When I feel under the weather, I pretty much always cook some sort of spicy thing with lentils. Today is no exception.

Abuelita always said that when people are sick it’s a good idea to feed them something spicy, both hot and flavorful, so they can taste their food and want to eat, but also to raise their body temperature a few degrees so they can run a low fever and sweat it out. She claims that cinnamon, nutmeg, and hot peppers do this best.

I’m not much of a recipe person as I just rummage around the refri for ingredients, grab fistfuls and pinches of things, and throw them into pots, but here’s a post of what today’s cooking produced.

Ingredients and preparation

• Grape seed oil
• 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 ripe acorn squash, guts scraped out, peeled, and cut into big chunks
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 2 or 3 big handfuls of frozen yellow and white sweet corn
• dry spices to taste: cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne, ginger, mustard, sweet basil, black pepper
• 1 14.5 oz (411g) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 28 oz (794g) can of diced tomatoes
• Enough water to cover what’s in pot
• 2 or 3 cups dry lentils, rinsed
• 2 or 3 tablespoons pumpkin seed oil
• 1 big handful of raisins

What goes in the pot and when

• Put chopped yellow onion with some grape seed oil in pot and cook until soft.
• Throw in the acorn squash and mix until squash starts to turn a brighter orange.
• Add carrots, frozen corn, and spices. Stir until everything starts to steam, soften a bit, and smell delicious.
• Mix in diced tomatoes and add enough water to cover what’s in the pot.
• Add lentils, pumpkin seed oil, and raisins.
• Cover and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or until lentils are desired tenderness.

Aubergine, spinach, peas, onions, eight spices, ground flax seed, and kisses of honey and pumpkin seed oil tucked into rice wrappers.

I decided to attempt making a loaf of vegan banana bread this morning. After four days of eating mush because my wisdom teeth were removed I really wanted to eat something that I could chew but wouldn’t mess up my stitches.

Vegan baking is a big mystery to me and this was my first attempt. I just kind of arbitrarily traded out animal products for extra bananas, soy milk, apples, and non-hydrogenated seed oils, so I don’t really know if I did the appropriate proportions for making a vegan loaf work, because it turned out like a really huge soft cookie. It tastes pretty good, but it feels like it missing something, maybe more salt.