Top Recipes of 2018!

We cooked up a storm in 2018, and these recipes stuck out as your (and my) favorites. Here's to new year of great healthy vegetarian food!

Where did the time go?! It feels like just yesterday that I was sitting here writing about last year’s top recipes, and here we are again. 2018 was a busy one… we settled into our Chicago home and cooked up a storm of yummy food. We have some exciting things happening in 2019, but before we get there, here are the greatest hits of this past year. I think it’s fun to check our analytics to see which of your favorite recipes were also my favorite recipes… and this list really aligns. So without further ado… (Click on the titles…

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Kitchen Gift Guide + Our (New!) Shop Section

Everything that I use and love in the kitchen! Browse by cookware, kitchen tools, prep/storage, tabletop items, and more!

Happy post-Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a great meal and a relaxing long weekend. Me? I’ve been a busy bee putting the finishing touches on this new “Shop” section of our website so that we could launch it before Black Sunday or Cyber Monday or whatever-the-heck these gift-crazy days are called. I typically write some sort of gift guide post around this time of year, but this time I’m doing things a little bit differently. Here’s why! I get tons and tons of emails about my recommendations for cookware, kitchen tools, storage containers, pretty dishes, what camera we use,…

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Favorite Fall Squash Recipes

A roundup of delicious vegetarian & vegan recipes featuring winter squash! Great ideas for Thanksgiving appetizers, sides, and main dishes.

It’s squash season! I think fall has a tendency to become “canned pumpkin season,” but there are so many great meals that can be made around fresh squash. Here are just a few of my favorites! Click directly on the photos to go to each recipe. Butternut Apple Cranberry Sandwich My current obsession – I’ve eaten this sandwich multiple times this week. I can’t get enough of those roasted butternut planks with tangy apple cider-marinated cabbage stacked between thick slices of bread. Butternut Squash Turmeric Curry A perfect weeknight creamy coconut curry. It’s easy to make, it’s flexible to adapt…

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Vegetarian Labor Day Recipes

Healthy, delicious, vegetarian summer recipes! My favorite burgers, BBQ sandwiches, pasta salad, potato salad, slaw, cocktails, and desserts! Vegan options.

It’s just about Labor Day weekend, and my thoughts are: oh noooooo(!!), how did we get here already! Warm nights grilling out on our back deck… sunny farmers market strolls… available fresh produce… I’m not quite ready for this season to end but I will try my best to embrace fall as it comes. Until then, here’s a wrap-up of ALL of my favorite recipes that I made this summer. I’m hoping they provide a little inspiration for your weekend festivities! You can click directly on the images to go to each recipe. To drink: Spicy Watermelon Margaritas! These are…

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My Favorite Easy Summer Recipes

A round up of simple vegetarian summer dishes that elevate peak-season produce. Find ideas for delicious soups, salads, pastas, sandwiches, and more!

This is how I feel about summer cooking: I don’t want to spend tons of time in the kitchen, but I DO want to make meals at home using all of the seasonal produce that is so stunning at this time of year. The nice thing about summer cooking is that since the ingredients are so wonderful, you don’t have to do much to them in order to make a great dish. Click on the pictures to go to the full recipes: Blackberry Basil Pizza This is the easiest recipe in this post! Because blackberries and basil are such flavorful…

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Meal Plan Recap + Grocery List (June)

A 3-day easy, healthy, vegetarian meal plan using fresh summer produce. Includes a printable grocery list. Perfect for weeknights and busy schedules.

Happy Sunday! As promised, here’s a recap of this week’s 3-day meal plan! If you’re tuning in for the first time this week, here’s what’s happening: A few months ago I did a 5-day plan where I started with one set of ingredients that worked into 5 consecutive meals. A lot of you wrote me to say that it was helpful, so using that same inspiration – meals that share similar ingredients but do not all taste the same – I came up with this week’s plan: Here are the main ingredients: Mangoes: because they’re so juicy and refreshing for…

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My Trip to Stonyfield

Meeting Stonyfield Yogurt's partner farmers truly inspired me. They are passionate about and dedicated to producing good, organic food.

One of the great perks of my job is when I get to visit new, picturesque places and meet farmers who so passionately live for their work. I got this in spades when Stonyfield invited me to Vermont to visit some of their partner organic family farms and to hear from their co-founder Gary Hirschberg. I’m not sure what I expected, but after spending two days meeting with the farmers and hearing Gary’s mission of (basically) converting our whole planet to organic, I left truly inspired. I was delighted to see that these farms are true family farms, as Stonyfield…

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A Simple Saturday Morning

A peek into our at-home ideal Saturday morning - breakfast, puppies, coffee, OJ & more :)

It’s spring(!) and our Saturday mornings are feeling so much happier and brighter now that the sun is shining and there’s finally not any snow on the ground. I love Saturday morning, I love not leaving the house until at least 1pm, and I love watching TV until we run out of things to watch. Somewhere in there, I’m also making a healthy breakfast (or brunch). Here’s a peek at what an ideal Saturday looks like for us: First things first, we wake up next to this cute face: … that is – until “cute” turns demanding. What you’re not…

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Mother’s Day Recipes + a Giveaway!

A group of my favorite recipes that will be perfect for Mother's Day - brunch recipes, group recipes, seasonal recipes and dessert!

Mother’s Day is this weekend! That sure came up quick! In case you need some recipe inspiration, here are a few of my favorites that I think would be perfect for the occasion. Plus, see below for an extra special giveaway 🙂 For brunch: I love these lightly sweet Coconut Mango Muffins. I often keep them in my freezer for a weekday breakfast or snack. To make them brunch-able, serve with the mini frittatas below: These little Mini Tomato Frittatas with Dill are as cute as they are delicious. I absolutely love the combo of dill and eggs. These little guys are…

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5-Day Meal Plan Recap + Grocery List

A 5-day easy, healthy, vegetarian meal plan, plus grocery list. Perfect for weeknights and busy schedules. Vegan and gluten free options.

As promised, here’s a recap of the 5-day meal plan that I posted this past week. First things first, why did I all of a sudden meal plan for 5 days (and never before? ha ha). Well, I’ve had the idea for some time, but like many things, it hit the back burner. With the launch of our new meal journal, I thought: “Welp, now’s the time!” There’s a concept that I touch on in our cookbook… I call it “cooking backward” and it differs from many other meal planning approaches. You see, I’m not a person who plans, organizes,…

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The Love & Lemons Meal Record & Market List

The Love & Lemons Meal Record and Market List is the prettiest meal planning journal you've ever seen! Plan your meals, grocery lists, and social events!

Meet the newest member of our L&L family: The Love & Lemons Meal Record and Market List! Also known as the prettiest meal planning journal you’ve ever seen (of course I’m biased). This is for all of you who LOVE to meal plan… and also for those of you who think you might want to start meal planning (raising my hand), but were just waiting for the perfect pretty book, with letter-pressed type on the front, to record all of your wonderful plans and goals. When you open up the hardcover case, it looks like this (below). The pocket on…

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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.