I Had the Honor to Prepare Eight Delicious Vegan Meals for the Homeless

I'm still thankful for the opportunity to do something for the homeless people that I see on the strip in Las Vegas. My parents have a timeshare, so, my husband and I sometimes get to spend a week or two at the Polo Towers.... and, the first time we were ever there, we were shocked and touched by the sight of the homeless people on the strip.... one man was lying face down under an escalator, knocked out, cold.... I was worried that he could have been deceased, so I told my husband and his friend that i need to check to see if he is breathing.

Anyway, to make a long story short, my husband and I had another Vegas trip planned for May of 2016 and I decided to put up a Gofundme to raise money to make 8 delicious vegan meals to hand out to 8 homeless people.and was able to raise 220 dollars.... I randomly chose a goal of 400 dollars, not really expecting to reach it.... but, as it was, after I had bought all the groceries and put together the meals, I still had a surplus and used it buy socks to put in the care packages.

.... and the meals for each package were quite massive. Each package came with a large container with half coconut-lime quinoa and a fresh mango, avocado salad. Then there were two natural peanut butter sandwiches on raisin cinnamon Ezekiel bread with coconut oil for butter.... and a condiment bag that contained salt and pepper packets, super cute glass bottles of Louisiana hot sauce, and some napkins..... and then, in each bag was added a pair of socks.

These are photos I took of our progress and updates on the Gofundme campaign:













It was a massive blessing to plan and prepare the most delicious, healing, plant-based food for those in the most need and to be empowered to deliver these meals.

Truffled Mashed Potatoes and Fried Onion with a Horserash-y sauce

This was part of a 'Street Vegan' recipe that was just too overwhelmingly ambitious for me to make in its entirety. The recipe is called 'Truffled Potato and Fried Onion Perogies. I decided to skip the perogy part because I would have had to make a substitution in making the dough, and it also required a mixer.... then rolling it out, shaping them into circles and then folding the potato mixture inside.... and frying up the perogies..... it sounds worth the effort, but I've never made perogies, before..... and the potatoes with the truffle oil were intriguing enough, as it was my first time ever trying truffle oil. it is absolutely earthy, rich, scrumptious and like nothing I have ever tried....I wonder where on earth that truffles can be found.....they are rarer than morels.

Anyway, the potato the truffle potato filling stood incredibly well on its own. I put it on a bed of baby greens and topped it with a dollop of a horshradish-y sauce that I made with horseradish and Veganaise, then garnished it with chives. It is sort of fancy, but it is not. :).

With Cashews and Nutritional Yeast, One Can Make Almost Anything!

These are gooey vegan quesadillas!

I followed a recipe by Carrots and Flowers , then added a few touches to make it my own.... ie. the pine nut.basil pesto, on top.

The "mozzarella cheese" comes out melty and gooey because of the ingredient, tapioca starch, which I was surprised that I was able to find it at my local healthfood store, Indigo Iris. I don't like cheese, but I like the taste of nutritional yeast.... and a lot of people say that nutritional yeast tastes like cheese.... so, it is a double blessing in that it only tastes like cheese to people that like cheese.

Here are the full recipe and instructions that I followed:

Ingredients

• 8 tortillas medium
• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour (also called tapioca starch)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Easy Chipotle Cream

• 1/2 cup soaked cashews
• 3/4 cup salsa
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Instructions

1. Soak cashews for two hours or overnight for the cashew mozzarella and chipotle cream. You can also boil them for ten minutes to soften. Drain the cashews. In a high-powered blender or food processor, add 1/2 cup soaked cashews and the remaining ingredients until the white pepper. Blend on high speed for 2 minutes until smooth. 
2. Pour the cashew mixture in a saucepan over medium high heat. Cook for 5 minutes until the cheese forms into a gooey ball in the center. Stir constantly to prevent sticking. The cheese will stay fairly soft. 
3. To make a large vegan quesadilla, spread 1/4 cup of cashew mozzarella onto one tortilla. Spread 2 tablespoons of cashew cream onto another tortilla. Combine the tortillas. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the Vegan Quesadilla on 30-45 seconds on each side until the tortillas are crispy and the cheese is melty. Cut into triangles and serve with extra chipotle cream and avocado!
   
   

I have to say that the blogger of Carrots and Flowers had more patience in waiting for the tortillas to come out a deeper golden brown... and her photos do more justice, but since this post is about how the recipe worked for me, as a first time trier, it is also about how MY tortillas turned out, so these are my tortillas. Both my husband and I were impressed.He LOVED them.... and I did, too, though I liked them even more, the next morning after being in the fridge, overnight. I don't know why.

One Quick Foraging Bounty from Last Summer:

Apples and lambsquarters:

These were the biggest apples, but they turned out not to be the best, I prefer the little crab apples for their sour and sweet punch of flavor..... apples that make me pucker, but have a sweet aftertaste.

My favorite wild greens are lambsquarters. I introduced them to my neighbors... one person asked me why I cooked it in bacon grease... she is one of my neighbors that does not quite understand what a vegan is..... but others have said that lambsquarters taste like bacon... now, quite a few of my neighbors have become fans of it. Thankfully, there never seems to be any shortage.

My First Attempt at a Recipe from 'Street Vegan'

Because this looked like the most simple recipe, and because it contains pine nuts, I decided that a 'Street Vegan' novice, like me would do well to start with this..... and the thought of a vegan cookie made with pine nuts was intriguing, I love pine nuts, and I figured that the baking would give the pine nuts the toasty flavor that only toasted pine nuts can have. I think it would have happened, but I made a substitution that change the whole composition of the cookie dough, so the cookies started to burn on the bottom, so I had to take them out 10 minutes early. I used coconut oil instead of vegan margarine because the only vegan margarines I can find contains palm oil.... because I don't like to read about cruelty to animals, I only know that palm oil somehow hurts orangutans, so I will not use anything containing palm oil. My other substitution was unbleached sugar instead of evaporated cane juice because I don't know where to get evaporated cane juice. I could not find any at the place I order food online.... and I already had to order the vegan powdered sugar. The cookies turned out alright, in spite of my having to take them out 10 minutes early (due to my substitution of coconut oil for the vegan margarine). I did not roll them into perfect balls because I just don't do things like that. Anyway, here they are. All in all, I recommend the recipe.... and my husband loves the cookies I made..... I'd recommend that a person find a vegan margerine that does not contain palm oil, because one will run into an issue of the cookies burning at the bottom if one uses coconut oil.... it is a different composition for baking.... baking is more of an excacting science than cooking... I'm definitely better at cooking:



For great adventures in vegan cooking, I recommend 'Street Vegan'. One thing I have to tell you is that there`are some ingredients that are exotic and/or hard to find. One example is umeboshi plum vinegar.... it is somewhat of a pantry staple for 'Street Vegan', though it sounds as though a little goes a long way. Another example is truffle oil. It is not in many recipes.... only one that I have seen, but I went ahead and ordered the same brand that the author recommended on a footnote of a recipe. Here's a link for anyone that would like to order 'Street Vegan'

My 'Thrive Market ' Food Haul for This Month:

It is i4 16 oz. bags of raw cashews, 2 8 oz. bag of pine nuts, 1 1-lb. bag of vegan powdered sugar, 1 16 oz. bag of organic balinese cacao butter, 5 18.3 oz jars of diced tomatoes, 1 10 oz. bottle of nutritional yeast, 1 9 oz jar of sour cherry spread, and Thrive sent a free 16 oz. jar of almond butter. I'm happy that the only ingredient is organic almonds... no palm oil. I spent a total of 108 dollars, which is pretty good.... I believe it says I saved 66 dollars and all orders over 50 dollars is free shipping.

.... More "Drool-worthy" Photos and Rcipes I Collected and put into a Blog!

Here is a collection of recipes I found, mostly from other Pinterest site: a lot of them are from popular vegan recipe sites, like 'Oh She Glows' , 'Fragrant Vanilla Cake' and 'The Simple Veganista'. I'm showing some photos from my Pinterest site.... and must be, on some consciousness level, am deciding to accept that we are now in the Fall season. I've chosen photos of food with a Fall theme, or with some Fall colors:

                                                  Healthy Pumpkin Pie Smoothie: from jessiemonds.com

Vegan Pumpkin Pie, Three Ways: Classic, Rustic 'Oh She Glows'

                                       Raw Pecan Pie Bars by 'Sweet Healthy Living'

Savory Chickpea Pancake/Flatbread 'The Simple Veganista'

Guilt-Free Vegan Enchiladas HealthyAperture.com

                  Apple Pie Blondies with Brown Sugar Frosting! chockohlawtay.blogspot.com

 

Jumbo Chickpea Pancake – A High Protein, Filling Breakfast or Lunch!  'Oh She Glows'

 

Cookie Dough Nut Butter & Double Cookie Dough Ball recipes, using natural vegan ingredients. 'Oh She Glows'

 

From: This Rawsome Vegan Life: raw pizza with spinach pesto & marinated vegetables

Chickpea Quinoa Chard Pizza topped with Roasted Cauliflower and grape tomatoes. 'Veganricha'