Vegan Spinach Mac & Cheese

A creamy vegan mac & cheese made with cashews, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, balsamic, and cayenne. A healthy & delicious weeknight dinner.

Jack here, writing for the blog today while Jeanine writes for the book… I have something to admit that I’m having a hard time with. I’m starting to prefer vegan “mac and cheese” to actual mac and cheese. Now, this is a hard one for me. You see, I love cheese. Almost every time we go to Whole Foods, I raid the “under $3 cheese” bin to find crazy new cheeses that I can barely pronounce. And a great grilled cheese is work of art. But these vegan “mac and cheese” recipes Jeanine comes up with pretty much hit everything I…

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Grilled Corn & Poblano Tacos

Happy almost Cinco de Mayo (a.k.a, one of our favorite holidays of the year!). It’s time to break out the margaritas, chips & salsa and of course – eat tacos! Although if you’ve been reading this blog long, you know that Jack and I don’t need a holiday as an excuse to eat tacos. These tacos are stuffed with grilled Sunshine Sweet Corn, poblano peppers, and crumbly cotija cheese. If your weather is nice this weekend, this recipe is a great excuse to break out your grill, if not you can grill these on a grill pan like I did. Grill until your…

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Roasted Artichoke Salad

If you can get your hands on fresh artichokes, make this bright artichoke salad right away. Topped with mint pesto, it's perfect for spring.

It’s spring… which means I can’t help but bring home artichokes from the farmers market. They’re just SO pretty, although they take a bit of effort to clean and cook. My first tip for fresh artichokes is to use them in a pretty simple way so you can really appreciate their delicate flavor after you’ve put in the time to prep them. Save your artichoke dip recipe for canned or jarred artichokes. Tip number two: delegate artichoke-trimming to someone else in your family! The day I brought these home, my mom (who’s been staying with us lately), gave me a “what are you going to do with those” sort…

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Breakfast Bowl with Amaranth Granola

An easy, healthy breakfast bowl! Amaranth-oat granola, almond milk and fresh blueberries. Vegan & gluten free.

Let me start out by saying: I’m not a cereal person. I’ve told this story before – my sister and I used to BEG my mom for all of the artificially colored sugary cereals with fun cartoon characters… sometimes she’d give in but always with the disclaimer “only if you actually eat it this time.” We would excitedly make this promise only to go home, have one bowl and never touch it again. This granola, however – I’ll happily eat cereal-style. But with almond milk instead of regular milk because we all know that Almond Breeze is my go-to milk. Amaranth is a…

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Mango Peanut Tempeh Tacos

Whenever I buy red cabbage (or any cabbage, for that matter), I have it around for weeks. I like the bit of crunch it adds to my tacos but I hate the space it takes up in my fridge while I try to think of uses for the rest of it. This recipe probably looks a little familiar – after I made last week’s rice bowl, I made these tacos out of nearly the same ingredients. (Cook once, eat twice, I say). I used up more of my red cabbage, diced mango, avocado and that tasty coconut peanut sauce. These are…

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Spicy Mango & Avocado Rice Bowl

It’s been feeling summery around here, so I say – let’s bring on the colorful food! Lately, I’ve been slightly obsessed with these black rice veggie sushi rolls that are new-ish at (our) Whole Foods. One in particular includes mango, avocado and cucumber and I find myself craving it all the time. I’ve had it on my list to recreate it for you for awhile now, but the idea of rolling sushi has felt too labor intensive. For us, at-home sushi making is “sometimes” food. It’s reserved for those special nights when the sake is flowing and we have nothing but extra time……

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Toast with Radishes & Dandelion Greens

I’ll never forget the first time I bit into a radish. I was in Sunday school and I was maybe seven or eight. I’m not sure if they ate radishes in Bible times, but for whatever reason that morning’s lesson involved passing around new raw foods to try. I don’t remember much else about that day except the shockingly bitter taste that I couldn’t get out of my mouth until my family picked up Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home. I spent years picking radishes out of salads until I slowly came to love the crunch and slightly bitter bite – especially when thinly sliced,…

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Watercress Farro Salad with Tart Cherries

There's no spring lunch I love more than this simple watercress salad. With a delicious blend of textures and flavors, it's a light, yet satisfying meal.

I have a confession to make – I am not only a terrible gardener, but I’m also a terrible herb gardener. They’re so easy to grow, but they’re oh-so-hard to remember to water. Lucky for me, my mom recently came to visit and planted tons of new herbs, including my favorites – basil and mint – just in time to include them in this salad. What would spring be without an herby grain salad, right? This one is packed with chewy farro, peppery watercress, and dried tart cherries, which add a necessary pop of sweetness to balance it all out. I’ve talked about the…

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Spinach & Sun Dried Tomato Frittatas

Do you have Easter brunch or Easter dinner? My family always has a formal Easter ham dinner, but around here brunch seems to be more popular. Not that it matters for us this year – Jack and I will doing what we’ve done for every holiday this year so far – testing and shooting cookbook recipes. Yep, that’s right – this book project started with Thanksgiving tacos and now Easter weekend will be a smorgasbord of random bits and bobs, tons of dirty dishes, and some really funky combinations of leftovers. There definitely won’t be ham, but there might be a few…

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Vegan Corn Chowder

This easy vegan corn chowder recipe is one of our all-time favorite soups! Smoky, sweet & creamy, it's destined for your regular meal rotation.

It’s hard for me to pick favorites, but I’ll come out and say it: this vegan corn chowder recipe is one of my favorite soups on the blog. I don’t care what temperature it might be outside – I could eat a bowl of this creamy, smoky corn chowder anytime. Vegan Corn Chowder Recipe Ingredients This vegan corn chowder recipe uses veggies and spices to get a delicious creamy texture and smoky flavor without any meat or dairy. Here’s what’s in it: Onion, garlic, and celery make up its aromatic base. Sweet corn is the star of the show! It…

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Almond Milk Chai Latte

This grab-and-go almond milk latte is SO simple and is made up of ingredients from your spice drawer - cinnamon, star anise, and cardamom.

For years, I had a very routine “breakfast” that I would pick up on my way to work: a double tall soy latte at 110 degrees. (I know, I was one of those coffee-orderers). These days, I’ve swapped my beverage breakfast for a real one, my expensive coffee for tea, and my soy milk for almond milk. Although I now work from home, I still love to get a quick start in the morning. Which is why I’m so excited about this recipe – this latte is SO simple and is made up of ingredients from my spice drawer which makes me wonder how I ever…

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A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.