Avocado Salsa Verde

More salsa! In our world, there is never such a thing as too much salsa! At our neighborhood taqueria (Oh the joy of being in California...) they have a salsa bar, and our favorite is a spicy, tangy salsa verde. It is hot, but mellowed out by the creaminess of avocados. For taco night, we tried to whip up a batch ourselves.

Grilled Salsa

One day while I was in high school and watching Martha Stewart on TV with a friend, she opened her show with the following sentence: "The number one condiment in America isn't ketchup or mustard. It's salsa. Fresh, delicious, beautiful salsa." Her zealous use of adjectives made me laugh and anything that I liked for years was "fresh, delicious and beautiful." Martha and I may not agree on many things, like the distribution of wealth or eating animals and their secretions, but boy do we agree about salsa!

Kelp Noodle Salad

You are probably thinking right now, what are kelp noodles? When I came across a recipe for kelp noodles in a vegan cookbook, my first thought was that pieces of kelp had been sliced thin and were being used like noodles. Being a reluctant seaweed eater, but someone who insists on making seaweed a part of my diet anyway because of its insane health benefits -- more vitamins and minerals than any plant grown on land -- I did not want to eat a big bowl of sliced kelp. But when I stumbled upon a package of kelp noodles at the Asian market, I couldn't resist. They look like clear vermicelli noodles, but they are made out of only kelp! As a result, they have all the nutrients of kelp but without the starch that is the basis of most noodles. All this sounded good, but what about the taste? Delicious! Different than any other noodle, they retain their firm texture, almost crunchy like a vegetable in the mouth. But for a light summer meal, they were exactly what the doctor ordered. 

Roasted Marinara

When people talk about quintessentially American foods, they usually think about meatloaf or some canned-soup casserole or maybe a gluttonous Thanksgiving table with a giant carcass in the middle. Not my kind of America! The great USA is a melting pot, and some cultures have been here so long their traditions have become embedded in our consciousness. For us, the most American of all meals is pasta with red sauce, a green salad and some garlic bread. The fact that this also happens to be vegan is bonus points! Sometimes living in Northern California really feels like being in Italy, and growing up here, where tomatoes grow to be eight-feet tall, passion for pasta sauce run deep.