Entree

Our kitchen was overflowing with zucchini and tomatoes from our and Elsa’s garden. Larry fondly recalled ratatouille, so Cyndy and I gave it a try during her visit. We decided on this roasted...

So many vegetables work here; I go for a nice mix of color. I almost always use root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, onions, and beets, sometimes bell pepper, and often mushrooms or other...

Larry’s cousin John and wife Lou hosted us at their Massachusetts home in early October, when we were on our way to Portugal. Lou made this delicious and easy one-pan meal for us, and loved it...

Purple Carrot’s Crispy Sheet Pan Tofu was relatively easy, with a couple nice twists, including the lentil grain mix, dressing, and layering. I don’t expect to order more from Purple...

Elsa made this dish for a dinner party a couple of times, served with a salad. It was so good; I loved the rich flavor from the white beans and veggies and crusty bread – so much that I bought a...

Judy and Robert made a variation of this delicious NYTimes recipe for Za’atar Roasted Tofu With Chickpeas, Tomatoes and Lemony Tahini for lunch before we enjoyed a beautiful hike through redwoods at...

A simple, delicious dish, created by Munira. Who’da thought corn and tofu would be so good together? You might be tempted to add other ingredients; feel free. Bell peppers, for example, are...

Judi shared her easy marinated and baked tofu recipe, yay! I’ve tried other marinades and not been so happy with them; they’ve been too liquidy, and didn’t turn out better than...

Marina shared a recipe for Cauliflower Salad Sandwiches from the New York Times; delicious! If you make sandwiches, a roll handy to keep everything in place, since it’s a bit chunky....

Visiting Munira in Dallas, we made our favorite homemade pizza using Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Pita Bread. They make a nice crispy crust, and it’s a super easy way to make tasty personal...

Munira is visiting from Texas, yay! We biked over with some fig banana bread, and she treated us to an impromptu, delicious dinner of her lentil dosa and secret gobi. I thought dosa was super hard to...

Our grape vines are prolific, but the grapes are teeeeeeny. Larry’s sister Cyndy mentioned that she loved putting grapes in any sandwich, like tuna or turkey. That reminded me of a nice...

We had a super fun, impromptu potluck today at Judi and Nick’s, featuring soba noodles with Kira’s special sauce. So delicious! The amounts below are guesses based on watching Kira mix; no...

Another recipe from Munira! After making us a wonderful dinner, she described how to make fried rice from the leftover rice in her Instant Pot, and sent me home with spiced rice that I could fry up...

Over the holidays, I tried an air fryer to try to get more crispy tofu. The result was pretty good, but the fryer seemed like more of a hassle than benefit (wasn’t easy to clean, took up a lot...

I’ve been meaning to try to make a chana masala for awhile, and today I found a nice recipe in Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchenthat I adapted slightly, using wisdom from Munira, some canned...

After a lovely, spur-of-the-moment hike with Judy and Robert on New Year’s Day, Judy made us a fabulous dinner of pasta and lettuce salad (with olive oil, rice vinegar, and cumin dressing),...

Another of Munira’s yummy recipes. Black chickpeas have such a nice flavor. Of course all the measures are approximate guesses; no actual measurement tools were used in the making 🙂 Ingredients...

Shhhhhh…. Munira shared her marvelous gobi recipe with me! I’m not sure what got into her, but she made us a delicious dinner (as usual!) and this time, showed me a lot of her secrets. If...

The Impossible Lasagna that I blogged earlier this year is tasty, but Impossible beef has a heavy taste like real beef does. We wanted to try a lighter, no-fake-meat lasagna, and I found the perfect...

I made a Vegan Lasagna with Nooch Cheese a couple of weeks ago, and it was good, but didn’t remind me much of classic lasagna, and Larry didn’t like the nooch. So I made a mental note to...

Updated from the 2026 Blue Zone Cookbook. Originally from the How Not To Die Cookbook that Susie gave me, I asked Larry what he thought; he said “I always like pie.” The following is a...

Vegans eating meatloaf? Impossible! Until Trader Joe’s starting carrying Impossible Burger. My first foray into fake beef cooking, C’mon Man! Sloppy Joes, turned out well, so I decided to...

In honor of our new President-elect – and his fine VP-elect – I decided to try to make sloppy joes from the (new) Impossible Burger plant-based meat I got at Trader Joe’s last week....

Larry asked his colleague Supraja what she had for lunch the other day, and she shared this cauliflower curry recipe. I had a small head of cauliflower and some potatoes and cabbage to use, so I added...

Laurie tried out some new recipes for dinner when we stopped by on our way back from our Nebraska road trip – and it was delicious! Who’da thought that cabbage could make such a good...

I came home from Nebraska to a couple of bunches of celery in the fridge that needed to be used. I adapted this celery black pepper tofu recipe from Vegan Richaand it was pretty good! Over time I...

Alba clamshell mushrooms and fresh zucchini arrived in our last farmer’s market delivery, and Viki left a nice bottle of white wine with us, and we still had a little arborio rice from John...

During the pandemic, I ordered some soy curls and made fake chick’n nuggets out of of them, adapting this “chicken” soy curl salad. It was quite good! But it’s much easier to...

Soy curls can gain the texture of chick’n, which is ok with a very tasty sauce or stir-fry. Store-bought fake chick’n varieties seem a little better, although they are even more processed...

Munira brought back a masala dabba for me from India. So exciting! The next morning I filled it with some of the spices I use the most, and drew a key to help me remember what is what. It was SO fun...

Our neighbor Elsa gave us 4 beautiful fresh leeks from her garden. I had been planning to make my chickpea tart, but then I found a mushroom leek quiche in Vegan Comfort Classics that looked worth a...

Getting fake meat during the pandemic is unpredictable; some basic things (tofu, tempeh, soyrizo) are often out of stock. I wanted to make my Mexican lasagna, but couldn’t get soyrizo. So I...

In one of our zoom chats with friends during the pandemic, Robert & Judy shared their desktop to flip through some random photos. I asked them to pause on a beautiful pizza they made for dinner....

Loving my Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen cookbook. With the uneasiness in the world, our pantry is full of dried beans and lentils - and I’ll definitely be making this again. Here’s a...

Munira often makes a potato cabbage fry for us that is yummy. I love cabbage and have a head of it that needs used, and found a recipe in my Vegan Richa cookbook to try!

One of our favorite restaurants, Cafe Sprout, has a spicy red curry soup that we love – with chickpeas, tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, red lentils, and quinoa. Isa also has a Sweet Potato and...

My friend Munira is a wonderful cook! For years she would never share her recipes, saying why would we come over for dinner if we knew how to cook the food? 🙂

Shelley Million sent me this super minimalist baker recipe for saag paneer with tofu in place of the cheese! I’ve tried a saag recipe or two and wasn’t thrilled, but this one is different...

Cyndy visited this weekend, and we made this for a dinner with Munira and Vinod. She soaked some dried mushrooms overnight and cut them up in small pieces to add to the marinara. it was really good! I...

We ate at Vegenation in Las Vegas during our Southwest vacation, and their Chicken Pot Pie Gnocchi was amazing! The Chicky Chicky Bang Bang sandwich came in a close second, followed by the Strawberry...

Dan Suthers shared his favorite dal recipe with me. Yay! For so long I’ve wanted a good dal recipe. How did he know? This dal is from Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen Cookbook, which is now on...

Dan Suthers is visiting! After a hike with Jeff, Jeremy invited us over for dinner, and allowed us to use his awesome kitchen to make Collaborative Couscous: a treasure hunt for ingredients that add...

I’ve tried to make beet burgers a few times, with just so-so results. Often they’re too soft and just not as tasty as I hoped. But for Labor Day this year, I finally did mashup of a couple...

Jeff & Brenda came over for lunch, and they had a hankering for bbq chicken, so we bought them a roast chicken at Costco and I made some homemade BBQ sauce. The sauce was delicious and super easy!...

An Indonesian dish with spicy peanut sauce that Tim and Karen made for us for dinner, to put on top of a delicious tofu and vegetable stir-fry. Yum! Ingredients 2 T vegan butter for frying 1 cup...

Judi reminded me that we made these burgers with special sauce from Chloe’s Kitchen recipes a couple of years ago and they were yummy. So I decided to make them for a summer BBQ this year. They...

Our favorite local Indian restaurant, Janta, had a buffet with several delicious dishes the other day, including a cabbage dish and a mung bean dal. I had lots of cabbage and mung beans at home to use...

This recipe is adapted from a vegetable chili con carne in Jane Brody’s Good Food Book; my sister-in-law Brenda made a vegetarian version of it for me back in the ’90s, and it was delish!...

Larry brought in some cabbage and kale leaves from the garden, and I thought I’d try a new recipe. This is adapted from a mix of Spinach & Mushroom Mini Vegan Puff Pastry Quiche and Oh She...

Another recipe adapted from a recipe in The Indian Vegetarian cookbook by Neelam Batra (see also the diced potatoes and tomatoes recipe). The original calls for 4 jalapenos (!!). I use one medium...

This bean dish was served at a lunch at work, in both vegan and with-bacon-and-ham forms. Judi and I thought the vegan one was delicious (don’t know about the other!); I brought home leftovers,...

So many tomatoes in our new garden bed! And our friends Elsa & John gave us some lovely zucchini from their garden. So I though I’d try to make a primavera similar to one at our favorite...

I’ve made many veggie curries with Trader Joes bottled curry sauce, and they’re okay, but never as good as what you get at a Thai restaurant. Once I tried to make curry with store-bought...

My brother Jeff gave me a couple bags of dried fava beans this weekend. He gets them at his local farmers market. I soaked, boiled, and then sautéed them with some garlic and pepper. It was good, but...

A new twist on pasta from Larry’s sister Cyndy. Delicious and super healthy. Here’s the recipe for 2 people; increase proportionally for 4. (Okay, way too much yellow in this photo;...

A hearty, nice corn chowder, from Vegan with a Vengeance. You can use frozen corn, but I think it’s better if you use fresh. I made this the first time with my sweet corn harvest (see photos...

Our perfect veggie burger from Oh She Glows. The nuts and seeds really make it, it’s crispy outside, and it stays together well. I’m not a big parsley fan, so I use fresh basil instead of...

Judi made this tart from Plant-Powered Kitchen for Thanksgiving, and we loved it! It’s delicious with cranberry sauce on it, but super delicious on its own, too. This is my a slightly adapted...

My friend Judi totally loves these soy curls. I made her vegan bacon version of these and liked them; Larry thought they were too sweet. Next time I’ll cut down the maple syrup.

Larry’s sister Laurie made this yummy dish for us. The chutney, garam masala, and nuts really make it. (Garam masala is a blend of spices such as nutmeg, cloves, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom,...

A great recipe from Happy Healthy Long Life that’s easy to make. I’ve made some slight modifications, and Ingredients 2-3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled & sliced 32 oz salsa (mix of...

Well, you don’t have to serve this with fettuccine; we serve it over Garofalo whole wheat spaghetti or fusilli with my homemade marinara. This is recipe adapted from the wonderful cookbook Isa...

A colleague at work (Savitha) brought me a jar of her homemade marinara, and it was so delicious. I asked her how she made it, and talked with Judi about how she makes hers, and it’s so easy!...

Slightly adapted from the wonderful Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook, an easy, yummy vegan pesto. Larry had missed pesto; it’s so hard or impossible to find without cheese in it; we’ve...