Gluten-Free Recipes

These recipes have gluten-free options or can be made gluten-free if all ingredients are gluten-free. Always check labels carefully and when in doubt contact the manufacturer.

New Orleans’ Style White Beans

December 28, 2010
New Orleans' Style White Beans

Come on, tell me you’re tired of rich holiday food and are ready to settle down to some healthy–even homely–fare.  I know I am.  I never thought there could be such a thing as too much dessert, but after stuffing myself on pumpkin cheesecake, cherry-chocolate mousse pie, and the downright obscene rum- and margarine-soaked bread [...]

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Curried Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

December 2, 2010
Curried Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

When daytime temperatures dip into the 40′s, I want soup.  Every day. For every meal.  Suddenly, eating a lunchtime salad has all the appeal of chewing ice, so at the beginning of each week, I make a big pot of vegetable-filled soup and portion it out into glass containers to be reheated for lunches throughout [...]

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Thanksgiving Meatless Loaf

November 17, 2010
Thanksgiving Meatless Loaf

This is not your mama’s meatloaf.  This is not even your mama’s seitan loaf, tofu turkey, or nut roast.  It doesn’t taste like meat.  It doesn’t even pretend to have the texture of meat. But if you like savory, Thanksgiving flavors so concentrated that you can just skip the gravy and dressing, you will want [...]

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Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Mushroom Soup

November 11, 2010
Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Mushroom Soup

Brussels sprouts, rice, and perhaps some white beans.  I was planning a soup for dinner, but there seemed to be something missing.  Carrots?  No.  Potatoes?  No, the rice would provide enough starch.  I needed something to give the broth depth and flavor.  I was strolling through my back yard and considering my options when I [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Lentil and Vegetable Stew

October 28, 2010
Ridiculously Easy Lentil and Vegetable Stew

I’d hoped to be sharing a Halloween recipe with you, but life has been getting in the way of cooking lately.  The other night I went into the kitchen to make a last-minute dinner of my Dirty Little Secret Soup but wound up making so many changes that it took on an entirely new character.  [...]

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Pumpkin, Squash, or Cushaw Bake

October 22, 2010
Pumpkin or Cushaw Bake

One Sunday a month throughout my childhood, my family would attend Family Night Supper at our church.  It was a time of community, of fellowship…and of competition.  Because Family Night Supper was a potluck dinner, the ladies of the church showed off their cooking skills by bringing their signature dishes–their congealed chicken salads, artichoke dips, [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Vegan Buttermilk Salad Dressing

October 5, 2010
Ridiculously Easy Vegan Buttermilk Salad Dressing

The question I get asked most by people who are just beginning to follow an oil-free diet is “If you don’t use oil, what do you put on your salad?”  Frankly, getting used to salads without olive oil can be difficult, though I do believe you can train your taste buds to enjoy salads without [...]

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Bok Choy and Baked Tofu Stir-Fry in Ginger-Citrus Sauce

September 29, 2010
Bok Choy and Tofu Stir-Fry with Ginger-Citrus Sauce

I love baby bok choy.  With its crisp, light green stalk and its leafy dark green top, it’s almost like two vegetables.  The leafy parts cook in seconds, so I always separate them from the bottom halves as I slice them and toss them in at the end of cooking to retain their bright green [...]

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Asparagus and Chickpea Casserole

September 21, 2010
Asparagus and Chickpea Casserole

Everything I read lately, from blogs to magazine articles, proclaims that summer is almost over and fall is in the air.  Really?  Where?  Here in Mississippi, daytime temps are still in the mid-90′s and the only thing in the air is dust.  Nevertheless, maybe because I’m wishing for fall or maybe because I’m just getting [...]

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Sea-sational Chickpea Salad

September 8, 2010
Sea-sational Chickpea Salad

Eaten any good algae lately?  Chances are you have, even if you didn’t know it.  Algae, or sea vegetables, are used as stabilizers or thickeners in everything from mayo to ice cream, and even if you avoid processed foods, you’ve probably enjoyed sushi wrapped up in nori or miso soup flavored with wakame.  But if [...]

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Curried Eggplant, Lentil, and Quinoa Burgers with Onion-Pepper Relish

September 2, 2010
Curried Eggplant, Lentil, and Quinoa Burgers with Onion-Pepper Relish

Leftovers give you two separate good feelings. When you first put them away, you feel really intelligent–”I’m saving food!” And then, after a month, when hair is growing out of them and you throw them away you feel…really intelligent–”I’m saving my life!” –George Carlin I often think of eggplants like George Carlin’s leftovers.  When you [...]

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Basic Low-Fat Coleslaw

August 16, 2010
Basic Low-Fat Coleslaw

There’s been a surprising development in the V family kitchen.  My daughter E has actually been asking for coleslaw, a food she used to have to be bribed to eat.  This phenomenon began after I stopped buying bagged coleslaw and starting using fresh heads of cabbage.  I could say that E likes the fresher taste [...]

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Cucumber Hummus

August 12, 2010
Cucumber Hummus Recipe

Monday afternoon I got back from vacation with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, four camera cards full of photos, and an injured hand and rib.  The short story on the injuries is that after tiptoeing around for a week on Maine’s rocky shorelines and mountainsides, terrified I’d either break an ankle or wind up [...]

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Fresh Chile Sauce

July 30, 2010
Fresh Chile Salsa

I’ve been getting ready for a much-needed vacation, cleaning out both the refrigerator and the garden.  Our tomatoes have about run their course, but the jalapeno and New Mexico chile peppers are thriving.  In fact, they’re doing so well that we can’t keep up; by the time we get around to eating them, they’re already [...]

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Grilled Tofu with Blueberry-Peach Salsa

July 24, 2010
Grilled Tofu with Blueberry-Peach Salsa

If my daughter had her way, I’d be using our haul from the U-Pick farm to bake blueberry-infused treats like Blueberry-Banana Bread, Blueberry-Oat Bars, and Berries and Spice Muffins every single day.  Unfortunately for her, blueberry season coincides with the time of year that I am least interested in turning on the oven, and even [...]

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Roasted Eggplant Pesto

June 30, 2010
Roasted Eggplant Pesto

This week on the FatFreeVegan Facebook page, I’ve been offering my suggestions for Fourth of July dishes–salads that transport well, veggie burgers you can make ahead and heat on the grill, etc.  You can add a pasta salad tossed with this aromatic pesto to the list of foods you can bring and that everyone–vegan and [...]

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Banana-Cashew Balls

June 4, 2010
Banana-Cashew Balls

Summer’s here, and my daughter is spending large parts of her days swimming instead of sitting in a classroom.  E’s on two swim teams, one that practices first thing in the morning and another that practices late in the afternoon.  During the middle of the day, she’s constantly in the kitchen trying to replace the [...]

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Black Bean and Summer Squash Enchiladas

May 27, 2010
Black Bean and Summer Squash Enchiladas

My husband had been asking for enchiladas for a couple of weeks, and there was always some reason I couldn’t grant his request.  Either I didn’t have all the ingredients or I had other ingredients with more pressing expiration dates.  D doesn’t often make dinner requests, so I hated having to put off his enchilada [...]

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Roasted Asparagus Soup

May 11, 2010
Roasted Asparagus Soup

My Vita-Mix* is making me a lazy cook.  When I have extra produce that I need to use up, do I scour the internet (aka “my favorite cookbook”) for a novel way to cook it?  No, I just toss it into my turbo-charged blender and process it until it’s as creamy as, well, cream, as [...]

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Chinese Vegetarian Chicken with Simple Five-Spice Sauce

May 4, 2010
Chinese Vegetarian Chicken

Sometimes I’m a bit slow.  I decide to make something and then, for no clear reason, it takes me days, weeks, or months to get around to actually cooking it.  This time, it’s been close to three years since I first tasted this dish, blogged about it, and even bought the main ingredient for it.  [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Curried Chickpeas and Quinoa

April 27, 2010
Ridiculously Easy Curried Chickpeas and Quinoa

Chickpeas again!  I apologize to any chickpea haters for following one chickpea recipe with another, but in my opinion, there are few foods in the vegan diet as versatile as the chickpea.  Think about it: You can smash them, roast them, stew them, and make endless varieties of salad with them; they’re used in cuisines [...]

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Thai-Inspired Chickpea Salad

April 18, 2010
Thai-Inspired Chickpea Salad

A couple of days ago, I set up a little game.  I gave you 5 ingredients (tamarind concentrate, green onions, red bell pepper, and jalapeno pepper) and asked you to identify which one of my old recipes I was using as the basis for a new recipe. The trick: The old recipe used only 4 [...]

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Collards Stuffed with Red Beans and Rice

April 1, 2010
Collards Stuffed with Red Beans and Rice

I have a real admiration for collards and other greens because they are survivors. Tomatoes, eggplants, and other warm-weather vegetables are delicious, of course, but they have it easy, basking in the sun all day and not being expected to withstand repeated freezes. And while Mississippi isn’t exactly known for its cold weather, this year, [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Southern Succotash Stew

March 22, 2010
Ridiculously Easy Southern Succotash Stew

From a nutrition standpoint, I’ve never felt bad about using frozen vegetables; I’ve always believed (and new studies back me up) that vegetables that are frozen just after harvest actually retain more nutrients than fresh vegetables that have been shipped long distances. In the winter months, when the only fresh, local produce I can get [...]

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Polenta with Lemony Asparagus and Chickpeas

March 5, 2010
Polenta with Lemony Asparagus and Chickpeas

I love this time of year, when I can go to the grocery store and buy as much asparagus as I want without taking out a second mortgage on my house. But the problem with asparagus, from a food blogger’s standpoint, is that it’s a vegetable that tastes best when prepared simply. Its delicate flavor [...]

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Tortilla Soup with Pinto Beans

February 25, 2010
Tortilla Soup with Pinto Beans

I’m coming up for air. I’ve spent the past couple of days working on the redesign of Fatfree Vegan Recipes, the website that spawned this blog. Although the really tricky stuff like coding and css and, for all I know, nuclear particle acceleration was done by a very talented web designer at E. Webscapes, I’ve [...]

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Saintly Black and Gold Salsa

February 7, 2010
Saintly Black and Gold Salsa

I don’t usually write about the Superbowl. Heck, I wouldn’t usually even know it’s going on, but this year it is a Very Big Deal around here. After 43 years, the Saints have made it into their first Superbowl, so there’s about 43 years worth of celebrating to do, and if there’s one thing New [...]

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Microwave Baked Apples Two Ways

January 27, 2010
Microwave Baked Apple

In the winter, I suddenly find all of my favorite fruit desserts—smoothies, sorbets, frozen yogurts—completely unappealing; just the thought makes my teeth hurt and makes me want to curl up in a blanket. So besides just eating fruit as nature intended, well-rinsed and with a napkin to catch all the juices, I rely on a [...]

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Tropical Black Bean and Collard Green Soup

January 20, 2010
Tropical Black Bean and Collard Green Soup

One of my favorite ways to cook collard greens—and the best way to get my daughter to eat them—is to simmer them in soup. There’s something magical about adding a huge pile of greens to a pot, an amount so big that the lid can barely be squeezed shut, and then coming back a few [...]

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Quinoa with Roasted Radishes and Pearl Onions

January 11, 2010
Quinoa with Roasted Radishes and Pearl Onions

Sometimes I get carried away with combining ingredients when I should just keep it simple. After reading in Saveur about roasting radishes, I ran right out and bought some. And then I thought, why not roast some pearl onions and garlic along with them? If I’d stopped right there, I probably would have been more [...]

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Black-eyed Pea Masala

January 4, 2010
Black-eyed Pea Masala

Welcome to 2010! It’s a new decade as well as a new year, and perhaps because of that, more people than usual are making resolutions to eat healthier. From PCRM’s 21-Day Vegan Kickstart to my own Eat-2-Live Group’s “Happy New You Challenge,” lots of us are pledging to stick to a healthy lifestyle. Yes, you [...]

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Skinny Figgy Bars

December 20, 2009
Skinny Figgy Bars

I hope you enjoy this “rerun” of a recipe I associate closely with Christmas. It’s my low-fat, veganized interpretation of the fig-filled cookies my husband’s grandmother always made for Christmas. D looked forward to those cookies every year, and once he married a vegan, his grandmother often made a special egg-free batch just for us. [...]

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New World Wassail: A Drink to Your Health

December 14, 2009
New World Wassail

Most of the holiday food traditions in my family seem to involve oranges. October through January is citrus season in southeastern Louisiana, or at least in my parents’ garden, so both Thanksgiving and Christmas are celebrated with plenty of citrusy dishes like ambrosia, cranberry relish (with raw orange peel included), lemon pies, and wassail. During [...]

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Pasta with Chard and Chickpeas

December 7, 2009
Pasta with Chard and Chickpeas

When I returned from my cruise, one of the first things my daughter said to me was, “I’m really glad you’re home, but I just wish you cooked as well as Dad!” Gee, thanks a lot. And huh??? So I asked exactly what her dad had cooked while I was gone. “Mac and Cheeze, spaghetti, [...]

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Pumpkin Pie Bites

November 9, 2009
Pumpkin Pie Bites

My daughter and I go kind of pumpkin crazy this time of year. It starts when we see the first small pie pumpkins in the grocery store and she convinces me that we just have to have one. She takes it home, decorates it with permanent markers, and then refuses to let me cook her [...]

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Stir-fried Tofu and Vegetables with Miso Sauce

November 2, 2009
Stir-fried Tofu and Vegetables with Miso Sauce

I don’t post a lot of stir-fry recipes because, as I’ve mentioned before, I tend to make them by feel, adding whatever amounts of vegetables and sauce feel right. Since I usually use the same basic ingredients, most of my stir-fries taste about the same. But not this one. Adding a miso-based sauce to my [...]

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Lemony Quinoa with Butternut Squash

October 19, 2009
Lemony Quinoa with Butternut Squash

At the farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago, I picked up two butternut squash that were each about the length of my hand. Since I love roasting butternut with a touch of lemon, I was considering cooking them in that tried and true (but unimaginative) manner when I got the idea to roast one [...]

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Spiced Rice and Lentil Squares

October 13, 2009
Spiced Rice and Lentil Squares

(A huge thank you to all of you who have donated to Farm Sanctuary so far. We’re almost 3/4 of the way to our goal!) Unlike a lot of people who love to cook, I don’t tend to pick up cookbooks and read them like novels. The majority of the cookbooks on my shelves are [...]

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Sweet Potato, Okra, and Chickpea Gumbo

September 29, 2009
Sweet Potato, Okra, and Chickpea Gumbo

With okra, as with most things in life, size does matter. When you’re talking okra pods, smaller is better—tender and tasty. Let them grow too big and they become tough and woody. However, when it comes to the plants themselves, bigger is definitely better. After a summer of more garden failures than I care to [...]

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Roasted Beet-Tofu Burgers

September 21, 2009
Roasted Beet-Tofu Burgers

High Noon Café, the only vegetarian restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi, where I live, serves the most unusual veggie burgers, bright red with beets and soft in texture from the tofu. The first time my husband recommended I try one, I was afraid to order it, but once his burger came, I couldn’t resist sampling it. [...]

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Chipotle Barbecued Tofu

September 14, 2009
Chipotle Barbecued Tofu

I love barbecue, but I have to admit that I don’t always take the time to make my own sauce. The bottled stuff is so quick and easy, though I have yet to find a brand that I really like. I may stop using bottled barbecue sauce completely, however, after concocting this zesty new recipe. [...]

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Creamy Zucchini and Basil Soup

September 10, 2009
Creamy Zucchini and Basil Soup

While I personally didn’t manage to coax a single squash out of my insect-infested garden this summer, some of you are lucky enough to be reaping in piles of the stuff. So the zucchini part of this recipe is for you. The basil part of it is for me: next to okra, it’s the most [...]

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Almost Instant Frozen Fruit Yogurt

September 1, 2009
Almost Instant Frozen Fruit Yogurt

It’s not often I get to have dessert for breakfast and consider it a healthy meal, but that’s exactly what I did yesterday. A sudden craving for something frozen and sweet got me thinking: Why are some foods considered breakfast and others dessert? What’s the difference, really, between muffins and cupcakes, pancakes and dessert crepes, [...]

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Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes

August 14, 2009
Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes

Summer is the season when I feel the most Southern. Delicacies that I can find only at farm stands and farmers’ markets a few months out of the year–juicy peaches, ripe tomatoes, tender summer squash, sweet watermelon, and fresh lima beans and field peas–bring back memories of the “vegetable meals” my mother made when I [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Roasted Yellow Squash and Onions

August 10, 2009
Ridiculously Easy Roasted Yellow Squash and Onions

When I was growing up, my mother probably made some variant of this dish and I probably ate it, dutifully and without really tasting it. That all changed a couple of years ago when I sat down to eat the Southern-style meal my mom prepared during one of my brief visits. I took the first [...]

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Korean-Style Cucumber and Edamame Salad

July 30, 2009
Korean-Style Cucumber and Edamame Salad

This summer’s weird, split-personality weather—first hot and dry and now hot and rainy—has wreaked havoc on most of the plants in my garden. The high heat in early summer kept my tomato plants from setting many fruits, and then when the few tomatoes that had formed were beginning to ripen, the sudden rain caused them [...]

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Blueberry Vinaigrette

July 26, 2009
Blueberry Vinaigrette

I try to eat a big salad every day for lunch, and though I don’t always succeed, I feel much better on those days that I do. As you can imagine, eating the same thing every day could get boring; for me, the key to keeping it exciting is not so much in changing the [...]

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Balsamic-Glazed Chickpeas and Mustard Greens

July 21, 2009
Balsamic-Glazed Chickpeas and Mustard Greens

If necessity is the mother of invention, hunger is the mother of new recipes. Well, hunger, laziness, and a sadly depleted refrigerator. On a recent Sunday, I was out of everything I would normally eat for lunch–no lettuce, no spinach, no cabbage, nothing fresh and green and salad-worthy. I was also sadly lacking the desire [...]

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Raw Corn and Black Bean Salad with Avocado

July 17, 2009
Raw Corn and Black Bean Salad with Avocado

Ever had corn so fresh that you were tempted to take a bite out of it, raw, and see what it tasted like? Recently I brought home some fresh, organically-grown corn and decided to do just that. I took a little nibble and it tasted good, a little starchier than I expected, but sweet and [...]

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Asparagus Pesto Pasta Salad

July 12, 2009
Asparagus Pesto Pasta Salad

I hope you enjoy this update of an old favorite, first posted in June of 2006. I’ve improved the recipe and added nutritional information and new photos. I had to make a dish to take to a potluck yesterday, and when I went to the pantry to assemble the ingredients for the pasta salad I’d [...]

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