• Bag of Mesclun Greens
• Beet Greens
• Napa Cabbage
• Sweet Salad Turnips
• Garlic Scapes
• Scallions
• Zucchini
• Easter Egg Radishes
• Sage
• Potatoes

Tonight is the first of many meals using these amazing organic and local ingredients. Enjoy- I know we did!

Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta with Zucchini

Yields 4 servings

Takes about 30 minutes total to make

Ingredients:

• Garlic Scape Pesto
  • 1 cup raw walnut pieces
  • 1 bunch of garlic scapes (about 1 to 3/4 cup), chopped
  • 4 cups basil leaves
  • 2/3 cup olive oil
  • 1t salt
  • 1T sesame seeds
  • 2T nutritional yeast

Place the walnuts and garlic scapes in the bowl of a food processor and process until small crumble. Add in the basil leaves, turn the processor on low and slowly stream in the olive oil through the feed tube. Add in the salt, sesame seeds and nutritional yeast; process to combine.

• Sauteed Zucchini
  • 2 medium zucchini, sliced into half moons
  • Cooking Spray
  • 1/2t salt
  • 1/4t black pepper
  • 1/2t garlic powder
  • 1t nutritional yeast

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Spray with cooking spray and toss in the zucchini and saute for 3-4 minutes just until they start to lightly brown.  Stir in the salt, pepper, garlic powder and nutritional yeast; cook for 2 more minutes.

• 4 servings of pasta of your choice

In a large bowl toss the pasta, zucchini and 1/4 to 1/3 of the pesto together.  Serve warm, room temp or cold!

The pesto makes a lot more than you need for this dish so place any extra in a jar top with a layer of olive oil and seal tightly.  Store in the freezer until you need it again.  To defrost move from the freezer to the fridge 8 hours before using.

For dessert we shared one of these wonderful vegan, raw, gluten free tarts from Hail Merry.

It was one of the best desserts I have ever tried and I am looking forward to picking up the other 3 flavors over the next month.  It was so rich and the perfect balance of creamy chocolate, cookie crust and almond butter center- to die for.

Amy’s Kitchen provided me with the following goodies to review for this giveaway:

• Amy’s Gluten Free/Dairy Free Roasted Veg Pizza
• Amy’s Gluten Free/Dairy Free Chocolate Cake

One of the great things about Amy’s products is that they are great when you are in a pinch and need to have food for entertaining.  I ended up bringing both the pizza and the chocolate cake with us to my Grandma’s when we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving.  The pizza was one of the personal sized ones and we baked it, cut it up and served it as an appetizer.  It was a great hit! The flavor was wonderful.

We enjoyed the cake for dessert; we sprinkled the top with a little powdered sugar and served.  I really loved it and wish we had thought to serve it was raspberries or strawberries because the combination of the fudgey cake and sweet-tart fruit would have been so delicious.

My cake fell apart a bit oops!

Amy's personal sized pizza's are also great for a light lunch or dinner. The Hubz and I split the second pizza for lunch one day with a simple salad.

For the giveaway the winner will be provided with  how three Free Product Coupons — good for any Amy’s item, including all frozen items (retail value = $30), plus a nice Amy’s canvas shopping tote.

The Winner is Natalie – A Hint Of Cinnamon

TO ENTER: This giveaway is open until December 2nd at 6am. This giveaway is open to U.S.  Residents.

1. Visit the Amy’s site and tell me your favorite product. (required)

Additional Chances to win (PLEASE LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT FOR EACH ENTRY; also if you already do any of these ie. follow me on twitter/facebook, ect it counts so leave a comment).

1. Like Amy’s on Facebook
2. Tweet about this giveaway “I want to win @cookveganlover #amyskitchen Giveaway http://wp.me/pFVWo-1ii“
3. Like Cook.Vegan.Lover. on Facebook.

The chili wraps are great when you your entire meal rolled up into one hand held meal.  You can really fill them with anything and if you want you can bake or grill them.  The spinach tortillas were yummy and we had them stuffed with tofu scramble the other day for lunch.  Our favorite was the low carb tortillas however which with only 45 calories per tortillas made them feel a little more guilt free.  We ate them with yummy homemade refried black beans.  Lastly were the gluten free tortillas which i used to make soft tacos- honestly we hated these they tasted like cardboard.  So sorry gluten free friends I would not recommend these gluten free tortillas.  However all of then non-GF ones that we tried were delicious!

Black Bean salad with Low Carb Tortillas

Spinach Wrap stuffed with tofu scramble and grilled

Disclaimer: Maria and Ricardo’s Tortillas provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

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Isn't it pretty?

A few other fun things came in the mail yesterday as well:

These bags from ChicoBag are great for taking on the go.  They fold right up into their own little carrying case and have a clip on them so you can clip it on your key chain, purse, or bag.  I like to throw them in my hand bag so that whenever I am out whether it’s picking up a few groceries, books or other things I have a a reusable bag to throw everything in.  These are especially good when I travel because I hate when I go shopping and have to carry around a bunch of plastic/paper bags, with these you can throw anything in them and they are super cute!

These yummy cookies from Kookie Karma came yesterday and I can’t wait to try them, I will report back on how they are. Update: Hubby and my dad loved the Holsitic Chocolate Chip.  My dad wants to know where he can get more of these cookies!

After spending the afternoon relaxing i.e. Neil playing baseball on the Wii and I did some work on my Fundamentals #5 Nutrition 102: Vitamins and Minerals we finally sat down together and watched a show.  I then sent Neil off to the kitchen to make the pizza dough, we used Bob’s Red Mill GF Pizza Crust Mix.  The dough was kind of sticky and soft but we made it work and topped our pizza with jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes), mushrooms, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed onions and tomato sauce.  Once it came out of the oven I finished it with some sunflower sprouts tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The GF crust turned out to be delicious and we overindulged a bit on pizza.

Alright bloggies, hubz and I are off to hike/walk the loop and then will do The Breakfast Challenge Day 3 Day 2. Then we are off to spend some time with the ‘rents and G-Ma.

Also if you have any questions about Institute for Integrative Nutrition or myself you can ask anonymously on Ask me anything http://formspring.me/cookveganlover

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Namaste Foods small manufacturer of fine foods that contain no wheat, gluten, corn, soy, potato, dairy, casein or nuts. Most gluten free products can be pretty expensive however Namaste Foods has created a number of meals and mixes that are GF and inexpensive.  Their products include mixes for muffins, waffles & pancakes, flour mixes, cookies, cakes & desserts, pastas, bread & pizzas.  As you can see there are a number of great products for anyone who is looking for GF products.

Namaste Foods sent me a sample package of their Pasta Pisavera Pasta Meal to try. This product is easy to make in ready in about 15 minutes. Just boil this veggie brown rice pasta, drain, and add the delicious Italian Seasoning packet to make 4 side portions.  I decided that I wanted to make 4 entree portions from this so that we could have dinner and leftovers for lunch the next day.  I added steamed cauliflower, black beans, onions, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts to make it a hearty meal.

Namaste Foods has decided to give you all a chance to try their products.  You can enter to win a “Namaste Tote with perhaps a pasta mix and a Pizza crust which may be better for the vegan diet, along with a Living Without magazine, recipe cards, coupons and assorted goodies!”  If you would like to enter please visit the Namaste Foods Website and let me know which product you are interested in trying. Please enter by March 22nd at 8am.  (Sorry this is open to US residence only.)

For Additional Chances to win:

1. Follow me on twitter @cookveganlover (come back and leave a separate comment)

2. Tweet “I want to win the Namaste Foods Giveaway @cookveganlover http://wp.me/pFVWo-zk” (come back and leave a separate comment)

Disclaimer: Namaste Foods provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.