Category Archives: frugal

Grandma Dixie’s Goulash (Vegetarian version)

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I  finally Finally FINALLY have a recipe for Grammy’s Goulash. Well a recipe I can eat. I miss my grandma’s cooking,  it is NOT easy to make a recipe vegetarian and expect it to taste the same when the previous recipe contained meat or cheese. Its just… wrong… off.. not the same!! Am I giving up? No. I keep trying. Today was the closest I’ve ever come to success! ;)

It was awesome, amazing delicious, nostalgic…It was Grandma’s!

How, you may ask? Perseverance! (And a lot of prayer!)

First you need a roll of Gimme Lean Vegan Sausage

 

See? It says Vegan. I have found that some meat replacement products contain milk or eggs, which is fine if you eat them. I currently don’t. Or try not to. My family still eats eggs and cheese. Its a choice thing. :)

Now you’ll want to get this in a pan preferably non stick and with a bit of olive oil. This mostly helps with browning and keeping it from sticking to your non stick (ha ha ha! I know right?!) and from sticking to your utensils. I used a enameled cast iron pan which I thought worked great! Now you can either start breaking it up in the pan with your fingers (messy) or with a wooden spoon (which is just as messy but I didn’t have to wash my hands ~_^) and let it brown up a bit on a medium low heat. Don’t worry about the chunks being so big and it not breaking up right. We’ll fix that after its heated, browning and starts to be malleable!

Now you are going to chop or mince depending on  the size you prefer 1 large onion, 1 green bell pepper and one red bell pepper. (I would recommend a red and a green pepper or it changes the flavor. I’m not saying other colors don’t taste good they just don’t taste the same.) Chop them up and put them in a bowl to the side. Now pull out your trust potato masher! (HA!!! I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming!!) This is a trick I learned from my mom. She used a potato masher to break up large chunks of beef when making things like tacos. She liked the meat a little more uniform, like you would get at a Taco Time or some place… So you should first oil your masher (or you’ll regret not doing it!) and start mashing. Once your sausage (snicker* I know right?!) starts to look more uniform and you don’t have all those crazy chunks, push it to the side a bit, add a bit more olive oil to the pan and dump your chopped veg to it. Now mix it all up and it will look like Christmas morning!

Isn’t it lovely?! Do you like it? Do you think it will do? Que the step sisters! lol, just kidding. Cinderella is stuck in my head…

So You will saute this for a few minutes… then add 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 1/2 tsp onion powder and some cranks of fresh pepper and salt is really to taste… I think I added 1/2 a tsp or less… and last but not least 1Tablespoon Little Italy New York City Style Herb Blend. ( found this at http://www.thespicehouse.com/) or any Italian herb blend.

Stir it up and add a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. (I prefer this because its texture is a cross between paste, sauce and diced tomato…) rinse the can a bit and add the water to the pan. It will help with deglazing.

If you have some red wine about 1/2 a cup would be great in this. I didn’t.. so skip it…

Cover with the lid slightly skewed  and cook on low 30 or so minutes. You can also at this point dump it all in your handy dandy crockpot and let it continue to cook on low unchecked and worry free until dinner time tonight! ;) The whole house will smell like fall at Grandma Dixie’s house! (Lucky you!!) Serve over pasta with a veg and some bread!

My Bread Recipe

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I realized that some of my links are broken and my old post about bread did not list the recipe. So I figured I had better up date it.

4 cups warm water

2 tbsp instant yeast

1/2 cup honey powder or agave, brown sugar etc.

1/2cup  oatmeal or a nice 9 grain rolled cereal

1/2 cup gluten flour

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup soy milk powder

2 Tbsp salt

optional flax meal, flax seeds, sesame seeds etc to make the bread pretty. If you want all 3 loaves to be raisin bread add cinnamon and raisins. Cranberries, blueberries and apples are all nice too.

8-9 cups whole wheat flour. This will depend on your humidity. Seriously.

Now I found this recipe on Simply living smart originally (that there <– is a link to the video) I adjusted it to fit our family. We don’t consume dairy so I took out the 1/2 cup of milk powder. Its really only there for protein purposes so I exchanged it for soy milk powder and in doing so I don’t have to use as much. If I were using rice milk powder I would have kept it at 1/2 cup. I don’t use the crushed vitamin C tablets as a dough enhancer anymore because of the chemical components in the “vitamins”. Though if you want to enhance your dough my friend found one that uses potato flakes, vinegar and gluten flour. Google it. :) I’m told its simple, the bread tastes great, you can’t taste the vinegar etc. I like pretty bread so I usually used a multi grained rolled cereal in place of the oatmeal useless I’m out. I love to use this recipe for just about all of my bread dough needs. Cinnamon raisin bread, cinnamon rolls, french toast, apple bread, (pizza rolls most of the time, sometimes I use a french bread dough recipe).

So you will throw everything into your mixer (this is a mixer recipe. if you are making this by hand you’re going to need more flour)…

Add 4 cups flour and beat it smooth. Slowly mix in flour cup by cup, until it pulls dough from the sides of the bowl and you can see the bottom of the bowl. Set to knead for 12 minutes.

If you are mixing by hand, beat in the first 4 cups of flour until smooth. Then blend in the remaining flour (you may need more than the 9 cups) until you have a smooth and slightly sticky dough. I don’t mean sticky as in you pull back a hand and have to get a wire brush to clean it off. But a smooth but not dry dough.

To warm your oven for the rise you can turn it on to the lowest setting (mine is 170) and shut it off after it reaches temp or you can place a small pan on the bottom rack and fill it with boiled water from a kettle and close the door. Divide your dough by 3, shape the loaves and place in grease bread pans. Place in warmed oven and let rise 30-40 minutes. Without taking the bread from the oven turn the oven on to 350 degrees F and set your timer for 30-35 minutes. When you pull them from the oven immediately remove from pans and place on baking racks to cool.

Here’s some bread making links and videos I have found to be extremely helpful in my adventures in baking.

http://www.simplylivingsmart.com/2011/09/ezekiel-bread-part-one.html I can’t wait to try this one!! :) I love Ezekiel bread! I just can’t afford to buy it like most people. :)

 

 

Good Eats taught me so much about the chemistry of baking. One you learn the formulas to baking the possibilities are just endless… :)

Vegetarian French Toast

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I was very surprised at how well this turned out and was received by the family. I was even more pleasantly surprised when my omnivorous husband declared it better than “regular french toast”. lol

Here’s the deal

I took the dough for a loaf of my wheat/multi grain style bread and rolled it out, sprinkled cinnamon and brown sugar on it and rolled it up. I let it rise in a loaf pan and baked it like the bread recipe directions entail. Then after it was cooled I sliced it up and used it for the french toast. I think next time I’m going to roll the dough thinner. I’d like to get a bigger swirl in the center of the bread. ;)

So…

I loaf cinnamon bread (or regular bread, cinnamon bread was just more fun)

1 cup non dairy milk (I had vanilla soy)

2 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp corn starch (I’m thinking I will try tapioca starch next time)

1/4 cup almond meal (my hubs suggested this, he loves almond and the idea of it in the batter really appealed to him.)

1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour (also known as chick pea flour)

1 tsp vanilla extract

couple dashes of salt

cooking spray. I used spectrum coconut oil spray (I was stoked to find it!)

Preheat your pans on the stove or if like me you are using a griddle, preheat to 300-350 degrees F. Then throw all your batter ingredients into a bowl (preferably a shallow dish like a pie plate) and mix until combined. If you haven’t sliced up your bread yet, do so now. When your griddle is hot spray it. I know it says non stick but its lying! This will stick. Trust me. I learned the hard way! I’m considering adding a touch of oil to the batter to see if it helps with this particular problem.

Drown your bread slices in the batter. You want to coat the bread on both sides throughly. Now place on your hot grease griddle and let cook about 4-5 minutes on each side. We’re not into soggy toast. But if you are.. to each his own.;)

Now when you go to flip it, re grease the griddle. Remember! It sticks! and cook additional 3-4 minutes.

Serve hot with Earth Balance buttery spread and maple syrup.

This recipe made a whole loaf of bread… Don’t know if it will freeze well yet. There weren’t any left to freeze ;)

Testing Out TVP in Recipes

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So I’ve been experimenting with TVP (textured vegetable protein) in recipes recently. And here’s a few things I’ve noticed.

  • TVP texture is greatly improved if it is left to soak in the fridge overnight. Consider it like marinating.
  •  Even though you’re putting it in the refrigerator over night, pour boiling water over it. It makes the broth powder mix easier and infuses the tvp with the flavors/seasonings you are using much better.
  • Flavor it first. I have tried pre-flavored TVP. Most of them actually have meat in the flavoring and the flavoring is off some how. Plus you end up with corn syrup and other nonsense so Make up your own flavor mixes, marinades and buy a decent vegetarian broth powder or 2.

A couple favorite flavors in our house are “Better than Bouillon” by Superior Touch. Low Sodium vegetable base, No Beef base and No Chicken Base are all great for soup season. I’m not going to lie though. The vegetarian options went up in price in the last 9 months or so drastically! Not many stores sell the no chicken and no beef bases, and buying these products at a Safeway or Top Foods is going to run you 6-8 dollars for 8 oz. depending on if its on sale. (Ouch!) Last fall I bought a case of 6 1lb jars for $36 of no chicken and vegetable base each. It was a great deal but since soup season never left Washington state this year we’ve gone through a lot of it. Quick tip for the vegetable base though. Costco now caries it for around 5-6 bucks! Thank you Costco!

A great broth powder my best friend and I swear by is “Oregon Spice Company”. They have Chicken flavor, Beef flavor and Vegetable broth powders that are just awesome. I’ve never even bothered looking for it in store though. We always order the in 1lb bags from Azure Standard. An Oregon based company we’re happy to support. A 1lb package of broth powder runs about 5-6 bucks and lasts quite a while. You get amazing flavor and it doesn’t taste like salt. :)

Now, you can buy TVP just about anywhere. Its very affordable, and helps to really stretch a meal. I prefer plain TVP. Bob’s Red Mill is a brand almost every store carries. If you live near a Winco Foods TVP is a little over a dollar a lb in their bulk section.

TVP Stretches like you wouldn’t believe. It more than doubles in size.

A couple things we’ve made which I’ll post the recipes for later are a Beefy TVP and potatoes soup and a chicken-less TVP crock pot shepherd’s pie. We enjoyed both but found the beefy TVP to be a bit chewy… Not sure why yet. I’ll keep you posted on the Vegetarian edible experiments

Potato Soup

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So I had  a serious craving for my dad’s potato soup the other day. I’ve never made this soup myself, never served it to the family, and haven’t had it in years but I had a fairly good idea of how my dad made it. So I kind of had to guesstimate it, replace the bacon with TVP bacon and hope for the best.
1 large onion diced
3-4 large celery stalks chopped
1/2 cup TVP Bacon divided in half
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp Mrs Dash Garlic and Herb
1 TBSP Mrs Dash original
5lbs potato peeled and diced
8 cups of non-chicken broth or vegetable broth (I made broth from the Better than Bouillon  No Chicken Base)
1 8oz can of coconut milk or about a cup of unsweetened unflavored non-dairy milk
salt and pepper to taste
So I took my big cast iron dutch oven, heated it to about medium, added a little olive oil (veg or canola would work too) then threw in the onion, celery garlic and half the TVP. Then I just let it do that sweating thing. Toss in the seasonings while you’re at it. This is when I stated the peeling and chopping of the potatoes and heating the water cooker to make up the broth. ~_^ Toss in the potatoes, remaining TVP and cover with the broth and let cook until the potatoes are tender. Then take a potato masher and mash a bit of the potatoes. Not to many. This is potato soup not mashed potato soup but this will thicken the soup without the need of thickeners. Mix in the milk, rewarm and serve.
I was out of vegan cheese so I didn’t get to try that yet, but I bet its fabulous! My girls liked it with a bit of earth balance and a little sprinkling of TVP for crunch. Hubs liked it with dairy sharp cheddar.