Indian, Mexican, Asian, and American!

No theme today, just a roundup of some yummy foods I've eaten recently!

Indian-Spiced Lentils with Spinach and Rhubarb from Vegetarian Times, served over some brown basmati rice. I had such high hopes for this dish, but I was a little underwhelmed. You would think that a dish with rhubarb, raisins, and ginger would be exploding with flavor, but I thought this was rather bland. I think it needed some lemon juice. I also would add the raisins later in the cooking process so they maintain some of their sweetness. My hubby really liked it, though.

Clockwise, from top: Hearts of Palm and Jicama Salad from Southern Living magazine; Mexican Millet from Veganomicon; and frozen roasted corn from Trader Joe's. This plate was a pleasing melange of textures, flavors, and temperature (cold salad; hot millet; warm corn). Yumbles.

Spring Vegetable Stew with Soft Polenta from Vegetarian Times. You can't see the polenta because it's buried underneath the veggies, but trust me, it's there. I've made this recipe before and loved it, but this time I had to make a bunch of substitutions - frozen leeks instead of fresh leeks; zucchini instead of yellow squash; yellow pepper instead of mushrooms; and canned whole tomatoes instead of chopped tomatoes. It definitely tastes better when you make it according to the recipe! I also think it needs way more salt, IMHO. Still, it's pretty tasty and nutritious.

Clockwise, from top: homemade coleslaw (I tried to replicate the awesome spicy coleslaw from Sweet Tomatoes, but I missed the mark); Marinated Asian Tofu from Veganomicon; frozen broccoli; and millet. Yup, I love me some millet!

Forty-Clove Chickpeas & Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction. Mushy, garlicky goodness!

Masala Baked Tempeh from Appetite for Reduction and Purple Kale Salad with Creamy Apricot Ginger Dressing from Choosing Raw. I loved the contrast of the spicy, crusty tempeh and the soft, sweet kale salad. Great combination!

Another favorite from Choosing Raw, the Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce. This dish is a hit in my family! The creamy bean-and-mashed-sweet-potato filling rocks my socks and I love the slightly spicy tomatillo sauce. A little melted Daiya Pepperjack cheese on top doesn't hurt, either :)

Have a wonderful day!

Summer Salad Slam!

If I had my way, I'd exist on smoothies and salads for the entire summer. I love their taste, nutrition, ease of preparation, flexibility, and portability. I also love the fact that I don't have to turn on the oven and make the kitchen any hotter than it already is!

Here are some salads I've been enjoying lately:

Roasted Portobello Salad (except I sub eggplant for the 'shrooms!) from Veganomicon, with a side of millet:

Roasted Cauliflower and Rice Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette from 1,000 Vegan Recipes:

Lightened Up Protein Power Goddess Bowl from Oh She Glows, with a side of Chickpea Pancake with Rosemary from 1,000 Vegan Recipes:

Arugula and Apple Salad with Creamy Mustard Dressing (1,000 Vegan Recipes), frozen Alexia fries, Basic Baked Tempeh (Appetite for Reduction), carrot sticks, and roasted chickpeas:

Umm...I can't remember where this recipe came from. It appears to be massaged kale, apples, carrots, and something else?? I'm sure it was tasty!

Raw Mediterranean Kale Salad from The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen:

Romaine and Grape Tomato Salad with Avocado and Baby Peas (1,000 Vegan Recipes) and Forty-Clove Chickpeas & Broccoli (Appetite for Reduction):

A completely random salad made with baby arugula, chopped tomato, chopped cucumber, celery, carrots, fava beans, roasted red peppers, nutritional yeast, chopped green olives, pine nuts, capers, olive oil, and white balsamic vinegar. Yummmm.

My new obsession - Purple Kale Salad with Creamy Apricot Ginger Dressing, Walnuts, and Apples from Choosing Raw:

I've been eating it by the boatload lately. Here it is with some brown lentils and more socca (my other new obsession):

This is the simple but tasty Chopped Salad (1,000 Vegan Recipes), served with Basic Baked Tempeh (Appetite for Reduction) and a baked potato. The romaine lettuce was fresh from a friend's garden and it was so tender and delicious!

Creamy Curry Pasta and Vegetable Salad (1,000 Vegan Recipes) with some steamed broccoli:

And, finally, another delicious smoothie creation. This one had spirulina, hemp protein powder, hemp seeds, spinach, pineapple, coconut water, and ginger. So tangy and refreshing!

What are your favorite summery salads?

My Pasta Salad, with a Twist

I've blogged about my pasta salad before. Not to toot my own horn, but that pasta salad is pretty darn delicious. I've brought it to countless potlucks, cookouts, and parties, and it's always a hit.

That being said, it is a pasta salad. Pasta salads are usually something I crave in the summer time, not the dead of winter. But for some reason, I had a hankering for pasta salad the other day.

Now, my pasta salad recipe is not complicated: it's basically just pasta, fresh veggies, canned chickpeas, and a dressing made of Vegenaise, Italian dressing, salt, pepper, dried dill, and dijon mustard. Pretty basic stuff.

Until you realize:

You have no Italian dressing.

You only have a couple of tablespoons of Vegenaise.

You don't have the required veggies.

Hmmm.

I would not be deterred. And I sure as heck wasn't making a trip to the grocery store!

No bell pepper? No problem...I just used some jarred roasted red pepper.

Not enough tomato or celery? No problem...I just used what I had. I added extra cucumber to make up for it.

No dressing? No biggie...I just made a batch of the Mediterranean Olive Oil and Lemon Vinaigrette from Veganomicon. I mixed this dressing with the last bit of Vegenaise and dijon mustard. Worked like a charm!

I mixed everything together and then served it on a big bed of baby arugula for some extra greens.

I love it when an experiment turns out well!

A Feast of Veganomical Proportions

It's no secret I'm sort of infatuated with Appetite for Reduction - I've been cooking (and blogging) about it pretty consistently ever since I got the book last Christmas. But before AFR rolled on to the scene, I was fairly committed to one of Isa and Terry's other cookbooks, Veganomicon. Billed as "The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook,"it is a treasure-trove of great recipes for every food occasion: breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, desserts, snacks, appetizers, soups, salads, and everything in between. I've cooked a lot from this book during the last four years, but I realized there were some recipes I hadn't revisited in quite a while.

So, one night, I cracked open my copy of Veganomicon and made not one, not two, but three recipes from the epic tome!

First up: Escarole with Capers and White Beans.

This is a deceptively-simple-but-looks-rather-fancy dish that combines sauteed escarole, beans (I used cannellinis), garlic, capers, and red pepper flakes (which I omit). It takes just minutes and is pleasingly chewy and hearty. We love it topped with some nooch!

I also made some Tomato Couscous with Capers (but with millet instead of couscous) and some Marinated Italian Tofu. Millet is probably my favorite grain, and I substitute it all the time for the less-nutritious couscous. The couscous/millet is pretty aggressively flavored with ground cloves, which I found slightly off-putting. However, I think it would be really solid if one were to just omit the cloves.

The Marinated Italian Tofu is soaked in balsamic vinegar, white wine, broth, tamari, garlic, and Italian seasonings, then baked until the tofu gets firm and chewy. Isa has included her marinated tofu recipe   (Italian, Asian) in all of her savory cookbooks, and it's virtually fool-proof and guaranteed delicious!

It's fun revisiting an old friend like Veganomicon. I should really get back to making some old favorites!

More Fall Favorites...

...Just because fall is awesome like that.

How about a super-colorful and uber-tasty main dish salad? Yes, it's the Autumn Root Salad with Warm Maple-Fig Dressing from Veganomicon. I think anything with a Warm Maple-Fig Dressing would taste good, no? It's steamed sweet potato and red potato, sliced baked beets, baby romaine, and...that dressing. Ahhh, that dressing. It's dried figs, garlic, shallots, white wine, maple syrup, salt, Dijon mustard, and white balsamic vinegar. It's simmered on the stoptop and them whipped into submission. It's ambrosial.

I usually top it off with some chopped pecans, but I was out of pecans, so I subbed some chopped hazelnuts. Some plain ol' steamed cauliflower was served on the side.

I also love to bake up some Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins every Thanksgiving. I've used the recipe from Vegan Brunch the last two years and made little mini muffins. This recipe is the bomb-diggity because these muffins pack a flavor punch. Fresh cranberries, fresh orange juice, orange zest, and pecans  all explode in your mouth and say KA-POW! Yeah, they are seriously awesome.

I made 30 mini muffins, and I think I was responsible for eating at least 18 of them. Hey, to the baker belong the spoils, I always say!

Fall Favorites

As much as I like trying new recipes, there are certain dishes that I always return to. When the air gets crisp and the days get shorter, I always pick up some chicory and fennel and make the greatest salad known to man, aka the Roasted Fennel and Hazelnut Salad with Shallot Dressing from Veganomicon:

Pictures just do not do this salad justice. It is amazeballs.

Two big heads of fennel (and three big shallots) are roasted with a drizzle of olive oil and S&P.  The fennel is added to a head of chopped chicory, some toasted hazelnuts, and dried cranberries. The roasted shallots are blended with some olive oil, hazelnut oil (I subbed more EVOO), white wine vinegar, maple syrup, tarragon, thyme, nutmeg, and salt. It makes a thick, creamy, savory dressing that is out-of-this-world delicious.

There is only one thing that could possibly make this salad any better, and that is a hunk of freshly baked No-Knead Swedish Cardamom Braid from Vegetarian Times:

This is the best tasting bread I've ever had. Don't just take my word for it - try it yourself. I've made it a bunch of times, and everyone I've served it to has LOVED it.

We washed down our salad and bread with some Southern Tier Pumking beer:

I love pumpkin beers, and this one is in a class of its own. It's fantastic! It was the perfect treat to go with our yummy fall dinner. I highly recommend it!

I'm Still Here....

...but Vegan MoFo nearly killed me.

Well, not really. But it sure did make me want to take a blogging break!

I've still been cooking, baking, and trying new recipes. I just haven't been motivated to blog about them :) But here is a sample of what I've been cooking lately:

Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes from Peas and Thank You:

Blueberry Carob Pancakes from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan:

Mini Tofu Frittatas, also from Peas and Thank You:

Sweet Potato Lentil Chili and Cornmeal-Crusted Plantains, both also from EDBV:

Spinach Salad with Persimmons and Spiced Pecans in Shallot Lemon Dressing, with a side of steamed mixed veggies, from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen:

Two Step Southwestern Stew from Vegetarian Times:

...along with some Cowgirl Cornbread from Peas and Thank You:

More cornbread-y goodness: Fresh Corn & Scallion Cornbread from Appetite for Reduction:

Classic Black Bean & Veggie Chili, also from AFR:

A Vegan Bowl from AFR - quinoa, baked tofu, carrots, red pepper, steamed broccoli, and Caesar Chavez dressing:

Portobello Salad with Spicy Mustard Dressing from Veganomicon:

Perhaps I will be getting my blogging mojo back soon. It is fall, after all, and that means lots of yummy breads, soups, and pumpkin-y foods for me. I definitely need to up my pumpkin consumption!

Vegan MoFo Day 26: Paris, Part Deux

I promised we'd revisit Paris, the City of Lights and one of the most romantic cities in the world, so let's journey back there tonight. Last time I wrote about Paris, I shared the adventures of my honeymoon in 2001. This time, I'm going to write about my second trip to Paris, which was in March 2002. My parents came to visit my hubby and me in Germany, and we decided it would be fun to take a road trip to Paris. We were only going to spend 2 nights there, so we tried to see as much as we could, since it was my parents' first trip to Paris (and first trip to Europe!)

We walked along the Champs-Elysees and saw the Arc de Triomphe:

It was pretty cool underneath the Arc!

Of course, we had to go to the top. We survived the spiral staircase from hell and were rewarded with amazing views of the city:

We also visited the Musee d'Orsay, which was a real treat for me. I am happier than a pig in poo walking around art museums. The museum itself is a work of art. It's housed in a former railway station, and it's just so lovely.

The art history course I took in college really came in handy! I was basically dumbstruck coming face-to-face with literally dozens of paintings I had studied...works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat...it was just amazing. I could just stand and stare at them all day!

But...I didn't. We had lots more of Paris to see, after all! Like Sacre-Coeur:

...and Moulin Rouge! We didn't go inside, though...it costs something like $100 to get in!

We also did something my hubby and I hadn't done on our honeymoon...we visited the Eiffel Tower at night. Wow, was that AMAZING!!

I love how the only food pic I have of Paris is my hubby and I eating donuts and drinking cappuccino in the Eiffel Tower. I mean, really, people.

I didn't eat here, but how cool was this crepe stand. They have Nutella by the truckload and a bumper sticker that says "J'<3 le pop corn." LOL

We had a lot of fun in Paris. It was great to go back and revisit some things, as well as see some things we missed the first time...and eat more chocolate croissants, of course!

Tonight I wanted something French for dinner, and what is more French than pate? 'Course, I don't do the whole animal-liver thang. I opted for some tasty Walnut-Mushroom Pate from Veganomicon. I made tartines, with toasted sourdough bread, a thick layer of pate, some sliced pearl tomatoes, shredded baby spinach, and shredded carrots.

On the side, I had a hefty salad of baby spinach, celery, and carrots, drizzled with Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I also had a big scoop of extra pate with baby carrots. Can you tell how much I love carrots?? All I needed was a glass of carrot juice to wash it all down! :)

The pate was delicious, the terrine was awesome, and it was all so much better for me than a donut and cappuccino!