You know me.  You know I love to cook and have to please the omni family while making meals healthy, colorful, and veggie.  Because I don’t always have the time to block 1-2 hour cooking sessions, most meals have to be quick.  Harmony Valley Foods helped cut down cooking time and made the omni man and boy happy at dinner and breakfast.  

I was sent two packages of Harmoney Valley to try, and both resuted in kitchen success!  I cannot tell you
how much I enjoyed them.

I am a Food Network Addict.  I freely admit it to anyone who asks.  On weekends, I set my DVR to record my favorite shows so  can catch up during the week.  I don;t always watch all of the shows.  I watch the intros and see if the family or I would be interested in any of the on-screen goodness and to see if I can veganize any of it.  Aarti Parti is one of my favorite shows.  Not only is Aarti a doll, her food looks amazing.  Hubster and I love Indian food, so learning from Aarti’s show is a must see.  Keeping food prep time manageable is also required most days.

A few weeks ago, Aarti made Kheema, a quick-cooking dish with ground beef and peas. While beef is out of the question, vegan beef crumbles are not.  Usually I make my own crumbles by seasoning TVP, but I was out of some of my ‘beef’ stock ingredients.  Harmony Valley Foods’ Hamburger Style mix was perfect.  I added cold water to the mix and threw it in the fridge.  The instructions say to refrigerate for 15 minutes before cooking, but it was much longer than that.  The dogs can be particularly cute when I’m cooking and I was distracted and watched them for a while.

I pulled out the rehydrated mix and went to cooking.  The recipe took 25 minutes from the minute I put
the onions in the skillet and made the house smell yummy. I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish
topped with cilantro because once I tasted it, I was ready to eat.  No need for stinking cilantro.  Cilantro,

baby, I still love you.  It was tender and much more like ground beef than my usual TVP blend. And the bonus was that it took took less time than my usual route.  The Hamburger Mix and Kheema recipes are keepers!

A few days later, the craving for biscuits with sausage gravy made me a mad woman, so I whipped some up.  The biscuits came from The Joy of Vegan Baking, and the sausage gravy was my own recipe with Harmony Valley Sausage Mix instead of my usual Gimmie Lean.  I loved it!  The texture was more like the sausage I loved back in the day, but so much better since it’s cruelty-free.  And the flavor was spot on!  I had it for breakfast, lunch the next day, and breakfast on the third day.  I still have a little waiting for me in the freezer.

Harmoney Valley mixes can be found on the dry goods store shelves (near the rice) and online.  And a Classic Hummus mix is next on tap!  Have I mentioned that one of my first vegan experiments included falafel and hummus mixes?

Anyway, pick up some HV and save some time in the kitchen.  And watch Aarti Party!  I’ll be doing both.

Peace!