Kathy Hester's Blog, page 76

Vegan Chai-Spiced Banana Popsicles

This was a banner week for finding the cheap marked down bananas. I shop at a few different stores and managed to score 4 large bunches for 1/2 price. I prepared 2 bunches for the freezer for smoothies. The other two I made intoChai-Spiced Banana Popsicles.

Believe it or notI finally ran out of popsicles. I switched to some ripe peaches and nectarines for a few weeks. Those were delicious, but I needed a few more popsicles to cool me from the inside out.

These pops take no time to make. I m...

Easy Avocado Lemon Basil Pesto from The Easy Vegan Cookbook

Photo by Ann Oliverio

The Easy Vegan Cookbook is coming out September 1 and I could not be more excited! It’s full of plant-strong, vegan recipes. They are quick and easy enough for weeknight dinners and are still good enough to servecompany.

I tend to be an overachiever. The word “easy” often makes me feel like I’m not doing enough. But there’s a time to be reasonable and making dinner every night is a good place to start.

Ann Olivero did all the photos including the beautiful one of the spl...

Kitchen Basics: Building a Vegan Pantry with Grains

Grains are another foundation of any vegan pantry. Today we won’t talk about flours, since that deserves a post of its own.

This is the second installment of my building a vegan pantry series. Make sure to take a look at the first part, Kitchen Basics: Building a Vegan Pantry with Pasta.

Must Haves

There are so many different kinds of grains that it can seem overwhelming. You want to make sure that you store your grains in jars with tight lids, like mason jars. You can read more about storin...

Roasted Beet Burgers from Eat Like You Give a Damn

I’m often just sent vegan cookbooks to review. But when I heard aboutEat Like You Give a Damn,I got in touch with the publisher right away. I had to have a copy and mine was provided for free by The Book Publishing Company.

The authors, Michelle Scwegmann and Josh Hooten, runHerbivore Clothing.That’s a vegan store in Portland and online. I have a few of their stickers on my car, including one that reads “Only Kale Can Save Us Now”. Besides selling way too many awesome t-shirts, they have a h...

Food and Wine Conference Recap and Musings

When you work alone all day, every day it’s easy to feel isolated. Meeting other bloggers is one of the biggest reasons to go to a conference. This year I was lucky enough to meet tons of bloggers at Vida Vegan Con, Eat Write Retreat and Food and Wine Conference.

Every conference I’ve gone to this year has seemed like a vacation with a little work thrown in. The Food and Wine Conference is one of the friendliest of them all.It was a treat to hang out with my friends from the year before and...

Kitchen Basics: Building a Vegan Pantry with Pasta

I hope my new Building a Vegan Pantry series will make it easy for you to start stocking up your own pantry. Having the right things on hand always makes it easier to make a spur of the moment meal. I’m going to go over the basics you should have on hand in each category, as well assome special treats. Today, we’re talking pasta.

In my opinion, every pantry needs to have dried pasta. It’s the ultimate fast food. It cooks in about 10 minutes and you can toss it with pesto or red sauce for a q...

3 Sneak-in-Some-Veggies Pasta Sauces

I don’t know about you, but I start incorporating more pasta into our meals during the summer. Pasta’s just soeasy. You can make cold pasta salads, cover it in fresh herb pesto, or toss it with some sautéed veggies.

You can also make one of these super easySneak-in-Some-Veggies Pasta Sauces. They all freeze well, so you can stash away some for an even busier day!

What’s your go-to pasta sauce? Let me know in the comments.

This Lentil Quinoa Bolognese Sauceis one of my old favorites. It’s fr...

Vegan Banana Pudding Popsicles

Growing up in the South means I’ve had banana pudding every summer as long as I can remember. I made a vegan version before, but I wanted to make something that did not need to be cooked on the stove. Banana Pudding Popsicles is my answer to those lazy days and the payoff is well worth it.

I usually make a chocolate pudding with silken tofu. If silken tofu works there, why not make it the base of a banana pudding? It works great and lets me skip all the cooking.

All you need to do is blend...

Our Most Pinned Recipes You Need to Make Now!

I was looking through my Pinterest analytics and was surprised at some of Healthy Slow Cooking’s most pinned recipes. I love them all and I think you will too. I decided to use the large Pinterest images in case you haven’t seen them before.

If you don’t already follow me on Pinterest, now’s a good time!

Visit Kathy Hester | HealthySlowCooking.com’s profile on Pinterest.

If your garden is cranking out tons of cucumbers and you just more in your CSA, this recipe forQuick Pickle – Cucumber...

Mint Infused Vodka

This easy Mint Infused Vodka is adapted fromJoni Newman’s Vanilla Mint Vodkarecipe fromVegan Food Gifts. You can also infuse rum instead of vodka and have it mojito ready!

It seems too early to start making holiday gifts, but summer is when the best herbs are ready to be used. Plus you get to have all your holiday gifts ready before the leaves start to change.

You could make a ton of variations on this recipe. Try making lemon vodka by using lemon verbena or lemon balm in place of the mint....