Category Archives: vegan

Whole Food Plant-Based Vegan Recipes

Cherry Preserves

cherryLast week when cleaning out the freezer we found a big bag of organic pitted cherries. We bought them at Costco intending to use them in smoothies, but somehow that didn’t happened. They were starting to get freezer burned so we needed to come up with a way to use them quickly.

Cherry pie? How about cherry ice cream,cobbler, compote, tart, chutney or some sort of sauce? After all our excess in New Orleans desert didn’t sound even remotely interesting, I am not a big chutney fan and sauce without a purpose seems like a waste of energy. (more…)

by Genene Cote Posted on March 20, 2013
Posted in Breakfast, gluten-free food, plant based diet, sugar-free food, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Flavored Milk; Petition to Amend the Standard of Identity for Milk and 17 Additional Dairy Products

Every now and then there is something in the news that really gets me going! Right now it is chocolate milk.

Why?

Because the dairy lobby is pushing the FDA to approve the use of the artificial sweetener aspartame in chocolate milk. Sugar isn’t bad enough now they want to add excitotoxins to dairy products on the down low.

Terrific idea – take milk which has many harmful side-effects and up the ante by adding excitotoxins! And this is how my tax dollars are being spent. . .

by Genene Cote Posted on March 19, 2013
Posted in excitotoxins, John McDougall, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beans, Rice and Secret Sauce Bake

secret sauce no lableMy personal challenge is finding new ways to make beans and rice interesting. At least once a month I stand in front of the fridge and see left over beans and rice. What to do? I have always thought that what I need is a secret sauce – one that is simple to make and adds tons of flavor.

Over the last couple of years I have tried lot of things. But I think I have finally arrived at one that really works to make a tasty all purpose casserole.

by Genene Cote Posted on March 17, 2013
Posted in entrée, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Great American Meatout

Ready to take the pledge?

FARM is asking Americans to “kick the meat habit” for one day — March 20 (first day of spring). All you have to do is sign their pledge to eat vegan for one day! And you can pledge to eat vegan one day per week or for always. It’s up to you!

The pledge, Meatout, is spearheaded by FARM and is (more…)

by Genene Cote Posted on March 14, 2013
Posted in plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based Diet and Chronic Disease, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pressure Cooker Beans with Flavor!

I love my pressure cooker. Instead of hours to cook beans it take just a few minutes. But as much as I love the convenience I have a big complaint about the taste. Toooooo bland!

According to the “experts” you are NOT supposed to add salt of herbs to the pot when you pressure cook beans. This means that you end up cooking them in plan old water with a little oil to keep the foam down. When they come out they taste like very plain, very boring beans; no real flavor. I have added garlic, garlic powder, onions and onion powder to the water. That helped a little – but really only a little. (more…)

by Genene Cote Posted on March 11, 2013
Posted in Beans, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Delicious Vegetarian Main Dishes by Jennifer S. Larson with Photos by Brie Cohen

I’m not sure when I begin to cook. I know I was young’; probably 7 or 8. My one childhood cooking memory is making brownies follow the recipe in the Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls.

When I was 8 (maybe 9) my Grandma sent me a cookbook for Christmas. I couldn’t wait to try it out. The first recipe I tried was for brownies. Trust me, I have never tasted a better brownie before or since!

That cookbook was the first in a collection of cookbooks that I  either don’t have or rarely even look at any more. These days I do Google search when I want to figure out what to cook. My current collection has 10 cookbooks I can’t bear to part with.  Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls is one of them.

by Genene Cote Posted on March 10, 2013
Posted in book review, entrée, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Romanesco Broccoli — Fractal Cauliflower

About 30 years ago, I became fascinated with fractals. I had a brand new IBM PC with a CGA monitor, 256KB of RAM and a 5MB hard drive (which seem so huge that I couldn’t imagine using all that storage!). My friend, Gary brought me a disk with a program called “Fractal Magic” on it. I installed the program and started it running.  After three days of processing it produced an amazing image on my screen – of course there was no way to print it, but it was beautiful! And mainly, I was hooked. Over the years I have generated thousands of fractal images. And now I can even print them!!.

OK. I’m back from that little walk down memory lane and ready to tell you about the thing we call it “Dinosaur Broccoli” around our house. The first time I saw it in our local health food store I stopped, dead in my tracks. I was mesmerized by the shape! Right in front of me was a perfect replica of computer generated fractals.

I was face to face with a real, (presumably) live fractal! I could only assume that it was edible because it was with other vegetables. The little tag identified it as Romanesco Broccoli” debated awhile and decided it looked way to weird to eat! (more…)

by Genene Cote Posted on March 8, 2013
Posted in fresh veggies, vegan, vegetarian, Vitamins, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Lentil Loaf

After all the food in New Orleans I was ready for some “plain” food. The simple food of my childhood. . .

I scrounged around the kitchen and came up with lentils and rice and I was in business! It took about 10 minutes to assemble the loaf and 60 minutes to bake it. I threw a couple of potatoes in the oven with it. When it was time to eat I steamed some broccoli and made a quick salad.

Funny how something so simple tastes so good!

by Genene Cote Posted on March 4, 2013
Posted in entrée, gluten-free food, menu, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Music to my Ears

We are having a wonderful time – eating, walking and listening to music. Blues and Jazz.

This McDougall moment came in my email and it was also music to ears. In a different way, but still. . . Here Dr. McDougall eloquently states my belief about being a smart consumer of medical care.  Watch it and enjoy!

by Genene Cote Posted on February 18, 2013
Posted in diabetes, John McDougall, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Cooking Blues

overwhelmed

It’s official – I am going through the cooking blues. There is nothing that I want to cook, nothing sounds good and my creativity is evidently on strike.

I had planned to post a recipe this morning.  But as I started sorting through what we have eaten in the last two weeks I came to the realization that I have not been really been cooking. We have been eating whatever was quick and handy. Good food, but nothing new, interesting, creative or worth sharing. (more…)

by Genene Cote Posted on February 9, 2013
Posted in additive-free food, menu, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment