New bloggers almost every day! Thank you everyone for coming together, this is exactly what VBU! is all about – yay us!
Please meet Susan, blogger of Fried Tofu. Here she is in her own words.
“Hello, my name is Susan. I reside in Chicago, IL with my husband and my dog. I once was a competitive swimmer, turned runner (2 marathons, check!), turned corporate professional, turned wine-o (due to the job), turned Vegan, turned blogger. I am type A, but my husband and best friend (Morgan, my fellow blogger) do a great job of balancing me out. I love to travel. I grew up with two supportive parents and two uniquely awesome sisters. I ride my bike to work (almost) everyday. I have a strange obsession with air planes and still find air travel to be an amazing feat. If I’m not in my kitchen, you can find me at a concert.
Fried Tofu is a blog about two friends with different views on food, coming together on one blog. Susan, the Vegan, Morgan, the not-so-Vegan, working to share recipes, travel experiences, totally awesome products and much more. The main focus is recipe Face Offs, where we put our own spin on one dish. Morgan makes a non-Vegan dish and I Veganize it. We post a Recipe Face Off every 2 weeks.” Please follow Susan and her adventures on her blog, Facebook and Twitter. Welcome Susan!
I made a “real” bolognese sauce about 6 or 7 years ago that my husband went crazy over. I never wrote down the recipe and of course I could never repeat what I had created the first time around. I like to believe that the Vegan Gods were the cause of my forgetfulness. Well Seitan, you won…
The Chicago Marathon was held this past weekend on Sunday, October 7th. I ventured out on my bike at 8:30am to cheer for my friend Jami as well as all the runners who spent months preparing for the 26.2 miles. They ended up with great running weather – it was 40 degrees when I woke up that morning and it only broke 50 degrees in the afternoon. One could argue it was a little too chilly – as you can see I was handing out tissues to runners instead of water.
What goes hand and hand with distance running? Carbo-loading of course – something I am all too familiar with as an athlete. When I was a swimmer I looked forward to our team pasta parties held the night before a big swim meet. As runners, my husband and I would eat pasta (more often than we should) to get our calories back after a long training run. I do like pasta, however I enjoy it in moderation now.
The 2012 Chicago Marathon inspired me to go home and carbo-load for dinner. It was a bit chilly out, so I was in the mood for a hearty sauce to top off my linguine. Bolognese was the heartiest I could think of, so, I created my Vegan Bolognese sauce. Bolognese typically means a meat sauce, but my protein of choice was Gimme Lean Ground Beef. To give my sauce a ragù consistency I used my food processor and my immersion blender.
 |
 |
Vegan Bolognese
Serves 8
2 Carrots peeled
4 stalks of Celery
1 Yellow Onion
3 cloves of Garlic
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
14 ounces Gimme Lean Ground Beef
1 Cup Red Wine
2 (14.5 ounce) cans of Crushed Tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can of Tomato Sauce
1 1/2 Tablespoons of dried Basil, Oregano and Thyme
1 teaspoon dried Bay Leaves or 1 whole Bay Leaf
Salt
Red Pepper
1 Cup Unsweetened Soy Milk, room temperature
- In a food processor combine garlic, carrots, celery and onion into a paste.
- Heat olive oil in a large stock pot on Medium-High heat.
- Add carrot mixture and cook for 10-15 minutes, until liquid evaporates.
- Add your protein of choice and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes.
- Add Red Wine and reduce down.
- Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and dried seasonings. Stir and cook, covered, on Medium heat for 20-30 minutes to combine flavors.
- Decrease heat to low and add Salt and Red Pepper to taste.
- Stir in Soy Milk
- Serve over pasta of choice or freeze for later use.
Note: I did not have crushed tomatoes on hand, so I used diced tomatoes instead. I then used my immersion blender just after adding the tomatoes.
Looks hearty and delish! Back in the day I loved a good Bolognese – can’t wait to try this!