Tag Archives: vegan

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Cooking with Roses

While summer’s denouement may usher in relief or wistfulness, you can celebrate deliciously with a slightly exotic and cooling dish of Rose Petal Pudding. This vegan dessert fits my definition of the ultimate healthy comfort food. I promise it will elicit a chorus of ooohs and aaahs when you serve it to family or friends!

Consuming rose petals may seem exotic to those of us who grew up eating a standard American diet, but these beautiful flowers are a long-standing centerpiece in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines.

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Easy Meals for Holiday Weekends 

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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Easy Spring Salads that Transition to Summer

Honoring the abundance of asparagus with a new recipe each spring is a Sacred & Delicious blog tradition—and today I offer you a flavorful and colorful White Bean and Asparagus Salad. As with many of my recent recipes, this recipe is open to variation. (See my postscript below if you’re looking for more asparagus recipes.)

Here are some easy variations you can make to this recipe:

  • For readers who shy away from beans, you can switch out the beans with quinoa or rice and still have a tempting dish.
  • Serve it as a side dish with a bowl of soup for a complete meal, or just eat lots of bean salad! I suggest either my recent recipe for Sweet Potato and Spinach Soup or my favorite summer Carrot Soup, which you can find in Sacred & Delicious: A Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook.
  • If you don’t like cilantro, the salad will be equally delicious with fresh basil or dill.
  • Adding mint made the dish sing for me but the recipe still works well without it.
  • If you avoid garlic, substitute fresh ginger.
  • Serve it warm or cooled, whatever suits your taste—though I think it’s best when just a little warm or room temperature.
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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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Healthy Comfort Food: Creamy Vegan Casseroles

Today’s multi-use recipe for a Broccoli, Carrot, and Fennel Casserole got oohs and aahs at our table recently, so I promise you won’t want to miss this one! If casseroles aren’t your thing, you can serve it as a veggie side dish or make it a one-dish meal and serve the vegetables with rice or quinoa.

Loyal readers, have you noticed that I enjoy creating dishes that lend themselves to slightly different approaches? You could even turn this into a soup by adding some delicious homemade stock. All these options give you greater flexibility if you’re comfortable enough in cooking to adapt the directions ever-so-slightly to suit your preferences.

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A Chocolate Valentine’s Menu

In the spirit of my periodic tribute to the 2000 movie Chocolat, today I offer readers this divine recipe for Roasted Root Vegetables with Chocolate Glaze. It’s just one in a series of dishes I’ve been developing over the years to imitate the chocolate-themed meal in one of movie history’s great food scenes!

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Black-Eyed Peas Fives Ways for a Lucky 2023

As we turn our attention from Christmas to welcoming the new year, it seems fitting to offer yet another recipe for lucky black-eyed peas. Drumroll please… for African Black-Eyed Pea Stew!

It’s the rich peanut butter and spices that make this African style of cooking black-eyed peas so delicious—though that doesn’t mean spicy hot, at least not when I make it.

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Delicious Vegan Casseroles for the Holidays

I rarely make a casserole for the two of us, but when it comes to convenience, there’s nothing quite so simple as this Easy Vegan Squash Casserole. It’s the kind of dish that you can make the day before and pop into the oven while you’re cooking other parts of your holiday menu. It’s a perfect addition to any potluck and a delicious way to balance all the season’s sugary meals!

Of course, every recipe on my blog is always gluten-free. (This Reimagined Green Bean Casserole is also awesome and worthy of your Hanukkah, Christmas, or New Year’s table.)

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A Fresh Twist on Summer Soups

Get ready to try a unique summer recipe: Summer Sweet Potato Soup with red lentils and cucumbers. It may be a little difficult to imagine what this will taste like, but it’s received some good reviews in my neighborhood! Like the best summer soups, you can serve this dish slightly chilled or at room temperature.

Yes, I love watermelon soup and gazpacho, but Tom and I want a heartier meal at dinnertime so we can sleep through the night without waking up hungry at 3 a.m. So many summer soup recipes you find online look lovely and delicious—but read a list of the ingredients and you instantly know that they may be pretty to look at and quite tasty, but they’re not especially filling. From a culinary perspective, watermelon soup and gazpacho are like ’90s cliches, right alongside the movies Forrest Gump and Groundhog Day. Sweet but no longer intriguing!

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