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Holiday Sweet Potatoes with Glazed Pecans

Photo by Roger Winstead

There are few things more Southern than sweet potatoes and pecans — pronounced pee-cans, where I come from (and that’s with an emphasis on the first syllable). I dreamed up this recipe about 25 years ago, and the dish immediately became my holiday tradition, replacing my mother’s tried-and-true sweet potatoes with pineapple and marshmallows. As I began cleaning up my diet, I made only minor changes to improve how this healthy comfort food affects how I feel.  I switched from using butter to ghee, still delicious but without the dairy reaction. And I replaced brown sugar with coconut sugar.

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Dressing Up Humble Red Cabbage

I usually have a plan for dinner. After all, I’m a Virgo with four planets in Virgo. We tend to details. But I didn’t have a plan last night, and when I got home at 6 p.m., ready to hunker down for a Carolina ice storm, what I really wanted to do was work out before cooking. So I quickly wrapped up some sweet potatoes and put them in the oven to bake, postponing my thoughts about the rest of the menu. Thirty minutes later I was finally ready to cook, but my menu was still an empty page.

As resourceful (or sometimes desperate) cooks often do, I opened the refrigerator door looking for inspiration.  The red cabbage that had been ignored for a few days was calling my name. My first thought was to make a quick stir-fry, using cabbage as the focus since I

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A Gluten-Free Vegetarian Guide to Thanksgiving

If you want to plan an intensely flavorful vegetarian menu for Thanksgiving, look no further! Today I’m sharing a recipe for Gluten-Free Millet Dressing. I’ll also point you to my sumptuous versions of traditional American holiday side dishes, which will fill your family with joy and gratitude!

Why millet?  Millet is a good source of vegetarian protein. One cup of cooked millet offers 6 grams of vegetarian, gluten-free protein, which equals the protein in one egg. It’s also filling, grounding and easy to make.

Now for the rest of the menu. My famous Holiday Sweet Potatoes, topped with a pound and a half of pecans, are the eagerly awaited crown jewel of our holiday table. For a dash of freshness and color I offer this cranberry salad, a squeaky clean, upscale version of the canned stuff that used to be served when we were growing up!

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Healthy Comfort Food for the Holidays

If you have trouble choosing between the pumpkin pie or the chocolate cake on the Thanksgiving dessert table, these vegan and gluten-free Chocolate Glazed Pumpkin Squares will help you satisfy both desires in a few delicious bites! Let me warn you that these are no ordinary cookie bars because they are infinitely rich and moist. A few bites may be just enough. Even so, they qualify as healthy comfort food, in my humble opinion, since they are made with fresh, whole foods.

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Healthy Comfort Food

If  you love sweet potatoes, I have good news for you, along with an easy and oh-so-delicious Southern-style recipe!

In case you’ve been following my blog and wonder why I cook with so many sweet potatoes, here’s one reason why: according to Ayurveda, sweet potatoes are one of the best foods for grounding vata — that light, airy, buzzing energy that you feel when life is moving just a little too fast.

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The Last of Winter Soups

Wouldn’t you love some Sweet Potato and Spinach Soup to help you stay warm during these last frigid winter nights! Despite an early spring color extravaganza in the Carolinas since the first of February, we’ve been thrust back into the mid 30s every night—which means that hot soup is definitely on the menu!

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I’m Back—with Holiday Dishes!

After a long and much-needed hiatus to remodel the kitchen in our home of nearly 25 years, I’m joyfully back to creating new dishes for our table—and yours. Today’s offering is Winter Squash with Greens that I hope was worth the wait. (Next up: Chocolate Glazed Pumpkin Bars!)

This Winter Squash with Greens is a lovely vegan entrée when served in a soup bowl over millet or it can grace your holiday table as a side vegetable.

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An Elegant Vegan Christmas

If you’re a vegan or vegetarian cook who wants to dazzle your holiday guests with an exciting new dish, I have a couple of delicious options for you today: Savory Vegetable Rolls or their variation, Root Vegetable Casserole. I started experimenting last week to create something interesting for our first dinner guests since the beginning of the pandemic. We had all decided having dinner together was worth the small inconvenience of—oy vey!—taking rapid Covid tests. It was, and this entrée was a major hit!

Today’s recipe options demonstrate how you can play with a basic recipe and create a dish that suits your palate and time constraints. For example, you can also create this dish as a layered casserole, which will be easier and faster than making the rolls. The rolls are not difficult, but they do require extra steps.

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A Sweet & Savory Soup for Valentine’s Day

As you plan an alluring vegetarian or vegan meal for Valentine’s Day, I invite you to sample this unique Savory Sweet Potato Soup with Mushrooms & Chocolate Swirl!  I owe its inspiration to one of my very favorite and utterly charming movies: Chocolat.

In the movie, the main character, Vianne (Juliette Binoche) opens a chocolate shop that is considered too great a temptation in a conservative French village. If you watch the movie, you’ll see amazing delicacies that will have you lusting after chocolate! One of the movie’s more memorable and talked-about scenes features a chocolate-themed luncheon that Vianne hosts for a friend’s birthday in which chocolate sauces accompany every dish. Her menu features a large turkey and a pork roast, though I’ve often wondered what that meal might look like for a vegetarian feast. Today’s sweet and savory soup is my attempt at the first course!

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Thanksgiving Sides Your Guests Will Never Forget!

For vegetarians and vegans, Thanksgiving is all about the traditional mouth-watering side dishes, and of course, I’m all about making them as healthy as they are delicious!

Today I’ll point to all of my favorite holiday sides and introduce you to a new recipe: Reimagined Green Bean Casserole.

When I was young, in the ’50s and ’60s, cooking for convenience was all the rage, and there was no cornucopia of fresh vegetables readily available in grocery stores. I can’t fault my mother for her frozen spinach with canned mushroom soup—though just the thought of it now makes me cringe! Even then, I had no taste for such food. I learned to love vegetables only when I began cooking with my college roommate, Ellen Brock, who grew up picking fresh veggies out of her mother’s garden.

But there was nothing wrong with the idea behind my in-laws’ green bean casserole with canned mushroom soup and canned onion rings. The potential is there for a great dish. I invite you to expand your culinary imagination with this recipe.

This Reimagined Green Bean Casserole is a vegan and gluten-free dish made with fresh ingredients: green beans, caramelized onions, fresh almond milk (if available), fresh ginger, and shiitake mushrooms

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