VeganMoFo 21: Colorful food!

You all might have been wondering if I was secretly using my week of blogging about kitchen items instead of food as an opportunity to eat take-out and tortilla chips. But no! I was still hard at work in the kitchen... and here's a little evidence:

This beautiful, creamy soup is the Butternut-Lemongrass soup from "Voluptuous Vegan" - it's a really wonderful recipe, which I had somehow never made before. With ginger and coconut milk and fresh lemongrass, the soup has a hint of Thai flavorings. We really loved it. One oddity: this soup looks disarmingly like a giant bowl of cheddar cheese dip. Really. You cannot stop thinking about cheddar cheese when you look at it.

I'll admit that I don't always eat my leafy greens. Especially in the summer when there are so many other beautiful and tempting ways to fill my belly. Bad Vegan! But now it's autumn and my mind turns back to greens. On the left are the "Tamarind Lentils" from Veganomicon over brown rice. Very nice and easy recipe - the lentils have a little tang from the tamarind, but are still warmly savory. And on the right, a half pound of spinach cooked down into a little pile! Sadly, despite two go-rounds in the strainer, I didn't successfully clean that spinach and it was gritty. I ate it anyway, but man, it was a bummer.

Lastly, Rainbow Salad! Life's more fun when food is beautiful. Kidney beans, carrots, yellow pepper, cuke, red cabbage, and roasted peanuts in the middle. Of course, I mix it all together before I start eating it... but still I like looking at it like this. Mmmm!