Salisbury Steaks with Cauliflower/Potato Mash & Leftovers

Welcome to Tuesday!  I am feeling rested, rejuvenated and accomplished.  We had 4 glorious days together as a family.  We enjoyed a wonderful Easter and birthday feast with some extended family on Saturday night.  We even managed to do some clean up in the front yard; YES, there IS a garden bed under all the leaves from the fall! Yes sir-ee, things are starting to take shape!

I am pleased to say, that I tried some new and wonderful plant based recipes last week and I even found a way to make some of my traditional recipes more plant based. My repertoire is getting bigger and I think I am well under way to "clean up" our traditional Christmas Season feasts as well! 

As I have so much to tell you about my food exploits of last week, I think I will have to break my blog up into bite size pieces.  But just to give you a taste of what is in store, I would like to share a few of the menu items I made.  Some of these are NEW to me while others are my tried and true traditional recipes which I have made a little healthier without compromising on taste. 

A Good Old Fashioned Comfort Meal

Vegetarian Salisbury Steaks with Mushroom Gravy

Cauliflower & Potato Mash

Mixed veggies

 

 

 

Hot Cross Buns - CLEANED UP

 

 

 

 

Easter Dinner - CLEANED UP

Roasted Turkey with Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potato Mash 

Steamed Broccoli, Dried Fruit Dressing, Jellied Fruit Salad 

Cranberry Sauce, and Gravy

Angel Food Cake with Lemon Curd - Traditional and Vegan 

served with a dollop of Whipped Cream

 

 

Left Overs BUDGET FRIENDLY

Vegetarian Salisbury Steaks for me/Turkey for the family

Cauliflower & Potato Mash

Plus all the fixings from Easter Dinner

 

In addition to trying out some vegetarian Salisbury Steaks, my daughter, Sara, sent me a link to Oh She Glows for some festive Christmas "Meatballs" to be served with cranberry sauce.  I am looking forward to doing a test run with this recipe so that we can also have a meatless entrée for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners!  If they are as tasty as the Salisbury Steaks, I am so STOKED!

As my family knows, I am a stickler for making sure my leftovers are used up.  I HATE wasting food.  It is  the best way I know to stretch your meal-time budget especially when I heard just how much folks waste.  On average, Canadian families throw out $1000.00 of food a year. In Toronto, a single-family is said to waste 275 kilos of food per year.  The figures are just as bad in the US.  Yes, we can compost it which is a more environmentally appealing solution to putting it in the landfill, but that does not help my budget much.  Bottom line, it is much better to EAT the food you buy.

When I plan my meals, I plan to send them for a hot lunch the next day or sometimes I plan on how to use the leftovers in a second meal... either "ditto" which is just a reheat of the meal OR I transform the components of my leftovers into a brand new dish.  That being said, sometimes even the best laid out plans go awry and I still end up with single serving of this and that.

If we can't finish these single servings before they will spoil, I will generally move them to the freezer.  I have had great success in dicing up left over meats and poultry to be later used in stir fries or in lunch wraps.  I freeze single servings of soups, stews, pasta sauces.  I even freeze gravy and cheese sauce, even though the experts say you can't.  I label and date the freezer containers, and keep a running list of what is in my freezer so I don't lose track.  I have also learned that HOW you thaw and re-heat your leftovers is crucial to enjoying them... but that is for another blog!

With all that being said, you are wondering why the little detour into food waste and leftovers? First, because I want to share a kitchen tip to save you money and stretch your food budgets!  Second, I thought I should explain why I have a 500 ml mason jar of gravy in my freezer and that it was the need to use up this left over gravy that gave me the inspiration to find a recipe for a meatless Salisbury Steak!  Since I already had gravy in my freezer, I only made the Salisbury Steak recipe which I followed to the letter, with a minor change.  Subsequently, I cannot comment on the tastiness of the mushroom gravy on the blog post, but it does look yummy.  I will definitely be trying it with these Salisbury Steaks next time, IF I don't have any gravy in my freezer.

As promised on the Oh My Veggies site, these vegetarian Salisbury steaks were meaty, tasty and satisfying.  I would think you could make them vegan by whipping up a flaxseed egg to substitute for the chicken egg.  As I said, I followed the recipe from the site with one minor change... I had already sautéed the finely diced onion before realizing that it was actually for the mushroom gravy which I wasn't making.  So, not wishing to waste anything, a threw the cooked onion into the "meat mix" and continued with the recipe.  I think the onion addition is brilliant, so it is staying!  I ended up sautéing the 4 ounces of mushrooms (as per the recipe) and seasoning my gravy similarly to the gravy in the posted recipe and adding the Tamari too. It was a huge success!

I also tried out a cauliflower & potato mash.  I peeled and cooked a few Yukon potatoes.  I drained and mashed them in my usual way... a little almond milk, and butter since I didn't have any Earth Balance Spread, with some salt, and pepper to taste.  I set it aside.  I also steamed about 1/4 of a large head of cauliflower until tender.  I dropped the large pieces into my food processor, and whizzed it till it was coarsely mashed.  I added some butter, almond milk, salt, pepper and a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and a generous pinch of thyme.  Whizzed it all together until it was smooth and resembled traditional mashed potatoes.  Then I folded the potatoes and the cauliflower mash together into the serving dish,  Man oh man; it was SO good on it's own, and even better with a slug of the mushroom gravy!  The "meat", "potatoes" and mushroom gravy were so comforting and tasty, that even the plain Jane fresh frozen mixed veggies rocked the plate!

Salisbury Steaks BEFORE Baking

Salisbury Steaks AFTER Baking

Salisbury Steaks with Cauliflower/Potato Mash, Mushroom Gravy and Mixed Veggies

Next on the blog docket... Hot Cross Buns and Easter Dinner! 

My Plant Based Successes, A Blog Theme & Ethical Meat

It has been a while since I have blogged, but I just haven't found time to sit down and write... so I will make a serious attempt today.  The last I blogged, I had shared the menu for the week.  Some of my meals were a combination of animal and plant based items and others were entirely plant based.  Yes, a menu that reflects my journey to attain  my personal goal of 75% plant based meals. I'm not there yet, but as my family approved recipe repertoire increases, I will get there soon. 

Over the past few months, I have been in the process of cleaning up my pantry.  Although it was not a huge disaster, nutritionally speaking, there was certainly a little tweaking required to make sure my pantry staples were clean and better options.  My pantry is now filled rice and pastas that are brown; my jars are filling up with nuts (raw, roasted and unsalted), lentils, dried beans and various seeds including my favourite, Chia seeds!   I am slowly weaning the family off white refined sugar and introducing them to better choices like honey, maple syrup, agave and organic evaporated cane juice.

I am thrilled to report that my COMPLETELY plant based Bolognese sauce was a HUGE success.  The family ate it all up and didn't seem to notice that the texture of the sauce was just a little different than my regular meat sauce.  The lentil and mushroom sloppy Joes hit the spot for my 14 year old.  I even had enough left over to send home with my eldest daughter who LOVED it too.  I made my veggie pizza with 3/4 marinara and 1/4 cilantro pesto.  I really enjoyed the change.  I will definitely be doing this again.  The family didn't try the pizza with the cilantro, but were quite happy with the usual tomato based veggie pizza - I won't complain, more for me!  I cut back the shredded mozzarella cheese for this pizza too, and no one seemed to mind; yes... baby steps.  Finally, the broccoli salad with the completely dairy free dressing was a big winner too.  My husband thought it was super tasty, so I will be making this again for sure!  I think this dressing will be a great substitute for the store bought poppy seed dressing I use on my kale, Brussels sprouts, purple cabbage, & broccoli salad; an unexpected PLUS!

So as I spend my evenings periodically perusing other blogs I come across, I have noticed that each writer typically has a theme of some sort.  Food bloggers are plant based, gluten free, traditional meat based, etc.  Other bloggers write about their family's exploits and adventures.  As I have gone back and re-read my posts, I have come to the conclusion that my "theme", if you will, is basically how I try to improve my family's diet by incorporating more plant based choices in our daily diets; and how I "hide" these plant based choices while we transition from a fairly decent diet to an extraordinary one!  Certainly, I can't be the only person who wants to eat better and drag her family along with her, even if it is on the down low! 

So low and behold, this blog is for you, if you want

• to join me on a similar food journey by adding more plant based foods to your diet
• to be introduced to tasty meals that will keep your meat eaters happy and satisfied
• to take advantage of my learning curve on transforming your tried and true family favourites to more plant based meals 
• to learn how to "hide your healthy" while minimizing your animal based products
• to learn about my budget tips for feeding your family

Since I am not ready or willing to commit myself to a completely plant based lifestyle, I have decided that I am going to eat the most ethical and clean sources of meat, eggs, and dairy as possible .  All of this plus attempting to stay as local as I can.  I have discovered that this is not so easy to do, especially if I want to stay within a 30 minute drive. This being said, I am thrilled to have found a local farm that does everything "right" but is not certified organic.  In my books, if you do everything right but don't have the papers, it is still so much better than factory farmed for sure. Yesterday, I sent my paperwork in  for my first half side of pork that is ethically raised and organically fed.  I also had myself put on the waiting list for any extra ethical chickens for June and July.  This ethical and clean meat is more expensive for sure, but since I have drastically reduced our meat consumption, I think the extra expense of the ethical meat should balance out in our overall food budget.

Now I am in search of some local, ethical eggs.  I have a few phone numbers but I think I will need to take a visit to the farms to decide about the living conditions and find out what the feed is.  In the meantime, I think my local supermarket carries Burnbrae Natureggs which are organic. When I was researching Burnbrae Farms eggs, I visited their site.  I found virtual tours of the various ways chickens are raised.  It helped me decide that I wanted to buy the organic free range eggs based on living conditions.  Yes, these are large scale farms, kind of industrial, but the barn looked clean and the chickens looked like they were happy.  Perhaps, not as happy as the ones on the little organic farm with only a dozen of these guys running around, but still, happy enough.  Not the perfect situation, but since we can't all have a few chickens running around our yards, it is the better than the cages for sure.

So what is on tap for the next few days?  Some slicing and dicing for my ginger, orange and garlic veggie stir fry. Still tweaking my recipe.  Just for a change, I think I will  hide some green lentils in it as well.  On Thursday, I am going to try out a lentil/mushroom Salisbury Steak recipe. I have some roast chicken gravy in the freezer that will be lovely ladled over the steaks and with the mashed potatoes or maybe a cauliflower mash or maybe a combination?  Hopefully the gravy will distract them from the "meatlessness" of the Salisbury Steaks.  I am hoping they will be well received because I just realized that we have a Summer season coming (I hope).  With Summer comes barbecue and barbecue means burgers and grilled everything.  If I can win them over with a meatless Salisbury Steak, there is a chance that the grilled lentil veggie burgers I want to try might be met with less resistance!   

BUDGET TIP: 
Don't throw out your extra gravy.  Save it in the freezer. I had some extra roast chicken gravy left over from my husband's birthday dinner earlier this month.  I put it in a two 500 ml mason jars and popped them in my freezer.  I let the gravy thaw in the fridge.  I will put a 1/4 cup of water into a  saucepan.  Bring it to a boil and whisk in the thawed gravy, a little at a time until it is smooth and heated through.  It will be as good as it was the first time around. Waste not; want not!

See you soon with my next round of updates.  Perhaps I will have a new recipe to share or a favourite new discovery!

Eat well... be well!