Smashing Spaghetti

After 3 hours of shopping, this delicious gluten free spaghetti was my quick dinner for Dhanvantari..but shopping or not, this is a typical weekend dish..he likes his spaghetti! :)

Ingredients:

2 pk gluten free rice spaghetti drained (first cooked al dente in salted water)

Heat:
3 TBSP toasted sesame oil

Sautee for a few seconds:
3/4 TBSP asafoetida (Hing)
1/4 cup dried oregano
3 TBSP dried basil

Add in:
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1/4 TSP smoked chilli flakes (optional)
1 TSP smoked paprika
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
Approx 1/2 cup EV olive oil
2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup tamari or to taste (for salt content)
4 cups plain mock chicken ribs (pea protein or soy based variations are available in health stores)

Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes until a little thickened. Fold this sauce into the spaghetti, adding in:

1/4 cup green or black kalamata olives chopped (optional)
2 cup parmesan cheese

Sprinkle the spaghetti with extra parmesan cheese, oregano, and a drizzle of olive oil before serving. Serve hot.

Variation:
Super quick and vegan: once the spaghetti is boiled and drained, drizzle generously with olive oil, nutritional yeast, tamari, olives, oregano, smoked paprika and basil to taste. Simple and tasty.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

After only a few years pause, here's my first post returning to the blogging world. Haha, yaaaay!:)

This vegan cake recipe was one of those - educated guess experiments - that turned out really good. I wanted to make a really moist serious chocolate cake, but I was missing a couple of go to ingredients, so I substituted with whatever I had at hand. The pumpkin puree is the secret moisture ingredient in this cake, and the best part is - you can't taste it - it just makes the chocolate flavor taste more deeply velvety in your mouth. 

As my dear Kunti said, it is quite healthy as far as cakes go, although it tastes decadently chocolatey...it is really more-ish, but not very sweet, so if you like your cakes on the sweeter side you will need to up the sugar content, or drizzle in chocolate fudge sauce and ice cream (which would be yummy), or whatever tickles your fancy! 

Ingredients:

Mix:

2 cups Arrowhead Mills sprouted pancake and waffle mix

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 cup almond meal

1/4 cup ground flax seeds

1 TBSP baking powder

3/4 TBSP baking soda

1.5 TBSP allspice

2 TBSP cinnamon powder

Whisk together:

1.5 cup Costa Rican cocoa powder (THE BEST EVER)

1/2 cup oil

1 cup pumpkin puree

1.5 cup maple syrup

2 TSP Mexican Vanilla extract (OMG, awesome flavor, wish I'd brought more back!)

3 cups hot water

Combine both mixtures adding approx 2 more cups of room temperature water - enough to get a fairly thick batter.

Pour into a lightly oiled and floured baking dish - I used a rectangular glass baking flan.

Sprinkle generously with semi sweet choc chips (I pushed them in a little so they stick when its done), a sachet of crystallized ginger, a little cinnamon and brown sugar. 

Bake at 365 degrees Fahrenheit for approx 45 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool. Delicious served as is, or with vanilla ice cream, or as you like. Have fun! :)