Bianca Phillips's Blog, page 29

Fried "Chicken," Za'atar Flatbread, & Panang Curry

This past weekend, Imagine Vegan Cafe posted that they were offering their KFC (Kruelty-Free Chicken) Special. They offer this a few times a year, and it's so amazing. I just had to get it again! The plate came with two vegan drummies, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegan mac and cheese, corn on the cob, coleslaw, and a buttered biscuit. I probably could have made two meals from this, but why??? I ate it all. 

Also on Saturday, I enjoyed this perfect Za'atar Flatbread (with hummus from home) that I picked up from LuLu's at the Cooper-Young Farmers Market. I wish I could have this every day.

And here's a bowl of Tofu Panang Curry! I made this Sunday night with air-fried tofu, broccoli, mushrooms, coconut milk, and panang curry paste. Super easy, and it tasted as good as any restaurant panang I've had. 

Happy Mardi Gras everyone! Tomorrow, I'll post a recap of all my fun Fat Tuesday eats. 

Fried "chicken," za'atar flatbread, & panang curry

This past weekend, Imagine Vegan Cafe posted that they were offering their KFC (Kruelty-Free Chicken) Special. They offer this a few times a year, and it's so amazing. I just had to get it again! The plate came with two vegan drummies, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegan mac and cheese, corn on the cob, coleslaw, and a buttered biscuit. I probably could have made two meals from this, but why??? I ate it all. 

Also on Saturday, I enjoyed this perfect Za'atar Flatbread (with hummus from home) that I picked up from LuLu's at the Cooper-Young Farmers Market. I wish I could have this every day.

And here's a bowl of Tofu Panang Curry! I made this Sunday night with air-fried tofu, broccoli, mushrooms, coconut milk, and panang curry paste. Super easy, and it tasted as good as any restaurant panang I've had. 

Happy Mardi Gras everyone! Tomorrow, I'll post a recap of all my fun Fat Tuesday eats. 

Avocado Bagels, Berry Oats, & Tea Time

Kroger had their mashed everything bagel seasoning avocado on markdown, so I picked some up for my pre-workout bagels and avocado toasts for the week. The avocado spread was perfect on a plain white bagel.

Here's a bowl of Peanut Butter Berry Oats that I had Sunday morning before a 10K race. I mixed monkfruit and PB into the oats, and then I topped with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and more PB.

One day last week, I had a quick dinner of Hearty Bean Chili (from the 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution cookbook). I'd frozen some back in January when I made a big pot. Topped with Tofutti sour cream, pickled jalapenos, and Daiya shreds and served with corn muffins (also frozen, also from that book).

Since I've been working from home, I've been trying to do daily tea time in the afternoons. Typically, I'll have dark chocolate with my herbal tea, but one day last week, I had these little Sesakiss sesame seed orange biscuits from Poland. We have a local hygge store called Lucyja Hygge, and they have lots of Polish snacks!

Margs, Taco Salad and GGB Bowls

Tuesday was National Margarita Day AND Taco Tuesday. WHAT?! That's one holiday I knew I needed to celebrate. For my marg, I used the standard recipe from The Taco Cleanse cookbook (just tequila, lime, and triple sec), but I had some blood oranges that were going bad, so I added the juice from one of those. Perfection!

I'm trying to eat salads every day (after being inspired by a podcast with Dr. Joel Fuhrman), so rather than have regular tacos, I had a Taco Salad. Also, I'm out of tortillas. For the dressing, I had half an avocado that needed using, and I had the weird idea to mix in balsamic vinegar. I instantly realized that an aesthetically bad choice. Ha! Brown avocado dressing, it is! But it was still tasty. I told myself it was "creamy balsamic," and that made it seem better.

Here's a delicious, recent GGB Bowl (grain/green/bean) with Trader Joe's Sriracha Tofu, steamed kale, and pearled barley. I love meals like this!

And here's this week's breakfast — Tofu Scramble & Toast with Coconut Butter. I've been doing scramble a lot lately. This is my standard No Meat Athlete scramble from their Health Made Simple program. 

Sushi & Miso Soup Night!

In my seemingly neverending quest to make every recipe from the No Meat Athlete Cookbook, I made the Anti-Inflammatory Miso Soup on Monday night. This hearty miso soup has lots of turmeric (hence the color), quinoa, carrots, bok choy, and red cabbage, and it's very tasty. And way more filling than I would expect from a miso soup!

But you can't have miso without sushi, so I made some of that too. Just some basic Veggie Rolls with avocado, carrot, cucumber, and scallion. Sometimes, I do brown rice to be healthier, but white rice works so much better. 

I got this adorable sake set from my former colleagues at Crosstown Arts when I left for my new job. And they gave me a giant bottle sake to go with it. So I heated up some sake and enjoyed that with my meal. Love a good sushi night at home!

Dining Out: Mung Bean Pasta & Pad Pak!

Here are a couple meals I've eaten out over the past week! Although my new job is mostly a "work from home" deal, I do have to go into the office once a week. And I pass right by the Raw Girls new downtown location on the drive. I love this all-vegan, healthy grab-and-go spot, and I'm guilty of not eating there often enough. So I've decided that, every office day, I'm going to stop in and grab lunch on the way to work. On Monday, I got their Mung Bean Pasta with sweet potatoes, hemp seeds, and basil pesto, and it was perfect!

Last Saturday, Paul's sister Sheila came to Memphis for a visit, and she wanted to go eat at The Nine Thai Sushi downtown after seeing our Valentine's pictures there. This time, I started with a Fresh Salad Roll (minus the shrimp). This was mostly lettuce, but there was a tiny sliver of avocado. It came with plum sauce, rather than peanut sauce (which is the way it typically comes at a Vietnamese restaurant). Still good though.

My entree was excellent! I ordered the Pad Pak because I was craving veggies! This is a traditional Thai stir-fry with lots of veggies and tofu. I saved some for lunch the next day and was glad I did.

Ramen, Overnight Oats, & Buffalo Chicken Sandwich!

Last night, I needed to use up some leftover tofu puffs that Paul didn't eat. I picked him up some tofu pho from Pho Binh on Friday, and he only used about half the puffs (they're packed separately from the broth) in his soup. So I had the rest, plus all of the pho fixings he didn't want (onions, scallions, bean sprouts, jalapenos, and hoison), in a bowl of Vite Ramen Miso Soup. This hit the spot.

Last Friday, I had Overnight Oats for breakfast. The oat base had soymilk, chia seeds, and allulose (the Trader Joe's brand of all-natural sugar sub), and I added dates, blueberries, walnuts, and peanut butter on top. Plus, extra soymilk. This was an exceptionally good bowl of oats.

And here's a recent Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. I used the last of the Gardein Ultimate Buffalo Chicken that I bought for the Super Bowl, plus cashew ranch. Messy but so tasty!

By the way, I've started my new job at The Daily Memphian, and I love it! A big part of my job is writing the morning news wrap-up with blurbs about the stories from the past day's news cycle. If you're interested, you can check out this morning's column here. 

Avocado "Toast," Burrito Bowls, & a Valentine's Cup

On Tuesday morning, I wanted avocado toast for breakfast. And I had plenty of avocados that I didn't use for Super Bowl guac. For some reason, I bought 4 avocados for my guac, even though I was only making enough for one person (Paul likes it but rarely eats it, so it was just for me). Ha! But I was out of bread. So I made sweet potato "toasts" by roasting slices in the oven and then popping them in the toaster. I topped my "toasts" with lots of everything bagel seasoning and sriracha.

I also had lots of beer cheese dip left from the Big Game, so I made a Burrito Bowl for dinner last night (and again for lunch today). The base is brown rice, garlickly black beans, and corn, topped with beer cheese dip, salsa, lettuce, Tofutti sour cream, pickled jalapenos (my obsession of the moment) and guac (because of all those avocados!).

And finally, I just had to show you all the awesome wine tumbler my friend Mike sent me for Valentine's Day! It's nice to have friends who have your back. ;-)

Valentine's Food & Races!

I know Valentine's Day gets a lot of crap. But I love cheesy holidays, hearts, romantic dinners, and chocolate so I'm all in. My parents are the best Valentine's, and they always send me something tasty. This year, my dad picked out two boxes of Sjaak's Melk and Dark Chocolate Caramels from Vegan Essentials and had them shipped to my house. I've been enjoying these (only one a day so they'll last!).

 My mom sent Paul and I a check to pay for our Valentine's dinner, so we took ourselves out for a nice meal at The Nine Thai Sushi on Saturday night.

When we arrived, we had the place to ourselves, which was a little weird. But it started filling up 30 minutes or so later. We realized we'd shown up a little early for dinner (5ish), but we were hungry!

I started with the Crispy Spring Rolls. I tried to order the rice paper rolls, which they do serve (we've ordered them before), but they're not on the menu. And there was a language barrier, so I ended up with these. They were tasty though very tiny.

For my main, I went with the Tofu Pad See Ew (hold the egg). I thought they only gave me three pieces of tofu when this was delivered to our table, but I did some digging and found lots hiding under the noodles. It was very good pad see ew! So good that, the next day, Paul asked if he could trade me his Tofu Panang leftovers for my pad see ew. I enjoyed the panang as well, so I made the trade.

Oh, and I should have mentioned earlier that, on Saturday morning, my friend Megan and I ran the Cupid's Dash 15K at Herb Parsons Lake in Collierville. My friend Peter race-directed this Valentine's Day trail race, and we had a blast. Peter always provides Fireball at his races (and vegan-friendly snacks!), so we did a post-race shot together (and enjoyed lots of peanut butter pretzels and pickles). Here's a fun pic of us from the race, taken by Mark Ogletree.

The next day, Sunday, was Galentine's, and my gal Megan and I ran another race! This time, it was the non-Valentine's-themed (but still relevant cause it fell on Galentine's!) Stanky Creek 8K trail race in Bartlett. This was a fun one, but we were both pretty tired from the day before.

On actual Valentine's Day (do you like how I drag holidays out?), Monday, Paul and I made his and hers lasagna. His had meat and dairy cheese, but mine was made with green lentil lasagna noodles, Nabati Foods vegan mozz, homemade tofu ricotta, and some tasty mushrooms that Paul sauteed for us. We enjoyed our dinner over a movie — King Richard with Will Smith — and it was lovely.

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day weekend!

Super Bowl Snacks!

Super Bowl Sunday is one of my favorite winter holidays! I'm not a big football fan, though I do enjoy watching the big game. But I'll confess that I never have a clue which team I'm for until the day of. Last night, I was rooting for the Bengals because they had cooler helmets. So there ya go! Despite their loss, it was exciting to watch the Rams come back in the last quarter. 

The real fun for me though isn't the game or the commercials (though I do love those! That Uber Eats commercial was my fave of the night). It's the snacks for me. Last night, I made Gardein Ultimate Buffalo Chicken in the air fryer and served with Imagine Vegan Cafe's ranch dressing. Plus, I made Beer Cheese Dip from the No Meat Athlete Cookbook. And of course, I had to have guac!

The beer cheese dip looks a little dark because I used a dark beer, but it had great flavor. The dip has cashews, walnuts, beer, and lots of nooch, and it got a little thicker than I'd like (I added more cornstarch than the recipe called for). But I noticed that it thins out well when heated with some additional liquid. I have a lot left so I see burrito bowls in my future!

Here's a close-up of that chicken. The Gardein Ultimate is by far the best vegan chicken on the market, IMO, and these were fantastic.

Oh, and here was a fun Super Bowl Sunday find. Paul and I stopped by Kroger for snacks, and I just happened to check the ingredients on these. They're vegan!