Creamy Lentil Soup With Lightly Toasted Pita Slices

Lentil soup tastes THAT much better when cooked in a clay pot. Photo by SG.

Some days I get tired of eating white rice for lunch, today was one of them. I had a pack of baked pita bread in the fridge and some leftover curried couscous from Monday, so I made an easy creamy lentil soup to keep them company. The veggie dish was taken care of by fresh lettuce leaves and cherry tomatoes. Total preparation time: less than an hour. This is my second time making this soup and it was smoother this time around and better, which I suspect had something to do with cooking it in a clay pot (or that extra teaspoon of butter I stirred in, but I'm going with the pot).

A "Summer" Lunch For Three

 

Baby Spinach Omelet (left) and Curried Couscous Pilaf. Photo by SG

My semester is finally over and I have a two month break before the new semester begins (yay!). After vegging out in front of the TV over the weekend (a good deal of that was spent watching the Asian Food Channel), I dusted off my recipe binder to make some lunch for the family. 

Apple Gets In The Good Books Of Veggies

Vegetarians have a host of animal and vegetarian-friendly iPhone apps to choose from now.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chanc/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Being an ardent Ubuntu fan, I have been deeply skeptical of proprietary software firms like Microsoft and even Apple for sometime now. I try to minimise my usage of Microsoft apps simply because I don't agree that they should be allowed to dominate the marketplace (and their software is way too overpriced for developing nations).

The Little Spider That Could

                                 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulteriorepicure/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

My biggest hurdles to becoming a vegan: chocolate and ice cream

I've been mulling going vegan after watching videos on the horrific treatment of dairy cows and chickens in egg farms. To say the videos were disturbing is a gross understatement, they were a real eye opener as all this time, I had thought that my commitment to not eating meat or seafood was actually benefitting animals and the environment. That was before I saw how these innocent creatures were kept in torturous conditions before being killed for their meat.

Vegan Moist Chocolate Pudding Cake with Orange Marmalade Sauce

How Chocolate Cake Was Meant To Be: Gooey On Top And Crumbly In The Middle. 

Photo by SG.

It poured tonight and I was all out of TV shows to watch, so I decided to tackle the chocolate pudding cake again. I used a vegan recipe from The Compassionate Cookbook (read the original recipe here). I pre-made an orange marmalade sauce to go with it yesterday, which is in the freezer. I let the cake cool for about half an hour and then placed it in the fridge for another half an hour to let the pudding sauce on the top thicken. I had a slice with a glass of cold milk--it tasted amazing, couldn't even tell that it was vegan! Am definitely trying this again, it's an easy dessert to bring to a party or potluck. Preparation and baking took me about two hours (baking about 55 minutes, because I wanted a thicker sauce).