Red Lentil Soup

I'm not usually a lady who really goes in for soups, not unless I already am familiar with them or they've really got something going for them. Which is why I love living with my sister. She'll be brave and go for things I normally wouldn't try, like this lovely, homey lentil soup from The Sprouted Kitchen Cookbook. I'm usually afraid of making soups for dinner because I feel that sometimes soup isn't substantial enough on its own, but trust me: this one delivers. Plus, it's healthy! Yay!

Arugula Ravioli With Balsamic Tomato Sauce

Right now I think we all should just take a moment and tip our hats to the brilliant individual who decided that stuffing delicious pasta with delicious things and topping it off with a delicious sauce would be a good idea. Making your own ravioli is a time-consuming, delicate affair but the rewards you reap cannot be overestimated; I am of the personal opinion that homemade pasta simply tastes better, which may have something to do with the sweet personal satisfaction of having created everything from scratch.

Roasted Spring Vegetable Tart

Oh, this tart. It was going to do great things. I'm very sorry to say that despite my best intentions, this take on a spring veggie tart was very pretty to look at and assemble, not so impressive in the whole, you know, eating department. I figured, hey...we'll start out with a balsamic onion jam...layer some creamy tangy cheese in there...toss some oven roasted veggies on top and BAM! Unfortunately, it came out a little more like...meh.

But the crust was good! The recipe for that is below.

Black Pepper Tofu

Okay, guys. Little Bunny Tofu (for an explanation of this bizarre analogy, please see here) has survived at the zero hour. This tofu was pretty transcendent, largely because you could barely taste any tofu at all. All the spices and comforting warmth of the shallots and green onions got in a marimba-conga line together and just sashayed their way around the pan and into my tummy. This dish is bursting with flavor and heat and is exactly what you need on a cold, rainy, thunderstorm-y night.

Palak Daal

For no particular reason at all (all right, maybe because of my slightly insane cooking marathon) I had a sudden urge to try out a few more healthy and wholesome recipes this week. And while beige-tinted bowls of flaxseed quinoa bran--hey, it is probably a thing somewhere on the internet--leave me cold, I've found consistently that the way to go when you want wholesome, vegetarian and preferably not pasta...you gotta go Indian.

Fig, Goat Cheese and Arugula Pizza

Oh, Bon Appetit. Where would we be without each other? If someone measured the intense endorphin hit that results in finding you inside my mailbox once a month they might begin to worry for my mental health. But seriously, I do find myself going on a bit of a Bon Appetit spree as of late. Part of this is due to my recent Russell-Crowe-In-A-Beautiful-Mind-Esque revamp of my recipe cataloging system, but part of it also results from chancing across recipes like this in each issue. Fig, Goat Cheese and Arugula Pizza. How could you possibly resist?