Was making homemade vegan alfredo while watching Gaga’s live Skype chat. If none of my close friends are around to sip chardonnay and cook with, I’ll make due.
Vegan note #39 Homemade pizza
Tonight was spent sipping organic chardonnay and preparing dough for a homemade pizza for tomorrow’s meal.
3 cups of flour + yeast, garlic, sea salt, some dehydrated powdered red bell pepper, and homegrown and dried oregano, florence fennel, and curly parsley.
Letting the bread rise overnight. Tomorrow morning I’m going to add a little flour, flatten it out and put it in a pan in the oven with a little blend of olive oil and black truffle oil. I’m planning to use crimini mushrooms, peppers, onions, olives, and vegan havarti cheese as the toppings.
I’ll make the homemade sauce tomorrow morning when I wake up, most likely a red sauce with eggplant and capers, etc, it’s loosely planned, I’ll see what tastes the best as I go. Hell, maybe I’ll just go with vegan white wine alfredo sauce and minced artichoke.
Seriously, I don’t need gifts, they are just a bonus, enjoying wine over meals that take time to prepare while catching up with people is a holiday to me. <3
I swear to gawd, whenever Italians think they met another Italian, they have to ask to make sure. There has never been a time when I’ve run into a total stranger who was also Italian when they haven’t asked me if I was as well - either based on my appearance or a recipe I happen to be talking about (then again, talking about recipes to strangers might give it away). I remember that happened like 3 times within 5 minutes when I was in Little Italy (NYC) for lunch with a friend (along with asking what part I’m from, I’m not from there, I guess I just look really native).
I think it’s amusing as hell. Whenever that happens it always makes me think of this clip.
Vegan note #37 - I’m really proud of my family
My sister told me on the phone today that my mom (who has a soy allergy) bought vegan “ground beef” for Christmas. My sister bought a bunch of veggies to go with it, and they are going to make our homemade recipe for meat balls and marinara sauce, only completely vegan. <3
(Is it an Italian thing to celebrate Christmas by primarily just cooking together?) Anyways, yet again, I didn’t even pursued this, they truly love it. They keep telling me how good it’s making them feel. I finally told them that if they are going completely vegan they will need an amino acid/liquid omega supplement.
Growing up with them and all our traditional Italian recipes, (which I still LOVE and will never stop making vegan versions of) I never thought I’d see them give up meat, much less dairy. My dad, however, I’m guessing that will never happen, but at least he will actually finally eat vegan appetizers. My sister went on and on about how much she loves vegan cheese. <3
I’m truly glad they are enjoying this.
Hahahaha <3 Yes. A friend shared this with me yesterday and totally made my day. They know me too well, or are Italians just predictably short and aggressive? ;)
Describing what I cooked last night to my grandma..
Me - “Oh, it had almond milk, red lentils, some curry powder …’
Grandma - “Oh! That sounds really good!’
Me - ‘And polenta, that too, it was really good!’
Grandma - ‘Polenta?’
Me - ‘Grits.’
Grandma - ‘Oh okay.’
For those who don’t know, polenta is the Italian version of grits, and both are vegan by default unless animal product is added to it. My grandma is from Kansas and my grandpa is Italian, so yeah. I mostly cook Mediterranean food and Southern food, or any odd combination of the two, and that is why. Vegan versions of those types of food are surprisingly easy to make, when they aren’t vegan already, which is more often than you might expect!
I try to post vegan recipes here often, vegans and non-vegans alike might really enjoy them, keep posted if you’re a foodie who is up for good recipes!
Vegan alfredo with penne pasta: This is just one of the many slightly different versions of this recipe I have Image 1: Ingredients - pasta of choice, penne rigate shown here, 1 small green pepper, 1/2 cup of artichoke, 1/2 cup of asparagus (measurements after dicing), about 1/4th of one small garlic clove, half a white/yellow onion, vegan plain creamer, vegan parmesan, olive oil, vegan butter, diaya mozzerella cheese (not shown here), vegan marinara sauce (not shown here, I used eggplant marinara).
Image 2: Step 1 - Dice up onion and garlic finely and put into pan that has been coated in olive oil, at the same time add a couple spoons of vegan butter, have this just above medium heat.
Image 3: Step 2 - While waiting for the onions and garlic to appear slightly transparent, dice up the asparagus and green pepper into about 1-inch long pieces, remove the majority of the green pepper seeds, but don’t worry about getting all of them out, they are full of nutrients. Cut the artichoke into small wedges.
Step 3 - Once the onions and garlic appear slightly transparent, add the diced peppers, asparagus and artichoke to the pan and stir right away to coat the veggies with the oil.
Image 4: Step 4 - Begin to boil your water, turn it on high and add olive oil while water is still cold, you shouldn’t need more than 2 tea spoon fulls.
Image 5 and 6: Step 5 - While waiting for water to boil start making your alfredo sauce. The base for this is olive oil to coat the pan, and then some, about 1/4th cup total, vegan butter, a couple large spoon fulls, 1/3rd cup of a blend of garlic and onion powder, 1/2 a container of vegan parmesan, 2 spoon fulls of diaya mozzerella cheese, just short of a whole pint of vegan plain creamer, and 1/4th cup [eggplant] marinara sauce, stir at medium heat to make sure it blends and melts well and doesn’t stick to the pan.
Step 6 - After water boils put in penne pasta for 8 minutes. Stir all 3 pots as you wait.
Step 7 - Drain pasta and put into a new, larger, room-temperature pot, and add the veggies, get as much of the remaining olive oil from the pan the veggies cooked in into the pasta and stir.
Image 7: Step 8 - Add the sauce to the pasta, use enough to coat all the pasta well, but you don’t want it sitting in sauce, so if that leaves you some sauce left over, just use it for later.
Be creative and enjoy! <3
