Category Archives: Whole Food Plant-Based recipes

Whole Food Plant-Based Recipes

Vanishing Pesto

basilLast week the weather was alternatively sunny and humid or rainy and even more humid. The herbs really love it and the basil has grown like mad. By Saturday it was starting to bolt and take over the garden.

I was down to use it or lose it time. I waded through the mud, out to the garden and started cutting. Brought in all the cuttings, stripped the leaves and the bolted flowers. Ended up with 8 cups of washed and tightly packed leaves and bolted flowers. (more…)

Posted in additive-free food, diary-free food, garden, gluten-free food, Italian, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Gardening in New Orleans

cote gardenOur garden is growing – we have tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and melon plus a lot of herbs growing at breakneck speed. Something new is always popping up.

The funny thing about gardening is that once you figure it out in one place there is NO guarantee you will be successful (at first) in a different place.

Some of the tomatoes are being eaten by something – not cutworms, but something I have yet to identify. There are bugs and worms that I have never seen before! So far no aphids like the ones that drove me crazy in Prescott last year. Instead we have Assassin bugs (good), beetles (bad) and and other very strange insects like wasp moths. The insect identification book is getting heavy use.

The soil here is amazing; river bottom mud. Really sad to not be using it this year. Until we have it tested it is unwise to plant food. Katrina left a lot of chemicals in the ground, so until you have your own soil tested you can’t know if you have any contaminates like lead or mercury. And if there are contaminates we need to know what they are! For this year we have contented ourselves with grow beds.

The one thing we have planted in the ground was milkweed. Someone told Meggan it would attract Monarchs. She bought some and planted it. No Monarchs! We started to think that milkweed and Monarchs were an urban legend. And then. . .the Monarch’s appeared. We have quite a collection that fly around all day. They put on a real show! The Monarchs have been joined by Black Swallow Tail and a couple of other ones I can’t identify.

Here is a picture of the milkweed and a Monarch – just look for the circle; I know it’s hard to see but you will get the idea. They are so beautiful!

bf1cropped

Meg and I went to the nursery over the weekend and invested in $70 worth of butterfly and hummingbird attracting plants to create a “butterfly garden.” They are all planted neatly along the front fence.

So far – no butterflies and no hummingbirds. Either another urban legend or a lesson in patience. . . we’ll see.

Posted in fresh veggies, garden, New Orleans, tomatoes, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

We Made It to New Orleans . . .

My head is still spinning – over the last two months we packed up our home in Prescott, drove ourselves and the three cats 1650 miles across company and have more or less moved into to our new home. What an incredible amount of experience crammed into a few weeks!

raw kitchenThe kitchen in our house was gutted . Once escrow closed  Meggan installed a utility sink in the kitchen. She says it is hard to clean and paint without water!

We got here and walked into an exquisitely painted but very bare kitchen – the only item in it was the lonely little utility sink.

We think that the kitchen is the most important room in the house so we started there; literally started from the ground up. We were told that there was a lovely long-leaf pine floor under the tile debris. Which is why David spent the first day we were here sanding of the glue and junk off the floor. When he was done we saw that there was indeed beautiful wood. Beautiful wood badly in need of repair and loving care.  Decided to delay immediate work and instead lay down cheap vinyl to protect the from any further damage. We will tackle this in the fall when it gets a little cooler!

Once we had a decision on the floor we moved in a fridge, a toaster oven, microwave and electric frying pan. Went out and got a gas grill and on the way home stopped at Farmer’s Market. While there we scored some corn, tomatoes, onions and greens.  Later that afternoon we had our first home cooked meal in a couple of weeks:  roasted corn on the cob along with grilled onions and tomatoes. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a meal more!

camp kitchenWe were in business. Although I have to say that cooking with no counter space is a trick. David set up a rolling island, a couple of folding tables and put together a rolling storage rack. We gleefully refer to the process as camping in our own house. Very comfortable camping all things considered!

While we camped for the next couple of days, we feasted on a big salad made from fresh greens, tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers. Grilled and enjoyed eggplant, squash, tomatoes, carrots and potatoes. Even if we were camping it still felt downright luxurious to eat simple, home prepared fresh veggies.

At the end of the first week we had the most exciting day of all — the day we got a real gas stove and range!! I immediately made pasta sauce, started soaking black beans and dug out some rice.

The other exciting thing was the gift of a triple bowl 44 inch sink. Now all we need is something to put it on. That is next weeks project: find kitchen cabinets and the counter top to get installed asap.  Did I mention that in the meantime we are just happy to be eating real food again?

farmersOne of the wonderful things about New Orleans at this time of year are all the Farmer’s Markets. You can find ones on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. We are taking full advantage!  Today we got 10 lbs of “seconds” tomatoes and a bunch of peppers and onions so tomorrow we make salsa!

Life should be calming down a bit in the next couple of weeks. I will finally get to start posting on a regular basis. I have missed writing more than I thought possible. So watch for new posts. Lots of nutrition news, garden updates, cooking tips and our other NOLA adventures.

And there, my friends, you have it – the NOLA adventure update! Stayed tuned!

Posted in Farmers Market, fresh veggies, garden, New Orleans, salsa, tomatoes, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Amy’s Kitchen – Healthy Prepared Vegan and Gluten Free Food

We are packing away. It is amazing how much junk you can accumulate in a couple of years. The hardest part is making decisions – what to do about those little but useful items. For example all the special use kitchen items, the myriad little items hidden away in cabinets and drawers or the box of hooks, picture hangers and rug grippers. None of them are particularly expensive or irreplaceable. It just cost money and time to replace them. To keep or not to keep? My rule of thumb is that if I haven’t used it since we moved here 2 years ago, out it goes either for a yard sale or donation. But there are still a lot of “iffy” items. This part drives me nuts!! Which means all I want to do is eat! amy tamaleThat is the long way of saying that we are either too busy or too tired to think much about cooking. Terrible, when you a chronically hungry (something called stress eating). Interestingly, this time out, I am finding it important to not eat junk. So, last Thursday we took a little trip to the local health food store to see if we could find something prepared that would work. (more…)

Posted in additive-free food, diary-free food, entrée, gluten-free food, Italian, Mexican, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Gluten Free, Sugar Free Vegan (or not) Coffee Cake

coffee cakeI have been on a breakfast kick and trying new things. I have this little piece of me that every now and then craves have something sweet and a little gooey.

Here is my coffee cake cheat. . . I’m not sure it is exactly healthy but it tastes great and using nuts and chia seeds adds some food value in the way of protein. Eggs work best for this, but as noted you can use applesauce for a real vegan treat. (more…)

Posted in Breakfast, diary-free food, gluten-free food, sugar-free food, vegan, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Vegan French Toast

french toastFrench toast has always been a favorite breakfast food, but the eggs more or less made it a non-starter. Lately we have been testing alternatives and here is my current favorite.

The best thing about this particular recipe is that it slightly sweet and toasts up to a wonderful golden brown. I promise you won’t miss the eggs at all! (more…)

Posted in Breakfast, diary-free food, gluten-free food, plant based diet, sugar-free food, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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…)

Posted in Breakfast, gluten-free food, plant based diet, sugar-free food, 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.

Posted in entrée, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, 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…)

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.

Posted in book review, entrée, plant based diet, vegan, vegetarian, Whole Food Plant-Based nutrition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment