Hotpot.

Finally made the Winter Warmer Hotpot recipe by Mary McCartney. Very satisfying and tasty, alone or on top of rice. My herbs of choice were summer savory and rosemary/thyme. I also used veggie crumbles instead of veggie burger chunks. I forgot to add cornstarch to the veggie broth so mine came out like a soup but still good!

The Making of a Perfect Sandwich.

My favorite sandwich: hummus, avocado, chili jam and salad greens on toasted bread, seasoned with lime juice (or lemon), salt and pepper.

Be generous with the hummus and avocado. It's so worth it. Got the idea from Mary McCartney's book. I love that book.

Amazing Sandwich.

I have Mary McCartney's book FOOD to thank for this taste combination in a sandwich: hummus, avocado, lemon juice, chili jam (or sweet chili sauce if you can't find chili jam) and salad greens (spinach in this case) on seeded bread. Amazing flavor!

Mary McCartney's Corn Fritters.

I've been loving Mary's book "Food: Vegetarian Home Cooking" and as I've said before, her recipes are non-fussy and very relaxed which is how I also like to describe my cooking style. You can find the recipe for these beautiful corn fritters here. I veganized them by omitting the eggs and using almond milk and adding a little more almond milk to make the batter smooth. I also used Vegenaise instead of the yogurt for the sauce. I would have used Wildwood plain unsweetened soy yogurt but didn't have any on hand. The recipe comes together easy and I was able to make 12 delicious fritters.

After eating my fair share of fritters, I decided to relax with a tall frosty glass of cider. Happy Memorial Day weekend!

"Get Well Soon, Paul!" cupcakes and other weekend foods.

So the love of my life, Paul McCartney got ill the day after he arrived in Japan a little over a week ago. He was so ill that he canceled the entire asian leg of his tour. You can imagine how worried I've been! We need you to be well Macca! I forget that he is almost 72 years old. He is normally so bouncy and energetic that I can't fathom him ever being sick. And Paul hardly ever cancels shows so to hear that five shows were canceled was pretty alarming. I made some vanilla cupcakes today with chocolate icing to wish Paul a speedy recovery. So far his people have said that he is definitely recovering. I hope he gets lots of rest. I'm seeing him at Dodger Stadium this August so I am very excited.

I used kittee's moist vanilla cake recipe and a chocolate icing recipe from The Complete Vegan Kitchen cookbook. I used Ghirardelli chocolate in my icing. Yummy.

Keeping the McCartney theme, this is Mary McCartney's pan fried cheese, tomato and onion sandwich. I used Daiya vegan cheese for gooey meltiness.

Crockpot pinto beans from scratch. Just a bit of onion, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper and liquid smoke for seasoning.

Tostada with pico de gallo, avocado and hot sauce. So delicious!

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.

Flatbread sandwich, White bean ketchup curry and Mushroom rice.

My inspirations today are from my two current favorite cookbooks: Mary McCartney's FOOD and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg. The above sandwich I had at lunch is Mary's "hummus, avocado and chili jam sandwich" on a whole wheat flatbread instead of toasted whole grain. Very messy and very delicious.

Dinner was the ketchup curry from Hugh's book. He uses chickpeas but I was all out so I subbed white beans. It was a super easy 10 minute recipe that uses ketchup instead of tomatoes. Loved it. On the side, more flatbread and one-pot mushroom rice from Mary's book.

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.

Vegetable soup, Hummus avocado and chili jam sandwich, Granola bars.

I want to eat more veggies. Coming from a vegan, that sounds kind of funny. I feel like I've been eating way too many carbs lately. Toast, bagels, pasta, crackers have been my snacks of choice a lot. I made this soup because it has lots of veggies: cauliflower, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, zucchini, green beans and cabbage as well as kidney beans. It's so delicious. Always comes out great every time I make it. To flavor it right, I add veggie broth powder (homemade) and a touch of Marmite. Mmm...

I finally found a good chili jam that I could use for this sandwich recipe I found in Mary McCartney's cookbook. It's Braswell's Jalapeno Pepper Jelly that I found in the kosher section of Albertsons supermarket. It's so good! This sandwich was amazing. The hummus was homemade with chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and a little water. That's it. I hate store bought hummus that add all kinds of other stuff like cumin, ugh!

Another Mary McCartney recipe for Granola Bars To Go. Mine came out a little burnt but still good.

Good Eats in Montreal.

Just got back from a nine day holiday in Montreal. I haven't been back in 8 years and it was so nice to be there again. This is the first time being vegan in Montreal though. I think I did ok. If I had stayed longer, I would have explored more vegan/vegan friendly restaurants. I was staying at my in-laws house, so we did a lot of hanging out and cooking at home which was fine with me!

The day after we arrived, we popped into L'Inter Marche on the corner to get a few staples. Bagels are a must. Montreal bagels are usually not vegan, made with egg and honey but I was able to find some packaged ones without any animal products yay! The hummus is by Fontaine Sante which I think is the best tasting packaged hummus I've ever had! We went through two or three tubs on this trip.

This is what my husband and I were looking forward to eating. He grew up in St. Leonard, which is primarily italian and the italian bakeries make the most delicious tomato pizza/bread. I was afraid it would be non-vegan, but alas, it is!

And it was nice to find soy milk at a little shop.

Another thing we looked forward to eating. Flakies! They are very crap for you but so good. Flaky layers of air and just a bit of "cream" and fruit filling. As far as I know, this is vegan. The ingredient list is dreadful, don't read it.

Found vegan margarine at IGA supermarket. I jumped for joy.

First meal I made was a simple pasta dish with chickpeas, olives and tomato sauce.

Second meal I made at home: pho! The bowl is tiny because they didn't have larger bowls. It worked well. It was delicious.

Home cooked meal #3. Mary McCartney's Courgette and Lemon Spaghetti. I made it without the cheese of course. Super good. Find the recipe online here.

That amazing hummus and Mary McCartney's saucy mushrooms and tomatoes on toast.

My husband's best friend and his wife took us out to Scaroli's Ristorante for great pasta. I got the primavera which was really tasty. Being vegan I run into a lot of "bland tomato sauces" at italian restos and this one was completely opposite. Full of flavor and even had caramelized red onions in the veggie mix.

Every vegan who visits Montreal eats at Aux Vivres. A friend of ours took us there and we had a great meal.

I ordered the seitan souvlaki plate. Really good stuff.

I had to order dessert. They bake their cakes, pies, brownies in house and I had a really hard time choosing. I decided on the "uncheesecake" with blueberry sauce. Amazing!

We had a quick lunch at Amir on St. Denis one day. I had the falafel pita and yummy garlic potatoes.

Paragon restaurant is a great little no-nonsense eatery in St. Leonard that makes really good submarine sndwiches. I ate there twice on this trip.

This pic does not do it justice. They grill mushrooms, onions and green peppers that are sliced thin thin thin and smother them in a toasted roll with shredded lettuce and tomato on top. I asked for no cheese and no sauce which I'm assuming is dairy based.

So after a 6 hr flight where I had to wake up super early in the morning, I arrived in L.A., headed straight to Vons and picked up ingredients to make my version of Paragon's sub. The insides were good but the bread is all wrong. Too hard, too dense. I need to find the perfect airy french roll for this. Keep your eyes on my blog, I will make this again.

One Pot Mushroom Rice

I'm loving Mary McCartney's cookbook FOOD. She really is my style of cook, relaxed and non-fussy. This rice recipe was like boom boom boom, done! I think I was in and out of the kitchen in about 30 minutes. Very tasty rice which will go well with various main dishes. I'm just having it by itself. It's very comforting and full of good mushroom and onion flavor.

More weekend eating.

I made another snack from Mary McCartney's book FOOD. It's the Pan-Fried Cheese, Tomato and Onion Sandwich. I used yellow and red cherry tomatoes and Daiya vegan mozzarella style cheese. It was delicious.

Gooey Daiya cheese.

Here we have a breakfast specialty of mine, a scrambled tofu sandwich. I added mushrooms today. Usually I have it on white toast but all I had was a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread which is full of whole grains. Worked out fine and was very satisfying with lots of Vegenaise and ketchup!

Vegans love cake too! Here is a tried and true eggless, dairy free date cake that I make often. It's so easy and so moist and sweet. Perfect with a hot cup of tea in the afternoon. Recipe here. (Substitute almond milk for the dairy milk!)

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.