Spinach Bean Soup

Every Sunday in our house is "Soup Sunday."  Basically I make a crockpot soup that we will eat for dinner Sunday and again on Monday.  It really helps me out because I'm always exhausted on Monday evenings after a full day of work and grocery shopping after school.  There's no way I feel like cooking.  So I'm always on the lookout for soup recipes to add to the repertoire.  This recipe is loosely based on one out of Taste of Home magazine.  It's a warm, healthy, light soup that surprises you with how flavorful it is.  Try it out for yourself!

1 cup dried pinto or great northern beans
1 can vegetable broth plus 3 cans of water
2 cans fire roasted tomatoes
1 can spinach
1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 onion, diced

Combine all ingredients in large crockpot.  Cook on high for 8 hours.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Hilary's Sloppy Joes

Yes, I realize that there's a sloppy joe recipe already on this blog, but this one is just as good, I promise!  I created this recipe one evening when we did not have internet and thus I didn't have access to my recipe for Sloppy Veg Head Joes.  I had some burger-style crumbles on hand and threw them together with some other pantry items, and voila!, yummy vegetarian sloppy joes!  Here's my creation:

1 onion, finely diced
1 bell pepper, finely diced
1 bag vegetarian burger-style crumbles
14 ounce can tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
several good splashes of hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon Splenda

In a cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven, saute onion and pepper for about 5 minutes.  Then add rest of ingredients and cook everything for 15 to 20 minutes.  Makes 6 servings.

"Hamburger" Helper

I developed this recipe a year or so ago.  It's a vegan mock-up of a childhood classic:  Hamburger Helper.  I've made it a few times and every time I am reminded just how tasty it is.  Tonight I measured everything out so I could share it here.  It's a yummy, delectable dish that I really recommend you try!  Now excuse me while I go chow down!

1 box whole wheat penne pasta

1 pack firm tofu

14 ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 Tablespoons minced garlic

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 teaspoon hot sauce

1 bag vegetarian burger-style crumbles

1 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)

1 onion, chopped

Cook the pasta until it is almost done.  Drain and set aside.  In food processor, combine tofu, crushed tomatoes, garlic, chili powder, cumin and hot sauce.  Process until smooth.  In Dutch oven, saute onions, mushrooms and crumbles for 5 minutes.  Add pasta and sauce from food processor.  Combine and let cook over low heat for 20 minutes.  

Awesome Cookies

Hubby plays chess at the library every other Thursday evening.  I usually just stay home, relax and do whatever I want to do.  It's my ME time.  Tonight I was in a rather Betty Crocker mood and felt like baking cookies.  But not just any cookies...healthy cookies!  Much to hubby's dismay, I just can't bring myself to bake anything unhealthy and most of the time the results are "eh...I think this needs some tweaking."  But tonight, the healthy cookies I baked were AWESOME!  Hence the name, Awesome Cookies.  They are adapted from this recipe.

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

3 Tablespoons maple syrup

2 cups quick oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine bananas, peanut butter and maple syrup in large mixing bowl.  Mix dry ingredients and add to wet.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Drop by tablespoon full onto baking sheet.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Makes around 15 to 20 cookies.   

Revamped Broccoli "Cheese" Casserole

I posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that I am in the process of bulking up my blog.  I'm going back and tweaking recipes and posting pictures.  Tonight I tackled an ancient recipe from my blog.  All the way back in September 2010, I veganized one of my favorite potluck dishes--Broccoli Cheese Casserole.  Traditionally it is a dish made with lots of processed foods like Velveeta and cream of chicken soup.  Definitely not healthy and definitely not vegan!  My original vegan version wasn't bad.  In fact, I blogged about it, and Scott was a big enough fan of it that he took it to a Christmas potluck.  However, I always felt I could do better; that this dish could be made more delicious.   Lately, I've been trying out quinoa, substituting it for brown rice in my dishes.  So I thought this was a great time to rework this recipe replacing the rice for quinoa.  I must tell you that I'm really becoming a fan of this super food!  For those of you unfamiliar with quinoa, it's sort of like a whole grain, but it's more a seed than a grain.  It has a similar texture to couscous.  What makes it a super food is that it's full of amino acids and is a great source of protein!  You can get it at WalMart or Kroger, so I recommend you check it out!  I wanted to keep this dish vegan so I stuck with the original plan of making a "cheese" sauce from tofu.   That means that there are 2 awesome sources of protein in this dish: quinoa and tofu.  And it's FULL of veggies too!  So here you have it folks, a healthy Broccoli "Cheese" Casserole!

"Cheese" Sauce:

1 block firm tofu
3/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
plain soy milk

Crumble up tofu in food processor and add seasoning.  Start food processor and pour in soy milk until you created have a nice creamy sauce.


1 onion, chopped
2 cups carrots, chopped
6 cups broccoli, chopped
4 cups mushrooms, sliced
4 cups cooked quinoa


Combine all the veggies in a dutch oven and saute for 10 minutes or until broccoli is mostly cooked.  Then, add in the cooked quinoa and "cheese" sauce.  Mix well.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Granola Baked Oatmeal

For a few Christmas gifts this past year, I gave my homemade granola in quart size Mason jars.  The granola was a HUGE, MONSTROUS hit.  Everyone kept asking me for the recipe.  Unfortunately my granola is like my spaghetti sauce, my fajitas and my vegetable soup--all made by sense of taste and smell, meaning I eyeball every measurement and taste as I go.  What I attempted today was to recreate the taste of my granola in one of my famous baked oatmeals.  I made sure to measure out all my ingredients just so I could post the recipe.  It came out perfect!  It has a similar taste to my granola and will make great breakfasts this week for me.  Maybe one of these days, I'll try to measure out the ingredients for my granola so I can post that recipe.  One of these days when I have 2 hours to spare to make granola.  In the meantime, try this recipe and enjoy yet another awesome baked oatmeal!

4 cups oats (as always, personal preference on type of oats you use)
1 1/2 cups coconut flakes
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup Splenda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups vanilla soy milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine all ingredients in large mixing bowl and then spread out in 9X13 baking dish.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Makes 10 servings.  Remember baked oatmeal is best enjoyed warm with a bit of milk on top.  YUM YUM!

Italian Spaghetti Squash Bake

My mom has raved forever and a day about how good spaghetti squash is!  And you know what they say, mom knows best!  I tried it out to eat awhile back and really liked the texture and taste of the spaghetti squash.  For those of you unfamiliar with this vegetable, it's a large yellow oval-shaped squash that the insides will shred after cooking and will resemble spaghetti noodles.  I tried this recipe and although it was good, I just wasn't WOWED.  I liked that is was a healthy, no carb meal, but I felt like it needed spaghetti sauce and an Italian bend.  And this brings us to tonight's dinner...  OH.MY.GOODNESS!  You need to try this!  And don't be intimidated and think that spaghetti squash takes forever to cook.  You can microwave that baby!  Here's all you need to know to make one fantastic meal:

1 spaghetti squash
1 large onion, diced
2 green peppers, diced
8 to 12 ounces mushrooms, diced
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/4 cups shredded cheese

Take the spaghetti squash and stab it with a knife all over to make air holes.  Then, put it in the microwave for 15 minutes, turning it over about half-way through.  While squash is cooking in microwave, saute onion, peppers and mushrooms over medium heat.  When squash is done, take it out of the microwave (use oven mitts!) and set aside to cool.  Once it's cool, cut it open lengthwise.  Scoop out the seeds and throw them away.  Then, take a fork and scrap the squash clean.  Combine squash, onion, peppers and mushrooms, spaghetti sauce, garlic and 1 cup shredded cheese. Put it all in a large casserole dish and sprinkle remaining shredded cheese on top.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.