There's something about a very clean kitchen...

...that makes me want to get my hands dirty. I thought I was being so clever this morning. Before the housecleaners arrived, I made a soup in the crock pot. "I won't have to cook tonight," I mused happily, "and mess up the nice, clean kitchen." Why, then, the moment they left, did I get the overwhelming urge to make Banana bread. It's in the oven now, a recipe that's a conglomeration from various vegan cookbooks like Sweet and Natural, and Sinfully Vegan. Most vegan sweet recipes use liquid sweeteners like maple syrup (and lots of it), I guess because vegan granulated sugar used to be hard to come by, and maybe because they see maple syrup as healthier... Anyway, I prefer granulated organic sugar, partly because of the flavor, and partly because maple syrup is so expensive. So I adapted the recipe to accomodate that. I usually substitute chocolate chips for nuts, but this time, I left the bread unadulterated. I'll try and snap a picture later.

Speaking of my slow cooker, I used it for the first time last week after having it for almost a year! I made an amazing pea soup from Robin Robertson's Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker. Today, I'm making a white bean and rice soup, my own creation: We'll see how it goes. Robin has lots of tempeh recipes in her book that I'm looking forward to trying. I've been feeling like tempeh should be in our diets more, but haven't really done much with it.

Do you have favorite slow cooker recipes?


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vegetarian, vegan, slow cooker, crock pot, tempeh