vegetable curry

Spicy and intensely flavorful, this vegetable curry makes a tasty side dish to meat, or serve it as a main vegan dish atop cooked brown rice. If you don’t enjoy very spicy food, reduce the cayenne pepper to 1/8 teaspoon.
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paleo stuffed bell peppers

There’s something so pretty and festive about stuffed bell peppers, especially if you use different colors of peppers. This dish of meat-stuffed bell peppers can be viewed as the nutritional opposite of my previous dish of vegan stuffed peppers, but they are both delicious, and both very healthy – it all depends on your personal taste and diet preferences. These days I favor a lower-carb, higher-protein diet, so these meat-stuffed peppers work better for me than the higher-carb, lower-protein quinoa-stuffed peppers.
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cauliflower rice

Cauliflower RICE? Rest assured, I was suspicious too. When I stumbled upon “cauliflower rice” recipes in several low-carb, gluten-free and Paleo blogs, I thought to myself, this can’t be true. It’s cauliflower, after all – even if you can make it *look* like rice, there’s no way it can recreate the experience of eating rice.

I’m glad to report I was wrong! Cauliflower is magical – it can transform itself into so many textures and flavors, and as it turns out, just like mashed cauliflower is very similar to mashed potatoes, cauliflower rice is not just delicious, but also very similar in its mouthfeel and texture to white rice, especially when well-seasoned. Here, I seasoned it with olive oil, garlic, butter and Parmesan, but the options are endless – I’m thinking olive oil, garlic, paprika and cumin; or sauté an onion, then add the garlic, and the riced cauliflower with curry powder and maybe a little coconut milk.

Of course, you can also keep cauliflower rice very simple – just olive oil, garlic and salt (omit the butter and Parmesan), especially when you plan to serve it with saucy dishes such as chicken curry or no-butter chicken.
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pasta tomato basil

In the pantry: Barilla whole-grain penne pasta, olive oil, and a large can of whole peeled tomatoes. In the fridge: almost-past-its-prime-basil. The result: a delicious, fresh-tasting chunky tomato sauce that works great with short pasta.
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vegetarian empanadas

I love my baked beef emapanads, and feel justified serving them because hey, at least they’re not fried! But I was curious to see if it was possible to make baked vegetarian empanadas that taste just as good.

Of course it’s possible! These vegetarian empanadas are at least as good as beef empanadas, and two of us actually thought they were better. When you’re done making the filling, taste a little and you’ll see why – the filling is absolutely delicious. And when you envelope a savory, tasty filling in a buttery, flaky crust, how can you possibly go wrong? My next endeavor would be to make a whole-wheat version… but for now I’m very happy with these.
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spicy drumsticks

These roasted drumsticks truly are spicy, but not overwhelmingly so. I like to serve them with sautéed spinach and roasted butternut squash. The chicken and the squash can be roasted together in the same oven, which I find convenient.
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thai chicken curry

In this easy Thai chicken recipe, succulent chicken pieces are sautéed in fragrant coconut oil and flavored with a delicious, creamy, mildly spicy sauce of coconut milk, almond butter (healthier than peanut butter), garlic and ginger. Do use the full-fat coconut milk in this recipe – it imparts so much more flavor and creaminess, and coconut fat is a very healthy fat.
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