Vegan Kale & Artichoke Dip

Vegan Kale & Artichoke dip is a healthy spin on the classic spinach artichoke dip. It's the perfect appetizer for holiday parties or winter gatherings!

Hey all, Jack here – now that it’s the end of the year, it’s holiday party time! And what does it normally mean to eat at a party in the winter? To a lot of Americans, that means spinach artichoke dip. I mean, what makes you feel like partying more than eating an entire loaf of bread dipped in cream cheese and mayonnaise? Well, Jeanine and I don’t really think that’s much of a party any more. Our idea of a party is one where the next day you (or your guests) don’t feel awful. So we took a bit of…

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Matcha White Hot Chocolate

A delicious, grown-up winter treat, this Matcha White Hot Chocolate is an easy, cozy drink for cold days. 4 ingredients and full of healthy antioxidants!

Hot chocolate always has to come with warm fuzzy memories, doesn’t it? I vividly remember being about 9 – otherwise known as the age when snow was fun. My sister and I would spend hours and hours building forts and making snow angels. We’d come in the house with red noses and leave our snowpants in a puddle at the door (you know, for mom to clean up). We’d sit down to mugs of Swiss Miss hot chocolate, no marshmallows for me. I might not have wintery white Christmases anymore, but here’s my fancy adult white hot chocolate that’s made oh…

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Mini Sweet Potato Pizzas

our Mini Sweet Potato Pizzas are topped with brussels sprouts and kale. Customize the recipe with ingredients you happen to have on hand.

I feel like I missed the boat on the Thanksgiving leftover trend – sorry no mashed potato sandwiches happened here. (and um, eww). Instead, I turned a bunch of random veggie scraps and a chunk of red onion into fancy little veggie packed pizzas. In other words – it’s pretty much a non-recipe made on mini naan breads. You can customize these with whatever veggies you have on hand. Red onion and brussels sprouts are a tried & true combo (this recipe is still one of our favorites), and the sweet potatoes add a nice hearty bite. I slathered ricotta cheese…

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Holiday Cocktail & Cookie Swap

Enjoy cocktails and a holiday cookie swap with Love and Lemons and Crate and Barrel. Includes two cookie recipes and a cocktail recipe!

For as long as I can remember, my family’s Christmas season officially started with cookies. Before we were even tall enough to reach the countertop, my mom would pull over kitchen chairs so my sister and I could “help” out and get our hands in the flour. She would get out the baking sheets, the ingredients, and the flour-dusted recipes that were reserved only for the holiday season. We’d bake batch after batch after batch, eating more cookie dough than actual cookies. This year, to kick off our holiday season, I created a little cookie & cocktail party taking inspiration…

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Sweet Harvest Pumpkin Ice Cream

Made with just 4 ingredients, this vegan Pumpkin Black Tea Ice Cream recipe is a simple & healthy pumpkin spice treat! Perfect for fall and winter holidays.

Are you all pumpkin-ed out yet? Hopefully not – but even if you are, you just have to try this one. If you’ve been following for long you know I have just a slight love for ice creams made with coconut milk. But this one? This one not only takes the cake but probably the pumpkin and apple pies too. It’s a rich & creamy, yet healthier, take on holiday desserts. I’ve had tea ice cream on my mind ever since tasting a tea-infused sorbet while visiting Celestial Seasonings last month. Their Sweet Harvest Pumpkin Black Tea is warmly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg…

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Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes

Happy almost Thanksgiving! Whether you’re having a vegetarian holiday, or your son’s new girlfriend is vegan… OR you just plain love vegetables (like we do), here are a few veggie feast-worthy recipes that will hopefully inspire… Pictured above: Vegan Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes Ginger Apple Pumpkin Soup / Shredded Brussels Sprout & Apple Salad Butternut Squash, Walnut & Sage Pasta / Creamy Polenta & Mushrooms Rosemary Roasted Veggies / Kale & Shiitake Mushroom Stuffing Apple Zinger Tea-tails / Apple Cardamom Oat Crumble Plus, check out tons more in the Thanksgiving section of our recipe index…

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Stuffed Acorn Squash

I first made this stuffed acorn squash recipe for Thanksgiving, but its spiced quinoa filling is so good that it's become one of my go-to fall recipes.

The year I first became vegetarian I truly missed the turkey part of turkey day. It seems like ages ago now, but back then I barely knew how to cook for myself, let alone embrace seasonal foods like squashes, Brussels sprouts, and sweet potatoes (you know, the kind without marshmallows). Now, with hearty vegetarian main dishes like this stuffed acorn squash, I couldn’t miss the turkey less. When I started working on this recipe, I knew I wanted to make an unconventional stuffed squash. Obviously, you won’t find ground beef or a sausage and apple combination here, but I also veered off the traditional…

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Pistachio Cranberry Cookies

I made a half batch of these cookies, which was clearly a mistake. I ate the last one for breakfast this morning and I could really go for another one right about now. Chewy, oaty, nutty… slightly sweet and warmly spiced… it’s the kind of cookie that’s just healthy enough to get by as breakfast but would be even more perfect as a 2pm snack. If only… This recipe is just slightly adapted from Amy Chaplin’s book At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen, which is hands down one of the most beautiful cookbooks I’ve ever held. I’ve been a fan of Amy’s for the…

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Autumn Farmhouse Salad

Sweet potatoes, apples & greens fill out this hearty autumn salad. With sweet, salty, crunchy & nutty elements, it's a perfect side dish or meal on its own.

I have a love/hate relationship with farro. It takes forever to make, and quinoa is quicker, but the chewy, nutty grains bring a real heartiness to this not-wimpy fall salad. The catch is that you have to pre-plan for farro – it’s easiest to make a big batch and keep it around all week. I’m not usually that organized, but I happened to have made farro the day before my Farmhouse vegetables arrived, so here we are… a farro salad with more veggies than could fit onto the subject line of this post. Fall Salad Recipe Ingredients This delicious salad recipe is sweet, salty, crunchy, nutty… Here’s what…

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Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes

Seasoned with roasted garlic & fresh rosemary, these vegan cauliflower mashed potatoes are wonderfully fluffy and light. Perfect for Thanksgiving.

Jack here today. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m now a cauliflower mashed potatoes convert. To be honest, I used to be mashed potato traditionalist. When I was growing up, every holiday with my dad’s family, the mashed potatoes came out, and it was a frenzy. My uncle Billy, my grandfather, and I would load up, devouring what seemed like a truck full of mashed potatoes. Fast forward to today. Now, I have a lovely wife who makes wonderful, healthy food – all full of vibrancy and flavor. But there has always been a hole in my heart that…

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Pear Crisp

This pear crisp recipe is such an easy, delicious fall dessert! The sweet, soft fruit and nutty crumble are fantastic with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I love to think of this pear crisp recipe as a “pair crisp.” With quotation marks. Because this is a dessert for 2. Get it? Jack is sitting next to me right now shaking his head, but honestly, I love desserts that are easy to make in small portions. See, if I made a pear crisp recipe large enough to serve 4, it would still serve just the two of us. Just one more bite after one more bite, and it would all be over. We have no control, especially around sweet, cinnamon-spiced fall desserts like this one. (And pssst!…

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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.