Who you calling a crockpot ?

ok, its been one week since my journey began, and as promised , this is a quick up date on some of the various delights I have enjoyed during this time.

Rice Milk - FAIL... but it came in handy for the very yummy buckwheat blueberry pancakes.
Almond Milk - WIN in my coffee. At least better then rice milk, however, if I wasn't concerned with the low fat portion of this challenge, I would most likely just switch to CoffeeMate and be done with it.
I also found when using this for my cereal, just a sprinkle of brown sugar helped to remove the cardboard after taste of both the cereal and the almond milk.
Facon Bacon -  FAIL !! as a side dish. The fact that I burned it didn't help, however, the dogs could not get enough of it.   To be fair , I did make a second attempt at using it ( unburnt ) on a BLT w/ avocado and found that hidden amongst the veggies, it added a smoky salt taste and give it some zing!
Quinoa -  WIN !  Instead of using rice for my veggie stir fry , I switched to the quinoa, which my family actually enjoyed better.  They found it less sticky and clumpy and didn't over power the flavor. 

We have also tried a few delicious recipes.  Besides the veggie stir fry, which most people can make, just eliminating the meat... we had for breakfast Buckwheat Blue Berry Pancakes - WIN .. amazingly enough, there was no hint of the fact that there is no milk or egg in these. Binding was used with ripe bananas and non-dairy milk... (rice milk) .
My revised Taco Soup was also a hit with the family, despite the tofu ground beef substitute.  And whats nice with this, is you can be free to add your own beans or veggies... its very Chili like !!  I'm sure there is a low fat vegan corn bread recipe to accompany it out there some where... but for now.. here you go :

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Slow Cooker Taco Soup

This is the original recipe... however, see notes at bottom, as I changed this up to add body and of course, made it Vegan.

Ingredients :

• 1 pound Ground Beef (sub w/-mex ground tufo)
• 1 Onion, chopped
• Red & Yellow peppers, chopped ( I added this item)
• 1 (16 ounces) can Chili Beans, with liquid (I've used lentils)
• 1 (15 ounces) can Kidney Beans with liquid
• 1 (16 ounces) can Black Beans with liquid
• 1 (15 ounces) can Whole Kernel Corn, with liquid (or frozen)
• 1 (8 ounces) can Tomato Sauce
• 2 cups Water
• 2 (14.5 ounces each) cans Peeled and Diced Tomatoes
• 1 (4 ounces) can diced Green Chile Peppers
• 1 (1.25 ounces) package Taco Seasoning Mix

Preparation:

1. In a medium skillet, cook the ground beef until browned over medium heat.
2. Drain, and set aside.
3. Place the ground beef, onion, chili beans, kidney beans, corn, tomato sauce, water, diced tomatoes, green chile peppers and taco seasoning mix in a slow cooker.
4. Mix to blend, and cook on Low setting for 8 hours.

Vegan - Use ground tofu substitute. If you can get the Yves mexican seasoned , that will work. You do NOT have to brown the tofu like you do the ground beef.

If using beef, I find cooking the onions with the the meat during the browning step, adds to the flavor.

- Now to make this more hardy, I had added the Red and Yellow peppers.. this is not original to the recipe. You could also use a green pepper if that's your taste.

the recipe calls for green chilli peppers. do not make the mistake of adding jalapeno's ... the flavor threw the whole thing off... i used crushed green peppers... or once I used canned chipotle, and skipped the green chilis.

Also, I have also used 2 cans of tomato's, and I actually use the whole tomato's and squish them with my hands... but the nice thing with this recipe is that its very flexible.