Friday, August 30, 2013

lovin' me some eggrolls

Meal planning is pretty great. I like having a plan even if sometimes it's a hassle to put the plan together.
 
On the meal plan for Wednesday of this week was eggrolls. I was a little nervous because the potential for an epic fail was there, but everything went off without a hitch. I found a veggie eggroll recipe on Pinterest by For The Love of Cooking and decided to give it a try because who doesn't love eggrolls?
 
I removed the corn starch from the recipe because I didn't think it was necessary and it's not exactly good for you.
 

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

red lentil soup

Fall is coming! Cozy sweaters, boots, fires, cuddles. I love fall.
 
If you live in Michigan like me, we've had our fair share of fall weather this "summer". The temperature literally can range from 46 - 96 degrees. Insanity.
 
This recipe here is a perfect chilly weather recipe and it's REALLY good, like really (if you couldn't tell by the CAPS).
 
I found it on Pinterest and we adapted it from a crockpot recipe because I only use the crockpot when I am going to be home all day, and that's pretty much only on the weekends, maybe... The crockpot recipe can be found at kalynskitchen.com. Below is "our" recipe. Some of the spices were changed a bit for what we had on hand and obviously ours cooked on the stove instead of the crockpot.
 
It's real simple & real good.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

more dairy free "ice cream" desserts

I posted some dairy free "ice cream" desserts about a month ago and I've got some more tasty dairy free ice cream recipes for you.
 
Last night I made two more cold treats.
 
Cake Batter Ice Cream
 
frozen bananas
sprinkles
vanilla extract
agave nectar
 
I found a recipe on Pinterest that also adds a few other ingredients (baking soda and almond butter extract) but I didn't go by the recipe when I was making it so these were not included in my final product. Basically you just food process all the ingredients until they are a nice smooth soft serve like texture and enjoy.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

reclaim, repurpose, reuse

"You're writing about a cutting board?" you ask. Why yes, yes I am.
 
BECAUSE. 
 
Just look at this beauty!
 
 
 

 

taco (mock-o) "meat"

Guess what I made last night? If you can't guess by the title, I'll just tell you; TACOS. Do you want to know the best part? They tasted (for the most part) like a regular taco BUUUUUUUT there wasn't any ground beef to be seen for miles! It was different than ground beef, but not in a bad way, or in a way that would make me prefer beef.
 
Inspired by Pure Mamas blog, I decided to make walnut taco "meat." I didn't have every spice that her recipe called for and I think I would like to make a few changes here and there to perfect the "meat," but it was pretty tasty. Mine didn't quite look as meaty as hers.
 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

orzo summer salad

I know, it's been awhile. I have no excuse. Just haven't felt up to posting anything lately. Last week I was in a terrible mood for no reason, and while work has been a little trying this week; overall I'm in a much better mood. Today, not only was I in a good mood, but a very productive mood at that. Work was non-stop and I didn't stop once I got home surprisingly. Had to stop at the grocery store to get a few things for dinner (didn't get them Sunday because I wanted them to stay fresh).

Usually when I get home from work I don't want to do anything but veg out and relax with the doggies. I don't know why today was different, maybe it's because Eric had to work late and I didn't know when he would be home or maybe the "get stuff done around the house" bug hit me... Who knows! But I accomplished a lot tonight. When I got home from the grocery store I went to work making dinner (I'll get to the recipe in a bit). While making dinner I thought to myself, "I'm not cleaning up, Eric gets to since I made the whole dinner by myself," but by the time I was done that "bug" had hit me and I got to work cleaning up. First I cleaned the dishes and the kitchen, then did laundry (I even put away laundry that has been piling up on the table because I hate putting laundry away), and swept. It might not seem like much to you, but let me tell you, dinner required lots of chopping and that takes lots of time. Clearly as you can tell by the title of this post, I made an orzo salad.

So here's the recipe.