Your Vegan Mom

Collard Citrus Salad

 

I'm proud of this recipe.  It's both hearty and light and tart and sweet.  It's got warm toasted walnuts and cold creamy avocado and sweet bites of orange that ooze their juices all over the slivered onion and vinegar and brown sugar to make a zesty dressing right in the bottom of the bowl.  Married with a tangle of the thinnest ribbons of deep dark collard leaves, a little drizzle of olive oil, and a pinch of salt, you have the perfect winter salad.  It's both what you are supposed to be eating and what you want to eat.  I love it when that happens.  

Also, you should know, I made this for Paul and me, just not thinking that shredded raw collard greens would be a kid thing, but Desmond totally dug it.  We had to share.  Two-year-old Felix on the other hand, no, but that kid won't eat anything these days.  He's terribly two.  He's definitely going through that whole exerting his independence thing.  While many of his choices (no greens, lemon lollipop for breakfast, arched-back limp-limbed freak-outs) are frustrating, others are totally cute like insisting on wearing his brother's size 5 astronaut costume to school or belting out Baby Beluga when you least expect it.  Salty and sweet that one is too.  

Crackers

 

 Did you know that you can make crackers faster than you can convince a 5-year-old to put on his shoes?  And definitely faster than you can get two kids dressed and in the car and out of the car and into the supermarket and back into the car and onto wherever you were headed with your crackers in the first place.  

Sweet Potato Tots

 

It's Valentine's Day next Tuesday, and that, of course, means that you need to know how to make sweet potato tots.  Can you think of a better way to show your love than with the delicate crunch of fried potato giving way to its sweet and creamy insides as it's dipped into a cool and smoky sauce - each nugget lovingly shaped between your fingers rather than shaken out of the freezer bag? Homemade tater tots?  That's love, man.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Everybody's mama has a recipe for biscuits.  Here's mine.  Like I said on Tuesday, this one adds a bit of light whole wheat flour without making them taste at all good for you, plus there's much less fat than a lot of recipes out there.  So, this is now a semi-weekly treat rather than a semi-yearly one.  There is no better vehicle for good jam than a soft biscuit fresh from the oven.

Carrot Cake Muffins and Good Housekeeping's Simple Vegan!

I'm going to tell you right now, this cookbook is not for all of you.  What I think makes it noteworthy is its very existence.  Good Housekeeping published a vegan cookbook last year.  The vegans have arrived.  We have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.