New Year's Eve Nosh.

I am spending NYE in with some good food, records on the turntable, wine and champagne later when the clock strikes midnight. Happy New Year to all of you and I hope 2011 is a healthy and happy year. I didn't want to be fussy tonight and decided to keep it simple with a few nibbles. I flipped through my "Tables of Lebanon" cookbook and picked out 'Chickpeas in Olive Oil', Yogurt Sauce with mint and 'Potatoes with Cilantro' served with roasted broccoli and pita.


Potates with Cilantro or Batata Bi-Kizbara in arabic. This was a very easy recipe where you saute potato cubes in olive oil and toss with sauteed garlic and cilantro. It smells heavenly and tastes even more so.


Simple roasted broccoli that is so much more delicious than you think. Cauliflower would have been even better.


My plate. The chickpeas were simply dressed with olive oil, garlic, lemon and dried mint. For the sauce, I used Wildwood plain unsweetened soy yogurt that I mixed with a touch of Vegenaise and stirred in garlic, salt and dried mint.

Tofurky Pizza and Buffalo-BBQ Tofu

Finally tried the new Tofurky frozen pizza line. This one is the meatless pepperoni (with Daiya cheese). It's not bad at all! I would prefer a little less "meat" but for a frozen pizza, it was pretty tasty.


This is what happened when I craved hot wings over the weekend. I breaded tofu sticks with panko, baked them in the oven until they were crispy, then tossed them in a warm buffalo-bbq sauce which was a combination of Earth Balance margarine, Red Rooster hot sauce and BBQ sauce with a little sugar. Yummy!

Xmas 2010.

Hey! Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend. I spent xmas eve with my parents, brother and husband. I made a nice xmas dinner and afterwards we opened presents, drank mulled wine and played board games. Had a great time!


This was dinner. Up front and going clockwise: dijon glazed carrots, VegNews mac n cheez, boiled green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, Bryanna's vegan brown gravy (I added olive oil to make it not fat-free), and roasted green beans.


Lots of carbs but oh so good!


On xmas day, Marc and I went over to our friends Hope and Gary's house for dinner. I brought over my famous spinach artichoke dip.


Hope and I baked! These are unadorned gingerbread and vanilla cupcakes from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World'. All dessert pics were taken by Hope with her giant digital camera. Those are her adorable teapots behind.


Gingerbread with lemony "cream cheez" frosting. These were amazing!


All festive and christmas-y.


What!???!! Cutest cupcake in the world! This is the tiramisu cupcake. Oh heaven...


These were my favorite. I haven't had tiramisu in over four years. This was absolute vegan perfection.


And more pics of cute cupcakes...


And last but not least, espresso oatmeal chip cookies. The espresso flavor in this is wow! Recipe from 'Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar'.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!

My lovely aunt from Vegas is in town and tonight we got together and made these yummy cookies. These are from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar". Great book with so many varieties of vegan cookies!

Vegan Ceviche.

Not long ago, our friend Eddie made us vegan posole. Well this week we were treated to this absolutely delicious vegan ceviche! I topped it with homemade salsa, Tofutti Sour Supreme and hot sauce. This was so freaking good!!! Thank you Eddie!

VegNews Mac.

My second time making this delectable dish. It's one of the best vegan macs out there. Try it, you'll see.

Soup and Dumplings + East Coast Coffee Cake

This is the fricot soup that I make often with the most perfect dumplings. I love this soup so much. It's perfect with or without tofu.


This is the East Coast Coffee Cake from Vegan Brunch cookbook. I made it with the jam swirl in which I used organic Trader Joe's "Superfruits" jam.


I love that crumb topping!

Self Saucing One Pot Pasta

Hey people, it's almost the weekend. Can't wait to have time to make fancier food than this. This is a perfect weeknight meal because it requires one pot and a few ingredients. You can find the basis for the recipe here. I made the pasta puttanesca version and did a few things different. I left out the anchovy of course and added mushrooms and one can 8oz. tomato sauce. This came out so good and was so easy to do. I can see this working with many different pasta shapes and whatever vegetables you have on hand. I highly recommend this for quick weeknight meals.

Veggie Quiche!

Made a veggie quiche with tofu, broccoli, spinach and mushrooms. It's yummy right out of the fridge or warmed up.


I served it with a sauce made of Vegenaise with a touch of ketchup plus a baby lettuce salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

Cake Balls! and Red Lentil Stew

What?!?! Yes sir, I made cake balls! I've seen these things before at the post punk kitchen forum and I knew that they were going to be made one day. When I made Marc's birthday cake a few weekends ago, I had messed up the first cake. It came out overdone on the outside and fell apart when I plopped it out of the cake tin. It was still perfectly good though so I kept the pieces in the freezer for cake balls later.


I felt like a candy maker rolling smooshy cake mixture into little balls and then dipping them in chocolate. I added colorful sprinkles to entice you even more.


These little guys are dense and very rich. I had one so far and I was totally satisfied! I will be sharing them with my co-workers tomorrow. If you want to make these, follow this recipe as a guideline. It says to use a whole can of cake frosting but that was a little scary for me. I used almost half a can which worked just fine.


This was my lunch today. I've been wanting middle eastern food and was flipping through a food memoir I read a while back called "Memories of a Lost Egypt" by Colette Rossant. There is a recipe for Soeur Leila's Red Lentil Stew which sounded real good. Pureed red lentils and vegetables simmered with vermicelli noodles and sauteed onions. I added spinach for some color. I served it with olive oil-fried pieces of pita bread. The stew was thick and velvety and was so good with the fried bread and a squeeze of lemon. This one's a keeper! Recipe here. (Replace the chicken broth for veggie broth or water. Also instead of a can of tomatoes, just use 1 tomato, quartered.)

Vegan Posole.

Lucky me! I got to enjoy this delicious, hearty bowl of veggie posole which was made for us by Eddie, a friend of my husband. This beautiful soup made with hominy and meaty soy chunks was topped with fresh shredded cabbage, chopped onions, jalapenos, fresh homemade salsa and lime juice. We enjoyed this very much. Thanks Eddie!