Fabulous Vegan Recipes

It's been a minute since I've blogged. It boggles my mind to look back and realize I used to blog three times a week! I miss those days when I had that vigor and enthusiasm for food and cooking and photographing said food. My goal for the rest of 2018 is to get back to blogging and find my love for developing recipes again! Are we really halfway through the year??

Alfredo sauce....I used to order fettuccine alfredo at restaurants all the time before I became vegan. It's creamy and comforting and totally fattening and delish. So, I wanted to make a sauce that was just as creamy and delish but also healthy with whole ingredients. When you're buying the ingredients for this recipe, buy nutritional yeast. It's nutty and cheesy tasting and goes great in this dish. Nooch is perfect in sauces and soups and on top of popcorn tossed in coconut oil. Whoa, it's so good! At the last minute I added a carrot into this sauce so that it made the sauce more orange and added some sweetness. Turmeric, pumpkin and even a little maca powder...this sauce has everything and each ingredient has healthy, healing properties. I might make this for Christmas if I'm feeling up to it just to add a plant-based, filling dish to the table. It's fun to make Italian food for Christmas, especially when you're vegan. Everyone is carbing up on

When I make rice in my rice maker, I add the tiniest big of water so that the rice ends up sticky and not water-logged. The worst is when the rice doesn't absorb the water and it ends up awful. I pour enough water in my rice maker just to cover the rice, pat it down so it's completely under water and it turns out great. So much so that I didn't need to make sushi rice for this recipe, I just used the rice as is. When I say sushi rice, I mean I didn't need to add sugar and vinegar to make it sticky rice. I added curry powder, turmeric, sea salt and pepper and it was pretty amazing.

I try to avoid buying bread because it's a trigger food for me...meaning I eat way too much of it. However, whenever I buy avocados and don't have bread, I'm kinda like...now what? If I had bread, I would make avocado toast in the morning, usually for breakfast. I had two beautiful avocados and no bread so I made this pesto sauce last night. There is nothing more awesome than a beautiful avocado, one that should not go waste, one that has no brown spots and is the perfect texture. One that should be savored as much as possible, usually on bread or in a salad. But when you don't have the ingredients for either of those, make pesto sauce.

I make these delicious dessert bars with a caramel layer and I thought what if I use this recipe as a dip for apples. I'm totally 3 months late with this recipe since caramel apple season was pretty much October but it's never too late to eat this caramel sauce. OMG, it's so yum and absolutely free of preservatives, dairy and chemical crap.

I had a bunch of organic cherry tomatoes and needed a recipe. I also have a ton of kale in my fridge as well as spinach (the greens are rockin at the farmers market)! Anyway, I love pasta-I don't have it often-but I love it so I made this pasta dish. Add extra virgin olive oil and fresh garlic and the party has started.

I think I've made this recipe three times before??? This version is nut and soy-free and is completely made from vegetables. If you make a vegan mac and cheese sauce and just forgo all expectations, you won't be disappointed. If you make this and expect it to taste like boxed mac and cheese made with dairy, you will be disappointed. One of the changes I noticed when I became vegan was a change in my taste buds. I don't expect vegan cheese to taste like dairy so I'm not disappointed. You can make dairy-free recipes to taste similar to dairy but not at all just like dairy. Leave all of your expectations behind and open your mind and veganism becomes so easy.

I guess I can't call everything mac and cheese even though the color of my sauce is always orange/yellow. Mac and cheese sauce is thick and creamy and more cheesier than this particular sauce but if you want to say it's a variation of mac and cheese sauce, then go for it. It definitely has a sweet pepper/lemon taste that is incredibly savory so if you wanna try something new, try this. You can super spice it up or not and the color is so vibrant that you should take a picture if you make this. Two recipes in one day....I'm on fire!

My marathon training and writing is taking up alot of my time along with trips home to visit my fam so I am just getting to this new blog post! This is a dish I made in between trips home that was quick and super delish comfort food. I love mac and cheese and since I had to use up some veggies, I threw in some spinach and toms. Mac and cheese is so cool when you make it from scratch because you can make it with veggies which is super nutritious.

Berries and dates...they are such an awesome combo when you want to make sauce or syrup. My previous post featured a blueberry-date tart; these two ingredients make a great icing or sweet topping on pretty much anything. It's so easy and takes two seconds to whip up. If the dates are two hard, just soak them in warm water for a few minutes and they will be good to go.

You won't believe what ingredients are in this sauce. I'm so excited it turned out so yummy; I love combining healthy fats and veggies. The trickiest part of this recipe was deciding what to use for the orange color that typical mac and cheese sauce has. With it being autumn, there are quite a few veggies that are the perfect color and that blend well with cashews and spices. It's no secret anymore, see below, that I used carrots and butternut squash. Awesome. 

Potato salad is the ultimate summer food. You can whip it up and take it to BBQ’s or just relax on your porch and enjoy the delicious flavors and aromas of this dish. I love tahini sauce and I wanted to make a dish using it as one of the main ingredients. I made this savory potato salad using organic potatoes and mixed greens as the base. It turned out completely scrumptious and I can’t wait to share it with you!

Dinner is my most favorite meal of the day. I have the biggest appetite in the evening (I wish I didn't) and I love planning and preparing dinner. My dinners this week were filling, clean, nutritious plates of food that were mostly gluten-free. By the way, I don't set out to always be gluten-free but I usually end up doing that since whole grains are super clean energy sources and by nature are gluten-free. I usually buy quinoa or rice or both quinoa and rice pasta from Trader Joe's. They have spaghetti and rotini shaped pasta as well as penne.  They cook up slightly different than regular pasta (they take longer) but I love trader Joe's brand.

The vegan Instagram community is completely amazing. The recipes, the love, the friendship, the healthy lifestyle tips, it's all there. I stumbled upon this cranberry applesauce recipe and rushed to make it right away since I had a bag of organic cranberries and no idea what to do with them. The tartness of cranberries makes them unsuitable for eating them raw so this is a perfect recipe.

I think I told you a few posts back that I'm obsessed with Dijon mustard. I've been dipping my potatoes and spring rolls into it and also using it as a sauce for pasta and a dressing for salads. It's super low calorie and very savory. I made rice noodles and veggies for dinner two nights ago so I want to share my sauce recipe with you now.

Hello beautiful people! Hope you had a fabulous weekend and are relaxed heading into a crisp fall Monday! I had a fabulous weekend with my Philly friends. We went to the Met and the Museum of Natural History, we had an awesome Mediterranean dinner on Saturday night of falafels, hummus, Greek salad, stuffed grape leaves and more. It's always nice having my friends and family visit. I'm conducting my first health and wellness workshop with my fellow yogi, Michele. Michele and I met during yoga teacher training over the summer and she was one of the first yogis to welcome me to New York City. Michele is a licensed marriage and family therapist and is also a certified yinyasa yoga teacher. We are presenting a self care workshop later this month to help you stay calm and in tune with your body this holiday season and beyond.

I'm back in the city after a mini vacation in the Poconos. I went slightly off track with raw till 4 because it was just not my normal routine but for the most part I ate fruit during the day. It was difficult to stick to high carb low fat dinners though. My mom bought me a tofurkey roast so I made that one night...they are so delish! So back to the city and back on track! My 30 days of yoga continues and I'm keeping up with the running though I'm still nursing an injury to my left foot. Injuries are so frustrating!

I went to my local growers market yesterday and bought my normal stuff: a ton of greens from the organic produce vendor, some tomatoes to make my gravy and also homemade pasta.  They added a pasta vendor to the lineup and he was talking to me about his homemade pastas.  Two of them are made with eggs so I chose from the ones that were egg-free.  

I am ashamed to say that before today I have been buying gravy (red marinara sauce) in stores. I'm Italian and never made my own gravy (!!). But now that has changed since I have a fabulous gravy recipe under my belt. My friend at work helped me develop this recipe. I knew what I wanted in it, she helped me figure how to cook everything since she's made homemade gravy for years. I combined garlic, onion, tomatoes and yellow pepper along with fresh oregano and rosemary to make the most delicious sauce I ever thought I could make. No sugar needed! Here's what I did: 8 organic plum tomatoes 3 cloves of garlic Small onion 1 yellow pepper oregano rosemary Boil water and put the tomatoes in for about 10-15 minutes until you see the skin separating. Put some olive oil in a pan and add the garlic, onion and pepper. Take the tomatoes out of the water and rinse with cold water. Peel the skin off the tomatoes (this should be easy) and and take out the seeds.  Put in a blender o

Is there anything better than peanut sauce?  Seriously, it's so divine.  You would think it would be super fattening because of the peanut butter but I've found that I can use 1 serving size of peanut butter for this recipe.  I made this sauce tonight to put on my leftover quinoa; I also sprinkled pumpkin seeds and roasted chickpeas on the quinoa-awesome combination! Peanut sauce: 1/8 cup of peanut butter (2tbsp) 2 slices of fresh lemon juice 2 cloves of fresh garlic 1 tsp of cumin 1 small piece of fresh ginger Put everything in your food processor and process on high.  You will need to add a little bit of water to thin out the sauce so you can pour it on your food.  This sauce is an incredible medley of flavors.  I also put the sauce on rice noodles as well as spring rolls. I'm trying to branch out with my whole grains.  I usually make brown rice or oats-they are my go-to whole grains.  But recently I bought quinoa, couscous and barley.  Quinoa took me a little