Citrus-tahini bowl, Cozy hummus bowl, Chickpea-rice soup and a Pineapple upside down cake

It's week 13 and I'm officially half way though!

Here's what I made:

• Citrus-tahini bowl with bok choy and grilled tofu

• Cozy hummus bowl

• Classic baked tofu

• Chickpea-rice soup with cabbage

• Pineapple upside down cake

Citrus-tahini bowl with bok choy and grilled tofu

• I would make this again

• I made 2 substitutions

• I would probably only freeze the tofu from this

This was pretty good. I did have trouble finding bok choy though. I went to two grocery stores with no luck, so I ended up just making this using broccolini. I also really don't like quinoa, as frequent readers will know, so I just used rice with this. The grilled tofu was really good, and I love that you used the marinade to make it into the sauce as well by adding tahini. I ran out of rice, so I made an even more slapdash leftover version of this by adding miso to the sauce and putting it on top of some of Trader Joe's Japanese-style fried rice. I would definitely make this again.

Cozy hummus bowl with Classic baked tofu

• I would definitely make this again

• I made 1 substitution

• I wouldn't freeze this

I made a big substitution here which is that I didn't make the hummus from scratch. I had a lot of hummus on hand at home so I wanted to just use that up. I did really love the baked tofu. Whenever I make a marinated tofu or tempeh from this book I feel like I want to double the recipe because it's just so good and this was no exception. So simple! So delicious!

I also used castelvetrano olives instead of Kalamata in my hummus sauce, and I used some tahini to thin out the hummus that I had. If you're a fan of hummus this is definitely a great dish. It's served with both rice and greens, but I think you could just pick one if you wanted to make this even more simple.

Chickpea rice soup with cabbage

• I would make this again

• I made 0 substitutions

• I did freeze some!

This is one of the last soups that I have to make from the soup chapter, and it's still chilly this week, so I thought it would be a good time to do it. I definitely looked at this recipe and thought, "Only half a cup of rice for this whole thing of soup?!" and I was proved wrong by the power of the rice. Once it cooks, it really fills up a lot of the space within the soup.

The flavor of this was good but subtle. You need to use a good veggie broth. I prepped all of the ingredients for this a day ahead of time, so it came together really quickly as well. This was one of the dishes, and I feel like I've been thinking of this before, but that I would like to get better at my knife skills, particularly cutting onions small enough. I might also just need to get my knife sharpened as well, because it was even a little bit tricky to cut the cabbage small enough, but I think in a soup you really can tell, and it changes the way you eat the dish when the pieces are kind of all different sizes.

Pineapple upside-down cake

I have a long-standing favorite pineapple upside-down cake recipe from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's cookbook "The Joy of Vegan Baking." So I was curious to see if I would like this one more or even as much as that one because it's my favorite. It's also nostalgic because I made it years ago for my sister's wedding shower, and it's something that she loves too. Last winter, we made it with the kids, which was really fun.

I also took a shot at doubling this recipe because I was making it for church, and I wanted more than just a 9-inch square pan. This actually turned out really well. I felt like I could have added even more cherries, and I don't think I doubled the amount of sugar that I needed for the sauce to start with.

There was not a slice left at the sanctuary, and a few people were giving me compliments on the flavor. So, this is one I would definitely make again, and I'd be curious to try it more exactly to the recipe. The thing that I like about Colleen's recipe is that it uses some of the pineapple juice in the batter itself, so you get even more of that tropical flavor that's so good.

Weekly reflection

I am excited to be halfway through! Next week will be my last update before I leave for a long-planned trip to England and Scotland, I'm so excited. Perhaps I'll share a post about our favorite vegan meals during the trip. I'm also working on a post on my favorite cooking essentials inspired by what's included in the introduction to Isa Does It.

My favorite recipe this week was surprisingly the cozy hummus bowl! I think this will make it into the regular rotation for summer lunches, because it will be even better with in-season tomatoes.