Tuscan Bean & Cabbage Soup

Today I came home from work tired and hungry for something healthy and nourishing and tasty too. This is my fave soup by Linda McCartney. Instead of turnips, I used gold potatoes and cauliflower. I used water and 1 veggie bouillon cube. I also seasoned it with summer savory and Maldon Salt. So delicious. I ate two bowls!

Breakfast for One and Soup.

This morning I woke up and made the diner home fries from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch again because they were so amazing yesterday. And to go with it, I made the tofu scramble from Vegan Brunch. Normally I make mine pretty plain-ish with tofu sauteed with onions and some salt, pepper, turmeric and maybe garlic and onion powder. The recipe from VB calls for fresh garlic, cumin, thyme, turmeric and nutritional yeast. These flavors were surprisingly good in the scramble. I wasn't sure about the cumin at first but it worked and gave a nice kind of smokiness. I served with Vegenaise/ketchup sauce.

I love Linda Mc's book "Linda's Kitchen". It's out of print now but you can probably find it on amazon marketplace selling for less than a fiver. I have a handful of recipes that I turn to again and again.

This soup is one of them. You must try it!

Here is the soup ready to simmer away. I substituted potato for turnip and seasoned with Maldon salt, freshly cracked black pepper and summer savory. Such a good soup.

Vegetable Hotchpotch & Date Cakes!

This is the preparation for Linda McCartney's Vegetable Hotchpotch which is from her book "Linda's Kitchen". Gardein steak chunks, onions, potatoes, herbs, white beans and vegetables all layered and then covered with veggie stock.

Ready to go in the oven for an hour. I drizzled some olive oil on top to add some fat!

Out of the oven. This was so delicious. I had some in a bowl with some white rice added and it was so rich and deep in flavor.

Date cakes!

And a heart shaped one to spread the love.

Topped with Coco Whip. Much too good!

Weekend foods.

A gorgeous and really delicious potato and green bean salad with capers, olives and red onion tossed with dijon vinaigrette. The recipe originally adds white beans but I was out. You can find the recipe at this blog page*.

Easy dinner of Dr. Praeger's California veggie burger brushed with bbq sauce on Ezekiel bread. It was yum.

I had a fight with my sweet tooth and my sweet tooth won. I broke down and baked a chocolate sheet cake with cocoa walnut glaze. Damn good and totally worth it! I used Fran Costigan's "Mix in the Pan Chocolate Cake" which is the same recipe as Crazy Cake, Wacky Cake and all those vegan egg free chocolate cake recipes out there. She adds a teeny bit of cinnamon which makes it nice.

*I'll post the recipe for the potato salad here just in case that link doesn't work later on.

Sicilian Bean and Potato Salad (Recipe from Linda McCartney's On Tour cookbook)
1 pound new potatoes, unpeeled
1 pound green beans, steamed and cut into 1 inch lengths
1 cup cooked or canned haricot (navy) or cannellini (white kidney) beans
1 small red onion, chopped finely
1/2 cup black olives, pitted and sliced
1-2 tablespoons capers
Classic Vinaigrette
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

In a medium saucepan, cook the potatoes in boiling water until they are tender. Allow them to cool slightly and cut them in half.
Mix the potatoes, beans, onion, black olives and capers in a large bowl. Pour sufficient vinaigrette over the salad to moisten it and toss well. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Classic Vinaigrette (Recipe from Linda McCartney's On Tour cookbook)
1-2 teaspoons fine or grainy mustard
2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice, or 2 tablespoons wine, balsamic or cider vinegar
6 tablespoons olive oil
crushed garlic to taste (optional)
sea salt and black pepper to taste

In a small bowl, mix the mustard with the lemon or lime juice or vinegar. Whisk in the olive oil gradually. Stir in the garlic if you are using it. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Chocolate Cake (adapted from Vegan Chocolate cookbook by Fran Costigan)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chilled almond milk

Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and cocoa powder in a bowl. Whisk to combine. Add oil, vinegar, vanilla and milk. Mix until batter is smooth. Pour into a greased rectangular baking pan and spread batter to make it even. Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Frost immediately with cocoa walnut glaze.

Cocoa Walnut Glaze(adapted from a Ree Drummond recipe)
1/2 cup margarine (1 stick Earth Balance buttery stick)
4 TB cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 TB almond milk
1/2 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 cup chopped fine walnuts/or pecans
To make glaze:
Melt a stick of Earth Balance margarine (about 1/2 cup) over medium heat. Add 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder and whisk to combine. Turn off heat and add vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. Whisk to get all lumps out and make it smooth. If it's too thick, add a little more milk. If too thin, add a little more sugar. Stir in walnuts and pour over warm cake. Glaze will set a little bit and give it a nice crackly finish.

Weekend Cooking: Eggplant and Herb Casserole & Potato Dauphinoise, vegan style.

I love weekends because I have time to labor over special recipes and enjoy a plate of home cooked food in the comfort of my home. Today I brought out two books: Linda's Kitchen by Linda McCartney and River Cottage Veg by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Two great veggie cookbooks that I love dearly. I just got the second book for xmas and the Linda McCartney I found several years ago at a used book shop in a first edition hardcover with plastic slipcover. I was very pleased to find that one.

First up I made the Eggplant and Herb casserole from Linda's book. Layers of fried eggplant in a flavorful herbed tomato sauce with melty cheese. The recipe called for mozzarella. I used Daiya vegan shreds which worked great and gave the casserole a wonderful cheesy texture along with the silky eggplant. I also added sliced mushrooms in the layers. Really good and satisfying dish but very time consuming because of all the eggplant frying! I'd make it again though. You can find the recipe here. The recipe was originally published in this New York Times article from 1994. It's a great read by the way. I love the description of Paul hovering in the background (guitar in hand) waiting to eat!

This beautiful Potato Dauphinoise recipe is from River Cottage Veg cookbook. I didn't peel my potatoes because I'm lazy but I really should the next time I make this. It calls for heavy cream but I used full fat unsweetened soymilk instead. I probably could have used soy creamer but I didn't have any. I used A LOT of Earth Balance margarine to butter up the baking dish and added little knobs of it throughout the layers. Who doesn't love creamy, buttery baked potatoes? I loved this dish. It went very well with the eggplant casserole.

Weekend Food: Squash and Onion Quiche, 2 Bean Salad & Apple Cider Pumpkin Upside Down Cake.

I got up super early today and went grocery shopping to get ingredients for today's menu. Saturdays are really the only day I feel motivated to make a lot of food. I would have added a fourth dish of potato salad but I forgot to buy potatoes!

Squash and onion quiche from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. You can't see the squash and onion because they were mixed in with the filling! I took a cue from Isa's book Vegan Brunch buy adding cashews to the filling to make it creamier. After a few hours in the fridge, this will be ready to eat.

My husband was in the mood for bean salad so I whipped this one up based on the technicolor bean salad in Linda McCartney's Kitchen cookbook. I left out the green beans.

And now for the best part. I made this gorgeous cake based off of the recipe I saw at a fabulous blog called Midcentury Menu. Find the recipe here. Instead of making the cake from the cake mix instructions, I just used a can of pumpkin and the cake mix and stirred it all together. Worked great! Only thing is when you plop the batter on top of the apples, you have to be careful to spread it all out with a spatula as the batter is thickish.

This cake is so moist and delicious. The apples are so good with the pumpkin flavor of the cake!

A.A.T. Sandwich and Linda McCartney's Tuscan Bean and Cabbage Soup

This is seriously an amazing sandwich. Take two slices of Ezekiel sprouted grain bread, pop them in the toaster to brown. In the meantime, take a handful of arugula and toss with a little lemon juice and olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. When toast is done, spread some Vegenaise on both. Top one with the arugula salad, sliced avocado and the other with sliced tomato. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Close sandwich and eat. Trust me, it's good!


This soup recipe I got from Linda McCartney's book "Linda's Kitchen". It's an adapted version of her Tuscan Bean and Cabbage Soup. I did everything as written but added zucchini, potatoes, summer savory and a touch of mellow red miso paste.