Something about that acidy, tart, savory and yet sweet tomato sauce cries out for a burst of something fresh. Basil to the rescue! Either cut into tiny ribbons, or torn into little bits, it provides a beautiful fresh bite to the super-savory sauce. I think I actually have pictured here a combo of parsley and tomato, but more fresh and green stuff, more better, right?


I've never been one to turn away a lovely pile of green spinach when paired with a dreamy red tomato sauce either.


Maybe the champion dish for the tomato & basil combo is a marinara pizza. Nothing beats a freshly tossed dough with beautifully blistered basil. You can smell this pie from a mile away! It's hard to argue with a pizza that looks like this. What is your favorite color-combo when you're eating??

It's more like a deep-dish pizza, or a savory pie than a pizza, but it is reminiscent of a tomato pie I recently got in Philly, where the tomatoes and garlic just sang. There was pretty much nothing else on the pizza, save for some crushed chili flakes. So that pizza was my inspiration behind this pie.

I've made a lot of different mole recipes, but I didn't break one out today, I decided just to wing it with what I can remember goes in the sauce, which is a lot of things. I couldn't remember if peanut butter was an ingredient... I didn't put it in. Maybe I should have. But in the end the sauce came out amazing, spicy, creamy yet textural, with tons of flavor. It gets a lot darker as it cools. My BF came into the kitchen and was like, "Ohhh you put the sweet potato in the mole sauce" and I'm like nooo, that's just the mole sauce, and then it cooled and it was a nicer contrast of colors on the finished pizza. See?


Honestly, I'm super psyched to make more pizzas. I've told every person I know my ideas for pizzas, and my face lights up and then I start talking really loud and gesturing a lot. Also, today while skinning my poblanos, some pepper juice shot into my eye and it burned for 20 minutes. I am going to wear gloves and goggles next time I do anything with chiles but put them in my shopping cart. People think that being vegan means going pizza-free, which would be a fate worse than death, so I want to prove that vegans eat pizza. The Best kind of pizza. All fancy and stuff. No fake cheese on my pizzas. I'ma roll all naturale. Also don't call my pizza a flatbread. That sounds way less awesome.

I used all meaty, hearty ingredients in my rice-spice stew, like a homemade cajun-spiced seitan, some large quartered mushrooms and seared artichoke hearts. Brown rice makes this a dish that you can make with a break in the middle. It takes its time soaking up the juices, so you can clean up your kitchen and rest a while before you eat. When you're done, cool the stew a smidge and then stick the whole pot in the fridge. Dinner for the rest of the week-- done.

 When my boyfriend and I first became vegetarian, we could count on one hand how many dishes were in our repertoire. It included, chili, stir-fries, spaghetti, pesto, and tomato soup. Now a days, I do pretty much all the cooking, and have expanded my horizons to include all the things on this blog and beyond. He, on the other hand.. can't even make spaghetti anymore.
Tomato soup was our old standby. A great dish to make for 2 or a crowd, we would make this at least every 2 weeks. Obviously now, since my culinary horizons have expanded, I make a lot of other things instead of the same 5 things over and over. But I found myself making tomato soup tonight for the first time in years.


I mean, I can't just make plain old tomato soup, the way I used to. I've got to mix things up when I'm re-doing them. I was heavily influenced by the weather, which, right now can't decide what season it's going to be. It's very warm when the sun comes out, but the sun isn't really coming out that much. So it's actually still pretty goddamn cold. I craved a little smokiness, the type of cooking warm weather tends to bring with it. I also craved soup. I crave soup when it is freezing. Most people do that, right?