Few months ago we were in Milan with my husband and at the hotel we were staying, at the breakfast buffet, there was that amazingly tasty chestnut spread. It was that darned good that I had him run to the buffet and “steal” all the little jars with that spread for me. Well the months past by, and I run out of that chestnut spread. For the record I am a chestnut addict. When in season, I always keep cooked chestnuts in my fridge so I can snack on them whenever I feel like it. So I thought why not try to recreate that chestnut spread? And I did. And it was even better than the one I had before. Well, homemade things always taste better, don’t they?
chestnut vanilla spread
Ingredients
2 cups cooked chestnuts
3 TS soy milk vanilla flavored
2 TS agave nectar
1 ts pure vanilla extract
Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. Enjoy on bread, crispies, waffles, crepes etc
Happy Valentine’s Day to all! I hope you get much love today! Peanut is sharing his love with one of you. The winner of a copy of the wonderful cookbook Appetite for Reduction is Robyn! Congratulations!!! The winner was chosen through the random number generator and Robyn was the lucky 22!
For tonight’s dinner I am sharing with you my favorite recipe of pasta with creamy and spicy pumpkin sauce! This dish is ideal for Valentine’s dinner as it’s sweet – the way your valentine is – and spicy… the way love is!
Ingredients
1 small pumpkin
2 TS olive oil
1 can light coconut milk
1 cup of water (reserved from the pasta)
1 small red onion finely chopped
1 ts salt
1 TS nutritional yeast
freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic minced
- pasta with pumpkin sauce
Cook pasta according to the package directions and reserve one cup of water for the pumpkin sauce. Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. Cut the pumpkin in two and place it in a baking sheet. Add 2 cups of water and place it in the oven for 30 minutes. Let it cook for 30 minutes until it softens. Remove from the oven, let it cool, scoop the pumpkin out and blend until smooth. In a pot heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until brown. Add the pumpkin puree, the light coconut milk and half cup of the reserved water. Stir until heated through 3-5 minutes, add the nutritional yeast and salt, lower the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. If the sauce is too thick add another the other half cup of the reserved water. Add pasta in the pumpkin sauce and mix well. Serve with freshly ground pepper.
Lately I’ve been eating dishes with spinach every day. I even add spinach in my morning smoothie. And all my salads are spinach based. Don’t ask me why but it feels like I somehow I got addicted to spinach. My other favorite food is chickpeas. So I thought why not to combine them and make a curry dish? I love curries but Sean doesn’t really enjoy the so flavorful dishes. Well, that makes more food for me! This recipe comes together pretty fast if you have cooked or canned chickpeas on hand.
spinach chickpeas curry
Ingredients
3 T.S. olive or sesame oil
5 cups chopped fresh spinach
2 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 red onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 ts garam masala
1 ts salt
4 medium size tomatoes diced
Preheat a pan over medium heat. Heat the oil and add the onion. Saute for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for 2 more minutes. Add the garam masala and salt and saute for one more minute. Add the tomatoes and one cup of spinach. Stir until it gets cooked 1-2 minutes and then add another cup of spinach. Keep doing that until all spinach is cooked. Add the chickpeas, lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
