An indoor BBQ veggie plate.

Here's a delish BBQ dinner that can easily be made inside. Put plenty of raw fresh veggies on the plate, like greens, sprouts, tomatoes, cukes, and carrot and celery sticks. Top the greens with some mac salad made with your favorite pasta and vegenaise. Brown a BBQ Sunshine
Burger in a fry pan and set aside.
Cut two slices of bread into circles and fill with your favorite veg cheese and grill in the fry pan like a grilled cheese sandwich. When the bread is browned on both sides, open it up and place the BBQ Sunshine Burger in the middle with some BBQ sauce. Quick and easy!

Summer Harvest Stew...veggies so sweet and light and tasty!!!

Thanks to my Mom who made this summer stew when the garden was so full of summer squashes and tomatoes which make it taste out of this world!

To make the veggie balls defrost some Sunshine Burgers and cut them into four pie shaped pieces. Roil each piece into a ball. Brown the veggie balls in a fry pan with a little bit of oil. Set aside.

To make the stew chop a fresh green bell pepper with an onion and some garlic. Saute' in a sauce pan with some oil till golden. Peel some fresh red ripe tomatoes and add them to the sauce pan with some bite size pieces of summer squash and potatoes. Nice summer squashes are yellow squash, zucchini, and patty pan. Add salt and pepper to the pot and cover and simmer till tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Ladle the Summer Harvest Stew into bowls and top with the browned veggie balls.

If your using the South West variey of Sunshine Burgers to make the veggie balls, add some fresh jalopenos to the stew when sauteing the peppers in the beginning.

Enjoy the summer's bounty! So sweet and light and tasty! Thanks Mom!

Zesty vegan gluten free super supper!!!

This meal is so easy to make. Get out some fancy plates and put some clean fresh raw spinach leaves on the plates. Grill some South West Sunshine Burgers and sliced patty pan squash.
Cook some brown rice pasta and drain. To make the sauce for the pasta: get out a small sauce pan and simmer 1 cup of salsa with some veggie butter and a half a cup of water for 10 minutes.
Dissolve a tablespoon of corn starch or arrowroot flour in a cup of water and add this plus 1/3 cup of tahini to the salsa in the pot and simmer for a few minutes. Nicely plate everything on top of the fresh spinach. Garnish with some fresh chopped tomatoes and peppers and serve. Super supper is served!!!

Oriental Sunny Salad...try something different!

This salad reminds me of my early veggie years when Macrobiotics and raw foods first became popular. I used to love to go to macrobiotic restaurants in the East village of NYC and they served salads like this. The restaurant was called the Caldron and the Beatles used to eat there too. Very cool place !!!!! Great Chow! It is closed now but the Souen is still open. Getting back to the salad........
To make this different salad chop up some Chinese cabbage and thinly slice some carrots. Place in a bowl with some snow peas and sprouts. To make it Sunny, top it with a cooked sliced Garden Herb Sunshine Burger. For the finale...make some homemade sesame salad dressing. Simply put some chopped raw carrots in a blender with a few spoons of sesame butter (tahini) and some water and salt. Blend on high and taste to see if it needs any adjusting. You can use cold cooked carrots instead of raw in the dressing, for a more creamier consistency.
A nice touch to a very tasty macro salad indeed!!!!

Wow...check out this cooking Class !!!!

Saturday, Executive Chef, Hari Pulapaka/co-owner of the Cress Restaurant www.cressrestaurant.com in Deland FL had a 4 hour global veggie cooking class in the Cress kitchen. We made many dishes and we started by doing our prep work of cutting many veggies. Lots of them got roasted in the oven which really bought out the flavors! We prepped the herbs and made some french bread dough. We made homemade ricotta cheese for the homemade basil gnocchi. We made a big pot of spicy lentil soup and some Vegetarian Bisteya filling for the puff pastry, some spicy butternut squash ravioli, heirloom grain salad, eggplant Bharta, etc., etc. There were lots of sauces to make and side dishes with really spicy garnishes to put on them. Hari had all eight of us..hands on in the kitchen and we made so many things that he had a big wipe off board with all the tasks and dishes to accomplish and we all had our print out sheets and our own knives. It was also interesting to see how the commercial kitchen was set up and organized for all this massive amount of cooking! Well after 4 hours of cooking it was time to set all the things we made on the counter in the kitchen and serve up our plates and bowls and go into the dinning room for an awesome meal!!!!!!! Here's some of my favorites:

TUNISIAN LENTIL SOUP

Saute some onion and garlic in olive oil

Chop and add some carrots, celery, and potatoes.

Add cumin, tumeric, a little cayenne pepper, salt and pepper to these veggies and stir and continue cooking for 10 minutes.

Add lentils and veggie broth and bring to boil and simmer till lentils are tender. garnish with some chopped cilantro, and a few drops of lemon juice. Nice!

Grill some sliced local PATTY PAN SQUASH AND make some ROMESCO SAUCE(really yum!!!)

In a fry pan with olive oil add a large piece of cubed bread and saute with some almonds and garlic. Do not over brown. Add some canned plum tomatoes, roasted red bell peppers, smoked paprika, red hot pepper flakes, a little red wine vinegar and simmer. Take out of the pan to blend till smooth........really yum!!!!! serve with the squash.

EGGPLANT BHARTA is a great side dish......

Roast some white Eggplants by cutting and sprinkling them with olive oil and also turn the whole tomatoes up side down and cut an X on the top. Bake these veggies at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

In a sauce pan saute till tender, some chopped onions in olive oil and add lots of minced garlic and some fresh ginger. Then add the roasted veggies along with some cumin, turmeric, cayenne, and salt and pepper. Simmer while breaking the veggies up with the utensil. Serve as a side dish or condiment.

Well these recipes are from my notes and I hope I did a good job paying attention in class!!!

We had so much fun cooking and learning....Thanks Executive Chef Hari!!!

Visit the Cress Restaurant.... http://www.cressrestaurant.com/

Easy Sunshine Veggie Pizzas!

This pizza is really yummy and easy to make. Put a Garden Herb Sunshine Burger in a toaster oven and heat for 8 minutes.
Also, add 2 pita breads or a gluten free burrito wrap to toast lightly.
Take them out and cut the Sunshine Burger into squares and spread some tomato sauce on top of the pita or wrap. Set aside. In a small fry pan saute some chopped zucchini and some minced garlic till slightly browned. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and oregano.
Build your pizza. Place the precooked zucchini and garlic on top of the sauce on the pita or wrap. Add some spinach leaves, fresh chopped tomatoes, chopped veggie cheese, the Sunshine Burger dices, and bake at 400 degrees until browned, about 15 to 20 minutes. Let it rest a few minutes before serving. Garnish with some olives and presto........an awesome pizza!!!!

Delish 4th of July BBQ veggie style

I am making this veggie BBQ for the 4th with grilled Sunshine Burgers and grilled onion rings, tropical coleslaw, and corn on the cob(not shown in photo), and red white and blue fruit parfaits. Yum!
Sunshine Burgers are easy to grill for the 4th of July. I used the BBQ Sunshine Burgers and put them on the grill with some onion rings. I flipped the burgers over and then put some BBQ sauce on them and then topped them with some veggie cheese. While the cheese was melting I toasted the buns. I put them together on plates adding some lettuce and sprouts and pickles.

Serve with some tropical coleslaw made ahead of time:
Shred up some organic carrots and cabbage or buy some already shredded. Chop up some organic celery. Drain a can of pineapple chunks and chop them up or chop up some fresh pineapple. If you buy pre-cut fresh pineapple make sure the color is a dark yellow instead of whitish light yellow. The darker yellow is riper. Stir everything in a bowl with some vegenaise. NOTE: If you make this a head of time...do not add the vegenaise or the salt and pepper till its time to serve it because it makes liquid come out the longer it sits. The fruit makes the coleslaw special. If you have a tropical fruit blend that you buy that you like better use that.
Make some corn on the cob as a side and put out some chips. For the finale...dessert!
I love fancy parfait glasses and I used them to make dessert. I made some vegan
strawberry jello and layered it with fresh strawberries and blueberries and topped
it with a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream. Red, white, and blue....Happy 4th to all!!!!!