Week 2: Vegan Cooking More Peas and Thank You

I like to think of myself as an almost vegan, and then I do something like decide to make recipes for the week from a vegan cookbook and I remember why I am just an ‘almost’ vegan. I look at the recipes and think “Man, maybe I should replace the lentils with ground beef” or “this would be awesome with cheese.” And that my friends, is why I am not a vegan.

I swear I don’t eat very much meat or even want to eat meat, that is until I see a vegan recipe. Then suddenly I am a carnivore.

So, I picked 3 recipes from Sarah Matheny’s More Peas, Thank You. You may remember that I have reviewed Sarah’s blog and her previous book, Peas and Thank You.

So the recipes I picked were:

Zucchini and Quinoa Lasagna

Tempeh Stroganoff

Mexican Millet Burgers

I also decided we would stick with vegan theme and make another batch of Slow Cooker Veggie Chili.

We started with the Zucchini and Quinoa Lasagna on Saturday night. This recipe is what introduced me to Sarah and her blog. It was featured in a Vegetarian Times magazine and I thought, wow, I need to make that. That was 3 years ago.

I finally made it. It was a lot of work. Manatee thought it was amazing. I thought Meh. It was okay and really, okay was pushing it. It was mushy. The quinoa filling is made with tomato sauce, quinoa, onion, and I added some mushrooms. The noodles are zucchini slices. It was bland and it just made me really want to make regular lasagna. I would try again with the zucchini slices as noodles, but that’s about all I would repeat with the recipe.

This failure made me rethink the other recipes and reminded me of another reason why I am not a vegan, you know other than liking meat and the occasional cheese. Being a vegan is a lot of work. You can argue with me, but then I want you to tell me what you eat every week and we can go from there. With Manatee not wanting grains (quinoa was a rare exception), we can’t rely on pasta and bread at all. That means lots of prep. The Mexican Millet burgers recipe wanted me to grind half the millet, and then cook the rest. That’s two many steps for one ingredient. 

It also reminded me my main beef with vegan cookbooks: they are often trying to re-make meaty classics. Vegetables are awesome, why not just make recipes that highlight veggies?

I am not ready to give up on More Peas, Thank You quite yet, so I went back through it, reminding myself why I liked Sarah’s first book. She has good ideas though I don’t always agree with her execution. She is also a really good vegan baker. Instead of the Mexian Millet Burgers and the Tempeh Stroganoff, I am going to try a Chickpea “Tuna” Salad and some Cheddar Biscuits, fake cheddar that is (eye roll here), and I will report back.

Other things I am making this week: Banana Bread, Dried Black Beans, Dried Pinto Beans, and Yogurt.

Baby G Eats

We have entered the frontier of spices! I made a sweet potato, apple, and pumpkin pie spice puree that Baby G loves. This morning I made a sweet potato, black bean, spinach, and Garam Masala puree and we will see how it goes.

She’s also having:

Pinto beans

Cherries

Green Beans

Sweet Potato

Squash

Yogurt

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Do you ever cook vegan?