rainbow plant life – Rainy Saturday Creative

I once did a week of vegan years ago. It went fine. It was easier than a week of paleo or three days of Whole 30. I have no intention of being 100% vegan, but I want to eat more vegan meals. For me it is a way to challenge my bad eating habits and eat more nutritious food. I wouldn’t normally consider this. One, I believe moderation is best no matter what or how you eat. Two, more importantly for me, there is a new generation of vegan food creators. I mostly watch them on YouTube. Nisha Vora of Rainbow Plant Life, Wil Yeung of Yeung Man Cooking, Joanne Lee Molinaro of The Korean Vegan, and Andrew and Larisha of Make it Dairy Free. While you might still have some unusual ingredients, at least for us non vegans, their foods look much more delicious and approachable than the vegan foods of old where you might think you are eating like a rabbit.

I am thinking once a month I will do a week of vegan and outside of that one or two vegan meals a day. For now don’t hold me to that. At least this week I will do vegan. As usual I am over planning and over ambitious and when it comes down to it I wonder what I am doing. But it doesn’t have to be hard, I made it that way because there are so many recipes I want to try. I did three of them anyway. Gingerbread sheet pancakes by Nisha Vora, Miss Kim’s Fried Tofu by Ji Hye Kim of Miss Kim Restaurant in Ann Arbor MI, recipe published by Food & Wine Magazine, and Spicy & Crunchy Garlic Tofu (Kkanpoong Tofu) by Joanne Lee Molinaro of The Korean Vegan. I will provide all the links I can for right now. Web site, YouTube, recipe links.

The gingerbread pancakes are a part of a pdf link provided in the description of the YouTube Video:

Rainbow Plant Life web site

https://youtube.com/c/RainbowPlantLife

Pancakes https://youtu.be/LSiVJzaoej4

Miss Kim’s Fried Tofu https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/miss-kims-fried-tofu

The Korean Vegan https://thekoreanvegan.com/

Spicy & Crunchy Garlic Tofu (Kkanpoong Tofu) https://thekoreanvegan.com/spicy-crunchy-garlic-tofu-kkampoong-tofu/

The Korean Vegan YouTube channel https://youtube.com/c/TheKoreanVegan

Spicy & Crunchy Garlic Tofu on YouTube https://youtu.be/2VwK220z8Tc

Yeung Man Cooking web site https://yeungmancooking.com/

Yeung Man Cooking YouTube https://youtube.com/c/WILYEUNG

Make it Dairy Free web site https://makeitdairyfree.com/

Make it Dairy Free YouTube https://youtube.com/c/MakeItDairyFree

Breakfast was whole wheat toast with peanut butter and peaches

I the left the sauce for Spicy and Crunchy Garlic Tofu and on the right the sauce for Miss Kim’s Fried Tofu. By the way, I have always hated tofu, but crispy and fried tofu is quite good!

Spicy and Crunchy Garlic Tofu with rice.

It is my intention to post daily this week what I am eating. And if you want to do a week of vegan you can also keep it simple like with toast with toppings of fruit or vegetables, a nice rice bow, a salad. These recipes looked so good I had to try them!

This weekend I decided to cook four things. A little ambitious for a weekend I just wanted to relax. I cooked Creamy White Bean Soup with Kale by Nisha Vora of Rainbow Plant Life, Chili by me, Panry Porridge by Tara Jensen, and Buckwheat Pancakes courtesy nostalgic memory of mom’s cooking.

Now any reasonable human being, not me of course, would look at all the recipes, take note of what ingredients they have on hand and then make a grocery list of what they need. How dare I be reasonable! So a number of ingredients were omitted because I didn’t have them on hand. It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend besides my cooking ambitions and I wasn’t about to run to the store to get ingredients. I had the major ingredients, so I went with it.

CREAMY WHITE BEAN SOUP WITH KALE

By Nisha Vora of Rainbow Plant Life

I am not vegan, but she is one of those people that makes vegan food accessible. It’s like you are eating like a real human being, not a rabbit. Food is food and her food is delicious, regardless of it being vegan. When I saw her Creamy White Bean Soup with Kale I was in love, and I hate Kale. I used baby kale here. Just make sure to still de-stem it and cut it up, unlike myself. Haha! Ingredients missed because I wasn’t prepared are carrots and celery. While not two of my favorite foods, I still like them in soup and I will make sure to include it in the future as I plan on making this a few more million times.

Creamy White Bean Soup with Kale

chili

Chili doesn’t need a recipe really. I have a basic I start with, but it has been a long time since I have made it, so I couldn’t remember if I use two 28oz cans of diced/crushed tomatoes or one. This time I used one and it worked out, but I think normally I do two. There is really no right or wrong in my opinion. Here are my basics:

One or two 28oz cans of crushed or diced tomatoes
Two small cans or one large can tomato sauce
Two small cans or one large can tomato paste (I like my chili thick, you can lessen this)
Onions
As many cloves of garlic as your heat desires
Other veggies you may have on hand like carrots, celery, or hot or sweet peppers
Oil for cooking the veggies
1 to 2 pounds meat of your choice or if omit if you don’t want meat
2 cans red kidney beans (15oz?)
Chili powder (no measurement, but maybe 4-6 tablespoons)
Cumin (maybe two tablespoons)
Onion powder (maybe one tablespoon)
Garlic salt (maybe one tablespoon)
Soy sauce (maybe one tablespoon)

You can always do more or less of anything. Add more spices or other liquids like Worcestershire sauce and so forth. I start off with sauteing onions and any other veggies for a few minutes. Then I add garlic and saute for another couple of minutes. At this point I add the meat and cook it until brown. Then I add in all the other ingredients, then stir all the ingredients together. Make sure you are cooking on medium heat. At this point I set my timer for 5 minutes so every 5 minutes I keep stirring it until it looks like I want. To help with the spatter I put a spatter cover on top of my pot. It isn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t do without it.

pantry porridge

By Tara Jensen from her book A Baker’s Year

I feel like I have been wanting to make this for years, but the book was copyrighted 2018. I must have gotten the book right when it came out. It is made with milk, spices, spelt, barley and fruit. OMG, delicious. i hate overnight oats, but this is way different. Chewy, nutty, warm, and comforting. This is what you want to wake up to.

buckwheat pancakes

A childhood memory

I remember growing up every so often eating buckwheat pancakes. I couldn’t remember if it was my mom or my grandma, but my nieces said it was my mom. My mom said she just winged it. The following recipe is one I received from my mom. I used buckwheat flour instead of whole wheat flour. It tastes great with whole wheat flour too. For my weekend of omitting ingredients I couldn’t find my baking powder, but I knew that they would be fine without it. Baking powder just helps it to be fluffier. To be honest, I like my pancakes thinner. Also I didn’t have any maple syrup or the cheap alternative. I did have Caro Syrup. It poured out. I ate those pancakes on the plate, but not all of the syrup. After work tomorrow I will buy some regular syrup. The pancakes tasted like warm childhood memories!