REALLY Easy Spicy Lentils

Protein packed lentils and vegetables with a spicy chilli kick!

Serves about 2

• 1/2 thinly diced onion
• 1 small green bell pepper
• 1 diced tomato
• 1 cup lentils
• 2-3 diced chilli peppers (this is medium/hot)
• salt, oil, and veg bouillon to taste

1. Cook onions on medium heat in about a tablespoon of oil until clear.
2. Add bell pepper until coated in oil.
3. Add diced tomato, salt, and 1/4 cube of vegetable bouillon
4. Finally, add your lentils.

Broke College Vegan 101

Tips for the vegan college students. The most typical breed of Cheap Vegans. Mom and Dad can´t tell you what to do anymore. The dining hall is your oyster!

Here are some tips on being a Cheap Vegan in College:

1. Use your meal plan. If you´re a freshman or sophomore they´re probably making you buy one anyway, get your moneys worth. Colleges are obligated to have food for all different diets, make sure your school knows there is a demand for vegan food if there isn´t much to pick from.
   The salad bar always has fresh fruits and veggies. These are also great for cooking once you´re back at the dorm or a snack between classes. Take a big ziplock freezerbag with you and pack up your 2nd buffet plate. (But I totally didn´t say that….)
2. Make a budget. My budget is what keeps me cheap. My personality is far from your regular cheapo. I like eating out, I like being generous with my money, and I like taking cabs home after I was dancing all night, the budget is what keeps me from going overboard. The most important part of budgeting is timing. If you know friends are coming in to town next weekend, live really cheap the week before. Think of it as rollover money.
3. Find a friend. It can be awkward being the only vegan, even worse if you´re the only one who even eats vegetables at all. Find someone to share your vegan things with. They don´t have to be vegetarian, just someone happy to go to a vegan restaurant or bake vegan cupcakes with you. 
4. Join your Campus Vegan Club. Don´t have any friends? That´s ok! Try joining a veg club. If there isn´t one at your school yet start one! Too much responsibility? Maybe just host a screening of a veg-related documentary or mand a table on a meatless monday. You´d be surprised how many people will come up to you that are interested, especially if you give out free food. Free food is a great way to attract a crowd and you can sometimes get it donated from local restaurants that offer vegan dishes. (This also gets you a free lunch!)
5. Carry a granola bar at all times. In college I kept a granola bar in my backpack, in my luggage, even in my purse(s…) You never know when you´ll be at the library later than you thought or stuck underground on your way back from class. Granola bars don´t go bad for a long time and are a good hold me over snacks. My personal favorite are LUNA and CLIFF bars.
   **Be careful when choosing bars, many have high sugar content and are almost as bad as a cookie.
6. Pack your meals. It´s expensive to eat out but in college you can be forced to pretty frequently. Late nights studying, late nights partying, in between classes, there are a million things that keep you from your beloved kitchen. Packing a meal will at least help cut down costs.
   Packing food is all about strategy. Think of how many hours you plan on being out that day. I would usually pack a 200 calorie snack for every 3 hours I would be out. Packing lunch also keeps you from buying unhealthy convienience foods like chips.
   ¡Article coming soon on good healthy snacks on the go!
7. Don´t quit if you mess up. A lot of vegans have a snobby attitude about what it means to be vegan. They act as if slipping up not only makes you not vegan, but worse, makes you a vegan poser. If you´re trying to go vegan that already puts you ahead of most of the population. Heck, just thinking about what you eat puts you ahead! So don´t beat yourself up if you have a bite of someone´s pizza, just keep doing your best at your own pace.

Summer to Fall Smoothie Guide

Smoothies are easy to make, efficient, raw, and packed with nutrients. In the summer fresh fruit is everywhere and you can find it for cheap on the $2 rack at the farmers market. 

With fall approaching the summer strawberries are turning in to apples and pumpkins. But fear not, you can still make great smoothies all year round for a reasonable price. 

Tips to Making Cheap Fall Smoothies

1. Use frozen fruit.
   Frozen fruit is frozen when it is perfectly ripe. This means it’s sometimes a little better than the produce you find shipped in from South America. You can also cut back on adding ice since the fruit is already frozen.
   Surprising Tip:You can sometimes find frozen fruit cheaper at Trader Joes
2. Buy in Bulk.  If you prefer fresh fruit, buy in bulk. (tips on fresh produce smoothies below*)
3. Add Veggies. While a lot of fruits are going out of season, a lot of new veggies are coming back. We got spinach, squash, pumpkin and lots of other great flavors to start experimenting with for your fall green smoothies. 
4. Swap Fruit to Fit the Season. Don’t worry you don’t have to have spinach smoothies til next June, switch to fruits that are in season. The fall means cranberries, melons, pears, plums, and apples are freshly available, experiment and see what’s ripe for you ;)

**BONUS TIPS FROM A CHEAP SMOOTHIE EXPERT

Jacob Sworeheath is a young professional living in Philadelphia on less than $100 a week. These are his tips for great smoothies all year long:

I like to get as many nutrients out of a smoothie as possible so I always use an orange juice base and usually only raw fresh fruit. Sometimes I put raw spinach leaves, or carrots. If you do that, you have to use soy milk instead of orange juice, because the combination is too strong if you use OJ with spinach.

Normally I buy 2 lb of strawberries a week. I drink one every day. If I miss a few days, I will cut the tops off the strawberries and put them in the freezer. Frozen fruit is a great option. If you have some fruit that is about to go bad. Just freeze it and try it in a smoothie. I’ve used plums, nectarines, peaches, cherries, and other weird fruits which were about to go bad. Sometimes you can find them for cheaper. Make sure to cut them before putting them in the freezer.

Flax seed is something that I WISH I put in every smoothie because it is so healthy …but cleaning it can be a pain, and I just forget to buy it usually, it might be expensive?
 (Flax seed is usually $1.50/lb and can be stored in the freezer-CV) 

Jacob’s go-to smoothie:

• 1 cup of OJ
• 5 strawberries
• 1 banana
• ice

Help! I’m Cooking for a Vegan …and I’m not Vegan!

First take a deep breath and don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. Vegans are just like everybody else and if anything are usually more willing to try different foods.

Yeah, But I don’t know what vegans actually eat.

Vegans don’t eat any animal products. If it’s not a plant, it’s an animal. This includes:

• Meat (including fish, chicken, ham bones, and animal based broths)
• Milk (including butter, whey, and milk powder)
• Eggs (including mayo and egg whites)
• Some vegans don’t eat Honey, it’s best to ask first or simply not include honey in your dinner

A NOTE ON SALAD: While yes, vegans do eat salad, it is not the only food they can eat. If you make a simple green salad it is a great appetizer or side dish but generally is not a strong entree on its own.

There are a lot of foods that you’ll find very familiar that you can easily make a vegan and non-vegan version for all of your guests. Simply cook the meat/cheese on the side and combine while serving.

Italian

• Tomato Basil or Marinara Sauce w/Pasta
• Pasta Primavera (aka Pasta with sauteed veggies & olive oil)
• White Beans and Spinach over Pasta, Bread, or Rice
• Mushroom Risotto without Parmesean (substitute veggie bouillon for beef/chicken)
• Garlic Bread
• Bruschetta

Mexican

• Bean Burrito (no cheese or sour cream, add avocado instead of cheese)
• Veggie Fajitas (mushroom, bell peppers, and grilled onions)
• Rice and Beans
• Nacho Salad
• Guacamole & Chips
• Pico de Gallo & Chips

Asian-Inspired

• Vegetable Stirfry with Rice
• Thai Vegetable Curry with Rice
• Veggies with Spicy Peanut Sauce

American!
If you’re from a meat and potatoes type family your son’s new vegan girlfriend might sound threatening. But there are ways to cook a traditional meal while accommodating vegans.

• Vegetable Casserole
• Bean Casserole
• Green Bean Casserole
• Baked Beans
• Mashed Potatoes (sub milk for soy milk and put the butter on the side)
• Sides of fresh vegetables 
• Vegetable Soup
• Cabbage Soup
• If you really want to show off, make a home made veggie burger

As a vegan when I go to someone’s house to eat this is all I want:

1. To not inconvenience the cook.
2. To feel safe eating the food and not worried that the host doesn’t know that butter isn’t vegan.
3. To not draw attention to my diet. Cholesterol problems and factory farms are generally not great dinner conversation.
4. To eat and enjoy the company.

For great vegan recipes go to www.vegweb.com

Cheap Vegan Left Over Revival Guide to Last Night´s Chinese Food

Have you ever looked at your left over Chinese and just thought, ¨hmm don´t really want to eat this…¨
You probably eat it anyway, but nothing is as good as the fresh Lo Mein you had the night before. But lucky for us there are ways to revive your left overs to the point that they seem like a brand new meal.

Since we are dealing with vegan Chinese food, it´s safe to say the main ingredients of your meal are vegetables and rice (maybe noodles if they´re egg free). So what you´re looking at for Chinese food on day 2 is a stir fry that can bring some pizazz back to your grease soaked brocoli.

The biggest challenge with these left overs is that Chinese food seems to double in moisture overnight to a point where all of the vegetables have all sort of turned the same color… I´m going to try to help you make this appetizing!

1. Make some extra brown rice. This will help soak up the flavor and give us a base of our meal. You might even have some left over with your main dish.
2. Get a pan hot and throw on some onions, ginger, and garlic. This combo can accomodate sweet, spicy, or soy saucy tastes.
3. Next, add the left overs to your pan. Try to simmer off some of the excess water. 
4. Then we add any fresh veggies that match what was already in the dish. Some staples of most vegan chinese food dishes are cabbage, cashews, brocoli, tofu, carrots, and peas. These are pretty safe places to start.
5. You´ll need to add some flavor so your fresh ingredients match your left overs, so make sure everything is soaked pretty well. To do this, try to mimic whatever sauce was on there before.
   SALTY: Hoisin, Teriaki, Soy, even salt or vegetable broth
   SWEET: Add some fruit like pineapple or orange juice
   SWEET AND SOUR: try a pineapple, soy sauce and vinegar combo* 
   IF YOU LIKE SPICE: Add some red pepper flakes or sriracha 
   **NOTE: Adding a bad sauce to your stir fry is guaranteed to ruin your meal. Make sure that if you´re experimenting do so in a separate bowl. Then, dip a vegetable from the original left over to taste if it compliments your dish the way you intended. Always add sauces slowly, there´s nothing worse than too much of a good thing.
   AFRAID OF SCREWING UP THE FLAVOR?
    If you aren´t a wiz in the kitchen and you really just want to keep this simple, season with the free packets of soy and duck sauce you got with your meal. Maybe add a little red pepper if you´re feeling crazy. 
   If you still seem to have gone a little too far justpour out some of the excess sauce, add some water, and sautee for an extra minute or 2. 
6. Add your Stirfry to the rice and enjoy your Chinese food´s 2nd life.

The Cheap Vegan Pantry: What You Need and What Must Go

So you decided to start eating healthy and maybe even vegan but you’re worried about staying on track. One way to guarantee you won’t slip up is to clean out those temptation items and restock the pantry.

So first determine a goal

The Cheap Vegan Goal: The goal of this blog is to provide ways for people to eat healthy and vegan on a low budget. The posts I write tend to be focused on eating whole (non processed) foods affordably while getting the daily recommended nutrients. This pantry guide will reflect that.

What Can Stay

When you’re going through your pantry look at each item and ask yourself these questions:

1. Are all ingredients vegan? (list of non-vegan ingredients here)
   
2. Do I know what each of these ingredients are?
3. Could I find all of these ingredients in nature?
4. Are there less than 10g of sugar in a suggested serving of this food?
5. Is this an unprocessed whole food?
6. Is this caffeine free?
7. Can I cook normally without this food?*

If your answer to all these questions is “yes” then it’s 100% good to go.

If you had to answer “no” to 1 or more of these questions, you need to evaluate if that item is worth keeping. Being truly conscious of what your eating is the first step to eating healthier. Knowing that you don’t know the last 20 items in the oreo’s ingredients list might help you think twice before eating one again.

**If you answered “no” to 3/6 of the questions and you answered “yes” to number 7, chuck it. It’s not like you can never eat those foods again, but keeping them out of your house will help you cut down.

Also Note: Some items such as sugar for baking are a little different. You might want to get rid of white sugar and switch to raw sugar or agave, but you might not find it necessary to eliminate all sugar from your life.

That brings us to alterations. Taking our favorite staples and upgrading them.

• White pasta -> Whole Wheat Pasta or Ezekiel  Pasta
• White Flour -> Whole Wheat Flour or Buckwheat Flour
• White Sugar -> Agave Nectar, Raw Sugar, Unsweetened Apple Sauce
• White Rice/Cous Cous -> Brown Rice, Quinoa Seeds
• Vegetable Oil -> Extra Virgin Olive Oil (salad) Virgin Olive Oil (sautee) Canola Oil (high heat)
• Table Salt -> Sea Salt

I’m not going to mislead you, some of these ingredients are slightly more expensive than their less-healthy counterparts, but the extra $1 is worth your health. These are the basic building blocks of all of your meals, save money on the perishable stuff you have to buy weekly.

Now that you’ve tossed and exchanged, here are some cheap vegan basics:

Must Have Shopping List!

1. Nutritional Yeast - A great source of vitamin B12, a great unique flavor, great for satisfying those cheesy cravings.
2. Cashews and Walnuts - Nuts are a great source of protein and cashews are in a lot of vegan recipes, especially raw vegans. Walnuts are a vegan source of Omega 3s and are great in salads and stir fry. Having some nuts to throw in to a meal is always a good choice, not to mention a quick fix when you want a snack.
3. Brown Rice
4. Whole Wheat Pasta
5. Quinoa - Learn more about quinoa here.
6. Beans - Beans are a great source of protein, fiber, and iron. Stock up on a variety of beans/legumes so you can see what works for you and keep what you like. If you’re not a big fan of beans learn to like them by using some Cheap Vegan tricks found here.
7. Whole Wheat Flour
8. Herbs and Spices - Here are the basic must haves: Basil*, Cilantro*, Oregano*, Thyme*, Cumin, Cinnamon, Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper/Crushed Red Pepper, Chilli Powder, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder (**spices are expensive, growing an herb garden with these plants will definitely save you money and add class your meals)
9. (Extra) Virgin Olive Oil - Oil is expensive. Buy a giant bottle of Olive Oil at BJs or Costco and then refill an olive oil drizzler to cut down on waste and save money.
10. Unsweetened Apple Sauce - Use as a sweetener or an egg replacer in baking.
11. Granola - Can be used as a snack, breakfast, or even dessert. Granola is a great staple to keeping you full and is a nice replacement for a sweet treat.
12. Vegetable Bouillon Cubes - Great flavor booster.
13. Ener-G Egg Replacer - Great for baking, pancakes, and an emergency thickener.
14. Corn Starch - A must have thickener for all types of sauces and soups.
15. B-12 Vegetarian Supplement - B12 is very important for vegans to keep track of since you can only find it in animal food sources. Many cereals and drinks are fortified with B-12 but it’s good to take a vegan daily vitamin to be sure you’re getting enough.
16. Onions and Garlic
17. Oat Meal - Use in baking or for breakfast.
18. Potatoes - Preferably small red, purple, or other colorful potatoes.
19. Sea Salt
20. Hot Sauce - If all else fails during your kitchen experiments, it’s always nice to have some Cholula on hand to spice up a meal.

Next Step: Buying Food to Match Your New Basics

While you’re at the grocery store keep the same questions in mind. If you would have thrown it out when you renovated your pantry, don’t buy it now! Eventually you’ll learn what works for you. And always…

• Buy store brands to save money.
• Try to buy unprocessed whole foods. You’ll find that cooking with only whole foods is surprisingly cheaper than buying processed or pre-made food.
• If you’re budget is truly tight, don’t waste money on fake meats and other processed vegan foods. They’re usually more expensive. Try making your own home made.
• Shop often to ensure you are getting fresh foods and not throwing away your wasted food and money! Always remember, it’s worth your time to eat well.

Cheap, Raw, Healthy Homemade Ice Cream!!?

I scream, you scream, we all scream when we have ice cream cravings. Ice cream is definitely on the top 5 list for most missed non-vegan foods. Luckily for us, there is a great alternative!

It’s called a Banana whip, and you can make it for under 50 cents at home.

You’ll need a food processor or juicer, 2-3 frozen bananas, and whatever toppings you like.

1. Freeze bananas in a tupperware or a ziplock freezer bag.
2. Put bananas through food processor or juicer until the consistency of soft serve. Some juicers will come out perfect on the first go, others you’ll need to put it through twice.
3. done.
4. You can also add different frozen fruits to create new flavors and add variety to your whips.

The nice thing about banana whips is they’re 100% raw and they don’t take much effort.  The banana flavor is very mild after freezing and is great for kids. You can eat banana whips as an in between meal snack or even add granola and peanut butter and have ice cream for breakfast!

If you don’t have a food processor, enjoy frozen bananas on their own or with melted dark chocolate and nuts.

Tofu Redemption
Now in my last article I know I hated on tofu a little, but like it or not, tofu is a great source of iron and protein. My philosophy as a vegan is to force myself to learn to like everything (healthy) I can eat. Following a vegan diet means that you cut yourself off to a lot of “normal” foods, so it’s harder for people to be as tolerant of a picky vegan. Plus, it’s harder on yourself to be picky. There are less opportunities to get the proper nutrients and gives you even less options when you go out to eat.

While tofu isn’t my favorite food, it can actually be pretty fun to experiment with in the kitchen. Tofu’s unique lack of almost any flavor makes it kind of gross on its own, but also makes it a really easy incorporate into almost any recipe.

You can add tofu to almost anything, savory or sweet. One of my favorites is the ever popular tofu scramble.

The Cheap Vegan Southwest Tofu Scramble
(3-4 servings)

In 1st pan:

• 1 14oz cube tofu
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp tumeric (mostly for yellow color)
• salt and pepper to taste

In 2nd pan:

• 1 onion
• 2 chopped green peppers
• 5 small red potatoes
• 3 chopped plum tomatoes
• 1/2 cup black beans
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 3/4 tsp thyme
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• sprinkle of chilli powder

In 1st pan:

1. Pinch off bite size pieces of tofu and put on medium heat. Allow water to evaporate off.
2. Once the water is mostly gone mix in the nutritional yeast, garlic, salt, pepper, and tumeric.
3. Leave on low heat stirring occasionally while the other pan is cooking.

In 2nd pan:

1. Bake, microwave or pan fry potatoes until they are soft, cut in quarters and set aside.
2. Dice onion and put into pan with about a tablespoon of olive oil. I try to use as little olive oil as possible but enough to get my onions clear.
3. Once onions have cleared add the green pepper and potatoes.
4. Once the potatoes and peppers have been evenly coated with the rest of the mixture add tomatoes, black beans, garlic, thyme, cumin, crushed red pepper, and chilli powder.
5. Combine Pan 1 and 2. Add salt to taste.
6. Serve in a bowl as a skillet, on bread as a sandwich, or in a burrito. I suggest serving with avocado and salsa on the side.

This recipe incorporates 3 items from our list of iron and protein foods as well nutritional yeast which is a great source of vitamin B12.