Recipe: Slow Cooker Vegan Pumpkin and White Bean Lasagna

When I moved into my new house last year, after losing 50% of my kitchenware, my mother was nice enough to buy me a crock pot. My original intentions were to use it to heat up rum and cider and I was never sure if I'd find a good use for it to make food. In some families, crock pot cooking is the norm, but my mom never got down with crock pot cooking when I was growing up. The idea of putting food in a pot and letting it cook all day seemed odd to me. But after my boyfriend recently grumbled about how long it takes to cook on weeknights, I decided to buy The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester. I'm generally hesitant about buying cookbooks sight unseen, but after reading reviews for the cookbook, it seemed like it would have some fairly simple recipes that we could try out.

And by "we" I mean my boyfriend.

I had every intention of making this vegan pumpkin lasagna myself. But...I basically just ended up just getting spices out of the cupboard. Not sure how that happened exactly, but if someone wants to make you dinner - don't turn them down.

Vegan Pumpkin and White Bean Lasagna

Ingredients:

For the pumpkin tofu ricotta:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 sun dried tomatoes rehydrated
• 1 package silken, soft, or firm tofu
• 1 can cooked pumpkin
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

For the lasagna:

• 1 jar pasta sauce
• 3/4 package regular (not no boil) noodles
• 1 can (14 ounces) white beans, rinsed and drained

Method:

1. Make the pumpkin tofu ricotta. Blend all ingredients until creamy. 
2. Prepare the crock pot. Spray with cooking oil or grease the pot to prevent the sauce from burning/sticking to the sides. 
3. Spread a think layer of pasta sauce on the bottom of the crock pot. 
4. Break off the corners of a lasagna noodle and place it on top of the sauce. (to make use of the whole crock pot, break other noodles to fill in the rest of the pot). Place a single layer of noodles over the sauce.
5. Spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture over the noodles. 
6. Spread a thin layer of sauce over the pumpkin ricotta mix.
7. Spread 1/3 of the beans over the sauce. 
8. Repeat the layers two more times and end with noodles on top. Top noodles with remaining pasta sauce.
9. Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours or on high for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

So how did it turn out? Because I went for a longer run than I'd originally planned (oops) the noodles got a little overcooked. But...the lasagna still ended up being really good. There was a very subtle pumpkin flavor. Otherwise, it tasted like good old lasagna. (and my boyfriend tells me the lasagna is better reheated - he had the leftovers for lunch yesterday) I wasn't the biggest fan of the beans, but...they added protein. And my boyfriend liked them, so...maybe we'd include them when we make this recipe again. If using tofu in a recipe weirds you out, this recipe could be easily vegetarian-ized. You'd just swap tofu for ricotta cheese and omit the nutritional yeast. I'm sure it would be just as good.

Overall, I'd say this was a cooking WIN. Not just because I didn't have to lift a finger, but because this was a super easy meal to make and it was a really interesting way to use pumpkin. Let me know if you give this recipe a try! And if you're looking for quick and easy recipes to try out in your crock pot, pick up The Vegan Slow Cooker!

Chloe Coscarelli's Vegan Brownie Bites

I haven't been blogging much lately because, well...I moved. I closed on the house I bought 2 weeks sooner than I thought I would, so just like 3 months ago, I had to pack up everything I own and move in about 5 days. Not fun. I know you should never say never, but I never want to move again. Or at least not anytime soon. I figured it out...in the past 3 years, I've moved 5 times. 5 times! I could say so much about that, but the only thing I think I need to say is that I love my new house and hope to live in it for as long as I can. Especially because I have no plans to move in with anyone in their house again in this lifetime.

The house I purchased is great. Roomy. Lots of storage space. And a really well designed kitchen. With appliances from 1971. That's right, folks! They're avocado green! Since I really love to cook and bake I was a little bummed to be buying a house with such an outdated kitchen, but I figure this is a good excuse for me to save up my pennies and build my dream kitchen down the road. If it were updated, I'd be more likely to just live with whatever the house came with. But since my appliances are older than me, odds are, I'm going to have to start replacing things sometime soon.

The other night, I decided to test out my stove and make some brownie bites from Chloe Coscarelli's cookbook, "Chloe's Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You Love the Vegan Way." I'd share the recipe, but...Miss Chloe probably wouldn't like that. And I really think her cookbook is worth buying. I will say that this recipe was ridiculously easy. There were just a couple ingredients and I had almost everything I needed to make the brownie bites in my pantry already. (I normally would have had all of them...someone forgot to buy almond milk at the store last week!) In under an hour, I was able to whip up brownies from scratch (something I'd never done before) and turn them into tasty little bites. (or as I liked to call them, balls) I took them to a party my running club had last night and they were a hit - with the vegans and the non vegans!

I'm looking forward to trying out more recipes in this cookbook. There are some "old favorites" like spinach artichoke dip, broccoli soup, and macaroni and cheese, but there are also recipes for things like moo shoo vegetables with homemade Chinese pancakes. I think there's a good mix of classics that vegans and non vegans would like plus some more exotic dishes that your meat and potatoes friends might not enjoy as much. As an added bonus, Chloe offers options for making many of the recipes vegan AND gluten free. If you're looking for a last minute gift for the vegan or vegetarian in your life, I'd definitely consider picking up this cookbook.

Recipe: Vegan Chocolate Pudding Pie

I'm not a vegan, but I do happen to eat a lot of vegan food.  Whether it's by chance or choice, I think I've gotten fairly good at creating all kinds of vegan dishes.  I'm especially fond of vegan baked goods, so I'm always up for trying out a new recipe.

Vegan Chocolate Pudding Pie

But maybe trying out a new recipe for Thanksgiving was a bad idea.

My original plan for Thanksgiving was to make a vegan pumpkin pie.  But my boyfriend's mother informed me that she'd be bringing a pumpkin roll to dinner, and we just couldn't have two pumpkin desserts.  So then I decided to make a vegan sour cream coffee cake that I've made multiple times and everyone loves and an experimental vegan pudding pie. 

But I forgot the vegan sour cream at the store and decided to just go with the recipe I'd found at The Post Punk Kitchen for Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie.  (I love you Isa!)  In my delusional mind I thought pudding pie = easy.  And in some cases it does.  But normally when you aren't making your pudding from scratch. 

Have you ever made pudding from scratch?  It's really, really hard to do.  It took me two attempts to make the pudding for this pie.  I burned the first batch (and nearly burned down my kitchen!  looks like I'll be needing a new saucepan from Santa, too)  and used a cooking technique that my boyfriend's home ec teaching mother would definitely frown upon.  I needed to whisk my pudding mixture, and since my hand whisking didn't work the first time, I used my mixer in the pan on the stove.  Dangerous, I know.  But it seemed to work.

My second batch of filling didn't burn and seemed like it would set up ok, so I poured it into my store bought graham cracker crust, sprinkled some vegan chocolate chips on the crust, and hoped for the best.  I had some extra pudding left over so I put it in a ramekin to eat later.  The leftover pudding ended up tasting vegan, so I was pretty worried about how my pie would do the next day.

And what happened you ask?  The pie ended up being pretty tasty.  The filling didn't firm up the way I wanted it to, but that was probably because I put a lid on it too soon after the pudding came off of the stove, and I didn't give it enough time to just set up on my counter top.  But it definitely had a rich, chocolately flavor, even if it was a little tough to eat.  (the crust also got a little soggy, but it wasn't anything that eating it with a spoon couldn't fix)

This recipe is one of many delicious sounding recipes from the new cookbook Vegan Pie in the Sky by my favorite vegan cookbook authors - Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I hope to try out a couple more recipes over the holidays.  But I'll probably try them out at least once before I serve them up to a crowd.