Spicy Chik'n Quesadillas

My Nikon's battery was dead, so I had to use the Droid cam.

We had some leftover chik'n from the homemade "Chipotle" and needed to use it before it was gone.  Without having all the "Chipotle" ingredients, I thought I would throw together some quesadillas.

Ingredients:
Wheat Tortillas
Vegan Cheddar (My favorite is Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheddar)
Chipotle style Chik'n
Saintly Black and Gold Salsa from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
Salsa (I used Great Value Peach Pineapple Salsa)

Both the chik'n and Saintly Black and Gold Salsa were very spicy on their own, but combined in the tortilla, cheese, and salsa it wasn't too hot and turned out very well.  I would definitely make it again.

Verdict: 8/10

Baked Ziti

This has to be my favorite thing I've made so far!  Maybe it was just because I was starving when I got home and had to wait an hour for it to be finished, but man was it tasty!

Recipe: Baked Ziti

I added a little more vegan mozzarella than requested, and it could have used a little more sauce.

Vegan Pizza Day

Today is Vegan Pizza Day, so it was only fitting we make some vegan pizza! 

I used this recipe to make the pizza.  Mmmm! Yummy! 

Pineapple & Green Pepper Pizza

Finally, a working oven and some new guests to try my pizza!

Pizza Dough - http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=96af27e894ae2fd4187eff3006107ebe&topic=8128.0

We changed up the way we made it a little again. We let the dough rise for 2 hours this time, it seemed to make it fluffier.

We put the oven at 450° and baked the pizza with Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella 'cheese' and sauce for 20 minutes. We put the pineapple in the oven separate for 5 minutes to dry it out a little because I was worried about the 'cheese' becoming runny like with the toaster oven pizza. With about 5 minutes to go we added the green peppers and pineapple to half the pizza. At the end it seemed the cheese was still a little sloppy, so we put the pizza back the oven on broil for 5 minutes to cook the 'cheese' a little more. This seemed to work really well, except the pizza was already cooked at this point so it cooked a little more than I would have liked. Next time we are going to try to cook the pizza for 15 minutes on bake, then put it on broil for the last 5 minutes.

I served to the pizza to my guests, Christy & Colin, and not only did they take one slice, but 3 each. Later on I was told Colin said he liked it so much he consider would making the recipe himself. It always makes me happy to hear people like new vegan foods, especially ones I (and my roommate Paul) made.

Day 7: One Week Vegan & Toaster Oven Pizza

The oven finally got looked at today, but won't have a part until Monday, so yet again, I had to improvise.

I have made the vegan pizza before using the same recipe and it's always turned out wonderful! Cooking it in the toaster oven, it didn't turn out quite as well, but was still a tasty pizza none the less!

I used this recipe for the dough: http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=96af27e894ae2fd4187eff3006107ebe&topic=8128.0
This recipe is GREAT, but instead of cooking it at 500°, we cook it at 450° for about 20 minutes. It also works great for bread sticks.

The sauce is a special recipe made by my roommate, Paul, but you can use any recipe for pizza or pasta sauce you would like.

I used Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella. It melts nice and tastes really good! Mmmm.

For this pizza I added pineapple chunks and raw green peppers cut into pieces both that I added after it was cooked. Only problem with adding the pineapple right after it comes out of the oven was the juices made the cheez runny before it fully set. So might want to wait a few minutes until it hardens, or squeeze the pineapples dry. Still yummy even runny!

Day 1 - pt 3: Dinner - Mac & Cheez, Shopping

Finally got the house cleaned and got to go shopping. For a weeks worth of meals and a few extras, we only spent $23 at Save-A-Lot (mostly on Produce) and $68 at Walmart, with a few needed and unnecessary things added in there. I'd say for the weekly meals we probably only spent $50? Not sure if that is good or not, but we'll find out as time goes on.

We already had some elbow macaroni made and we were sick of the usual pasta sauce or garlic and olive oil we had been using, so we decided to find something new. Thanks for my cheese loving friend Ally, I looked to the "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook" and decided to make a 'cheez' sauce for some mac & cheez. Due to copyright laws I am not sure if I can post the entire recipe here, but if you own the book I used the "Amazing Mac 'N Cheez Sauce" on page 64. It used flour, nutritional yeast, salt, onion powder, garlic, paprika, mustard, olive oil, and rice milk. I'm not sure how that combination of things give you the slighly cheezy taste it does, but it works and was quite tasty! If you are looking for it to taste like cheese, I don't think it really does, but it is definitely worth a try!

Day 1 of Veganism complete. Wonder what I'll make tomorrow!