Crepes

It's Wednesday night. I'm just home from working out, I'm bogged down with scool work, I'm tired, I'm hungry and don't know what to eat... and I'm poor. This is when crepes, one of the most simple and versatile foods, comes in handy. I'm sure many of us have heard of sweet crepes for breakfast or ice cream crepes for dessert, but crepes also make a great dinner item. Make them and fill them with steamed asparagus and cheese, fill them with sauteed broccoli and parmesean and top them off with a mushroom sauce (like the one in the the mushroom pasta recipe)... the possibilities are endless! Here is a basic crepe recipe that my French-Canadian fiancee taught me.

Ingredients: (note: the ingredients are part:part, meaning if you're just making crepes for one or two it's 1 egg: 1 c. flour: 1 c. milk, if you're making crepes for 4 or 6 it doubles to 2 eggs: 2 c. flour: 2 c. milk. The recipe below is for one or two people)

1 cup unbleached flour
1 free-range egg
1 cup milk
2 pinches of salt
a pinch of sugar
olive oil

Preperation

1. Crack egg and put it in cooking bowl. Add milk. Stir while adding flour. Mix well.
2. Add salt and sugar
3. Heat frying pan on high medium heat with about 1 tbsp. olive oil
4. Measure about 2 tbsp. of crepe mix and put into pan. Quickly move pan in circular motion to make a thin, round crepe shape out of the mix. Cook 1 min. on both sides.

Voila!

Dress it up however you want or follow my suggestions above. Serve with a simple green salad for a tasy meal!

Weeklong Parfait (Breakfast)

Although I'm generally in a hurry during my Mon.-Fri. week, I still want to make sure my morning health doesn't suffer with fastfoods and butter-drenched bakery foods on my way to wherever I'm going. So, with inspiration from my mom, I created a recipe that can be made Monday night and will still be good till Friday morning, easy for a quick scoop in a to-go container every morning as I'm running out the door.

Weeklong Parfait

Ingredients

3 cans fruit cocktail
2 cans mandarin oranges (or if you can find the mandarin orange and peach mix, yum!)
3 bananas (sliced)
2 green apples (chopped up)
650 g container of vanilla yogurt
brown sugar to garnish
granola for morning tops (I get the pumpkin granola from Trader Joe's, but Safeway brand's cinnamon granola is great too)

Preperation

1. Grab a really large bowl (largest you have)
2. Drain canned fruits and put them into bowl. Add apples and bananas. Mix well.
3. Put 3/4 of the container of yogurt into the bowl and mix again.
4. Stir light soonfuls of brown sugar into the mix, tasting every few little scoops and stop at your sweetness's desire.
5. Store in fridge. When ready to make parfait with it in the mornings, simply scoop into breakfast bowl or to-go container and top with granola.

This recipe can also be served as a healthy dessert!

Garlic and Green Pasta

As you will notice, I use a lot of olive oil in my cooking (versus using canola and vegetable oil). I use a lot of olive oil because it is so good for you, as it has many health benefits. For starters, olive oil helps keep bad cholestorol levels down; now I know as vegetarians this isn't usually such a big risk for us, as we don't consume meat products, but other things in the vegetarian diet can contribute to cholosterol levels, such as cheese, creams and saturated sweets (not to mention genetics can play a big role in the accumulation of cholestorol). Other benefits of olive oil include high levels of antioxidants, better digestion, added protection from heart disease and colon cancer, reduces blood pressure and assists with maintaining a healthy weight.

Another ingredient that I use very often is garlic, a very VERY healthy ingredient indeed! The major benefit of garlic is it's an immune booster, something that's especially great for these winter months. Garlic also helps with controlling cholestorol, has a good amount of antioxidents and (little known fact) garlic has been shown in some studies to assist with acne problems.

Speaking of the two ingredients above and the fact that I have a cold, my fiancee and I made a very olive oil and garlic rich pasta meal tonight. It was DELICIOUS and the recipe is as follows. Enjoy!

Garlic and Green Pasta

Ingredients

Pasta (we used linguinie, but spaghetti and angel hair also work)
olive oil
3/4 of a whole garlic, skinned and finely chopped
6 brussel sprouts, cut in fours
2 handfuls of broccolli, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
optional: cheddar cheese to top it off

Preperation

1. Boil pasta in salt water
2. Steam veggies till brussel sprouts are tender and can be poked with a fork
3. Drain pasta and put back into sauce pan
4. Saturate pasta with olive oil (use your intuition to know how much you want, little or a lot works)
5. Add veggies and garlic to pasta. Mix well.
6. Serve hot on plate. Use salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with cheese if desired.

For the alcohol legal, I suggest a Pinot Noir to serve with this dish.

World's Simplest Breakfast Wrap

This recipe is great for a quick but beneficial breakfast. Veggies to give you ruffage, egg and cheese for energy and a low-fat wrap.


Igredients

1 tomato wrap (or spinach works too!)
mayo (or veganaise, as I prefer)
grated cheddar cheese
1 free-range egg
1 tbsp chopped onion
2 tbsp finely chopped brocolli
two dashes dried basil
dash of milk
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare

1. Crack egg into a normal breakfast bowl. Add a dash of milk and salt/pepper. Mix well with a fork.
2. Add cheese, basil, onion and brocolli. Stir with fork again to mix.
3. Scramble all in a small frying pan with a tad of olive oil.
4. Warm wrap. Spread mayo.
5. Put egg scramble in mayo and wrap: half over "hamburger style", bottom wrapped up once and then rolled all the way over like a burrito.

Optional: Sometimes I add chopped Tofurkey lunch "meat" to give it a little more flavor.

Mushroom Sauce and Parmasean Pasta

Hi there! I've been a vegetarian for 12 years now, during which I've created simple recipes to fit my diet (as I come from a family of meat-eaters and have had to virtually always cook on my own). 5 of those 12 years I have also been a budget college student, so many of my recipes include smart, inexpensive ingredients. I've started this blog to help people out there who think "what's this vegetarian going to eat tonight that's fast for a busy life and inexpensive?" Hope you enjoy! Requests accepted!
To get started, I'll put a really old recipe of mine up! This has been one of my favorite meals for years! It was inspired by a recipe that my host mom used to make when I studied abroad in Germany.

Enjoy!

-T.G.V.


Mushrooms Sauce and Parmesean Pasta:

Ingredients:

Sauce
1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 handful sliced mushrooms
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parsley (handful, finely chopped)
Fresh garlic (as much as you think you can handle)
2 dashes of garlic salt
3 dashes basil (dried)

Other
Olive oil
Parmasean to sprinkle (as much as you desire)
Pasta of choice (I usually use whole wheat spaghetti)

1. Place pasta in sauce pan of boiling water
2. Dash a bit of salt in the water to bring out the pasta's taste and speed up boiling
3. Pour a splash of olive oil in water to keep it from boiling over
4. Sautee mushrooms and fresh garlic in a frying pan with olive oil and a dash of garlic salt
5. In seperate sauce pan, put in can of soup and place on medium heat. To make it more liquidy, measure half a soup can of milk or water and put in sauce pan with soup.
6. Add herbs, salt and pepper, sauteed mushrooms and garlic and remaining garlic salt to the soup. Stir up and heat up.
7. Drain pasta
8. Dish pasta out on individual plates and sprinkle parmesean on it.
9. Lastly, pour sauce over pasta and cheese

Great to serve with Poor Man's Garlic Bread, which is simply bread with butter/margarine and garlic salt and toasted.