Slow Cooker Creamy Coconut Lentils

I have scaled down the number of blogs I read. My RSS feeder is still full yet I rarely open it. My friends shared Lindsay and Bjork’s post from Pinch of Yum where they shared openly about the death of their son born at 23 weeks gestation. Twenty five weeks is usually the point where a baby might survive. This hit me dear to my heart as I went into labour at 26 weeks. Thankfully, I was able to keep my guy cooking for another 7 weeks, but they experienced my worst fears.

Cheezy Gnocchi & Peas

It might surprise you to learn I barely sit down these days. In between feeds, I have not been able to sit down for months.

When I was pregnant, people told me I’d be watching a lot of television while on my maternity leave. Nothing could be completely wrong.

Even though baby P is not crawling yet, the need for baby snuggles are real. However, our baby demands snuggles while standing. As soon as you sit down, he knows and will probably wake up and start to cry. It took me 5 months to figure out I could read my computer while standing and swaying if I brought it to the kitchen island. It is higher than my computer desk and I could work while standing. And as time passed, I started typing again.

Root Cellar Medley Soup + Complete Root Cellar Book GIVEAWAY

You know it is a great soup when I make it two weeks in a row. It is not often that I repeat recipes in such rapid succession, but I only ate 2 servings and had planned to share it with our baby. I thought it was ok for him until I realized I used broth powder with salt in it.

Round two was solidified. Without any vegetable broth. The necessary salt was added after we removed baby P’s portion.

Sassy Sesame Tofu with Sweet Potato, Carrots and Sugar Snap Peas & Vegan Under Pressure GIVEAWAY

I have had my Instant Pot almost one year and it wasn’t until I stumbled upon Jill Nussinow‘s Vegan Under Pressure that it really clicked. I knew it didn’t have to only be rice and beans, but I finally took the leap to other meals with the cookbook. Quick and easy orange-scented beet salad, maple mustard brussels sprouts, potato salad, and this delicious Sassy Sesame Tofu. There are so many more recipes I still want to try: Lemon Cashew Cheesecake! (in a pressure cooker!) Red Lentil, Sweet Potato Hemp Burgers!

Cheezy Chili Sweet Potato Fries + Naturally Lean cookbook GIVEAWAY

In addition to peanut butter, another of my pregnancy cravings were sweet potato fries. Postpartum, I haven’t craved fries as often but I still love the sweet potatoes. These sweet potato fries have been made* regularly over the past few months. *Made by Rob (I am rather lucky). Once you have the Parmesan Sprinkles ready to go (I made this!), these are a simple side that can be thrown into the oven.

Rob and I could easily eat an entire batch with a meal. They are that good.

Slow Cooker Creamy Sweet Potato & Peanut Stew + Plant Pure Nation Cookbook giveaway

I always loved eating peanut butter, but I ate even more of it while pregnant. Breastfeeding brought a whole new level of hunger as I build a new human and possibly even higher levels of consumption. It is usually limited to breakfasts and desserts, and even though I had stirred it into stews before (hello, African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew), this version is easily made in a slow cooker, simplifies the spices with curry powder, swaps chickpeas for kidney beans and I love how effortless the frozen spinach brings another layer of goodness. The coconut milk and peanut butter make for a creamy base that is deliciously paired with the sweet potatoes and carrots. I added some peanuts for garnish, but the crunch was a fun treat when they were immersed in the stew, too.

Creamy Summer Cajun Soup

This summer we’ve been eating a lot of soups and stews. It could have been that we were immune to the hot weather, as we spent the majority of it in an air conditioned NICU. Or, more likely, that we’ve been making up for lost time and stocking our freezer with extra food.  We have fully adopted making a second batch of a recipe and freezing half. Soups and stews are great for that.

Creamy Sweet Potato Chickpea Curry

I remember someone told me they didn’t like curry because it always tastes like curry powder. Well, if you always use the same curry powder, of course they will be similar. Most of the time, I don’t use curry powder and try to use the individual spices to create new concoctions each time.

Examples: Martinique Sweet Potato Coconut Curry, A Riff on Massaman Curry, Cauliflower and Chickpea Balti, Cauliflower Dal with Panch Poran, and our favourite Nepalese Dal Bhat.  

Warm Barley Bowl with Roasted Brussels and a Coconut Curry Dressing

Between holiday parties, preparing for your own holiday (lights, decorations, etc) and always more busy at work, December has to be one of the busiest months of the year. I was not prepared to join in Sam and Andrew‘s Vegan Mystery Box Challenge but once I heard the three ingredients were cranberries, pistachios and coconut milk, I just had join in.

Fresh’s Green Poutine-Style Sweet Potato + Super Fresh cookbook GIVEAWAY

If you had to imagine the healthiest poutine, this would probably come close to the top. First, it is vegan. Second, there are steamed greens include. Third, there are sweet potatoes and they are roasted, not deep-fried. Fourth, the cheese sauce is made from carrots and potatoes. Fifth, there are mushrooms in the gravy.

Why else should you make it? Well, judging by your comments (you guys will be making delicious Thanksgiving meals!) ,most of the components might be leftovers from your Thanksgiving meal. Or possibly a great option for a vegan Thanksgiving as you load up with different side dishes.

Sweet Potato and Broccoli Bowl with a Miso-Sesame Sauce

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Even when you think everything is ready to go for the wedding, little things keep popping up. Rob needs to buy a belt; maybe I should get my nails done before we leave; we should pick some readings for the ceremony; we each need to write our vows. So while I have been silent on the blog, life has been anything but.

Rob and I want a short and sweet ceremony. We didn’t even discuss readings until I sat down to write my own vows.  I was inspired by some absolutely fabulous quotes. So much so that I wanted them a part of my ceremony. So now we have readings.

I kind of want to tell you all about our choices (I am that excited about them) but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for my guests who also read my blog. So, you will have to wait (sorry for the tease). If you want some vegan wedding porn, this one looked super cute (eco friendly on a farm!).

Otherwise, as we try to eat the remainder of our perishables before we leave, this is a perfect way to chow down. I consider these as almost non-recipes since it is basically roasted vegetables, beans, rice and a sauce. Here I returned to our staples, sweet potatoes, broccoli, chickpeas and brown rice. We love steamed broccoli but since I was roasting the sweet potatoes, in went the broccoli as well. The sauce is a lovely pantry-friendly creation (ignoring the ginger and garlic) with a heavy dose of miso and toasted sesame oil with a tahini base (although certainly not overpowering). Humble or not, this is a great meal to have on hand.

Miso and/or tahini dishes shared here previously:

Buddha Veggie Bowl with Ginger-Miso-Lime Dressing

Braised Tempeh and Green Beans in a Sesame Sauce

Macro Veggie and Tempeh Bowl with Miso Tahini Sauce

Simple Sesame-Miso Soba Noodles with Kale & Red Pepper

Wild Rice and Edamame Salad with a Lemon-Miso Dressing

Yam, Zucchini and Chickpea Salad

I am sharing this with Bookmarked Recipes.

Sesame-Sriracha Roasted Vegetable Chickpea Bowl

I have been lucky to be able to cook from so many fabulous cookbooks. I always try to share my favourite recipe for you to try as well, but sometimes there are so many good recipes. This dish was simplified, slightly from the Buddha Parcels in Keep It Vegan (as reviewed originally here).

Instead of making parcels (cute but not too practical), I put all the vegetables in a big glass tray and roasted them with a sheet of aluminum foil overtop. The sauce from toasted sesame oil and sriracha was spot on perfect, and I wonder whether the vinegar was the best part. Not that I tasted it, but it was a lovely marinade.

I used sweet potatoes and sweet red bell peppers and it complemented the spicy sauce. Because of the lid, the kale gets steamed from the juicy vegetables. Not that kale chips would be bad, because I think they were fabulous on this roasted vegetable and kale chip pizza.

There is a nice (albeit small) side of cardamom-lemon infused rice in the cookbook, but I ended up tossing the vegetables with chickpeas and brown rice. Enjoy it with your favourite protein.

I am sharing this with Shaheen’s Eat Your Greens.

Coconut Cabbage and Lentil Soup with Cilantro

Howdy! I don’t have much to say today… other than to highly suggest making this soup. Bonus points if you make it and you don’t have snow outside. It will still taste delicious.

The coconut-infused broth is silky smooth with spicy hints of sriracha and ginger, balanced by the lime juice and cilantro and packed with good-for-you veggies like sweet potato and cabbage. Oh, and there are red lentils in there to make this a complete meal. The cabbage was fun because they were inadvertently like noodles with their long strands.

Dig in!

I am sharing this with Souper Sundays and No Croutons Required.

Balsamic-Maple Brussels Sprouts & Sweet Potato & Giveaway for But I Could Never Go Vegan!

Rob is away this week for work. He likes to update me on his day-to-day life…. like what they serve for breakfast at work, especially when it is unusual like Brussels sprouts. I would be excited about that, too! I have had Brussels for breakfast once, when we used them in this curried dill tofu scramble. Turns out I had just made Brussels sprouts as a vegetable side and it was so good, I could possibly consider eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I mean it includes all good things: roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted sweet potato, both in a sticky tangy-sweet glaze courtesy of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. I like how the nutritional yeast adds a tackiness to the marinade and thickens it up, helping it to coat all the vegetables. I opted to skip the dried cranberries and I excluded them purely on principle. I had a sneaking suspicion that fresh/frozen cranberries would be surreal in here. I included them in this Balsamic Curry Roasted Vegetable dish and their tart juiciness would have complemented the dish well.

The recipe is courtesy of Kristy’s new cookbook, But I Could Never Go Vegan!. I have been a long-time reader of her blog, where Kristy creates the creative recipes and her husband, Chris Turner, takes the most gorgeous photos. (You totally know he gets the credit for the top photo).

Kristy’s book is a cute foray into vegan cuisine. She aims to convince you that will not be lacking anything while munching vegan-style. Each chapter was created with recipes targetted to bust vegan myths: All Those Special Ingredients are Way More Expensive; I Could Never Give Up Cheese!; Where Would I Get My Protein?; Tofu Doesn’t Taste Like Anything; Vegan Cooking is Too Hard; Where’s the Beef?; Just Thinking about Salad Makes Me Yawn; What About Brunch?; Fake “Foods” Freak Me Out; It’s All Rabbit Food; Not Soup Again!; I’d Miss Pizza; Can’t I Be Pescatarian Instead?; My Friends Won’t Want to Come Over for Dinner; No Way. I’m Italian (or Southern/German/Mexican/French); But I Hate (Insert Vegetable Here); I Don’t Want to be Left Out at Potlucks and Family Get-Togethers; You Can’t Bake Without Butter Or Eggs; Wait, Is Chocolate Vegan?; But I Scream for Ice Cream.

Yeah, she definitely covers her bases! Her recipes span the simple and easy (see below) but also mostly on the elaborate side: Potato Sauerkraut Soup with Sausage Crumbles, Buffalo Cauliflower Calzones with Cashew Blue Cheese, Pretzel Dumplings with Mushroom-Sauerkraut Gravy; Salisbury Seitan Phyllo Pouches with Rosemary Mashed Potatoes. I may be wrong but I only recognize a few recipes from her blog: Spinach Artichoke Soup, Chickpea Sloppy Joes and Jackfruit Tuna Salad Sandwich. There may be others, but those were the ones I recognized and previously bookmarked. These sprouts and sweets are similar (and likely improved) from her Cheesy Maple Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli dish. I am certainly looking forward to cooking through these recipes. One can not help but to be inspired by the photography and recipes.

Recipes spotted elsewhere:

(Vegan) BBQ Bacon Burgers

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thankfully, the publisher allowed me to giveaway the cookbook to a reader living in the United States or Canada. To be entered in the random draw for the book, please leave a comment below telling me about the hardest that prevents (or used to prevent you) from becoming vegan. The winner will be selected at random on December 15, 2014. Good luck!

I am sharing this with Shaheen’s Eat Your Greens and Virtual Vegan Potluck.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Curry

And like that, winter arrived. The snow dropped in full force and actually stuck around a bit.

I had a few short weeks for biking. My broken leg meant I was not fit for biking earlier this fall but it was nice while it lasted.

And what is better during the cold weather than a warm bowl of curry?

To keep things simple in the kitchen, I have resorted to remaking some favourites and making twice as much.

Most of my favourites have already been shared  (Tamarind Lentils, Bengali Cauliflower Dal, Creamy Broccoli Dal, and Root Veggie Curry), so it does not surprise me to share yet another easy, delicious and healthy curry. This is one I first discovered while testing/eating through Gena’s fabulous cookbook and has become a staple ever since. Having blog worthy photos also helps keep me more speedy in the kitchen.

So, please, grab yourself a huge sweet potato and make a double batch. It freezes well should you want to save it until a colder day.

I am sharing this with Souper Sundays.