Roasted Yellow Tomato Sauce over Whole Wheat Rotini

Roasted Yellow Tomato Sauce over Whole Wheat Rotini

We are fortunate to live in an area where there are deliveries of out of date and blemished produce and bread products donated by local grocery stores which are distributed to homeless shelters, then to mobile home parks a few times a week.

Our mobile home park is the last stop on the route and anything not taken by the residents of our park will be put into the dumpster.  Everyone else takes the doughnuts and cheese bread before the delivery gets to our park and all that's left for us is blemished veggies and whole grain breads and sometimes even silken tofu.  Perfect!  We always give the guy making the delivery a few dollars to help put gas in his truck.

We never know what will be in the truck when the delivery gets to us, and it's always fun to figure out what to do with the sometimes exotic blemished fruits and vegetables we get.

The last delivery included about 5 pounds of yellow tomatoes, most of which were pretty soft and needed to be eaten or cooked soon.  I washed them, wrapped them in parchment paper and put them into a large baking pan, roasting at 350°F for 45 minutes, then let them cool enough to handle so we could remove the skins.

We blended them and refrigerated them until I could take time to make a sauce.  At this point the tomatoes could be frozen but I wanted to make a pasta sauce soon.

We already had some out of date basil that had been saved from demise by picking through the packages of fresh leaves to save what we could, washing well, steaming, then freezing in portions until we had a chance to use it.  We had some whole wheat rotini pasta from another of the food deliveries to our park, so I cooked that to put the sauce over.  It's topped with vegan Parmesan "cheese" which I make at home.

I put the various food gifts together for our dinner tonight.

Roasted Yellow Tomato Sauce over Whole Wheat Rotini

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp. salt, divided

5 lbs. yellow tomatoes, roasted, skins removed

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

1 cup salsa

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

2 tsp. dried basil or 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. crushed red pepper (optional)

1 lb. dry whole wheat rotini pasta

Heat the balsamic vinegar in a large pot over medium heat, then saute the chopped onion and minced garlic, until onion is translucent, sprinkling a teaspoon of salt over the onions and garlic while sauteing.

Add the crushed yellow tomatoes, tomato paste, salsa, nutritional yeast, basil, oregano, thyme, crushed red pepper, remaining teaspoon of salt, and black pepper.  Cook over medium low heat for about 10 minutes, then use a stick blender to make a smooth sauce.  Leave to simmer over low heat while the pasta is cooking.

Cook the pasta according to package directions and top with sauce and top with vegan Parmesan "cheese".

Tofu Scramble with Home Fries

Today's breakfast includes a tofu scramble including vegetables that we had leftover from other dishes and home fries made from lovely organically grown red potatoes:

Tofu Scramble

14 oz. firm tofu crumbled into a colander and allowed to drain for about 5 minutes
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 small tomato, diced
1 small zucchini, diced
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1 tsp. or more Bragg liquid aminos (or tamari sauce or soy sauce)
1-2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (optional)
vegetable broth or water for sauteing

Add about 1/4 cup vegetable broth or water to a large skillet and heat over medium heat.  Add the vegetables, saute until soft.  Add the tofu, nutritional yeast, Bragg aminos and turmeric.  Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes to blend flavors.  Taste, adjust seasonings to suit your palette and serve.

Note:  Add whatever veggies you might have leftover from other dishes.  Corn or black beans would be good, as well and carrots diced small (about 1/4 inch dice), mushrooms, yellow squash, you name it.

Home Fries

6 red potatoes (about 2-2-1/2" diameter each) diced into 3/4" pieces
1/2 cup vegetable broth

Preheat oven to 450°F.  Toss the potato pieces with broth and pour into a pan lined with parchment paper or lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  Cover with foil.  Bake for 15 minutes, remove foil and turn the potato pieces over with a spatula.  Bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft and browned on the edges.

Vegan Waldorf Salad

This is an easy to make, simply wonderful dish that you can bring to any get together and it will be loved by all.  The salad in the photo below is made with only Granny Smith apples since that's all we had at the time.  Mix and match apples to suit availability and your taste.  Golden raisins instead of brown raisins would be great in this too.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raisins (soaked for 20 minutes, then drained)
1/3 cup vegan mayo (I make my own with silken tofu, we'll post the recipe soon)
3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 Tablespoons regular agave nectar
3 Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped into 1/2-1 inch pieces
3 Fuji or Gala apples, cored and chopped into 1/2-1 inch pieces
2 celery ribs, diced small
1 cup toasted walnut pieces

Chop the apples and celery and add to a large bowl, then whisk the vegan mayo, vinegar, and agave nectar together in a measuring cup and pour over the apples.  Add the soaked, drained raisins and toasted walnuts and stir to mix until everything is evenly coated with the dressing.  Chill in the fridge, covered, for about 20 minutes and then serve.

VEGAN GYPSIES 2012

Current Goal July 14, 2012:

Hi all, we are Kim Davis and Mike Stangeland. This is our lifelong, we call it Vegan Gypsies because we have been traveling the US and Mexico continuously since early 2004 in a 5th wheel and diesel truck and we became low fat vegans March 20, 2012 which has been one of the most important and positive lifestyle changes we've ever undertaken.  The present goal of this log is to pass on the experiences we've encountered during the transition to veganism from the viewpoint of an older couple (Mike 66, Kim 54) on a very limited income, trying to make it on the expensive left coast of the US and trying to eat, as close as we can afford, an all organic, non-GMO, whole foods diet. We've sort of settled in Morro Bay California for the time being and may be back traveling next year.

Current History:


We've been vegetarians for 4 years but included dairy and fish in the diet and could never reach our health goals even through we ate what we thought was a 'good' diet and exercised every day usually climbing steep hills for 1 to 4 hours to get in our aerobic time. We read about the new movie "Forks Over Knives" in early March, watched it on Netflix March 19th and became very strict low fat vegans the next day. It's a very powerful movie that every person on the planet should watch. 


The diet we've adopted is a low fat, whole foods, plant based diet which includes NO meat, dairy, eggs or animal products of any kind and no vegetable oils.  When you follow this diet any excess weight should drop off effortlessly as long as you avoid added fats and processed foods.

Since March 20th Mike's lost 15 pounds and Kim's lost 10 pounds with no other change to our lifestyle than the new diet.  Mike's blood pressure is normal now for the first time in 20 years, he has been able to reduce his diabetes medicine to 1/3 of the original dose and we can't wait to see the results of his blood work in a couple of weeks! He should be able to discontinue all medications within a few months which will be an enormous boost to our budget.

We eat lots of green, orange, yellow, red and blue fruits and vegetables and make sure we're eating whole grains such as whole wheat breads, pasta and brown rice, plus beans and lentils and minimally processed soy products such as edamame, tofu and tempeh.

We avoid processed "pseudo-meat" products that contain textured vegetable protein, soy protein concentrate, soy protein isolate or other concentrated soy protein additives.  Many times processed soy "cheese" and "meat" actually contain whey protein from cow's milk, or casein protein (also from cow's milk) so you have to read the ingredients label carefully if you decide to eat those kinds of foods. Products with soy isolate have been found to be carcinogenic and should be shunned, and casein has been proven to be one of the most health damaging foods humans can eat, "Got Milk" is like saying "Got Poison".  We also try to avoid products made with GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) soy and corn, otherwise known as 'frankenfoods', (more on this horrible planet wide disaster later).

As we ramble along we'll probably include a lot of recipes with photos, maybe a few films of dish preparation, and recommendations for good value vegan products. We'll probably create list of great vegan websites, stories, books, lectures, organizations, and anything else that compliments the goal. 

We've both dabbled in the arts and music over the years so will probably go off subject with image series as mini-installations, observational essays, and even images and stories from the past that are brought back by current experiences. We've been naturalists for 20 years and have studied birds, plants, and now butterflies all over America and Mexico so will often include stories and images from this side of our life.