The PhotoHunt theme this week is “Average”

I know – doesn’t sound like a promising start to our Project Yum Yum cook-along, does it?

Let me ‘splain. This is Week One of Project Yum Yum – hosted by my friend, Elle of Elle’s New England Kitchen – a (hopefully) weekly challenge to cook and eat healthier by incorporating at least one vegan meal a week into our normally carnivorous diets, by cooking out of Lauren Ulm’s book, Vegan Yum Yum. Vegan Yum Yum is based on Lauren’s blog of the same name, and if you’re interested in trying some of these recipes yourselves, you can either purchase the book (very reasonable on Amazon) or visit her blog.

This is not the first recipe I’ve made out of this book, but it’s the only one I thought to photograph, so in the interest of time, this will be my “Free Week” post: Pepita Fettucine With Spinach & Cranberries:

Honestly? I would have to rate this dish as Average (hence the PhotoHunt theme reference, and yes, I am stretching it a little. Again.).

It tasted good, but we found the cranberries in this a little overwhelming. And while we appreciate the juxtaposition of sweet and savory flavors in food, here, the sweet part kind of overtook the savory. Otherwise, we really enjoyed the pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and spinach, and this was very quick and easy to put together.

And yes, I know that’s not fettucine. It’s actually whole-grain thin spaghetti. It’s what I had in the house, okay?

Let me repeat – I’ve cooked about 6 or 7 things out of Vegan Yum Yum so far, and we’ve loved everything so far. This is the first recipe in this book that didn’t knock us over and that we found merely Average.

Can’t wait to find out what our first assigned dish is!