Whipped Tofu & Greens Toast

I keep meaning to post recipes. In the time between this post and the last (TWO YEARS!), I've made some delicious things, often followed by "I should post this on my blog!" And yet, here we are. I would love to say that I'll keep posting things here, but my best intentions aren't quite paying off. 

Also since my last post, I've lived a lot of life! Nicole and I have done some amazing travel, I've taken students on a research trip, I've met new friends and said goodbye as other friends have moved elsewhere, lost two kitty cats, I sold my house and Nicole and I bought a new house, and so much more! 

In the process of making our new house a home, we've spent some good time cooking together. However, we've also done a lot of home projects, in addition to our full time jobs, so sometimes we just need a quick and healthy dinner with foods we have on hand. Enter this whipped tofu and greens on toast recipe. We had some greens from CSA that needed to be used soon, but both wanted more than just greens. With a bit of back and forth, we landed on this experiment, which wowed us both and has returned multiple times. It's a surprisingly satisfying dinner, doesn't really heat up the kitchen the summer, and uses things we keep on hand. I hope you'll like it just as much as we do! 

Maggie's Lazy Dinner Air Fryer Tofu Poppers

Almost two years since my last post here. Two years of life, love, work, growth, travel, and a whole lot of cooking! Here's a super brief summary of the past two years: I finalized my divorce after almost one year of separation, I finished up my role as interim dean and returned to teaching full time, and I've been dating my wonderful partner, Nicole. 

Meanwhile, I've been cooking a ton and hope to put more of those recipes here. Nicole has such a fun palate and loves to play with flavors and try new foods. Nicole isn't a cook, but is an amazing sous chef and has encouraged me to experiment with new flavors and recipes. Despite that, this first post back is not a great example of all the amazing new things I've been cooking. 

This post is an example that Lazy Dinners still happen and new tools open new avenues for them. Through Nicole, I have a new tool in my kitchen, an air fryer! Nicole had a large one and a small one, so brought the larger one to my place and kept the smaller one at home. These air fried tofu poppers were a "hmmm, let's see if this tastes good" idea that turned into an easy meal in regular rotation. Serve them with any dipping sauce you like - my favorite is a vegan sriracha mayo!

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. 

Lazy Dinner Paustages (Pasta and Vegan Sausages)

Sometimes a Lazy Dinner is just what you need.

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy for us. For two weeks straight, we had something on the calendar for every single night (and weekend days, too). Part of the busyness includes the classes Shana is taking, part of the busyness was due to the festivities surrounding the inauguration of Earlham's 18th President, and part of the busyness is that we like to see our friends. I loved all of our activities, but I also love that things have calmed down just a little, and we have the occasional evening with flexibility. Tonight was one of those nights.

We'd planned for easy meals all week (mostly), just because I knew that I wasn't going to want to spend a lot of energy on making dinners after all that we'd been doing. This dinner, paustages, was one we'd not had in a long time. It was quick and delicious; just perfect for hectic nights.

You may be wondering why we call this dinner paustages. Well, it's mostly because I love playing with words. While not a perfect example (we took some liberty with letter order), our made up dinner name is essentially a portmanteau, which is the combination of two words and their meanings. Common examples are things like smog (smoke + fog) or brunch (breakfast + lunch). Plus, paustages is just fun to say!

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.

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 Bean Burritos

I'm procrastinating; I should be grading. However, I'm all set for my classes tomorrow and grading just doesn't sound fun (sorry, students, but it's not). I'll grade after I finish this post, I promise.

Since it's Tuesday night, I'm on my own for dinner, which means a Lazy Dinner. In the past couple of weeks, I've been really bad at cooking/eating at home the nights that Shana's gone. More recently, I've been grabbing food at the few places I can eat here in town. That's just silly. With the same effort it takes to drive across town, wait in line, and bring food home, I can stand in my kitchen in comfy clothes and eat delicious dinner for easily 1/3 of the price of me eating out.

Tonight my plan was Lazy Dinner Bean Burritos. This dinner is SO easy and so cheap. You can add whatever you'd like and make this dinner your own. If you need to scale up to make a quick dinner for 6, you can do it. Moreover, there's no need to actually buy things for this dinner, as you can make it with things you'd keep on hand. I did buy one thing for tonight, but that's just because I planned ahead. Had I planned better, I would have added a couple more ingredients. Oh well, that'll be for next time.

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.

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.

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. 

Throw-together Vegan Meals

Although I'm sure most of you have thought about this, but just in case you haven't, vegan dinners do not need to rely on vegan recipes. Instead, they can come together really easily. Shana and I call these dinners "throw-together meals" because, well, we throw things together on a plate and call it dinner. I think vegan throw-together meals are as easy, if not easier than, non-vegan throw-together meals. Plus, throw-together meals are quick and can rely on pantry staples.

The trick to a throw-together meal is having a decently (not even amazingly) stocked kitchen. If you have a few quickly-prepared items at home, then you are protected against going out to eat if you have a kitchen failure (which happens!), if someone gets sick and your planned-for dinner doesn't sound appealing, when you just don't feel like cooking but still have to eat, or when you have to cancel plans that included dinner.