New Video Series: “Gourmet Vegetable Recipes”

     I recently filmed another cooking series for eHow and am so excited to announce that it is now live! I am especially thrilled that the series was released just as fall arrived because these recipes will be perfect for the holiday  season. They are decadent and rich, but also incredibly healthful and made up of whole, plant-based ingredients.
     A few people have asked me how I come up with the titles for these videos, so I thought I’d take some time to explain a bit about the process. I don’t actually come up with the titles myself, though I do come up with the recipe for each title. There is a database of titles that eHow collects based on what people search when they visit their site. The producer and I go through all those titles and select ones that seem interesting to me and fit a theme that the producer and I have agreed upon.
     When deciding which titles to pick for my first series, I was very clear with the producer that I was only comfortable preparing and promoting vegan dishes. She understood, so I quickly crossed titles like “Zucchini, Ranch Dressing, and Cheese Casserole” off the list of possibilities.
     For this series, however, I took a bit of a risk and did things a little differently…
     I intentionally picked titles that one would assume were not not vegan, such as “Acorn Squash Stuffed with Sausage and Ricotta.” When I showed the producer the titles I had selected, she said, “you know you’ll have to use sausage, right?” I responded, “Yes. I absolutely will be using sausage, as they title indicates. I will just be using a sausage that is plant-based rather than one that animal-based.” And she was fine with that.
     My hope for this series is that people who aren’t necessarily vegan will come across these recipes and realize that they can get all the familiar flavors they are looking for without using animals. Realizing this is a powerful thing because it means that three times a day we get to put the values we all share–peace, responsibility, truth, and health–into concrete reality.
     Here is the link to all the videos, but I will also be posting each one with some additional information and photos here as well. May this inspire you to see that you can live and eat according to your values with pleasure and joy 🙂