Indian Spiced Chickpea Soup

Ingredients
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cans chickpeas, drained
• 1 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 (14-ounce) can fire roasted tomatoes
• Warm pita, any flavor or variety, toasted

Directions
Heat a medium pot with extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onions, cook 2 to 3 minutes. Grind the chickpeas and onion and garlic in food processor. Place mix to pot and cook 5 minutes. Season the chickpeas with cumin, cardamom, turmeric, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Stir in stock, then tomatoes. Simmer soup 5 to 10
minutes to combine flavors. Serve with warm pita for dipping.

Vegan Breakfast Sausages/Maple Sausages

These are super easy to make and taste way better that Tofurky Sausages. The texture is so similar to sausage it is scary.! I went crazy with the spicing: fennel, rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, oregano, parsley (and no red pepper flakes). Feel free to throw in whatever you want. I made 6 sausages instead of 4.

INGREDIENTS

- 1/2 cup pinto beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 cup cold vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce (I use Tamari Sauce)
- 2 cloves garlic, grated or very finely minced
- 1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seed, crushed
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- Several dashes fresh black pepper

METHOD
1. Before mixing your ingredients, get your steaming apparatus ready, bring water to a full boil. The rest of the recipe comes together very quickly. - I use my rice cooker as my steamer.
2. Have ready 6 sheets of tin foil. In a large bowl, mash the pinto beans until no whole ones are left. Throw all the other ingredients together in the order listed and mix with a fork. Divide dough into 6 even parts. Place one part of dough into tin foil and mold into about a 5 inch log. Wrap dough in tin foil, like a tootsie roll. Don’t worry too much about shaping it, it will snap into shape while it’s steaming because this recipe is awesome.
3. Place wrapped sausages in steamer and steam for 40 minutes. (Steam for 20 minutes for 25 small sausages.)
4. OPTIONAL: Place sausages in a frying pan with 2 tbsp of water and 1/4 cup maple syrup. Bring to bubbling and simmer until syrup thickens. Serve.

- To make maple sausage increase maple syrup by replacing 1/4 of the water with maple syrup. Also, add 1/2 tsp maple extract. Makes six large sausages or 25 small.

CREDIT GOES TO: http://vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/03/breakfast-sausages.html

Vegan Caesar Salad

Thanks to Maple Spice's last blog entry, I now have a Vegan Caesar Salad recipe. Its yummy. The weights and measurements are a bit different than here in the USA, so I put the approximate measurements I used.

Serves 2:

150g Romaine lettuce, torn roughly (about half a head of Romaine or 6-8 leaves)

60g hummus (1/2 cup - 2/3 cup)

1 tsp dijon

1/2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

40g garlic and herb croutons - homemade is lovely (we just added what we wanted)

freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Follow Your Heart Mozzarella

Place the lettuce and croutons into a large bowl. In another bowl stir together the hummus and mustard, slowly stir in the oil then add the Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. Stir well. Pour this over the leaf and toss well (use your hands) Dish it up with a good grating of Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Cheeze on top.

CREDIT GOES TO: http://www.maplespice.com/2010/07/vegan-caesar-salad.html