Broccoli Rice Casserole, Garlic Cheesy Bread and Mocha Blueberry Cake.

Last week I made this broccoli rice casserole following one of those old Campbell's recipes. Instead of cream of mushroom soup, I used Imagine portobello mushroom soup. It was good. Next time I'll add more soup and more salt.

Saw this pull apart cheesebread recipe going around that I had to make vegan. You basically melt Earth Balance, add garlic and scallions. Then you pour this mixture into the crevices of your cut up bread loaf. Wrap it in foil and bake for 10 minutes at 350 F. Then unwrap and fill with cheese, then bake for another 15 minutes unwrapped at about 400 F.

It's totally doable!

Delicious and so bad for you! I probably ate most of it on my own. The guilt!

And for weekend dessert, mocha blueberry cake! I used this recipe. I used blueberry instead of plain yogurt so mine had a hint of blueberry flavor.

It is intensely coffee flavored. The dark chocolate drizzle is a must to balance out the strong coffee.

Cocoa-date truffles, Coffee cooler and Raw "pasta".

I made these last night after coming back from the store with a giant container of deglet noor dates for $5. I processed them in the blender with walnuts, cocoa powder, coconut, vanilla and a pinch of salt. They make very good snacks for your sweet tooth.

Coffee cooler made with coffee, almond milk, chocolate syrup, dates and ice.

I made some sun-dried tomato marinara from Ani Phyo's book and served it on top of thinly sliced zucchini. (I don't have a spiralizer.)

Fresh tomato, sun-dried tomato, olive oil, lemon, garlic, salt and herbs make a very flavorful sauce. The zucchini sliced this way makes me think of Thai papaya salad. I might try that next.

Monte Cristo Breakfast and Pizza/Salad Lunch

Hope everyone is enjoying the tail end of the weekend. This was breakfast today. Monte Cristo sandwich which is basically french toast slathered with Vegenaise and stuffed with veggie ham and melty dairy-free cheese then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Served with a cup of illy. Yummmm. In case you're wondering, I used Lightlife Smart Deli Veggie Ham and Tofutti American dairy free cheese. My recipe for this sandwich here.


Lunch: Take-away sundried tomato-garlic pizza with added Daiya cheese plus spinach salad with orange-dijon dressing from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Served with half a banana and pomegranate white tea.

Hurrah for Vegan Biscotti!

I think I must be dreaming. I haven't had a biscotti in a million years it seems! When I went vegan, I pretty much said goodbye to these sweet cripsy italian cookies that I loved having with a coffee. The biscotti that you can buy at your local coffee shop or specialty store were off limits because of the ingredient list which traditionally contains eggs. Today I was craving biscotti and after shopping at Whole Foods and ogling the pretty holiday biscotti packages, I decided that I would make my own today. I knew there were a couple recipes in Veganomicon so I hurried home and got to work. I used the 'Almond Anise Biscotti' recipe but omitted the anise as I didn't have any. I also ran out of canola oil so I subbed olive oil with no problems. And instead of whole almonds, I used slivered almonds, mmm! The egg replacement in the recipe was ground flax seed that was whisked with soymilk. They did the trick and in about an hour, I had beautiful golden crunchy biscotti!




They were so heavenly dunked in coffee.

Long weekends and leaving room for quiet moments.

What a weekend! Hope your Memorial Day weekend is eventful as well as relaxed with time to recover from a long work week. My weekend was full of fun; my cousin's beautiful Thai wedding on Saturday morning, followed by a beautiful backyard reception all evening and into the night with tasty food, family, friends, great music and tired feet! I felt totally beat up the next morning but had to get up to go to my little brother's house for a bbq and a Dodger game on his large HD flat screen television. That was a lot of fun (even though we lost!) and I ate way too many veggie dogs. I was still tired from the wedding and nursing a small headache and achey limbs. When I got home, I did as much household chores as I could handle and relaxed most of the evening. To contine the "relaxation" trend today, I prepared breakfast in bed to eat leisurely while I lay in bed enjoying this quiet morning.


Very simple but perfect breakfast. Cardamom flavored coffee, pita with margarine and a really nice Bulgarian wildberry jam, and a little bowl of mangos, oranges and bananas sprinkled with cinnamon.

Vegan MoFo: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies and Cardamom Coffee

Fall is here and pumpkins are to be seen everywhere. I have not yet shopped for any pumpkins to cook with but I did have some canned pure pumpkin that I wanted to make a dessert with. I found this cookie recipe at the PPK. I had all of the ingredients (except walnuts and raisins) so I decided to spend my solitary Sunday (husband was at a friend's watching football) baking these delicious treats. Wow, the smells coming out of the oven were heavenly. It reminded me that Halloween and Thanksgiving are just around the corner. Yay!

I enjoyed my soft and tender cookies with a very aromatic cardamom flavored coffee by Cafe Najjar. I bought this coffee from lebanesefoodmarket.com. They have a great assortment of lebanese groceries and cookware. I bought a Ma'amoul mold there too which I haven't used yet. (To be seen in a future blog post!) I love this coffee. It's fairly strong and has a gorgeous cardamom fragrance and flavor. If you don't want to buy this, you can probably put a few teaspoons of cardamom into the coffee filter along with your regular ground coffee to give it flavor. I've done that with cinnamon before and it worked well so I can't imagine why cardamom wouldn't. In any case, coffee and cookies are a great combo no matter what flavors they are!