Food From The Garden

I am well aware of what you're thinking: what is a keto recipe doing on a vegan food blog? Before I get any hate about going keto or warnings about how impossible vegan and keto will be, I am not going keto. Let me say that again: I am not keto. I have a friend who is keto and for her birthday, I want to put together a cookbook of my vegan recipes for her and because she has transitioned keto, I am trying to figure out ways to maintain the integrity of the original vegan recipes but make them keto so she can enjoy them. For my regular vegan cheese sauce, I make a bechamel base of any oil, gluten free all purpose flour, and incorporate any plant based milk I have on hand, then whisk in nutritional yeast, hot sauce, and other seasonings of choice. Even if you normally don't like spicy foods, add the hot sauce anyway. Even if it might seem like you're adding a lot, the end result is not spicy. It just adds a depth of flavor and this sauce would be very bland without it. It ...

Ask anyone about healthy and plant based grocery shopping and they'll tell you one of two extremes: It's expensive or it's the most budget friendly thing they ever did. The truth is, either can be the case. It all depends on what you buy. I am able to eat vegan and gluten free and still only spend $20 a week on groceries. How on Earth do I do that? That's what I'm here to talk about. Here are my tips for spending less on groceries. 1. Cut down on processed foods. A lot of processed foods tend to be more on the pricey side because you're paying for the ingredients used and labor costs so companies can profit. Instead, buy the ingredients to DIY the processed food of choice and you're not only cutting labor costs, but you will likely have enough ingredients left over that you are able to make another batch afterwards. This is not true 100% of the time but often times it is. For example, I can get a big bag of peanuts at my grocery store for $1.32 or a good s...

I'm not sure any of you will have (or have ever heard) a story such as the one I'm about to share but I feel I should share it because in the world of customer service, many people do a very good job and even go the extra mile for their customers but it's those who don't that get the negative media attention. Those who do good don't get the thanks they deserve. I'm here to change that today. Here's my story: I was at Trader Joe's looking at the cards. I'm not sure about the Trader Joe's locations you guys shop at but at mine, there are two doors you go through. The first gets you indoors and the 2nd gets you into the store. It's at that 2nd door where the cards are located. The device the cards are on is supposed to rotate but this time it wouldn't for some reason (and I wasn't the only one who tried) so what I did was I got between the back of the device and the wall behind it to look at the cards in the back. All of a sudden, the a...

I have a confession to make: I watch Food Network. I know it might seem odd because most of what is shown on Food Network is not vegan and no, this is not how I satisfy cravings for non vegan food. I don't really have cravings because I've been doing this long enough. I do this because of what we have in common. What could I possibly have in common with anybody on Food Network? Quite a bit. We share our love of food and cooking. We enjoy being creative and bouncing ideas off of each other. It's fun for me to see what people on these shows come up with, some on the spot because of a theme assigned to them, a budget they have to stick to, or an ingredient they are required to use. I talk about cooking all the time with people I know who share my passion for simply being in the kitchen, even though most are not vegan and I get a lot of inspiration from the, even though it's very rare that I follow a recipe to a T other than my own. I look at Food Network the same way. Wh...

I'm sure we've all done it before. I'm not talking about using animal ingredients to give into cravings on purpose. That's where Gardein and Daiya come in if you're craving animal products when you first transition to a plant based diet. I'm talking about when you act in good faith to make sure your food is vegan but an animal ingredient slips through the cracks and you don't realize it until after you ingest it. I've done that a couple times and I can't say that I'm necessarily proud of it but I don't beat myself up about it either. Here's why: According to the Vegan Society, veganism is "a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose." The key phrase here is "as far as is possible and practicable". It is very possible to not eat meat, dairy, etc and I make that choice on a daily basis. ...

Welcome to my first post of 2019. I have been very busy this holiday season and I took some time off of writing my regular posts to spend time with my family and catch a much needed and much deserved  break from the day to day. I am really lucky to have been able to spend quality time with a lot of extended family I don't get to see as often as I'd like and it's always a good time. When I'm buying groceries, I look for the best quality ingredients and I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables in all forms. I also like to look for the best deals in the process. As a result, I don't buy everything from one grocery store. Trader Joe's is one of my favorite grocery stores for high quality food at good prices and they always have fun things to try. I am always trying something new from Trader Joe's so my favorites are ever changing. Here is an updated list: 1. Peanut butter. Trader Joe's has a variety of options for peanut butter, all at varying prices. One of ...

Let me preface this post with two important points. 1. The title of this post is not a question of ethics. 2. FOODience is a word I made up, and it means "those you're cooking for". Get it? Food+audience? Now that you know what a FOODience is, and more importantly that I'm not in any way trying to encourage trickery, the question I'm here to tackle is if you prepare food in a way your FOODience may not be used to, will they ever know unless you tell them? I don't have any concrete data to go one way or the other but I do have some anecdotal evidence I'd like to share. First, I introduced my mom to a quinoa based pasta this summer and she knew it was gluten free because I told her, but her experience with gluten free pasta was very limited and she had no idea what to expect. She knew I liked this one though. Like most gluten free pastas, the one from Ancient Harvest takes longer to cook than traditional pastas (and longer than package directions) but th...

As you may have heard me say on my live streams, things usually do not have to be perfect. Perfection is often unachievable even for professionals. I'm one of those people who tends to just add a little bit of this and a little bit of that and not really measure anything. However, some things do need to go right and it may seek like I'm ranting a little bit but I'm going to talk about the things that definitely do need to be perfect when it comes to food. 1. There must be a binding ingredient in your baking recipes. You may be able to get away with having a cake fall apart so it's more like a mud cake but cookies are a different story. Yesterday on my Vlogmas2018 highlight on my Instagram stories, I showed you guys some Christmas wreath cookies I made. What I didn't tell you on there is that I had no applesauce or bananas in the kitchen at the time. I expected to but someone in my family must've eaten them and because no one told me, I didn't know until the...

Holidays are often as stressful as they are joyful and food is a significant part of it. With Thanksgiving just over, you probably know what I mean unless you had a plan that worked and keep your stress levels down, like I was lucky enough to. With more holidays on the way, here are my tips to make food the not-so-stressful part of the holiday. 1. Have a go to dish that you bring to potluck events. This dish should be a simple one and it should travel well. I went to a potluck event on Saturday and I brought pasta with an avocado pesto sauce and it was a hit. Even I like it, and I'm not exactly known for liking avocados, and I do intend to make it again, especially for potluck events. It's a good way to get your greens in (which may be difficult at potlucks) and pesto is good hot or cold so if it gets cold on the way (or before it's served), it's fine. Pasta in general travels very well as long as the container it's in is not breakable. I just used a 9x13 aluminum ...

Food is without a doubt the best part of Thanksgiving and it's fun to have leftovers to enjoy the next day. However, after several days of eating these leftovers as they are, it gets boring but you don't want to let them go to waste. In that case, you just need a way to bring new life to your leftovers. Yesterday, I brought some new life to my leftovers in this wonderful casserole recipe I'm about to share with you. It's also perfect because it requires minimal dishes and clean up and the oven does the work for you. So you can do the laundry, shop online, walk the dog, whatever you have to do while this is in the oven. That's how practical it is on a weekday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This recipe is based both on the leftovers I had in the house as well as other ingredients but I hope it helps you to bring some new life to your leftovers and have some fun with them. Ingredients: 1.5c seasoned rice of choice (I used the Basmati/Wild rice mix from Trader Jo...