Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are one of our go to meals because we can use up any veggies we have in the fridge! It does take a while to roll these, especially when you are new to it. However we have now become faster at this and deeply enjoy it.

In this recipe we chose not to list specific amounts of vegetables as we will often cut up a lot of veggies and then wrap up as many as we feel like eating. We often wrap more the next day when we want to eat more. Additionally, because we use this to clean out the veggies we have in our fridge, we use this as a template and then adjust how much of each vegetable we use. For example, we have cabbage heavy spring rolls if we have lots of cabbage and not a lot of carrots, etc.

Prep time: 20 minutes, total time depends on how fast you are at wrapping and how many you make.

Serves: we didn’t write this recipe with a specific portion size in mind, feel free to make as many as please you. If you are new to this, start small and then size up from there.

Ingredients

Spring roll wrappers

lettuce

grated carrot

sliced cabbage

mint leaves

basil leaves

bean sprouts

for the scrambled egg:

4 large eggs

1/4 cup almond milk

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

for the sauce:

1/4 cup avocado oil

1 inch ginger

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup almond butter

2 tbsp tamari

2 tbsp coconut aminos

1 tsp sriracha

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Whisk all the “for the scrambled eggs” ingredients in a small bowl. Preheat a large frying pan with some olive oil to medium or medium high heat. Pour in the egg and scramble to your liking.

Rinse the lettuce, pat dry, and tear into 3 inch long rough ovals. Grate carrots. Thinly slice cabbage. Rinse mint and basil and remove leaves from stems. Rinse bean sprouts.

To make the sauce, start by mincing garlic and ginger. Heat a pan to medium high with oil and add the garlic and ginger. Cook, stirring constantly, until they are fragrant. Either turn off the heat (if using electric stove) or turn the heat very low (if using gas stove). Then add the almond butter and stir until it melts into the oil and becomes soft and liquid-y. Add the tamari, coconut aminos, and sriracha. Stir, put in a bowl, and set aside.

Next, make a spring roll station. Fill a wide shallow pan with 1/2 inch water. Using cold water the spring roll wrappers will take longer to soften, hot water makes the softening process faster. Make this choice based on how much time you want to roll the spring rolls. For example, if you want to move at a slower pace, cold water could be a good option. If you want to and are able to fill and wrap quickly, hot water is a good choice.

Next to the water, clear a surface to roll on. We like to do this on a large wooden cutting board. Then next to the cutting board place a large plate to put the finished spring rolls. Along the top and sides of this set up, place all of the fillings you prepared above (except the sauce) for easy reaching!

To roll, soften a rice wrapper by fully submerging in the water. Most spring roll wrappers have a subtle raised texture on one side. Once the wrapper has mostly lost its surface texture it is soft enough to work with. It should be soft enough to work with but not so soft that it sticks to everything a ton/breaks easily. Experiment until you find something that feels easy(ish) to work with. At first this task might feel challenging however it gets easier with practice. Once it is soft enough, spread this in front of you on the cutting board. If you’ve spread it on the cutting board and realize it isn’t soft enough you can wait 30 seconds or a minute as it will continue to soften — running your finger along it will help. Also note if it is very soft it will continue to soften as you assemble the ingredients so if you are slow to put all the ingredients on the wrapper you will want to pull it out less soft to account for that time. As you get fast at layering the ingredients you can work with a softer wrapper since it won’t sit there as long.

At the bottom, we have a video of how to roll these, and we will also describe it here: place a piece of lettuce in the center of the wrapper. Then make a log shaped pile of cabbage on top of the lettuce. Add pieces of scrambled of egg on top of the cabbage. Then add a couple of bean sprouts and then the grated carrot. Add mint and basil leaves across the top. Lift the part of the wrapper closest to you and fold up over your pile of vegetables. Fold in each side. Then roll away from you until completely rolled. Then place on plate and start another one!

Serve with sauce and enjoy!

Burritos with Taco Tofu Meat

We love having these burritos on our menu plan. We usually make extra beans and/or extra tofu and eat those with other meals throughout the week. We really love leftover refried beans with fried potatoes for breakfast. For the toppings section we listed a bunch of options — we often go with what we have in the house. Feel free to just pick one or a couple that sound good to top off these delicious wraps.

Serves: 4-6

Time: 1 hr 30 minutes if using InstantPot

Ingredients

Tortillas (gluten-free option - we recommend the following three for gluten-free options that are burrito sized depending on what your store has: Siete Burrito, Raw Wraps, or Mission Gluten Free Wraps. Also our all-time favorite corn taco sized option if you want to eat this as tacos are Three Sisters Nixtamal)

For the beans:

3/4 cup dried pinto beans

salt

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1/2 onion

4 garlic cloves

3 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp cayenne

For the tofu:

1 block of tofu

3 tbsp high heat oil (we like avocado)

3 tbsp corn starch

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp cayenne

1 tsp bouillon (we like Rapunzel or Better than Bouillon)

1 tbsp mamma lil’s red pepper oil

1/4 cup boiling water

For the Fajitas Veggies:

high heat oil

1 big red onion

2 red bell peppers

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 lime

Toppings (we don’t use all of these, just whatever ones we have around or are calling to us, feel free to mix and match):

1 tomato

1 avocado

lettuce

shredded purple cabbage

green olives

hot sauce

mamma lil peppers

cilantro

vegan sour cream

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In the Instant Pot:

To cook the pinto beans in an Instant Pot, add 3/4 cup of dried pinto beans to the pot.  Cover the beans with water (in the small Instant pot this is about 6 cups of water), season with 1 tbsp kosher salt, 1 tsp chili powder, and 1 tsp cumin. Add half an onion and 4 cloves of garlic.  Set the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 18 minutes letting depressurize naturally. Drain and rinse.

On the stove:

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can easily cook pinto beans from scratch with a little planning. First you will need to soak the pinto beans which can be done one of two ways. 1. you can soak them overnight making sure they have enough water and space to double in size or 2. you can put them in a pot and bring to boil, then turn off the water and let soak for one hour. Again, make sure you have enough water and space that they can double in size.

Once you have soaked your beans, rinse them and then put in a pot with salty water. These will be cooking for about 2 hours so you don’t want as much salt as you would use for pasta, but you do want to add enough that you can taste the salt. The best way to get good at this is to practice. Each time you salt the water, taste it and when the beans are done taste them to see if they are well salted. A well salted bean should taste flavorful but not salty. If it tastes like you are eating salt, you added too much. If the bean lacks flavor then you didn’t have enough salt. For this recipe, also add half an onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp chili powder, and 1 tsp cumin to the pinto beans as they cook.

Cook the pinto beans until they are soft but not falling apart (this will take 1.5-2 hours).  We recommend checking the beans at about an hour and then every 20 minutes until they are soft but not disintegrating. Make sure your pot has enough water as I have definitely cooked all the water off before and burnt the beans! This may seem like a lot of work, however once you get the hang of it the work is almost all passive and the reward is high: pinto beans cooked from scratch taste much better and are much cheaper!

Press the tofu between two layers of kitchen towel with a weight (like a sheet pan with some cook books on top) for about 10 minutes.

While the beans are cooking and the tofu is pressing, slice the onions and peppers. Heat a frying pan with high heat oil such as avocado to medium high heat. Add the onions and salt. Cook for about 7 minutes stirring frequently. Once the onions are starting to get translucent, add the sliced peppers and cook until the peppers have some browning about 7 additional minutes. Once everything is cooked squeeze half a lime over the veggies and then remove them from the heat and set aside.

Add 3 tbsp of high heat oil to a pan over medium heat. Crumble the tofu into the hot pan and scramble about 10 minutes until it is starting to color. Add 3 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder, and 1/8 tsp cayenne to the tofu and turn the heat up slightly. Cook an additional 5 minutes until you get some crispy bits. Dissolve the bouillon and mamma lil oil in the hot water and add to the tofu. The water should boil immediately. Mix the tofu until the water has mostly boiled off, about 5 minutes.

Once the beans are cooked, put them in the food processor and add 3 tbsp of olive oil and 1/4 tsp cayenne and blend until smooth. Add salt to taste, and a squeeze of lime, and set aside.

Slice and dice any toppings you are using. We like to warm our tortillas before assembling. We do that by putting them over the burner on a gas stove, or toasting them lightly in the broiler or a toaster oven. Assemble and enjoy!

The Best Vegan Burger

Black Seeded Cult Burger is one of Camille’s favorite restaurants and this burger is an homage to what they do so beautifully!

Serves: 2

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 hamburger buns (gluten-free option, vegan option)

2 Beyond Burger or Lightlife Burger patties

8 bread and butter pickles

4 pieces romaine lettuce

1 very small onion or 1/2 of a medium onion

olive oil

2 tbsp white wine (optional)

ketchup

For the dill aioli:

1/2 cup vegan mayo (soy-free option)

1 1/2 tsps of lemon juice

1 tbsp dried dill

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Slice the onions and heat a frying pan to medium high with olive oil. Add the onions and cook stirring consistently for about 15 minutes. When the onions are fairly caramelized, if you are using wine, add the white wine and continue to stir until the wine disappears (about 2 minutes).

Remove the onions, scrape the pan clean and leave the heat on. You do not need to add extra oil as the burger patties have oil in them. Add the burger patties to the pan and cook according to package instructions. Meanwhile, toast the burger buns. While this is happening, mix the aioli ingredients together and set aside.

To assemble, spread aioli on both pieces of the hamburger bun. Next add the burger patty, some caramelized onions, pickles, some extra aioli, ketchup, and romaine lettuce. Close up your burger sandwich and enjoy!