No-Egg Gnocchi with Roasted Garlic Cashew Nut "Cheese" {Vegan}

It's a new year, and the 5 Star Makeover group has undergone a transformation. We have a new logo and name:

As you can see, we're now the Creative Cooking Crew, helmed by Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks and Joan of Foodalogue. Rather than doing makeovers, our mission each month is to create original dishes inspired by a theme.

This month, the challenge was to create a vegan dish inspired by a meat or animal-product-heavy meal. I drew inspiration from one of my very favorite fattening things: gnocchi slathered with plenty of butter and Parmesan cheese.

Creamy Chicken Soup with Parsnips, White Pepper, & Peas {to cure a bad mood}

I've been having one of those weeks. You know the kind - where everything and everyone conspires to  irritate, annoy, and infuriate.

But that's okay, because I have a secret weapon: soup. Yes, soup. We all know the restorative properties of chicken soup, and this version adds even more punch with the addition of a little cream and half and half and a sinus-clearing amount of white pepper.

Each slurp of this soup not only contributed to an increased sense of equanimity and well-being, it gave me strength to (figuratively) vanquish my annoying enemies.

Or maybe that was the booze?

Chicken, Cabbage, & Cashew Stir Fried Rice

Do you really need me to tell you how to make a simple stir fried rice dish I made for dinner one weeknight?

But what the heck - I'll tell you anyway. After all, as my professional recipe development, food and travel writing, and photography obligations grow (I am neither complaining nor humble-bragging - I unabashedly love it!), I find that I have less and less time to make complicated dishes just for fun. Which is what this blog is supposed to be - fun.

Bucatini in Tomato Saffron Cream with Wild Salmon

Pasta and cream. Not exactly a New Year's resolution friendly dish. But that is kind of my point. I am posting this simply because I feel like it.

Let me back up and explain.

I have noticed an off-putting proscriptive tendency creeping into some food blogging lately. Year-end posts have popped up here and there purporting to be the last word on what food blogging should and should not be, and what we bloggers must and must not do.

As snarky as I know I can be, I find these proclamations - even when they claim to be tongue in cheek - a little too self-congratulatory for their own good.