Vegan Quesadillas

Recently I've been experimenting with going dairy-free. Long story short: I react VERY poorly to carrageenan so that didn't last long. Anyway, it was pretty hard. For me, cheese was one of the most disappointing offerings of the dairy-free market. But then I found the Daiya Havarti Garlic & Jalapeño Wedge. It tasted way better than the other cheeses I had tried and melted fantastically (where others failed). I knew instantly what to make with it. And this is what I came up with. The avocado balances the spiciness of the "cheese" really well making the simplicity of the ingredients work. It's quick, easy, and really yummy.

Breakfast Smoothie

I have a love-hate relationship with breakfast. I don't really like cereal, or eggs, or yogurt. But I like really bad breakfast food, like hash-browns and bacon-egg-n-cheeserz (a breakfast sandwich of my childhood). So that kind of made me stop eating breakfast. But recently I concocted an awesome breakfast smoothie that's not awful for me. It started with mocha powder, ice and milk. Then came almond milk instead. Then PB2 (powdered peanut butter) and frozen bananas. Suddenly I had an awesome breakfast smoothie that I really liked and wasn't half bad nutritionally.

Scallop and Mushroom Pasta

The development of this recipe started simply, with a "hey, scallops seem cool," while passing them in the grocery store. They're a little bit pricey so I thought they deserved a nice, well-rounded recipe. The scallops have a sweetness not found in a lot of seafood, and the portabellas bring a little saltiness to balance things out. A little bit of seasoning keeps things from being boring, but not enough to outshine our special guests scallops and mushrooms.

Operation Pinterest: 1st Edition

Today I am starting a new series of blog posts called Operation Pinterest. For this series, I will test recipes from Pinterest and relay to you what I think about them. I was inspired by the variety of experiences I've had when testing Pinterest recipes. It doesn't seem to matter how many people pin it, it can still suck, in my opinion. I don't mean this to be a critique of the recipe, or the author, because I don't think that's fair. For one, people's tastes are different: different strokes for different folks. But also, I can't stand it when people change a recipe and then complain about how bad it was. In this case, I did change some ingredients so it's not fair for me to judge the original recipe. I only want to give you my thoughts and advice on the recipe so you can get a better idea about the random recipe you found on Pinterest.
Today I have for you Tomato Basil Chicken from Menu Musings. This recipe is currently very popular on Pinterest. That was what first qualified it as a candidate. Also, it's naturally gluten-free (serving with pasta is optional) with accessible ingredients. Sounds good to me!

Frozen Chocolate Bananas

Today I have a (sort of) healthy summer treat for you! Recently I've been trying to eat healthier, because I'm still not happy with how I feel. My weakest area in this has been snacks. If unhealthy snacks are in the house, I feel compelled to eat them. Then once I eat them, I feel compelled to eat other unhealthy things. I've noticed that direct correlation in myself: when you eat junk you crave junk, when you eat healthy you crave healthy. So in trying to find a sweet, cool snack for summer, I thought of these babies: chocolate covered banana bites. I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan, so I use semi-sweet chips but you could easily switch to a good dark chocolate and this would be pretty dang good for you, and vegan/dairy-free! Keeping these in the freezer makes them like little chocolate covered ice cream bites, perfect for summer.

Gluten Free Sesame Chicken

Shortly after going gluten-free, I realized that my previous diet as a vegetarian wasn't going to work. Nearly all faux meats contain gluten, and nearly everything else I ate was gluten (bread, pasta, etc.) The transition to gluten free was already going to be tough enough, so I made the decision to eat meat again after 7 years of abstaining. I was instantly excited about eating the things I secretly missed again, until I realized.. They all contained gluten. One of those things was sesame chicken.

I was always a pretty good cook so I decided I would recreate it myself, gluten free. I started with an originally gluten free recipe and that didn't taste like what I remembered. So I moved on to well respected recipes that weren't intended to be gluten free. That was when I found something closer but not quite. So I adapted the recipe to make it my own.