Posts Tagged Spinach

Mini Vegan “Meat” Balls

Nov 1

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

I’ve made these chicken-style seitan nuggets a few times now, and I’m a big fan.  The recipe comes together in minutes, they bake quickly, and the texture of the finished product is perfect.  Seitan can sometimes be really rubbery and tough, but these are just right.

Last night, I made a batch of the dough and made half into nuggets, and then experimented with the other half.  I was oddly craving Italian Wedding Soup (I have no idea why, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had it before, but I saw a can of it in the store and it looked really good) so I wanted to see if these could work as tiny “meat” balls.  Well, it worked perfectly!

I pinched off tiny pieces of the dough, rolled it between my palms, and placed them in a cast iron skillet over medium heat.  I skipped the breading step in the recipe.  They cooked pretty quickly, just a couple of minutes per side and they were done.  The texture was great!  I’d love to try baking these next, to cut down on the oil a bit, but honestly these were so awesome.

I looked up what Italian Wedding Soup is made of, and while the recipes varied quite a bit, it seemed like a broth based soup with meatballs and greens.

I started with olive oil, onions, garlic, and celery.  Next I added some crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, and dried basil.  When the vegetables were soft, I added some red wine, then added water, vegetable bullion, kidney beans, and the meatballs.  I let that simmer away for 30 minutes or so, then added a few handfuls of torn spinach.  I let that wilt in for a bit, then dished out a bowl.

It was great!  Just what I wanted on this cloudy day.  I think next time I’ll hold off on putting the meatballs in so early, as they got a bit spongy, but the flavor was still great.  The soup also came together very quickly and could be made to feed a ton of people for not very much money.  It’s also pretty versatile.  Like most soups, this “recipe” is one that can be easily modified to use what vegetables and canned beans you might have on hand.  My dad makes a soup similar to this with kale or swiss chard as the greens.  Cannelini beans would also be great here.  Really, soup is a great way to experiment with flavors.

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Delicious Dinner

Oct 21

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

I just had the most delicious dinner.  It was a long day at school today, so I think that was part of why it tasted so good.

It was so good that I forgot to take a picture of it.  Doh!  Since I can’t supply you with pictures, I’ll provide you with instructions to recreate it.

Here’s what I had:

  • Roasted Portobello Mushroom
    • Roasted with just a bit of balsamic vinegar and dried oregano in the cap at 400 degrees for 5ish minutes.  Removed, set toaster oven to broil.  Topped with tomato and red bell pepper slices, panko breadcrumbs and broiled for 2-3 minutes.  Topped with Munster cheese and broiled for another minute or so.
  • Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Mash
    • Leftover roasted vegetables simmered for a minute or two with some soymilk and leftover mushroom stock.  Mashed.
  • Spinach Salad with Feta, Farmers Market Tomatoes, & Annie’s Brand Goddess Dressing
  • Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
    • I was being seasonal?

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So yeah.  Tasty.  Make it.

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Random Eats

Jul 27

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

Since I’m still new at this blogging thing, I thought I’d try a different approach to posting.   Here is a fairly random sampling of food that I’ve made and eaten over the past couple of weeks!

First up: A Green Smoothie

Green Smoothie

Green Smoothie

I bought a bunch of spinach at the farmers market (an entire plastic grocery bag full!) and decided to use some up in smoothies before it went bad.  Green smoothies are great, just add everything you usually like in a smoothie and chuck in a handful of spinach!  You can’t taste the spinach at all.  This one had banana, yogurt, soymilk, and some blueberries.

Next up is a typical breakfast.

Oatmeal with half a banana mashed in and homemade granola, yogurt, blueberries and flax seeds on top.  It’s getting a bit hot out for oatmeal these days though.  More recently I’ve been having cereal or yogurt.

Some weekends I really make an effort to make a bunch of food to take for lunches during the week.  Here’s photo documentation of it :)   First I made Spaghetti and Bean Balls from the vegan bible cookbook Veganomicon.

I topped the bean balls with some shredded vegan mozzarella cheese.  I’ve tried a bunch of vegan cheeses, and I have to say that I’d rather just go without rather than eat “fake” cheese.  The texture and the flavor are just not satisfying at all.  I thought I’d swoon over Teese and I was disappointed, and FYH was a little bit worse.  Bummer.

I’d show you the final product, but the pictures came out pretty bad.  Basically I cooked some whole wheat pasta, topped it with some of the red sauce, some of the bean balls, and a bit of sauteed zucchini.

I also took advantage of my oven space, since it was already on and made some Chickpea Cutlets, also from Veganomicon.

Chickpea Cutlets

Chickpea Cutlets

These are awesome to make in advance, and are great on top of salads, pasta, or in sandwiches during the week.  My favorite way to have them is to reheat them in the toaster oven, slather them with Franks Red Hot, and chow down with some yogurty dipping sauce.  Who needs chicken wings??

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