lotsa cooking

 Eating a vegan, whole foods-based diet means I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and baking.  And sometimes I have a backlog of recipes that need to be prepared for lunches, snacks, desserts, sides and main dishes.  One afternoon this weekend (I can't remember the exact day, Mommy brain seems to be kicking in tonight...not to mention it's almost 10:30pm!!) I made maple banana loaf, Kinda Corny Muffins , Sweet Potato Lentil Chili, and Maple Pecan Sticky Blondies.  The last three recipes are from Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink and Be Vegan.  The chili was fabulous.  I've made many varieties of chili, but this one was met with rave reviews.  My middle son didn't even complain one bit!  Everyone loved the corn muffins and the blondies and banana loaf are favorites now. 

Tonight we tried a new recipe...I'm often making new recipes.  Thai Coconut Corn Stew (also from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan), served with basmati rice.  I also made garlic bread, per her recipe in the same book.  It's so simple and the boys love it more than the kind I would have bought in the freezer section of the store.  Slice a baguette on a bias, and place it in the freezer for a few hours.  Rub a clove of garlic on each slice, brush with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and a bit of nutritional yeast if you'd like.  Bake at 400 degrees for 7 minutes or so (watch it or it'll burn like mine did yesterday!).  Delicious! 

The stew was fabulous.  I think I went a little heavy on the lime juice.  My limes were tiny, but juicier than I thought!  I loved the fresh taste the lime gave the stew, but it was a bit much for my oldest son.  I'll have to be careful next time.

In celebration of Dreena's new cookbook Let Them Eat Vegan , which is set to be released March 13, I'll be sharing some of her recipes with you.  Some are favorites that we make all the time, some will be new.  Dreena has taught me a lot about eating a healthy vegan diet and I would like to share what I've learned with you all.  She has a lot of recipes on her recipe website www.viveleveganrecipes.blogspot.com so you may want to browse around there.  You can also find her on Facebook, she's been posting new recipes lately so be sure to "like" her author page.

On another note, I started the second book in my series.  I'm hoping it won't interfere with my blogging, but there's a chance that I may miss a day or two here or there.  All of you other readers out there understand.

Night, night everyone.