Last night, I was going to just make some oatmeal for dinner, but my sister saw this as unacceptable, so I chose to have some pasta instead. Lots and lots of pasta. I would estimate I have enough pasta to last a few lunches after this. It's pretty much just spaghetti or something like it covered in a low-fat, nutritional yeast based cheesy sauce.

Vegan Cheesy Pasta
Serves Eight

Ingredients:

• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 1/2 boxes of pasta

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, mix the water and flour and stir until smooth. Add all other ingredients except lemon juice and pasta.
2. Cook over medium heat until thickened to your liking, likely around ten minutes or so. Stir continuously.
3. Meanwhile, boil a large pot of water. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.
4. Once the sauce is thickened, stir in lemon juice and remove from heat.
5. Strain the pasta once it is completed.
6. Place the pasta back in the pot and stir the sauce into it. Serve warm.

It tasted exactly like cheese as I remember it. Well, maybe not exactly, but close. Even better, it looked like it too. Some people asked if it was really vegan, so I would say it was a success. Even better, I have lots left over for the rest of the week.

Split Pea Soup Recipe

This recipe is one I created myself last night using some ingredients I had lying around. I based it on a few other split pea recipes, vegan and nonvegan alike, in order to get a thick soup that satisfied everyone. It's rich in both fiber and protein, and is very filling. Some of the ingredients are somewhat of an approximation, so I suggest adjusting the quantities to your liking.

Vegan Split Pea Soup
Serves Four

Ingredients:

• Four stalks of celery, chopped
• Two carrots, chopped
• 1 cup dry split peas
• 1/2 cup dry great northern beans
• about 1/3 cup TVP, more or less
• 3 bay leaves
• 5 cups water or more if needed later
• Dried parsley, basil, thyme, and rosemary to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Corn starch (may be necessary)

Directions:

1. Place beans and split peas in a bowl and cover with water. Let soak overnight, then drain.
2. Put all ingredients except bay leaves into a crockpot and mix. Add the bay leaves on top.
3. Set the crockpot to high and cook for 4 hours or until peas lose their rigidity. Stir occasionally. Add 5 cups of water, 1/4 cup at a time, if throughout the cooking time if it looks like the water level is getting too low.
4. After four hours, remove bay leaves. If the soup is too runny for your tastes, mix two tablespoons of cornstarch in a 1/4 cup measuring cup and cover with water. Mix until there are no clumps. Add to the soup and stir.
5. Turn the heat to warm and serve.

It's not exactly a bright green as you can see above.
I blame the TVP for that.
(this is only 1/4 of the full batch, around one cup of soup)

Once the soup is done cooking, both the peas and beans pretty much disintegrate, so you don't need to blend it or anything to get the trademark green look of split pea soup. The batch I made tasted like something made in a cabin during the winter. Old fashioned and familiar, in a sense, even though that was actually the first time I ever had split pea soup.

Chocolate Muffins

A good muffin recipe, in my opinion, must be able to withstand a large amount of variations. It should be lacking any strange ingredients that you don't already have in your cupboard, so you have a choice in whether or not you add those embellishments in. It should have options to make it healthier with less fat and sugar without it tasting bad. For awhile now I've looked for a muffin recipe that fits the bill, and here it is, from http://alexandscottadventuresinveganism.wordpress.com/ (full recipe found here). Their blog has been inactive for almost two years, but it's worth checking out.


Basic Vegan Muffin Recipe


For this recipe you will need:

• 12 hole muffin tin
• muffin tin liners or pam baking spray
• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup turbinado sugar or light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup soy or rice milk
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Your filler of choice (approx. 1 pint of whatever fruit you choose)

Directions

1) Pre-heat oven to 375*F

2) Whisk dry ingredients together in medium bowl.

3) Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

4) Add your filling of choice.

5) Whisk wet ingredients together in small bowl.

6) Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry *Do not overmix!! The muffins will not rise!* Make sure all ingredients are incorporated and wet. A few lumps are ok.

7) Add mixture to muffin tin.

8) Bake at 375* for 25-30 minutes. Yields 12 muffins.

Remember, do not overmix your muffins!!! You can use an icecream scoop for even filling of the tin! AND you can keep your leftover muffins in the freezer and heat them and eat them whenever you feel like it!! If you want to use egg substitute instead of applesauce you can (you’re replacing 2 eggs). I’ve just found that the applesauce makes the muffins a bit more moist and sweet.

For my batch of muffins, I used single silicone baking cups, and they turned out nice. I used 1/2 cup dry stevia and 1/4 cup sugar, as well as 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour. I cut 1/4 cup of the oil and replaced it with another 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce. Instead of the fruit, I added around 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder. Cocoa powder is just great--tastes amazing, and is extremely healthy. 

The one at the bottom left corner is deformed due to my lack of toothpicks.
I stabbed it with a knife several times, in other words.

The muffins rose quite well. They weren't dry or soggy or anything like that, but pretty much all-around good tasting. They held the chocolate taste with no problems at all. I think this recipe would be great for blueberry muffins if you added an extra 1 tsp vanilla and dried blueberries to the mix along with using the alterations I did, minus the cocoa powder. They'd probably taste just like those muffins you can make using a mix from the store, minus all the non-vegan ingredients and excess fat and sugar. 

Tapioca Pudding

Yesterday, I found some tapioca pearls in the back of a cabinet, and I decided to see if I could make some old fashioned tapioca pudding. Even though I could technically still eat it before I became a vegan, I still haven't had any for years and years. After searching around for awhile online and in some of my favorite cookbooks, I found a recipe to my liking that seemed similar enough to the recipe listed on the back of the box. 


The original recipe is credited to Chris and Harald Walker over at http://www.vegalicious.org and can be found here, where it is  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Vegan Tapioca Pudding
Serves Four


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup tapioca pearls
• 2 cups water
• 3 cups soy milk (vanilla flavored if possible)
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1-2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• optional 1 tablespoon cornstarch to make the pudding thicker

Directions:

1. The night before, place 1/2 cup tapioca pearls in a bowl with 2 cups of water and place a lid or plate over the top.
2. The next day, put the soy milk, sugar and salt in a heavy bottom pot and mix.
3. Drain the water from the tapioca and add to the soy milk.
4. Heat the mixture on a low heat stirring all the time.
5. It will take about 15-20 minutes to boil and the tapioca balls to become translucent.
6. It is very important to stir the entire time, otherwise the soy milk will scorch and dis-flavor the pudding.
7. You need to cook the tapioca until the little balls are completely transparent. Otherwise, they are still hard.
8. If you are using vanilla soy milk then you only need to add 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring. Do so now, as the tapioca is thickening.
9. If you are using plain soy milk, then you may want to add a 2nd teaspoon of vanilla flavoring.
10. If you want a very thick tapioca, you may want to dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in a bit of water and add to the cooking tapioca once the balls have become transparent. Then add the cornstarch and stir until thickened.
11. Pour the cooked tapioca into individual serving dishes and cool or serve warm.

This turned out both good and bad for me. It tasted brilliant, with the perfect amounts of sugar and vanilla. The tapioca was cooked just right so it didn't disintegrate, but wasn't tough, either. It made four servings of one full cup each, which I poured into jars.

It'd probably look more appetizing in a fancy cup or something. Maybe a bowl?
Oh well. I like jars.

While it tasted really good, I couldn't get past the texture. It was a tad bit...mucous-like. I ate all of it, though, as did everyone else I served it to. The taste more than made up for it, so I would certainly recommend this recipe, but you might want to cook it for a shorter time period than directed. I still have half the box of tapioca pearls left, so I'll be making it again for sure.

Welcome to A Pact with Seitan!

Hi. I decided to make this blog a few days ago. The summer started recently, and I'm staying at my mother's apartment in Anchorage, Alaska. I don't have a job, and doubt I will find one easily, so needless to say, I was very bored for awhile. I wanted something constructive that I enjoy doing to occupy my time. Since I have been vegan for awhile now (vegetarian for over eight years previously) and love to cook, I thought I could start a blog that shares and reviews some recipes, restaurants, and products that are vegan-friendly. I hope reading my blog benefits you and makes finding quality vegan recipes easier.