Jackie Vetter’s Kitchen

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to the New Albany/Floyd County Public Library for a cookbook club meeting.

We had a great group that gathered, and we had a great discussion about food. They were a very attentive audience and I sure appreciated everyone who was there and also appreciated Peggy asking me to speak and share some foods.

This meeting concentrated on foods from the garden, and everything I made had food from the garden.

I first made a “Sunomono”. It is a very simple to make dish and contains some of my favorite ingredients. You can find the recipe here. Here’s the picture:

Next we had a salad which was based on the “Hallelujah Acres” salad. It is delicious and I don’t think I ever tire of it. You can make so many variations!

This one had romaine lettuce, red and green peppers, green onions, carrots and purple cabbage. I used a fat-free Italian dressing.

We had a wonderful one-dish entreé that was delicious and beautiful, but Ken forgot to take pictures of it while it was cooking and when it was done. I think he got sidetracked talking to people and then he couldn’t wait to eat it!

Here’s a picture of the ingredients before I cooked them.

I wish you could have seen it, but you will just have to try it yourself. It is not vegan, but is vegetarian.

In an electric skillet I placed 1 Tablespoon olive oil along with 1 large onion chopped in large pieces. I let the onion cook for about 5 minutes at a pretty high heat. I wanted it to brown, but just lightly. I added the zucchini and yellow squash and asparagus. I used 2 medium sized zucchini, 3 small yellow squash and 1 pound of asparagus in 1 inch pieces. I let these sauté for about 4 minutes, then I put the lid on the electric skillet for about 5 more minutes. I then cut 2 medium tomatoes into wedges and placed these scattered over the top of the vegetables, then used a 12 ounce bag of shredded mozzarella cheese over the top of that. I turned the heat off of the skillet and I put the lid back on and let the cheese melt down through the veggies. Over the top of the cheese I ground some Italian seasoning. It was very, very good. This recipe was courtesy of Peggy Roberson at the New Albany/Floyd County Public Library. I just tweaked it a little bit. Thanks, Peggy!

Last, but definitely not least, I made the Chocolate Beet Cake from Fat Free Vegan. This cake is a great way to get beets into your family and they won’t even know it! See, a sneaky mom! I did tell everyone there, however, that there were beets in the cake! The peanut butter sauce on Susan’s cake looks delicious, but I just used some organic powdered sugar (from the health food store), agave nectar, natural peanut butter, vanilla and rice milk to make mine. I used 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/8 cup agave nectar, 1 cup peanut butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla and enough rice milk to blend. It was very good on this cake. P.S. I also saved some of the beet water and put it in the icing to make it a little pink! Thank you for that idea, Susan V.!

Thanks again to the Cookbook club for inviting me in. I look forward to another meeting!

Happy Healthy Eating

Jackie V