These are a Few of My Favorite Things

(Singing) When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling down….

I apologize for my previous downer post, but your comments sure cheered me up. Thank you all so much. I especially enjoyed Carrie’s comment on how to pretend my pulled muscle could be treated with a boytoy, the ever cheerful Katie’s comment “as long as we’re pretending, let’s pretend we’re in Hawaii,” and Erica’s comment, “couldn’t you just eat some of the food?” Well, I couldn’t eat any of the soy or wheaty foods, but I did top a green salad with the Red Lentil Hummus.




And I baked the sweet potato fries so I could have the yummy Homemade Ketchup. I’m going to be making this ketchup a lot for grilled burgers this summer.

If you have Get It Ripe!, you need to make these recipes!

Oh, yeah, I also sampled one of the Nicer Rice Krispie Treats. I used ALL the optional ingredients in them, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, and pistachios. These are deeeelish and I can’t wait to make them again with gluten free brown rice krispies.

I have recovered from all of last week’s disappointments and body aches. I didn’t mention then that I also had my car in the shop. I need to come up with some big bucks in two months, so now I’m taking inspiration from Melody to be a frugal shopper yet still prepare delicious vegan foods. I’m also inspired by Amanda to revisit some old vegan cookbooks. I’ve found some quick and easy recipes and I’ve come up with a new recipe I’m still tweaking. Like Melody, I tend to cook in bulk on the weekends since I’m so busy during the week. I’ve got tons of food to share, but for now I’ll post a couple of my favorites.

Cabbage and Lentils with Mustard Sauce

Cook ½ cup lentils in 1 cup broth for about 30 minutes. Steam ½ large head of cabbage, shredded, in broth for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, mix together 2 T. Dijon mustard, 2 T. rice wine vinegar (or whatever kind you have handy), a couple of crushed cloves of garlic, and a little black pepper. Toss altogether and serve.

Steamed Broccoli with Quick White Bean Sauce

While your broccoli steams, make the sauce. Put the following into a blender or food processor: 1-15 oz. can white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. broth, water, or olive oil
1 T. lemon juice
2 t. AP seasoning or Italian seasoning
S&P to taste

Process until smooth. Serve immediately over hot broccoli.


And finally, a sweet treat! A super delicious, super easy, gluten free, no sugar added muffin. I don’t normally post published recipes, but I love this recipe from Simply Vegan. You know my love for oats, peanut butter, and chocolate, and that’s what this recipe includes. Okay so it calls for raisins and not chocolate chips, but I couldn’t help myself. The recipe is called Banana Muffins, but it tastes more like a bowl of oatmeal, so I’m going to call them Oatmeal Muffins.

The recipe makes 18 muffins, which frankly annoys me since I only have one 12-muffin tray. I made a half recipe, and again, subbed chocolate chips for the raisins.

Oatmeal Muffins

2 cups very ripe bananas, mashed well or pureed
1 cup raisins
3 cups gluten free rolled oats
1 T. cinnamon
1 T. baking powder
½ cup almond or peanut butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Pour batter into lightly oiled muffin tins. Bake 25 minutes. Cool muffins completely before removing from tins.

How easy is that!

They really are delicious – give ‘em a try!