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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Soup weather recipes

We’ve left the house exactly two times in the last two days. It might not be snowing here like it is for many of you – but its rainy, cold and miserable. Which means it’s the perfect weather to stay in and make soup! Here are a few of my favorites (pictured above): Chickpea Miso Noodle Soup  /  Spicy Black Bean Soup Tomato Chickpea & Coconut Soup / Curried Sweet Potato Soup …and a few others that have me thinking warm thoughts: Roasted Carrot and Fennel Soup on Sunday Spent Cooking Amy Chaplin’s Kabocha Squash + Chestnut Soup on The First Mess Cream of Broccoli & Cashew…

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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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kitchen gift guides with Keep

It’s getting to be that time of year again. I don’t know about you but I’m the laziest holiday shopper ever. In fact, Black Friday crowds at the mall might be one of my biggest phobias (followed by cruise boats and pulp, in case you were curious). If you’re anything like me, you’re going to love using Keep. Here’s how it works – you set up a profile and curate Collections. I’ve filled mine with tons of my favorite food and kitchen finds (the items pictured here & more). You can follow me and I’ll follow you, and together we’ll inspire each other…

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Seasons & Spice Pairings: Winter

I can hardly believe it’s November already. Of course that’s because generally it’s warm and sunny here in Austin. Just last week I was trying to explain to my mom (in Chicago) how 80 degrees can indeed feel like fall to us. While we might not have extreme season changes, winter produce is slowly starting to show up. Pears, Pomegranates… I’ll take them all. Today, I’m sharing a few more of my favorite easy ideas for pairing fresh produce with McCormick’s Gourmet Spices. Mushrooms: To me, nothing is more comforting (yet healthy) in the wintertime than mushrooms. We just love cremini mushrooms in hearty soups. I make a version…

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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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Shredded Brussels Sprout & Apple Salad

This simple slaw is made with just 8 ingredients, but it gets wonderful sweetness & crunch from apples, kohlrabi, dried cranberries, and pine nuts.

You may or may not have noticed, but I love salads. I intended to start November off with big hearty Thanksgiving inspiration… but, well, I’m not sure if the thought of mashed potatoes made my jeans feel tighter or if it was all the Christmas cookies I ate last week (don’t ask)… this week I ended up craving soups and, especially, salads. I’m really excited about this salad because it’s so simple yet so delicious with all of its shred-y, crunchy textures. If you have a mandoline, this will go really quickly. If you don’t, you can use a sharp knife, just try to slice everything as thinly as you…

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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.