Vegan Mofo Day 8: What do you guys eat?

    This is on a list of brainstormed MoFo ideas, and it's a good one. I close at work a lot so I either eat dinner at 10:30 at night, or have leftovers of some kind. See? Vegans are just like other busy people. Generally I don't consider my everyday food bloggable, but hey, people ask me what I eat often enough, so maybe it's worth a shot.

1. Salads!
    Let's get this out of the way. Yes, vegans eat salads, or at least I do. No, they are not boring piles of iceberg lettuce and concentrated sadness. Here's one I do pretty regularly, especially in the summer:

 

Baby spinach, cucumber, grape tomatoes, carrots, red onion, chickpeas, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and Italian dressing.

2. Stirfry!
    Well, sort of a pseudo-stirfry. I've never been able to  stir fry anything properly, but basically veggies and tofu and rice with some kind of stir fry sauce is a really easy way to make a filling meal.

3. Sandwiches!
    Aside from pb&j (which is a favorite), I really like grilled avocado and tomato with plenty of salt, or even just tofurkey, mustard, lettuce and tomato. I've also been known to go to subway if I don't have time to bring a lunch to work. As for spreads, if you can't imagine a world without mayo, never fear! There's Vegenaise, but you can also experiment with hummus or guacamole: this sandwich has both plus some veggies, and it was pretty satisfying, especially because someone else made it for me.

4. Spaghetti!
    Actually, any kind of pasta, which is so basic to me that I never really thought to take a picture of it. My dad instilled in me that pasta with tomato sauce is the ideal standby food, when you don't know what to make or have much on hand, and there's some truth to that. I'm still trying to get him to realize that homemade sauce is quick and tastier than jarred, but whatever. Tofu balls, "beanballs" or gardien if you have it (I buy it once in a while, when I've got a coupon) are obviously contenders, but if I'm feeling really lazy I'll just throw some cannelini beans into my marinara sauce and have that with whole wheat pasta, garlic bread and broccoli (my default veggie) or zucchini. Bam. Dinner. Done.

5. Bowls!

This is outlined in Appetite for Reduction, but the basic idea is that you have a grain, a vegetable, a bean and a sauce and you mix them up in a bowl and it's tasty. Sometimes I do more veggies, sometimes more than one kind of bean, whatever. Sometimes the sauce is actually guacamole or salsa. Here's a burrito bowl I did that was quinoa, broccoli, salsa, black beans and guacamole.