"Under 15 Minutes" Vegetarian Cookbook Review

I received this book (Under 15 Minutes: Vegetarian Quick & Easy Recipes by Jonathan Vine) for review, since as a vegetarian, I am always looking for something to try. I especially like quick and easy recipes. After I received it, though, Crafty mentioned she wanted to try tofu in a recipe so I passed it along to her to borrow to see what she thought. She found it so useful she bought her own copy!

We discussed picking a recipe and both trying it to see how it went, but it's always hard to plan meals for yourself, never mind for someone else. Crafty's schedule means that she isn't home as much in the evenings as she would like and I have been ordering from Plated so often that we haven't really had the opportunity to do that. However, it's great that there are so many recipe choices in this cookbook that we easily could - and none of them are very complicated.

Plated Meal Review: Tempeh with Mizuna Slaw and Cannoli

This Plated meal actually accomplished a great deal, even beyond being a cooking opportunity. We were able to try two products we were already planning to review (our Spiral Ninja and Btipsy Lemon Squeezer), and we also finally got to try tempeh. Although we've had tempeh in foods before, we have never made it ourselves and since we like tofu and seitan, we were hoping to add another vegetarian staple to our meal planning options. 

Plated Meal Review (with Creative License)

I have so many great things to say about Plated. The food is good, the service is exceptional, and the recipes are really suited to our lifestyle. In addition, I've gained so much confidence through using them only for a few months because now I feel comfortable being creative with the recipes. 

This week, we ordered three meals: Tofu with Citrus Glazed Vegetables, Quinoa Stir Fry, and Pasta. My husband and I thought about it a bit and realized we really liked the idea of a tofu stir fry, so we used the tofu from one recipe, along with the orange to make the Stir Fry a citrus soy ginger tofu mix, saving the quinoa and veggies for other recipes. 

Quorn Foods Review

My husband and I have been vegetarians for more than ten years now (I've basically been since childhood, but he came around later) and we're always up for trying new foods that expand our options. We first tried Quorn about eight years ago and he's been a die-hard fan ever since.

Quorn Foods is the premier producer of meat alternative products worldwide. Based in the UK, they have been operating in the US for more than a decade. Quorn's products are made from what they identify as "a naturally occurring protein in the fungi family," which they call "mycoprotein." The protein is harvested in a fermentation process similar to brewing beer or making yogurt.

Because Quorn products are soy-free, they're naturally non-GMO. They also tend to taste very similar to the products for which they substitute. For example, the first time we tried the chicken nuggets, I had to take the box out of the trash to make sure they didn't actually include any parts of a chicken.

Even if you aren't a vegetarian, Quorn has about half the calories and fat of meat and is very high in fiber and protein, so it's a good alternative to try. You can find Quorn at most grocery stores or national chains like Target and Whole Foods. Availability of specific products varies.

Plated Review: Cashew, Tofu, and Peas Stir Fry

I really love Plated. I already have my order in for February 20 because I find their meals filling, tasty, nutritious, and reasonably easy to cook.

We ordered two meals and a dessert with this box, and made the first meal and dessert on the same night (the same day the box arrived). The first meal was a cashew, tofu, and peas stir fry. This was a fairly easy recipe, with the majority of the work really being on mincing garlic and onion (I'm going to buy a jar of minced garlic and frozen chopped onions for future meals, in order to save time, I think). While mincing, we had the jasmine rice cooking and the tofu draining.

The ingredients were also very simple - tofu, jasmine rice, garlic, onion, ginger, snow peas, sugar snap peas, shelled green peas, cashews, and a sauce that combined chili garlic, hoisin, and soy sauce.