Pumpkin French Toast

This pumpkin French toast is the perfect fall breakfast! Cinnamon fills it with warm, spiced flavor, and a drizzle of maple syrup takes it over the top.

This pumpkin French toast is the perfect fall breakfast! It’s crisp and golden brown on the outside, moist and tender in the middle, and packed with pumpkin flavor the whole way through. It’s super easy to make, so you could whip it up on a weekday, but I especially love it on the weekends, when I can sit back, relax, and savor it. Just like it does in baking recipes, pumpkin puree makes a great egg replacer in this recipe, creating a rich, custard-like mixture to coat the thick slices of bread. As a result, this pumpkin French toast is…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Vegan Pumpkin Pancakes

What's better than vegan pumpkin pancakes on a cool fall morning? A drizzle of maple syrup highlights their delicious spiced flavor.

These vegan pumpkin pancakes are just one of the many pumpkin recipes I’ve been making lately… mostly because when you open a can of pumpkin (or make your own pumpkin puree), there’s always some left over. I think that’s the true reason why people are so pumpkin-crazy in the fall. If you start with vegan pumpkin pancakes, you might as well go ahead and make pumpkin bars… and then, well, maybe some pumpkin cookies. After all, you have to use it up! (She says while eating said cookie.) Anyway, I’ve had so many requests for vegan pumpkin pancakes, and this recipe…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Breakfast Oat Bowls

These easy oat bowls are a delicious, healthy make-ahead breakfast. Customize them with toppings like nuts, seeds, nut butter, or fresh fruit!

These easy oat bowls are the perfect breakfast if you love eating oatmeal in the morning but don’t have time to cook before you head out the door. The base consists of whole rolled oats soaked in almond milk overnight with a dash of maple syrup. In the morning, the oats are soft, sweet, and lightly creamy, and they have a porridge-like consistency that’s satisfying to eat. Try one of the four variations as written below, or dress up the base recipe with whatever toppings you like! You can’t go wrong with fresh fruit, nuts, seeds, nut butter, homemade granola,…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Avocado Tomatillo Breakfast Tacos

These green breakfast tacos are my go-to weekday breakfast. Scrambled eggs are tucked into tortillas with avocado, spinach & tomatillo salsa.

I’ve made these breakfast tacos so many times that it would be impossible to count. Originally inspired by the El Popeye, one of my favorite breakfast tacos in Austin, these have now become part of my regular breakfast routine because they’re such a tasty way to eat vegetables first thing in the morning. They’re filled with eggs, sautéed spinach, avocado, and very generous scoops of fresh tomatillo salsa.  If you missed Monday and Wednesday’s posts, this is Breakfast Taco Week here on the blog! Go read the first installments here and here if you want to learn to make various types of…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Shiitake “Bacon” & Egg Breakfast Tacos

You won't miss the meat here! Shiitake bacon adds rich umami flavor to these simple breakfast tacos topped with avocado & fresh pico.

Welcome to part 2 of Meal Prep Breakfast Taco week! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check out Monday’s post and read about how we’re prepping once to make 3 different breakfast tacos throughout the week. If you’re not a tacos-for-breakfast person, you can make these for lunch or dinner just the same. Me? I go to bed dreaming of tortillas… So taco #2 is… Shiitake Bacon & Egg Tacos! Shiitake “Bacon” is this magical thing where you toss sliced shiitake mushrooms with olive oil and tamari, then you bake them until they’re shriveled and crisp around…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Roasted Sweet Potato Poblano Breakfast Tacos

These healthy, vegetarian breakfast tacos are easy to prep ahead - making them great for weekday breakfasts! Filling and delicious!

It’s fall (at least it feels like fall), and I wanted to do something a little bit different to kick off the season. I had these two separate ideas on my list: #1 to bring back the meal prep series that you all loved a few months back and/or #2: Breakfast Taco Week! Then, it occurred to me that I could combine both! So this week is: Breakfast Taco Meal Prep Week! That means I’ll be posting 3 separate breakfast taco recipes that you can prep for all at once and easily make throughout the week. I’ll post recipes 2…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Farmers Market Breakfast Bowl

This breakfast bowl recipe is meant for days when you have an abundance of fresh veggies. A delicious garlic & herb yogurt sauce ties it all together.

Lately, my fridge has been overloaded with vegetables! We’ve been hitting one, if not two, farmers markets each week. After a long winter, I’m still in awe that we’re able to leave the house, enjoy the fresh air, and peruse rows and rows of glorious vegetables. I want to buy them all! It’s hard for me to hold back, even though I’m mindful of what we’ll actually be able to eat in a week. Another thing that’s hard to hold – my heavy veggie bags as Jack runs off to find the nearest cheese sandwich vendor. With all of this…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Strawberry Rhubarb Chia Overnight Oat Parfaits

This yummy parfait is one of my favorite strawberry rhubarb recipes. I dollop a simple jam over oats with granola & lightly sweet coconut cream.

Back when we lived in Austin, rhubarb season existed to me only via Instagram. Rhubarb didn’t grow where we lived, and I didn’t quite understand why there was a sudden explosion of rhubarb recipes all over the internet every spring… until now. After the longest winter ever, our farmers markets are open again(!) and the first types of produce to appear have been asparagus, rhubarb, and… cheese. Yes – I think cheese is considered a vegetable here in the Midwest. One of My Favorite Rhubarb Recipes So far, I’ve only used rhubarb to make crisps, crumbles, and this strawberry rhubarb…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Asparagus Ribbon, Mint & Pea Pesto Toasts

Have you ever tried peeling asparagus into ribbons? Lightly crisp, fresh & delicious, they're just the thing to top these yummy spring-themed toasts.

If you love asparagus, but the people you’re living with don’t, this post is for you. Even if you’re just blasé about asparagus, like I used to be, give it a chance by ribboning it! The thin, raw ribbons tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper are so fresh and delicious that you’ll completely avoid the unpleasant fibrous, stringy experience that asparagus sometimes causes. You can toss them in salads, put them on pizza… last weekend we ate them on fancy toast because these happened to be the ingredients that I had on hand. To make the ribbons, you…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

Healthy Breakfast Casserole

This healthy breakfast casserole is my go-to dish to serve for brunch. It's full of veggies with a secret layer of roasted sweet potatoes on the bottom!

This healthy breakfast casserole would be perfect for an Easter or Mother’s Day get-together! It’s easy to make, it serves a crowd, and it’s packed with fresh veggies. I love making it when we host friends and family for brunch in the spring. My Mom’s Healthy Breakfast Casserole Speaking of Mother’s Day, my mom actually gave me the inspiration for this vegetarian breakfast casserole recipe! She’s been making breakfast casseroles for years, but she started using sweet potatoes in hers just recently. I LOVED that idea, and the hearty layer of roasted sweet potatoes on the bottom of this casserole…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>

3-Layer Fruit Smoothie

This 3-layer fruit smoothie is the ultimate healthy breakfast! I'll make the whole thing for a special occasion or just one layer for a quick, yummy treat.

Nothing says love like a smoothie, right? 🙂 I love love love Valentine’s Day, but not in the fancy-dinner-prix-fixe dinner sort of way. I love it for of all of the cute things that remind me of being a little kid… tiny paper cards, homemade cupcakes with pink frosting, heart shaped candies… so in the spirit of being crafty, I made this 3-layer fruit smoothie! I always see layered fruit smoothies on Instagram and think, “who the heck has time to make three separate smoothies?” – but here I am doing it. It actually was pretty simple, and while I…

TO THE RECIPE >>>>
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.