Asian Fusion Noodle Soup (gluten free, vegan)

I thought about calling this post “Conor’s Favourite Soup”. It is, in fact, his favourite and most asked-for soup, despite my best efforts to convert him to whatever new soup I bring out of the kitchen. His longtime response, “They can’t all be my favourite!,” might just be one of the wiser things I’ve heard spoken in my life.  I suppose I should simply be content with his passion for this soup rather than continually try to tempt him with a new favourite. The point is, as much as this soup is inextricably linked to Conor in my mind, naming it after him does little to inform you lovely people of the aromatic magic happening within.

Let’s take a trip to flavour town, shall we?

Very Berry Green Smoothie (gluten free, vegan)

I don’t think I need to say very much about this smoothie recipe. It’s nutritious, delicious, fast, and easy. If I don’t have time for a sit-down breakfast in the morning, or have to be up and out of the house faster than my stomach takes to wake up, I turn to this. I sometimes use vanilla protein powder, but I know there’s a demand for filling and protein-dense smoothies that don’t rely on supplements of any kind, so I am here to help fill that void! With a generous serving of greens and just enough fruit to eliminate the need for added sweeteners, this smoothie is pretty great.

Harvest Salad with Tahini-Mustard Dressing (gluten free, vegan option)

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. This salad is pretty awesome. As I’m sure you know by now, I’m a huge fan of the meal salad, and this one definitely falls into that category. It’s inspired by the incredible salad I had at Avoca cafe in Belfast, which I mentioned in my first travel post last month. The base ingredients are almost the same, with the addition of some almonds for crunch and some goji berries for sweetness, but the dressing is all my own. This is an incredibly hearty, satisfying, and flavourful salad that will leave you feeling full but not overly stuffed – just perfect for this cool fall weather we’ve been having. And it’s pretty.

Cauliflower Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Sun-dried Tomatoes, and Spinach (gluten free, grain free, vegan)

Finished product.

Ever since removing gluten from my diet, there has been a persistent and painful pizza-shaped hole in my heart. I have tried filling it in all the usual ways – gluten free pizza from Pizza Nova, Pizzaiolo, even (gasp!) Pizza Hut and frozen pizzas – all to no avail. These attempts all inevitably end in a disappointment wrought by crust with the texture of cardboard and a chewiness that leaves my teeth sorer than the surliest of bears. I soon despaired of ever enjoying a reasonable facsimile of the blissfully soft yet crunchy pizza I had enjoyed throughout my life – and enjoy it I did. I LOVE pizza. It’s basically the perfect food, and it was always worth the dairy despondency I would later suffer as a result of all that beautiful cheese.

Power Green Smoothie (aka your new favourite breakfast!) (gluten free, raw, vegan)

I love breakfast, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who “just can’t eat” in the morning. In fact, I’m one of those, “can’t wait to go to sleep so I can wake up and have breakfast” kinds of people (is that weird?). BUT, I don’t like rushing in the morning. Upon rising I always have a glass or two of lemon water to get my digestive fires geared up – they need all the help they can get, believe me – and then I like to relax over a latte a short while later. This morning ritual is not conducive to getting up and going to work in a reasonable amount of time, however. I’ve tried getting up a little earlier and scarfing down a full breakfast before I leave for work or school, since I’ll be starving halfway through the morning if I eat nothing, but that always leaves me feeling bloated. In an ideal world, I would have breakfast an hour or so after my coffee (and thus a couple of hours after rising). Maybe not ideal for some, but it works for me, and digestion is a personal beast.

Leftover Lentils with Beet Greens (and half the fridge, too!) (gluten free, vegan option)

Sometimes you have such an assortment of bits and bobs in your fridge – half a leek here, a couple of stalks of celery there – that it seems you’ll just have to go grocery shopping again to get a meal out of it. Sometimes you cooked just the other day, and maybe your measurements were a little off, which is why I had a cup of cooked lentils just sitting in the fridge. And sometimes all of this turns to naught, with food sitting forlornly in the back of the fridge, alone and forgotten, until it spoils.

Not so today! As I said, I had a whole pile of lentils leftover from the other night, and some beet greens just begging to be cooked (leftover from some wonderful beet hummus I made!).