vegan food for everyone
There’s nothing quite like the pairing of cool sweet mango and curry-spiced cream. Throw in some chickpeas, minced red onion, and baby greens and you have a delicious protein-packed salad. It’s perfect for stuffing in a wrap, or layering with some fresh summer tomatoes to make a sandwich, or having as a side to your burgers….
I’m not sure if this recipe is a grain bowl or a salad. Maybe that just depends on how you present it? I guess I called it a salad, but I also plated it on a salad plate, so… Regardless of what it’s called, with tender roasted sweet potatoes, chewy farro, garlicky chickpeas and savory minced sun dried tomatoes, a heaping pile of buttery avocado, and a mouth watering lemon vinaigrette this salad-bowl-what have you is so flavorful and satisfying to eat. It’s light enough for spring, but hearty enough for any time of the year….
We all need an arsenal of easy, healthy, and comforting meals to pull out at the end of a long day. For me, nothing spells comfort food more than a big plate of beans and rice. I love beans, which I suppose makes me a good vegan and extra environmentally friendly. Seriously, everyone should eat more beans and legumes! This recipe has it all, protein, green vegetables, comforting Italian herbs, bright citrusy flavor, and carbohydrates to leave you well satiated….
DC is a cool 72 degrees as I write this post this morning (and the high is only 79 ºF today). It feels like a godsend after the last week, which was around 20 ºF hotter. We’re taking advantage of this brief respite with some soup. I mean, ok, we actually don’t have any more soup. It’s too good! We ate it all! But you should take advantage of a cool day (I’m not sure when I started calling 70s cool weather) with some soup. But having had this in 95 degree weather I will attest that it’s great then too….
I make a lot of food that I never photograph or share with you guys. It’s not because it’s not delicious, but because I’m too hungry (or occasionally too lazy) to plan or take photos or measure ingredients and generally be meticulous about the process. This chickpea and kale recipe was originally one of those meals. We were at home on our last night before a short trip, and had a big beautiful bunch of lacinato kale to use up. Omar was working, and I needed to get dinner made quickly so I could move on to other chores. It was literally me throwing things I had to use up into a pan, including 2 half-used onions from the fridge, one red and one yellow. I didn’t even decide to use Indian spices until halfway through cooking. So, you can imagine my surprise, when we finally sat down to eat that we were blown away by how delicious it was!…
I’m sitting here trying to think if my summer eating and cooking is actually any different than my wintertime eating. I know some people avoid the stove as much as possible, but hey even when it hits 90 ºF I’ll still turn on the oven (apparently). I probably make less casseroles, but like, they’re as convenient in the summer as they are in the winter! I will say that I get 1000% more inspired by summer produce and eat about 12x as much fruit (like the time I got 22 mangoes and ate approximately 90% of them by myself–though making these mango lassi’s definitely helped). Ok, so I love taking advantage of seasonal produce, and you see that with my recipes! Rhubarb took center stage for awhile and I made my almond rhubarb bundt cake, corn has made a small appearance in my sweet corn velouté, but it’s still early in the season, asparagus took over my produce drawer for awhile and it was delicious on this asparagus pizza.
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This is comfort food at it’s best: spaghetti tossed in a creamy sun dried tomato sauce with chickpea-based meatballs on top. So delicious my husband recommend that we ‘test’ the recipe again ASAP. Can’t say I blame him for wanting more. There’s something so satisfying about twirling freshly cooked spaghetti around your fork and shoveling those slippery noodles into your mouth. And when those noodles are tossed in a ultra creamy, luscious sauce it’s 100% better.
The creamy sauce is packed with the richest flavors. Sweet sun dried tomatoes are incorporated two ways, blended into the nondairy milk to make a tomatoey cream and minced morsels are tossed at the end for extra bursts of that intense sun dried tomato flavor. Tomato paste adds some incredible depth of flavor and body to the sauce, as well as giving it a pink hue. Miso gives a slightly cheesy, umami-rich funk to the cream. And a hearty splash of wine is my favorite well-known secret of adding a lot of aged flavor to a creamy sauce. Thickened with an olive oil-based roux and topped with some chiffonade basil, this sauce is perfect on spaghetti….
Stuffed peppers are a classic vegetarian entree, maybe a bit less popular these days, but a common dish nonetheless. It’s definitely a dish I’ve been served on more then one occasion, typically filled with 90% rice, 10% cheese. The problem with this is 1) they are so not filling, one pepper and I’m still hungry, 2) they’re boring like that, and 3) of course it’s not vegan friendly–I’m not sure what I would have been served if I had been vegan at the time, a pepper filled with rice only? This recipe for chickpea and couscous stuffed red bell peppers are everything I wished those sad peppers were. They are filling and healthy and packed with flavor. Perfect for the vegans in your life or for your meatless Monday dinner….
Sometimes it happens to me. The unthinkable! I crave a salad for dinner. Ideally served alongside some freshly baked bread, but even without the bread a giant bowl full of veggies is all I want. I’m kidding, I think salads for dinner are great (on occasion, don’t get carried away)! Especially when they are hearty kale salads that come with a giant pile of sweet and smokey panfried chickpeas and a spicy jalapeño-tahini dressing.
I whipped this salad up on a week night when both my husband and I were going to yoga class in the evening. I knew we’d want dinner immediately upon getting home, but also didn’t want to eat anything too heavy afterwards. So, before leaving I quickly blended together the dressing, sautéd the smokey chickpeas, chopped the red bell pepper, and prepped the kale. That way all we’d need to do when we got home is toss everything together and eat. Best part is, the salad made enough for 4 meals, so we had leftovers the next day! This salad makes a great and complete meal, but it could also be served as a side salad for a fancy weekend dinner.
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Spring is in the air! At least, it is in the lower latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. But whether you are still dealing with near freezing temperatures, or, like me, overheating in a t-shirt while walking your dog in the afternoon, asparagus is finding its way into your grocery store. It’s certainly the best, and some could argue, the only, time of year to be eating the vegetable. Tender and juicy stalks have replaced the sad, stringy stand-ins on the shelves. This vegan asparagus pizza with a spicy chickpea sauce is my nudge to get them into your bag and onto your menu.
Asparagus on pizza is a fun and tasty way to celebrate spring. The crisp, juicy vegetable is cut into matchsticks and tossed in some olive oil, salt, and pepper before being arranged on a bed of creamy homemade chickpea sauce. Made with a generous sprinkle of crushed red pepper, and some hot smoked paprika (or cayenne pepper), the chickpea sauce brings some subtle heat to your slice. It’s a nice change of pace from a tomato sauce or olive oil, and is much healthier for you than a cream based sauce. So, even if you live somewhere that asparagus is not currently in season, I still recommend you make this asap, just with different toppings!…