Tower of Power from My New Roots

I made this recipe for breakfast while visiting my mother and the very next day wanted to eat it again.  So I did, not the next day, but this week and I am so happy to have it.  It's a great day starter.  The pictures over at My New Roots are better, but here's how it looked when I made it.

You can find the recipe here:  Veggie & Egg Tower of Power.  The only change I would make is to suggest that you pull the egg out after 3 minutes or so, because 4 minutes is a little long to come out with runny yolks (mmm runny yolks).

Fresh Tomato and Basil Pasta Guest Post

Guest post time!  My wonderful sister is visiting from Portland and she has agreed to write a guest post for me.  Expect this post to be more comprehensive than mine usually are.  So without further ado, I leave you in the capable hands of my sister:

Fresh Tomato and Basil Pasta

Our Italian sister-in-law first made this dish for us when we were kids. In true Italian fashion, it was incredibly simple and incredibly delicious. This recipe is not exactly the same as hers, but I think it captures the magic of raw tomato sauce. The only catch is that the tomatoes have to be real, ripe tomatoes--from the garden or the farmers’ market. Winter grocery-store tomatoes won’t work, so enjoy it while good tomatoes are available!

(This is her garden in Portland, OR.  Tomatoes are on the left, trained up the trellis.)

You basically make a tomato salad, which sits so the flavors meld while the pasta cooks (or not, if you’re in a hurry and make the sauce while the pasta cooks). Then you toss the hot pasta with the tomatoes to create the most delicious combination in the world.

The Tomato Salad

Combine the following ingredients in a very large bowl:

2 pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped into bite-sized morsels. Big tomatoes are good, but cherry tomatoes, halved, will be great as well. I use a serrated knife (aka bread knife) to cut tomatoes so it’s easy to cut through the skins.

1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, minced or crushed in a press.  If you’re feeling ambitious or don’t like eating garlic raw, you can cook the garlic in a couple of tablespoons of the olive oil for about two minutes over low heat. But don’t let it brown!

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3/4 teaspoon salt

Pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

Black pepper

The Pasta

1 pound dried pasta—I always prefer thin spaghetti, but that’s just me. The recipe works well with long or short pasta.

As large a pot of well-salted water as you can muster. (A tablespoon of salt will be good!)

The Basil

¾ cup fresh basil, chopped. I think it’s best cut into thin strips. To do that, find a few larger leaves and roll smaller leaves up inside them, as if making a cigar. Then chop across the rolled leaf (if it were a cigar, you’d be chopping small rounds).

Cook the pasta. Drain it moderately well (there can still be water coming out of the bottom of the colander in a small stream) and add it to the bowl with the tomato salad. Grind some pepper over the top, then toss well. Add the basil and toss again. If there seems to be a shortage of olive oil, add more as necessary. The best part will be the liquid in the bottom of the bowl, so make sure it gets all over the pasta. Taste and adjust for salt, and serve hot.

Sweet Potato Ginger Soup

I first made this soup with my friend Camille from Glutenfreesoyfreevegan. I pretty much loved it, but I made some modifications to make it my own. It is great on a cold, rainy night and hearty any time of year. I recommend serving it with fresh bread. I used Italian batter bread from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads.

Sweet Potato Ginger Soup

1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 inches of ginger, minced
2 medium sweet potatoes, in 1/2 inch cubes
1 small acorn squash, in half inch cubes
1 1/2 tbsp of you favorite vegetable bouillon paste
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs rosemary
4 sprigs thyme
Small handful parsley, minced
pinch of cayenne pepper

Cook the onion, garlic, and ginger in a big soup pot in about 2 tbsp of olive oil until soft.  Add the potatoes and squash and cover with hot water.  Stir in bouillon paste and herbs.  Turn to a simmer and allow to cook about 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Mash the soup until you have a few chunks for texture, but it is pretty smooth.  Season with salt and pepper, and a dash of cayenne to taste.

Banana Pancakes

These pancakes are not your standard banana pancakes.  They are light and fluffy, and I saved the batter overnight in the fridge and they cooked up just as well the next day.  Serve them with maple syrup and a cup of coffee.  Ideal.

 Banana Pancakes

3/4 c oat flour
1 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c finely chopped walnuts
1 1/2 overripe banana
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 1/2 c almond milk
4 tbsp melted butter
2 eggs (separated)

Preheat your griddle.  I use a cast iron skillet.
In a small bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mash 3/4 of a banana, add the maple syrup, almond milk, butter, and egg yolks.  Mix until blended.
In a large bowl combine dry ingredients including nuts.  Add the wet ingredients and stir until moistened.  Gently fold in the egg whites.  Spoon onto skillet and spread, gently with the back of a spoon.  If you do not do that, the egg whites will make the pancake too thick and the middle will come out undercooked.  Cook like you would any other pancake.

This picture is from the second day, and you can see they came out just fine.

Blueberry Muffin Top Cookies

Tired of muffins, but craving the sweetness of baked blueberries, I came up with this recipe for blueberry muffin top cookies.  They combine the soft texture of muffins with the crisp caramelized sugar of cookies.  Delicious. Next time I'm going to add some oats for a bit more of a chewy texture.

Blueberry Muffin Top Cookies

2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 c oat flour
2/3 c raw sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 c almond milk (real milk could be substituted, but I like the nutty undertone the almond milk adds)
1/2 c salted butter, melted (1 stick)
splash of vanilla
1 c fresh or frozen blueberries

for the streusal topping
1/4 c raw sugar
1/4 c all purpose flour
1/4 c oat flour
1/4 c oats
1/4 c butter, chilled but not solid (1/2 stick)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet in another.  Stir until blended.  Add blueberries and fold in.  To make the topping, mix all the dry ingredients and cut in the butter until you have a crumby texture.
Spoon the batter onto the prepared parchment.  Sprinkle each cookie with topping.  Bake in preheated oven about 20 minutes or until the top bounces back when you poke it (don't poke a blueberry or a blob of topping, that will hurt) and the bottom is slightly browned.  Enjoy!  Best served warm and consumed the day you make them.

Pretzel Rolls from Erin's Food Files

Photo Credit to Erin from Erin's Food Files

I've been making these and they are amazing!
Try them here.

Vegan Eggplant Lasagna

I love lasagna. I always have.  But not being able to eat dairy kept me from enjoying it for a long time.  Until I learned a recipe for macadamia nut ricotta that is.  Camille and I have modified it slightly from the original recipe over the years and the version on her blog is our updated recipe.  For this lasagna, I recommend making the ricotta softer than for other recipes, closer to cottage cheese consistency.  Adding water does the trick.

Eggplant Lasagna with Macadamia Nut Ricotta

1 large eggplant
1/2 box lasagna noodles (this batch was made with regular noodles, but I prefer the rice lasagna)
tomato sauce (either homemade or one jar of storebought)
1 batch macadamia nut ricotta

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Boil the noodles according to the directions on the box and drain.  Chop the eggplant into 1/4 inch cubes, toss with kosher salt, and leave to drain one half hour in a strainer over a bowl.  Squeeze the excess liquid out of them with a cheese cloth.  Saute the eggplant cubes in a little olive oil until they are tender. Layer the noodles, eggplant, sauce, and ricotta in layers in a casserole dish and cook in the preheated oven 20 minutes.  Enjoy!

Banana Nut Muffins

This feels weird for me because I don't usually want to share a recipe right out of a cookbook.  But if I do, I'm glad that it is The Joy of Cooking.  My parents had an old copy of Joy published in 1975 that didn't even have a cover, it had seen so much use.  The first loaf of bread I ever baked on my own was from Joy, and I always imagined that it would be one of the first cookbooks in my kitchen.  And it was!  When I was in college, I found a copy at a local thrift store for $10, and absolute steal!  It has many friends on my bookshelf now, but it is the first book I turn to when I come across a conundrum, or just need a reference.  So here it is, I only modified this recipe very slightly, and the muffins came out delicate and sweet, but only banana sweet, not sugary.

Banana Nut Muffins

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour or wheat bran (I used oat flour, yum)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2/3 c chopped walnuts (I used in total about a cup because of the extra I put on the tops of the muffins)
1 egg
3/4 c light brown sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 1/3 c mashed ripe bananas (that turned out to be 4 for me)
6 tbsp vegetable oil (canola)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. This recipe makes about 11 muffins, so put papers in a muffin tin.
Mix all the dry ingredients but the sugar in one bowl, all the wet ingredients plus the sugar in another.  Add them together and stir until just mixed.  I use a folding method so as not to overwork the dough.  Fill the paper cups almost all the way to the top.  This dough doesn't rise much, so if you want a muffin top, you have to fill it more than you would in a standard recipe.  Sprinkle the extra nuts on the top of the muffins and bake between 18 and 23 minutes.  The muffins are done when they have browned a little on the tops and bounce back when you poke them.  I like to serve these muffins the extra healthy way, with a pat of butter.

Chocolate Peanutbutter Bacon Cupcakes

I might have been in a weird place, but this combination just seemed right.  The sweetness of peanut butter icing, the salt of bacon, and the all around rich wonder of a chocolate cupcake.  I was right.

I modified a recipe for chocolate cake that I got from Sweetapolita, my go to cooking blog.
Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes

3 c all purpose flour
2 3/4 c sugar
1 c dark unsweetened cocoa
2.5 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1/3 c bacon fat
1/3 cup veg oil
1 c + 2 tbsp whole milk (I would have used almond but I had a friend who is allergic visiting)
1 c + 2 tbsp hot coffee
2 tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, put cupcake papers in muffin tins.  I made 3 dozen.
In the electric mixer with the paddle, stir all the dry ingredients until blended, add all wet ingredients but the coffee.  With the mixer on low, add the coffee slowly so you don't splash and burn yourself.   Mix on medium speed 2 minutes.  I don't have a splash guard, so I just turned it on until the batter was really moving, but not splashing over the sides of the bowl.  Using a standard size cupcake pan, a 1/4 c measure is perfect for filling the cupcake papers.  Fill the papers and bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes until the tops bounce back.  Cool completely before icing.

Fluffy peanut butter icing

1 c softened butter
1 c peanut butter (I used Skippy Natural)
1 c confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Using an electric hand mixer, whip the butter and peanut butter until it is light in color and fluffy.  This is about 2 minutes longer than you expect it to be.  Add the sugar gradually and then the splash of vanilla.  Whip until fluffy and delightful.


I spread the icing on with a knife and didn't much care how it looked.  I mean honestly, it's a chocolate bacon cupcake with peanut butter icing.  You don't eat it because it looks good.  Then I sprinkled bacon crumbles over it.  There has been some debate on whether it is better with or without the bacon crumbles.  I say, try it both ways!

Veggie Burgers

I have to say, I'm not a big fan of tofu, but it always feels like there aren't many non-meat alternatives.  But that's just wrong.  I found a recipe for black bean burgers a while ago and it opened my mind to all the different bean bases you can use in a veggie burger.  This burger is made with chickpeas, and it is great, burgery and tasty, and filling and guilt free on top of it.

It looks so fresh and yummy on the plate.  I serve this burger on a bed of baby spinach, with fresh farmers market tomato slices, caramelized onions. and a little garlic aioli.  I caramelized an onion in my cast iron pan on low for about an hour.  It comes out so sweet with just a bit of onion bite.

Chickpea Burgers

1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 free range egg
1 tsp cumin seads
a small handful of fresh basil
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 zucchini
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

 Add the chickpeas, egg, basil, nutritional yeast, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper to the bowl of a food processor.  Process until they form a soft dough.

 In a bowl, add the chickpea mixture to the shredded zucchini and sunflower seeds.  Form into patties.

 Fry patties in 1 tbsp olive oil until a nice crust forms on both sides, finish the burgers in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Enjoy!