I’m a bit of a cookbook junkie. When I first went vegetarian many years ago, there weren’t too many good veggie cookbooks on the market. Now they’re released with such frequency that I can’t keep up. I tend to buy them, flip through them, put them on my bookshelf, ignore them and then claim that I have too many too chose from. I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to no longer neglect my books and I’ve already started paying more attention to them. For the past week, I’ve been taking them off the shelves, flipping through them and marking any good looking recipes that are free of all of the foods I need to avoid. Yesterday I was quite surprised to find that most of the baked goodies in Dreena Burton’s Eat Drink and Be Vegan are wheat free! I immediately ran to the kitchen and whipped up a batch of You Got Your Peanut Butter in My Chocolate Cookies. These cookies are made with spelt flour and unrefined sugar and peanut butter is swirled in after all of the rest of the ingredients are mixed in. They are a bit reminiscent of a chocolate peanut butter cup and are very tasty!

Who needs processed dry wheat flour sticks when nature has made the perfect noodle hidden inside a giant vegetable?

It’s a little difficult to tell from the photo, but this is spaghetti squash and veggies. I kind of threw this together with stuff from the fridge, and it turned out to be absolutely scrumptious. There is no recipe, but here’s what I did:

I cut open and roasted a squash in the oven for about an hour. I sautéed about a quarter of a yellow onion, a small chili pepper for some spice, some chopped shiitake mushrooms, a handful of sliced sundried tomatoes, a bunch of sliced kale, half a can of chickpeas, and a 14 ounce can of chunky tomato sauce. When the squash was done, I scooped it out of the skin and mixed it with the veggie mixture and then sprinkled some nutrional yeast over it in place of grated cheese. It was really delicious and strangely, it seemed to taste better with every bite!

It’s a cold and rainy day here in New Jersey and I ate a lot of food yesterday, so I wanted something warming but light for lunch today. Spicy Carrot Lentil Soup to the rescue! This is a recipe I learned in a cooking class and made a few changes to make it my own. I toasted up some red rice bread to serve with it.

Spicy Carrot Lentil Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients
1 cup red lentils
5 cups vegetable broth
1 pound carrots, sliced
1/2 red onion, chopped
14.5 oz can copped tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil or coconut oil
1 fresh green chili, seeded and chopped or 1 teaspoon minced chili
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Sea salt to taste
Roasted pumpkin seeds (recipe below)

Directions
1. Place the lentils in a strainer and rinse well under cold water. Drain and place in a large pot together with the vegetable stock, carrots, onions, tomatoes and garlic. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the vegetables and lentils are tender

2. Heat the oil in a small pan. Add the cumin, coriander, chili and tumeric and fry over low heat for 1 or 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Season with salt to taste.

3. Process the soup in batches until smooth in a blender or food processor. (Or keep the soup in the pot and process with an immersion blender.) Return soup to the pot and add the spice mixture. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

Garnish with roasted pumpkin seeds and enjoy!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 tablespoon apple sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 1/2 cups shelled pumpkin seeds

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a large baking sheet with vegetable oil.

2. Whisk apple sauce, lime juice, and oil in large bowl.

3. Whisk in spices.

4. Add pumpkin seeds; toss. Transfer to baking sheet, spreading evenly.

5. Bake for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool on sheet.

December 26th is Boxing Day in England and areas that were settled by the English such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It has nothing to do with beating someone up, but rather giving gifts to tradesmen, mail carriers and doormen, as well as charities. The origins of the name are unclear, but some believe that it came from people giving gift boxes to their servants. Others think it comes from the boxes that were placed at church doors for parishioners to deposit coins for the poor.

Here in the US, the day after Christmas is usually the day people hit the mall to return unwanted gifts and take advantage of after Christmas sales. For me, it’s the day I lay around in my pajamas, watch television and read. And eat of course. Delicious food must be a part of any day!

I started the day out with absolutely delicious apple cinnamon spelt pancakes. I’m not usually a big fan of pancakes, but this recipe won me over! They were made with spelt flour, rice milk, cinnamon, baking powder and diced apples. I topped them with soy free Earth Balance and maple syrup, and they didn’t last long!

Holiday Greetings!

Dennis and I went to Veggie Heaven Denville for his birthday dinner this evening. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of dining at a Veggie Heaven, they serve delicious vegetarian Chinese food. Most of their entrees consist of mock meats made from soy and wheat, and it was a little difficult for me to not to order an big plate of mock chicken. I settled on broccoli and eggplant in garlic sauce with brown rice. (They mixed both veggies together for me even though they’re on the menu separately.) Yes, I’m supposed to stay away garlic, and yes, I’m sure there was some soy in the garlic sauce, but I doubt the small quantities of those ingredients would do any harm. The meal was absolutely delicious and I didn’t miss the mock meat at all!

Instead of cake, I baked a birthday apple crisp. The recipe is another one from Clean Food. The recipe calls for walnuts, so I just replaced them with cashews. It’s made with apples, dried cranberries, cinnamon, brown rice flour and rolled oats, and is sweetened with maple syrup, so it’s pretty much guilt-free. I topped it with a little bit of Soyatoo’s Rice Whip, and it was rather tasty!

Merry Christmas to you, and I hope Santa brings everything you wished for!

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that the food in this photo doesn’t look very appetizing. But looks can be deceiving! This was a quite a tasty meal.

Much to my excitement, I found rice noodles at a local mega-chain grocery store today, so I thought I’d try my hand at Pad Thai. In the past whenever I’ve had a hankering for this delicious peanutty noodle dish, I’d just order it from the Thai restaurant in town, so this was my first attempt at making it. I omitted tofu from the recipe, but momentarily forgot that I’m allergic to corn and added baby corn. Also included were broccoli, red peppers, mushrooms, bok choy and sugar snap peas. The veggies were stirfried in a tasty spicy peanut sauce, served over the rice noodles and then the whole dish is topped with roasted peanuts. Mung bean sprouts are traditionaly in Pad Thai, but I couldn’t find any today and I used up all the sprouts that I just bought in the dish I made on Sunday. This was delicous and very filling and I’ll definitely be making it again!