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Every year, as soon as the calendar page turns to October, it seems that there’s a rush of visits to VegKitchen looking for Thanksgiving recipes and menus suitable for vegans and vegetarians. The already generous listing of recipes on VegKitchen’s Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner guide has grown to include lots of new recipes, including the ones listed below. You need not wait until the end of November to try them; many are perfect as everyday dishes for the fall harvest season.
Recipes:
- Virginia Peanut Soup
- Creamy Mushroom Soup
- Sweet Potato-Spelt Biscuits
- Green Chili Cornbread
- Pear and Toasted Walnut Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette
- Jícama Salad with Oranges and Watercress
- Jerusalem Artichoke Salad with Greens and Herbs
- Thyme-Scented Sweet Potatoes with Black Olives and Garlic
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts in Balsamic Glaze
- Mouthwatering Mashed Potatoes with Groovy Onion Gravy
- Quinoa and Corn Pilaf with Pine Nuts
- Tempeh Stew with Wine and Shiitake Mushrooms
Articles and Book Reviews:
- What Affects Celiac Disease?
- A Guide to Salt Varieties
- Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry
- Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton
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Week of Sept. 26, 2011
The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is coming up this Wednesday, September 28. See the complete listing of VegKitchen’s recipes here.
Recipes:
- Tempeh, Cauliflower, and Cashew Curry
- Easy Mushroom Gravy
- Spicy and Garlicky Green Beans with Walnuts
- Stuffed Avocados
- Korean Japchae
- Asian-Flavored Quinoa Wraps
- Mexican-Style Quinoa Salad
- Vegan Gooda Cheez
- Vegan Brie Cheez
- Almost-Raw Cheez Sauce
- Almost-Raw Zucchini “Macaroni” and Cheez
- Bread Stuffing Casserole
- Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Roasted Eggplant Curry
- Coconut Creamed Corn
- Pineapple Rice Salad
- Gingery Rice with Sweet Potatoes and Peas
- Vietnamese Tofu Wraps
- Tiramisu Parfaits
- Black-Eyed Peas with Spinach and Herbs
- Sweet and Savory Nuts and Pretzels
- Green Pea, Parsley, and Pistachio Dip
Articles:
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Here are the latest recipes and articles posted on VegKitchen:
Recipes:
- Raw or Nearly-Raw Cold Beet Borscht
- Baked Tofu Teriyaki
- Lemon-Pepper Tofu Cutlets
- Peach Salsa
- Two-Corn Summer Salad
- Chickpea-Zucchini Farinata
- Cabernet-Red Onion Jam
- Lettuce Wrap Salad with Three Sauces
- Basic Herbed Cheese (Raw and Vegan)
Articles:
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Vegan Holiday Kitchen available for pre-order
My newest cookbook will be available on Nov. 1. Learn more about it here:
Event: Reading and discussion at Barnes and Noble, Poughkeepsie
I’ll be reading and discussing The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life on Friday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 at Barnes and Noble (2518 South Rd.) in Poughkeepsie, NY. Hudson Valley readers, please come to this event, which benefits the Elting Library in New Paltz, NY.
Gorgeous home with attached studio for sale!
I don’t usually pitch real estate in this newsletter, but my home in Poughkeepsie, NY is for sale. We rented it out for a couple of years and now we’d like to sell it. If you are in the Hudson Valley region of NY, or from NYC looking for a weekend escape (or know someone in the region who is looking), this house offers privacy along with suburban amenities. A unique feature is a beautiful, skylit attached studio. I wrote several of my books there! Here is the full info.
Time to think about school lunches…
From VegKitchen’s traffic reports, I see that tons of visitors are coming for the school lunch recipes and ideas. Some of these are great for brown-bagging grown-ups, as well. Not all of these are new, but many are improved. From someone who packed lunches every school day for 14 years (and so glad I no longer have to!), here are lots of useful tips and easy recipes.
- Leftover Heaven: Ideas for School and Brown Bag Lunches
- Making Lunch? Make it Nutritious! Make it Waste-Free!
- Sandwiches and Wraps—Easy Ideas for Vegans and Vegetarians
- Vegan & Vegetarian School Lunch Recipes and Tips
- Vegan Kids and Lunch at School: Helping your Child Fit In
Book reviews:
The latest Meatless Monday Musing by Ellen Kanner:
Recipes:
- Vegan Boursin®-Style Spread
- Italian Baked Fruit-Stuffed Peaches
- Bok Choy Salad with Snow Peas and Red Cabbage
- Mimi Kirk’s Raw Cookies (Video)
- Raw Sweet Potato and Kale Salad with Coconut-Lime Dressing
- Butternut Squash and Mixed Mushroom Lasagna
- Arugula Pasta with Salsa Cruda
- Southern Lima Beans
- Fresh Corn and Tomato Salad
- Green Pea and Vegan Cheddar Cheese Salad
- Kale Salad with Cherries and Lime Dressing
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VegKitchen is continuing its rapid expansion! Before listing the latest in deliciousness, a brief note about The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life. Please consider this full-color book, filled with wisdom for women writers (whether seasoned or aspiring) as a gift for the high school grad in your life who loves to write. Visit the Literary Ladies web site to learn more.
Or if the gift book you’re looking for is more of the cooking variety, visit VegKitchen’s newly expanded Bookstore for the best in vegan and vegetarian cookbooks. And now, let’s eat:
A trio of yummy salads for potlucks, picnics, and easy summer dinners:
More summer pleasures:
- Grilled Pineapple (insanely good!)
- Baba Ghanouj
Three articles by new contributor Judy Kingsbury of Savvy Vegetarian:
- Review of The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
- Review of The New Becoming Vegetarian by Vesanto Melina and Brenda Davis
- What is Organic Food and Why Should We Eat it?
New contributor Marie Oser gives an overview on edible hemp products:
And finally, a miscellany of topical info just posted:
- 5 Simple Ways to Eat More Leafy Greens
- Mushrooms: A Guide to Wild and Cultivated Varieties
- How to Start a Dinner Club
Tons of new recipes and articles are going up this week, so stay tuned!
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For most Americans, the arrival of spring on March 20 is cause enough to celebrate. But for millions of others this date brings another reason to celebrate—the annual Great American Meatout, sponsored by FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement). This grassroots diet education campaign, which began in 1985 has become the world’s largest annual grassroots diet education outreach.
According to FARM, “Thousands of caring people in all 50 U.S. states and a host of other countries welcome Spring with colorful educational events. These range from simple information tables, exhibits, and cooking demonstrations to elaborate receptions and festivals. Visitors are asked to ‘kick the meat habit’ and explore a wholesome, nonviolent diet of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.”
Modeled on the original “Great American Smokeout,” Meatout urges everyone to try to “kick the meat habit, at least for the day,” and offers encouragement to anyone exporing a more healthful and humane diet. To find out how you can participate in this year’s events taking place all over the map, or to create an event of your own, go to the campaign’s Action Center.
Those who have chosen to give up meat appreciate knowing that their food choices can not only be tasty and healthy, but compassionate and humane as well. Not to mention the enormous benefit of plant-based diet to our rapidly deteriorating environment.
Did you know that plant-based diets:
…are arguably the most healthy way to eat. Numerous studies have shown that vegetarians and vegans tend to have lower rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and adult-onset diabetes.
…give their practitioners the edge against cancer. Research has shown that fiber-rich plant-based diets may reduce the risk of cancers of the digestive organs.
…help guard against gender-related cancers such as breast cancer, uterine cancer, and prostate cancer.
…protect against heart disease. Health experts agree that eating foods high fiber and complex carbohydrates can help reduce the risk of heart disease. In addition, plant-based proteins reduce cholesterol levels, while animal protein raises them.
…help avoid some of the most virulent forms of food-borne illnesses caused by e coli, salmonella, and listera. Food-borne illness, a majority related to contaminated meat, sickens 750,000 Americans each year enough to send them to hospitals (this doesn’t count unreported cases) and is believed to kill about 5,000.
Other benefits of plant-based diets are numerous and include:
Weight control: It’s hard to get fat—or stay fat—on a balanced vegetarian diet. Grains, legumes, many types of vegetables, and soyfoods are bulky and filling, yet contain little or no fat.
Economy: It’s hard to match the economic value of bulk grains and legumes supplemented with fresh produce carefully chosen in season. Even a ready-to-eat food such as tofu aver ages about $1.75 a pound—less expensive than quality meats and fish.
Ecology: Many environmentally aware consumers derive satisfaction from “eating low on the food chain” —that is, getting the bulk of their diets from plant-based foods. It’s not only good for the body, reducing the intake of pesticide and animal antibiotic residues, but also for the planet as livestock deplete enormous land and water resources. Consider that:
- Raising livestock contributes to the loss of millions of tons of irreplaceable topsoil each year.
- It takes 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, as compared to 390 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.
- Livestock produce massive amounts of excrement, which has been shown to pollute soil, water, and air.
Compassion: Animal agribusiness is one of the cruelest practices imaginable. Millions of sentient creatures are subject to confinement, overcrowding, disfigurement (as in the common practice of debeaking poultry) only to face an equally cruel demise in the slaughterhouse (which, by the way is no picnic for its human workers). A primarily plant-based diet is a humane way to enjoy the fruits of the earth.
There are so many more resources on the web for delicious plant-based recipes—you need only type “vegan recipes,” or if you’re just diving in, “vegetarian recipes” into your Google search. I invite you to start with the Recipes Galore section of VegKitchen, and explore the delicious offerings on numerous other sites on the web and in the plethora of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks available.
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Announcing the relaunch of VegKitchen with Nava Atlas
Dear healthy plant-based food enthusiasts,
VegKitchen.com has relaunched in a bigger, brighter magazine-style format. A widely visited site (on line since 1996) celebrating all aspects of plant-based home cooking, VegKitchen.com is presented by Nava Atlas, the author of bestselling vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, including The Vegetarian Family Cookbook and Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons, among many others. Features include:
- Hundreds of easy vegan recipes by Nava and other top names in the vegetarian and vegan food world
- Recipes and menus for vegan holiday alternatives including Thanksgiving, Christmas,
and major Jewish holidays - A special area with recipes and tips for vegan/vegetarian kids and teens
- Nutrition tips from an array of experts
- Healthy Kitchen ideas from how to choose the best cookware to how to preserve garlic
- Recipe of the Week feature and newsletter
- Magazine-style home page with features changing bi-monthly
- Cooking videos, book reviews, and product reviews
VegKitchen.com invites you to explore fresh content, recipes, and resources for your edification, publication or site. Nava is also available to give expert advice and content in these areas:
- Getting children to eat more healthfully
- Raising vegetarian or vegan kids and teens
- How to transition to a vegetarian or vegan diet
- Creating quick, tasty, and healthful meals
- Making great plant-based dinners a daily reality
- Healthy and delicious dairy-free, egg-free baked goods
- Home-made school lunches
- Shopping and pantry organization for the plant-based kitchen
Looking to share your site or publication’s content? VegKitchen is always looking for fresh content of interest for those interested in healthy food and lifestyle. We are especially planning to expand gluten-free and raw information and recipes, but all ideas are welcome. Contact: nava@vegkitchen.com
Much like the vegan movement itself, VegKitchen is growing by leaps and bounds. The VegKitchen team would love for information, content, and links to flow both ways with members of the food community—highlighting how delicious and healthy vegan alternatives can be.
Visit VegKitchen.com for recipes, ideas, and information, and let’s see how our sites and publications can be of mutual benefit. Contact: nava@vegkitchen.com
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