Crockpot Teriyaki Tofu with Veggies

It feels odd to be posting new recipe during a global pandemic. This feels especially true I last went to the grocery store over a week ago and don't plan to go again for at least another week. However, I did a good job planning when going to the store last week AND we did a good job planning dinners around how long each veggie will last. This teriyaki tofu dinner (based on a recipe from The Super Easy Vegan Slow Cooker Cookbook) was just perfect, using up the last of our bell peppers and half of our kale. The rest of the kale will be used tomorrow in white bean and kale soup. Plus, I made a great teriyaki sauce from ingredients in my pantry - though feel free to buy one instead!

While I do like the flexibility of cooking at home without having to plan around classes, meetings, events, and more, I miss my students and colleagues and friends so much that this flexibility pales in comparison. sigh. At least we're eating well?

I hope you're eating well, too! If not, try this recipe?

Amanda's Taco Soup

When we first moved to Richmond, we kept ending up at different grocery stores in town at the same time as another couple close to our age. In addition to them grocery shopping at the same stores and at the same time as us, we noticed that they never had meat, cheese, or eggs in their cart. At some point, we finally decided to introduce ourselves to them. In doing so, we found out that they are vegan, grew up around here, and are just plain awesome.

Since then, we've had great times with our "grocery store friends" (which is the name of our group text message). We have sporadic dinners, they come to vegan potluck, and Brent & Shana did carpentry school together.

When we eat together, we often ask Amanda to cook taco soup. It's seriously so good, on its own and with add-ins like faux cheese and avocado. I'd tried to replicate it, but mine was never as good. I finally asked for the recipe so that I can make it more often than our busy schedules align (plus, it feels rude to have her always making the four of us dinner!). With the string of cool summer weather we've been having in Indiana, this was a perfect meal for us to eat this week. It tastes like summer, doesn't heat up the kitchen (it's a crock pot recipe), and still warms your insides.

Winter Lentil Soup

It's soup season. I love soup season so much. Soup is versatile, filling, and (usually) healthy. More importantly, soup is warm in my tummy and my soul. Many folks, myself included, need warmth in both of those places right now. Sometimes life is stressful and hard, but good food can nourish in multiple ways.

Enter this lentil soup. This soup has such an amazing taste and blend of textures. It's rich and velvety and round. Plus, it's full of good-for-you lentils and veggies. After a big bowl of this soup (plus some crusty bread), I'm comforted.

Crockpot Drunken Beans

This recipe was the first of three new dinners I had planned after I got bored with everything we have been eating. We started out with a winner! There are two reasons that I'm glad this meal was successful. First, YAY a new recipe! Second, given that three new meals planned for one week is a stretch for Shana, since the first one went well, that make her more open to other new meals. In retrospect, I think I get bored with our food options every spring after a winter of heavy flavors and warming meals. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I felt like that because it made me look beyond our normal fare.

This bean dish was simply amazing. I made some slight modifications to a recipe by one of the pillars of vegan food and cooking, Bryanna Clark Grogan. And although it does take a bit more effort than your standard crockpot meal, it's all worth it in the end! The pinto beans are so creamy and the subtle heat and smokiness of the broth/sauce is a perfect complement. What's more, the leftovers the next day are even better! The flavors matured overnight (even more than after a day full of cooking) and a small dish of beans was great as part of my lunch.

Vegan Crockpot Tortilla Soup

This semester is insane. Aside from my mom dying, I've been feeling all semester that I may have finally bitten off more than I can chew (food joke partially intentional). I'm finally feeling slightly less like that today, which could be due to the fact that spring break is next week, or that I got a massage last week, or maybe I've just finally habituated to being as far behind as I am currently. Who knows. Regardless, the feeling of partial relief and a recipe success means I'm finally posting something new here! I'm also hoping to cook a few more things during spring break.

Remember the friends who cooked for us before we went to Minnesota? They rock. Mike, the one who went to culinary school, also stocked our freezer with two meals while we were gone (two other friends did the same). One of the dishes he put in our freezer was a tortilla soup to cook in the crockpot. I cooked it last week while Shana was gone and thought it was delicious. However, I knew she wouldn't eat it because it had too many "chunks" (read: pieces of tomato). Despite the chunks, I thought she would really like soup, so I decided to make it again this week with a few tweaks to make it Shana-friendly. It worked - a super delicious Shana-friendly new meal! It's SO easy and relies on convenience ingredients, which makes it a snap to put together in the morning. Plus, dinner's ready when you get home and you can throw any leftovers in the freezer (we didn't have any to freeze, though). This soup is a winner any way you look at it!

Crockpot Almost Irish Stew

We had a line of autumn storms move through here a couple of days ago. In their wake, they left perfect cool, fall weather. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you should be unsurprised that this cool weather leads us to soups and stews. I mean, they really are the most perfect foods! This particular stew is one that I've been waiting to post for a while, as there was a bit of groundwork necessary. Specifically, I had to make sure that you all (lovely readers, you) were comfortable with me talking about seitan.

This crockpot dinner is a fabulous fall or winter dinner. The only veggies in it are ones that you can easily get year round and the flavor profile is hearty and full of earthy tastes. In addition, putting seitan in the crockpot with some liquid gives the seitan such a wonderful texture. Plus, if you don't like seitan, you can simply switch it out for some beans (see the Helpful Hints).

Two quick blog-related items. First, I'm very sorry for my resent absence. I've been working hard and traveling a lot this semester. Neither of those things seem to be changing for the near future, but I promise that I haven't forgotten about LesVegan. Second, I've made a new page for vegan substitutions and am working on switching the links within recipes over to the new page. Eventually, the old substitutions post will go away, so if you stumble upon a broken link, please pass a message my way.

Finally, on an unrelated note: after dinner tonight we went for a walk to enjoy 60 degree temperatures, the crunchy leaves, and lovely evening ambiance. On our way out the door, we stopped to admire the lovely work the neighborhood squirrels are doing to one of the pumpkins we put out front. Apparently it's a delicious pumpkin (but the other one isn't...?). Who knows. I'm not distressed about the pumpkin consumption, as it has been fun to watch

Crockpot Corn Chowder

As I mentioned a week ago, I'm using Tuesdays this semester to attempt new crockpot meals. This week got a little turned around with a dinner for a potential new faculty member on Tuesday night, but Wednesday night was parent-teacher conferences, so Shana stayed and I attempted a new crockpot dinner. I was trying to decide between two different meals in my crockpot book, and although I'm not sure what made me choose this dish, I am very glad that I did!

Perhaps I was predisposed to like this meal because of the ease of crockpot cooking. Perhaps it was just that I was really hungry when I first tried the chowder. But I don't think that I've ever had non-vegan corn chowder, so I might not be a fair judge (though I did share bites of it with two omnivores at school today and they both liked it). In reality, I think the recipe is just a delicious one! Plus, you can make this using fresh from the farm corn in the summer or frozen kernels in the winter. To be honest, I used frozen kernels even though it is summer because it's just easier.

Overall, this soup is full of corn flavor and fresh whole foods. By pureeing some of the cooked veggies and then adding the puree back into the soup, there's a slight bit of weight to each spoonful without an overpowering heaviness. The corn makes it a bit on the "sweet" side (think sweet corn, not cake), but maybe that's normal for corn chowder? Regardless, there is certainly a balance of other savory flavors. If nothing else, the chowder is a lovely shade of yellow!

Maggie's Crockpot Applesauce

I have two food "problems." One is popcorn. I LOVE popcorn. At any one point, I have at least four varieties of popcorn in my cupboards and two different devices designed for making popcorn. But that's a different blog post. My second food "problem" is apples. I LOVE apples. I love the way they look, taste, smell, feel, and sound (yes, sound, more on that below). I love them raw and I love them cooked. I love them green, yellow, red, or any combination thereof. I love them sweet and tart and crunchy and juicy (although I do not love them mealy and soft). I have my favorite store-bought varieties (in no particular order): Pink Lady, Honeycrsip, Braeburn, and Jazz - but I know how to pick the best of the available varieties in any store. I make it a point to try new apple varieties when I find them. I've spent far too much time at this website. See? I have a problem.

So, this afternoon, when I opened an email from a colleague about coming to pick some apples off of her overflowing apple tree, I basically read something like this: "OMG APPLES IN YOUR FACE OM NOM NOM NOM!" I'm sure her email was ever so slightly calmer in tone than that, but you get the idea. Shana and I made a quick change in afternoon errands to include picking some apples and my plans were set: CROCKPOT APPLESAUCE! The beauty of crockpot applesauce is in its simplicity. You put the apples in the crockpot, add a few more ingredients, then turn it on! Your house will smell heavenly in no time.

Applesauce is not the prettiest food, but the taste makes up for it!

Crockpot White Bean & Kale Soup

Last night's dinner was one of those meals that just feels good in your tummy and soul. It's simple and uses wholesome ingredients, and just a few ingredients at that. I feel silly even calling this a "recipe." However, it's so good that I can't help but to share it. In addition, since most of it is crock-pot based, Shana and I eat this nearly year-round. Warm soup in the winter, doesn't heat up the kitchen in the summer.  Last night was cool enough that we turned on the oven for a bit to have some crusty bread, too. 

I'm lying a little bit when I say this is a crockpot recipe. Although you could do almost all of it in the crockpot, I do not, for various reasons. I saute the onions & garlic before they go in the crockpot, as doing so increases the flavor and makes sure the onions are nice and soft. In addition, while you can add the pasta to the soup in the last hour of cooking, I don't like the texture of it quite as much. Finally, the kale must be cooked separately, because as it cooks it imparts a bitter flavor to the soup. Thus, I end up with a crockpot full of only a few things cooking away all day. Having tried this soup without the crockpot, however, it's just not quite the same (still good, but not as good).

Vegan Sloppy Joes

Tonight Shana and I are watching the Vikes/Pack wild card postseason game. Although tonight's dinner wasn't the original plan, it was a perfect football watching dinner. What's a perfect football watching dinner? Anything you don't have to think too much about and that also tastes good with beer*. Since it's hard to order a vegan pizza around here, we had sloppy joes and onion rings (and eggplant). 

Clearly I eat mine open-faced. 

While it's possible - and tasty - to make things like sloppy joes and tacos with lentils, we generally don't do so because of the convenience of faux burger crumbles. There are many varieties available, though my favorite is Smart Ground. I think they have the most neutral taste and the texture is very realistic, based on reviews from my omnivore friends.

This sloppy joe recipe has a pretty classic flavor profile for sloppy joes, but it is incredibly simple and easy. You only need one pot, most of the ingredients are those you probably already have in your kitchen, and you can make in about 20 minutes tops.

Crockpot Minestrone Soup

Today was the perfect beginning-of-fall day. It didn't get above 70, there were blue skies with white puffy clouds, a nice breeze, and fall smells lingering in the air. This time of year is, hands down, my all time favorite. If nothing else, I get to wear sweaters, and who doesn't love sweaters?!

Normally (at least, as of this semester), Shana stays in Indy on Tuesday nights as a way to break up her weeks and avoid at least one morning of super early rising. However, tomorrow night is parent-teacher conference night, so she's staying tomorrow instead. That meant dinner had to planned for tonight. However, on Tuesday nights I'm on campus until 8:30 because I'm singing in a Gregorian Chant ensemble this semester (I'm learning SO many new things!). Thus, we planned a crockpot dinner.

I made this soup one night a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, but since Shana hadn't tried it yet I was hesitant to post it here. Just because I like it doesn't mean it's good. :) When I walked in the door tonight, Shana basically said "Hi! The soup was AWESOME!" Confirmation of deliciousness = new blog post for you all.