Gluten-free Almond Coconut Bars

This recipe is from the hilarious new book Gluten is my Bitch: Rants, Recipes and Ridiculousness for the Gluten Free, by April Peveteaux. If you’ve been recently diagnosed with Celiac disease and are feeling sorry for yourself, this is a must-read. If you’re like me and you deal with other food sensitivity issues, you’ll have a good laugh reading April’s stories because you totally “get it.” And because she is just so freaking funny. My favorite part has to be the chapter about traveling as a gluten-free person. It’s called “Paris doesn’t have to suck, but it might.” I had…

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Creamy Leek & Almond Pasta

A healthy & light creamy pasta made with almond milk, cremini mushrooms, greens, lemon, basil and sun dried tomatoes. Vegan option.

spring / almond milk / pasta

Meals like this are the reason I love cooking at home. These are the kinds of dishes that my lactose intolerant self can’t order at restaurants. The amount of butter and cream that go into pastas and risottos… I don’t even want to know. I worked on this a few different ways. I was going to make an almond version of cashew cream (similar to this one), but I decided I didn’t want to ask you to break out the blender. At least not this time. The winner was this version where I simmered leeks & mushrooms in almond milk. Such…

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Coconut Mint Ice Cream

Dairy free mint ice cream - a delicious holiday treat with vegan chocolate magic shell topping.

spring / vegan

Let me start by saying that mint chocolate chip has never been my top choice. It’s always been my sister’s favorite, I was more of a cookies & cream kind of girl. But this blog makes me try things I might have otherwise not… For example, I bought turnips the other day at the farmers market just because they looked cute. When I saw this green mug, I craved just one thing: Mint ice cream. To my surprise (and Jack’s too), mint ice cream made with fresh mint is amazing! It’s a completely different ice cream flavor altogether. First off,…

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Creamy Tortilla Soup

Blended corn tortillas thicken this creamy vegan tortilla soup. It's boldly flavored with cumin, oregano, chipotle powder & a splash of sherry vinegar.

soups / vegan / gluten free

I have this tortilla rotation: I buy (or make) fresh tortillas, and I freeze the ones I don’t use within a day or two. I’ll use those frozen tortillas for a while reheated directly on the gas stovetop. But before that batch is gone, I’ll inevitably acquire new ones. Soon enough, I have a random assortment of tortillas filling my freezer, all at various stages of pre-freezer burn. And then I make this vegetarian tortilla soup. About this vegetarian tortilla soup There are two types of tortilla soup: the thin brothy kind, which is usually made with chicken, and this creamy style.…

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Spring Kale Panzanella

spring / kale / salads

This very green salad couldn’t be more timely. Jack and I spent all weekend tasting inhaling food at the Austin Food & Wine fest. And then we spent last night in some sort of food coma. Overall, I think we showed pretty good restraint… That is until Saturday night’s “Rock your Taco” event. We rocked tacos alright… And then a few tacos rocked us. But no regrets… kale to the rescue. A big bowl of it. This salad is part marinated kale and part and panzanella. Two of my favorite salads, together as one. Kale, fennel slices, peas and feta…

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Cinco de Mango

Mango recipes! mango salsa, mango margarita spritzer, mango black bean tacos, and a mango avocado salad.

spring / summer / entertaining

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo a little early this year with a mango fiesta. You should too because mangoes are on sale (like, $1 something) at Whole Foods until the end of April. I brought home muchos mangoes last weekend and mixed up this sweet & spicy salsa. Then (from the same salsa recipe), I made black bean tacos and an avocado-mango salad. And, of course, no fiesta is complete without tequila. I made a lighter version of a margarita – a mango margarita spritzer. Cheers!

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Rosemary Lemon Pasta

spring / vegan / lemon

A trip to Italy is in the works. Did I just say that? Ok, an idea of a trip to Italy is in the works. You’re the second to know… I just informed Jack the other night. Even though we have a long list of places we have not been to, somehow every few years we (the royal we) feel a calling to go back. Whenever I even hear someone mention a trip to Italy, I become insane with travel envy. So you can imagine the kind of envy I felt when I heard the story of a couple who moved to the Italian…

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Lavender French 75

spring / cocktail

The French 75 is hands down my favorite cocktail, and this lavender version is just so lovely for spring. I snipped these little lavender flowers from my garden and simmered them down into a simple syrup. Which sounds sort of romantic except that this lavender plant was swarming with scary bees. I held a pair of scissors at arms length and carefully tried to clip a few without getting too close. (oh, the things I do for this blog!) The lavender flavor is subtle, but I just love the unexpected herbal hint. I hope you all have a great weekend…

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Soup au Pistou

spring / soups / gluten free

This is what you make when you have a bounty of spring vegetables. Or rather… when you had a bounty of spring vegetables and now all you have left is a random assortment. This particular day I had a half bulb of fennel, half an onion (why do I always have a half of an onion?)… some parsnips, a couple of carrots and a few chard leaves that were on the wilty side. I cooked these things down into a pretty humble soup, but sometimes a humble soup is just what you need. To kick it up a notch, make a pistou…

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Vegan French Toast

No eggs? No problem. This easy Vegan French Toast is delicious made with almond milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, maple, nutritional yeast, and a little flour.

spring / brunch / almond breeze

The first year Jack and I were together, he was working in Austin while I was finishing college in Chicago. He’d come visit me nearly once a month. It feels like such long time ago now (11 years, yikes)… many of those early memories are fuzzy, but a few stand out. Friday nights, I would take the blue line to the airport to “pick him up” and we’d ride back to the city together. I was always late, he was always mad (or madly in love, ha). Saturday mornings, we would head to the Pick Me Up Cafe where he…

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Chocolate Chip Carrot Cookies

Sneak some veggies into your chocolate chip cookies! These are the perfect mid-afternoon vegan treat.

spring / vegan

I’ve been baking a lot of chocolate chip cookies lately. I’m not sure what prompted the obsession, but what I’ve learned is that once you start a 3 o’ clock cookie habit, it’s hard to break. This particular day I had carrots, so I worked those into the mix. I quickly realized that grating carrots by hand was a tedious task, so I turned to the food processor. And instead of dirtying another bowl for my wet ingredients, I just mixed them straight in there. (My mom uses the same method for her carrot cakes). A couple of notes… these…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.