Chocolate Puddin'!

Happy Leap Day!

My first try at vegan chocolate pudding didn't work out so well. But, actually, it's not that hard to make a tasty vegan chocolate pudding or mousse. This is a good base recipe that can easily be altered to include different fruit mix-ins, and it's quick too!

Mango Mini Muffins

I LOVE mangoes. Love, love, love them. When I saw this recipe for mango bread, I was totally inspired, since I usually don't do much with mangoes besides just plain eat them. Speaking of which... I have a little mango story. We'll get back to that after the recipe, though.

Tamarind Tofu Bowl

Another great recipe inspired by Vegan Yum Yum! This healthy tofu bowl has a sweet flavor from the tamarind sauce, but is packed full of veggies and balanced by heartiness from the brown rice.

FYI, to satisfy your veggieosity, tamarind is a pod-shaped fruit that's kind of like a cross between a fig, date, and legume (at least in packaging). It's very sweet and can make for good sauce bases and pastes, as in this recipe.

Homemade Soft Pretzel Bites and Stuffed Pretzels

Soft pretzels are hands-down one of my favorite things. I've found two places with THE BEST soft pretzels ever. First: anywhere in Germany; there is nothing as good as a fresh, German soft pretzel- all buttery, salty, perfectly chewy, and delicious. Second: the Carmel Bakery in Carmel, California. I had actually been considering breaking vegan for that Carmel pretzel after my marathon in April, simply because it ends in Carmel, and, well, I will have run an entire 26.2 miles. The thought of walking by that bakery, or never having another German soft pretzel, was just too much to take.... until now.

Sesame Soy Dressing & Asian Salad

This dressing is so sweet & light, I love it. The soy sauce, agave, apple cider vinegar, and sesame oil add great flavor to the rest of the ingredients. And I altered the original recipe to make it lower-fat, too! This would go great on an Asian noodle salad, either as pictured above with shaved Daikon radish "noodles," and pea shoots, or with soba noodles and veggies.

Vegan Valentine's (Vegan Dinner Party #3)

I'll admit I'm not much of a schmoopy, romantic comedy type-of-gal. Usually, I'm not one for pink sparkly hearts. But.... okay, I got a little caught up in things this year. I made schmoopy cookies. And a lot of them, at that. This weekend, I hosted a full-on Valentine's dinner party. What's with all the schmoopy-ness, anyway? 

It must be a vegan thing ;-) . I made so many desserts, we would have needed an extra 10 people to finish them all (although I did send everyone home with a little bag of cookies). Here's a sampler of my third (successful!) vegan dinner party:

Veggieosity: Hoshigaki

Hoshi-whaaa?

Hoshigaki. No, I'd never heard of one either. But, if you're anything like me, you're curious, and want to know what the heck these things are, and what they taste like.

Lentil LOVE and Easy Cauliflower Purée

I don't want to sound like a total vegan cliché, but I love having a delicious fresh healthy meal after my yoga class. It just feels so good to eat something good for you after doing something good for you. And I have a new-found love of lentils. They are high in fiber, low in calories, totally filling, and I love their flavor. So after this week's class, I was going to just heat up some lentils and spinach, but there was a head of cauliflower in the bottom of my fridge just waiting to be used. I was tempted to simply steam it, but decided to do something a little more inventive, for minimally more effort...

Healthy Snack-Balls and Bars

I realize there are about a million recipes for these little snack-bites out there... but I thought I'd still share mine, for my friends & family who haven't seen them yet, and to hopefully provide some new ingredient ideas. If you haven't ever seen or tried these little bites, they basically taste just like cookie dough, but are healthier. These little bites are also incredibly quick & easy to make, and can be varied in hundreds of different ways. It's impossible not to love them. Call them bites, babies, or balls.... whatever you name them, they taste great!

Vegan Superbowl Spread and Cookie Mania

 

Well, we didn't end up hosting a party as I'd hoped, but we did go to a great one, and I brought tons of treats. Since we were traveling with them, I put these awesome pretzel & cheese bites (to veganize) back on my to do list, and instead picked some more portable pop-'ems I've been wanting to make.

On my menu: 1) Vanilla & Spice's Black Bean Cups with Plantain Guacamole, 2) No Bake Chocolate Oat Cookies, and 3) what I'm calling "Not-So-Chubby Hubbies"

Oatmeal Banana Pancakes

This weekend I wanted my typical oatmeal breakfast in a different form - pancake form! Maybe I was also inspired by Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes ;-) But who doesn't love banana pancakes?!

I made these healthier than your typical flapjack by halving the fat, adding whole grains and oats, and upping the potassium with banana in the batter. I also used maple agave syrup rather than regular-old syrup.

Black Eyed Pea Dip/Salad

With the Superbowl coming up, here's a healthy alternative to chips & dip, and something more exciting than chips & salsa. Plus, you can use the leftovers on salad the next day for lunch.

This mix is quick and easy, and works well with scoops tortilla chips. Yum!

Kabocha-Udon Soup

This udon soup is packed with kabocha squash, mushrooms, and healthy goodness in a low-calorie meal that is easy to make.

I love the use of both udon noodles - which are thick and a little chewy- combined with sweet kabocha in this dish.  If you haven't heard of kabocha squash before, read on for veggieosity info; if you have, read on for a new recipe to use it in.