Kid-Friendly Tofu Fingers

Kid Friendly Tofu Fingers PinWhile we were visiting Amelia’s family in Atlanta, Amelia’s 9 year old niece  challenged us to make more kid-friendly vegan recipes and this Tofu Fingers recipe one of them. She really liked them, as did the whole family. She’s a VERY picky eater, so anything other than “I hate it” means she loved it. She dipped hers in ketchup, but her grandpa and I preferred BBQ sauce.

If you’re concerned about feeding organic soy to your children, rest assured it’s not only safe, but highly nutritious. Most of the myths about soy were created by the dairy industry when soy milk started eating away at their profits. The unbiased, legitimate science shows soy is actually protective against the very ailments that, ironically, dairy has been shown to cause.

One of the main concerns about soy is the phytoestrogen content that the myths claim can interfere with human hormones. Phytoestrogens are a type of plant estrogen that behaves much differently in the human body compared to mammal estrogen found in cow’s milk, which looks just like human estrogen inside our bodies.

In fact, one study found that soy was protective against early puberty in girls, whereas consumption of meat was strongly associated with early puberty in both girls and boys.

We strongly encourage you to buy only organic soy products, though. The unbiased science is far from settled on the health effects of GMO, but putting that aside, there are plenty of non-health reasons to avoid GMO products. GMO’s encourage monocrops, which are destroying the soil. They are leading to superbugs and superweeds that are resistant to even the strongest pesticides. They lead to more fertilizer and pesticide use, which contaminates water supplies. And they give corporations too much control of our food system. Please consider watching GMO OMG for an overview of the GMO industry.

Back to the recipe at hand… These Tofu Fingers are very tasty dipped in your favorite dipping sauce like ketchup, BBQ sauce, Vegan Ranch Dressing, salsa, Grandpa’s Vegan Dipping Hot Sauce, etc. They make a great afternoon snack or appetizer, or as a side dish with soup and salad.

Tofu Fingers 2

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Lazy Girl Easy Vegan Enchiladas

Easy Vegan Enchiladas PinThis Easy Vegan Enchiladas recipe is fast and easy to make. Why spend time trying to wrap and bake tricky enchiladas when you can do them open-faced?

I love our Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas recipe, but we never have it because it’s such a pain to make. When we first made them for the website, it took us 3 tries to get them to come out good enough to be photographed. And we haven’t made them since!

So I asked Amelia if we could do them a different way that would be easier. After all, it’s the ingredients that taste good; not the shape. I suggested we sauté the filling in our cast iron skillet and then bake it covered in our Vegan Enchilada Sauce, but Amelia’s way was even easier. We served them open-faced on corn tortillas and poured the enchilada sauce over them. Then we topped them with some baked corn tortilla strips.

These “lazy girl” enchiladas, as Amelia calls them, are by far the easiest and fastest way to make delicious enchiladas.

Easy Vegan Enchiladas

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Curry Vegetables

Vegan Curry Vegetables PinThis Vegan Curry Vegetables recipe was inspired by a recipe in “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. After I found out my cholesterol was still high after eating a plant-based diet for more than 2 years, I realized vegans can still get heart disease. Dr. Esselstyn’s book had a lot of great advice backed by legitimate research, as well as lots of delicious sounding recipes.

Amelia put me in charge of this one since I found it. I made it the first time following the recipe in the book pretty much exactly, but I thought it lacked some depth of flavor so I modified it the second time around.

Most of Dr. Esselstyn’s study patients were suffering from severe heart disease, so most of the recipes in the book don’t use any salt. Amelia and I both have low blood pressure, so we’re not afraid to use a little salt in our recipes. You can skip the salt if that’s a concern for you.

In addition to salt, I added black pepper and tomato sauce. We eat at an Indian restaurant here in Cuenca, Ecuador called Namaste India and they use tomato in a lot of their curry dishes. It gives it a rich, tangy flavor that we really like.

The jarred tomato sauce we get here in Ecuador is very thick. It’s closer in consistency to tomato paste so you may need to adjust the amount of tomato sauce depending on how thick it is and your taste preference.

We used broccoli and cauliflower in our recipe, but it would be great with some yellow potatoes, too. Some fresh spinach would also be great either blended up in the sauce or added to the skillet during cooking.

This is a great one-dish recipe, but you could also eat it with some naan bread or a side salad.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Enchilada Sauce

Vegan Enchilada Sauce PinThis Vegan Enchilada Sauce recipe is mildly spicy with delicious depth of flavor. It’s designed to go with our Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas, but it tastes great on lots of things!

Amelia makes us a large batch and we keep it in the fridge for up to a week. I like to heat up some leftover sweet potatoes and pour this sauce over them. You could also use this enchilada sauce on Vegan Nachos or as a dip for corn chips.

As with almost everything we make these days, this recipe is oil-free. There’s just no need for oil in most recipes except some desserts.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Tahini Stir Fry with Tofu

Tahini Stir Fry PinThis Tahini Stir Fry with Tofu recipe is one of our favorites stir fries. We used to eat this one almost every week because it’s fast, easy and flavorful. However, since I found out I still have high cholesterol, we’ve cut this one out for awhile.

We still eat stir fries similar to this one every week, but the tofu and tahini add 5 grams of saturated fat per serving, which is way more than I need to consume while trying to lower my cholesterol. It’s also not great for weight loss so if you’re trying to lose weight or lower your cholesterol, you’re better off eating our low-fat Easy Vegan Asian Stir Fry.

Greger might disagree with this advice, but I side with Esselstyn and Ornish on this one. They’re the experts in heart disease, which runs rampant in my family, along with cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity. With the deck stacked against me, Amelia and I have decided to err on the side of caution when it comes to foods high in saturated fat, like tahini.

With that said, the tofu in this recipe adds a nice meaty texture and contributes most of the 18 grams of protein. And it absorbs the flavors of the sauce and other ingredients so it’s very tasty. This recipe is also loaded with fiber, vitamin C, calcium and iron.

This is a nice one-pot meal (not counting the rice) so it’s also fast and easy to clean up.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Tortilla Soup

Vegan Tortilla Soup PinEven though I just finished eating lunch, my mouth is watering just thinking about this Vegan Tortilla Soup recipe! It’s that good!

While conventional tortilla soup typically uses chicken as the protein, we used white beans instead. Beans are loaded with protein and fiber, but contain no cholesterol nor measurable saturated fat. They’re also a good source of iron, magnesium and potassium.

There are several different types of white beans: navy beans, great northern beans, cannellini beans and butterbeans. We like navy beans in our soups because the starch gets released during cooking, making the soup creamier. However, you can use whichever beans you prefer or have on-hand for this recipe.

For the tortilla strips, we used two small corn tortillas made with only two ingredients: whole corn and water. Whole Foods carries organic corn tortillas that are made with corn, water and a hint of lime. When eating a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) no-oil diet, it’s important to look for minimally processed foods without added oils and sugars (or other mystery ingredients).

We cubed some avocado as a topping for our vegan tortilla soup, but if you’re trying to lose weight or lower your cholesterol, you may want to skip the avocado until you’ve reached your goal. Saturated fat, regardless of whether it comes from a plant or animal, will raise your cholesterol and can contribute to heart disease and weight gain.

This recipe pairs well with a nice Side Salad or some Corn Tortilla Corn Chips and Salsa.

Vegan Tortilla Soup Cooking Video

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Thai Style Sweet and Spicy Sauce

Thai Style Sweet and Spicy Sauce PinAmelia was making some Jackfruit Crab Cakes and I asked what we were going to use for a dipping sauce since tarter sauce and most crabcake sauces have dairy and/or eggs. In her typical creativeness, she whipped up some of this Thai Style Sweet and Spicy Sauce, and it was great!

This Thai Style Sweet and Spicy Sauce recipe is the perfect sauce for dipping or to add more flavor to your rice, noodle and potato dishes. The combination of sweet and spicy makes for some mouthwatering goodness.

It was very tasty with our Jackfruit Crab Cakes, but we also liked it with our Oven Fried Okra and I love it over plain rice. It’s a great sauce to have on-hand for when you need to jazz up a dish.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Oven Fried Okra

Oven Fried Okra PinThis oil-free gluten-free Oven Fried Okra recipe is savory and delicious. We made it for Amelia’s non-vegan, southern family and they ate every last morsel! And then asked for more!!!

Cooking okra without oil means they aren’t quite as crispy (or greasy) as traditional fried okra, but they’re just as flavorful and oh so much healthier. You can actually taste the okra and cornmeal, not just the oil.

We served them with some Sweet and Spicy Sauce and our amazing Cajun Red Beans & Rice for a real taste of the south. Some Vegan Cornbread would make the perfect southern dinner.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Red Bean Burgers

Red Bean Burgers PinThis Red Bean Burgers recipe is very flavorful and satisfying. It’s a delicious and nutritious vegan burger that’s super quick and easy to make. Perfect for a weeknight meal when you’re short on time but long on hunger.

The burger patties are very moist so they won’t do well on the grill, but they great on an electric griddle if you have one. We usually just bake them, though. They’re very flavorful as is, but you can sprinkle the patties with a little garlic salt and black pepper before you cook them for even more flavor.

We like high quality, whole grain buns, but you can use your favorite hamburger buns. Top them with some greens, a slice of tomato and a little spicy mustard or ketchup and you’ve got one delicious vegan burger!

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas

These Vegan Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas are so deliciously amazing we can’t get enough of them! They’re sweet, spicy, savory and oh so flavorful!

If you’ve ever cooked your own enchiladas, especially without deep frying the tortillas in oil, you’ll be able to sympathize with us on how challenging it is to get them to look pretty. We had to cook this recipe 3 times to not only perfect the ingredients, but to get the pictures to come out well enough to post on our website.

But it was SOOOO worth it!

The trick was to steam the tortillas in a steamer pot for about 1o to 15 seconds before assembling them. Kind of like how they do it at Chipotle. That made the tortillas very soft and pliable. We also used Mi Rancho Organic Corn Tortillas with Guar Gum, which also helped hold them together through the steaming and assembly process.

We actually took these photos before we baked them, though. So yours might not look the same when they come out of the oven. You can see in the prep photo below what they look like in the casserole dish fresh from the oven.

These Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas pair well with a little shredded lettuce salad on the side, along with some Corn Tortilla Corn Chips  and some of my Grandpa’s Dipping Hot Sauce. We used grandpa’s hot sauce in our enchiladas, too. If you plan to do the same, be sure to make it ahead of time.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.