Quick and Easy Pantry Cooking Day Twelve: Spicy Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I love sweet potatoes and try to always keep them in stock. I know have blogged about sweet potatoes before and I am sure I will again-I really love them!!!

Oven fries are great cooked with just some salt, pepper and oil but they are even better when spiced up and made with sweet potatoes. Rachel Ray has a great recipe for Cajun oven fries. My recipe ends up changing a bit every time, depending on what spices I have. This is how I made them today.

Spicy Baked Sweet Potato Fries

• 4 sweet potatoes, washed well and dried
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sweet, hot or smoked paprika (I used the smoked today)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending how hot you want it-use less if you use hot paprika)
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Cut sweet potatoes into wedges. Combine oil, paprika, cumin and cayenne then toss with potatoes. Spread single layer on baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, turn them over and bake 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot with your favorite dipping sauce.

variations: use another type of potato, add hot sauce to spice mixture (Rachel Ray does this), add a tablespoon or two of maple syrup for some sweetness.

Quick and Easy Pantry Cooking Day Eleven: Yogurt Parfait

In my refrigerated pantry, I always have plain soy yogurt. I use it in smoothies or dollop it on chili. In my freezer pantry, I always have an assortment of frozen fruit which I mostly use for smoothies or the occasional pie. I wanted a healthy treat so I made a parfait. This is much better than buying yogurt with fruit already in it being that you can control the sugar level. Although fresh fruit is wonderful in parfaits, cooking the fruit produces a nice syrup.

Cherry Yogurt Parfait

• 1-1lb bag frozen cherries
• 2 tablespoons sweetener (agave, sugar, maple syrup, etc)
• zest of one lemon
• plain soy yogurt

Combine ingredients (except yogurt) in a saucepan. Cook on medium to low heat for about 15 minutes. When cool, layer yogurt and cherry mixture in a glass. Store rest of cherry mixture in refrigerator.

variations: use whatever frozen fruit you have (mangoes, blueberries, raspberries, etc), substitute orange zest for the lemon, add a layer of granola.

Vegan Product of the Week: Origins

This is really last week's product of the week but I am trying to catch up!

All of Origins products are not vegan. They do use honey and/or beeswax in a few products (mostly lipsticks). But the majority are vegan and they are great high quality products. I also use vegan only product lines but I like to vary what I use and also support companies that are making an effort to carry vegan items. The challenging part of that can be trying to figure which products in a line are actually vegan. Most companies, like Origins, are good about getting back to you when you email them and most are pretty clear about their ingredient sources. If they don't get back to me after a few attempts, then that pretty much tells me that it is not a vegan friendly company. Certain companies like Urban Decay and Lush actually post on their websites which of their products are vegan. Being that my sister and I are both vegans, we have developed a tag team approach for the other companies. Just to be sure that they are providing accurate information, my sister and I both contact the companies and compare responses. For example, we both received the same response from Origins:

"Regarding the use of non-vegan ingredients, we would like to explain that the majority of our products are appropriate for use by our vegan consumers. We do, however, use beeswax or honey in some of our formulations. Beeswax is naturally produced by bees during the process of making honey, and both ingredients come from nature-driven renewable sources. Honey and beeswax ingredients will appear on a product's ingredient label if either is present in the formulation. "

My favorite Origins product is their Night-a-Mins, a very moisturizing facial cream. This one is great for dry skin. I also love their Frothy Face Wash. When you order online from them, they usually include some free samples. It is a great company to order a gift for someone from because they package gifts in very cute reusable containers.

Quick and Easy Pantry Cooking Day Ten: Lemon and Rosemary Tomato Soup

This is my go to soup when I want a healthy, fast yet filling soup. The lemon zest and rosemary in this hearty tomato soup give it a really fresh flavor. Cannellini beans make it hearty and rich in protein. Sometimes I use the fire roasted tomatoes to give it a more rustic flavor. This recipe was originally on Everyday Italian, Giada de Laurentiis' show on the Food Network. I altered her recipe a bit and veganized it.

Lemon and Rosemary Tomato Soup

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1-15 oz can cannellin beans, drained and rinsed
• 1-28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 2 teaspoons of fresh rosemary, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper
• 2/3 cup vegan sour cream (I use Tofutti brand)
• zest of one lemon

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until tender, about five minutes. Add the beans, tomatoes, broth, 1 teaspoon of the rosemary and the red pepper flakes. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 30 minutes. Puree all or part of the soup. If you don't puree it at least partially, which is what I do, then it won't get that creamy texture. Season with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, the remaining 1 teaspoon of rosemary and lemonzest. Serve soup with a dollop of the sour cream mixture on top.

Variations: Substitute plain soy yogurt for the sour cream. Fresh rosemary is best for this recipe but you could use dried, 1/4 teaspoon in the soup and 1/4 in the sour cream. Add croutons.

Quick and Easy Pantry Cooking Day Nine: Black Eyed Peas in Spicy Coconut Sauce

This is a dish that is made almost entirely from canned goods. I like to keep the ingredients in stock because this is so easy to make, full of protein and makes a filling and healthy dinner especially when paired with a salad.

I serve it over brown rice but any grain that you have in stock would work well. If you don't have black-eyed peas, you can substitute any kind of bean (pinto beans are a good substitute). I prefer the flavor of the black-eyed peas in this dish but most beans would taste really good. I used a can of tomato sauce because that is what I had. A can of diced or crushed tomatoes would also be fine.

Black-Eyed Peas in Spicy Coconut Sauce

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2-15 oz cans black-eyed peas, drained, rinsed and partially mashed
• 1-15 oz can tomato sauce, diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes
• 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1-14 oz can light coconut milk
• 2-3 tablespoons cilantro or parsley, chopped (optional)
• salt to taste

Saute onion in oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add all ingredients except cilantro and combine well. Cover pan and simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add cilantro. Serve over rice.

Quick and Easy Pantry Cooking Day Eight: Wild Rice with Mushrooms

I keep many kinds of rice in my pantry but I find that I usually end up using brown rice for lots of dishes. I had some wild rice left from a Thanksgiving wild rice and corn bread dressing dish so I decided to use it up. There were some beautiful shitake mushrooms at the farmer's market that I thought would be good with wild rice. You could use whatever mushroom you can find or use the dehydrated kind. This is not the prettiest dish but it has a nice earthy flavor.

Wild Rice with Mushrooms

• 1 cup wild rice
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 teaspoon fresh
• 2 cups mushrooms, chopped
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper

Cook wild rice in broth for about 45 minutes. Drain excess broth from rice. While the rice is cooking saute onion, garlic, red pepper flakes and thyme until onion is translucent, about five minutes. Add mushrooms and cook about 10 minutes more, until mushrooms are tender. This time will vary depending on the mushroom you are using. Combine mushroom mixture and rice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

variations: Add 1/4 cup white wine to mushrooms near end of their cooking time for some extra flavor. Garnish with chopped scallions or parsley

Vegan Product of the Week: Cool Cups

Friday is product-of-the-week day (back to pantry cooking on Monday). I don't eat processed food very often but I saw these Cool Cups Natural Black Cherry Gels at Whole Foods the other day and was intrigued. Way back before I was even a vegetarian, I only ate Jello on occasion. Once a vegetarian then vegan, I would try different brands of vegan gel type desserts which were usually just ok. Cool Cups have a great flavor and the texture seems just right, firm yet jiggly. They are fairly inexpensive for a specialty vegan item, a four pack was under $2.50. Currently this company just has the ready made gel packs but their website states that dry mixes will be available this spring. I'll be looking forward to those! I would definitely get these again for a refreshing and fairly healthy treat!