Robin Robertson

I had originally planned to make dessert spring rolls, filling softened rice paper wrappers with strips of ripe mango, sweetened cellophane noodles, and mint leaves.  But then, while rummaging in my pantry for the rice paper and noodles, I found some colored soy paper sushi wrappers (soy wrappers) that I had leftover from the last time I made sushi.

I also had some extra cooked jasmine rice on hand, so it seemed like the universe was telling me to make sushi instead of spring rolls.  Who was I to argue?  I decided to use only the papers colored with sesame and turmeric (leaving the ones colored with spinach and paprika for savory fillings).

In an effort to duplicate the flavors of the sensational Thai dessert, Mango Sticky Rice, I flavored the rice with coconut milk powder and confectioner’s sugar to sweeten it a bit, and cut strips of mango, along with a few cherries, just for an accent color.

Here’s a plate of maki — it’s kind of creepy how much the cherries look like pieces of tuna, isn’t it?

I also made several nigiri sushi, topped with pieces of mango and cherry:

This makes a really fun dessert, especially after an Asian meal.  I served them with a coconut yogurt sauce. You really do need the soy wrappers though — dessert is no place for nori!

Next time, I’ll definitely make dessert spring rolls — if dessert sushi was this good, I can only imagine how great dessert spring rolls will be.  Stay tuned.

Corn and tomatoes are the quintessential summer vegetables.  These days, it’s possible to get fair produce of many kinds almost all year round,  but not so when it comes to these two summer favorites.  So we like to feast on them when they’re in season.

We usually go to at least two different farm stands for our produce. This weekend we got several different types of tomatoes — not just for the beautiful colors, but also because we wanted to do a taste test to compare the different varieties.  Margaret was given the taste of choosing which tomatoes would go into the salad and I think she did an excellent job.

Here’s the tomato salad at serving time, sprinkled with salad and fresh basil and drizzled with just a bit of olive oil.  Pure heaven.  All the tomatoes were quite good.  We expected to like the red one the best, but it turned out the blackish-maroon one had the most flavor!

Now about the corn:  we bought two kinds of corn — one from each of the farm stands we frequent:  one group was grown in Virginia and the other group was grown in Pennsylvania.   Being from Pennsylvania originally, I always thought the best corn came from there so it didn’t surprise me that the Pennsylvania corn was far superior in both flavor and size.  What did surprise me was how drastically different they were.  The ears of Virginia corn (on the right) were smaller in size and almost tasteless.  The larger ears of Pennsylvania corn were so sweet and delicious they didn’t need anything on them.  No salt. No Earth Balance.  Nothing.  In fact, the Pennsylvania corn was so good, we went out the next day and bought some more! Sorry Virginia, Pennsylvania corn has you beat by a mile.  No contest.

So how about you?  Where do you get really, really good corn?

It’s almost time for One-Dish Vegan to make its appearance.  The official due date is September 10, but you can pre-order now on Amazon and there’s always a chance it will be available early!

Awhile back I posted a few photos taken by recipe testers during the testing phase of this book.  I thought this might be a good time to share a few more snaps of my favorites.  (The following photos were taken by VeganAide — except for the Pad Thai Pie — I took that one!)

This is a slice of Banh Mizza — the crazy-good banh mi inspired pizza. I think this pizza should be its own food group!

Here is the Risotto Primavera, loaded with colorful vegetables, including edamame:

And this is the Chickpea Noodle Soup, so rich and delicious — definitely a hearty meal in a bowl:

Finally, another one of my personal favorite, Pad Thai Pie:

I love cooking “one-dish” meals and so it was especially fun for me to work in this book.  I hope you love it!

I called this post “Christmas in July” for two reasons.  One is that I’m finally getting around to showing you the “sweet from savory” ice creams I made last winter using leftover cranberry sauce, apple sauce, and mashed sweet potato casserole.  By blending some of each of these sides dishes with frozen bananas, I made some great tasting frozen treats.  I didn’t use a recipe — just combine about 1/2 cup of cranberry sauce with several chunks of frozen bananas in the food processor, and it made a delicious (and very PINK!) cranberry ice cream.  I did the same with some leftover applesauce, adding some extra cinnamon on top.  It was very refreshing. The sweet potato version was fabulous, too.  I think it would be especially good with some warm pecan sauce on top, don’t you?

The other way this post is Christmas in July is because of the huge box of food items I received from Veestro, a new company that makes prepared vegan meals and ships them to your door.  Of the nine items sampled, I liked the Kale and Beet Salad the best. (The dressing was amazing!)

The lentil soup was very good, as were the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the noodles with peanut sauce.  The flavor of the cheesecake was good, but the crust was soggy — maybe not the best choice for freezing and transporting?  All in all, the flavors were great, although we found the portions of many of the offerings to be a little small, especially for the price.

It also feels like Christmas because I’ve completed the edits on two of my upcoming projects: MORE Quick-Fix Vegan and the improved and updated Vegan Planet: Revised Edition.  At this moment, I’m only working on one new book project (more on that to come).   So with only one project (instead of three) on my desk, there may be some summer out there left for me to enjoy yet!

For now, I’ll leave you with a little Christmas in July gift…a teaser photo from my current book project (TBA) — it’s especially appropriate for this hot summer weather: Watermelon Paletas (photo by VeganAide):

My birthday was yesterday and it was a big one.  Milestone birthdays can be difficult, especially ones that start to sound “old.”  Usually Jon and I just celebrate our birthdays by taking each other out for a nice dinner and maybe a day-trip to somewhere in the area.  On a previous birthday, we drove to Cyrus McCormick’s farm (you remember learning about him in grade school, right?). For Jon’s birthday last year, I took him to Paris — Virginia, that is.

This year, my birthday was the best ever:  Jon threw me a surprise party over the weekend!  I seriously can’t believe he pulled it off right under my nose — I must be getting old! Somehow, he managed to convince a dozen of my favorite people to journey out to rural Virginia.  At first he told me that two of our friends were visiting this weekend, then the day before the party he said there “may” be a few “extra” people for dinner.

Late Saturday afternoon, our house began to fill with friends (some of whom I haven’t seen in years).  It was fabulous.  I’ve never been so surprised, or touched, in my life.  Jon even managed to coordinate the menu — he ordered a coconut cake (my favorite) from Sticky Fingers (shown above) and one of our DC friends picked it up on her way to the party.  Several people offered to bring food, so there was lots of delicious goodies to enjoy, from homemade vegan sushi, to a gorgeous bowl of fresh fruit with mint.

Unknowingly, I had made the main dish for my own party!  On Friday Jon told me to “make extra” for our Saturday dinner guests.  Clever boy!  I also ended up making a “second” birthday cake — actually it was a tester cake for an upcoming book project, and I had planned to serve it as dessert (not knowing there was a Sticky Fingers cake in my future!).  So guests had a choice of coconut or chocolate cake — most of us chose to have a slice of both! (We washed it down with a birthday toast of Dom Perignon — a gift from a special friend.)

A great time was had by all: fabulous company, great food, gorgeous weather, and Margaret, the original party animal, was in the midst of it all.  (The other cats were hiding!)

As an interesting side note: I guess it’s no secret I’m a “food person” — here are some of the fabulous food-related gifts I received this year:

Thanks to everyone who came to my party (you know who you are!) and thanks also to everyone who send me special birthday messages, cards, e-mails, and Facebook greetings.  Your good wishes, love, and friendship mean the world to me!