Results of OMAC and an accidental gluten-free Cheeze success!

In my last post I had high hopes to make at least 32 meals (for one person) in a one day cooking session. How did it go? Well unexpectedly Life intervened and the one day turned into two days. All in all, I cooked for about 6-7 hours. Wondering how much I spent? At Bulk Barn the total came to $5.13. At the grocery store, I went a bit over and spent $30.27. However, that amount included Rice Milk ($5) that I would have needed to buy in a few days anyway. So I will consider myself on budget!

I made four medium-sized pizzas with homemade wheat crusts (from All Recipes) and pepperoni from Vegan Dad's blog. I also took on a new challenge of creating fake mozzarella cheese, which didn't turn out very good. BUT, there was a good use for it after all--see end of post for details. Instead the replacement I used for cheese was a white bean puree (one of my favorite substitutions for cheese) from The Complete Vegan Kitchen--a great cookbook, by the way.

My pepperoni didn't turn out red, but it was spot on in taste and had a pretty good texture. Since when an Omni I was a pepperoni addict, Vegan Dad saved the day with his recipe. :) You can find the recipe here. Next time I might puree the beans (for the pepperoni) to make a bit more solid roll, but when following the recipe as Vegan Dad instructed, it still makes a nicely sliceable roll. Below is a picture of how my pepperoni looked. As it turns out, one pizza is two meals for me, so 8 meals from the pizzas.


Next was a batch of 'Roast Beef' seitan from Tracy's blog, A Veg*an for Dinner. THIS WAS AMAZING! I really can't rave enough about it. You can find the recipe here. The texture was nearly perfect and the seasonings were great. I couldn't even detect any of that wheaty seitan taste. The only thing I might change is the amount of sage--but hey, that could be my taste buds talking. Below is a picture of the 'Roast' and I believe there are about 8 servings of this in the freezer. I also made an equal amount of whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce to be potentially served alongside the 'Roast Beef'. If you are keeping count, we are up to 16 meals now.

Unfortunately I ended up throwing away about 2 pounds of chicken-style seitan from a previous cooking session. (had hopes of saving it) It just had too strong of a 'wheaty' taste, no matter what I did to fix it. Whenever I took a bite it made me gag. So that wasted about 6 meals. Won't be using that recipe again, but I will be trying Tracy's chicken-style seitan in the near future.

Next was some vegetable/bean wraps. Nothing fancy, just whizzed some kidney beans in the blender with some nooch & rice milk. (think refried beans) Added some mushrooms, spinach, onions and peppers to a saute pan until done to my liking. I spooned some of the bean mixture onto a tortilla, added some veggie mixture and rolled up everything in a whole grain wrap for 11 lunchtime burritos.


While the veggies were cooking for the wraps, I brushed some low-fat, thinly sliced extra-firm tofu with a BBQ/Soy/Hot Sauce mixture on both sides. There may have been some spices in the sauce, but can't remember what. The batch then went in the oven for about 30 minutes, flipping once while cooking. These will be added to rice or noodles when in a pinch, or if the craving strikes, on a sandwich. I'll count this as 2 meals, (even though it will probably stretch over 4) since I'll have to make pasta or rice to serve alongside the tofu.


So 29 meals in all. Not bad especially since I wasted about an hour on trying to fix the Chick'n. OMAC usually revolves around one meat (usually bought on sale for a ridiculously low price) served with various starches and possibly a little bit of veggies. Even though this can be applied to Vegan cooking, I am still struggling with a 'game plan'.


The above picture is vegan sour cream to dip the Chik'n for Chik'n Parmesan before breading it, but that wasn't to be once the Chik'n went in the garbage. I used this recipe, but had to replace the vinegar with balsamic (was out of apple cider vinegar). That change made the sour cream darker, but still tasty. I wanted to try Tara's recipe for sour cream here, but forgot where I originally saw the recipe and didn't remember until today. :(


What does this look like? Breadcrumbs? It's actually a pretty amazing Parmezan Cheeze substitute! I've been hesitant to use most of the recipes for Parmezan Cheeze due to the use of nuts in the recipes. I know nuts have the good fat, but when eating pasta sometimes I just want to heap on the cheese! I used this recipe here.

Due to Life handing me some obstacles, I had to freeze the cheese logs overnight. The next day I grated two of the defrosted logs and tested (for meltiness and taste) the cheese on some bread. It was tasteless, almost--you could definitely taste the Tahini. But the texture, it was perfect for Parmezan Cheeze. Added some Nooch, salt and garlic powder and wowee! The Teen Daughter thought this was almost exactly like Parmezan. For those that want to try this odd recipe, I think I added 1/4 cup Nooch, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp garlic powder to about 1 1/2 cups of grated cheese. Use your own judgement, as the amounts may be a bit off.

This was a long post, I think I'll go rest my fingers for a bit. :)

Vegan Mini-OMAC Session

First let me say a big Thank You to everyone who offered support and understanding on my last post. It was much appreciated. :)

Now from a previous cooking day, I have a LOT of Seitan Chick'n leftover (different recipe from my previous Seitan attempt). It turned out really rubbery and I was ready to throw out the batch. But a fellow blogger saved the day! A Veg*n For Dinner had some tips on working with Seitan here that suggests some tips for saving batches of Seitan that don't turn out as planned.

So here is what I'm planning on making:

• 4 small/medium size pizzas
• 4 entrees of Seitan Chick'n Parmezan over wheat spaghetti
• 4 entrees of Seitan BBQ Chick'n with rice & mixed veggies
• 6 entrees of Seitan Roast Beef with mashed potatoes & mixed veggies
• 4 Seitan Roast Beef subs (Philly Cheesesteak Style)
• 10 Rice & Chick'n burritos
• And time permitting, TVP Burgers & Chick'n Pot Pie

32 Meals in all! If I can get it all done in time. :)

Some items I already have in the pantry and for the rest Wookiepants has allotted $25-30. Surely you notice that the above doesn't contain a lot of veggies, but hopefully this can be improved in the future. I also wanted to create meals that would show my fellow dinner companions that Vegans really do eat tasty stuff--not just boiled potatoes and salad!

Luckily living near a Bulk Barn, this allows me to buy just the right amount of spices/flour needed and not get stuck with a whole jar of something. Spices that I'll buy are: Sage, Cayenne, Italian Seasoning, Vegan Beef Bullion, Soy Flour, Anise Seed, Red & Green Peppercorns, Crushed Red Pepper Flakes, Rice Flour, Tapioca Flour, Vegan Chick'n Soup Powder. Hopefully, and most likely, this will come to about $5-8.

That leaves me with about $30 for: 2 cubes Firm Silken Tofu, Tahini, 4 cans White Kidney Beans, Jalapenos, Black Olives, 3 Green/Red Peppers, 2 Sweet Onions, Lemons, Frozen Mixed Veggies, Potatoes, Fries, Mushrooms and Tortillas. Hopefully this will all fit in my budget, if not the Mushrooms will be first to go.

Tomorrow evening I'll post some photos and how everything went down. Also, I'm making a Seitan Roast for the first time, so will post how that turns out.

Lessons with Quinoa

Today I had my kitchen time and wanted to do breakfast/ lunch/ dinner cooking for the next two weeks.  With 5 glorious hours to accomplish this, it seemed like enough time.  At 12:30pm I headed off to Bulk Foods, where unfortunately as usual, I was distracted by all the awesome stuff they have.  Oh well, there was still had a little over 4 hours!  

I headed off to the grocery store, but while in the car, my stomach started making ominous sounds.  Grr! I explained to my stomach that we would be tasting (snacking) as we cooked.  I somehow don't think the stomach understood because it continued it's rumbling and kicked in with some pangs.  So, off I went to nearby Indian  restaurant for a quick lunch.  I finally got to the grocery store where organic produce seduced me with all their yumminess.  And cremini mushrooms (my fav!) were on sale.   Happy, happy!

On the way home I tried to rationalize to myself that I would speed-cook and still get everything done in the 2 hours, 40 minutes.  Yes 'speed-cook'; I know it's not a word, but in my desperate state of mind it had become one.  I happily envisioned mushrooms flying from the knife to the skillet, while the quinoa simmered quietly in the background.  It would be fabulous!

So as not to bore you with any more details, panic did indeed set in during the last hour.  I felt like a contestant on the Iron Chef that you just knew wasn't going to make it to the end.  And sure enough, out of my planned 11 dishes, only 4 were completed!  Gah!  I ran out of mushrooms, didn't have the time to make the pan-seared tofu for one of the dishes and one big mistake...

I should have looked up quinoa before cooking it for the first time.  But no, I was confident it was similar to couscous and stayed really tiny.  So into the stockpot went the whole kilogram of quinoa, with enough water to cover it.   So engrossed I became in the other preparations, I didn't notice that the quinoa was now as high as the top of the pot.  Go ahead and laugh, if you already aren't.  :)

Lesson learned and I have enough quinoa to eat for a week!  (or two or three)  Here is what was finished:  One giant pan of lasagna (pictured below), 6 quesadillas, 3 mushroom & lentil burgers and quinoa pilaf.  Not too horible for less than three hours of cooking time, but not great either.

I'll put the other dishes up later on, but for the lasagna it was pretty basic.  I used brown rice lasagna sheets, store-bought tomato sauce, sauteed onions & mushrooms, tofu ricotta & spinach and a white bean puree with Nooch. The layering from the bottom up: pasta, mushroom mixture, pasta, ricotta & spinach sprinkled with Nooch, pasta, white bean puree with Nooch.  I topped the dish with some sprinkled breadcrumbs--oh yeah and I sprinkled the tomato sauce throughout the dish.  If anyone is really interested in the recipe, just let me know and I'll post it.

So this was a fail for OMAC, for those that were interested.  Actually it's going to be harder than I originally thought since OMAC usually features one meat served in a variety of dishes throughout the month.  Also, I'm trying to follow a low GI diet, which means I need a LOT of whole grains and a LOT of veggies.  I'm trying to not depend on soy and wheat gluten too much.  But I haven't given up on OMAC.  :)

*Just a little update on the lasagna:  the rice lasagna sheets came out horrible.  All globby and starchy.  Even though the fillings were good, I threw out the whole pan.  Anyone have any suggestions?

Under the weather

Have a nasty bug that's working it's way through my system so I haven't been eating anything elaborate (or worth taking a photo of, anyway).  Breakfast was a granola bar, lunch was a bowl of leftover soup and dinner was a tortilla filled with hummus & bean sprouts.  

I'm a bit excited about having kitchen time tomorrow and am going to spend the rest of the evening planning what to cook.   :)  If I am lucky I can make a week or so of meals to freeze.

Which brings me to an idea I had on Canadian Thanksgiving.  I used to be really into OMAC (once a month cooking) when I was an Omni.  These recipes were super cheap to make, too.  Feeding a family of 3-4 with $5 or less a meal.  I think that eating Vegan will actually make OMAC a LOT easier and possibly cheaper.  Don't ask me why, I'm just optomistic.  I have spreadsheets linked to Word documents containing recipes, etc.  I was like the super nerd of OMAC and I'm not ashamed.  

My biggest problem right now is that most of the recipes are not Veganized.  Also, most of them rely  heavily on processed foods.  Processed foods are not really an option once my eyes were opened to the effects they have on a person's body.  Actually I may just see if I can whip up a quick OMAC plan for the next week...or two.  Woo boy, I'm getting excited and suddenly posting has lost it's appeal.   ;)

Until tomorrow!