Roasted vegetables with my mom’s spaghetti sauce? Divine combination! I made this dish a few weeks ago for a girls dinner and it was really delicious. If you don’t feel like making sauce from scratch, use your favorite jar sauce. That’s not a ghost rising from the pasta bowl, just steam because no one wanted to wait for a picture to start digging in!

Roasted Vegetables:

1 cup carrots, chopped
2 cups summer vegetables, chopped (squash, eggplant, your choice)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp. oil

You could do these vegetables in the oven, I decided to do mine on the stove. Heat oil in a dutch oven or sauce pan, add garlic and stir for a few minutes. Add carrots and cook 10 minutes. Add rest of vegetables and let reduce for 15-20 minutes until soft. Add to sauce when finished.

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You have to try this recipe! It’s the perfect summer meal; you could serve it by itself or with a nice green salad or ear of corn. It’s so simple to make, but beautiful enough to make for a party. In fact, I’m taking it to a bridal shower today. Enjoy!

Grilled Panzanella Salad

Ingredients:

3 large tomatoes, cut into cubes
1  eggplant, thick sliced
1/2 loaf good-quality bread (day old is better), cubed
1 recipe baked tofu croutons (below)
1 recipe dressing (below)

The key to this recipe is to try to make all of the cubes (bread, tomatoes, eggplant, and tofu) similar in size.

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Detox diets are hot! Who’s not doing it!? Michelle Obama, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Britney Spears, Beyonce, and so forth have all proclaimed their use of detox and cleanse diets. Before you drag yourself through misery, let’s look at the popular detox and cleanse diets and their so-called effectiveness.

First things first, do you have working lungs, kidneys and liver? Yes? Great! Your body does an amazing job detoxifying itself so you don’t have to punish yourself with liquid fasts or the ultimate ‘master cleanse’. Your working liver does an amazing job detoxifying drugs, chemicals, alcohol, and other environmental problems.

Detox diets can mean a range of ideas: all water diets, fasting, juice diets, sugar-free, alcohol-free, or processed food free. Most of my clients associate detox diets with either juice fast, the master cleanse, fasting or a combination of “super pills”. Sigh.

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How many of you have a Sunday night ritual? I enjoy my Sundays, those are the days I I take a break from teaching and work and try to make a nice dinner for family and friends. What I really look forward to are Sunday night desserts. I made this a few weeks ago and it tasted fresh, juicy and crisp; perfect for a hot August night in California. This topping would go great with any fruit and I really like that it’s not too sweet, as you can taste the berries over the topping. Enjoy!

Blueberry & Strawberry Cobbler

3 cups fresh fruit
3 tbsp. white wheat flour
4 tbsp. non-dairy, non-hydrogenated butter
1/4 cup quick oats (not steel cut)
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 tsp. arrowroot powder or cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss berries with arrowroot and place into oven safe dish. Lightly dot with 1 tbsp. butter. Combine the oats, nuts, sugar, vanilla,  flour, salt, and remaining butter (melted). Scatter topping over fruit and bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp and golden brown. A la’ mode topping? Even better!