Black bean spaghetti with squash, spinach, pine nuts and tomato!

Here was dinner last night... So very pretty. It looked like a culinary rainbow.

A friend got me some black bean spaghetti. "It's fun!" she said. I thought it looked weird and would taste like crap. And I didn't have any idea what I would cook with it. But dudes... It's GOOD.

I got the recipe from Honest Kitchen and modified it. It calls for pumpkin but I thought squash would be easier to find, easier to work with and milder in flavor. It worked great! The kids loved it (I was a little worried they wouldn't but they all destroyed it).

I think next time I will try crumbling some Punk Rawk Labs vegan cheese on top, or grilling some cubed marinaded tofu and mixing it in (the original recipe calls for it to be topped with feta cheese).

1 1/2 cups butternut squash, cut into small chunks
1 cup cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon dried rosemary or 1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 packet black bean spaghetti
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 big handfuls baby spinach, washed
a few tablespoons pine nut kernels, toasted


Dressing:
1/2 lemon, zested and juiced
100ml (3 ounze) extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, extra

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Place the pumpkin, tomatoes and garlic on a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper and rosemary. Toss to coat. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is just cooked through (you can take the tomatoes out earlier if they look like they’re getting too soft). Leave to cool slightly.

3. Cook the black bean spaghetti according to the packet instructions (6-8 minutes in a boiling water with pinch of sea salt and olive oil). Drain and place in a large bowl. Add the spinach and toss well. Add the pumpkin and the tomatoes and fold to combine.

4. To make the vinaigrette, combine the olive oil, half of the lemon juice and the lemon zest in a bowl and whisk to combine. Season with black pepper. Drizzle the salad dressing on the dish and fold to combine.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

A fitting title for my latest blog after a hiatus of a decent length, wouldn't you agree? I'm finally back at making some food and not just microwaving Amy's frozen dinners. It's been a long few months!

I don't know what got into me but I wanted dessert, and bad. Felix is gluten-free and I wanted him to be able to have some of whatever it was I was making. Vegan and gluten-free doesn't always sound good especially when you're talking desserts.

Enter: sugar, vegan butter, some GF carbs and a whole crapload of lemons.

All of those things are pretty good. So together they made a good treat. I got the recipe from Cheap and Simple Vegan, you can find it here:

http://www.cheapandsimpleveganrecipes.com/gluten-free-vegan-lemon-bars/

Here are some pictures! It was pretty easy to make, just wicked messy. It felt good to bust out my beautiful cherry red KitchenAid mixer again.

Heres one before baking- bake the crust for about 20 minutes first, then pour on a decadent lemon sauce that you bake for about 20 minutes more.

And after... Dusted with a little powdered sugar!

The Divorce Diet

Not many people follow my silly little vegan blog. It was mostly something I just did for myself.

I'm going through a breakup. By far the worst of my life. There are stress-eaters and stress-starvers and I'm the latter. Not on purpose. My heart is just broken so I have no appetite. The first day he was gone I ate an apple with some peanut butter on it. Today is day 11. I ate a half a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Eating feels awful.

I'm still vegan. But today instead of my usual shopping trips to get ingredients to make new recipes I just got a bunch of frozen dinners for one, and food for the kids. The most fun part about making food was watching Lars try it and love it, and know I worked hard on it.

I'll be away for a while.

Warming Up with Wild Rice Soup!

It is officially fall! Lars is on the east coast right now, but I didn't want to slip into "meals for one," so I've been cooking a lot and making big batches to share with friends.

My new favorite thing are those microwave rice pouches- especially the wild rice. Wild rice is incredibly easy to mess up but you never know until it's too late. I bought an Archer Farms one from Target, and used it in a recipe for cabbage rolls. I had a whole bunch left over- almost two cups- so I decided to improvise and try making a recipe for a vegan wild rice soup.

I am definitely not opposed to soy cheese, nut milks, or anything else that is meant to directly replace a meat or dairy product, but I like when I can make a recipe without them that is like the original. That means, this recipe happens to also be soy-free!

I always get nervous when I make a new recipe... this one was great! I am so happy with it. I almost can't wait until the weather gets colder so that I can warm up with some more of this.

Vegetable Wild Rice Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
10 baby red potatoes
4 carrots, chopped
1/2 carton of sliced button mushrooms
1 1/2 cup cooked wild rice
2 boullion cubes
1 Tbsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes (I did mine unpeeled) in enough water to cover them, until they are just barely soft, then add the carrots to the water until both veggies are soft and fork-tender.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet and saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms over medium heat until onions are translucent, garlic is fragrant and the mushrooms are soft.

Process all but about 4 of the potatoes in a food processor. Remove the remaining potatoes and cut them into cubes, then return them to the water. Add the bouillon cubes as well as the onion-mushroom mixture until boiling.

Pour in the wild rice. Make sure the bouillon is fully melted, then add the processed potatoes and stir until the broth looks creamy. Season with thyme and salt and pepper.

Vegan Rosh Hashanah!

Rosh Hashanah is Jewish new year. I'm not super religious but Rosh Hashanah is fun because it focuses a lot on the fall harvest. This year I was committed to making a vegan Rosh Hashanah dinner and to my surprise and delight, everything turned out great! We had dinner outside JUST before sundown so we could enjoy our food in the beautiful weather, then have a fire in the back yard. My friend Rachel Klein joined the boys and me, and was named Captain of Pediatric Wrangling during the hours-long food preparation.

I wanted to blend Eastern European recipes, á la my grandma, along with traditional Israeli and middle Eastern staples. I ended up making my old standby Moroccan stew over Israeli couscous (which you can find in earlier posts), potato and onion borek, eggless challah, cabbage rolls, apple strudel, and falafel with hummus. I found the excellent recipes for the challah and apple strudel on this post by vegkitchen.com What was crazy and I did NOT realize while I was planning this menu, was that I made a ton of "wrapped" foods. Two foods wrapped in pastry and one wrapped in cabbage. Both of these recipes below require some tuck-n-roll.

The recipes I adapted were all either dairy or parve, and some of them require a lot of prep, so be prepared to spend some time in the kitchen! I took some shortcuts like buying microwavable wild rice (I always screw up wild rice anyway) and jarred tomato sauce (I found one with green olives which is what the recipe called for... not having to make sauce saves you a good 40 minutes)! I was terrified I was going to screw up the cabbage rolls but they were easy to assemble and were the standout success of the dinner. You will need a food processor!


Cabbage Rolls 

6 large cabbage leaves
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 large carrots, grated
5 oz mushrooms (I used portabello)
1/2 precooked brown rice
1/2 cup precooked wild rice
1/4 cup black beans (the original recipe called for lentils which you could also use)
2 cups veggie stock
3 1/2 oz vegan cream cheese
salt and pepper to taste
premade tomato or pasta sauce with olives

Boil a large pot of water and blanche the leaves for about 5-10 minutes. While you're waiting, combine the two rices and set aside.

Chop the onions in a food processor, and sauté them in a pan heated with olive oil, until they are translucent. Process the carrots and mushrooms together in the processor, then add them to the pan and cook until soft. Finally add the rice mixture, beans (or lentils) and herbs as well as salt and pepper to taste, until everything is incorporated and heated through. Transfer mixture to a bowl and mix with the vegan cream cheese.


Borek is similar to a spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) because its a savory pie wrapped in a puff pastry. Awesome fact- Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry is VEGAN! Use that information wisely, because its not exactly low-fat, low-calorie or very good for you, even though it makes some amazing treats and is easy to use. Borek is traditionally served with a tzaziki (yogurt-dill) sauce, but they are totally decadent enough on their own!

Potato, Onion and "Cheese" Borek

1 Pepperidge Farm puff pastry
1 Tbsp Earth Balance, melted
1 onion, finely chopped or processed
3 1/2 oz vegan garlic-chive cream cheese
7 oz cooked mashed potato (I actually boiled my potatoes, peeled and mashed them... time-consuming!)
1/2 chopped italian parsley
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450 (original recipe says to heat to "446 degrees," which I found so funny! Old recipe books are so odd, especially when they have been translated from another language or converted into different forms of measurement).

Mix all the ingredients except the puff pastry and Earth Balance into a bowl. Lay the puff pastry on a flat surface and cut into 9 squares. This is pretty easy because it's folded into thirds, so if you cut that, and then cut it the other way, you'll have 9.

Fill each square at its base, tuck in the sides and roll up. Be careful not to overfill the pastry, and seal it by pinching the seam after rolling. Place them all on a baking sheet and brush each one with Earth Balance.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Ciabatta Madness!

I picked up these little take-and-bake ciabatta buns from the grocery and was really happy to learn they are vegan! I made two awesome sandwiches with them that quickly became favorites for me.

The first was a portabella sandwich with roasted red pepper and garlic-chive vegan cream cheese. I simply sautéed a mushroom cap in some oil, red wine vinegar, garlic and rosemary, then added jarred roasted red peppers and a schmear of the cream cheese onto a toasted mini ciabatta. Voila.

The second came from a take-home recipe magazine from Kowalski's Market and inside it was a recipe for a Mexican chicken sandwich that looked pretty good... so I veganized it.

On second thought I kind of wish I had called this blog, "Veganize This." Because I feel like all I do is take "regular" recipes and make them vegan. You can find the original recipe here on their website, and then you can say, "OOOH, I see what she did there."


Mexican Veggie Ciabatta Sandwiches

• 1/3 cup Veganaise
• 1 tbsp. fresh squeezed lime juice
• 1 tsp. grated lime zest
• salt and pepper to tastes
• 1 tbsp. Kowalski's Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 tbsp. chopped red onion
• 6 mini sweet peppers, sliced into rings
• 1/4 cup fresh, canned or steamed corn
• 1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 2 tsp. chili powder

• 3/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• handful of Daiya pepperjack cheese
• 4 mini ciabattas
• 6-8 tomato slices
• Wholly Guacamole or fresh avocado

Heat oven to 350 and heat the ciabattas after cutting in half (open-face style). After removing from the oven, place a handful of Daiya pepperjack on one side and allow it to melt.

Combine the Veganaise with lime juice and zest, and set aside (refrigeration is a good idea). Heat the olive oil over medium, and sautee the black beans, red onion, peppers and corn until heated through but still crisp. Season while still warm.

Spread lime vegan mayo on one side of the ciabatta and top with avocado or guacamole, and tomato. fill the sandwich with the bean and veggie mixture. 

Happy Month-aversary!

Its been a month of veganism and I am honestly so content. I feel like this change I made was a pretty big one, but once I committed to it and started doing it, it wasn't hard, it was exciting and fun.

My fingernails are stronger and grow faster (I thought this was just me until another vegan mentioned this). My body feels cleaner. I have lost some weight in a healthy way that wasn't drastic or extreme. And I make better food choices- not because all vegan food is healthy, but because being on a restrictive diet has forced me to stop before I put something in my mouth to eat it. I have to ask: What are the ingredients? Does this contain non-vegan stuff? While I am doing that, I'm looking at the same nutrition label that lists fat, calories, sodium, sugar, not to mention, a potential list of ingredients that are not actually food (even though they are technically vegan) like partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and the laundry list of gross preservatives.

I went to a food court with my youngest son today and realized that a place I used to love to go- a place where food options were everywhere- there wasn't a lot of actually good stuff to eat. When I found vegan options I knew that out of those options, I should pick one that was loaded with as much good-for-me things as possible. It has become second nature and, while not all of the food I eat is super healthy, putting veganism first helped me to let healthfulness flow into my regimen without a whole lot of effort or thought.

I realized something about myself: my strength in the area of vegan food, is VEGANIZING food. I can take a recipe with dairy, meat or eggs, and make it vegan, and make it taste good! This is pretty cool!

I'm still looking up vegan recipes, trying ones of my own, and seeking out vegan cookbooks. But being able to improvise is so fun. Looking back on my old eating habits I am honestly quite shocked and a little bit embarrassed. I thought it was cute to be the 28 year-old that made stick-to-your-ribs food like a grandma- slathered in butter and cream and cheese. That food tasted good, because I was eating badly, and because I had a really unhealthy view of food. Food was there to comfort me and make me feel good, food worked for ME. Having to work for food, to make sound choices and to think before I eat has made a tremendous improvement in my life. 

Networking with other vegans who were more interested in the animal rights aspects of veganism as most vegans are, I've seen so many things that never would have crossed my mind. I was listening to a podcast a week or so ago, and the two hosts were talking about the thought of how much suffering and fear an animal has to endure just to become food, or produce food. I will be honest, while I have always cared about animal welfare, this vegan thing was for me about wanting a challenge and trying something fun. I have learned so much and become so much more aware even in this short amount of time, and I know that I have no even scratched the surface of all there is to learn. I still want this blog to be about happy things and I really want to veer away from being preachy, but I do know that this new leaf has changed not only the way I eat, the way I cook or the choices I make about food, but the way I look at ethics.