Maggie's Vegan Korean Beef/Rice Bowls

Hi friends. It's been a while. A looooooong while. The longest while between posts on my blog since I started it. So, here's the LesVegan scoop. 

1. Late last spring, our dean announced she was leaving. She and the president worked on figuring out who could take on parts of the dean role, as it would have been impossible to find a permanent person to start by July first. Two colleagues and I were asked (and agreed) to split the role. That's taken a lot of time and has been a steep learning curve. 
2. I've been, like most folks, bogged down by the emotional weight associated with swirling currents of a global pandemic, political uncertainty, and civil unrest (for good reason, when we look at continued pressure for racial justice in the US). 
3. Shana and I separated and are finalizing a divorce. The separation was sudden and the number of adjustments one makes after being with the same person for 16.5 years leads to a lot of mental and emotional work. I'm thankful to have supportive friends and family and that I'd already had a well-established relationship with a therapist. I'm well-loved and thriving. 

All of those things, plus more, led to shifts in my cooking and not enough time or energy to keep posting recipes. BUT, I think I'm back (at least sporadically), even though all of the things above are still happening. 

Thus, here's a new recipe that's easy and speedy and delicious: vegan Korean beef & rice bowls. I was inspired trying to use up food I had in my house, which included a weirdly large number of bags of Gardein Beefless Ground. I didn't want tacos or sloppy joes or chili, so I turned to the internet, found some ideas, and a delicious dinner was the happy result. I hope it's a great weeknight meal for you!

Lazy Dinner Teriyaki Tips

Can you believe I haven't posted a "Lazy Dinner" post since 2017?  With COVID shifting schedules and working from home, it's not like we haven't been eating lazy dinners... so I'm not sure why I haven't posted an new one! 

Anyway, this recipe is a a quintessential Lazy Dinner. It's really quick (relying on a faux meat product), super easy, and delicious. Plus, its versatile! If you don't want Asian flavors one evening, use the same technique but switch to different flavors. 

Maggie's All-Cuisines Salad Dressing

Well, we are mid-way through spring with hints of summer in the air. This means that it is time for our CSA again! I was *so* excited to sing our "CSA-day" song on the first week of pick-up. The joy at our CSA starting up again is also set against the backdrop of the global pandemic that rages on. Indiana has slowly begun to open up, but we're still very wary about heading to restaurants and we've only been going to the store every three weeks or so. Our weekly CSA box has dramatically expanded our access to fresh veggies, especially leafy greens! Seriously, we've gotten lettuce mix, heads of lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, arugula, braising greens, and micro-greens, plus turnips, radishes, and the first bit of asparagus; it's magical.

With so many leafy greens to eat, we've been finding new ways to eat them. Shana has been craving tikka masala with regularity, which is fine by me since it is delicious. A leafy green salad is a wonderful companion. When we first confronted the combination of tikka masala and salad, I looked at the dressings in the fridge and didn't love any of the possible taste combinations. So obviously, I made up my own! 

While originally intended as a lovely accompaniment to flavors in Middle-Eastern dishes, this salad dressing works beautifully with every flavor profile we've tried. It's a fast, easy, and tasty dressing for salads with any meal. 

Poured here on a simple salad of spinach and toasted almonds.

Maggie's Vegan Cheesy Taco Mac

So... we went to a mac & cheese party this past weekend. No joke. Sounds like a weird place for a vegan to go. Nevertheless, go we did.

The mac & cheese party was hosted by Shana's former principal and her husband; it was their second annual mac & cheese party. They held their first event last year because getting tickets to the Indianapolis Return of the Mac festival was apparently really difficult. Our hosts planned very well! The party had 14 entries, which party goers tasted in small cups that rested perfectly in holes drilled into clipboards. This allowed you to take notes as you ate. After eating them all, you voted* (via google form) for your favorite entry in three categories: best overall, most innovative, and most gourmet.

After deciding to go, we debated just going for fun, but then Shana reminded me that she'd asked me to veganize a cheesy taco mac recipe she saw in one of those food videos. My first attempt to make this dish was a delicious success, but we hadn't had it in over a year! I was intrigued with the idea of adding a vegan entry to the mac & cheese party, but decided I needed to test it once more. A second successful result (with a few tweaks from the first) made me confident it would be okay as an entry.

As it turned out, we didn't win, but came in third in the best overall category and had the second most votes overall! Moreover, people didn't know it was vegan until Shana announced it after the votes were tallied. All in all, that makes this a winner in my book.

Filling a tasting cup to the brim (and then some)!

Vegan Teriyaki Boats

On summer nights, I can't bring myself to heat up my kitchen. But as hot days and warm nights stretch on, I also get sick of grilling dinners and Shana wouldn't be satisfied with continuous salads. This means a recipe that can satisfy the requirements of not heating the kitchen, not using the grill, and not being a salad is a huge win for our summer eating.

This particular recipe was in a special recipe collection called "Best Vegan Recipes" published by Vegetarian Times magazine (which now exists in an altered state under the title Vegetarian Today; I no longer subscribe). Shana and I had been standing in line at a grocery store and saw this special collection. While waiting to check out, I perused it and found so many recipes I wanted to make that we ended up purchasing it.

These teriyaki boats are ridiculously fast and easy - so much so that Shana has made them - and they are delicious and healthy. Everyone we've served them to has enjoyed them and I can see them being quite flexible, if you wanted to add/remove ingredients.  Serve them as a lunch, a light dinner, or even as an appetizer (see Helpful Hints).

Lazy Dinner Quesadillas

It's been quiet around these here parts, huh? I've got all sorts of backlogged recipes, plus, when spring rolls around I get sick of everything we've been eating over the winter, but still no blog posts. Sad for me (and you!).

But, here's a quick and easy Lazy Dinner (or lunch or snack or appetizer or whatever) to tide you all over until I actually get around to posting real things: quesadillas.

Lazy Dinner Quesadillas were something I would periodically eat when Shana was still working in Indianapolis. Without a plan to come home and make/eat dinner, I would often stay at school until mid-evening and then come home famished. I needed something that would fill my tummy in as little time as possible. By relying on a few convenience foods (e.g., vegan cheese shreds and store-bought tortillas), all I needed was a veggie or two (or three) to throw into the mix. Into a hot pan went my ingredients and a satisfying dinner emerged in under 5 minutes.

This particular LD Quesadilla was prompted by just a few caramelized onions left over from mujaddara we had with friends a few nights ago. The onions are soooooo good that we just couldn't waste them. Adding a few ripped spinach leaves and some vegan cheese and I was all set.

MVK Savory Roasted Carrots

Look - a real CSA post!!! We've been getting some AMAZING veggies from our wonderful CSA out of Christopher Farm. As it's very early in the growing season, we've gotten mostly greens. However, we've also gotten a ton of carrots due to the hoop houses at the farm. We eat carrots in soups and in salads, but that hasn't been enough to eat through the carrots. I was talking to my sister about this the other day and she gave me a great idea.

Recently, my sister started working at a restaurant called Mill Valley Kitchen. She is really enjoying the way the restaurant engages with and thinks about food. When I mentioned all of our carrots, she said that I could try to make something on the menu there: carrots marinated in a savory marinade and then roasted quickly in their wood fired pizza oven. I have never eaten these carrots and I certainly don't have a wood fired pizza oven, but I figured I'd give it a go. I am so glad I did, because these carrots were ridiculously delicious. Even if you don't like cooked carrots, you will like these (says Shana). Seriously, eat them now.

Lazy Dinner Not-Pigs in Blankets

Even though spring is supposedly on the way, the first two and half months of the year are always tricky for Shana and I when it comes to planning dinners. Our best laid meal plans are often dramatically destroyed by Mother Nature. We'll have planned a lovely dinner just to have a major snowstorm force Shana to stay in Indianapolis. Thus, I'm more often trying to figure out random things for me to eat (e.g., the other night I had Alice Salad and mini tater tots, simply because I had all of that on hand). Luckily, I've got a number of Lazy Dinners that are easy to do.

This is another one of those dinners where I don't remember how it started. Maybe we saw someone else eating them. Or maybe I saw a non-vegan recipe and decided to veganize it. Or maybe something else happened that was equally trivial. Whatever the reason, these not-pigs in blankets are SO easy I feel badly calling them a recipe. But I guess that makes them a perfect Lazy Dinner (or game-watching food or snack).

Now, before you go all crazy and start making these all the time, I just want to say up front that these are not - I repeat, NOT - the most healthy thing for you to eat. They rely on heavily processed fake meat and high-in-fat bread-in-a-can. Obviously that means they're delicious. It also obviously means don't eat them all the time! As a occasional Lazy Dinner, they're great.

Lazy Dinner "Turkey" Club

I'm teaching a May Term class for the first time right now (May Terms are a single class taught over 16 days). Since I've never taught a class like this, I had no idea how much work it would be. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the class and my students (they are such a great bunch!), I'm just more busy and tired than I anticipated I would be after the semester ended. In addition, my busyness is overlapping with an increase in temperatures, which always makes me not want to eat any of the things we've been eating over the winter. Hot weather foods are hard.

Tonight, we opted to deviate from our meal plan, as neither one of us was interested in cooking or eating our planned dinner. Instead, we had Shana's all time favorite food from her college dining hall: "turkey" clubs. We actually started eating these sandwiches a while ago when Shana suddenly realized that we had all the vegan ingredients to make this sandwich. Most likely, it was Shana's discovery that vegan mayonnaise is delicious. In fact, I was admonished to tell you all that Shana has "very strong feelings" about vegan mayo. Actually, most people who try it think it's as good (or better) than non-vegan mayo. I don't feel as strongly as she does, but then again, I never really ate mayo in my pre-vegan days.

This is the ultimate in Lazy Dinners because the only cooking you need to do is the "bacon" and toasting the bread. Other than that, you just slap stuff together. Anyway, since I said I was busy, enough blabbering, here's the food!

Lazy Dinner Fancy Ramen

I am just finishing up what has been one of the most overwhelming semesters I've ever had. Answering a friend the other day who inquired about how I was feeling, I responded with "ultrawhelmed." (And to be honest, I'm not really done, but next week is finals week and prepping for other things, so I have new/different tasks in which to engage.) This semester is the main reason for my major absence from this blog. To be honest, we've not even been sticking to out meal plan as much as we would normally, as there have been a number of nights where I've just been too busy or tired or both to cook (and Shana gets home too late usually).

In addition to this semester, Shana and I drove home from Chicago today after a 40-hour visit (I was there for a conference) and we had to clean up our house because tomorrow night is the semi-annual Minion Dinner. We've got 7 students coming over tomorrow night for a dinner of soups, salads, and breads (and cookies!!). So, when we got home, we had to clean and go grocery shopping to prepare for tomorrow, which didn't leave a lot of time for dinner. 

Because of all of that, tonight's dinner was another perfect lazy dinner: fancy ramen. The only reason we call this "fancy" ramen is because we put something other than just the ramen noodles in the pot. Because it's ramen, this dinner is SUPER fast and easy, plus it's pretty cheap even with the added ingredients. As I've talked about before (see the Helpful Hints), there is only one easily obtainable brand and flavor of ramen that has a vegan flavor packet.

Maggie's Tofu Scramble

We're back from our lovely holiday travels and enjoying that last weekend of break before everything starts up again. When talking about having a fun weekend breakfast, I mentioned tofu scramble to Shana, who was enthusiastic. Having a tofu scramble for breakfast is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it's a departure from our regular fun weekend breakfasts of waffles or pancakes (though we couldn't resist). Second, I'm not sure that anyone who has known Shana would have ever expected her to think a tofu scramble sounds like a delicious food, no matter when it's served. On the other hand, I order them almost everywhere I can find them served.

I've made tofu scrambles a few times at home, but I'd never quite gotten the spices and moisture content quite right. I'd make one that was too wet (per Shana's standards), too bland, too spicy, or just not quite right. This morning, after looking over my notes from my most recent attempt, cross-referencing with a recipe from one of the figureheads of vegan cooking (Isa Chandra Moskowitz over at the PPK), and doing a little mental recalculation, I arrived at a winner of a tofu scramble! We devoured all of it, along with some mini pancakes and a couple of slices of vegan bacon.

Lazy Dinner Tacos

Apparently "Lazy Dinners" are a thing at our house. Tonight was a "Lazy Dinner." In fact, this dinner is more of a Lazy Dinner than Lazy Dinner Pizza, which was the first Lazy Dinner I posted. I've been attempting new crockpot dinners for the past few Tuesdays, as they allow me to spend more time working on nights when Shana stays in Indy. However, the past few attempts have been pretty bad. Their awfulness made me hesitant to try a new one this week. Instead, I decided on tacos. Shana's been on a "no tacos" kick, too, which made dinner even more perfect.

These tacos are a perfect dinner when you don't have a plan or only have about 10 minutes to cook (and actually, 10 minutes might be exaggerating the length of time I was in the kitchen). In addition, they are able to be customized in any way you'd like. I feel silly even calling this a recipe, but since the purpose of this blog is to show people that it's actually very do-able to be vegan, this is a super easy way to do so. Plus, tacos are just delicious.

Ambrosia Grapes

Last night we went over to a friend's house for dinner. She is from Texas, but is South Indian by descent. Her parents were in town and she wanted people to come over and eat a dinner of South Indian food. As I've mentioned before, being veg*n is a great reason to step outside of your food boundaries. The beauty of South Indian food is that much of it is already vegan! Everything we ate last night was delicious!!

We offered to bring something if it was needed and were told a dessert would be helpful. Awesome, I love desserts! However, I had no idea what to bring that would go well with our dinner, especially given that I had a short amount of time to cook. In thinking it over, I decided that a fruit-based dessert would work well (also because some other friends were making a wacky cake because they are awesome). Fruit pizza would have been good, but I just didn't have the time. Instead, I ran to the store to pick up some red grapes and some vegan sour cream. With brown sugar at home, that's really all I needed for ambrosia grapes.

I feel silly calling this a recipe, as the ingredient list has all of three things, but it is a perfect summer dessert. It is light and chilled and not overwhelmingly sweet. To be honest, I'm not sure why it's called ambrosia grapes. That's what my mom called it, so that's what I call it.* No matter what you call it, this is a delicious, quick, and easy summer dessert.

Lazy Dinner Pizza

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind! Since the beginning of May, I've finished the semester, given and graded finals, calculated final grades, attended commencement, traveled to Jordan for a week (in the Middle East) and back, and driven to see my best friends. Given all of this, plus the condiments-only state of our refrigerator (okay, technically we had a head of cabbage, some nuts, some carrots, and a few beers in there, too), it should come as no surprise that I wasn't much in the mood for cooking tonight.

We can certainly find places here in town where we can go out to eat, but we'd done that a lot recently and wanted something easy to eat at home. In situations like this, our go to dinner tends to be pizza. Thus, at the end of our 7+ hour drive, we stopped at the store to pick up ingredients for pizza dinner. 

I would love to tell you that our pizza uses only wonderfully healthy ingredients and that I make my dough and sauce from scratch, but I don't. Maybe someday I will do those things, but that pizza certainly won't be a lazy dinner pizza. Instead, this lazy dinner pizza relies on foods that you can find in nearly any grocery store (except for maybe the vegan cheese, but even that's gaining serious ground as far as store-space is concerned). It's not fancy and it stretches the boundaries of "homemade," but it sure is delicious, easy, and vegan. Some nights, that's all I need. 

Maggie's Three Bean Salad

Just about a week ago I had my semi-annual Minion Dinner. Last Tuesday I had 7 "Minions" over (3 RAs and 4 TAs) for dinner and games. Although it rained a bit, we still had a great early summer get-together; they are such a great group! Because this was one of the bigger groups within the recent past, I was a little bit at a loss about what to make for dinner for everyone. However, after borrowing a grill from the neighbors, the meal was set. We had:

Grilled Foil Packets

Broth-cooked Royal Blend rice

Maggie's Three Bean Salad

Cake Cookies

Raspberry Cheesecake Bites

Shana and I normally eat grilled foil packets on their own, but I worried that non-vegan folks wouldn't feel full after only eating veggies, so I added the rice and the bean salad. I'd made a three bean salad before, but I couldn't remember what I'd put on it as a dressing. Plus, a google search yields a different recipe at every single hit. This obviously meant I had to make my own recipe. As we were eating, a couple of my minions asked me if various recipes were on my blog (I've been more vocal about that fact that this blog exists), which I found very touching. One of them asked specifically about this salad; I promised her I'd post it. A.M., this post is for you. 

Vegan Alice Salad

When planning for meals this week, I decided that I didn't care that the temps we going to feel like late winter, I was going to make it summer in my kitchen by making Alice Salad. This salad was named by my aunt (the paella aunt) because the two women she knew who made this salad, one of whom was my grandmother, were both named Alice. It's not really named Alice Salad, but most people call it "ramen coleslaw salad" and I think that sounds dull.

In all honesty, this recipe can be as simple or complex as you like. At it's most basic level, it includes only five super convenient ingredients. With so little involved, this salad comes together in no time. In addition, because of the convenience of the ingredients, it's a great picnic or potluck food! Bring everything with you, take two minutes to combine, and then you've got a delicious and healthy salad that will disappear in no time due to its light and refreshing taste. In fact, I brought all the ingredients to school today and made it at lunch. Two colleagues and a student shared it with me, but I'll still have some left over. Works for me!

Maggie's Vegetable Ragout over Polenta

A few weeks ago we were at the grocery store when Shana saw a tube of pre-made polenta and decided she wanted to eat it. In to the cart it went and off went my head, racing to think about what I would make. Since we don't eat polenta regularly, I did what anyone would do, asked google. Google told me that most people use polenta like pasta, covering it with tomato sauce and cheese. That didn't sound quite right to me, not just because of the cheese. Honestly, it just sounded boring. Commence creative googling.

Finally, with germs of ideas of a number of places, I punted. Luckily, my imagination led me to a delicious dish. We tried it the week we bought the polenta, but I wanted to test it one more time before I posted it here. When we wandered past some polenta at Jungle Jim's last weekend, I figured it was time to try again. Tonight was the night. The second time around was just as good as the first! Plus, since I knew what I was doing, I also realized that this is an incredibly speedy dinner, going from the fridge to the table in less than 30 minutes. 

Autumn Veggies with Chickpea Studded Orzo

The Bests have left (though not before coming to see me teach this morning). Since their departure is sad, tonight's new dinner success was a nice emotional balance. I've been trying to cook this dinner for a while, but I'd been running up against a missing-ingredient wall called "celery root" (aka celeriac). I think my issue was two-fold. First, I started trying to look for celery root late in its season. It's generally a late autumn/winter veggie, but I started looking in February. Second, our local grocery stores don't have the widest selections of unique veggies. Although they are pretty good (kale, snow peas, parsnips, etc. are all regularly found), something that most Americans do not cook is not likely to find its way to a produce section near me. Luckily, our trip to Jungle Jim's this weekend with The Bests yielded a gnarly-looking tuber.

This meal was series of new things for us. First, the celery root, obviously. Second, the use of herbes de Provence, a seasoning blend we don't use with regularity. Third, we used orzo pasta in something other than soup. Certainly all of these things are normative for many cooks and eaters, but not for us. In Shana's mind, celery root = celery (i.e., gross), herbes de Provence has rosemary (a no go for her), and orzo is only for soup. With all that going against it, this meal was delicious! It was a lovely blend of textures and flavors and something we'll certainly make again!

Maggie's Garbanzo Pasta

I've been very lucky to have people in my life who love to cook, but more lucky that they've looked at the possibility of cooking vegan foods as a new challenge. For example, early on in my vegan days, my dad always seemed really proud when he could figure out how to make a traditional family dish vegan or when he could figure out a way to make something that would satisfy everyone in the family. Another example is my aunt, who also really likes to cook, and will regularly send me emails containing recipes, new ideas/products, or vegan-related questions. Also relatively early on in my vegan days, we were over at this aunt and uncle's house for dinner. My aunt asked questions about things I could eat and what I liked so that she could make foods for me. She ended up making a dish that I have since referred to as "garbanzo pasta." It was delicious, which surprised me because it included garbanzo beans (chickpeas).

Beans are a really important element of a well-balanced vegan diet. Over the past nearly twelve years (since I went vegan in March 2001), I've slowly learned to incorporate more beans into my diet. Beans are a wonderfully healthy and delicious food to eat, but they were never really something I ate frequently. However, knowing that beans are packed full of protein and fiber, I knew I had to eat more of them. Luckily, garbanzo beans are a great place to start. They have a slightly different texture than most other beans and they pair amazingly with so many foods. Even Shana says she likes them! To bring the story back around, I asked my aunt for the "garbanzo pasta" recipe, tweaked it to what is articulated below, and used it as a springboard to the realization that beans are awesome!

PS. This dish is SO good that when I made it before blogging about it, Shana and I ate all of it before I could even snap a picture (no joke; the one above was added later). So instead, here's the empty pot.

so good, so gone

The Best Vegan Chili Ever

When I was a little kid (4 years old or so) I had a traumatic experience with chili. Let's just say that humans, like most animals, develop pretty strong long-term associations when food is associated with illness. Thus, it was a long (long!) time before I decided that I wanted to eat chili. In fact, I think it was only about 5-6 years ago when some cooking chili smelled good to me. At that point, I decided to try to make some, but since I'd gone more than 20 years without eating it, I had no idea what was supposed to go into it or what it was supposed to taste like.

That's when I realized that chili is one of the most subjective dishes around. There are seemingly endless variations on what to include (although, according to Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, real chili doesn't include beans). So I decided to make something that was delicious. I failed. After trying a few recipes by others, I finally stumbled on one that was good! Although it wasn't quite what I wanted, I knew it just needed a bit of tinkering to be exactly what I wanted it to be. In my opinion, there are two keys to this recipe. The first is that you saute the spices early on in the recipe; that deepens and rounds out their flavors. The second is the inclusion of bulgur wheat. The texture of the bulgur is very reminiscent of finely ground meat, so it gives the whole dish a very satisfying mouth feel. Keep in mind that this is a THICK chili, so I've got a note below about how to thin it out.