Easy Peanut Noodles

This simple recipe offers two variations for making delicious, easy peanut noodles. These vegan dishes make great weeknight dinners or weekday lunches!

I don’t make peanut noodles nearly enough. I forget how easy it is to make a peanut sauce, and that I usually already have all the ingredients on hand. I’ve made other peanut sauce variations before, but this time I wanted to simplify it down to just the necessary six ingredients. It takes about 5 minutes (tops) to stir it together… then toss it with noodles & veggies. Dinner is done. We rarely have leftovers when I serve peanut noodles for dinner, but when we do, I use the leftover peanut noodles in lettuce wraps for lunch the next day.…

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Nasu Dengaku {Miso Eggplant}

eggplant / japan

If you need a reason to try (and love) miso, this is your recipe. I’m hoping eggplant is still in season where you are. I was excited to find these little nearly-black beauties at our farmers market last weekend. If you don’t have eggplant, this sweet & salty glaze is amazing on cod, tofu, and even sweet potatoes. There are many variations to the dengaku recipe – some use sake along with mirin, some add a bit of ginger… I’ve even made it with agave syrup before (although that would probably not be approved by the Japanese, shh). I like…

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Sweet Potato Tahini Crostini

fall / appetizers / vegan-optional

We got home last week and I immediately started thinking about post-vacation recovery foods. Kale salads, green juices… that sort of thing. That is until Jack announced that he was craving bread. Which sounded good, so bread we had. This cozy little crostini turned out to be perfect for our lazy, rainy weekend. (Kale salad, on the side). This sweet potato spread – it’s halfway to hummus. It’s thicker and has a stronger tahini flavor, which was a nice contrast to the light & airy ricotta. It’s also a convenient way to use up a bit of leftover baked…

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Vanilla Matcha Smoothie

Banana, vanilla & almond milk make the sweet, creamy base of this matcha smoothie. It's a healthy, antioxidant-filled breakfast or afternoon snack!

vegan / almond breeze / smoothie

Matcha treats – I can hardly remember my life without them. Since we’ve been in Japan, matcha ice cream, matcha doughnuts, and matcha cakes have become daily afternoon snacks. This matcha smoothie, I promise, is a much healthier treat than any of those. Sure matcha is healthy, but a doughnut is still a doughnut after all. At home, this is how we enjoy matcha. I use my go-to smoothie base – almond milk and bananas – and add matcha powder along with a bit of vanilla bean. If you’re new to matcha, it’s very finely ground, high quality green tea…

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Whole Grain Flax Waffles

vegan / gluten free / breakfast

Admittedly, I’m not the best at baby showers. I forget that the point of a baby shower is the gift-showering part, and I usually show up with an amazon print-out of what I purchased off the registry that morning. (really, I mean well). So this is my kind of baby shower… the virtual kind where I make and eat waffles and snap a photo. No pink bows required. Melissa (of The Faux Martha) is a dear friend I’ve met through the blogosphere. Her beautiful blog is filled with delectable sweet treats and her waffle recipe is one of her signatures. When…

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Gluten-free Almond Coconut Bars

snacks & dips / gluten free / book review

This recipe is from the hilarious new book Gluten is my Bitch: Rants, Recipes and Ridiculousness for the Gluten Free, by April Peveteaux. If you’ve been recently diagnosed with Celiac disease and are feeling sorry for yourself, this is a must-read. If you’re like me and you deal with other food sensitivity issues, you’ll have a good laugh reading April’s stories because you totally “get it.” And because she is just so freaking funny. My favorite part has to be the chapter about traveling as a gluten-free person. It’s called “Paris doesn’t have to suck, but it might.” I had…

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Vegan French Toast

No eggs? No problem. This vegan French toast recipe is easy to make with simple ingredients. Fluffy, light, and crisp, it's a delicious breakfast.

brunch

This vegan French toast recipe is just as good as the classic kind! It’s fluffy on the inside, crisp around the edges, and has a lightly sweet cinnamon flavor. You might think that it takes fussy ingredients to make French toast without eggs, but this recipe is secretly simple. Made with 9 pantry basics and ready in 20 minutes, it’s an easy, comforting, and delicious breakfast. I first tried vegan French toast years ago (like…25) at the Pick Me Up Café in Chicago. Jack and I went there regularly when we had just started dating long distance and he would…

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Nutella Stuffed French Toast

breakfast / holiday

This might be the most unhealthy thing I’ve made for this site thus far. It’s not “surprisingly” vegan or “by the way” gluten free. And I didn’t make my own Nutella, although I thought about it. But… it’s fast, easy, and super delicious. We’re having some Nutella-loving friends over for Easter brunch next weekend, so I’m thinking this will be sure to impress. If sweets are too much for you in the morning, this can double as dessert with a scoop of ice cream on top. (If you’re reading between the lines here, yes… we ate these for breakfast and…

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Sweet Potato & Brussels Skillet

This Sweet Potato & Brussels Egg Skillet is a simple, healthy vegetarian dinner or brunch! This flexible, easy recipe is also gluten-free.

brunch / vegetarian

Brunchy food… it’s perhaps what I cook the most, but what makes it to this site the least. Saturday and Sunday mornings are just not the time to be breaking out the camera. So in an effort to provide a few pre-Easter brunch ideas, we had eggs for dinner… something we should really do more often. I love this sort of meal because it’s a bit of a fridge clean-out. A trip to the store is not necessarily required, you can switch this around to work with what you have. I had a sweet potato and a few brussels sprouts……

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Apple Muffins

These easy apple muffins are studded with juicy chunks of apple and toasty nuts. I love enjoying them with tea or coffee on a cool fall morning.

dairy free / gluten free-optional / brunch

My mom made these apple muffins for us last week while she was visiting. And I made them again for breakfast this morning. These muffins aren’t too sweet, and they’re not too indulgent. Rather, they’re the perfect pick-me-up to start a slow morning or a great healthy snack on a cool fall afternoon. They’re on the healthy side, made with spelt flour or whole wheat flour, coconut oil, and almond milk. My favorite part of them is the juicy chunks of apple on the inside that make them wonderfully moist. Change Up These Apple Muffins! I love this apple muffin recipe…

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Shells & Brussels Sprouts

vegetarian / pasta

Growing up, I was made to eat vegetables just as much as the next kid. Broccoli was at the top of my hate list, closely followed by mushy cooked carrots (one of the only veggies I still won’t eat). But I never had to face brussels sprouts. My mom didn’t like them as a child, so she never subjected them to our family. I felt lucky about this… if the adults in my family wouldn’t eat them, they must be that bad. I don’t know what prompted brussels sprouts to go from America’s most hated veggie to darn near the most loved one, but…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.