Receive our bonus gift: Sacred & Delicious food list!
Appetizers | Articles | Asparagus | Ayurveda | Ayurvedic Recipes | Black-Eyed Peas | Brunch | Cabbage recipes | Casseroles | Cauliflower | Chickpeas | Chocolate | Cookies | Desserts | Detox | Easy Recipes | Easy Vegan Meals | Easy Vegetable Side Dishes | Entrees | Events | General | Gluten-Free Desserts | Gluten-Free Pasta | Gluten-Free Recipes | Green Beans | Greens | Health Tips | Holiday Recipes | Holiday Recipes | Instant Pot Recipes | Italian | Legumes | Mung Beans | My Favorite Things | Pancakes | Peaches | Pumpkin | Quick Vegetarian Recipes | Quinoa | Recipes | Salads | Sauces | Seven-Minute Sides | Shiitake Mushrooms | Side Dishes | Soups | Stews | Summer | Summer soups | Sweet potato recipes | Thanksgiving Recipes | Tofu | Vegan Entrees | Vegan Recipes | Vegetarian | Vegetarian Entrees | Vegetarian Recipes | Weight Loss
Are you someone who has struggled keeping annual resolutions regarding healthy eating or weight loss? If so, I’d like to offer you some hope and encouragement as you contemplate your resolutions for 2021. And if you want some personalized support, I have an announcement to make at the end!
When embarking on a healthy lifestyle for the first time, consider these small, easy steps that you can take to ease toward vibrant health.
Print
I’m delighted to say that the gluten-free industry is creating some better-tasting, better-for-you pastas nowadays, and this summer pasta recipe features organic chickpea spaghetti.
Both the chickpea pasta and red lentil spaghetti made by Explore Cuisine™ hold up well, without turning to mush. As important, a two-ounce serving of either product has 11 grams of protein, a plus for gluten-free vegetarians. If you’re like me and you feel better with more protein and fewer carbs, you can add some grilled tofu to the recipe. As for the vegetables, you can substitute the listed ingredients with whatever
Print
I’ve come out of hiding today to share a blueberry cobbler recipe that is simply too delicious to keep to myself! In keeping with my 2020 theme of healthy comfort food, this is scrumptious enough to chase your blues away. I’ve found cooking delicious food to be a respite from the anxieties of these perilous and sometimes lonely times. On the other hand, if you’re feeling hopeful, as I am, then a dessert that’s made with fresh berries and unrefined sugar can offer guilt-free pleasure that reminds us of life’s inherent sweetness.
Print
With so much cold and flu circulating in every public place at this time of year, I started eyeing the shiitake mushrooms at the grocery store today… and then invoked the Goddess Annapurna to help me create a delicious approach to mushroom soup. This Mushroom Lentil Soup is just that—a dish that’s definitely for mushroom lovers, as it boasts a hearty amount of the immune-boosting shiitakes.
The neutral-flavored red lentils, also known as masoor dal, give the soup substance as well as protein and iron. I use a mixture of traditional Ayurvedic spices (cumin and coriander to balance agni) along with classic American herbs (rosemary and sage), which you might expect to find in a mushroom bisque. You can add a couple of tablespoons or more of wine if you wish—just a little adds a nice dimension to the flavor.
Print
Dear Readers,
I have a confession. I’d never read about the horrible working conditions of cacao farmers who provide cacao beans as a commodity crop to the largest industrial chocolate manufacturers. Until today.
This essay is not meant to be a downer just before Valentine’s Day, when so many of us revel in all things chocolate! I am, however, sharing my personal wake-up call, and I was inspired to save you some time searching for the best chocolates that are guilt-free.
Print
Need a quick side dish to finish off a meal with perfection? Enter sautéed asparagus, my favorite side to accompany almost any menu. It comes in especially handy when you’re making a complex main dish that is time-consuming and you need an easy recipe to complete the meal.
With organic asparagus still in abundance around much of the country, I’m offering this recipe as a follow-up to last month’s asparagus soup. Asparagus complement many menu centerpieces, from legumes, vegetable entrées and casseroles to more omnivorous fare. You can add asparagus to a salad for panache. Surprise your beloved with asparagus in a goat-cheese or all-veggie sandwich.
I call this recipe a seven-minute side,* but if you buy pencil-thin asparagus they will cook in three minutes! If you buy the extra-thick stalks, the dish could take as long as 10 minutes, but that’s prep to plate.
Print
Whether you are vegetarian, vegan, or a flexitarian who wants to eat less meat to do your part for the environment, tofu can be surprisingly delicious—as you will learn when you make this recipe for Savory Scrambled Tofu. It’s a perfect dish for any late-morning brunch, lunch, or dinner.
Because tofu is especially easy to work with, I will often add it as the protein alongside a simple vegetable soup, such as my now-famous Asparagus Soup or Carrot Soup with Coconut Milk (Sacred & Delicious page 99). But’s this scrambled tofu is also a lovely brunch centerpiece with a little avocado toast on the side.
Print
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.
Print
Today, dear friends and fellow chocolate enthusiasts, I offer you an incredibly delicious gluten-free and vegan chocolate cake with which to tempt your sweetheart on the occasion of Valentine’s Day. When Sacred & Delicious was first published in October 2018, Biblio Reviews wrote this: “The vegan Dark Chocolate Layer Cake was the best vegan cake I have ever made!”
I’ve adapted the book’s large sheet cake recipe to create a smaller cake you can bake in a heart-shaped pan or as a traditional 9-inch layer cake. Yes! A gluten-free and vegan cake that is moist, not overly sweet, and still delicious enough to make having seconds hard to resist. Just ask my husband!
Print
|
|
When spring marches in, we naturally want to throw open the windows of our home and clean out all the dust and cobwebs. In the same way, Ayurveda recommends that we give our bodies an annual spring cleaning! Once the autumn chill descends, and all the way through the cold winter, we tend to eat heavier foods. This way we can put on a little fat to stay warm. Spring invites us to help the body transition to the new season by eating lighter foods.
I always recommend a mung soup fast along with light vegetables for a few days or a week at the beginning of spring. This helps to detoxify the colon, liver, kidneys. Cooked greens of any kind are a great side dish to support a spring detox, and today I’d like to generate some enthusiasm for collard greens. Collards belong to the dignified family of Southern “soul food,” brought to
Print