Pumpkin Baked Ziti with Caramelized Onions

I have come to the end of Pumpkin Week! That doesn't mean I won't be cooking with pumpkin anymore though! Far from it. I have more muffins and pies to make! Maybe I should have a second pumpkin week soon?

Yes, I have made Pumpkin Ziti with Caramelized Onions before, but it was so good the first time it was definitely worth another go. This recipe is from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, which is packed with good things. This time I made the tofu ricotta that the recipe calls for. (Last time I made ricotta with cashews.) I used rice pastas and rice bread crumbs for the topping instead of wheat. Instead of cooking them in margarine, I mixed them with some olive oil. This dish is really delicious and Dennis said it made him want to curl up with warm blanket. Ah... comfort food!

And speaking of pumpkins, here is picture of my pumpkins, Archie and Schroeder, checking out some birds outside the window. Aren't they adorable?

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Pumpkin Alfredo

It's day three of Pumpkin Week! Today's dish is Pumpkin Alfredo. I found this recipe on the Manifest Vegan blog. I used rice pasta and served it with sautéed purple kale.

I will admit that this dish did not live up to expectations. The sauce seemed a little too thick, and because of the cinnamon and allspice, this seemed like a breakfast pasta. It wasn't bad but any means, but it just didn't seem like a dinner dish. My friend Jenny tried the recipe and tweaked it a little. She added some vegetable broth, onion, garlic, sage and cayenne, and she said it was delicious, so I'm going to give it another try soon.

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Pasta with Artichokes and Arugula

This is a recipe from the September is Vegetarian Times. I think it appealed to me because it's very similar to one of my favorite go to dishes, which is pasta with greens, sun-dried tomatoes and chickpeas. 

The recipe called for papparedelle pasta, which doesn't seem to come gluten-free. Instead I bought fusilli pastas, which always reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld. The recipe also called for arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts. I added chickpeas and olives, because everything tastes better with chickpeas, and I seem to have developed a slight olive addiction. 

This was a nice light summer dish, and it was quick and easy to make. It's the perfect meal for a busy weeknight! 

Like what you're reading? Follow me on Twitter!

Roasted Farmers' Market Veggies

Dennis and I missed the Montclair Farmers' Market last weekend because we were being lazy and didn't feel like going out. But fortunately there's another farmers' market a few towns in Nutley over that runs every other Sunday. It's small, but it's growing, and I think it will be larger and run every weekend next year. We were able to find all the produce we needed there, so the size didn't matter. What I really love about buying directly from the farmer is the different varieties that I never see in a grocery store. We found purple bell peppers, mini confetti eggplants, multicolored zucchini, orange tomatoes and round summer squash.

I wasn't sure what to do with all the veggies we bought, and somehow I decided to chop them all up and roast them. In retrospect, that wasn't the greatest idea, because it was super hot and the oven just made things hotter. But the veggies tasted amazing, so I guess it was worth it. I chopped up the eggplant, some peppers, zucchini, tomatoes and onion, drizzled them with olive oil and roasted them in the oven for about an hour on 400 degrees. I mixed in a can of navy beans and served them with brown rice pasta shells, and I sprinkled chopped olives on top. Yummy!

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Farmer's Market Pasta

Because of the heat, I haven't felt like cooking much lately, and I've felt uninspired in the kitchen. But visiting the farmer's market on Saturday changed that! All of the beautiful produce inspired me, and I couldn't wait to start making dishes with all of the food we brought home.

I really didn't know what I was doing when I started cooking this dish, but I just started throwing stuff together and had faith that it would taste good. And it did! It resembled ratatouille and was quite delicious.

To make the dish, I cut up eggplant, squash, fennel and tomato, and then added garlic and onions and sautéed them in olive oil. I also added a little water and some vinegar. After the veggies started to cook down, I added half a can of white beans and a little red wine, I covered it and then let it simmer until the veggies were tender. I served the veggies over brown rice pasta and topped them with nutritional yeast and chopped olives.

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles

My friend' Val's birthday is later this week. (Early happy birthday, Val!) I went into the local bookstore to buy her a gift, and ended up walking out with a copy of Vegan Yum Yum for myself. It's full of really nice color photos and everything looks so good that I just couldn't help myself. My friend Barb was with me and she said the book was food porn.


The first meal I made from it was Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles. The dish is comprised of spaghetti and shredded cabbage, carrots and broccoli with a tahini sauce. I used rice pasta spaghetti instead of wheat, of course, and I doubled the tahini sauce recipe. I think this would probably work really well with raw zucchini pasta too. This dish was so good that Dennis said he wishes a restaurant near his office made it so he could have it for lunch every day. Yum Yum indeed!

If you're not familiar with tahini, you should be! Tahini is a paste made from hulled sesame seeds. It's one of the main ingredients in hummus, and is often served with falafels. It's good as a salad dressing when mixed with a little water and lemon juice. Tahini is high in many vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, thiamine, folate and even protein. And it's delicious!



Become a fan on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/VeggiegirlHHC

Mac and Cheese

The weather has been so erratic here in New Jersey. Yesterday it was about 60 degrees and rainy, so I was in the mood for something warm and comforting. So I decided I need a little mac and cheese.

This is very, very similar to the chickpea helper I made in January. I did use the same cheese sauce made with nutritional yeast, but I didn't cook the chickpeas and pasta together they way they are made in chickpea helper. This was really delicious and really warmed me up on the cold and dreary day.



Become a fan on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/VeggiegirlHHC

Rice Pasta Shells with Aspargus and Peas

I found this recipe in Vegetarian Times, and altered it to my liking. I used rice pasta shells instead of whole wheat, omitted the mint, swapped garlic oil for fresh garlic and used Daiya cheese instead of feta. It was quite tasty! My only regret is that I didn't have a bed of kale to serve it on.

You'll notice that quite often I don't follow the recipe to the letter. Some people can be intimidated by certain recipes, and are afraid of cooking with new foods. I say try it! Experiment, try new things, play with your food. Don't be afraid to cook something new or mix things up. It's pretty much impossible to "break" a recipe. And if it you don't like the way it tastes, just remember that it's only one meal and you get to try again with another meal in a few hours.


Like what you're reading? Follow me on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/diannewenz

Pasta and Veggies

This dish contains some of my favorite foods: broccoli, chickpeas, and mushrooms! I cooked them together with some olive oil and a shallot, and I served them over rice pasta and tomato sauce.

Broccoli has always been one of my favorite foods because when I was little my mom used to make it with a cheesy sauce that I really liked. I definitely liked the sauce more than the veggies, but that's okay, because eating it trained me to like broccoli. (By the way it was frozen broccoli with a powdered sauce mix.) Broccoli is full of vitamins C, K, A, E and B6, folate, iron, potassium, manganese, selenium and dietary fiber. Because it is a cruciferous vegetable, it contains anti-cancer properties, as well as anti-viral and anti-bacterial compounds.

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Confessions of a Chickpea Addict

Yesterday I had leftovers of my Clean Out the Fridge Stir-Fry for lunch, and then I had hummus and carrots as for an afternoon snack. Then for dinner I had pasta and veggies. With chickpeas.

There was no recipe for this dish. I had some things to do after dinner, so I needed to make something quick. I just threw together a few of my favorite things – broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and chickpeas. I cooked the veggies in olive oil with some veggie broth, a little rice wine vinegar, and lemon juice. I sprinkled everything with a little bit of red pepper flakes and some nutritional yeast. I served the mixture over rice pasta shells.

I have a few more cans of chickpeas in the cabinet, so there will be more chickpea recipes coming up. Chickpeas are high in protein, calcium, copper, manganese, folate and dietary fiber, so I guess I picked a good food to be addicted too!


Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Beans, Greens and Pasta

This meal was inspired by a recipe I saw in a magazine. The original recipe called for sausage and evaporated cane juice (why would anyone put sugar in pasta?), so I veganized it. It was a simple, easy and delicious meal - perfect for a busy weeknight!

While the rice penne was boiling, I sautéed a chopped red onion and a chopped shallot together in a little olive, then added a handful of chopped mushrooms and thinly sliced sundried tomatoes. I then added a bunch of chopped kale, a can of white beans and a can of chopped tomatoes. I sprinkled in a little sea salt, some red pepper flakes and a little balsamic vinegar. Once everything was cooked, I served the veggies over the pasta. Yum!

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Artichokes, Fennel and Olives over Penne

This recipe is from Clean Food by Terry Walters, and I was interested in making it because it uses veggies I don't usually cook with. It's made with olive oil, onion, garlic (I substituted a shallot for the garlic), artichoke hearts, olives, fennel, arugula, diced tomatoes, parsley and lemon juice and then is served over penne pasta. (I used rice pasta, of course.) I was a little worried that the strong flavors of the fennel and arugula would make this dish taste really potent, but the lemon juice sort of neutralized the flavors and held everything together nicely. Dennis and I really enjoyed this meal, and I will undoubtedly make it again. I think next time I will add some chickpeas or cannellini beans because they will definitely go nicely with the dish and will add some extra protein.


Like what you're reading? Then check out my healthy living newsletter!

Comfort Food

With this crazy elimination diet, you might think that everything I'm eating is green and super healthy. Yes, I am eating lots of green, healthy food, but sometimes a girl needs something warm and comforting. Enter the Mac Daddy.

This recipe is from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. The basic Mac Daddy is macaroni and tofu covered in a cheesy sauce made with nutritional yeast and I've made it a few times in the past. There are several variations on the Mac Daddy though, and one uses mashed chickpeas instead of tofu. Others involve adding various veggies. So I decided to try out the variations. I made rice pasta macaroni which tastes almost identical to wheat pasta. I mashed up some chickpeas and then added broccoli to mix. The result was a warm and comforting meal that pleased both my taste buds and my tummy!