a few great italian meals!

We bought fresh basil and put it to work with two great Italian themed dinners. We have mastered our pizza. Its a wal-mart pizza crust (the ones that you buy in the tube), cook it almost completely before adding fresh Campari tomatoes that i soaked in evoo
(extra virgin olive oil) and balsamic vinegar. It soaked while the
crust cooked. I drained them threw them on the crust seasoned it with
basil, onion powder, garlic powder and my favorite veganmozzarella
(follow your heart). We cook it just long enough to warm it up. Then
throw the basil on (roll the leaf up and then tear it) We love making
pizza and it was hands down the best yet!

The pasta was a mix of
whatever kinda of pasta i had left. I like the already seasoned
tomatoes in the can for this. I threw some extra seasoning in and let
them simmer in a pan. Once the pasta was almost ready i drained it
threw the tomatoes in. Then i made vegan meat(less)balls with vegan
sausage mix, gimme lean, that comes a kinda of plastic tube thing. I
just browned them in the same pan i cooked the tomatoes in. It was
really delicious!

Asparagus Tart

Asparagus Tart with White Bean Pesto

1 15 oz Can Navy Beans
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 Heaping Cup Raw Cashews
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
1 Tbs Amore Pesto Paste (regular pesto would also work but its not vegan)
2 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice
2 Tbs Soy or Rice Milk, or water

1 lb Fresh Asparagus
1 Puff Pastry Sheet
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

Remove
1 puff pastry sheet from the freezer and let it defrost on the counter
for 40 minutes on top of parchment paper. Meanwhile, preheat the oven
to 400º F and make the filling.

Drain and rinse the beans, and add them to the work bowl of a food processor. Add of the remaining ingredients except the soy milk
(salt through lemon juice). Pulse the food processor, stopping ever few
pulses to scrape down the sides and pulse again. You want to break up
the beans and the cashews. Once it’s as smooth as you can get it,
dribble in thesoy milk while the machine is running, as this should help further smooth the mixture.

After 40 minutes of defrosting, carefully unwrap the puff pastry on top of your parchment paper

Roll
the puff pastry out slightly into a rectangle. Then add the white bean
pesto mixture, leaving a 1 to 1 1/2 inch border on all sides

Trim
your asparagus so that it fits the tart width-wise. Press the spears
into the white bean pesto, alternating their direction so that there
are tips and bases next to each other; this one everyone is guaranteed
every part of the asparagus after cutting

With a sharp knife, trim all the edges to they are neat and square. Trim away as little as possible.
Brush the spears with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper

Ready to Bake

Using
the parchment paper, slide the tart onto a baking sheet (don’t remove
the tart from the paper). Bake at 400ºF for 25-30 minutes until the
tart is puffed and golden brown and the spears are tender. Serve while
just warm.

www.veganyumyum.com

edit: for our tart we use Phylo and brushed each layer with olive oil. We also substituted olive for the soy/water option

Well, Nicole inspired me to start a vegan blog. It sounds more
overwhelming to abstain from animal by products than it actually is.
Its all aboutknowing what to buy. I think whole foods can be very overwhelming and trader Joe's doesn't have the best selection of vegan food. But you would be surprised by what is vegan and what is not, for example some oreos are vegan but the original oreos never are! Strange. If you are ever wanting to get soy milk, i recommend the Very vanilla Silk soy milk (its a purple container). I was vegan once before for about a year and i learned a lot. And I am trying again!



Last
night, i had no desire to make dinner. Si just cut up the res t of our
wheat baguette, i used soy spread (like imitation butter) buttered the
bread threw it in the oven on broil for about a minute. I serve it with
just a bread dipping sauce,EVOO, balsamic vinegar, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper and basil. It's so good! So that and some tofurkey sandwiches. I prefer the peppered tofurkey but they are all pretty good. I like veganaise for taste but Ryan does not. Load it up with veggies and its not too different from eating at my sister Kelly's house at dinner time.