All posts filed under: recipes

Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese Two Ways

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I don’t know about where you live, but the weather is moody AF here in Washington, D.C. What’s up, mama nature?! While I tend to prefer meals that are heavily plant-based, sometime life calls for some good old Southern comfort food. My mom has a collection of the best southern dishes, and while they taste ah-maaaazing, they certainly aren’t healthy. The good news is just about any recipe can be modified to fit your dietary needs. I adjusted my mom’s mac & cheese recipe two ways: 1) gluten free noodles using organic milk and cheese, 2) vegan using creamy cashew sauce Both of them tasted so delicious, I almost forgot we’re in the clutches of winter. Almost. But not quite. MAC & SMOKED GOUDA CHEESE  _________________________________________________________________ SERVES: 6 PREP TIME: 10-15 minutes COOK TIME: 35-40  INGREDIENTS: 4 cups dried GF macaroni 1 whole egg 1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 2 1/2 cups ORGANIC whole milk 2 heaping teaspoons dry mustard (more if desired) 1 pound Gouda cheese, grated (not pre-grated cheese) Seasoned salt …

Breakfast Tacos with Sun Dried Tomatoes

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Working peeps, I don’t know about you but I need a six month holiday, twice a year. I don’t think that’s an unresonable request, quite frankly. In the meantime: FOOD. Or, more specifically, the breakfast of champions: Texan champs that is! My ICU work schedule has me even more excited about our upcoming London vacation. We’ll be living in London proper for a month while I do yoga training with Kino MacGregor and her husband Tim Fieldman. Since life is happy but hectic right now, my meal plans are easy. And nothing is as effortless than breakfast tacos (well, ok, cereal is prob a tad easier), so that’s what’s on the menu this weekend. It turns out, eggs + tacos are such a happy match. I first fell in love with breakfast tacos when I moved to Dallas, Texas which has perfected that art form of tacos in all their splendor. After long, crazy night shifts in the ICU, my nursing friends and I  would go out for breakfast tacos and mimosas. It was the …

Veggies on Mexican Lime Rice + Handmade Tortillas with Cilantro-Jalapeño Sauce

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GOD BLESS TEXAS…. I’m a Texas girl, y’all, and you know we do tacos, tortillas and football on the reg. In my home city Dallas, Tex-Mex is practically a revered as a sacred art. I myself have devoted endless hours to “studying” said art by way of eating non-stop Mexican cuisine and drinking many a margarita. I just wanted to make sure I left no stone unturned in my quest to find the perfect burrito. I’m very devoted to my research, obviously!  I have yet to experience a mambo taxi (a frozen marg that maybe should be illegal) I didn’t want to add to my list of Possible Last Supper Options. I really do keep this list, because you just never know. The Boy Scouts only think they came up with that motto. Not so fast, Eagle Scout! I was born touting that as my personal mantra! But I digress. Anyway, D.C. offers many great food experiences, but sometimes a girl likes to get back to her roots and go a little wild, Wild West on dinner. And so I did. …

Roasted Tomotoes + Mushrooms on Creamy Polenta

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FARMER’S MARKETS ARE LIKE DISNEY WORLD: ABLAZE IN COLOR, YOU’LL SPEND MORE THAN YOU PLANNED, AND YOU’LL LEAVE FEELING LIKE YOU HAVE BEEN SOME PLACE MAGICAL… There’s something really spectacular about wandering around a local farmer’s market on the weekend. My inner hippie loves being surrounded by so many varieties of gorgeous, vibrant foods, but those brilliant colors are more than aesthetically pleasing; the rich shades are actually derived from chlorophyll and anthocyanin, which are basically nature’s gift wrapped up in food. You can read about the 10 Benefits of Chlorophyll if you are a fellow nerd and love learning to the max. If you want to know about the nutritious benefits that come with different colors of veggies and fruit, check out this article “Colors of Vegetables & Their Nutrients.” Or, you can just take say, “Produce is the best; I’m convinced!” and carry on with this recipe đŸ™‚ As much as possible, I try to support local farmers who practice humane farming methods and produce GMO free crops. I recognize that usually this is …

Paleo Banana Pancakes

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Can’t you see that it’s just raining? Ain’t no need to go outside… Maybe we can sleep in Make you banana pancakes Pretend like it’s the weekend now… ~Jack Johnson Jack Johnson might just be the muse of this recipe, because I’m pretty sure this song is the unofficial soundtrack to banana pancake making expeditions everywhere. Yes, yes I did listen to it while I was whipping these magical treats breakfast together. Thank you Spotify for letting me DJ up my own life. Wika wika wah! (Can you believe Samuel married me? I.am.such.a.nerd) I love, love, L-O-V-E banana pancakes. What I don’t love is gluten or committing carbocide in the morning (scratch that, I love it too much, but am trying to practice healthy habits these days…sigh), which a typical stack of pancakes usually involves both. Fortunately, with this suuuuuuuper easy recipe, we can have our cakes and eat them too—pancakes, that is. I searched through several recipes, tried out quite a few, and experimented with my own variations till I found a version that …

Melted Brie + Berries Crostini

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I love hosting events. It makes my heart oh-so-happy! I unashamedly adore my friends and family, rather like a giant Labrador retriever. Admittedly, I should probably dial it back a notch, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. What I don’t really love is stressing out when I have friends over. Hosting should be effortless and enjoyable for everyone, because the focus is fellowship. Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to be Pinterest fabulous, but that’s not really the point of welcoming people over to our homes. I find my most enjoyable events are when I keep things simple and my focus on my guests. Needless to say, I’m always on the search for effortless appetizers or hors d’oeuvres recipes. I make my own and experiments with others, always with the thought: how easy would this be to throw together for my guests? Admittedly, wine is usually my main course. Everything is better with wine, I’m pretty much 100% sure of this truth. Wednesday Wine About It is an awesome weekly …

10 Minute Miso Noodle Soup

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Soups are the ultimate go-to for quick, easy meals. You can food prep the ingredients ahead of time or make the entire recipe in advanced, and they still taste amazing. Just when it didn’t seem possible to get any easier, miso soup proved we can abandon our cup o’ noodles and eat something a million times more delicious and way healthier in 10 minutes or less. Hallelujah, dinner just became effortless! As an incredibly busy cardiac ICU nurse and full time yoga practitioner, “fast, easy, and healthy” are necessary check list items when I cook. Being able to throw together an incredibly nutritious soup in 10 minutes frees us from ever having to get fast food or order take out food from some restaurant that may or may not give a damn about how sanitary their food prep is. This recipe is also very versatile. You can mix and match veggies however you’d like, but you can’t go wrong with shiitake + portobello mushrooms (mmmm…so good!), and fresh baby spinach or kale. Zucchini and squash …

Gluten Free Banana Bread

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When I was growing up, I had an obsession with banana bread that I’ve yet to live down with my family. I was a little more than mildly fanatical about it, and since it’s not exactly cake and it’s not really just bread, I would usually try (unsuccessfully) to convince my mother that it was in my best interest to let me eat say…the entire loaf. Let it not be said that I was afraid of carbs as a child. Though I’ve developed a moderate ability to reign myself in when it comes to committing total carbocide, I still just love a delicious, moist piece of banana bread with a cup of tea and a good book. That’s a scene from a little corner in my heaven, friends đŸ™‚ Being gluten free, sugar free, preservative free, etc etc etc often feels like it ends up being taste free. Texture can be unpleasant as well, and the final result is a really bad knock off from whatever original recipe from which it was fashioned. I don’t …

Meatless Meatballs + Veggies Medley

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All hail vegetables, we just can’t get enough! Recently, I took a beef meatball recipe by Gordon Ramsay and converted it to zucchini meatballs that turned out to be so freakishly delicious, my husband requested them several nights in a row. Here’s the important thing about that little fact: My husband might not have a Texas accent, but he’s a Texan through and through, and he’s been born and breed to be all things Texas. That means “Beef: it’s what’s for dinner” was probably a motto he was raised to revere. He’s the nicest food snob you’ll ever meet. Neither of us think meat substitutes ever really taste like good substitutes or are a decent replacement. And then came zucchini meatballs… It was like a light from heaven shone down on my plate. And now that we have that little recipe preface out of the way, I can tell you about these Super Yum Zucchini Meatballs. The texture and taste actually is not only an awesome replacement for meatballs, but I personally thought it was even …

Smoked Salmon + Goat Cheese Veggie Omelet

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Ok, it’s not vegetarian. But it’s pretty damn delicious. You might already know that I follow a vegetarian/vegan diet 90% of the time, and occasionally I will eat fish, eggs, or goat cheese when I know they’ve been obtained through humane methods and are organic. An obvious modification to this omelet is just take out the salmon and it’s equally delicious. It’s been a really long time since I ate any meat, and when my husband and I popped into the market before starting a lovely Sunday Funday together, I saw smoked salmon waiting for me: must.have.now. That was my instinctive reaction, and want my stomach wants, it’s gonna get on any given Sunday. We ritualistically do a large brunch with friends every Sunday, but I had a laaaaaate late night out with a group of friends the night before and just wanted a low-key day of lounging about with my favorite human in the entire goddamn world (um, my husband, in case you are not good at guessing games). I threw together a quick …