Southern cooking is comfort food for a reason. It just warms you from the inside out and satisfies you to the core. The only downside for me is that a lot of it uses meat.
So I decided to make a vegan version of collard greens to go along with my vegan mac and cheese. The secret ingredient here that gives it the smoky flavor that ham usually lends is liquid smoke. I LOVE using it in certain dishes and it works really well in this one.
One of the dishes Elena and Morgan prepared at the Fulfilled Workshop I attended in San Francisco was a vegan mac and cheese that knocked my socks off. Elena told me she got the recipe from Timothy Pakron, Founder of Mississippi Vegan, who I will say is a genius for creating this recipe. I slightly adapted the the original by modifying a few additional ingredients which you will see in the recipe below.
I’ve been talking a lot about the Fulfilled Workshop I attended with Bella Karragiannidis in San Francisco at the beginning of May. I just happened to be going through her Instagram stories one day and she mentioned that she was having a series of workshops before she moved to Greece. I felt my heart jump and I swiped up (as per her instructions) to find out more.
Say what? I never had borscht or even heard of it before I met my husband. This is a soup (really more of a stew) that he grew up with since he was a little boy. His mom used to have it when she was a child as well, so it’s a dish that gives great comfort to him – so of course, I had to learn how to make it!
Now borscht is a general term for a sour soup that originated in Eastern Europe. It has many different versions, some with meat, some vegetarian. This specific one is beet-based and is vegan.
I used to live on green smoothies in the morning for years. It wasn’t until I studied Ayurveda, the ancient holistic medical system from India, that I came to realize those cold breakfasts were not doing my digestion any good.
I began to switch out my green smoothies for warmer porridges, oatmeal’s and stewed fruit with spices. If I did make a smoothie, I would make sure I used fresh fruit from the refrigerator (not freezer) and always added spices like cinnamon, cardamom and/or nutmeg to support my digestion.
This specific porridge combines my favorite fruit – mangos – with another favorite of mine – coconut. I’m Indian and if you are too, you know what I mean when I say my mom buys mangos by the case when they are in season. During mango season, she would always have a bowl of fresh cut mangos in the fridge and I would just eat out of that bowl every time I happened to pass through the kitchen.
After making my own vegan white chocolate (traditional white chocolate does have milk in it), I have the utmost respect for chocolatiers. It truly is an art and I am determined to learn more and more about the process of making chocolate.
I grew up loving peanut butter cups. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter will always be one of my favorites, but after visiting the farmers market and having a taste of pistachio butter from one of the vendors, I knew I wanted to try a version with this creamy deliciousness.
One of Johann and my favorite vegan restaurants in LA is called Green Table Cafe. They serve up the most flavorful and satisfying vegan food in the city if I might say so myself!
Their desserts are amazing and one of our go-to’s is their vegan truffles. When we looked at the ingredient list, it was simple – dark chocolate and almond milk.
This is one of those recipes where it really pays to use high quality dark chocolate because you will taste it. For this version I used cashew cream, vanilla, and added a little more sweetness with some maple syrup.
I’m writing up this blog post on my way to Paris right now and I bring that up because this is a traditional French recipe calledCrème d’Asperges.
As I explore different types of cuisines more and more, I find that places like France and Italy have a way of taking simple, in season ingredients and creating the most delicious, comforting dishes. There doesn’t need to be a laundry list of ingredients to great a meal that you would happily dish out money for at a restaurant.
I think that’s the trick sometimes – to respect the ingredients you use and work to bring out their unique flavors instead of masking them with a tons of other additions.
Here is my second mocktail and one that I have been thinking about for years (no seriously – ever since I had my health coaching blog). Why is it that some ideas just come and go and then come back again years later?
Anyways, this is the perfect summer drink! I mean it’s got all the lime and mint flavor of a mojito without the hangover! I used coconut water in place of the rum and I’m finding that it’s been a great substitute for many mocktail recipes!
Cheers!
I don’t drink alcohol much these days. My tolerance is super low and my body hates me the day after. My days are pretty packed usually so I have to have my head on straight if I’m going to get stuff done.
That being said, I am so happy about the emergence of the “mocktail.” In LA at least, more and more restaurants are beginning to introduce separate menus of creative non-alcoholic drinks that go beyond the usual soda and lemonade.