Vegan Broccoli Salad

Have you ever tried that broccoli salad that they have at holiday

gatherings or potlucks? It usually has a mayonnaise based creamy dressing and if I remember correctly, it also has bacon in it. I thought it would be interesting when I saw a vegan recipe for this kind of salad online, so I tried it out. It was really easy to make. the most complicated part of it was that in order to make the dressing you had to soak cashews for 2 hours and then blend them with the remainder of the dressing ingredients. I had heard of using cashews before for sauces, but this was the first time I had tried it. I had purchased raw cashews for this purpose a while back and figured why not try it out. 

The dressing turned out really creamy and did have a nutty flavor, but that almost made it taste even more like the original salad. I would suggest this Vegan Broccoli Salad for holiday gatherings and potlucks with friends and family. My husband, who is not a vegan enjoyed this salad and felt that it had a good amount of flavor and he's the kind of person that tries to add spice to everything. 

You could also add apples to this salad to make it more of a waldorf type salad. It was very tasty and easy and totally worth making again sometime. 

Hope you enjoyed reading! See ya next time. 

Vegan Quinoa Stuffed Squash

This is a wonderfully flavorful Thanksgiving and fall treat. This Vegan Quinoa Stuffed Squash wasn't difficult to make, but it did take about an hour to cook everything. The recipe called for walnuts, but we didn't have any so we used cashews which I think tasted just as good. My husband and I have been enjoying trying these new vegan recipes, and I have been educating my husband on why I chose to be vegan and why I think it's important for the world to eventually trend this way. If you are curious about some of the health benefits or benefits to the environment to go vegan, check out the documentary called "What the Health?" and Vegucated on Netflix. They do a great job of explaining the health benefits and showing scientific evidence to prove what they are talking about. I can't think of a better way to spread the word.

I would suggest this acorn squash is a delicious main dish for any holiday meal or just as a weeknight dish. Please enjoy and I hope that these blogs have given you some ideas to eat a plant-based diet. 

3 Brands of Vegan Mac and Cheese

Who doesn't love Mac and Cheese? I know I do. It's such a wonderful comfort food that delights our senses and is great for a quick and easy meal when you are either on your own or don't feel like making a big messy cooking circus. I recently discovered some delicious Mac and Cheese brands found at varying grocery stores that are actually pretty good. 

Vegan Mac and Cheese Brand #1 

(Found on Amazon.com or Whole Foods)

Annie's Organic Vegan Shell Pasta and Creamy Sauce. The sauce is made out of pumpkin and sweet potato so the sauce is on the sweeter side, but if you add some veggie dogs, or some peas, carrots, or corn, I don't think you'd be able to really tell the difference between this stuff and the famous and popular kraft brand. I always add ketchup and pepper to my mac and cheese and have enjoyed this on all the brands I have tried thus far. The shells take a little longer to cook than most pastas for some reason, but the texture is worth the wait. This is a very flavorful vegan option. Annie's also does a gluten free version with macaroni noodles, but it uses the same sauce, and it is just as good as the gluten version in my opinion and takes a shorter time to cook. Similar to it's Kraft brother, this brand uses a packet of dry powder for their cheese sauce that you add vegan butter and dairy free milk to. 

Vegan Mac and Cheese Brand #2. 

(Found online at Amazon.com, at Byerlys,  and at Whole Foods)

Daiya brand Cheezy Mac is probably my favorite of the three. This one comes with the sauce already made in the packet so it's already saucy and just needs to go on the pasta once it's done and it also has a surprisingly cheese like flavor and it would be very hard to tell if serving to a family, that it is dairy free and gluten free. It's a spectacular find and can be found at multiple grocery stores as well as online. 

Vegan Mac and Cheese Brand #3. 
(Found online at Amazon.com and Kowalski's)

This brand, although I don't have a photo of it is Namaste's Macoroni and Cheez Dinner. I do enjoy this brand as well, however my husband and I find that you really need to add something to it because it doesn't have a lot of it's own flavor. So adding some veggies or veggie dogs to this one is a must. I added my usual ketchup and pepper and that was enough for me, but I know the whole world won't share my love for ketchup and pepper on mac and cheese. :)

I hope you enjoyed my review of these 3 brands of Mac and Cheese and I hope they helped you decide whether you want to try them as well. A few more bucks than kraft, but worth it for a comforting vegan treat for the whole family to enjoy! 

Vegan Cauliflower Tacos with Chipotle Cream

I feel like the title of this recipe sounds all fancy and people will be intimidated by the fancy name, but it was really quite simple. The hardest part was finding the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and that was only because we started at Trader Joes which has a more limited selection of items. 

These Vegan Cauliflower Tacos were seriously mouth watering. I am not a "burn my mouth" spice lover, but I gobbled up every last spicy bite because the flavor was just to die for. 

My husband loves spice so he added some extra spicy habanero sauce at the end. But, here is what we did differently, and I woudn't recommend it if you can't handle a good amount of spice. When making the Chipotle Cream Sauce, I added 3-4 peppers from the can, but the suggestion was only to use 1. I think this is why the dish was a bit spicier than it was supposed to be. Also, to make it vegan, the suggestion was to use vegan mayonnaise instead of yogurt, so that is what I did, and the sauce was not only easy to make as long as you have a blender or a food processor, but it was seriously delicious. 

Normally, my husband feels the need to add meat to the vegan dishes that I prepare, but he felt there was enough flavor in this meal that he didn't need to. 

So, I just want to touch on how simple and easy this meal was. First you cut up the cauliflower into pieces and then you throw them on a baking sheet with parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper and then cut up 2 of the peppers from the can along with some of the sauce and then stir up the cauliflower until it's covered and cook it for 25 minutes. Then you throw together the sauce which takes 5 minutes or less and you throw everything else on the table and voila you have a meal! So don't be intimidated by the fancy name, these are easy and delicious! 

Vegan Meatloaf

Ever since I became vegan, I've been craving meatloaf. I used to love meatloaf with mashed potatoes and corn. It was always a comfort meal for me. I found the recipe for a Vegan Chickpea Meatloaf on Pinterest and made it for my hubby and I. 

The recipe required a blender or food processor and ended up being incredibly tasty. It had the consistency and flavor of meatloaf and had a maple glaze on top that was very similar to ketchup. 

The recipe requires you to take all of the ingredients for the meatloaf portion and put it all into a blender and blend it all together. You put the mixture into a baking dish and cover it for 30 minutes and then take it back out to put the glaze on and then leave it uncovered while the glaze is on and cook for another 20 minutes, so the recipe does take a while, but it's worth it. 

If you are ever in the mood for meatloaf, I suggest this recipe for sure! 

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I love making pancakes on a Saturday morning and these were

fantastic! They had a great flavor and a great fluffy texture. We followed the recipe from Pinterest for Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes, except I used Vanilla flavored soy milk and added more of the soy milk then suggested because I felt like the batter was too thick. I probably added at least a cup more. I also added a small amount of pumpkin pie spice. Otherwise the recipe was followed precisely. We used the brand of vanilla soy milk in the picture, if you were curious, but any brand would work just fine. 

When putting the batter onto the griddle it didn't lay out like normal batter, it was kind of sticky. I used the spatula to try and flatten out the batter every time I dropped some of the batter on the pan. The directions say to put vegan buttery spread down first, which I did about half the time, both the flapjacks in the butter and not turned out well. After dropping each amount of batter, I would put dairy free mini chocolate chips on top. They worked out very well and tasted great with the pumpkin taste of the pancakes. The recipe only

requires 3 tablespoons of pumpkin puree, so I would suggest that if you make this recipe, make sure that you have another use for the remainder of the pumpkin puree. There are tons of pumpkin vegan recipes out there. 

All in all, this was a delicious Saturday morning breakfast. It was thoroughly enjoyed by both my husband and I with vegan buttery spread and pure maple syrup. It's definitely a recipe that I will make again and again as it was easy and delicious and a great October treat. 

Vegan Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta

My hubby and I were trying to figure out what to make for dinner

tonight. We were lacking in the vegetable department and we were at a point that required some creativity. I went to my trusty pinterest and looked up this Vegan Butternut Squash Pasta because we knew we had butternut squash and pasta that home and just needed a sauce. 

It turned out pretty well. The sauce required a blender or food processor and we ended up with far too much sauce because we used the entire Butternut squash instead of following the recipe's measurement of three cups. 

The flavor was kind of plain. So we added some garlic salt to the top as well as some more of the dried italian herbs that are a part of the recipe. This did help a little. We also used a type of almond cheese on top that was purchased from whole foods. It was great because it melted really well. 

I'd also suggest using a fettuccine pasta like in the picture in the recipe. We only used the pasta that you see in this picture because we had two bags of half pasta that needed to be used. 

The broccoli florets was my favorite part of this pasta and I'd say adding more veggies like maybe some kale, corn, or carrots would add some more flavor to it. 

We have enough sauce leftover to feed an army for a week, so we saved it and are planning to make it into a butternut squash soup. I'll keep track of what we do with it so I can pass along that recipe as well.