Category Archives: Cooking & Recipes

Vegan Cheese Sauce


We both thought this was pretty good.
I also made a cilantro – jalapeno dip/pesto with cilantro, jalapenos, walnuts and oil which wasn’t that good.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup potatoes, peeled & diced
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
  • ¼ cup water of the carrot and potato water
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • ½ Tbsp lemon juice
  • ¼ cup nutritional yeast
  • ¼ tsp onion powder
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ½ tsp paprika


Instructions

Boil the potatoes and carrots until soft.
Drain the potatoes and carrots and add to blender along with the rest of the ingredients.
Blend till smooth.
Add more water if needed.

Carrot Dogs

Carrot dog on whole wheat bun with red cabbage slaw.

Vegan Carrot Dogs

Ingredients
3 or 4 carrots (hot dog size)
2 TBSP tamari (or soy sauce)
2 TBSP liquid smoke
1 TBSP maple syrup
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions
Peel carrots.
In a small bowl mix together all ingredients except the carrots.
Put the mixture along with the carrots in a ziplock bag.
Work the mixture around coating the carrots.
Let marinade for at least a couple hours occasionally working the bag to coat the carrots.
Place marinaded carrots on baking sheet and bake at 350 for about approx 30 minutes.

Beyond Meat’s Beast Burger


The Beyond Meat Beast burger. Looked like hamburger. Cooked like hamburger. Had the texture of hamburger. Taste like hamburger? Idk I don’t recall what hamburger tastes like lol. All in all was pretty good and would eat again. Topped with special sauce (sriracha vegenaise and pickle) chopped onion and spinach.

Pie Five

We were just made aware that the pizza chain Pie Five offers vegan cheese (Daiya) and there are a couple of them in our area. It was pretty good. Wasn’t till later we read that this original crust isn’t vegan but their thin and gluten free crusts are.

Cooking Grains In The Instant Pot

So far these are the best methods I’ve found for cooking the following grains in the Instant pot.

Basmati Rice…
Fill the Instant Pot with water up to the 2 cup line.
Add 2 cups of Basmati rice (use the cup that came with the instant pot).
Set on manual for 6 minutes and do a 10 minute natural release.

QUinoa…
1 cup quinoa.
1 1/4 cup water.
Manual for 6 minutes with manual pressure release.

Brown rice…
So far the best I’ve come up with is equal parts brown rice and water using the Rice setting and a 10 minute release.

Butternut Squash Soup

We both thought this was really good.

Ingredients
1 butternut squash peeled and cubed
1 onion diced
2 cups diced celery
3 Carrots diced
3 garlic cloves
6 cups vegetable stock
1 Tbsp dried thyme
1/4 cup dried parsley
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1 can full fat coconut milk

Directions
Place all ingredients except the coconut milk in the Instant Pot and use the Soup setting.
Once done blend with the coconut milk (I did it in 2 batches in the Vitamix).