Puy Lentil Coconut Dahl & Banana Cake.

Beautiful dahl recipe from The Happy Pear cookbook. I'm so in love with their food! I had to substitute a few things because I didn't have them. I used a garnet yam instead of butternut and kabocha squash. I know the squash would have been amazing. Didn't have pak choi so I used baby spinach.

I had some with a bit of white rice. Very very good. The coconut milk is what makes this dish. It is very similar to Thai Masaman curry. Just gorgeous flavors.

Vegan banana cake. Nothing healthy about this! It'll be good with a cup o' tea.

Easy Weekend Food.

Today was all about simple, easy to prepare food. The risotto was oven baked which left me with not much to do as the oven did it for me! I threw in a few handfuls of bagged broccoli slaw in with the risotto for some color. The cauliflower was tossed in a bit of olive oil and I popped that in the oven on a sheet pan while the risotto cooked. The chickpea dish was simply canned chickpeas tossed with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, mint, parsley and salt. Everything came out delicious.
You can find the risotto recipe here. You may omit the nutritional yeast if you don't have it. Tastes just as good without it. I left out the margarine which didn't affect the flavor at all. Make this, it's so good!


The coconut pudding was from The Vegan Family cookbook and has silken tofu, rice milk, coconut milk, cornstarch and sugar which simply got blended together, boiled and then refrigerated until chilled.

Belizean Stewed Beans, Coconut Rice and Chocolate Cake

Daaaaamn! This was so delicious! I've never had authentic Belizean food before but I wanted to give it a try when I learned that they use coconut milk in a lot of their dishes. My kinda food, I said! I looked up a lot of recipes online and kept coming across "Rice and Beans" so many times. In that recipe, the beans are cooked together with the coconut milk and rice. I decided to do it seperately by pre-cooking my kidney beans in a crockpot the day before and then today sauteeing onions, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper then adding the beans (with the broth it was cooked in) and the coconut milk and letting it stew for about a half hour. Wonderful on top of coconut rice and with a side of fried plantains and coleslaw. Here is the beans recipe that I worked from. I omitted the pig tail for obvious reasons.

Coconut Rice recipe
(I don't know where I got this recipe. I wrote it out on a piece of paper and failed to note where it came from!)

2 cups water
1 cup basmati rice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup coconut milk
cinnamon stick

Rinse rice if you want (I did not.). Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in rice, salt, coconut milk and cinnamon stick and bring to a boil again. Lower heat and cover for 30 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick and fluff rice with fork before serving.


For desert I continued with the use of coconut milk by adding it to this basic chocolate cake. I think it would have tasted more like coconut if I hadn't poured the rich chocolate ganache over it! Oh well, it was still very very moist, just very chocolatey.


Vic from The Life blog inspired me to make this cake when I saw a photo of his crazy delicious looking cake. Thanks Vic!

Chickpea and Vegetable Korma

As some of my readers already know, I love a good curry. Thai, Indian, whatever, I'm all over it. It's one of the easiest things to make. I like plopping everything in a pot and letting it simmer away while my rice cooker cooks the rice for me. All I had to do was sit back in front of the fan with the ball game on. Super easy, no fuss! You'll find the recipe here. I added a few things to my curry: 1 TB tomato paste, 2 tsp. unrefined sugar and low sodium soy sauce to taste. I also used 1 can coconut milk instead of the creamed coconut/water mixture. I've never had korma before, vegetarian or not so I can't say how authentic it is. But one thing I can say, this is delicious.

Coconut Curry Noodles

Yummy yummy. This Thai inspired dish came out really nice. You can use any pasta you prefer. I tried brown rice pasta tonight but I can imagine anything from fettucine to macaroni would be good with this.

Coconut Curry Noodles

1 lb. brown rice spaghetti or any pasta you prefer
2 TB olive oil
1 TB ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. red curry paste (or more if you like it spicy!)
1/2 cup julienned carrots
1/2 cup sliced red bell peppers
1 1/2-2 cans coconut milk
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup xtra firm tofu, cut into small cubes
1/4 tsp lime zest
juice of 1/2 lime
1 TB agave syrup or 1 tsp. sugar
1-2 TB mushroom soy sauce
black pepper
1 tsp cornstarch mixed with a little water
chopped cashews as garnish
sliced cucumbers

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile heat oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Saute garlic and ginger for a few minutes. Add the red curry, carrots and red bell pepper. Saute for 3 minutes. Add coconut milk, mushrooms and tofu. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Add lime zest, and lime juice and agave. Then add the cornstarch/water mixture and let simmer for another 5-8 minutes. It will thicken up. Season with mushroom soy sauce and black pepper. When pasta is cooked, drain and add to the coconut curry sauce and toss well to combine. Garnish with chopped cashews and sliced cucumber.