Weekly Eats Two (1/18 - 1/24)

Lunch/Dinner: Crowd Pleasing Vegan Caesar Salad

I was craving something hearty and healthy, so I settled on this amazing vegan Caesar salad. I have made a few different vegan variations of this salad - but this one might by my favorite yet! All it takes is prepping some chickpea croutons, cashew Caesar dressing, and vegan nut parm. Then all it takes is tearing up some up lettuce and kale for individual salads! To streamline the prep even more, I made the parm in my mini food processor and then made the dressing in the same one to reduce clean up and make things easier. If you want to bulk up/stretch these salads even more, add some cooked vegan chick'n scallopini (which happens to be gluten free and vegan) to your salads. They cook up quickly and make a delightfully protein rich addition to this dish!

Dinner: One-Pot Pasta Diavolo

This one-pot pasta not only required little equipment, but the ingredient list was short as well, making it ideal for any weeknight. I was slightly skeptical about the coconut milk-tomato sauce, but it was perfect with a ton of garlic, Italian herbs, and red pepper. My only forewarning about this dish is watch it closely! It can go from good to burnt very quickly. I would honestly just stand over the pot with tongs, turning it every couple of minutes, to ensure even cooking and no burning. I am definitely planning on doing this next time :) Overall, a very flavorful, easy pantry meal that goes great with garlic bread!

Dessert: Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprint Cookies with Potato Chips

You must know by now - I will use any occasion to bake something for anybody. To celebrate the birthday of one of my best friend's, he requested these exquisite, but easy to make cookies. I know they sound ridiculous, but trust me - they are the perfect combination of sweet and salty. To make gluten/dairy free, I used; vegan butter in place of the butter & a mixture of (1/2 C sorghum flour, 1/2 C tapioca starch, 1/2 C millet flour, 3/4 tsp xanthan gum) for the flour. I dare say these turned out much better than the first time I made them, and everyone was raving over them the first time around! 

Breakfast: GF Buckwheat Waffles

Since last year's five day snow and ice storm, I've declared it a tradition to make waffles the first morning of the storm. Last year I made chocolate chip buckwheat waffles, so naturally this year I went with straight up buckwheat waffles. These come together in a flash and hold up to any toppings you'd like! I love the gorgeous dark color that buckwheat flour gives baked goods. We topped ours with vegan butter, agave (forgot the maple syrup before the storm!), and maple sugar. Do you have a dish that you make during snow days? I'd love to know!

Dinner: Vegan Queso Blanco Bowls with Pintos, Crispy Kale + Brown Rice

This recipe comes from Isa Does It, or what I will forever refer to as my Vegan Bible. I am trying not to eat out as much lately, so I decided to make our Mexican food this week instead of going out for some; this also had to do with us being snowed in for 4 days. The bowls consist of brown rice, pinto beans (made from scratch), diced tomato, crispy kale, and the most outrageous vegan queso blanco made from cashews. I've made this queso once before as an appetizer and it's nothing short of perfect. These bowls come together quickly and will gladly satisfy any Mexican/Chipotle cravings that you might be having! 

Overview: I stuck to my meal plan (yay!) and cooked every meal this week, except for one outing the night before the snow storm. I spent a minimal amount on groceries at the store, using all of my tips from work plus a very small amount of cash. This is in part due to cooking my beans from scratch instead of buying organic canned at the store. Tip: I cooked these overnight in my mini slow-cooker while I slept (takes between 8-10 hours), so it was hands-free to make these basically! The only thing I would like to improve upon this week is making more snacks to take to work.

Ideas for this week: apple pie granola bars & Cajun hummus for snacks; crunchy black bean tacos; tortilla soup; spicy tofu stew over polenta; miso-curry roasted delicata squash with kale and tofu over jasmine rice

Les Bouchées Quotidiennes

Sorry for such a delay! Summer classes have started and I've been running around lately. Anyways, this Greek chopped salad is incredible. It was so easy, delicious and refreshing! Adding pepperoncinis and kalamata olives made it especially tasty. For a bulkier salad, add some cold cooked quinoa and baked tofu with Greek seasoning.

When I convert baking recipes, sometimes I'm afraid they won't turn out right. Surprisingly enough, this has only happened once when I added too much salt to a blueberry scone recipe. These little beauties are PB&J potato chip thumbprint cookies that are GF and dairy-free. This is also the first dessert I've ever made with peanut butter, which is crazy! These turned out wonderful and everyone who tasted them, loved them. I'm still daydreaming about them! I'm proud to say these were also made with some homemade strawberry jam from my neighbor.

This is the second time I've made this easy spicy Asian tofu because it goes well with everything! I usually stick to Isa's two-ingredient broiled sesame tofu, but sometimes I find myself craving something more. So we had this tofu with chili-ginger stir-fried pak choi + broccoli and brown rice. I've never heard of pak choi before, but I bought some that was grown at Guilford College at a little store up the street from me. They are a very basic Asian green that is related to bok choy, hence the name. You could easily substitute spinach or kale in place of the pak choi greens. 

Here's a typical weekend breakfast for us: salsa scrambled eggs, buttered toast and oven-broiled grapefruit! So easy, filling, and delicious.

Nothing makes me happier than making a dish with a bunch of spices and colorful vegetables! I've been eyeing this recipe for cumin-spiced chickpeas + vegetables for a while now, and I'm so glad I made it! This is more of a stew, but it's really easy to pull together even with a long-ish ingredient list. The result was warm, comforting, and slightly spicy. This would be perfect topped with harissa paste, as the recipe suggests, but I sprinkled in some dried harissa powder instead.

My basil is still growing strong (yay!) so I've been trying to use it in recipes every week. I decided to use it for Angela's tomato basil cream pasta in her cookbook, which has been amazing so far! The recipe I've linked is an old one of hers, that's not the same in her book, but it's very similar. The flavor was great and the her title "luxurious" describes it perfectly. It's an easy meal for any weeknight, but feels fancy enough for a special dinner date. I topped mine with extra basil (of course) and nutritional yeast. Pair with a bottle of your favorite red wine, and you're good to go! 

(601) core values + standards

I finally made this blood orange kale salad from Spoon Fork Bacon. I've been on a total healthy, fresh, fruit veggie and nut incorporated salad kick. first the avocado apple arugula salad and now this. I plan on making that green bean salad from Smitten Kitchen here soon.

Breakfast

- green chile egg bake

- apple butter

- lemon scones

- pumpkin oat bread

- strawberry banana cream oat squares

- everything but the "kitchen sink" quiches

Savory

- fresh cabbage slaw

- 3 spring salads (deviled ham, egg + potato)

- lemon collard greens pasta

- french onion risotto

- chocolate chip cookie dough cups

- avocado wasabi bagels

- smashed chickpea + avocado sandwiches

- caramel bacon popcorn

- spring salad with creamy avocado orange dressing

Sweet

- almond coconut cupcakes + chocolate buttercream

- white bean bundt cake

- frozen yogurt dots

- honey +almond raspberry white chocolate muffins

- raspberry coconut macaroons

- no-churn coffee ice cream with cacoa nibs

- vegan thumbprint cookies