Happy Veg Cooking

This recipe is an adaptation of The Barefoot Contessa's Winter Minestrone. It was easy, satisfying and creates a lot of leftovers. Minestrone Saute:                         2 carrots,chopped bite sized 1 potato, chopped bite sized handful of green beans cut small 1 can whole tomatoes (28 oz) mashed 1 can cannelli beans 1 carton vegetable broth 2 T. quinoa (uncooked) 1 t. thyme 1 t. basil 1 t. red pepper flakes salt and pepper to taste spinach can be added right before serving time

 A bit of chocolate for dessert is sometimes necessary.  My go to recipe is this chocolate pudding.  Its super easy, with no dairy or eggs and delicious.  It fills up four little ramekins. Chocolate pudding Adapted from "Wildly Affordable Organic" by Linda Watson In a small saucepan combine: 2 T Cornstarch (non GMO if you have it) 1/3 C Sugar 1/3 C Cocoa Add: 2 C Almond milk (soy, rice, etc...  any work fine) Turn on medium heat and whisk until small bubbles form and pudding thickens.  Pour into four small serving bowls. Delicious with chopped nuts, coconut or berries on top.

In January of 2016 my husband and I set out to eat a plant based diet to the best of our ability. He was nearing 60, and I not far behind, so our quest was to improve our health and feel better about our impact on the environment.  I knew that the only way we would succeed was to make it easy, delicious and affordable.  We tried many times to adopt a vegan diet,   but gave up for those reasons (I did the 21 day vegan kick-start three times), so we gradually added more plants, found delicious meat substitutes and tried to make it fun.   We are far from having a perfect diet, and on occasion still enjoy some fish, chicken or Parmesan cheese (and half and half in my coffee😉), and when eating at someone's home we enjoy whatever they are serving us, which is part of being happy and healthy too. We do try to keep it affordable by using whole ingredients and making most things from scratch.  We find we get the most for our money by buying in season when we can ...