I’m probably spelling it wrong, but this is my take on a vegan chalupa. I’m not going to lie and tell you I didn’t eat tacos before I became vegan, but I still crave taco-y things now and then. This one has a little bit of cooked gimme lean in the bottom, followed by tomatoes, and then spinach. I also drizzled some nutritional yeast sauce on it. Nom nom. 🙂
Yes, that’s white rice you see there. I can’t eat whole grains due to kidney stone problems in the past (Doctor thinks it is the whole grains I was eating which caused them!). So yeah, if you’re making this for YOU, you’ll probably make it with brown rice or something more healthy. 😉 But the white rice is what I have to use.
This is really easy to make, I just made rice, added some frozen mixed veggies, and made some gimme lean “patties” which I then cut into four pieces. I loved this.
Actually, my husband (NOT VEGAN! 🙂 loves Gimme Lean burger “meat” too, so he ate the same thing I did. Simple and easy. 🙂
Only the right (orange) half is vegan! The other half is my husband’s pizza. 😉 I know I’ve already shown a vegan pizza, but my husband was just really proud of this one, and wanted to take a picture of it for my blog. 🙂 I’ve got cheddar flavor (we were out of mozzarella) Follow Your Heart brand cheese, some freeze-dried chives, fresh spinach, artichoke hearts, and eggplant on there. It was SO tasty. :))
Pizza "Bombs"
When I was growing up, Totino’s Pizza rolls were my favorite thing ever. My mom would buy me the pepperoni ones, in the little 12 piece boxes, and I would devour them. When you are 5 years old, and eating 12 pizza rolls, it’s impressive. lol! My mom would always be surprised, because I would eat such small portions of everything else. In fact they had nicknamed me “the bird” growing up.
Anyway, Totinos are not vegan, (obviously), and so when I decided to go vegan, I had to give them up. They aren’t even vegetarian because they contain rennet, and they also contain whey, which I just do NOT want in my body. This means, I couldn’t eat them when I was vegetarian either. Lame.
My husband and me have gone through many different recipes looking for a good replacement for my old comfort food, and this is what we happened across. The real recipe name is something like “Flaky pizza purses”, but ‘ll be damned if I’m eating something as dainty sounding as a “purse”. lol! Plus, if you actually make these, you’ll soon realize why “bomb” is a more appropriate name. lol.
I got the recipe from a the Vegan Yum Yum app on Minerva. (Minerva is my itouch. 🙂 Here it is!
Ingredients:
5 Sheets Phylo dough
1/2 to 1 cup shredded faux cheese of your choice. (I used Follow your Heart Brand)
1 Pint grape tomatoes
Fresh Basil Leaves (You could use dried basil, and sprinkle it inside, or omit this step, if you don’t like basil. Although, how could you not like basil? 😉
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/4 tsp salt, more to taste, if desired.
1/2 tsp dried herbs
Directions:
1-Begin by making the tomato sauce. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a saute pan, and add tomatoes. Toss in oil and cook until tomatoes begin to soften and burst. Add salt and herbs. You can help the tomatoes along, by popping them with the tip of a knife as they expand. Gently mash the tomatoes, but not enough to lose their shape. Total cook time approx 6 minutes. Set aside.
2-Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
3- Get your work station ready with everything you’ll need to make the bombs. You’ll need an area large enough to spread the dough on, tomato sauce, shredded “cheese”, basil, melted earth balance, a brush, and a damp towel/plastic wrap.
4- You’ll want to open the dough, unroll it, remove 5 sheets, cover the 5 sheets, re-roll, and re-package the remaining dough as fast as you possibly can.
5- Once the leftover dough has been put away, you’ll begin brushing and stacking each of the 5 sheets. Always re-cover the sheets you’re not working with, or they will dry out.
6- Remove one sheet from the stack of five, and lay it out in front of you. Brush with melted earth balance, starting at the edges and working out towards the center (The edges will dry out the fastest). If you get some rips or tears, don’t worry – it won’t be noticable by the time you’re done. Just repair them as best you can, and move on.
7- Once covered in earth balance, place the second sheet on top. Brush. Repeat this process until all 5 Phylo sheets have been stacked and brushed. Using a pizza cutter, cut dough into 6 squares. (One cut horizontally, and two cuts vertically.)
8- Now you can relax. The dough won’t dry out so quickly now that it’s coated in Earth Balance. Place 1/6 of the sauce in the middle of each square. Then, add “cheese” and a few basil leaves.
9- Gather the edges of the squares into the center, twisting to seal and form the “bomb”, place the completed bombs on a baking sheet.
10- Give the “bombs” one final brush with the earth balance before going in the oven.
Pre-oven. 🙂
11- Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the “bombs” turn golden brown along the edges, and the body feels cooked and flaky. Top with fresh basil leaves and serve warm.
And.. You’re done! I know this recipe is a lot of work, but if you make it, it is SO worth it. I think I really found a good replacement for my old comfort food, and they really are good.
One thing to note, is that my husband does not like fake cheese (He isn’t vegan or vegetarian), and he made his with real cheese. This recipe is really good with regular cheese, according to him. I know I have some friends who read this blog who eat real cheese, so I wanted to let y’all know. 😉
Another thing, is that these don’t re-heat very well. I tried freezing one, but when I went to heat it up the next day, the Phylo dough was totally burned before the insides were even tepid. Lame. Also, if you put these in the microwave to re-heat, you’re going to end up with a pile of mush, that CAN be eaten with a fork, but just isn’t all that awesome as the night before. 😉 Next time we make these, we plan to make one batch, and only three for each of us. These are really filling, so three is probably enough anyway.
I hope you guys enjoy! ^^
Chicken Free Patties
Okay, here’s a picture of the box. I picked these up a couple weeks ago, on a whim. I had tried other vegan chicken free patties, and honestly – most of them were just mushy and not tasty to me at all. I bought these, and I LOVE them. They don’t taste exactly like chicken, they’re not as firm – but they are so delicious, and they are NOT mush patties. lol. I love these with some ketchup or tomato slices, if I have tomatoes on hand, with some rice cheese. Sometimes I’ll just put some veganaise and rice cheese. Here’s a picture of veganaise.
Veganaise! ^^
They have a few different kinds, but I usually buy the one high in Omega 3s. I was never really big on mayonnaise before I went vegan, but I did always like Miracle whip. It was something which I knew I was going to miss, but I tried this stuff, and I’m hooked. 🙂 When the jars are empty, they’re the perfect size for drinking glasses too. My husband is always trying to get me to eat this stuff faster so he has more glasses. He likes drinking out of these. 🙂 Plus, it’s a good way to be green. 🙂
Vegan brand rice cheese, cheddar flavor
Okay, they didn’t have the normal kind of rice cheese we buy last time we went shopping. They only had the Vegan brand rice cheese. (Yeah, confusing, I know..), anyway, I’m not as fond of this brand as I am the usual kind we buy. It was really stiff and kind of wet out of the package, but when it was heated up it did melt, and it was pretty tasty. I would buy it again… IF my usual brand were out of stock. lol. Here’s a picture of the package.
And the final finished sandwich product:
Oh! 🙂 And recently, we made sushi with avocado in it. OMG, nom. 🙂 Here’s a picture of our homemade sushi.
Avocado sushi
There’s avocado, but I also always add some sesame seeds to it as well. They’re inside though, so you probably can’t see them well.
That’s all the recent new stuff I’ve eaten. Me and my husband plan to make some pizza crinkle things this weekend, so we’ll see how they turn out. 🙂
I went out for some vegan eats on valentine's day. I got a vegan grinder, steemed greens, and broccoli. Nom. 🙂 Got this at watercoursefoods.com
When I went out to Watercourse, I also got some FRINGS, a basket of french fries and onion rings. My husband ate the fries, but the onion rings were melt-in-your-mouth NOM. 🙂
This is what the chreesy mashed potatoes looked like cooked. They were so good, I practically inhaled them. :))
Here's some Whole Grain Cheddar flavor mac and chreese. 🙂 I love this stuff, but I'm not supposed to eat whole grain. Oops! I bought the wrong style..
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, wait! It's a pita bread pizza, with gourmet mozzarella tofu cheese, and some faux pepperoni. Mmmm, so good. Know something funny? I never actually liked pepperoni when I used to eat meat. Lol!
That’s it for now. 🙂 More foods on the way! ^^
with life in general the last few months. From here on out I’m going to be a lot better at posting pictures of things I’ve been eating. Also, I’ve been doing a hell of a lot better branching out and trying new foods. I don’t usually eat the same thing so often anymore. 🙂 Here’s some random pictures of foods I’ve been eating.
From the top: Cauliflour with dill and lemon, Tofurkey, and an Avocado and Rice milk smoothie. 🙂 Nom.
The top picture is a super awesome gourmet chocolate covered strawberry that my mother in law went out of her way to make sure was vegan for me. Yay! It’s not one of my meals obviously, but I thought it was so pretty I had to post a picture of it.
Dinner was actually a vegan quesodilla which was made with tofu cheddar flavor cheese, red pepper, and spinach. Yumm! 😀
Breakfast was another bowl of cheerios, and another banana, so I didn’t take a picture.
Lunch was another tofu pup, and a side salad which had: mushroom, red peppers, and spinach. 🙂 Mmmm.
Boring? Yes? Ok, maybe it’s not so exciting. Like I said before though, I’m not big on cooking in the heat. So as you can see I just had cheerios and almond milk last night. It might not be exciting, but it is tasty. 🙂
This morning I had a bagel with immitation cream cheese, and I went to my window boxes and took some fresh chives to lay on top. Mmmm. I also had a banana. 🙂
Whenever people figure out that I'm a vegan, the first thing people ask me is: "what do you eat?" I hope this blog helps answer that question.
What Do Vegans Eat? 