Six Wicked Awesome Recipes!

No major disappointments this week - in fact - I've six "wicked awesome" recipes to share! First off, I've been wanting to make these Olive-Millet Stuffed Zucchini from Vw/aV for years - seriously. They were pretty darn awesome and Mr. PLV went back for seconds! With a mixture of millet, tomatoes, capers and kalamata olives, they were salty and not sweet at all, so they were right up his alley. I loved them, too. They aren't too difficult to make, except there was a lot of liquid left in the stuffing mixture that I had to drain off. Also, there was a huge amount of stuffing left over! Oh well - lunch for the week - yeah! Four stars for these babies ****.

Next up...Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (vegan, of course!) from VCTOTW. I still have yet to make all the cupcakes in this book, but I'm wondering if October being Vegetarian Month would be a good time to meet that challenge? Anyhow, these were really easy to make, although there was barely enough batter to fill all 12 tins, they didn't rise very high, and I had to make a double batch of frosting in order to have enough to pipe on with my frosting gun! However, they were moist, full of raisins, walnuts and of course lots of carrot, and certainly delectable! Luckily, I made these for a friend, so they didn't lurk in the house very long. :) Four stars, easy! **** (Oh, I made a second batch for work, so I snuck one cupcake into my mouth, that's how I know how awesome they taste!).

On a slightly healthier note, Ani's Raw Food Kitchen Cookbook gave me the recipe for these delicious Strawberry Coconut Shake! Three and a half delicious stars ***1/2. I sprinkled a little unsweetened coconut on top for presentation. Purty! Filling enough for three lunches and of course very easy to make!











I am very proud of my own veganized recipe, Moroccan Seitan on Flatbread with Carrot-Almond Salad. Originally a chicken recipe from Keep It Seasonal, I just used seitan for the chicken, and cut it into bite sized strips. The spice rub was a little watery, but it was delish! Mr. PLV even ate the carrot salad, which had raisins in it - ahhh! We didn't have time or energy to make the Coriander Flatbread, so whole wheat pita breads (unsplit) made nice sandwich wraps. Four great stars! ****







And last but certainly not least, The Joy of Vegan Baking brought us Peanut Butter Cookies with the ubiquitous cross-hatch on top. Mr. PLV had asked for these and they came out perfectly! Easy, too.

The sixth recipe this week was from Vegetarian Times, modified slightly. In the most recent October 2009 issue, there was a recipe for Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce, which I sped up (quick-roasted!) using Dreena's ED&BV tip: 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 40-45 mins. I used the same herbs, though, and I used my handy-dandy immersion blender to turn the finished product into a sauce to use later this week. As summer has ended, so has our abundance of tomatoes, and the ones we're getting from the CSA now are kind of lacking flavor. So, in order to avoid getting more fruit flies in the house while they sat around (really! the flies are so bad! any tips on getting rid of them?), this recipe was key.

Well, that's all for this past week! I'm off to do some reading and think about dinner, which will probably be Leek-Squash Polenta with a creamy white sauce, or if I'm too tired, "just" leftovers :)