Disney Trip and Ethos Kitchen

*gasp* Do my eyes deceive me?! Is that my sister actually eating and enjoying broccoli? Only one thing could cause this: Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Orlando, FL.

My entire family went on vacation to Orlando this week to visit Disney World and just take a break from the daily grind. We left last Friday and came back on Wednesday.

On Saturday we ate at Ethos Vegan Kitchen. It was sooo good. I was super excited because it was the first time I’d ever been to a 100% vegan restaurant.

So here’s what everyone ordered:

My mom and I got the mac ‘n cheez (which is only available on Saturdays) and it was delicious.

I could taste that they used Follow Your Heart chedder soy cheese, but it’s way better than when I attempt to make my own home-made mac ‘n cheez with it. It was creamy and rich, but not too heavy.

My dad (the hardcore carnivore) got the Samson Burger. Here’s the description from the menu:  A grilled black bean burger served with lettuce, tomato, red onion, sprouts, spicy mustard, and ketchup. It comes along with a side of blue corn chips and salsa.

It was a huge sandwich but my dad managed to gobble down the whole thing and said it was really good.

My sister got the Sheep’s Pie. Here’s the description from the menu: A meat-free version of Shepherd’s Pie for our sheepy friends. Sautéed broccoli, carrots, peas, and onions in a veggie brown sauce topped with mashed potatoes and oven-baked to perfection. Served with bread.

This dish was so good that my vegetable-hating sister actually ate the broccoli and carrots in it. She shared a bite with me and it was super yummy.

If you’re anywhere near Orlando, go and eat at Ethos! The food was great, the servers were nice, the restaurant had a nice relaxed vibe and some insane art work too.

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

I wanna wish everyone a happy belated Thanksgiving! I know I’m two days late, but I’ve got a head cold and really didn’t feel like dealing with my computer (which has been running super slow lately).

And now, on to the food!

So here I have black olive seitan, a cheezy basil biscuit, colcannon (mashed potatoes + sauted kale) with Campbells mushroom gravy, and lastly green bean casserole.

Man, I love this seitan! Using a recipe from Peace by Pastries, it’s probably one of the first seitan recipes I ever tried, and now it’s a returning favorite.

The biscuits were just Bisquick mixed with plain soy milk, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast and basil. Easy, but tasty.

The colcannon is just basic mashed potatos with sauted kale and I took a short cut by using a can of Campbells mushroom gravy, which although canned is delicious.

Oh! How I’ve missed you green bean casserole! But no longer. Using a recipe from VegCooking Blog it replicated the yumminess of the casserole that I fondly remember my mom making for Thanksgiving every year. True, I forgot to get the mushrooms required for the recipe, but I just replaced them with cooked lima beans and it still turned out great.

All in all it was a delicious vegan feast and now I’ve got left-overs for days! Yay!

Tofu “Fish” Sticks

If you don’t own Vegan Lunch Box, you seriously need to. With a ton of lunch box menus, yummy kid-friendly recipes, and great tips on how to sneak healthy veggies into their (or your) diet without them knowing, it’s a must have for vegans.

Their tofu “fish” sticks are super delicious and one of my favorite ways to eat tofu. I made a batch yesterday so I’m gonna be munching on these for days. Yay!

Here they are served with some ketchup and super stuffed potato skins.

They also make great sandwiches. Instead of making little sticks I made two larger slices and baked them the same as the sticks. Then I put the slices on toasted bread smeared with ketchup and topped with slices of red onion and avocado. It was yummy, especially served with garlic soy crisps.

German Pizza

I was flipping through my mom’s Taste of Home magazine the other day and a recipe caught my eye. It was a German pizza with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, sausage and cheese. The recipe was submited by Angela Spengler.

I decided to veganize it and the results were surprisingly good.

I was lazy and used a pre-made pizza crust mix. I followed the directions on the bag and decided to bake the crust by itself for about 12 minutes.

While the crust baked I whipped up some mashed potatoes. To make myself feel better about putting mashed potatoes on a pizza crust (Can you say carb overload?) I added kale that I’d sauted for a few minutes with two cloves of garlic.

After removing the crust from the oven I layered on the mashed potatoes, saurkraut, one Yvves Italian sausage I sliced up and some shredded Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet chedder soy cheese.

I baked it for about 10 minutes. Sadly the broiler is broken on our oven so I had to broil individual slices of the pizza in our toaster oven.

It turned out really yummy. I think I should’ve added more saurkraut (I only used about 1/4 cup), but the it’s

definitely a keeper. Here’s the actual recipe instead of my ramblings:

Ingredients:

1 pizza crust

1 Yves Italian sausage

1  1/2  cups mashed potatoes

1/2 TSP salt

1/2 TSP coarsely ground black pepper

1 cup kale

2 TBSPs olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3/4 cup sauerkraut

1/4 cup shredded Follow Your Heart chedder soy cheese

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out your pizza dough on to a  pizza pan and put it in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until it’s lightly golden brown.

Meanwhile saute the kale and garlic in 1 TBSP of olive oil for about 5 minutes or until tender.

Add kale and garlic mixture to mashed potatos along with salt and pepper.

Thinly slice the Yves sausage, then saute in 1 TBSP olive oil until they begin to brown.

Remove the pizza crust from the oven and layer on the mashed potatos with kale, sauerkraut, sausage, and FYH soy cheese.

Put back into the oven for 5-7 minutes until everything gets warmed through, then broil for 1-2 minutes until the soy cheese melts. Slice and enjoy!