Quick and Easy Vegan Cooking Class, SFCC

Once again, I took a class with the amazing Amanda Hatherly. She is my healthy eating guru. This class was Quick and Easy Vegan Meals. The class was jam packed with great food. It was offered by Santa Fe Community College from 6-8 and cost 49 dollars. Amanda’s classes are very popular. My advice is to register early. She always has a full class.

Amanda is vegan. I am not. As you know I still eat fish(sometimes) and I love cheese. I have actually found some tasty non-dairy cheese thanks to Amanda. Please understand that I find this situation to be extremely ironic. I laugh at the food selections in my shopping cart. I go to food stores like Sprouts, Whole Foods in Albuquerque and Trader Joe’s in Albuquerque. And now I shop at Natural Grocery since they have moved to Cerrillos Road. Please know that I am a former fast food junkie. And I am still alive!

I love how this class is set up. Amanda cooks and talks about making healthy choices and I get to eat. How cool is that?

For this class, Amanda made: vegetable and chickpea Thai curry, quick slaw, a sweet potato quesadilla, a black bean and mango bowl or tacos and Dan Dan noodles. She had made fruit balls for desert.

Not only was this healthy food that tasted good, the food was vegan. Another plus was the recipes were quick and easy. I could even make them. This is a real low bar so I am sure anyone could.

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Amanda also gives cooking technique tips like how to efficiently chop an onion. I’m never sure about exactly how to do that. I’m concerned about cutting my hand instead of the onion. That’s why this blog is mainly a restaurant and alcohol blog.
The quick part of this recipe is that your use frozen Asian vegetables and brown rice in the refrigerated section at Trader Joe’s. Amanda also told us about the frozen ginger and garlic at Trader Joe’s . You only need a small jar of Thai red or green curry paste. I love chickpeas or garbanzo beans. The rest of the ingredients included a can of coconut milk, diced tomatoes, and some cilantro.
Since cabbage wasn’t in season, Amanda used a bag of grated broccoli. She also included apples, carrots, nuts, and raisins. After all these beautiful ingredients were combined, you toss it with lemon juice. The slaw dressing was Balsamic vinegar. Yum!
Next we had a sweet potato quesadilla. We had some good vegan cheese. It was so delicious! I was starting to get filled. But there was still more food to come.
Our next course was black bean and mango bowl or tacos. For times sake, we had the taco version. I love black beans! Mangoes are also a big favorite food of mine. This recipe called for a box of frozen quinoa to help make this quick and easy.
Dan Dan noodles was my favorite dish that I never knew about. Dan Dan noodles tasted better than Pad Thai! I loved all the spices. I have found that vegan cooking relies heavily on flavorful spices. I had never had organic peanut butter before. I have only used Skippy peanut butter. I thought crunchy Skippy peanut butter was the best. I was wrong. Wow! Real organic peanut butter blows Skippy away. I couldn’t believe the taste difference.
Amanda was nice enough to make fruit balls. The fruit that she uses in this instance is dates. It was an incredible finish to a wonderful class.
Amanda is taking the summer off. We want her to rest up and not burn out. We can hardly wait to see what she comes up with for the fall class schedule.