Going Vegan in Alabama

Squash and Apples are abundant right now, so let's take advantage of these in season good for you vegetables with a Squash and Apple Bake Recipe.

The bonus of this dish is high in vitamin A, cholesterol free, and almost sodium-free.

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups fresh winter squash, cut into ½ inch slices

1 ½ cups apples, skin removed and cut into ½ inch slices

1-teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In an 8" X 8" pan, alternate layers of squash and apples. You will want to end with apples on top layer. Sprinkle the nutmeg and cinnamon spices over the top layer. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for approximately 45-60 minutes, or until squash and apples are tender. Remove the foil and bake another 10-15 minutes -- so excess liquid will evaporate. Cool a bit before serving.

Yummm -- makes the house smell wonderul too!

A miscellaneous post:

* Vegans like anyone else need to be aware of their calorie intake and salt intake and sugar intake. You don't want to get fat or feel bad when on a vegan diet.

*A pizza stone is an excellent baking tool -- especially if you love to make pizza.

* 1/2 cup quinoa and 1 cup water in the rice steamer should make enough for two servings.

That's it for the miscellany

Here is an super helpful site to click and create Vegan Loafs! -- Amazing!

The Oven Quinoa Risotto with spinach is an excellent risotto recipe and is delicious.

It is incredibly easy to prepare and a great dish to "do ahead." You prepare it in one pan and mix and bake for 40 minutes. While it's baking you could be getting ready for work or doing other dishes to go with it.

The Basic Scone Recipe is a little tricky, plus it calls for non-hydorgenated shortening that is not always easy to find. It also tells you decide on the extract and spices to use. Also, directions say to press the dough into a circle and cut it into 8 pieces, which are huge. You may wish to half the dough, then press and cut each half into 8 pieces.

Vegan baking can be fun, yet it can be "fatting" so, bake away and give away is my motto.

Another incredible Gladcow recipe is the Maple Mustard BBQ sauce. You could use it as a tofu marinade, then bake the tofu, use it with white beans for bbq beans or use it with seitan and make a bbq sandwich.

Other recipes suggested are the Not Curry and GGBs Oatmeal Cookies. It will take a long time to try all the yummy recipes in this cookbook!

On the VRF, a "Gladcow Week 2009". was organized. Members who wished could prepare recipes from the Gladcow Cookbook buy Summer Keightley and report on them. Here are three recipes that are good:

Cheezish Macaroni,
Basic Muffins (zucchini/walnut variation)
Quinoa Mushroom Oven Risotto with Spinach

This is a wonderful vegan cookbook with 61 pages of recipes -- you may want to try them all. It costs just $15.

Summer's cookbook is very helpful for vegan cooking. Her recipes include easy to find ingredients.

Haven't blogged for a while which is terrible. So, I will do a quick summary of January's recipes using the Vegan A Go Go cookbook. There are so many good vegan recipes in it!

Roasted Carrot Coconut Soup- A wonderful soup recipe, as stated before, reminds you of a Thai Curry sauce.

Alfredo sauce. This recipe is really good. And can be very versatile. You can use it as a sauce for many vegan products like Tofurky Kielbasas. It does have cashews, so if you are watching calories, you may wish to half the recipe. It is a super recipe if you are craving a creamy cheesy tasting sauce.

Adam's Yellow Split Pea Chowder Another great recipe -- gets eaten fast and is very easy to make. Not much leftovers for this one.

Microwave Apple Crisp- Excellent and a very easy dessert to make. You may wish to use more apples than called for and even add some cherry pie filling.

In February we will discuss recipes from the Gladcow Cookbook by Summer Keightley a VRFer.

Her Cheezish Macaroni recipe is superior!

There are a lot of "leftovers" that are good -- like leftover vegan alfredo sauce or vegan spaghetti sauce.

Yet, some vegans feel their leftover non-vegan items are not so good and give them a sense of guilt. For many it would be a great financial hardship to get rid of items that are non-vegan that they bought before they decided to become vegan. This could include leather furniture, wool clothing, even non-vegan makeup or lotions.

It is very expensive to run out and buy vegan makeup or vegan lotions -- especially if you are stocked up on non-vegan items. So don't and don't feel guilty. It would be more wasteful to throw it away unused imo.

And, replacing leather furniture would be a huge expense -- maybe sometime in the future you will have an opportunity and the finances to replace it with vegan furniture and you can donate it to a "charity shop."

Becoming vegan and sticking with it does make a difference. Make the steps as you can -- going all out, and throwing out could set you back and make you stop this healthy lifestyle.