It's Favorites Friday Time!

It's Favorites Friday time!   I hope everyone enjoys all these links - I did!

There were a couple could articles this week on Food Issues.  Mixed Greens Blog wrote a thought provoking post on what leads us to change the way we view our food in Carbon 101 Foodprints.  I think this is a great post that shows how we are each on our own paths to figuring out our relationships with food and that we will each be challenged towards change if we allow ourselves to be and what provokes that change may be different for each person.

Over at MNN (Mother Nature Network) there was an article about potential foods we could lose due to monoculture, genetic modification and industrial agriculture.  I really enjoyed the bits of history they provided about where mass outbreaks have happened before with disastrous results, like the potato famine.  To me this brought home, even more, the importance of avoiding and hopefully eventually banning GMOs as well as supporting local small agriculture with an emphasis on diversity of both crops and varietals.

I loved the post that The Daily Raw Cafe wrote to her Aunt Gigi and the marinated collards recipe that went with it.

For a delicious sounding vegetarian mexican food fix check out Oven Aversions' Mole Burrito with Guacamole  This sounded so delicious and she had a good point about products that seem to be one thing but turn out to be another.  By the way, I only recently discovered this blog, but I'm really enjoying it so far.  You should definitely check it out.

Live Green Mom decided to make her own chocolate syrup and it sounds yummy!

Seitan is my Motor had a delicious sounding Carrot Coconut Soup.

Rawmazing did it again.  The recipes on this blog never fail to inspire me to eat more raw goodies.  Just check out the recipe for Cinnamon Raisin "Toast"

BitterSweet had a recipe for Adzuki Bean Gyoza - Little Bundles of Joy, Indeed!

Here's a source for coupons for natural and organic products - eat and live sustainably and save a little money in the process!

Julia and Julia goes Vegan?  Oh yeah!  Check out A to Z Blogging of Conscious Cook and Vegan Table.  I'm looking forward to following Pink Vegan's progress.

So simple and so delicious made with three of my favorite things - mushrooms, asparagus and tempeh. See what Vegan Minded Blog wrote about here.  Yum!

Last, but not least I came across something fun over at Dinner at Christina's where everyone gets together and shares their "firsts" in the culinary world from that week.  It's called Friday Firsts and she explains how it came about here.  Go check it out and share a first!

Well, I hope that keeps everyone busy over the weekend.  I also hope everyone enjoyed my recipes from this week and the story of how I met my husband.  I really will have to share my stories sometime about all the gourmet dinners I've had while out in the wilderness, especially the one where we had home cooked southern food in a snow cave during a blizzard.  It's a good one.

Coming soon to Rutabagas and Other Adventures:

• Zucchini, Carrots and Broccoli Two Ways
• A cookbook review - Vegan Brunch
• Fennel and Grapefruit Salad

and much much more...

Question:  What has inspired you to change your ways of looking at food and how you eat?

Now I'm off to spend the weekend enjoying the spring weather:

 Reading through my new Vegetarian Times Magazine:

And dreaming up recipes for all the lovely produce in this weeks CSA from Full Circle Farm.

Chocolate Infused Favorites Friday

I can't believe it's Friday again already!  This week has just flown by.  I've been very busy reading about all sorts of yummy food related things, and there seems to be a theme this week - chocolate.  Chocolate seems to be on everyone's mind and their blogs.  Hmmm, perhaps it has something to do with that holiday coming up this weekend?

I'll go along with the chocolate theme for this weeks Favorites Friday and make everyone happy by pushing the chocolate craze just a little further along.

If your looking for chocolate recipes then check out these posts:

Over at Mixed Greens Blog  you'll find a recipe for Chocolate Pudding featuring one of my favorite chocolate companies, from right here in Seattle - Theo Chocolate -  

Vegan Crunk revisits a memorable dessert from Millennium Restaurant in San Fransisco and tries her hand at recreating it.  The results sound delicious.  Check out the recipe for her take on the Chocolate Almond Midnight Torte.


Love Veggies and Yoga has several options for chocolate fans.  There's the delectable looking Vegan Fudge, the beautiful (they look like something done by a professional chocolatier) White Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, and one of my all time favorites desserts - Chocolate Covered Strawberries.

I tried out Chocolate Covered Katie's 5-minute Chocolate Mousse recently.  It turned out pretty tasty. (It must have been, I think we managed to gobble it all up before getting any pictures!) It was way richer than I thought it would be.  I'm eager to try different brands of tofu as the base after reading that some are better for this kind of thing.  I also thought it would make a decent raw-like icing for something too so I'll be searching for a raw dessert, maybe with strawberries to try that out.

With all those delicious chocolate possibilities I only ask that you use only fair trade, slavery free chocolate.  If you don't already know about the the slavery issues related to chocolate, you can learn more about it here.  Fair trade is the way to go!

Now, I'm going to be sacrilege and share something completely different for any other lemonphiles out there who would rather serve up a sweet-tart luscious lemon-filled delight.

What is a lemonphile?
lemon - a tart citrus fruit, usually yellow in color
phile - one who loves, likes or is attracted to

Put them together and what do you have?  A lover of all things lemon!  If that's you, then definately check this out this humorous post from The Daily Raw Cafe and the recipe for her Lemon Coconut Pie.

Or maybe you just want a little spice in your life?  How about these Raw Cinnamon Rolls from Rawmazing.  These are on my to-do list!

I hope those links will keep you busy and inspired to spend some time in the kitchen this weekend!

Coming soon to Rutabegas and Other Adventures:

• Sweet Potato Tacos with Chipotle Cream
• Chickpea and Sun-dried Tomato Stew
• Fennel and Grapefruit Salad
• Vegetarian Reubens and Why a Reuben is Special Enough for Valentine's Day (I might even share the story of how I met my husband, it's a good one!)
• A Cookbook Review - Vegan Brunch
• First Ever "Meet Your Food Monday"

And so much more...

My question for anyone who might like to answer it:

Do you have foods or meals that are connected to special memories in your life?  What are they and the memories that make them special?

Have a great weekend and Valentine's Day, everyone!  Till next week, happy cooking!

First Ever Favorites Friday

 These are a few of my

favorite things... 

Yes, I'm starting a new feature on this blog and calling it Favorites Friday.  In these posts I'll cover a few of the recipes and foodie posts from around the web (and maybe elsewhere) that have caught my eye and that I feel deserve a mention.  This will give visitors plenty of places to visit over the weekend while I take my "away from the computer" time.  I'll tempt you to come back with several hints of what's to come over the next weeks and leave you with a question so you can share your wisdom with me.  How's that sound?  Good.  Then let's get started.  

Our first stop along the way keeps with the wise adage "Life's short, eat dessert first."  And what better blog to visit to fulfill that bit of wisdom than Chocolate Covered Katie.  She's got a reputation in this house, already.  When I was searching for where I had seen the recipe for butternut squash fries and started looking through her blog posts, my husband was sure it wasn't going to be at Chocolate Covered Katie - he had come to believe she only ever wrote about stuff meant to appease the sweet tooth monster.  He got this idea from seeing her blog titles on my Google Reader.  I proved him wrong though, because that was exactly where I found the recipe for "Butter(nut) Me Up" Squash Fries.  I have a butternut squash waiting to be transformed so I'm sure there will be more to come about that.  But that is hardly dessert and I said we were having dessert first and indeed it is at Chocolate Covered Katie that I found a recipe for something I've been wanting to try for quite some time.  A quick and vegan version of chocolate mousse.  Check out the recipe for Five-Minute Chocolate Mousse.  I'll let you know how it turns out in the next couple weeks - promise.

While perusing through the posts at The Voracious Vegan I came across a link to the Raw Epicurean.  I'm going to have to find more hours in the day just to explore this website.  It is loaded with recipes (with an ingredient Index - yeah!), interesting interviews, raw lifestyle articles and happy of happies for me an Herb of the Month section (I love all things herbs).  This months is about rose and promises to have articles, information and recipes featuring this herb.  Add to that a section of links to many more raw food blogs for me to get lost navigating through and I could be entertained for days, weeks, months, years!   Thanks to The Voracious Vegan for the link!

Moving along now to Love Veggies and Yoga where I discovered more raw snackybits to drool over.  Specifically the Raw Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  Last night I had quite the adventure making these and then re-making them completely different.  One recipe - two totally different raw cookies.  I can't wait to post the results with pictures next week.  Thanks, Averie, for the adventure!

Cooking for a Vegan Lover did a book review on the book Go Dairy Free that caught my attention.  Not because I plan on going completely dairy free anytime soon but because I love to read about alternatives to my normal way of cooking and eating and seeing what wisdom I can glean and what new ways of doing something I can try out.  So I'll be looking to put this book on hold at the library soon.

Finally Vegan Crunk wrote about her experiences with Alicia Silverstone's book The Kind Diet.  I'm on a waiting list several miles long for this book at the library and after reading this review of sorts and hearing about the recipes I am that much more impatient to get my hands on a copy of this cookbook.  The Ginger-baked Tofu she mentions was the final straw.

In the mean time I do have two cookbooks out from the library that I am eagerly going through and look forward to doing more of just that this weekend. 

The Vegan Table is all about recipes for entertaining but from the first glances I think they would be just as yummy if I made them to entertain just lil' ol' Mark and me.  There seem to be several recipes that would make a scrumptious vegan high tea - I'd just have to find some local folks adventuress enough to try it with an open mind.  I'll have to work on that! 

Then there's Vegan Brunch, which has already had a muffin recipe made from it and I'll be sharing about that sometime soon too.  But there are many more dishes in there that I look forward to trying.  My only complaint so far are the number of dishes that call for Nutritional Yeast, something I cannot eat, and an ingredient that so far no one has given a good alternative to.  It is one thing if it calls for only a tablespoon or so, I figure leaving it out is simple enough.  But for recipes that call for 1/4 cup or more?  And that brings me to my question:

If you couldn't use nutritional yeast, for whatever reason, what would you use in its place or how would you alter a recipe to make up for the missing nutritional yeast? 

With so many vegan products and recipes calling for it, I find myself somewhat discouraged by not being able to use it.  I could use help from all you wise peoples out there!

Coming soon to Rutabegas and Other Adventures:

Vegetarian Stroganoff with Seitan

Super Quick Bowl of Noodles and Veggies

Garlic and Kale Soup with Spelt Berries

Vegan Chocolate Almond Moose

Raw Cookies

Butternut Squash Fries

And so much more....

So, until next week (and all its fun-filled, recipe-laden goodness), happy eating, dreaming and exploring the vegetarian life!