in a food processor and chopped for 30 seconds. Add the basil, salt and pepper and chop for 30 seconds more. Leave the processor running and drizzle in the oil until all ingredients are pureed and well blended.

This will freeze very well.

Kay: I don't really care for peas but they tasted good mixed with the pesto. The fava beans were awesome. We gobbled them up in one minute!

Mom (Dana): For our dinner, I blanched the peas for about 1 minute and then mixed the peas, some cooked pasta, and some of the pesto. Bill and Kay added Parmesan. As you can see, we also had pea pods with almonds and onions and Swiss chard and potatoes.

Vegan Egg McMuffins

July 1st is the worst day of my professional year every single year. There is tons of work and stress and time constraints but, lucky for you, I just lived it and have no intentions of rehashing the whole thing. After working about 10 hours, I collapsed on my couch to watch some TV and turned on "Delicious TV Totally Vegetarian". After a few minutes Kay wandered in and sat down as well. She was so amazed by how these sandwiches looked, she asked me to make them. So this is what we had for dinner.

First of all, the "egg" part really looks like the egg on an Egg McMuffin. I was shocked. We had ours on toasted sourdough bread with fake bacon (which we LOVE!). When eaten like a sandwich, I thought it tasted pretty authentic and I don't know that I would have realized it wasn't egg if I hadn't been the one who cooked it. Kay ate one of hers as a sandwich and the other by itself. She thought it tasted more like egg in the sandwich than alone.

These were really easy to make. I'm not sure how quick it went but it is 5:40 now and I didn't stop working until 5:00 so within 40 minutes we watched the show, fixed the food and ate it. Not too bad.

Vegan Egg McMuffin

Actually this recipe is just for the egg part. You'll have to figure the rest out yourself!

1 pound firm or extra firm tofu

1 cup cornstarch

Pinch of salt

Turmeric

1 tablespoon coconut oil

Heat the oil in a large skillet.

Mix the cornstarch and salt in a bowl.

Slice the tofu into 4 slabs. We cut ours into circles because that's how they did it on TV but it would work just as well as rectangles. Dip each slice into the cornstarch, coating well. Sprinkle turmeric on one side and place that side down in the pan. Sprinkle the top with more turmeric. Repeat with other pieces.

Cook about 4-5 minutes per side until nicely browned.

Serve with toast, bacon, sausage, ham, cheese, or whatever else sounds good to you.

Kay: If you eat it plain it doesn't really taste like egg but if you eat it with fake bacon and bread, it tastes like an egg mcmuffin but a lot less greasy.

Dana: Unfortunately our home computer is in my home office and my work computer keeps beeping at me about new e-mails. I was tempted to ignore them since if I was still on the couch, I wouldn't have even known about them, but in the end, I couldn't so I'm back to work again. At least I got a dinner break!

Vegetable Enchiladas

For the first time in maybe forever, I'm home alone for about 24 hours. Bill is at Horribly Hilly in Madison, Wisconsin and Kay has a slumber/pool party. I always liked my alone time but I've gotten so used to not having any that I'm not real sure what to do with myself! Luckily, it is gorgeous out today and I have 2 library books and 3 magazines I haven't read so I've been on the porch all afternoon.

I made these enchiladas on Thursday when my parents and one of Kay's friends were over. The grown-ups all really liked them and the kids thought they were ok. I'll take it!

There was one still left over which I ate with herbed rice and roasted carrots. I'm quite impressed with the meal I was able create from leftovers considering it is Saturday and Sunday is our shopping day. Usually at this point we are eating buttered noodles and crackers!

Vegetable Enchiladas

Corn tortillas

Enchilada sauce of choice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 red or orange bell pepper, chopped

1 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 zucchini, chopped

1 yellow squash, chopped

2 cups eggplant, chopped

1 pound firm tofu, crumbled

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp chilies (I used the kind that come in a squirt tube. Hot sauce or crushed red peppers would work too.)

Heat the oil in a large saute pan. Add the onions, peppers, and garlic and cook until translucent. Add the mushrooms, zucchini, squash and eggplant. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the tofu and seasonings and cook 5 minutes more. If you must add salt, add it now but not sooner or your vegetables will get watery.

Heat the tortillas in the microwave to soften them. Heat the enchilada sauce in a skillet. Dip each tortilla into the sauce and then fill with a spoonful of the filling (yes, this is very messy). Roll the enchilada and place in a baking dish. Continue until you run out of tortillas, filling, sauce, or pan space. Bake at 350 F for 30-40 minutes.

Dana (all by herself!): I topped the kid's portion with cheddar cheese. Tonight I put sour cream (soy of course!) on mine. I had planned to offer it along with salsa on Thursday but forgot. I'm heading back to the porch!

Taco Salad

This is the taco salad I grew up with. My husband claims this isn't real taco salad but he still eats it! I always crave this when the weather first turns warm. This time I made one regular salad for Bill and Kay and tried to make a dairy-free version for me. It didn't work. It was fine but didn't taste anything like the original. Tough luck for me, I guess.

Taco Salad

There aren't really measurements for this because it depends on what size pan you put it in. Layer the ingredients in the following order starting on the bottom.

Lettuce (usually romaine or iceberg)

Green pepper

Green onion

Tomatoes

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

Creamy garlic salad dressing

Cheddar cheese, shredded

Doritos, taco flavor, crunched up

If you aren't serving it immediately, wait to add the chips or they'll get very soggy.

Kay: I liked this salad. It tasted like tacos and salad. I really liked the chips! This has nothing to do with the salad but I got a new hamster today.

Mom (Dana): If I ever come across a decent dairy free creamy dressing, I'm giving this another shot!