vivacious eats

plant based food without all the fluff. on Instagram & Pinterest as vivaciouseats! RECIPES: vivaciouseats.wordpress.com ©2018-2021 Vivacious Eats

[vivaciouseats]

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[vivaciouseats]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Vivacious Eats (@vivaciouseats)

[vivaciouseats]

Click here to view my latest what I eat in a day video! 🥗

It’s been hard to keep up on 3+ social media platforms lately in my free time (I wish food blogging was my job...). If you’d like to keep up on the latest from me please check out my direct website, my pinterest for recipe links, or my instagram for up-to-date content and extras like ‘what I eat in a day” videos! :)

See my bio for links ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

I currently have a few recipes in the works and one I'm really excited about is homemade yellow rice! I love making paella but don't love that most yellow rice brands on the market are loaded with sodium and chicken flavoring (so unnecessary). This recipe is coming down the pipe soon! 🤗 .. For the inaugural batch of yellow rice I decided to give it a Caribbean spin. I added in some black beans and paired it with some "jerk chicken" made from @countrylifefoods soy curls coated in potato starch, baked, and tossed in jerk sauce. The dried red and green bell pepper pieces that give this yellow rice just the right colorful touch are also from CLNF! 🙌

[vivaciouseats]

Since formulating this faux avocado spread (recipe in the works) I've been using it for EVERYTHING. It's such a great affordable alternative to avocados, and bonus points because less shipping & transport make it better for the environment too! 🥑💚 .. One of the best snacks I've had this week is taking some crispy crunchy sea salt flavored Ancient Grains brown rice crackers from @sesmarkcrackers and giving them the avocado toast treatment! Spread with guacamole or mockamole, squirt some lime juice, and sprinkle on some crushed red pepper & flaky sea salt (I love @jacobsensaltco) and you have lovely teeny tiny avocado toasts! 😊🙌

[vivaciouseats]

I make a mean big-batch mac & cheese, but sometimes I just need a quick lunch in a smaller portion! Many dairy-free “instant mac & cheese” recipes still involve thickening a sauce separately before adding your cooked noodles but if I’m in a hurry, I’m in a HURRY. I needed a recipe that acted exactly like Kraft mac & cheese- cooked noodles, powder, just enough milk to make it all stick, done. Through several trials I’ve figured out the perfect ratio to mimic that quick boxed mac & cheese experience but cheaper and healthier to boot! 🧀💸 .. I’ve also been asked if I opened a box of mac & cheese and threw out the cheese packet to get these perfect Kraft-copycat noodles but I have a lovely secret: @creamette_pasta brand noodles in the shape “Ready Cut Spaghetti”! They don’t break apart during the mixing process like rotini or more delicate noodle shapes and take me way back to my Kraft mac & cheese days .. Vegan Instant Mac & Cheese Powder recipe on my website!⭐

[vivaciouseats]

There's a @tacobell coming soon to my area and will be only 20 minutes from my house (which is probably way farther than most people live from a tbell?) and I'm stoked!! 🙌🌮 Yesterday I even dug out some sauce packets I had stashed in the fridge from the last time I was in a taco bell drive thru 😂 .. In the meantime I'm whipping up my own diy taco bell crunchy tacos with mexi-seasoned textured vegetable protein from @countrylifefoods, shredded cabbage, creamy corn salsa, and..... I SWEAR that's not avocado! I recently saw a "n'avocado" or "mockamole" recipe on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives from @pingalacafe that I just had to experiment with. I did end up heavily modifying the official recipe because I don't have a high powered blender and wanted a heavy cilantro kick but let me tell you it. is. so. good. my mind is blown 🥑💥 Avocados are so pricey these days and very impractical for me to buy so this concept is SUCH a blessing!!

[vivaciouseats]

The first time I heard of Nutella I was in Austria on a high school band trip and remember laughing because it seemed like such a weird but adorable name. Full disclosure, I still can’t figure out how I prefer pronouncing it (kind of a pecan/pee-can/pe-cahhn situation). It’s made from hazelnuts so “nuh-tella” seems most natural but since it's become Americanized I've heard “new-tella” so many times that now I’m lost. However you pronounce it, it remains delicious! 🍫 .. So many dairy-free Nutella recipes involve blending whole hazelnuts in a food processor until a butter finally forms and I figured there had to be an easier (and cheaper) way. I decided to take a chance on humble natural peanut butter and found just the right ratio of ingredients to transform it into something magical! It takes just a couple minutes to mix together and the result is a nutritious, dairy-free, and low sugar indulgent spread for my favorite breakfast toast, thick cut rye bread from @trenary_toast 😋🍞 .. Recipe on my website now! ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

Love pesto but hate how calorie dense oil-based versions are?? This pesto recipe replaces olive oil with green peas, resulting in a low fat & high protein pesto! .. This pesto is a great base for veggie burgers or roasted veggie sandwiches, thinned out with some almond milk as a pasta sauce, as a sauce for pizza, or simply spread onto some thick crusty bread! 🍞 .. Oil-Free Green Pea Pesto recipe on my website! ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

As May arrives and we are on the very CUSP of summer I find myself absolutely longing for those delicious carefree summer foods but realistically am still over a month away from putting anything in the garden and still mainly relying on root veggies and winter squash from last fall. After making (what seems like) a million batches of lentil & winter squash soup I realized I’ve made sweet potato burgers in the past and substituting in winter squash should be easy enough to do! 🍔 .. All the sudden I have a delicious summery recipe to use up the remaining winter squash until it’s time again for fresh garden salads and the like! While I wait for fresh tomatoes to garnish burgers with, I add a pop of freshness with green pea pesto made from frozen peas and broccoli sprouts made in my kitchen cupboard 🌱 .. Recipe for Winter Squash Veggie Burgers on my website now! ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

Of the many wonderful ways to use soy curls, I think my favorite is coating them in starch, baking them in the oven to create a crispy coating, and then stirring them all together with veggies and any kind of simmer sauce to make a meal that's truly indistinguishable from your favorite Chinese takeout! 😋 .. Vegan "pepper chicken" stir fry with soy curls from @countrylifefoods, green beans from last years garden, a bit of frozen broccoli, onions, and fresh garlic in a sweet, sticky, & peppery homemade sauce over enriched white rice splashed with some rice vinegar! 🥡 Oh and topped with sesame seeds that I also order from CLNF ☺️

[vivaciouseats]

This is your message to make sure you get some pizza in this weekend! 🍕😎 .. My preferred type of pizza is Neapolitan pizza with thick chewy crust and I feel closer than ever to getting there with my homemade pizzas! I've gotten my flour ratios & rise times almost down and have started adding 1 tbsp of vital wheat gluten for every cup of flour to build those beautiful gluten strands 😋 .. The go-to pizza toppings lately are red sauce, mushrooms, red onion, sliced garlic, artichoke hearts, and faux pepperoni crumbles made from @countrylifefoods textured vegetable protein coated in pepperoni seasonings, starch, and then crisped up in the oven before going on the pizza!

[vivaciouseats]

I love kombucha but am not quite ready to get into fermenting to make my own yet, and the cost of buying it from the store can add up quickly. The 0.5% alcohol it contains can also be an obstacle if you’re a mom-to-be or avoiding alcohol for religious reasons. This No-Ferment Faux Kombucha is simply an infused vinegar that's simple to make and comes without the uncertainty of growing a live food product in your cupboards (although I am always sprouting something mine) 😅 .. My favorite kombucha varieties are the spicy, earthy flavors so I chose a mix of ginger, beet, and cayenne pepper for this recipe, but leave the cayenne pepper out if you’re a mild kind of person!🌶 .. No-Ferment Faux Kombucha recipe on my website! ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

I've had far too many pita pockets from the store that just don't... well, pocket. So I decided to take a stab at making my own pitas/flatbread! 🥙 .. I used the whole wheat flatbread recipe from @abeautifulmess (and added in some @kingarthurbaking vital wheat gluten) to make these GORGEOUS flatbreads! The vital wheat gluten created some great structure and I had nice large pockets with very well defined gluten strands! They're just lovely paired with some homemade spicy hummus, heavy on the tahini 😋

[vivaciouseats]

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a super cozy comfort meal like chickpea pot pie but don't want to take the time to make a whole batch of biscuits, enter one of my favorite elementary school lunches: chicken ala king, but veganized! .. To make this chickpea ala king I took my Chickpea Pot Pie recipe (made with @edwardandsons not chick'n bouillon cubes) but instead of baking it in the oven topped with biscuits I simply spooned it over a bowl of brown rice! Simple and perfect for a cold rainy early spring day 🌧 .. Chickpea Pot Pie recipe on my website! ⭐

[vivaciouseats]

Photo dump because the past month I’ve been channeling my energy into recipe development and some new photography techniques