Easy food on Labor Day.

Taking it easy, nothing fancy at all. I made tofu scramble and vegi sausage for breakfast and finished my last donut. Lunch was homemade hummus with tomato salad, Daiya cheese and crostini.

Salad Samurai: BLT salad

I just picked up Salad Samurai the cookbook and I can't wait to try all the recipes. There was one called BKT which is Bacon, Kale, Tomato salad that looked so good but I didn't have kale so I used romaine and baby lettuces instead. Turned out perfect. The dressing is a beautiful dijon/maple concoction that tastes wonderful. My tempeh bacon came out dark because I accidentally used gravy browning instead of liquid smoke! I eventually found the liquid smoke in the back of my cupboard and shook some into the tempeh marinade. Oops! The browning didn't alter the flavor in any way, it just made the tempeh a very dark brown.

I can eat this everyday it's so good.

So tasty!

For dinner yesterday I made the Spicy Chickpeas and Carrots from the River Cottage Veg cookbook. It has great flavors: cumin, garlic, orange zest, orange juice and smoked paprika.

For supper tonight we had a bunch of lovely things to nibble on. Salad, tomato bruschetta, white bean hummus, agave roasted cherry tomatoes (that I made yesterday) with fresh seeded baguette slices.

Arugula, cranberries, grilled zucchini, grilled mushrooms tossed in a light italian dressing.

Tomato bruschetta which is simply fresh cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil, salt and pepper.

Popped open the Moroccan Olive Salad that I bought yesterday from World Market. This stuff is good! Green olives bathed in olive oil, tomato sauce and spices.

All served on seeded baguette slices. I love eating like this so much.

So tasty!

Creamy tomato soup & grilled cheese, salad w/ homemade croutons, gluten free cake and another casserole.

It's supposed to rain all weekend, so I made an all American favorite: tomato soup paired with a grilled cheese sandwich. So comforting and delicious! I loosely followed Mary McCartney's "Must Have Creamy Tomato Soup" (subbing almond milk for the soy creamer) and made the sandwich using pepper jack and mozzarella Daiya vegan cheese. Yummy yummy yummy yummy....

A simple salad with mixed greens, homemade croutons (made from Ezekiel bread) and one of the most delicious salad dressings ever. It's the Caesar dressing recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Make it now! Recipe for the dressing below. For the croutons, just toss bread cubes with olive oil and garlic powder and italian herbs and toast in a 400 degree F oven for 15 minutes, stirring 1/2 way.

Gluten-free chocolate cake loaded with candy sprinkles.

I made this casserole last week. It's the usual quinoa, black beans and Daiya cheese tortillas casserole. I love it so much.

Caesar Dressing (Adapted from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Jo Stepaniak)

3 TB nutritional yeast flakes
2 TB tahini
2 TB Dijon mustard (use whole grain mustard!)
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/3 cup water
3 TB lemon juice
1 TB red wine vinegar (she used balsamic)
2 TB Vegenaise (my addition!)
Whisk all ingredients together and chill. If too thick add a little more water.

Meals on Toast.

Otherwise known as an open face sandwich, right? I'm big on stuff like this. Today I made Mary McCartney's saucy mushrooms and tomatoes on toast which is so good that I've made it a million times already. But today I got some really nice tuscan style pane from Trader Joe's. I don't have pics but later on I had another meal on toast, a slice of the same bread, toasted, buttered (Earth Balance) with avocado slices, Sriracha sauce, salt and pepper. Yum. Other things to eat on toast: hummus and thinly sliced tomato, peanut butter, banana and agave syrup, Heinz beans, Earth Balance and marmite, vegan cream cheese and pepper jelly, chickpea salad with melted vegan cheese...the list goes on.

Mary McCartney's FOOD, Helen's Kitchen and Amella Caramels!

Tried some new things this week. My birthday was last Tuesday and as a birthday gift to myself, I bought Mary McCartney's book FOOD: Vegetarian Home Cooking. As you know I'm Beatles obsessed and also a fan of Linda McCartney's cookbooks. Mary is the beautiful daughter of Paul and Linda. She is a very talented photographer and judging from this book, she is also a relaxed and non-fussy cook, just like myself. The book has really great recipes (most are vegetarian but you can probably experiment by substituting vegan products for the eggs and cheese) and the photographs taken by Mary are gorgeous. One recipe that caught my eye, was the Saucy Mushrooms and Tomatoes on Toast. A very very simple recipe with big rewards. It was so tasty and made a perfect breakfast on buttered (Earth Balance) whole grain toast.

You see? It's just perfection. The tomatoes are sweet and juicy, the mushrooms are deliciously seasoned with soy sauce, garlic and thyme. The buttered toast brings it all together into one satisfying dish. I will make this again for sure.

Another picture to entice you to buy Mary's book. There is another recipe in it, Hummus, Avocado and Chili Jam sandwich. It sounds soo good. Where can I get chili jam here in Los Angeles?

I don't remember what day it was, but my husband and I were in the mood for tacos and we went to the local Vons to shop for ingredients. I used to love Morningstar Farms crumbles to make "taco meat" but alas it is no longer vegan. I came across this product by Helen's Kitchen that I was very willing to try.

They turned out fabulous. Very easy to make with no fuss, just like I like it! Recipe at the bottom of this post.

Went shopping at Whole Foods today and found these delicious morsels of fun. Vegan dark chocolate caramels! With gray sea salt! I love sweet and salty combinations. I bought two and they are all for meeee!

Kim's Quick Soft Tacos

1 TB olive oil
1 package Helen's Kitchen veggie ground
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper
4 soft taco size flour tortillas
Garnish: shredded lettuce chopped onion chopped cilantro freshly prepared salsa

Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan on medium high heat. Add the whole package of the veggie ground. It is fairly moist, so stir it around for a few minutes to dry it out a little. Add the spices and season with salt and pepper. Continue to stir for about 5-6 minutes until heated through. Take off of the heat and set the mixture aside. Heat flour tortillas individually over an open burner on your stove for a few seconds on each side to soften and warm them. You may also toast them in a dry pan over heat. Divide mixture onto the flour tortillas and garnish with shredded lettuce, onion, cilantro and fresh salsa.

Check these out. I collect vintage cookbooks and I just got this cool shipment of vintage cooking pamphlets from the 50's and 60's. I want to veganize some of them one day. Will definitely blog about that when it happens.

Tomato Pizza.

Homemade pizza with marinara sauce, tomatoes, onions, spinach and lots of garlic!

Seedy Corn-Tomato-Avocado Salad

Got this recipe from my coworker who got it from a book called Going Raw. This was such a good salad with the creaminess from the avocado, the juicy tomatoes, zesty lime juice and crunchy pumpkin seeds. I also ate this on top of whole grain wasa crackers. Was so good!

I Love a Good Sandwich.

This sandwich was calling my name so I gave in and bought a fresh baguette. I spread Vegenaise, dijon mustard and piled lettuce, avocado (hiding under the tomatoes!), tomatoes and homemade olive salad. Damn. This was so good.

Olive Salad Recipe

1/4 cup black olives, chopped
1/4 cup green olives, chopped
1/8 cup onion, chopped
1/8 cup pepperoncini peppers, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 TB red wine vinegar
2 TB olive oil or more
Mix all ingredients together and store in a tupperware container in the fridge.

Nepali food, Indian food and cake.

Lunch today was this beautiful plate of Nepali food, namely the moong dal (split mung bean soup) in the little bowl and the hot and fiery tomato achaar (chutney) which you can see on the rice. The Indian element of my meal is the alu matar (potatoes and peas) which was the perfect curried accompaniment to the rice and soup. Just can't get enough of this good stuff.


This is a closeup of the roasted tomato hot and spicy achaar. It's basically roasted tomatoes, green chiles, garlic blended into a puree and combined with fresh garlic, ginger, timbur (szechuan pepper), salt, fenugreek and red chili. The recipe is from the book "Taste of Nepal" which I highly recommend!


This is a boiled raisin "depression era" cake that I've made before. This time I used brown sugar and added orange blossom water and cardamom.

Rice Lentil Tomato Soup

I'm known as the queen of revamping leftovers. My mom told me one day that I am just like her father who loved to make 4-5 meals out of one dish. I've never gone that far but I do love a challenge when it comes to making a new dish out of a mountain of leftovers. I made moujadara on Sunday that I couldn't get through (it made a lot!) even though I ate it for a couple of days. I am on a soup kick and decided to make this soup. All I did was saute a bit of onions and garlic in a generous amount of olive oil, added a can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, a few cups of water and the leftover moujadara (lentils/rice). A few pinches of oregano and cumin, salt and pepper and dinner was ready in no time. It was very hearty and delicous.

Almost Manestra

Manestra is a Greek soup with a simple base of tomatoes, olive oil, oregano and orzo pasta. I got the recipe from 'The Olive and The Caper' cookbook. I call it "almost" manestra because I couldn't find orzo anywhere so I had to replace it with anellini pasta. Such simple ingredients but so tasty, warming and full of flavor. The traditional greek way to eat this is with a generous sprinkling of parmesan or kefalotyri cheese on top. I used "parmezano sprinkles" which is a mock parmesan recipe made with almonds, nutritional yeast, salt and miso paste. Worked very well with the soup. I am definitely making this again with orzo in the future.

The recipe is posted at this blog.

Late night soup makin'.

I had an urge to use up the rest of the heirloom tomatoes that I got today. They were all very ripe and I knew I had to use them up quickly. I decided to roast them for soup.


Here they are halved with garlic, basil and a generous drizzling of olive oil ready for the oven.


Forgot to get a pic of them when they came out of the oven in all their roasted glory but here is the finished soup. After roasting, I transferred it all to my blender, pureed it and pressed the mixture through a sieve over my soup pot. I then added a little dried basil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. It's so sweet and delicious!

Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta and Potato Soup

I work in a co-op kitchen and the lovely guy who works next door to our kitchen gave us some beautiful heirloom tomatoes. I came home and made a bruschetta with lots of garlic, basil and olive oil. Perfect spread on fresh baguette.


A light potato soup with spinach that I like to make when I have an abundance of potatoes. Recipe here. I used onions instead of leeks.

Bruschetta and Soup.

Went to the farmer's market this morning and got some beautiful tomatoes to make this salad. It was delicious on fresh baguette slices.


Very simple soup of potatoes, cauliflower, zucchini, onions and cubed tofu with summer savory.

Quick Dinner: Soup and Sandwich.

Hot homemade tomato soup with garlic and basil. Yum.


Leftover "crab" cake sandwich on Ezekiel toast. Double yum.


Quick Tomato Soup

1 14oz. can stewed tomatoes with juice, blended until smooth
1 very small onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TB olive oil
2 TB fresh basil, chopped
2 TB soy sauce
2 TB tomato paste
1 TB nutritional yeast
1 1/2 cup plain rice milk (I use Trader Joe's Enriched Original Rice Drink)
salt and pepper to taste.

In a small pot, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add blended can of tomatoes, basil, tomato paste and soy sauce. Stir to break up paste and bring to a boil. Slowly add in rice milk. Add nutritional yeast and lower heat to simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Before serving drizzle with basil infused olive oil.

Cherry Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta

I got 'Vegan Italiano' yesterday and wanted to break it in so I made this delicious bruschetta. So simple and so fresh, it has cherry tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic, fresh basil, olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar. This makes me think of what summer is going to be like. Fresh and colorful foods, baseball, sunny days...can't wait! (And this is coming from someone who loves rain and grey weather as well.)

Creamy Tomato Blender Sauce with Angel Hair Pasta & Cookbook Giveaway!

This is the second time making this sauce from a lovely little book called "Pasta & Vegetables". You can see the first post here. It's a vegetarian recipe that uses dairy but I was easily able to veganize this by using plain soymilk for the cow's milk and vegan parmesan for the parmesan cheese. It was delicious on top of delicate angel hair. I can see myself adding mushrooms next time or even veggie sausage!



I have an extra brand new copy of this book that I would like to give away to one of my readers. I think you will enjoy this little gem of a book. A lot of the recipes in the book are easily veganizable. Some recipes to tempt your tastebuds:

Pan-Roasted Garlic Chunks with Tomato and Arugula

Texas Tomato Cream Sauce

Moroccan Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

Orzo Vegetable Melange

Fire Roasted New Mexico Pepper Sauce

Roasted Squash Sauce with Ginger and Sherry

And many more! The best part is all the recipes are Low Fat!

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment telling me about your favorite pasta and vegetable combination and I will randomly pick a lucky person! I'm sorry but this contest is only open to US and Canadian residents! The contest ends in two weeks on April 9th. I will announce a winner on April 10th so please check back!