Vegan Month of Food 2018 Day 16: Getting the Goods While On A Budget

Today we are tasked with a clear your pantry meal. Can I just say, I'm loving these prompts! Videos and posts for the super majority of topics have really have been (for me at least) falling into my lap. Today is another one of those "oh happy day, lucky me!" topics.

A few weeks ago, I was following the bouncing ball on a week of cheap nutritious eating with recipes from www.howdoigovegan.com I think they called it their cheerful cheap week or something like that. I was famished because I ate nothing all day. I was contemplating eating something vegan but unhealthy and then I remembered I deserve better than that. Scrolling through the cheap easy recipes l was pretty sure I had everything already in my possession for the post on quick coconut tofu stew. I walked into the kitchen and replicated their recipe almost exactly in 15 minutes flat.

Quick Coconut Tofu Stew
Made for pennies, in just about 15 minutes flat!

What I didn't have on hand was curry powder. The challenge is to make a dish with ONLY what we happen to have on hand, not with what we have PLUS going to the market for the 1 ingredient missing. So I did a quick "help what can I substitute for curry powder" Internet search and simply subbed in 1/2 teaspoon coriander, and 1 teaspoon cumin for the 1 teaspoon of curry. I used a full block of tofu, because if not I'd have a half a block of random tofu just sitting in the fridge most likely til it got shoved to the back, and onto science experiment life. Pass.

It's hard to believe I had scallions lying around in the fridge, but I did. I bought them for a raw recipe that I never got around to. I had to peel a few of the outer leaves off, but they were on hand. The mushrooms were just about to turn too.... another purchase for a raw recipe that I just didn't get to. And lastly, I had the frozen spinach on hand because I've been putting it in my smoothies. It's like a wizard peeked into my kitchen and then wrote this recipe. I was shocked how good it was, actually I think it's better with my spices than the curry would have been. Some people really dislike curries (including the other happy vegan, although he won't admit that publicly). He devoured this stew, sans curry.

There will come a point that I will do a public "eat on x-dollars a week" theme around here. For now there's still too much chaos and my schedule is too unreliable to commit to much meal prep. I'll be there for you on that soon though.

Their recipe straight off their facebook page ends today's post. For now, check back tomorrow for another great recipe for pennies. This week is all about the budget. I'm already planned til almost the end of the week, I'm so excited about this week!!!

Vegan, budget friendly love to you and yours. Scroll down for the recipe:

Courtesy of www.howdoigovegan.com

"cheap and cheerful week"

For Day 5, Dinner, we had a Quick Coconut Tofu Stew. 

Ingredients
1 can reduced fat coconut milk
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp maple syrup or suitable-for-vegans sweetener
1 tsp curry powder
Approx. 130g canned tomatoes
1/2 block tofu, cubed
5 mushrooms, sliced
2 large handfuls spinach
2 scallions, sliced

Directions
Add all of the ingredients to a large lidded saucepan, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

We also made an easy flatbread by combining 200g flour, 100ml water, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp oil. We mixed it well for about 3 minutes (no need to knead) and divided it into four. We rolled two of the pieces out, dry fried them until they started to bubble, and then flipped them to fry the other side.

My changes were: 1 full block tofu, 1/2 tsp. coriander, 1/4 tsp. cumin, omit the curry, I used more mushrooms because I had them and they were getting ready to turn,  I used a little bigger can of tomatoes because it's what I had, I omitted the sugar, and I used Bragg's liquid aminos instead of soy sauce. As far as the bread, I added nutritional yeast to mine for more flavor before baking. Work with what you have. Buy nothing. xo