Ingredients:
Butternut squash
Zucchini, Asparagus, Red potatoes, 1 Beet, Brussels sprouts chopped in half, sweet onion, carrots and Beyond Meat Italian Sausages
. I then add a drizzle of olive oil, Italian herbs & Garlic blend herbs & bake at 450 uncovered.
Ingredients
Line a big pyrex pan
My name is Nan Stubenthal, I returned to Duluth to live about a yar and a half ago. And at that time the cookbook club had started, and I knew Bonnie from other situations, and I trusted her to spend time on something important, so I talked to her and found out about the club when it meets and started attending in early 2019, so I’ve been going for about a year, not every year, not every month, and I consider myself pretty regular and definitely committed. It’s great that it’s at the library, because its a very neutral location, very accessible, education-based, and so they have this great big room where we can just hang out, and its very organized, so there’s room for about forty people. Some of my favorite themes that we’ve had are containers – what kind of containers people keep things in, whether they’re hot soups or things they want to put in the freezer or how to get away from plastic if we could. That’s a little bit of a side arm, but it certainly interested a lot of people who broughht different containers and bags to show people. It’s a great sharing experience, somebody can just come for the first time and listen, there’s no commitment to talk and we’ve had quite a few newbies who come, one woman who’s granddaughter was eating vegan, or at least more vegetarian, and the grandmother, although she’s not, wanted to be able to cook with her granddaughter and eat with her granddaughter when she came over. So that really struck me as an extension of this, and also an openness that members don’t have to be strictly vegan. I for one, do have egg whites sometimes, so I wouldn’t be strict vegan but we eat a very plant-based diet. I find that the cooking is a lot more interesting than it has been for me in the past. I kind of quit cooking sort of, and then when I got interested in vegan cooking, because I live with a vegan, I found some great books that got me back cooking things that take a bit of time and energy but that are really flavorful and fun. Just to share some books, Brendan Brasier has two cookbooks out I like, Thrive Energy Cookbook, and Thrive Food. And I like these books because he broke down further for me how to get energy from food – and as an athlete he talks about how certain foods gives him a burst of energy versus long energy. I am not a runner, but I like that concept and so I started going into his ideas and recipes that he worked with a professional chef on and I found them really intriguing. Another book I like is the Oh She Glows Cookbook. That one was written by Angela Lidden, and she also has a blog that I tune into when I’m looking for a recipe. Great things. I’ve always been interested in salads – that was kind of my job as a young child, I’ve kind of done that my whole life, and I found a book called Salad Days after having some Salad Days salad dressings that they carry at our local Coop, and found out about the author, the Minnesota author that worked at a resort, and she was called the salad girl. And her salad dressings are very intriguing – very fresh and lots of interesting combinations. And then Salad Days was the cookbook she was promoting and I’ve found some very interesting things in it. Our favorite recipe book is Joel Furhman’s Eat to Live Quick and Easy Cookbook. So those are my go-tos. And Joel Furhman’s cookbook is helpful because it’s very health-based.I’ve enjoyed eating plants for a long time – I remember when I was working in the office and I’d bring my lunch people would look at it and go, why don’t you eat more meat, what’s wrong with you, but meat has never interested me that much. I used to like bacon but I’ve learned to live without that and I reallyu like all kinds of vegetables, but mostly its the green ones, and there’s such a variety, I’m never at a loss. I do have to watch how much fragile leafy things I buy because I may not be able to cook them up fast enough but I do find that I usually have a bunch of veggies in the fridge that I can make into soup or roasted vegetables, and you’ll find that I have a recipe for that that I’ve shared. Butternut squash I put on the bottom of the roasting pan because it makes a nice creamy layer. If I roast brocolli or cauliflower I do that an entirely different way all by themselves at a higher temperature. But for the roasted vegetables in a pyrex dish I usually have a few brussel sprouts that I cut in half and throw in, I use Beyond Meat sausages – the hot Italian sausage seems to flavor things – and raw onions and carrots and if I don’t have time I could always get a bag of minicarrots and throw that in. And zuchhini sometimes. And as I’m kind of inventorying the fridge sometimes roasted vegetables are the easiest dinner to make and we can eat them the next night over pasta if we don’t eat them all the first night. [In my cooking I use broth or oil or both] And when I’m roasting the vegetables I do do a light amount of olive oil on top of it before I put it in the oven. But I also sometimes use hemp oil or grape seed oil, for a stir fry on the top of the stove. It takes about 45 minutes at 450. And I usually line the bottom of the pyrex pan – I use the big sized pan and I usually put a layer of aluminum foil at the bottom, it seems to radiate the heat in a certain way that works. You could put cracked pepper or chili flakes. I don’t usually put much salt at all. Usually there’s enough flavor in the sausages. And I buy organic vegetables where I can, when I can. I just feel there is more mineral content in them and the flavor is better. Bob’s Red Mill puts out a nice cornbread mix, it calls for eggs but I usually use Bob’s Red Mill replacer. I end up with a dozen muffins, eat a couple of muffins with soup and then put the rest in the freezer until they’re done, and then time to eat more. I also think that buying good spices is important – the ones that I had in my picture – the Italian is the regular grocery store Italian seasoning, the garlic and onion I got at the Coop, its a nice blend made by Frontier, but my favorite is to buy spices from Penzey’s. They’re in the Twin Cities, but since I don’t live in that area anymore I can order them, and they are very good. But they have blends I use mostly in soup. Advice for a new vegan: Well I think I’d like to learn first whether they like vegetables and what kinds. Because I think it works best to build on what people like already. I was talking to a friend who said she loved cauliflower so I told her about the cauliflower pizza crust we get at the local grocery store that we add vegetables to and cook weekly, and she got excited about it because she likes cauliflower, and these pizza crusts don’t taste like cauliflower really but I think building on something already likes, because someone might think that the only vegetable they like is a potato – and that’s a lot different than mixed greens and broccoli and snapped peas. I’d like to find out from a person what they like to eat and then build on that and then share simple things that I’ve learned along the way, like the roasted vegetables, is not difficult, and encourage them to have a fully vegetable dinner once a week, and then maybe twice a week. Then I’d also want to know what is it that they’re afraid to give up – and there might be a substitute that I can recommend. I mentioned earlier that I really do miss bacon. But I’ve found that tempeh marinated in some soy sauce and other things and then baked it satisfies my interest in bacon right there. Plus, I do feel very attached to animals. I’ve always had a dog and a cat and you start getting into little pigs and its not that much of a jump for me, so I’d just as soon as stay away from eating animals. Stirfry, some kind of pasta dish, Bob’s Red Mill Cereal, its gluten free and really satisfying, so I usually eat it during the week, and I put walnuts on it and some vegan butter and I’m in heaven. What it really likes is that it holds me. Most dinners we have a salad with it, I eat a salad for lunch. Salad dressings are interesting and fun and challenging. A simple vinnegrette is easy to make and lasts a long tiem. Mixed greens, carrots, cucumburs, started growing sprouts, cut up snap peas, and then I usually add unsalted raw pumpkin seeds. I like the taste of them and they’re fresh, and it’s a little layered container that you water twice a day, and there are different seeds you can get at the coop. Right now I’m using alfalfa, but there’s also brocolli which is great. I can make sprouted brocolli and add it to my salads. And if I’m having a sandwich I love having sprouts on top instead of a second layer of bread. I might make a piece of gluten free toast and then use some almond milk cheese, and then maybe a little guac and then on top of that sprouts.
Vegan Cookbook Club 