Easy Vegan Recipes

The vegan web is growing. More and more vegans are sharing their stories and recipes online to help each other and expand our network of information. Here are some other websites with simple, vegan recipes:

• Compassion Over Killing - easy vegan recipes
• Fat Free Vegan - Quick & Easy Vegan Meals
• Real Food - Cheating Easy Vegan
  
• The Veggie Table - Easy Vegetarian Recipes
• Vegan Outreach - easy meal ideas
• Fantastic Foods brand - easy, simple vegetarian recipes
• Savvy Vegetarian - salads
  

Boxed Indian Meals

Much of Indian cuisine is vegetarian or vegan. Indian convenience foods are great prepackaged options. Tasty Bite brand labels their vegan foods prominently, just look for the check boxes on the back. I like Punjab Eggplant and Spinach Dal.

The boxed foods found in the grocery aisle with rice and dried beans are often a good bet for vegan convenience foods. There are various rice mixes, couscous mixes, and other traditional "side dishes." Vegan meals can be made by combining various side dishes to make complete meals.

Often that grocery aisle also has the premixed spice packets. These are great for adding flavor to tofu, seitan, veggies, or beans. Just read the ingredients carefully because not all are vegan. However, ignore the pictures on the spice packets. Taco seasoning made for meat tacos can work well for tofu tacos too. Marinade meant for chicken or beef can work just fine on non-meat items like potatoes or TVP.

Vegan Chili

There are a variety of canned and dried vegetarian chili mixes that you can make on a stove top, in the microwave, or just by adding hot water. They're great for camping or for hearty Fall and Winter meals. Combine it with rice and you've got a complete protein, too.

A good side dish for chili is cornbread. My favorite vegan cornbread recipe is this one from Post Punk Kitchen.

But if you really don't want to cook or bake much, try getting some frozen corn on the cob and nuke (microwave) that in a plastic bag for about three to five minutes. Corn on the cob goes well with chili.

Miso Soup

Miso soup is really easy to make, but since this blog is about vegan convenience food, there's an even easier way to make miso soup: prepackaged.

Most miso soup is vegan, but check the ingredients to make sure. Some brands are not vegan.

Scramble it

Tonight I didn't have much in the house but didn't want to hit the market, so I went with a scrambled tofu.

1-2 T Neutral oil, like grapeseed
Firm tofu (or silken if you prefer the texture): about ten ounces
Small onion, chopped, or ready-to-cook frozen chopped onions, about a half-cup
Broccoli - about a half cup or so fresh or frozen
Tomato - one small
cumin, salt, pepper, cilantro - fresh, dry, or frozen - to taste
tumeric - 1/2 tsp

Drain tofu, set on paper towels. Heat oil until warm. Add onions, cook until soft. Cut broccoli if necessary into small pieces and toss in. Stir a bit, get it greened up. Crumble drained tofu into pan until it's about the size of egg scrambles. Mix it all together. Add cilantro, 2 teaspoons (or more) of cumin, and mix up more. If you have some turmeric put a bit in, but not too much (it gets bitter). It's nice for color.

Slice the tomato thinly and toss it in, mix up a bit just to warm it through.

Serve with salt and pepper.

Of course this is subject to endless variations: spinach, peas, chives would be nice additions. If you've got leftover cooked boiled potatoes I can see cutting those up and adding them in. Yum.

Takes about ten to fifteen minutes to get this on the table. You can eat it as is (which is what I did) or wrap in a tortilla or scoop with toast.

Breakfast variation - with onions and potatoes.

Fresh Veggie Soup

Many of the recipes in this blog make use of convenience foods. Sometimes, however,, we do have some fresh veggies in the fridge and the will to use them. It doesn't take long to put together a decent soup from whatever happens to be in that vegetable drawer, within reason, along with prepared vegetable broth.

For this one we used a quart of vegetable broth, a few carrots, one average zucchini, about a cup of frozen corn, half an onion, and some small pasta. You could add bell peppers, cabbage, green beans, just about anything that sounds reasonable.

Heat the broth while you cut up the vegetables. Cut them in small pieces so they will cook faster. Cut them in this order, and as you finish each one, throw it in the pot: Onion, carrot, pasta (about a half cup or so dried - use the alphabet letters or similar size for quick cooking), corn, zucchini. Generally, cut up the veggies that will take the longest to cook first. When the pasta is looking nearly done put some bread in the toaster or get out the crackers.

If you're feeling quite gourmet you might do as we did here - snip a few fresh basil leaves from the plant you have outside (or on your windowsill) and sprinkle thin snippets onto the top of the soup. Parsley is nice, too.

And now for a word from our sponsor: how do you make sure you actually get around to using those fresh vegetables before they go bad? Invest in some Evert-Fresh green bags from reusablebags.com. These bags are magic, I swear! Simply put fresh dry veggies in them, one type per bag, and these bags will keep the veggies from going bad for a very long time. It seems freaky and like there is some nasty chemical in those bags but that's not true. All natural, all safe, and just amazing. If you buy through this link you help keep us on the air:

Puff Pastry Pizza

I borrowed this idea from Vegan Italiano. The basic method holds for whatever you put on the top.

Defrost one sheet (1/2 package) of frozen puff pastry for about 30 minutes. When it's malleable (soft enough to push around) lay it on a baking sheet on which you have rubbed a bit of olive oil.




Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Gently stretch the pastry to the edges of the pan and create a little lip. Alternatively, you can place the pastry on a floured surface and roll it out.





If the pastry is not stretched or rolled evenly the cooked product will shrink in odd ways. Place the pan into the oven for ten minutes. Meanwhile, slice up some veggies and cook them in a bit of olive oil. Use whatever veggies are handy that make sense. In this case the fridge was not overflowing so I used carrots, onions, mushrooms, parsley.





When the ten minutes are up, take the pastry out of the oven. It will be cooked.

Spread tomato sauce (whatever type you like) over the crust, toss on some cut tomatoes if you like, and add the cooked veggies. Pop back in the oven for about five minutes to warm through.

Because the pastry is so light and flaky, it cuts easily. Because the pastry is so light and flaky, it's also quite high in fat. But without cheese it's still a healthy meal.