Harvest Salad

The description is simple: mixed greens topped with roasted beets, diced Gala apple, grilled chicken, crumbled goat cheese, and toasted walnuts served with a rosemary-balsamic vinaigrette. This is an elegant anytime salad, and, without the chicken, could be a wonderful first course salad for Thanksgiving. As is, this recipe serves one.

Glazed Carrot Soup

Another delicious recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Before this recipe, I'd started to give up on ever coming across a truly delicious creamy vegetable soup. This soup completely blew me away. It needs no accompaniment...it's just that delicious. Although, serving with some french bread is lovely.

Roasted Beet and Beef Borscht

I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Mark Bittman's cookbooks: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and How to Cook Everything. This recipe comes from his vegetarian cookbook and I modified it to have lovely tender chunks of beef and potatoes. This is health food at its most elegant and tasty. Unfortunately, no photos are available this time due to technical difficulties, but trust me, this soup is a beautiful magenta colour.

Carrot-Ginger Soup

I first had this soup at an Italian grocery and sandwich shop in Pike's Place. I had no idea the flavors of carrot and ginger could work so well together, so, of course, I had to duplicate it at home. For making a smoothly blended soup, an immersion blender is essential. Although, if you do not have one, the soup may be blended in a blender after it has cooled (if you put the hot soup in a blender, the gases inside will force the top of the blender off and the hot soup splatter will hurt you!)

Vegetarian Chili

Sometimes you just don't want to eat meat or the fat that comes along with it. This chili is great just topped with fat-free yogurt (or fat-free sour cream) and mozzarella cheese or, for a more decadent comfort-food-dish, top a baked potato with this chili. Yum.

However, if you'd like to add some meat to this, brown 1 pound lean ground turkey. Add one tablespoon, or so, Worcestershire sauce to the meat. Add this meat to the chili after the addition of the water. If adding the meat, you can take out the mushrooms and bulgur, if you like.

Salmon Burgers with Farro Tabbouleh

Ok, so this isn't really a recipe, more of a meal plan, however, I discovered this combination was amazing for dinner last night. Plus, we got a new grill and I just had to try it out! Just so you know, Costco carries some really tasty frozen salmon burgers.

Mustard Marinated Chicken Breast

This is a simple, adaptable recipe that can easily be modified to have different flavor profiles by simply changing the vinegar, mustard, and herb components. If you are making this recipe as is, I highly recommend making the pepper/mushroom topping. 

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Recently, I had a wisdom tooth pulled. The perfect solution to not being able to chew was a creamy, filling soup. So, I developed this delicious and unique cream of broccoli.

Breakfast Burritos with Mexican-flavored Bean Burger

Looking for an inexpensive protein source and great way to use some of my produce, I delved into Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. There, I found a great bean burger recipe and added my own flavor combination to. But, I didn't stop at that page. Bittman also had the fantastic idea of breakfast burritos that you make, then wrap in foil, store in the freezer, and pop in the oven for breakfast on a busy morning. It's fantastic, healthy fast food you made yourself. Brilliant! These are freakishly tasty with some extra salsa or Tabasco. The bean burger makes more than enough for burritos. The breakfast burrito recipe makes 10.

Vegetarian Enchiladas

Looking for a fast and healthy dinner? These enchiladas are vegetarian, gluten-free, and absolutely delicious. They are the perfect canvas for a wide variety of toppings and salsas, so customize to your palette's desire. This recipe was adapted from the American Heart Association cookbook. Serves 8-10.

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad

Whenever I visit Tacoma, I seem to always end up at Pho 38th. Their rice noodle salad with chicken is simply amazing. It's chock full of vegetables (and flavor!) and yet seems to last and last in your stomach. So, naturally, I find myself needing to recreate this dish at home. The result was so good and so authentic, I urge you to try this for yourself. This recipe serves 1.

Lentil & Collard Chili Soup

This lentil chili was great for when I was sick recently. It has a nice amount of heat and tastes great over a baked potato. The lentils impart an amazing amount of fiber to the soup—about 19g per serving! This recipe was adapted from an American Heart Association recipe.

Green Pasta Soup

This is a great hearty vegetarian soup. This soup is probably more suited for wintertime, but I couldn't resist the gorgeous greens at the market today. The recipe calls for a Parmigiano Reggiano rind. It's quite important to the overall flavor of the soup, so, hopefully, you can find it at your market.

Pita Pizza

With the preceding pita recipe, you can make really great snack or lunch mini-pizzas. There are a ton of great topping combinations out there, feel free to experiment!