Buckwheat Tabbouleh Wraps

Today I started a brand new full-time job! That's right, I finally get to pack lunches for myself!


Lunch Number One: an avocado with a tiny container of dressing, baby carrots, grapes, Fruit & Nut Bars, and four incredible lettuce wraps.

When Gluten Free Gidget shared her Buckwheat Tabbouleh Hummus Wraps on the This Is Why You're Thin! blog, I immediately thought of how lovely they would be as a healthy, gluten-free packed lunch. I followed her recipe but used only a scant 1/4 cup olive oil and less than half the salt -- it was spectacular! Very satisfying yet light and refreshing.

I topped the wraps with extra romaine to munch on.

Holiday Cabbage Rolls

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! There is so much to be thankful for, especially our good health and the health and well-being of those around us.

With that in mind, this year I again made my Cabbage Rolls as a healthy vegan centerpiece dish. The rolls are filled with a mixture of walnuts, brown rice, and garbanzo beans seasoned with herbs and Dijon and baked in a mixture of low-sodium veggie juice and lemon juice. They were a big hit -- even some of the meat-eaters gave them a try and liked them!

As an early Christmas present to all of you I am posting the recipe here. Use it next time you want to stay vegan and healthy at a festive feast. I'm sorry I didn't get this up before Thanksgiving, but I know there a few more opportunities coming up this season!

The Loaf is Back, Baby!

Quite a few of you have noticed that my Magical Loaf Studio has been down all summer. Good news finally! I moved my website to a new hosting service, got a little technical help (thank you, Greg), and the studio is up and running again!

For those of you who haven't used it yet, the idea is to create your very own recipe for a vegan dinner loaf by choosing from the lists of options. For example, make a yummy loaf of lentils, amaranth, and almonds ... or garbanzo beans, oats, and cashews ... or black beans, rice, and pine nuts ... or kasha, butter beans, and walnuts ... etc. etc.!

So if you're not sure what's for dinner, head on over to the Magical Loaf Studio and let your imagination run wild!

Around the World: Japan

Here it is, the final photograph from my new book! This was the Big Bento Box Photo Shoot, an epic day of cooking, set-up, and photography. I wanted to show every bento box menu I made for the Japan section of Around the World;I've been so inspired by Japanese bento culture, I couldn't leave anything out, and I also included lots of tips on how to make your own bento-style vegan lunch boxes.

Okay, let's start with the red Laptop Lunch Box: Zaru Soba (cold noodles with dipping broth) with Carrot and Daikon Salad, edamame, and persimmon.

In the pink bento box: Tofu Tamagoyaki with Potato Salad Balls, Octo-Celery (instead of the ubiquitous octodog, because vegan hot dogs won't curl, and celery is healthier anyway), Cucumber Sushi Rolls, cherry tomatoes, a Botan Rice Candy, and kiwi and watermelon stars.

In the small red bento with red apple side dish: Onigiri (rice formed into shapes by hand or with a mold), vegan chicken nuggets, Stir-Fried Arame with Carrots and Ginger (this is one of my favorite dishes from the entire book, btw - sooo good!!), Radish Rosettes, and Apple Bunnies.

Finally, in the two-tier kitty bento: Tofu Tiger on a bed of rice, Carrot-Cucumber Tulips, Broccoli Salad with Daikon Flowers, and some strawberries.

Except for the Laptop Lunch Box and the apple all these bento boxes were from I Love Obento!

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: Hawaii

Here's another picture that didn't make it into the book, but I'll show it to you here! This is my Hawaiian Luau Lunch Box: (starting far left) Tropical Fruit Salad (mixed tropical fruit with coconut cream), Maui Onion Dip with sugar snap peas, Huli-Huli Tofu (grilled tofu with a Hawaiian-style barbecue sauce, and Aloha Sweet Potatoes (roasted sweet potato and yam topped with yummy toasted coconut).

Okay, so maybe the fabric is a bit busy, but I still had a lot of fun making and setting up this lunch box! You can have fun when you make it, too, by including a paper umbrella to garnish the fruit salad or wrapping your lunch box in a plastic lei.

Speaking of lunch boxes, this is another Lunchsense, size medium. The website says that this is the most popular size for grade school kids, and if you get it in this bright construction-worker orange, I'm sure your kids will never lose it!

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: Indonesia

Indonesia -- land of tempeh! For those of you not familiar, tempeh is made by cooking and fermenting whole soybeans until they form a solid cake that can be sliced and steamed or fried; it has a nutty, mushroomy flavor and a firm texture. Nutritionally, tempeh has more bioavailable protein than tofu or plain cooked soybeans, and the fermentation process makes it easier to digest. So thank you, Indonesia, for inventing my favorite soy food and a vegan protein powerhouse!

Lunch inspired by Indonesia: (clockwise from top right) Golden Indonesian Tempeh, made with a sweet soy sauce - brown sugar caramelizing glaze and a touch of spicy chile, Indonesian Vegetable Pickles, tangerine and star fruit, and Yellow Coconut Rice. The rice is garnished with a Chile Blossom (Have I mentioned that the new book includes an entire chapter on lunch box garnishes? Indeed it does!)

The vegetable pickles include lots of shallots, a member of the onion family which might not be familiar to all of us here in the West but is used extensively in Indonesia.

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: Morocco

Oh, I can't look at this picture without wanting to make and eat this all again! This is the menu for Morocco: Moroccan Tagine, Orange Couscous, tangerines (named after the city of Tangier, in Morocco!), and Cinnamon-Sugar Almonds.

Tagine is a thick Moroccan stew made with chickpeas, vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, butternut squash, and peppers), raisins and spices, served on a fluffy bed of couscous. Couscous looks like a grain but is actually a tiny semolina pasta; it is a staple food in the cultural area of North Africa known as the Maghreb (west), which includes Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia. So there you go -- your geography lesson for the day!

The toasty, sugared almonds are actually even better using whole blanched almonds (almonds without their skins), but I wasn't able to locate any locally for the photo shoot.

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: Italy Again

Here's another "Around the World" menu inspired by the cuisine of Italy: Grilled Vegetable Stromboli, Balsamic Strawberries, and a green salad with Italian dressing.

Stromboli is usually made by rolling meats and cheeses up into an Italian bread dough before it's baked. After the loaf is cooked and cooled it's cut into slices and served. You can easily make stromboli with vegan meats and cheeses, but I decided to switch things up and use an assortment of grilled vegetables and a layer of roasted garlic instead.

This lunch was photographed in a Lunchsense lunch box. The owner was kind enough to send me a Lunchsense to photograph for my book, and everyone who saw it was impressed. The containers have tight lids and fit together perfectly along with an ice pack and beverage container in the lunch box, which has a nice shoulder strap and also folds out to make a place mat for your meal. It's a great design, especially if your kids are old enough not to lose track of their containers and lids.

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: The Southwest

This lunch showcases some of the traditional foods of the southwestern region of the United States, which includes Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado: Corncob Cornbread, Anasazi Beans with roasted chiles, Prickly Pear Pudding, Fried Nopales, and a Baby Squash Medley topped with sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Just for fun I used scissors to cut corn tortillas into "cornhusk" shapes and wrapped them around the cornbread to resemble fresh ears of corn. The tortilla strips are used for scooping up bites of beans and nopales at lunch time.

One cactus is in this lunch, served two ways: First, nopales are the flat, green pads of the prickly pear cactus. When cooked they taste something like lemony green beans, with a slippery quality like okra. They're very popular at the Hispanic grocery store in my town, where I usually have to stand in line to get to them, in bags already deprickled and diced. (I cut a whole pad into a little garnish, too.) Next, the red fruit of the prickly pear cactus is made into a sweet syrup that flavors the nondairy pudding for dessert.

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

Around the World: Nebraska

My menu for Nebraska features Chik'n Pot Pies filled with chicken-style seitan, mixed vegetables, and creamy gravy. Why Nebraska, you ask? Because the chicken pot pie was the first mass-marketed frozen pot pie, developed in 1951 by Swanson company in Omaha, Nebraska! So there!

This lunch also includes Sticks-and-Stones Salad (carrot and celery sticks and water chestnut "stones"), and Apples with Caramel Dip. The caramel dip is amazingly quick and easy to make; I paired it with tart Granny Smith apples but it's also wonderful with bananas.

This meal was photographed, by the way, in a Mr. Bentostyle lunch jar with separate containers that stack together inside an insulated outer shell. These are spendy but they're a nifty lunch container for those who want individual servings of different foods to all stay hot or cold together and stay upright like a thermos.

Link: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.