Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Summer's Here and the Time is Ripe for Berries!

During our long, dreary Pacific Northwest winters, I often find myself dreaming of summer. Long, warm sunny days, and an explosion of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries in my garden. If I could choose my own food groups, berries would be my favorite, followed by coconut (and anything made with coconut), and then a toss-up between Thai and Indian curries.

So now, that summer is here, and the strawberries are peaking and the blueberries are just beginning to ripen, I decided to make this lovely Almond Strawberry Spinach Salad from the book, ExtraVeganza by Laura Matthias. With sliced pears and a sassy and sweet poppyseed dressing, it's a sublime summertime salad. I tweaked the recipe just a bit by also adding in some succulent blueberries.



For the main course, I made Pizza Bombay from the book, Vegan Planet, a tried and true collection of delightful vegan recipes. I can always pick up this book and find something new and wonderful that I haven't made before.

With spinach, lentils, onions, a hint of sugar, and just the right amount of yellow curry, sweet and spicy flavors blend together to create a perfect balance. This pizza is so filling, I was content to eat just one slice.



With all those berries, I had to make something wonderful for dessert! So using ingredients from both my first and second favorite food groups, I created a simple but delicious dairy-free ice cream sundae. It's layered with mounds of Purely Decadent Coconut Milk ice cream (coconut flavor), fresh blueberries, and a syrupy-sweet strawberry sauce.

5 comments:

caroline said...

I'm salivating, because everything looks so delicious! What did you top that sundae with? Is it Soyatoo?

Vegiegail said...

Thanks for asking, Caroline. Actually, I didn't have any Soyatoo, whipped topping, so I squeezed some of the ice cream through a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip to make it look like whipped cream. I sometimes make ice cream "frosting" for cupcakes like that, too.

vegangal said...

Those photos are making me sooooooo hungry right now!

rachel said...

I've been meaning to get my hands on a copy of that book, ExtraVeganza, and now I'm really motivated to buy it! The pizza looks delicious and sounds really simple. I'm going to try it. As for Purely Decadent Coconut Milk ice cream, it just doesn't get any better than that! It's supposed to be hot this weekend, so I'm making sundaes for sure!

Suzi said...

Oh, yummy. What an awesome food day! The salad looks scrumptious. I have ExtraVeganza, so I'll definately be looking up that recipe tomorrow!