Baked Artichoke Squares
My parents entertained A LOT when we were growing up. It was pretty exciting because it meant a few things. 1. We could play video games without my parents getting into our business. 2. We could steal cans of Coca-Cola from underneath the card table and make our own soda concoctions in the backyard 3. My mom would have certain special things for us to eat like Baked Artichoke Squares & DESSERT. We only had dessert when company was over.
The thing about these Baked Artichoke Squares is that they're not the prettiest looking appetizer. What they lack in beauty, they make up in taste. Me and my brothers always got into them before our parent's guests arrived and my mom would chase us around the house totally peeved. Flash forward a few decades and I'm in my own kitchen, making them for company. I always have a difficult time not polishing off the batch before I put them out on a plate for guests. Old habits die hard.
My friend Jessica put it best by describing them as being like "portable artichoke dip!" She's totally right. It's like artichoke dip met quiche and had a baby. And the baby was the most perfect baby EVER!
Roasted Butternut Squash & Arugula Salad
LITTLE EFFORT, BIG IMPACT. That's how I'm living. I almost typed livin' but I don't know if I'm that cool.
Maybe I am. I dunno.
I've got a lot on my plate these days and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm working, podcasting, organizing, mom-ing, wife-ing, cooking, making...In other words, there are a lot of ings in my life right now. The most important ing in my life has been and will ALWAYS be eating. You could have guessed as much.
Since I'm a busy lady with a love for new dishes, most of the recipes I've been clipping out have been simple and short. A lot of them require mostly pantry staples with a few fresh produce elements thrown into the mix. This one does just that! I had everything in my kitchen except arugula & apple cider.
Aaaaaand wouldn't you know that with all the my grocery planning, I totally forgot to pick up the apple cider! It was probably those 3 unplanned minutes spent in front of the kombucha shelf figuring out what flavors to get. Guava? Mango? Passionberry? Oooh Strawberry! Tough decisions. When I got home, I made the executive decision to add the orange juice I already had in my fridge to the warm vinaigrette and it worked like a charm!
This salad has all my favorite things:
Toasted walnuts, dried cranberries, Parmesan, arugula & roasted butternut squash.
Loving. Can we make that the new WINNING? Please?
Sushi Roll Edamame Salad
You guys! I'm going through some SERIOUS Oprah withdrawals. It's really bad. Last week I had a crazy dream where I was trying to find a pair of sunglasses and all of a sudden I was in Walmart and Oprah (who was wearing FLIP FLOPS!) handed me a pair. I woke up before I could hear her sweet voice. Sigh. THEN yesterday while I was driving to work, I pulled up at a stop light and a shiny black suburban passed by. OMG it was Oprah driving the car. Well...not really. It was a woman that looked just like her.
While figuring out what to type in this paragraph, I did a google search for "Oprah Vegan" because I remembered the show where she went vegan for a week with all of her staffers and LOOK! that post was a year ago! WHAT WHAT?! I think this means we're destined to meet. Or if not, maybe someone who knows her really well could get her drunk on Moscow Mules and have her call my voicemail? All I want her to say is TRACY SHUTTERBEAN in her voice. It would seriously make my decade.
I wonder if Oprah would like this salad? I'm pretty sure she would. Besides the base of romaine lettuce, there's a bit of brown rice, avocado chunks, cucumber, nori shreds, edamame, carrots & sesame seeds. It's hearty yet light! I bet she'd ask for more green onion miso dressing. Of course she'd ask for more dressing! That dressing IS SO DANG GOOD.
Without further adieu...
SUSHI ROLL EDAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME SAAAAAAAALAD FOR EVERYONE!
Did I tell you that Cooper can do the Oprah voice now? It's glorious.
Raw Chocolate Milk
Brace yourselves. Your minds are about to be blown. You ready? You braced? Good.
What if I was to tell you that you can easily make chocolate milk that tastes like a frothy chocolate malt without using malt or dairy?
(Omg. This is starting to sound like an infomercial! Crap! I need a big screen projector behind me!)
Well, YOU CAN. You can make delicious chocolate milk with your blender!
(this is not an infomercial for a Vitamix cuz I don't have one. I want one though! Like really really bad.)
So this is raw chocolate milk. What makes it raw? So glad you asked! It's made with cashews that have been soaked in water! There's also cocoa nibs up in this mix which makes things extra fancy in my book. Looking to make plain vanilla cashew milk? Just omit the cocoa nibs and reduce the agave syrup. This recipe is a game changer & approved by my picky 3 year old. Winning!
Banana Nut Waffles
I make a lot of vegan recipes, yet I'm not vegan. Why? I think it's because I liked to be surprised by food. I love when a few ingredients can come together and taste almost identical to what it's like in its original form- kinda like this coleslaw that used cashews in place of mayo. It's pretty cool when things taste like other things like this Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Salad that tasted like pizza! I also get pretty excited when I find a recipe that pleases the guys in my life like this Kale Coconut Salad with Sesame Oil. I've made that recipe at least 5 times since then.
What I hoped to get out of this recipe was a batch of healthier waffles using what I had in my pantry; I almost always jump at a recipe if I've got all the ingredients. What I didn't realize is that I'd get a batch of waffles that tasted like banana bread. Being a lover of banana bread, I was thrilled.
While I could only eat one for breakfast, Cooper ate two. Future professional food eating champ? We'll see...
Kale Salad w/ Coconut & Sesame Oil
While everyone was reheating their leftover Thanksgiving dinner Friday night, I rushed out to the grocery store (which was nice & empty BTW) to fill up my cart up with vegetables to juice and kale to inhale. It seems that last week I ate like my life depended on it; it's the holidays!
Saturday morning I woke up and juiced, went for a walk, cleaned house, worked in the kitchen, decorated our house for Christmas, drank water like a fish, juiced again and made this amazing kale salad for dinner.
One of the reasons I picked this recipe from the Super Natural Every Day Cookbook was that it looked extremely healthy, yet filling. I also thought it would help get my taste buds in check since they were accepting nothing but pumpkin pie and my mom's stuffing for 24 hours straight. I found myself scarfing down the salad, but it wasn't because I was super hungry. The toasted coconut and the crispy kale coated in olive oil, sesame oil and shoyu created a buttery/salty/ crunchy effect that I like to call instant crack! It's a delightful thing when "health food" becomes addictive, isn't it?
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Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash & Cranberries
Are you a person who cringes when your foods touch? Don't answer that. I don't want to ruin my impression of you because I happen to really like when my foods touch. I like seeing what certain things taste like together because you never know when you'll find a random winning combination. When I was 8 years old I had an epiphany when part of my dinner salad casually slid into my french fry ketchup mound. That day I discovered that ketchup on salad tasted just like 1000 island dressing without the mayo. I spent a good year putting ketchup on my salad while enduring the looks of disgust from my family. Have I lost you?
The other day I decided to eat comfort food in the form of Thanksgiving dinner (for lunch) from Whole Foods. I got home, opened the cardboard to-go box and saw that all of the contents had shifted. Delightful! The Brussels sprouts and roasted butternut squash were saturated with gravy and cranberry sauce and I thought, "We're really onto something here." I decided to give you a recipe that I like to call a happy accident, even though I did it on purpose. I just want your taste buds to thank me for something new and different. In this dish, sweet roasted cubes of butternut squash mix with savory browned Brussels sprouts, bits of apples, onions, smoked curry powder and the surprising tang of cranberries. It's like stuffing but without the bread, a roasted medley that's perfect for all the vegans, vegetarians & gluten-free diners at your Thanksgiving table. You could eat it on a random fall afternoon because you're ridiculously excited about Thanksgiving dinner. It's really up to you.
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Roasted Spaghetti Squash w/ Mushrooms
TEXT MESSAGE BETWEEN HUSBAND & WIFE:
Husband: What's for dinner?
Wife: Spaghetti squash w/ mushrooms
Husband: K. be home in 15.
After texting his wife, husband drives home with the thought of digging into a big bowl of creamy/carb dense spaghetti with mushrooms & a full glass of wine. When husband walks up to the kitchen table, he looks deflated after realizing he's been duped AGAIN with spaghetti squash! Why does his wife always try to pull a fast one? Doesn't she know he's not vegetarian?
Knowing this might be the case, wife plans ahead and makes a small batch of garlic bread to compensate for the lack of carbs. Turns out husband (a carb lover who doesn't love mushrooms) actually enjoys this Roasted Spaghetti Squash with Mushrooms recipe. Wife is satisfied with the dinner she concocted and is happy she is able get a huge bowl of vegetables into her husband's belly. Good wives know that the key to a man's heart is through garlic bread.
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