I've been on a Thai Curry kick recently. There's something about the combination of the spicy broth and coconut cream that I love. When you take a bite its so spicy and intense, and then the coconut sweetness comes in just enough for your mouth to recover before the next bite.  Plus, with all the veggies I always feel good about ordering it for delivery. 

I wanted to try cooking it for myself, for the challenge of trying something new, but also so that I could have it more frequently and not have to pay for delivery! Surprisingly, it was a lot easier than I thought! I found a lot of great resources on the website, Rachel Cooks Thai, and was able to come up with a great recipe.

One of the main differences I made was using two cans of coconut milk instead of one. Rachel talks about customizing the balance of coconut milk to water based on your own preferences. I made an earlier batch with only one can of milk and more water and I really didn't feel like I could taste the coconut flavor at all. 

Like I mentioned, its a pretty simple recipe to make - heat the coconut milk, add in your curry paste, add more liquid and your chopped veggies, simmer until veggies are soft and the flavors have marinated! 

Let me know what you think! What's your favorite kind of curry? 

Instructions:

Combine the rice and water in a pan. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for 35-40 minutes or until the water is absorbed. 

Chop all of the veggies and tofu into cubes. Press the excess water out of the tofu. Fry the tofu in a skillet or non-stick pan with turmeric until all sides are crispy. 

Open the two cans of coconut milk and scoop out the solid cream part at the top and put into a pan over medium heat. Stir until the cream has liquefied and begins to bubble. Add the curry paste and again stir to combine. 

Pour the remaining coconut milk into the pan. Add your veggies and tofu and one cup of water. You can add more water depending on how thick you like your curry broth. 

Cook until the veggies are soft and ready to eat. 

​Serve the rice and veggies in two separate bowls. As you are eating add the rice into the veggie bowl to soak up the broth and mix with the veggies - enjoy!

I love cooking a big breakfast on the weekend because there are so many ways to mix and match ingredients to come up with a different twist and flavor each time. This recipe is so colorful and nutritious, full of veggies, carbs, and protein it's sure to be a satisfying breakfast!

This is a fully satisfying dish if you eat it on its own or makes a great side as part of a larger brunch menu. 

Instructions:
Mince the garlic. Finely chop the white and light green parts of the leeks - once you have sliced the leeks go back over the leek rings with your knife to chop them up even smaller. Rinse the leeks underwater as they can get dirt within the rings of the leeks. Heat the garlic and leeks in a skillet over medium heat with the olive oil. 

Chop the sweet potatoes and green pepper to about the size of the beans, so that everything is a uniform size. Add the sweet potatoes to the skillet and stir them around to let them get a bit of a crisp on the end. Add the green peppers and cook until the sweet potatoes are soft, about 10 minutes. 

Add the beans, turmeric, and paprika. Stir to combine. Once the beans are warm enough to your liking, serve and eat. You can top with your favorite sauce - ketchup, sriracha, vegan ranch dressing - or avocado if you have some.

Enjoy!

A good friend of ours lived in Costa Rica for a couple years after college. Recently we were over at his place and he made us beans and rice for dinner, which he had learned how to make there. It had been on my list of recipes to try that I just never got around to making, but that night inspired me! It was so easy to make, cooking everything in the same pot, and it was delicious! I had worried in the past that the dish was too simple and would leave me unsatisfied, but I was wrong. The rice and beans stick to your ribs, you can add all the veggies you want, and the spices add a ton of flavor. 

It's been a few months since that night, so I was cooking from memory. Onion and peppers are the standard veggies to add, but feel free to include whatever your favorites are. Same goes for the color of pepper, beans, and rice. If you change out the rice, but sure to make sure you have the right amount of water. Check the cooking instructions for your rice. Mine called for 2 cups of liquid for 1 cup of rice, so I decided to split it evenly between water and veggie broth. For some reason I love adding cinnamon into Mexican/Carribbean type dishes. I don't think it's typical in this dish but I love the complexity that it adds (not to mention the health benefits).

Ingredients:
​1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Yellow Onion
2 Red Peppers
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Tablespoon Oregano
2 teaspoons Cumin
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Cup Brown Rice
1 Can Black Beans
1 Cup Vegetable Broth
1 Cup Water
1 teaspoon Salt 
1 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Ground Red Pepper
1-2 Avocados
1 Bunch Green Onion
1 Cup Cherry Tomatoes 

Prep Time: 5-10 minutes                                          Cook Time: 40-45 minutes                                                          Servings: 4 

Instructions:
Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Dice onion, peppers, and garlic and add to pot. Add spices - oregano, cumin, paprika, and cinnamon. Stir together. Cook for about 10 minutes or until peppers and onions are soft. 

Add rice and stir for about 2 minutes. 

Add beans, vegetable broth, and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, add salt and pepper and stir to combine. Cover pot and let sit for 20-25 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender.

While this is cooking, chop the avocado, tomato, and green onions for your garnish.

Turn the heat off. Add the ground red pepper, stir, and let sit for about ten minutes.

​Serve, topped with the avocado, tomato, and rice. 

​Enjoy!

Get ready to see a lot of taco recipes! I've been eating them a lot recently. They're so versatile - almost a mix between a stir fry and a sandwich. You can cook up almost whatever combo you'd like - just throw together whatever you have in your fridge, stick it between some tortillas, and voila - you have dinner! Depending on how much chopping you have to do and what kind of vegetables you're cooking the whole thing takes 10-20 minutes!

Also, you can really play around and have fun with the flavors, combining different cuisines so that it doesn't feel like you're eating the same thing all the time. This recipe has pretty standard Mexican and South American flavors, but in later recipes I post you'll see that you can put pretty much anything in a taco. I like the combination of potatoes and beans for a couple reasons. They both substantial enough to give you something to bite into and leave you feeling full and satisfied. The sweet potato adds a lot of flavor on its own, so you really don't need to add many additional spices. And of course, they're both full of nutrition - protein, potassium, fiber, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C - they're a winning combo!

Instructions:
Add a small amount of water to a medium-sized skillet on medium heat, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the chopped sweet potatoes and stir them around a bit to make sure they don't stick to the pan. Cook the potatoes for about 5 minutes. You'll need to add more water, a little bit at a time, to make sure they don't stick. Only add enough to keep the potatoes off the bottom of the pan, you don't want the potatoes to be swimming in the water otherwise you'll be boiling them and they won't get any sort of a crisp to them. When the potatoes are almost to the desired amount of softness, add the beans, cumin, paprika, and chili powder. Continue to add water and stir until the potatoes reach your desired softness and the beans are warm.

If you feel like you can take your eyes of the potatoes (you should be able to), then you can make the sour cream while they're cooking. Or, you can turn the potato and bean mixture to low once they're done and make the sour cream then. Break up the tofu a bit and put it in a food processor. You don't need to break it up that much, it just helps mix together better to spread it around the food processor since you aren't adding that many ingredients. Add the apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and blend together. If you would like the sour cream to be more liquidy you can add more vinegar/juice or just water.

I keep my tortillas in the freezer. Right before I'm ready to eat my tacos I place the tortilla on a small pan on high heat - about a 7 or 8 out of 10 - for a couple seconds. Since they still have some moisture from being frozen they don't burn. Watch it until it starts to look dry on the bottom and then flip it over and quickly warm it on the other side. The whole process shouldn't take more than a few seconds.

Top your tacos with the potato and bean mixture, the sour cream, some salsa and greens and anything else you would like to add. Enjoy!

This is dip will fill just about any need you have and overrule any excuse you can come up with:

• Never cooked anything before? Are your store bought trays the laughing stock of every dinner party? Ease yourself into it and surprise everyone with this homemade dish!
  
• Forgot you had a dinner party tonight? Did the dish you plan on making turn out terrible? You have time to make this!
• Do you have what to eat snack food and not feel bad about it? - This is basically just black beans! Protein and fiber all the way!
• The only vegan going to an event? Want something small that you can eat as an app and a main dish and other people will like? Here you go! 

I made this dish as I was walking out the door on my way to a dinner party - literally. And not in the literally but not actually, I literally had my coat on and was walking out the door, when I decided I needed to bring something else (hence the lack of photos). It was that fast and easy to make. I even had to defrost my beans - that took about half the time!

We were heading over to a friend's place for some tacos and I was the only vegan/vegetarian going. It was a small event, only about 4 or 5 people, so not a huge potluck where everyone was bringing a dish. I wanted to make sure I had something to eat, but didn't want to bring too much. This was perfect. I was able to share it with the party as an app and then I used the dip as the meat of my tacos.

I dumped all the ingredients except the tomatoes into the food processor and blended them until it was smooth and I was happy with the flavor. We were stopping at the convenience store to pick up some chips and guac, so I grabbed some cherry tomatoes as well and added them to the dish once we got to my friend's place.

So next time you're in a pickle and need something quick, easy, delicious and nutritious - think of making  a bean dip! You can use it as a spread on sandwiches, as a filling in tacos, burritos, or enchiladas, or as a dip with chips or fresh veggies! You could really use any kind of bean in this recipe - black, kidney, white, chickpeas, lentils - get creative! Mix it up!

Instructions:
Drain and rinse beans.

Add all ingredients except the tomatoes to a food processor and blend until smooth. Adjust spiciness and seasonings to taste. Transfer the dip to a bowl.

Dice the tomatoes and them to the bowl, stirring everything together. Serve and enjoy!

I had some of the best tofu ever when eating out the other day - the firmness and texture were amazing. It was hard to tell that I was eating tofu (they had even sliced the tofu on an angle so that it looked like chicken breast). I asked the waiter how it was prepared and he told me that the chef pressed, seared, and baked the tofu. I had to try to recreate it! It turned out great and was not difficult to make. If you have a cast iron skillet (or other oven-safe pan) you can use the same pan from the stove right into the oven and would probably be ideal.

As I have all winter - I had some carrots on hand and some butternut squash that I had shredded and froze. I added some cooking greens and mushrooms. Feel free to use whatever vegetables you have on hand. Make sure to chop them to approximately the same size so that they all cook for the same amount of time.

I made mine for lunch, so I divided everything into four portions to bring into work with me.

Instructions:
Press your tofu for about 5 to 10 minutes. Slice in fours. Sear tofu for 5 minutes on each side on high heat with a little bit of water or oil. Sprinkle turmeric and ginger on each side. Cook in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping halfway.

While the tofu is cooking - chop and saute the vegetables with water over medium heat. Start with the carrots and squash. Once again, add a generous coating of turmeric and ginger and stir in to cover all the veggies. When they are soft add the greens and mushrooms and cook until the greens are wilted. I generally need to add the greens a little at a time and let them wilt down until I have room for some more.

Serve the veggies over quinoa and top with a slice of tofu. Top with sriracha, if desired. Enjoy!

Looking for something healthy to make for St. Patrick's Day? Look no further! This bowl is chock full of awesome, healthy, greenness. It's got edamame, broccoli, basil, salad greens, avocado - what more could you want? You can use it as a side or a main dish. The quinoa and edamame provide a ton of filling protein. The avocado and pine nuts give you some healthy fats. And the broccoli has a ton of potassium and vitamin C. Eating this just makes you feel good! You know you're treating your body well, it tastes great, it fills you up, and you feel festive!

Plus, it's super easy to make. Steam the broccoli a bit. Add all the pesto ingredients in a food processor or blender. Then dump everything in a bowl and mix it together - how easy is that? It's so easy I forgot to take pictures of it all! There weren't that many steps to document!

I made this for a St. Patrick's themed going away party at work (full of a ton of non-vegans) and it was a big hit!

Instructions:
Chop up the broccoli so that you are left with small pieces of the heads - remove all the stems. You don't want the pieces of broccoli to be too much bigger than the edamame so that everything blends together well. Add the broccoli to a pot with enough water to cover about 1/2 of the broccoli. If you have a steaming basket feel free to use it. In that case the water should be below the basket. Cook for about 5 minutes, just so that the broccoli can be easily pierced with a fork.

While that is cooking add all the pesto ingredients to a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.

Slice open an avocado, remove the pit, and slice the avocado into cubes.

If you have large greens, chop them up into smaller pieces.

Add everything to a bowl and mix together. Serve and Enjoy!

This is a story about making something out of nothing in your fridge (or freezer). Coming home after being out of town my fridge was basically bare. I had veggie burgers, but no buns. I had taco shells, but nothing to make tacos with. The only veggies I had were an avocado about to go bad and a carrot that was losing its crispness. Put it all together and what do you get? A veggie burger on tortillas! 

I sliced the carrot thinly and fried it up in some olive oil to compensate for the age of the carrot and add some crisp to the sandwich. I added some baba ganoush, vegan cheese I had on hand, and topped it with the avocado. It almost looks like it was planned! Just goes to show you that you can make a gourmet sandwich out of whatever you can find in your fridge, you just need to be creative!  

Instructions:
Heat a skillet over medium heat and add either a little bit of olive oil or water. Add the veggie burger to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes (if frozen) so that it has a nice crispy edge on the bottom. Flip it over and cook for another 5 minutes. If you are going to add a slice of vegan cheese, put it on about a minute before the burger is done.

Meanwhile, slice the carrot thinly either using a vegetable peeler, mandolin, or knife. Once the veggie burger is done, in a separate skillet over medium-high heat add the carrots to the skillet. They should need long on each side to get a nice crispiness.

Open and slice the avocado.

Ideally your burger and carrots are done around the same time. If one is done earlier then turn the heat to low and cover the skillet to keep it warm. Once both are done, remove the carrots from their skillet and add them on top of the burger. Place the tortillas on the open skillet for a couple seconds on each side, just to toast them a bit. Spread the baba ganoush over over one of the tortillas and top with the burger and carrots. Top with the avocado, any condiment you would like such as ketchup, BBQ sauce, or sriracha. Add the second tortilla on top. Serve and enjoy!

I make a lot of Asian stir fries with tofu, but I had a lot of local seasonal vegetables, so I wanted to put a different spin on things. I still used a lot of Asian flavors with ginger and sriracha, but I used some different cooking methods and ingredients.
I love roasting squash - it really brings out the flavors and adds a nice sweetness. In this recipe I used delicata squash, which I think is the easiest squash to cook with. It's generally smaller and has a softer skin so it's easier to cut open and you don't have to worry about peeling it. Since I was roasting the squash I thought I would try roasting the tofu as well. Many people don't like tofu because of the texture, but changing up the cooking method (as well as pressing the liquid out of it) has a big impact on the texture. Roasting or baking tofu makes it firmer and dryer and gets rid of the mushy texture that many people don't like about tofu.

I hadn't had any quinoa in a while, so I decided to use quinoa instead of rice. I had purple carrots, so I sauteed those on those stove by themselves. First because I didn't have any more room in the oven, but also because I've learned that purple carrots turn everything else they're cooked with purple, so I needed to isolate them.
This dish has a lot of pieces cooked separately, but they all fit together well. There's a great mix of textures with the fluffy quinoa, soft squash, spongy tofu, and crunchy carrots and pepitas.

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
Slice cube and press your tofu. Slice the squash in half. Scoop out the seeds inside and slice into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place the tofu and squash on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, sprinkle with turmeric, ginger, and paprika and roast for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare your quinoa. Add quinoa and 1 cup water to a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the water has evaporated. 
Slice carrots and saute on over medium heat for about ten minutes. Remove from the pan and add the pepitas, cooking for about 5 minutes.
All of your items should finish cooking around the same time. Divide the quinoa, tofu, squash and carrots evenly among four plates. Top with the pepitas and any sauce you would like - I used sriracha. Serve and enjoy!