Vegan Recipes, Ideas, and Living » Simple meals

Easy Vegetable Curry Cooking on the Go

Benjamin Jones — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:32:43 +0000

You don’t always have everything you need to make a recipe perfectly. Sometimes you don’t even have access to a recipe. So what do you do? Make some curry!

Staying in Japan like I am now, it is often hard to find the ingredients that you would hope to find for curry (like coconut milk, chickpeas, or cauliflower). So you have to improvise a little bit. Luckily, curry powder isn’t a problem.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with for a very simple curry recipe (I didn’t measure any of the ingredients):

Potatoes
Carrots
Broccoli
Onions
Curry Powder
Tomatoes (whole or pre-diced) for the base

The basic cooking instructions are similar to most curries. Sauté your onions, put in your tomato base and your dice veggies, bring to a boil, and leave covered for an hour or so (until the veggies are all thoroughly cooked). And there you have it, tasty curry without needing to know what you are doing.

Yakisoba: Quick, Easy, and Tasty

Benjamin Jones — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:51:17 +0000

Yakisoba is one of my favorite things to eat. The thin noodles fry up quickly in some olive oil and then you can add whatever you want in the way of vegetables, mushrooms, etc.

It is also pretty cheap, at about $1.50 for 3 servings. Anyway, to prepare, just fry up some yakisoba in a little olive oil in a skillet, add in whatever seasoning or veggies you want, fry a bit more, and eat.

Takes about 5 minutes from start to finish and tastes great.

Curry: The Best Thing Ever Injected Into Bread

Benjamin Jones — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:57:33 +0000

It is called curry pan (curry bread), and while I can’t speak to its origins, it is good stuff. Although I’ve known of its existence for some time, I never asked what was in it. Today I finally stopped into the panya (a fresh bread store) and took a look.

Turns out they make curry pan with a tomato curry that does not have any meat ingredients: success! I got some to go and took it home with me.

It was as everyone else had said: the best thing since coconut milk ice cream. While the taste is something like a high collar hot pocket, this is probably a good thing since tasty foods stuffed inside of other tasty foods seems to be a pleasant theme.

I’m not yet sure on how easy it would be to make at home, probably a bit like making a calzone, but more Indian. With curry being an incredibly creative sort of dish, you can imagine the possibilities with curry pan.

Japan Vegan: Putting Ajipon on Everything

Benjamin Jones — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:58:34 +0000

The most difficult part of being vegan in Japan is that even the most innocent, vegan things you can think of are topping with, friend in, or souped (for lack of a better word) in something that is not vegan.

However, when you are cooking for yourself you have the option of putting your udon or salad or whatever in whatever you like. In this case, it is ajipon.

Don’t ask me what Ajipon means, something like “flavour pon” but it is vegan and it’s pretty good. It takes a bit of getting used to but not in the “this tastes so bad you’ll eventually kill your taste buds way,” more in the “Western cooking doesn’t use these sorts of flavours so it tastes different” way.

Anyway, ajipon is meant as a sort of all purpose flavouring, so you can use it on anything from yasai itame (something like stripped, stir-fried veggies) to udon, soba, chanpon, or salad.

7 Tips for a Good Vegan Road Trip

Benjamin Jones — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:52:43 +0000

Because I am a cyclist with my college’s team, every year I end up travelling all about the country on the weekends, staying in hotels, and trying to get enough food to live properly. Based on what I learned last year and the obstacles I anticipate in the coming year, I decided to write a little guide on the necessities of travel.

1. Case the location online

Before I go anywhere I like to give a quick look over the place on google maps, searching not only for vegan restaurants, but restaurants in general. If the places look like they’ll be full of chains, I might check out the vegan options of each of them in advance. From this you can learn a whole lot, and do anything from plan where you’ll eat to where you might want to stay. If you’ll be in a larger city, a site like Yelp might also help.

2. Cook in advance

There’s nothing worse when you’re on the road than eating food that makes you feel like you’re on the road. For that reason I like to cook something that keeps in a container and that I can heat up quickly. Most times it will be something like rice and beans, chili, or even curry. It also helps if you can find something that you like both hot and cold.

3. Bring more than enough food

I can’t stress enough how important it is that you bring more food than you expect to need. Travel is tiring, so oftentimes you find yourself needing more nourishment than you thought. Also, you never know when you might be delayed by something like a rainstorm or whatnot, which might mean you’ll need more than you thought beforehand. The key to good planning is going overboard, and you don’t want to be stuck in the middle of Kansas with nothing but an Arby’s.

4. High calorie, salty drinks

Gatorade isn’t the favourite drink of many people, but calories and electrolytes are important for keeping your energy up. If you’re like me and you can drive from Missouri to New Jersey in 22 hours with three stops for gas, you don’t want to get tired from too much water and no calories.

5. Know what you’ll be eating along the way

On my most recent road trip, I was decently sure of what I could eat coming back. I’d done the 15 hour drive before, and I knew that I could either pick up stuff along the way or get a pizza at Papa John’s on the way out. However, since I would’ve had to wait for Papa John’s to open at 11am before I could leave, I decided it would be best to just get some food along the way. Well, the next day I didn’t feel so good. When you have a sure thing, take it instead of trying to roll the dice.

6. Dried fruits and nuts

Not only are they good for you, but they’re easy to lay your hands on and easy to eat while you’re in the car. This is one great way to stay healthy when you’re on the road, I wish I did it more often. Thanks to @muhajaba for the tip!

7. Homemade trail mix

Like the previous tip, but with a bit more granola and the possibility of creating some sort of bar-shaped food. Thanks again to @TheHumaneLeague for the tip!

Have any other ideas for taking the pain out of road trips? Share them in the comments.

A Trick for Making Great Sushi Rice with the Zojirushi

Benjamin Jones — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:44:18 +0000

A while back I talked about the new Zojirushi rice cooker that I had gotten, and how much I liked it. Nothing has changed on that front, but after having the thing for a few months I’ve learned one good trick that I wanted to share with you all, in case you were making rice under similar circumstances.

It may seem rather elementary, but if you want to make sure that your rice comes out nice and sticky, and has enough moisture to stay that way even if you have the “keep warm” feature on for a few hours, you need to add just a little bit more water than you’re supposed to. Usually when making two cups of rice, I just fill a tablespoon or two over the recommended amount. Doing this I have been able to really zero in on delicious rice every time.

Does anyone else have any secret rice cooker tricks?

Van’s All Natural Vegan Waffles

Benjamin Jones — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:43:30 +0000

The other day I rediscovered one of the best things in life: frozen waffles. It’s been a long time since the eggo waffle days of my youth, but I certainly feel a little nostalgia when I slap one on the George Foreman grille and dress it up with some maple syrup.

Now, for years I had assumed that frozen waffles were just one of those things you had to accept wouldn’t become vegan because they were “too mainstream” or something like that. On the contrary, Van’s is available all over the place and very tasty. The waffles are about 3 bucks for a pack of 8, and most of the flavours are pretty delicious, especially the whole wheat variety.

Are there any other good brands running around out there?

The Ugly Side of Gnocchi

Benjamin Jones — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:53:55 +0000

I like gnocchi. In fact, I really like gnocchi. That’s why, even though I know they don’t sell my favorite brand up here in the still North, I still went on a quest to find something. Last year there was something that I’d tried that was rather horrible and I didn’t want to repeat, so this time when I went to the Co-op looking for gnocchi and found nothing in the freezers I was slightly disheartened.

Not to be completely put out, I asked someone working there if they had any gnocchi. Here was our conversation:

Me: Hi, I’m looking for some gnocchi…

Her: We’ve got this here, but it tastes awful, I wouldn’t feed it to a dog. *points at that which I’d eaten last year*

Me: Yeah, I know.

Her: We’ve also got this, which is a bit better, but it’s definitely not what your gramma would make.

At this point I didn’t think to mention that neither my German nor my Latvian grandmother had probably every heard of gnocchi, but I said thanks and bought some. It was vegan and promised to taste better than the other stuff.

And even though it seems promising and smelled good, it had that weird taste like someone mixed glue in with it while it was being made. I was kind of sad because this was my last option for gnocchi in the Upper Valley and I’d have to wait until I got home for the holidays to eat some more gnocchi.

However, I wanted to ask: what brand do you buy? Or better yet, do you make it yourself? I have such high expectations for gnocchi that I’m scared to make it from scratch, but if someone passes me a recipe, I promise I’ll try.

Too Tasty to be Easy (But it is!): Gnocchi

Benjamin Jones — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:45:13 +0000

Gnocchi is like the non-MSG, delicious, elegant, and vegan version of ramen noodles. Like ramen noodles, it takes about three minutes to cook once the water is boiling. Also like ramen noodles, the preparation is incredibly easy:

Boil water
Open package
Put gnocchi in water
Leave for 3 minutes
Drain water
Put sauce
Eat

Can’t handle that much? Well, you’re pretty much a lost cause, then. For the rest of us lazy people (college students), gnocchi is the perfect solution to not having much time but also wanting to eat healthy. All gnocchi isn’t vegan, but some is, so read the label. I forget what brand I get, but it’s something local to PA, so it might not be available everywhere anyway.

Is it just me, or does anyone else love gnocchi like I do?

Really Simple Vegan Beef Macaroni

Benjamin Jones — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:56:20 +0000

In response to my recent expedition in vegan black-hole diving, I’ve been trying to mix things up in small ways. One of those ways was to make some vegan beef macaroni last night.

When I thought about what I was making, I had just figured I’d just make some pasta, but for whatever reason my mom decided to remind me that I had bought some Boca burgers and had them downstairs in the deep freeze.

Well, why not make beef macaroni? When I became a vegetarian all those years ago that was one of the few things that I really missed, and I could imagine it being very difficult. So anyway, I don’t know that a recipe is necessary for this, but I don’t know how to explain it otherwise.

Really Simple Vegan Beef Macaroni

2 cups pasta
1/2 jar of pasta sauce (or some other amount to your liking)
1 boca original, vegan patty

Bring a pot of water to boil, and add macaroni. Cook for 8 minutes, or to desired tenderness. While the pasta cooks, thaw one vegan Boca patty and grind it up with a fork. Mix the ground patty with pasta sauce in a pan and bring to heat. Serve with “meat” sauce over pasta.

This recipe could of course be dressed up more, but as you know, my thing is keeping stuff simple most of the time and expanding on it those few times I really think it’s necessary.

Next step: learning to make a good vegan alfredo sauce.

If George Foreman were vegan…

Benjamin Jones — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:22:10 +0000

This is what he’d cook when he got hungry and didn’t have much time!

As I type I am preparing myself a very tasty sandwich on my roommate’s George Foreman grill. This tasty sandwich will take less than 10 minutes to prepare and will fulfill a nagging desire to eat at 11PM that only occurs when you don’t get up until after 11AM.

Everyone knows about the lean, mean, fat-reducing, grilling machine by now, I am sure. However, I never really thought about using one until my roommate brought one to college this year. At first I thought eww, most certainly from years of meat-filled infomercials where you could actually see disgusting amounts of fat draining off of that slab of junk you were supposed to be eating.

That image, coupled with the fact that I rarely eat meat substitutes prevented me from using it for a while. However, one day I remembered the vegan barbecue I put on last year and gave me a burning desire to make one of my old favorites, the chicken parm.

Simple Meal Solutions: Cous cous and bombay potatoes

Benjamin Jones — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:36:22 +0000

One of the most difficult things about eating at school is figuring out what to do when time is short or you just don’t feel like doing anything special. As a vegan, it’s troublesome ordering something to be delivered (can’t really call up the local greasy pizza place and expect them to have something without cheese, eh?) and getting food late at night can be difficult if the only place open is the burger and fries cafeteria. So rather than sitting at my desk with a bag of pretzels and assorted junk foods, I’ve made myself a few simple meals that cook quickly and don’t cost all that much.

The first of these simple meals is probably my favorite thing to eat that takes under 10 minutes to prepare: cous cous and bombay potatoes. Cous cous being the amazing grain that it is, I’ll assume you’re all familiar with it. Bombay potatoes, as you might guess, is a type of Indian food based around potatoes and a bit of spice. But don’t worry, you won’t really be cooking to prepare this! Just go to the grocery store and buy some Tasty Bite Bombay Potatoes – Precooked food, I know, but it sure won’t taste like it.

This meal is very simple, a layer of cous cous covered by the bombay potatoes; so let’s get into the preparation.

Cous cous: I use Near East cous cous, which is perhaps the most popular brand of cous cous. Plain works well with this recipe as the cous cous will absorb some of the flavor from the potatoes, but I usually through some garlic in. Just boil some water and toss the cous cous in, it’s ready in five minutes!

Bombay potatoes: Tear open the tasty bite box and throw the bombay potatoes in the microwave or on the stove top for a few minutes while the cous cous finishes up.

When they’re both ready, just pick a bowl and toss the potatoes on top of the cous cous, grab a spoon, and your ready to go. If I’m especially rushed I tend to eat out of the same pot I used for the cous cous to reduce dishes and prep time.

This is pretty much the ultimate quick meal that doesn’t feel like a quick meal, I hope you enjoy!