Cooking With Dia

These chocolate cookies turned out fantastic and quite large! I even feel making them vegan makes them taste better than my usual cookies. These aren’t fat free by any means, so prepare for an evening of overindulgence and bake away!

Last night I baked my first set of vegan muffins. That’s right eggless muffins, I thought they would just crumble apart, but they turned out to be the perfect consistency and bound well. They tasted delicious, and it is hard to taste the difference between these and my old muffin recipe.

This dish is not only healthy, but completely vegetarian. It could even be vegan if you substitute the cheeses to vegan cheeses. I will give you all of the information if you would like to do this.
These cuties are absolutely delicious and can be made for a party or for a romantic dinner for two. The naan bread gives a nice peppery taste, and added with the right topping, this can be truly exceptional!

My mom was telling me yesterday how my dad would make me buttered spaghetti with chickpeas mixed through when I was little, and she told me that I used to love chickpeas. I can’t remember any of this, and I thought I only started eating chickpeas in 2004. That’s what happens when you have brain surgery after brain surgery I guess.

Anyway, I decided to make this dish to see if it would jog any memories–it didn’t, but it tasted great!

It is the third day without any meat or fish for me, and it’s strange, but I am not feeling any better. Hopefully all of this “energy” vegetarians speak of will kick in later. Last night I made a Quorn fajita with a really nice chili sour cream sauce. It was so good I thought I would somehow incorporate it in this recipe.

Here is a quick little recipe that you can either make for breakfast to replace pancakes or for dessert after a nice roast. One of the things I instantly fell in love with when I came to the UK, was Yorkshire Pudding. These muffins are a nice version.

I have always tried to incorporate as many veggies as possible in my recipes. One reason is because I have been slowly trying to give up meat and fish. This has been extremely hard for me (especially because of the fish) since I like many others, grew up with this idea [...]

I was basically using up all of the vegetables I had left over from this past week, since tomorrow is market day here where I live and usually the day I buy all my fresh fruit and veg. I came up with this wonderfully delicious Shepherds’ Pie that you can either have vegetarian or with minced meat.

My father used to make Eggplant Parmesan for the family when I was younger, and of course as a child I hated the look of the eggplant once I bit into it, but the taste was unforgettable. There are a few varieties of the eggplant, and here in the UK it is called the aubergine. Aubergines are a little bit shorter in stature compared to the eggplant of Philadelphia, but the flavor is a little bit stronger. So it all works out.

Nothing is better to come home to on a cold winter’s day than a nice warm dish of paella. In this recipe I have mixed it up a bit by turning it into a pastry less pie. I have also used Spanish ceramic dishes that are good for individually sized portions.

OK, so English Sausage is probably not the first thing to come to mind, when you think, “Jambalaya”, but trust me with this recipe, the flavors permeate through the sauce and it all works out well. The word Jambalaya may sound like it would be complicated to make, but it is really simple.

First, let me just start off by saying that I grew up calling Tomato Sauce “red gravy”, as most Italian Americans have. It was only until I went off to an all girl Catholic university, when I discovered that the term gravy only pertained to brown gravy. I thought, “Why can’t [...]

Here is another wonderful and tasty vegetarian meal that I made up one night with left over ingredients. I now make this often, sometimes substituting the fresine for spaghetti, but it still tastes just the same. You can even add aubergines and zucchini to the mix because this recipe is so versatile.

How to Make Muffins

Some call me the “muffin queen” because I am constantly baking up a storm. I often get asked how I do it, and really muffins are some of the easiest treats to make.

I am going to give you the most basic recipe for 12 muffins. You can add [...]

How many of you out there loath the prices of cereal? I do! Now, it isn’t just this economy crisis that has sky rocketed the prices, in my opinion they have always been high. As a child my mother always had to buy the “no frills” generic brand–instead of “rice crispies” we had “crispy rice” or instead of “captin crunch” we had “crunchy bits”…Of course as a little girl I wanted to be like my friends and have the “normal” brands, but now that I am all grown up I am thriftier than ever. And I say forget about cereal altogether!

I get asked often how I go about taking photos of food. I have a very simple process. First I cook and prepare the meal. I then look around my house for the best lighting. Usually this is in my dining room, so I put the meal on the table [...]

Dia’s How-to Guides

My how-to guide to food photography

How to cook and jar tomato sauce

How to make muffins and get high domes

How to make oat milk

How to make your own vegan cream cheese

We will all be waking up late tomorrow morning…afternoon, and I suppose most of us won’t feel like making a big breakfast. Here is an omelette that not only will taste delicious, but will detox and rejuvenate you at the same time. Let’s face it, we’re going to need a pick me up, and sometimes coffee doesn’t do the trick.