Good Friday Vegan Casserole

Every year my mom used to cook a Brazilian/Portuguese dish with salted cod (bacalhau). It was good, but not as good as the vegan version she made today. I can honestly say it was the best I ever had. Here's the recipe:

6 white potatoes
3 red bell peppers
4 tomatoes
1 kale (we used lacinato)
1 pint green and kalamata olives
3 large portobello mushrooms
2 red onions
1/2 can coconut milk
olive oil

Boil the potatoes until almost ready. Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper.

Slice the tomatoes and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Slice the red peppers.

Chop the kale and massage it with a bit of olive oil.

Cut the portobello mushrooms and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Chop onions and again, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

The olives:

Start layering the casserole:

Tomatoes

Potatoes and Olives

Kale

Red Pepper and Mushrooms

Onions, more tomatoes, olives and finally the rest of the potatoes

Pour the coconut milk, cover with foil and put it in the oven at 300F for 2 hours. Remove the foil and cook for another 15 minutes at 450F.

Enjoy with some rice. It's delicious!

Rice Paper Wraps with lentil hummus and couscous

Start by making the lentil hummus: 2 cups of cooked lentils, 1/2 cup tahini, 3 cloves of garlic, lemon juice, 1 tsp of cumin, salt and 1 Tbsp of hot sauce (used Frank's xtra hot). Put everything in the blender until nice and smooth.

 Soak the rice paper in warm water for 2 or 3 minutes:

Put a dry and clean cloth on the board or surface you will use to roll the wraps and put the moist rice paper on it:

Mix the lentil hummus with grated carrots and spread on the rice paper (as seen above).

On top add some couscous (you can make this in 5 minutes, by adding boiling water to the couscous and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Or follow this recipe.

Add some chopped red onions.

Then some cucumber. Then start folding:

EAT!

It only takes one thought...

When I became vegan, food took on a completely new meaning for me. And I started paying more attention to nature and animals. It's like a whole different world opened up and I could see things in a much brighter light. I believe everyone should be given a chance to change and make things right. And so this song was born, out of thinking it's never too late to make it good.

Mom's vegan lasagna

I went spinning this morning and when I came back home, the house was smelling delicious. My mom was in the kitchen making a veggie lasagna. She roasted some vegetables before adding them to the dish, so each layer had a nice flavour. It was really good and I hope you make this, because it's good and good for you :)

Ingredients:
1 package of spinach lasagna
1 eggplant

5 zucchinis

2 bell peppers (red and yellow - or whatever you have handy)
1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes
2 cups shredded collards

 tomato sauce (you can make your own or buy it ready)

bechamel sauce ( 1 cup vegan butter, 1/2 cup wholewheat flour, about 3 cups of almond milk, 1/c cup nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Melt the butter, add the flour until blended. Start adding the milk until it's like a sauce, careful you don't add too much. When it's done, add the nutritional yeast for some yummy cheese flavour and the salt and pepper. )

Boil water and cook the noodles for about 13 minutes. Then you can start assembling the lasagna.
Put tomato sauce in the bottom of the baking pan (we used this one). Then the noodles, eggplant, more sauce, noodles, zucchini, sauce, bell peppers, noodles, bechamel sauce, collards, noodles, sauce, zucchini, noodles sauce and some cherry tomatoes on top if you'd like.
Bake for 40 minutes at 370F.
Here's the final product:

YUM!

Gluten-free Vegan Esfihas

I watched my mom make this a bunch of times. It looks complicated at first, but it's not so bad.
She usually uses whole wheat flour, but we decided to try to make it gluten-free. We used a mix of brown rice flour and teff flour. After mixing and letting it rest for about one hour, the dough was still a bit wet so we added some more brown rice flour and it was okay. The end result was great, so we were pretty happy. And my dad liked them, so we know we were successful. Here's the recipe:

Dough:  1 tbsp yeast
              1 cup warm water
              1/2 cup olive oil
              1 tbsp ground flax seed and 3 tbsp water (substituting one egg)
              1 1/2 tsp vegan sugar
              1 1/2 tsp salt
              1 1/2 flour (teff and brown rice)

the dough after we let it rest and worked with some extra brown rice flour

Topping : 1 package Yves Meatless Ground Round
                1 small red onion (chopped)
                1 cup chopped olives
                drizzle olive oil

Work the dough and make some mini pizza discs:

Put them in a 350F oven for 20 minutes. Check if the dough is cooked and if not give it another 5 minutes.
They are great with some hot sauce or lemon juice. Enjoy!

Multicolour Couscous

When I turned vegan, this is one dish I discovered I really like. It's light and nutritious and you can do a million things with it.
We had this for lunch and it was great. So, here's the recipe:


2 cups of multicolour couscous (or any type you like - I used the Israeli couscous and it's great too - kinda resembles pasta in the texture)

2 cups of boiling water

Put the couscous in a pot and pour the boiling water. Put the lid on and wait 5 minutes until the water is absorbed.

Chop: 1 red pepper, 1/2 red onion and 1 cup of green onions. Also 2 cups of green olives (or any kind of olives you like)

Mix everything together. Add a bit of salt, pepper and drizzle some olive oil.
Super easy and really delicious. Enjoy!

Crushed peanut cake

I made this today because I was craving something sweet and I happened to have all the ingredients at home. It turned out really good actually, so I decided to share the recipe with you.

1 can of soy condensed milk (if you don't have it, you can make your condensed milk by blending 1 cup of soy powder, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of water and 2 tbsp of Earth Balance)

1 package of tea biscuits (I found some at the grocery store that were dairy and egg free, so you should check the box)

300g of peanuts (unsalted!)

Put everything in the food processor until it's mixed. I used a glass container to put the mix in and then refrigerated for a couple of hours. Everyone loved it and I will make this again :)