Pea & Chickpea Pasta Salad

This has been a favorite lately. I’ve made it countless times before I even thought of posting it here. It’s too easy… the ingredient list is short, and you likely already have these these things on hand. It’s super delicious and it takes no time to toss together. If I weren’t always trying to come up with new ideas, I would stop here and we would eat this most nights of the week. (Maybe switch out the veggies every so often to change it up). I whisked a little dijon with olive oil and lemon juice before tossing it with…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Fried Egg & Mango Salsa Waffle

breakfast / spring / mango

Happy Friday! This one makes me so happy that the weekend is just about here… This is part 1 of a fun project I’ve been working on with the Mango Board as part of their “Mangover” campaign. (makeover + mangoes, get it?) It’s about simply adding mango to ordinary food for an unexpected pop of color & tangy sweetness. Once a week they’re asking their facebook fans for meal ideas they would like to see made over with mango. This week (breakfast week), the choice was waffles and eggs. So I made a quick mango salsa with avocado, smoked paprika and a pinch…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Gluten-free Almond Coconut Bars

snacks & dips / gluten free / book review

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…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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,…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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.…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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!

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

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…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Lemony Chickpea Salad

spring / vegan / gluten free

Today, I’m participating, in Food Bloggers Against Hunger. A movement organized by Nicole of The Giving Table, in response to the movie A Place at the Table. Today 200 food bloggers are sharing budget-friendly recipes to raise awareness about hunger in America. There is plenty of food in this country, yet most don’t realize (myself previously included) that 1 in 4 kids don’t know where their next meal will come from. One of the main points of the film is that hunger and obesity in this country go hand in hand. Ingredients that make up unhealthy processed foods (corn, soy,…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Arugula Scramble with Kale Pesto

Arugula, kale pesto and scrambled eggs. A simple breakfast for simple leftovers.

spring

Happy weekend! I though I’d share one last pesto meal. (It’s gone now, I promise pesto week is over. At least for now). I love a good breakfast, but I don’t like to wake up and spend a lot of time cooking first thing in the morning. This is very much a non-recipe, but it’s something simple that I make all the time, in one variation or another. It’s never to early in the day to fit in some green food, right?

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.