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I’m betting that corn lovers who raved about my recent Bean & Corn Salad will also love this easy Sweet Potato Soup with Crunchy Corn. What could be more delicious or Southern, for that matter, than combining sweet potatoes with the crunch of sweet corn to create a perfect summer dish!
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Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian, this gluten-free Bean & Corn Salad is a perfectly satisfying dish for these relentlessly hot days. It can be stand on its own as a colorful evening meal, or you can serve it as an enticing side dish. And oh, how delicious it will be accompanied by a tasty summer soup!
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As spring eases into summer with frequently warmer days and delightfully cool nights, you will enjoy this delicious gluten-free, vegan Spinach and Mushroom Pasta. (And if you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out for a simple yet satisfying meal.)
I occasionally make a dish with shiitake mushrooms because I love that umami flavor and because their well-documented health benefits include immune support and anti-inflammatory defense. Many vegans and vegetarians see mushrooms as a meat replacement. Although I personally don’t think of them as an instead-of-meat choice, they do add texture, volume, and another layer of flavor to this dish that will be welcome to any mushroom lover.
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It’s official: summer is here and it’s time to welcome the season with all kinds of salads that sparkle with flavor—once they get a delicious topping like this Easy Avocado Salad Dressing! Yes, there are many commercial salad dressings that will do, but there’s nothing quite like the taste of a fresh dressing you whip up yourself just before eating.
Any simple green salad (like the salad with cucumbers, carrots, and sunflower seeds pictured here) will shine with this garlicky sauce. What about dressing up an ordinary potato salad? Or try this on a black rice salad? Bean salads transform from ho-hum to woo-hoo with this dash of delicious!
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“As American as apple pie” is the turn of phrase for most anything associated with U.S. culture, but really—if you’re counting by the pound—corn is king! For that reason, and because it’s summer when sweet corn is fresh in local farmers’ markets or ready to pick in your garden, I will offer an easy and delicious vegan corn dish.
I’m not talking about just any corn. I’m talking about sweet corn, the delicious corn you can eat on the cob and that, when it’s just been picked or is still reasonably fresh, almost melts in your mouth with natural sweetness.
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Now that it’s officially summer, I’ve created a new trio of recipes for you, dear readers: each one easy to make and cooling—or at least balanced—from an Ayurvedic perspective. Because one thing’s for sure: summer invites us all (even working people) to have a little extra time to relax so we can enjoy the balmy breezes or stay cool despite 90-plus degrees as the sun goes down!
Vegan Cilantro Coconut Sauce: For starters, let’s begin with cilantro because it is the most cooling of the fresh herbs and serves as an excellent tonic for summer when blended into a sauce. I’ve combined it with coconut cream (or coconut milk, whatever you have available), which is equally cooling and perfect for hot weather.
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With the summer solstice around the corner, it’s the perfect time to plan for how to stay hydrated and cooled down during the hot months ahead. An easy way to start is with cooling Cucumber Water.
According to Ayurveda, cucumbers are one of the most cooling foods. Of course, you might be one of the many people (especially those with vata problems) who have difficulty digesting cucumbers. In that case, the best approach is to sip cucumber water rather than eat the full vegetable—a way to get cucumber’s benefits without the burps! You may want to scrape out the seeds, which some say is the problem. You might also peel the cucumber—sometimes grocers wax their skins, which makes them even harder to digest.
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I tasted this scrumptious cauliflower dish at The Well Fed Community Garden in Raleigh in late May when Arthur Gordon, of Irregardless Cafe fame, created the dish on the spot! He gathered up whatever looked fresh and interesting at the farmer’s market along with herbs growing in the community garden and—voila!—came up with this amazing dish! I’ve adapted it only slightly to serve eight instead of eighteen and made it a tad milder so it doesn’t bring on more heat in this sweltering summer.The complete dish is a cauliflower “steak” that is rubbed down with a mixture of fresh herbs, roasted or sautéed, and topped with a red pepper cashew sauce. The first time I made this myself, I ran out of time and served only the first part of the dish, pictured here—cauliflower with herb rub. That alone was delicious! So, if you want a simpler dish to make for a July 4th bash, you won’t be disappointed.
A third option, also simplified from the original, is to skip the marinade. You chop the florets, grill them (or sauté them in a little salted oil), and top them with the cashew sauce.
If you want to go the extra mile to impress your guests, I recommend making the full dish: rubbed cauliflower steaks with red pepper cashew sauce. The sauce is simple, and you can use it over any of your favorite vegetables. I’ve found it wonderful over grilled summer squash, plantains, and sweet potatoes—foods I like to see on a summer menu!
Finally, if you want to replicate Arthur’s dish more precisely, you can add some hot sauce to the red pepper/cashew mixture. It’s a flavor I always avoid, but I know many people love it!
Wishing you all the freedoms hoped for when our forefathers proclaimed their independence on July 4, 1776!
Lisa with Arthur Gordon, founder of the Well-Fed Community Garden and Irregardless Cafe.
With temperatures already in the upper 90s and above across the southern half of the country, we can expect a long, hot summer. Fortunately, Ayurveda has some excellent tips to help keep your body, mind, and emotions in balance—even in scorching heat!
According to Ayurveda, pitta—the dynamic principle of heat—is necessary to maintain life, but during the summer when our bodies can easily become overheated, pitta gets out of balance. Too much heat can trigger a host of physical problems, including acne, headaches, and hyperacidity. If you wake up at three or four in the morning and can’t fall back to sleep for an hour or longer, Ayurveda says it’s a sign of excess heat in the body.
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Long before the June solstice, summer is heralded by Memorial Day, picnics, backyard barbecues, and abundant yellow crookneck squash. This colorful squash dish with red bell pepper and fresh basil or dill (suit yourself) is great for summer entertaining, and it travels well to a potluck. I tasted something like this dish once at a potluck supper way back, and of course, since I live in the South, it would have been smothered with cheese. I think this dish proves the winning possibility of creating a casserole without cheese that everyone will still love —
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