Vegan Chili Cheese Nachos

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Whether you’re for the Saints, Colts, could care less, or are for the commercials, I hope you’re having/ had a good time!

Today started out great! We headed to church for another great and inspiring message. I think there are still one or two churches we’ve heard good things about that we want to check out, but I have been loving how casual, intimate and refreshing River Cross Church has been. Before church I had a mug of Kashi Heart to Heart Oat Flakes and Wild Blueberry Clusters cereal with almond milk.

Post-church we ran a couple errands, including going back to Joann Fabrics to pick up the fabric that we’re going to use to reupholster our dining room chairs! Thanks for all your votes! I think y’all were pretty split, but you’ll be happy to know that I think I’ve actually found another project, aka a way to use both fabrics!

When we came home we made sandwiches for lunch. I stuck with my favorite standby – grilled hummus and tomato!

It’s been such a fun and low key day. During/ after lunch we watched a movie we’ve been waiting to find in our Redbox/ Blockbuster Express, 500 Days of Summer! I loved the music in it, love Zooey Deschanel (go vegans!) and thought it was a really cute, well done movie. I’m pretty to easy to please in regards to movies, though, so see it for yourself!

Post-movie it was time to prep for our elaborate super bowl party (read: Ross and I chilling like we normally do with the super bowl on). I watched the Ellen Show on Friday and saw her personal chef demonstrating some vegan snacks for the Super Bowl. One that stuck out to me? Vegan Chili and Cheese Nachos (click on that link to the recipe her chef did on tv). My recipe was based on that, here’s what I did!

First of all, I couldn’t find the Mexican flavored Smart Ground in my store so I picked up the Original. It was honestly scary how meat-like it was!

I combined the Smart Ground, 3 very small chopped onions, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, about 2 cups of salsa, a large red bell pepper chopped, 1 can of black beans, 2 plum tomatoes (diced), vegetable stock and lots of spices (cumin, chili powder, kosher salt). The cumin made it! I cannot get over how ridiculously awesome and flavorful this was! While it was simmering I had a hard time keeping my spoon out of the pot! So good!

Chili “meat” sauce? Done. Nacho “cheese” sauce? Coming right up!

In my VitaMix I combined a container of silken tofu, some water, a quarter cup nutritional yeast and this packet of taco seasoning mix.

Why did I choose this random packet of taco seasoning? Because the ingredients were awesome!

In an effort to make it more cheesy, I added more cumin, chili powder and kosher salt. After bubbling away on the stove for a while, it was hot and ready to go!

 

Looks impressively non-vegan, right? Besides the initial awkward-soy taste from the cheese, I can 100% guarantee you could pass this healthier, high protein, lower calorie version of chili cheese nachos off to any carnivore and they’ll still be impressed! Particularly with the Smart Ground chili – SO amazing! I very rarely buy pre-packaged meat substitutes but I am so glad I did in this situation!

To “healthify” our meal a bit more, I put our chili and cheese nachos on top of a bed of romaine. With that extra filler in there, who needs to go back for seconds? (OK, I admit, I went back for another chip dipped in the chili – it was that good!)

In further efforts to up the health factor of the meal, or at the very least not add anything nutritionally void, I subbed your typical party/ Super Bowl beer or soda for an Orange La Croix.

By smell alone, you would have sworn this was an orange Fanta, or some other orange soda! It was crazy! Fortunately, it tasted like unsweetened sparkling water with a hint of orange.  

I also baked up a couple batches of my secret recipe vegan chocolate chip cookies tonight. One batch was trying out another idea – basically subbing fresh ground oat flour for whole wheat flour. Ummmm fail. Needs work.  Still tasty but the visual appear just isn’t there. 

Much better! My tried and true recipe came through, and now I have fresh baked cookies to mail off to a special recipient tomorrow.

Off to go finish my post for tomorrow morning: everything you need to know about why we’re doing P90X! Starts tomorrow morning! (Hold me, I’m scared…just kidding, I’m excited, but a little nervous, too!).

Have a great night!