Vegan Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole has been one of my favorite dishes for awhile. Obviously, it's a must have a holiday dinners. But I love taking it to cookouts, too, and I have been known to make a batch for me just to eat for several dinners.

Recently a friend gave me a whole slew of green beans from his garden, and I haven't been sure what to do with them. So when a friend invited me over for a cookout, I decided to try and make a vegan version of this favorite dish. I was pretty nervous about making something that I *knew* wouldn't measure up, but I was pleasantly surprised! While it's a bit different, it's so so very good. It definitely fulfills that savory role of regular GB casserole. There was not a scrape left after the cookout. Also, this recipe has about a 1/3 of the fat compared to the regular style (and no cholesterol). I used this recipe, and followed it almost exactly. The only thing I might do differently next time is cut out the French Fried Onion's and use onions in the mushroom sauce.

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs of fresh green beans
10 ounces of mushrooms, I used about 8 regular white mushrooms
5 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 c vegetable broth
3/4 c full-fat unsweetened soymilk
1 Tbsp dry sherry
1.5 Tbsp Earth Balance margarine
pepper
salt
cayanne pepper
2 Tbsp flour
those delicious French friend onions
3/4-1 cup plain bread crumbs (I didn't measure)


First, set a large pot of water on to boil for the green beans. While this water is heating up, trim the beans and cut them into bite-sized pieces (1.5 inches long). Add beans and 1 Tbsp of salt to water and boil covered for about 7 minutes, drain and let sit in a colander. I did not put any cold water on them to stop the cooking process.

Next, remove the stems from the mushrooms and cut the mushrooms into pieces -- not slices. Coat a non-stick pan with olive oil, and add the mushrooms, 3 cloves of minced garlic, some salt and pepper (you know how much you want... I am a fan of salt, so I was generous), and a large sprinkle of cayanne. Let this cook on medium until the mushrooms are soft and release their juices. You'll know it when you see it.

While the mushrooms are cooking, whisk the flour into the vegetable broth. Add the flour/broth mixture and sherry to the cooked mushrooms. Stir and simmer on low until mixture thickens. Then add in the soy milk. Let this cook for about 5-10 minutes until thick, taste, and adjust seasonings as necessary. I added more salt, shocker. Add the green beans and mix well.

About the time you add the soymilk, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and oil an 8x11 pan. Set the pan aside.

In a medium sized bowl, melt the margarine and add in the rest of the garlic, bread crumbs, salt and pepper and mix well. Then stir in the onions. This will be your topping.

Pour mushroom/green bean mixture into pan, sprinkle bread crumb/onions on top and bake for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Vegan Lasagna

Very recently I decided to try a fully vegetarian diet with very limited dairy (so far, the only dairy I've eaten is feta cheese with my hummus). There are lots of reasons for this, but I think the best way I can put it is that I hope by intentionally eating good things, I will stop unintentionally eating crap (read: red bull and hot pocket for breakfast). I live in a city full of vegetarian and vegan dining options, and there is usually a group of veg people at cookouts, etc. So it's certainly a more friendly atmosphere than Texas, where I'm from. I grew up eating meat and potatoes (with lots of butter and milk), and many times food was fried.


I love to cook, and so I'm hoping this new lifestyle will open up different cooking experiences. Last night a friend and I made vegan lasagna. This experience was a first for me, but the end result was a tasty dish that did not leave me feeling sick after (as I often do after eating lasagna). I got the recipe from here, but I altered it
Ingredients (If you are wanting to be extra mindful, consider getting the organic versions of these):

• One 16 oz package of lasagna noodles


• One 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes


• Three 14.5 oz cans of tomato sauce


• 1/3 cup of tomato paste


• 3 Tbsp of olive oil


• 1 large white onion, diced


• 1 bunch of parsley (chopped and separated into two half cups)


• basil (chopped and separated into a half cup and a 1/3 cup)


• some chopped oregano


• some red pepper flakes


• Lots of minced garlic, at least 7 large cloves


• 2 zucchinis, thinly sliced lengthwise


• half a pound of white mushrooms, sliced


• 1 package of tofu (mine came in water and was the "extra firm" kind)


• fake mozzarella cheese (you can take or leave this) - thinly sliced lengthwise


• spinach - you can use the cut frozen kind or fresh. I used 1 package of the cut frozen kind. I let it defrost, but I forgot to drain it. This turned out to be okay, as many people on the recipe site had complained theirs was dry. Our lasagna was certainly not dry.


• salt and pepper


• 9x13 baking pan (We only had an 8x11, so we put the leftover ingredients into a smaller one for my friend to take home)

THE SAUCE (this was, in my opinion, the best part) allow an hour to prepare this:
Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan
Add the onions, let cook for until soft
Add half the garlic - I used one of those garlic press things
After garlic and onions have cooked for about 7-10 minutes, add all the tomato sauces and tomato paste
add mushrooms and red pepper flakes
I used a lot of salt and pepper, do it to your liking
add 1/2 cup of parsley, 1/2 cup of basil and oregano
Heat appropriately to slight boil, then reduce to low. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally


NOODLES

You'll also need a fairly large pot for these, as lasagna noodles are...big. We cooked them in two batches, and we didn't even end up using all of them.
Cook until al dente. One trick we did was taking them out of the pot and putting them on a plate until we were ready to use them.

TOFU

Drain the water, then in a large bowl, crumble up the tofu. It should resemble ricotta? Add in the rest of the garlic, parsley, oregano, and basil. Also, salt and pepper. Mix together with hands.


ASSEMBLY (preheat your oven to 400 at this point)


1/3 cup of tomato sauce along bottom of pan
Noodles
some zucchini slices
1/3 of the tofu sprinkled on top
some of the cheese slices
spread around some of the spinach
1 1/2 cup of tomato sauce

Repeat the italicized parts above until your pan is full. On top of the last layer of noodles add sauce and cheese. The more sauce the better.

Cook in an oven at 400 for 30 minutes. Let cool. It will seem watery if you didn't drain the spinach, but that's no biggie. I have found it's preferred for leftovers, to keep it from drying.

Enjoy!