What do you make for your cousin's birthday when her idea of dessert is a bowl of mashed potatoes? Pickle cheesecake!!! And the best part is that everyone liked it! One of my cousin's even asked to take some home with him! Before you think we are completely off our rockers, think cheese ball in cake form. I served it with whole grain crackers.
What artistry! We visited Mackinac Island in Michigan (is there any other?) and stopped to watch one of the artisans making fudge! It’s absolutely amazing to watch! And of course we bought some! On the way back to our Airbnb we also talked about what it would take to make this ourselves! I love that we are both dreamers.
I have so many ideas for this! I used to eat a ton of the mini tacos from the local deli, these are going to be amazing!
With the daylight hours getting shorter I’ve been feeling majorly crunched for time and in need of quick dinners. Anyone else feeling the days are just slipping away? ⏳
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My favorite fast dinner lately has been oven baked tacos! Wrap a small stack of corn tortillas (4-6) in damp paper towels, microwave for 1 min 30 seconds, fill with your favorite taco fillings & some refried beans to stick everything together, fold them over, and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until the tortillas are crispy!
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This batch is filled with @ortegataco refried beans, some leftover canned pumpkin, kale, nutritional yeast, mexican seasonings, and hot sauce. Using up things in the fridge and getting in some hidden veggies! 🥬🌮
And higher in fiber too! This is totally on my must try list!
Love pesto but hate how calorie dense oil-based versions are?? This pesto recipe replaces olive oil with green peas, resulting in a low fat & high protein pesto!
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This pesto is a great base for veggie burgers or roasted veggie sandwiches, thinned out with some almond milk as a pasta sauce, as a sauce for pizza, or simply spread onto some thick crusty bread! 🍞
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Oil-Free Green Pea Pesto recipe on my website! ⭐
I currently have a few recipes in the works and one I’m really excited about is homemade yellow rice! I love making paella but don’t love that most yellow rice brands on the market are loaded with sodium and chicken flavoring (so unnecessary). This recipe is coming down the pipe soon! 🤗
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For the inaugural batch of yellow rice I decided to give it a Caribbean spin. I added in some black beans and paired it with some “jerk chicken” made from @countrylifefoods soy curls coated in potato starch, baked, and tossed in jerk sauce. The dried red and green bell pepper pieces that give this yellow rice just the right colorful touch are also from CLNF! 🙌
I was listening to a podcast by a pastor. He had two church members, a brother and sister who were well into their 90's and still going strong. He asked the brother what their secret was. What he said was:
"Stop eating while you are still a little hungry, get up when you are still a little tired, and stop talking when you still have something to say."
What a great idea! If I make sweet potato chips that will increase the fiber too!
Snowy winter weather has already arrived for me so I made my nachos white-out style 😂 (also because I’m obsessed with sour cream).
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A plate of oven-baked russet potato rounds topped with seasoned black beans, diced tomatillo, cilantro-lime red cabbage, and oodles of “sour cream” made of @silk dairy-free almond yogurt + lemon juice, and as always, original @tabasco hot sauce – because winter weather doesn’t have to be cold 🌶🌶
This has been so true for me! I tried extreme so many times without success. This time I have focused on sustainability, and I'm doing it! 30 days and 17lbs later, I'm still excited about what I'm doing!
Last night I set out to make my own enchiladas. I always make my own refried beans and got to where I was good with consistency in the instant pot but this time I did them in the crockpot and they turned out really loose. I figured they wouldn’t do well for rolling in tortillas so I made a kind of lasagna layered casserole. It looked so pretty when I covered it and put it in the fridge. Admittedly the container was too full so it squished out the lid and I had to clean it up. Lol. It took about 45-50 minutes to bake and I was starving so I cut right into it and served... Obviously, you can see what happened. Just be glad I didn't post a picture after I mixed a little sour cream in! I'm happy to report though that as it cooled a bit it set up and tomorrow I will have casserole instead of soup. Either way, it's delicious!
he he, the language of the people! My boyfriend and I grew up and currently live at opposite ends of the country. We both have our folk/traditional way of saying things and sometimes confuse each other until we have the "aha moment" and realize we're talking about the same thing!
Growing up as an outdoor kid in a rural area and then going into the field of biology as an adult is just like, learning the proper name for a plant or animal, and reflexively going “oh yeah we used to call those [some absurdly folksy nickname that you’re only now realizing sounds ridiculous]”
I’ll casually say something like “yeah don’t walk in that creek I’ve seen toe-biters and mudbugs in the water and the no see ums on the bank are unbearable” and just be totally oblivious to the fact that I sound like an incomprehensible little swamp rat to my colleagues
We have a lovely trail that goes through town and is like an oasis in the middle of the business. I was 20 feet away from this precious little thing who was wondering through the back yard of a hotel! Unfortunately no mommy in sight. I hope she's nearby and safe.
I'm making progress on my little oasis. These patio tomatoes are so interesting. They are about 8-10" tall right now and already producing fruit. The leaves are stiff and kind of shiny. My grandma calls them "weird", lol.
Working on turning my concrete patio into an urban garden oasis! Looking forward to the results!