VEGAN CORN DOG MUFFINS

Yup, you read that right. Corn dog muffins.  They taste like corn dogs but they eat like muffins.  I am the world's coolest child care provider when I make these! : )  Actually, my hubby loved them, too!

CORN DOG MUFFINS
1 package of Jiffy corn bread mix
1 egg replacer (I use 1 T. ground flax in 1/4 c. water)
1/3 cup unsweetened soy milk
2 T. melted vegan butter or oil
1 T. agave nectar or maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix everything together to make a batter.

Add to the batter:
3-4 vegan hot dogs, cut up
1 cup corn (frozen or fresh, or canned if drained)

Spray muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.  Fill tins 3/4 full.  Bake about 18-20 minutes (using frozen corn make take a little longer).  Serve with a drizzle of mustard and/or ketchup on top.

Vegan Hashbrown and Sausage Scramble

I've been asked to make a breakfast casserole for a swim meet this weekend so I'm testing out a few recipes.  I found some for actual casseroles that you bake up and then end up needing to be cut into serving sizes.  But I wasn't too impressed.  Then I started thinking about my favorite pre-vegan breakfast options. 

I always loved those skillet platters at the restaurants.  They taste great at about 2:15 in the morning when you've been kicked out of whatever establishment you were cruising the night before. : )  Anyway, the skillet idea inspired me to make a simpler dish.

I made a simple tofu scramble with vegan sausage and hash browns.  Then I made a ranchero sauce for the side. I loved it and the child care kids loved it.  It even tasted good sober!  Amazing.

I browned up some GimmeLean ground sausage.  Then I made the tofu scramble by melting a little vegan butter in the fry pan (same pan, I actually left the sausage in it and just added tofu to it).  I crumbled in extra firm tofu and cooked it until it started to brown.  Then I seasoned it with a shake of turmeric (for color), Lawry's seasoning salt, onion powder, salt and pepper.  I layered the "eggs" and sausage in a casserole pan.

Then I used the same pan to cook up my hash browns (as directed on the package) and just put them on top of the scramble.  This was good with shredded hash browns, but I think the next time I'll use country style potatoes.

For the ranchero sauce I sauteed up some green peppers and onion in the fry pan and then added in roasted red peppers and a little pre-made red enchilada sauce I had leftover from the weekend. There are a million ranchero sauce recipes on the web or you can use your favorite salsa or taco sauce.

Easy and yummy.  I think if I make this for my own family I will add in spinach, peppers and mushroom, etc. etc. to the scramble.  But I was trying to make a "plain" version for the test. 

Good stuff!

Meal Plan

This week's meal plan is listed here. A few notes. I provide in-home child care, so I list all snacks and lunches. My day care kids eat mostly vegan, but do occasionally have cheese or yogurt products. My family eats vegan. I always offer fresh fruit and a veggie tray with each meal or snack. We drink soy milk, water or decaf tea.

I try to make my meal plans DO-ABLE for anyone. I use products that I can buy in my small town grocery store and I make foods that I can handle while running around to swim practice, soccer, meetings, and personal training clients. We have a busy life, but we make every effort to sit together to eat all meals. Proper planning helps to make that happen. Otherwise, we would all eat separately. It also helps me to use up what produce we have on hand so I have minimal food waste. We save a ton of money when we stick to a food plan, so I try to do these weekly.

 

So many of these items can be cooked once and then used for leftovers or frozen for a future meal.  Think about cooking more than you need.  If you have good containers or ziplock type baggies, many items can be saved in meal-size packaging for future use.  This saves time, money and it really helps when the non-cooks in the house need to eat a healthful meal.  They can just heat up something quickly or grab leftovers.  This keeps us from running to local fast food places for greasy, unhealthful and expensive food.

 

Meals this week that are good for freezing: baked potato soup, pancakes, chili.  Meals good for the frig/leftovers: bean salad, mac 'n' cheese, sweetened couscous (I make a big enough batch for about 3 days), Brussels sprouts pasta (great the next day as a cold salad), chickpea salad (great to make ahead for a quick lunch with pitas, bread, buns, or greens).

 

Happy vegan cooking!

 

Date	Breakfast or  Morning Snack	Lunch	Afternoon Snack	Supper	Plan/Notes
Monday   Swimming Soccer	Cereal/pancakes   Cinnamon Toast	Veggie Pizza, colorful bean salad, strawberries	Peanut snack mix	Sloppy Joes, Sweet potato fries, salad
Tuesday   Open House at school	English Muffin/Cereal   Granola bars	Baked potato soup, peas, blueberries	Popcorn	Mac ‘n’ Cheese (cheese sauce) w/ Sauteed mushrooms, kale
Wednesday   Swimming PT	Sweetened Cous Cous/Cereal   Fruit choice	Chik’n patty, rice and veggies, apple slices	Bagels w/peanut butter	Pasta with Brussels sprouts, salad
Thursday   Swimming PT	Pancakes/Cereal     Yogurt w/fruit	Bean burritos, fresh fruit, corn	Blueberry Muffins	Tofu Scramble, Toast, fruit salad	Make muffins
Friday   Work mtg Babysitter	Oatmeal/Cereal     Applesauce	Broccoli cheese rice, veggie dippers, fresh fruit	Graham cracker sandwich, fruit choice	Italian Sausage (vegan) Pasta, veggie dippers
Saturday   Soccer game Soccer party Open house	French toast dippers, fruit salad	Chickpea salad sandwiches, leftover fruit, veggie, soup, etc.	Chips and salsa	Chili, jalapeno corn bread
Sunday   Swim Meet	Bagels w/peanut butter, fresh fruit, granola snacks at meet	Out	Out	Popcorn, smoothies, leftovers
EXTRA	In freezer: white bean enchiladas, refried beans, cabbage soup, chili	Frozen veggies, fruit for smoothies, potatoes and sweet potatoes

 

Vegan Reuben Sandwich

Just a short post tonight.  Had a couple meetings and needed a quick and easy supper when we got home.  I'll post it quickly before my hubby and I finish up the 6 loads of laundry that need folded tonight.  To make it super quick I used Tofurky slices and saurkraut from a jar.  I mixed the sauce last minute and threw it all together in about 5 minutes. We had veggie dippers and fresh fruit on the side.

My son loved this sandwich!  He had a huge mouthful and said, "Momb, oo gob a pub dis on da bog!"  I'm pretty sure that if he had manners and talked WITHOUT a mouthful of food that would translate to, "My dearest Mother, this sandwich is simply divine.  I insist you blog about it immediately.  Oh, and you look particularly beautiful tonight. Have you lost weight?" He's such a great kid!

Marble Rye Bread, then with sauce and vegan cheese, then with meat slices and saurkraut.

 

 

REUBEN SANDWICH

2 slices of rye bread, buttered on one side

1 T. vegan Thousand Island Dressing (2 parts vegan mayo mixed with 1 part each ketchup and relish)

3 slices vegan lunch meat (I used Tofurky peppered turkey and Tofurky mushroom)

1/4-1/2 c. saukraut

vegan cheese to taste

 

Place bread butter-side down on a griddle.  Layer on sauce, meat, saukraut and cheese.  Place top slice of bread on top with butter-side up.  Grill (like a grilled cheese) over medium heat until golden brown and crispy on each side.

 



(Ignore his hair--he just got out of swim practice)

Meal Plan

This week's meal plan is listed here. For those new to the blog, WELCOME! and a few notes. I provide in-home child care, so I list all snacks and lunches. My day care kids eat mostly vegan, but do occasionally have cheese or yogurt products. My family eats vegan. I always offer fresh fruit and a veggie tray with each meal or snack.  We drink soy milk, water or decaf tea.

I try to make my meal plans DO-ABLE for anyone.  I use products that I can buy in my small town grocery store and I make foods that I can handle while running around to swim practice, soccer, meetings, and personal training clients.  We have a busy life, but we make every effort to sit together to eat all meals. Proper planning helps to make that happen.  Otherwise, we would all eat separately.  It also helps me to use up what produce we have on hand so I have minimal food waste.  We save a ton of money when we stick to a food plan, so I try to do these weekly.  I apologize this one is posted  few days late, but you get the idea! 

HAPPY VEGAN EATING!!

Date	Breakfast or  Morning Snack	Lunch	Afternoon Snack	Supper	Plan/Notes
Monday	Cereal or Bagel   Granola	PBJ Picnic in the Park	Rice Cakes with cream cheese or jelly	Tofu and Shitake stir fry, rice, garlic green beans	Drain tofu
Tuesday	Blueberry Pancakes, fruit   Painted bagels	Veggie Patty, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, blueberries	Cinnamon Popcorn and raisins	Pita Pizzas (veggies and vegan sausage, vegan cheese)	Pizza prep
Wednesday	Cereal or Pancakes     Banana Muffins	Tomato Soup, breadsticks, broccoli and carrots	Celery and PB or apples	Taco Casserole (with refried beans and corn cake), Spinach salad	Make crockpot beans
Thursday	Muffins or cereal   Animal crackers, raisins	Tortilla roll-ups, spinach salad, veggie dippers	Fruit choice	Reuben sandwiches, sweet potato steak fries, kale
Friday	Pancakes or cereal   Orange slices	Veggie fried rice, Edamame, fruit salad	PB Muffins	Chili, corn bread, any leftover fruit/salads	Make PB muffins
Saturday	French Toast dippers	Chickpea Salad pitas OR cucumber sandwiches	Veggie Dippers	OUT
Sunday	Muffins or French Toast Dippers	OUT	OUT	Leftovers, popcorn, veggie tray

Potatoes and Cabbage with White Beans

I saw a similar recipe to this on a vegan support group on Facebook.  I thought it looked good, but made a few changes to the ingredient list and the cooking process to make it more appealing to my family.  It seems a little weird to think that my kids would like cabbage, beans and onions all mixed up together.  But my family of four ate two whole fry pans full of this!  They loved it.  It was a great one-pot meal that I served with a little fresh fruit.  It was warm and comforting and very, very good.  They insisted that I get this one on the blog right away and get it on the meal plan again soon.

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture yet.  I was afraid if I walked out of the kitchen to grab the camera they would have it all gone before I could eat!

 POTATOES, CABBAGE, WHITE BEAN ONE POT
(amounts may vary slightly depending on what you have on hand, this amount was enough for about 6 large servings)

2 large potatoes, cleaned and cut into 1/2" cubes
olive oil and/or vegan butter for browning

1 large onion (any variety), diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans white beans (Cannelini or navy), drained and rinsed
1/2 of a large head of green cabbage, sliced thinly
1/4 - 1/2 c. white wine
2-3 t. Italian seasoning
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

In a large fry pan, heat the butter and/or oil.  Add potato cubes and cook until golden brown and crispy on all side.  Set aside.

Add a little more oil/butter to pan and cook onion and garlic until soft but not brown.  Add in beans, cabbage, white wine and seasonings.  Stir to coat cabbage, then cover and cook about 5 minutes over medium heat until cabbage is softened.  Toss together with the potatoes and re-season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cowboy Cake (Vegan Coffee Cake)

 

 

I think this was originally called Cowboy Cake because it can be made in a cast iron pan.  We still call it cowboy cake because that's more fun that saying coffee cake!

 

 

We love ours with blueberries.  But feel free to top yours with any fruit you like, or with pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup, or leave it "plain" with the crumble on top.  It is a really great breakfast or snack and is a favorite in our house.  The pan never lasts more than a day!

 

COWBOY CAKE or COFFEE CAKE

(a great breakfast!)
2 ½ c flour (I use whole-wheat, use a mixture if you want)
1 ½ c brown sugar
½ t salt
2/3 c vegan margarine

2 t baking powder

½ t baking soda

½ t ground cinnamon

½ t ground nutmeg

2 T. ground flax in 1/2 c. water

1 ½ c unflavored soy milk mixed with 1 T. vinegar
½ c chopped nuts (optional)
1 c. fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries, etc)
 

Grease 9x13” pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Combine flour, brown sugar, salt.  Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Set aside ½ cup of mixture for later.  Stir baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg into remaining crumb mixture.

Combine flax mixture and soured milk.  Add all at once to dry mixture.  Mix well.  Spoon batter into prepared pan.  Stir together reserved crumbs, nuts and berries. Sprinkle on top batter.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.  Serve warm or cold.  (I make it the night before if I know there won’t be time in the morning.)