Grilled Avocado with Veggie Ceviche

If you've never tried grilled avocado, break out the grill ASAP! Tart veggie ceviche over lightly charred, creamy avocado is a delicious grilling side.

Grilling week continues! For the 3 recipes I’m sharing this week (the first was a grilled asparagus recipe if you missed it), I really wanted to choose produce that’s less commonly grilled. We’ll have all summer to grill my favorite staples like peppers, zucchini, and eggplant. I’ve never grilled avocado, so I thought “ooh, that’ll be fun!” It was fun, we loved it, and so will you: How to Make This Grilled Avocado Recipe Start by making the veggie ceviche filling with hearts of palm (they have a fish-like texture), tomato, serrano pepper, cilantro, and diced red onion for crunch. Toss…

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Farro Salad with Grilled Asparagus

Make this beautiful grilled asparagus recipe for your next cookout! With pea shoots, radishes & lemon thyme dressing, it's practically spring on a plate.

Welcome to grilling week! This week, each of the 3 recipes I’m going to post will all involve the grill. The sun is finally shining and we’re getting ready for Memorial Day weekend, so what better time to cook outside? Of course if you don’t have an outdoor grill, you can always use a cast iron grill pan on the stove top. We’re starting this series with one of my favorite things to grill – asparagus! The key to great grilled asparagus is finding really fresh thin spears of asparagus. I like fat spears for ribboning, but thin spears are…

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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…

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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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Strawberry Tart

You won't find any dairy or gluten in this delicious strawberry tart recipe! Instead, it has a bright coconut cream filling and a nutty almond crust.

This strawberry tart recipe comes from the Sweet Laurel cookbook by Laurel Gallucci and Claire Thomas. I know you will absolutely love this book – there are SO many amazing allergen-free baking recipes (many are vegan as well). In addition to this simple strawberry tart, there are cakes, cookies, bars, pies, muffins, quick breads, and pop tarts. Each recipe is more decadent than the one before it, yet they all have short ingredient lists and simple instructions. I can’t wait to try the Apple Pie Bars and Double Chocolate Muffins in the fall, but right now, I’m obsessed with this…

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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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Gaby’s Strawberry Shortcake

This classic strawberry shortcake recipe is a lovely, fresh dessert! I made mine fancy by mixing fresh basil into the simple strawberry filling.

As I’ve gotten older, a funny thing has happened where I’ve become less obsessed with chocolate desserts and more in love with fruity desserts – especially if those fruits happen to be strawberries! I can enjoy chocolate cake in moderation, but when it comes to strawberries, I want them all. To me, strawberry shortcake is the perfect not-too-sweet, fresh & fruity summer treat. So naturally, when I flipped through my friend Gaby’s gorgeous new cookbook What’s Gaby Cooking: Everyday California Food, I went straight for the strawberry shortcake recipe. Well, actually, there were two strawberry recipes that spoke to me.…

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Curried Cauliflower Soup

This curried cauliflower soup is made with just 9 ingredients and comes together in a few simple steps. It's destined for your regular meal rotation!

Today is the last day of my 5-part meal plan, and it’s a good one! I love this curried cauliflower soup! It’s so darn simple to make and it’s so delicious with the curry spices. There’s a little kick from the cayenne and some brightness from the lemon. The ingredient list is short, so this is definitely a recipe that’s bound for the regular meal rotation… and it came about so unexpectedly. See, I started the this meal plan series last week with a set amount of groceries and ideas for 5 meals, each meal using the ingredients from the…

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Quinoa & Kale Veggie Quesadillas

Veggie quesadillas are one of my go-to weeknight dinners, and I love this kale & quinoa version. Don't skip the tomatillo salsa for dipping!

Aaaand meal planning week continues on Day 3 with these Quinoa Kale Veggie Quesadillas. Just to recap, I’m trying something new this week where I’m posting easy real-life meals in the order that we actually eat them. What does this mean? I went to the grocery store at the beginning of the week, I prepped a few components while making dinner on day 1, and I’ve been using those components and leftovers from the prior meal to make a different meal each day. One meal leads into the next, which makes cook/prep time a breeze. These meals are not culinary…

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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.