Nori Wraps

If you love sushi but don't love rolling it at home, these easy nori wraps are for you. They taste just as good, especially with spicy mayo drizzled on top!

Meal #2 this week: Nori wraps!  If you missed Monday’s post, I made these Mango Black Bean Ginger Rice Bowls as part of this week’s three meal series showing how ingredients from one meal can work into the next, and then again into one more. I did a similar five part plan a few months ago, and many of you wrote to tell me how helpful it was… so here we are again! At the end of the week, I’ll recap it all with a full grocery list. For this recipe, I started with these ingredients that I had on hand…

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Mango Ginger Rice Bowl

This rice bowl is one of our go-to meals when we're craving something light. It's easy to make, and mango, ginger & basil make it wonderfully refreshing.

Welcome to another meal planning week! About a month ago, I wrote a 5-part series that was all about my basic approach to meal planning. This was the plan: I started the week with a set amount of groceries and ideas for 5 meals, each meal utilizing the ingredients from the day before. The “plan” was not set in stone, so that my dinners would be somewhat flexible if I got a new idea mid-way through the week. If you missed that series, check it out here 🙂 After getting such a wonderful response to that series, I thought, let’s…

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Chickpea Salad Sandwich

This chickpea salad sandwich recipe is my vegan spin on a pan bagnat! Crunchy veggies, herbs, and olives fill it with bright and briny flavor.

Jack has kindly titled this chickpea salad sandwich a Pan Bag-Not. If you ask me, it has everything that makes a classic pan bagnat so craveable: crisp veggies, briny flavors, and soft baguette. However, it doesn’t include the traditional tuna or hard-boiled eggs. It may be completely unconventional, but it’s completely delicious (and completely vegan, too!). Chickpea Salad Sandwich Recipe Components This chickpea salad sandwich starts with my favorite plant-based “tuna” salad. It’s briny and tangy from capers, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice. Instead of mayo, I add a bit of tahini to make it rich and creamy. The chickpea sandwich…

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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…

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Cashew Broccoli Soba Noodles

I love these easy sesame-orange-cashew soba noodles for many reasons, but especially because they use a whole head of broccoli - stalk and all!

Happy Wednesday! Currently, we’re en route from Japan where we ate a lot of soba noodles. Of course, we didn’t eat them quite like this – in Japan, soba would never be tossed with vegetables and doused with a bright, creamy, sesame-orange-cashew sauce… but we’re not in Japan any more, so here goes! 🙂 For this recipe, I use the whole head of broccoli, stalk and all. I don’t know why we ever started tossing the stalk – it’s every bit as edible as the florets (find other ideas to use the whole head here and here). To help the…

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Turmeric Cauliflower Fried Rice

I'm a huge fan of cauliflower rice, and this delicious turmeric cauliflower fried rice may be my favorite version yet. A great weeknight dinner!

Hello from Kyoto, Japan, where we’re currently on vacation and awake way too early and embracing the jet lag that has now made us morning people. I have to say, it’s kind of nice to start the day super early. Who knew one could accomplish so much in a day when you wake up at 5am?! While I’m not giving up actual rice anytime soon, and certainly not while we’re in Japan, I love my cauliflower rice, and I especially love this turmeric-spiced cauliflower fried rice with creamy cardamom yogurt sauce. It checks all of those necessary weeknight-friendly recipe boxes:…

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Orecchiette Pasta with Broccoli

This vibrant orecchiette pasta uses 10 ingredients and takes 30 minutes to make. Pesto & a dash of white wine make it a delicious weeknight go-to.

Welcome to Day 4 of my meal plan week, where we’re making orecchiette pasta! In case you haven’t been following, here are Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. This week, I’m posting easy real-life meals where each one leads into the next, making cook/prep time a breeze. This is the way I love to cook – it’s fun, it’s flexible, and I hope it helps inspire your own meal planning. And speaking of meal planning, here’s a shameless plug for our new meal journal, The Love & Lemons Meal Record & Market List, which is a handy tool to help you…

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Kale Quinoa Salad with Pesto

Use your favorite roasted veggies & grains in this easy kale quinoa salad, or make it as Day 2 of our 5-day meal plan with leftovers from Day 1!

Hi, and welcome to my week of meal planning: Day 2! In case you missed yesterday’s post, here’s what’s happening: I started with one base meal – yesterday’s Mean Green Grain Bowls. For 5 days I’ll be making a new meal each day using those base ingredients and components. So you’re basically seeing our real-life dinner, day to day. These recipes are very simple, but this is how we eat in real life – and I thought it would be fun to share that! So here’s today’s: an easy Big Green Kale Quinoa Salad! Something I love to do with leftovers…

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Roasted Veggie Grain Bowl

This grain bowl recipe checks all the boxes: it has plant-based protein, lots of veggies, a vibrant sauce, and a scoop of sauerkraut for pop!

This grain bowl recipe is Day 1 of a meal planning week here on Love and Lemons! Why? Well first and foremost, it’s because our meal planning journal, The Love & Lemons Meal Record and Market List, is out today! If you missed my post last week, click here to read all about it. If you haven’t pre-ordered one, click here to get one now! When I write about meal prep or making quick, easy dinners throughout the week, I often suggest cooking components on Sundays in big batches. I like this approach, but this week I’m doing something a…

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Creamy Vegan Pasta Bake with Brussels Sprouts

The secret to this vegan pasta bake is a velvety, savory almond-miso sauce that creates a creamy coating for the veggies and pasta.

Happy first week of spring! With summer on the horizon, at least in my still-Austin-based mindset, I really want to be making lighter and brighter food. But then I’m reminded that it still snowed here last week. Sooooo… a creamy pasta bake it is! This veggie-ful dish is hearty yet cheese-less – it won’t weigh you down, but it will fill you up! Instead of a bunch of cheese and cream, I used my secret creamy blender sauce: almonds, Almond Breeze almondmilk, white miso paste, garlic, lemon juice for tang, and a bit of Dijon mustard for the depth you…

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Kale Pesto Mushroom Pistachio Bowls

Tangy balsamic mushrooms, quinoa, chickpeas & a bright kale pesto top these yummy bowls. Easy & healthy, they're weeknight dinner perfection.

Last August, we decided to move to Chicago. When we first walked around what would become our new neighborhood, it was sunny, warm, children were playing, and the birds were singing. It was pretty hard to picture the snowy cold weather that would only be a few months away. I grew up in Chicago, but the dreamer in me still thought “maybe this year it won’t be cold.” As the fall weather started to become winter weather, the realist in me spoke up and said, “It’s Chicago. We’re going to hole up in this house, cook all winter, and order…

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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.