Vegan Cooking with TLC

                                                               After reading How Not To Diet by Dr. Michael Gregor, I anxiously awaited the release of the The How Not To Diet Cookbook by Dr. Gregor and Robin Robertson. I'd found How Not To Diet interesting, and I liked several of the ideas in the book. He promoted healthy eating more than weight loss and talked about how a healthy lifestyle leads to a stable and healthy weight in most cases. I like the concept of focusing on health instead of weight.  At least one or two of my friends were skeptical when I told them I was reading the book. The same basic question arose. "Why? You are a healthy weight." and to be clear, I am a healthy weight. I was more interested in the research surrounding health than in weight loss. I found many of his tips just made good sense. Since they couldn't result in losing too much weight and had other health benefits, I decided to incorporate some of them into my lifestyle. Regular read

Confession: I used to hate pumpkin cake, but I've come to realize it wasn't so much the cake as the cream cheese frosting that topped it.  So when I first started thinking about making a pumpkin cake, I wasn't sure why. I kept thinking back to the few times I ate it when I was younger and cringing, but I decided to move forward anyway. I came up with this recipe for a vegan pumpkin cake. I really like it. It's not super sweet. The spices don't overwhelm the pumpkin. The texture might be a bit denser than many are used to, but I prefer the slightly denser texture. It's particularly good paired with a cup of coffee or a cup of black tea. Pumpkin Cake ½ cup maple syrup* 1 avocado 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 can pumpkin puree 1 ½ cups spelt flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 cup chopped pecans Preheat oven to 350 d