Beurre Maitre d' Hotel aka Hotel Butter

I seriously recommend making a little batch of the "beurre maitre d' hotel" (aka, hotel butter) because it will spruce up your everyday dishes! Do you see the lovely chunks of garlic and fresh bits of parsley? The eggs taste amazing, and don't stick to the pan!

Yet Another Breakfast Sandwich

Good morning! I woke up at 7:30 to move my car, and at 10 am just finally ate (well, am eating). Chatting online with the bff can be very distracting! =P I made another sandwich, this time a little bit different. Tune in later today for my dinner post! I guess it's not really tune in . . . more like, check your Google reader or whatever feed you use =)

Breakfast Sandwiches

Good evening! Two food posts in one day? Oh my! I'm getting back into the game =) We just finished dinner about an hour ago, and there will definitely be a post on that tomorrow, so check back! Today started out the best way, sleeping in until 8, making fresh OJ, coffee, and breakfast sandwiches for me and hubby!

Crispy Salmon and Potatoes

Good morning! Hubby was working yesterday, and I wanted to have a delicious, no fuss, home-cooked meal for dinner! I went down to Albertsons and picked up a salmon fillet, a can of new potatoes, asparagus, and scallions and got to brain storming. I decided on crispy a salmon fillet, side of asparagus, tomatoes baked in the oven, and a mashed potato-salad-like dish! This is a healthier and simpler spin on something I saw made by Chef Gordon Ramsey.

Eggs Benedict

After finishing last nights meal, there was a load of Hollandaise Sauce left over. I decided to try my hand at poaching eggs for the first time . . . SUCCESS! And they are good. I used to hate utterly loathe eggs. They were gross, slimy, runny, stinky, just plain inedible. It was simple enough to go vegan, because I didn't care for a lot of the animal products out there. Since switching back to the dark side (laugh), I have discovered that I quite like eggs. I tried Hollandaise Sauce for the first time last night, and I've never had Eggs Benedict so I figured why the hell not? I "wasted" 2 eggs in the process because I had to use the spoon to attempt to piece the whites over the yolk to make it look pretty. They were completely edible, just not as gorgeous as I wanted them.

Taco Salad

Good afternoon! Who here loves minimum days? I know I do =) I was finished with stapling homework packets by 1:30 and was free to go! I'm usually starving when I get home from being at work, shopping, out and about, basically anywhere. I'm not big on fast food, eating out, or eating a lot when I'm on my feet and having to bend over, etc etc etc. Anyway, I was hungry when I got home. I had 2 packs of tofu in my fridge, 3 spears of romaine lettuce, Steamfresh brown rice, and a can of vegetarian refried beans. Hmmm, sounds like a taco salad in the making, right? Ohhhh yes, and it was so good.

Are you like me when it comes to making salads? Basically, I love getting them at restaurants but hate making them at home. If I do make them, it has to be something special. I don't feel like wasting my time chopping lettuce just to have a lettuce salad with chopped nuts or hemp seeds sprinkled on top.

Pumpkin Muffins

Last night, I made a dozen pumpkin muffins while hubby was at work (because I really hate making dinner for one, so this was easier). Now we're down to four muffins sitting on the counter, they are really good!! I got the recipe from thee PPK (Post Punk Kitchen). It's a vegan website, which I'm sure you've already heard of, that has amazing recipes!! So thanks to Isa, who submitted this recipe, these muffins rocked my socks off!

Breakfast Roll-ups!

After a workout, cereal just doesn't sound all that appealing . . . Remember those breakfast quesadilla's I made before? This is sort of a simpler version of that!

Vegan Pancakes

It's always difficult to have a recipe post daily, especially when we stick to leftovers! =/ Soup for lunch followed by a piece of pie each. I do have a fabulous recipe for vegan pancakes. I only use this recipe, it took me a few tries to perfect it, but it's delicious and incredibly simple. This recipe doesn't make a huge batch, but it's enough for me and hubby. You can easily double or triple this, depending on how many mouths you have to feed.

Salmon with Leeks and Asparagus

Yesterday was a cooking marathon!! Okay not really, but I did cook up a storm. It's crazy how long it can take to cook a big main dish and two side dishes when you have zero help in the kitchen.

My heart goes out to my mom on Thanksgiving, I don't know how you do it!! The husband has been working what seems like non-stop for a while now, and I made this meal back when we first got married and he loved it. I thought while he was at work last night I would take the opportunity to cook a big meal.

Vegan Chocolate Dipped Fudge Balls

So, lets start out by talking about these little balls of heaven I whipped up tonight. Many bloggers, vegan chefs, and vegan wannabe chefs (such as myself) have been making raw treats like these for years. Some call them earth balls, fudge babies, more commonly a Larabar. The list goes on and on, but the basic recipe for this raw vegan treat are as follows: 1 cup of nuts to 1 cup of dates, and whatever mix ins you please.

Breakfast Quesadillas

Woohoo Wednesday! I love Wednesday's, mainly because one of my new favorites shows Glee is on =D If you're like me, most days you probably have a pretty active morning. What I love? A good breakfast. When you think, "filling, healthy, balanced," most likely you aren't thinking of quesadillas (and for good reason). Add veggies, black beans, eggs and voila! You have a filling, healthy, balanced, and freakin awesome breakfast!

A Day of Favorites

Happy Monday everyone!! =P

Today I'm getting back on track, and doing it with my favorite things to help keep me motivated! Waking up later than I wanted put a slight damper on things this morning. Due to the fact that I was up until 2 am organizing my closet/jewelry/stacks of husbands papers I got up at 9 =/ It was okay though, I started the day with a little Rachael Ray and a cup of coffee and then worked out after! I worked out with my P90X and did cardio and shoulders and arms! My birthday is on Friday, and Saturday night we're going out to celebrate (looking good in my very short mod style dress is a must!), therefore eating right and working out hard are in order! After an almost 2 hour workout, I was hungry (read: starving). I cooked up my fave! Tofu Scramble!!! Yum yum yum. So nutritious, filling, and guilt free! I jazzed it up a bit with some fresh and very ripe avocado. It's also heavily seasoned with black pepper & cayenne, ohhhh I'm so daring.



For lunch I'm going to make another favorite of mine . . . Taco Salad!


So that's an older pic, but it doesn't matter it's going to look exactly like this and hopefully taste just as good! I don't make my taco salad in a big deep fried bowl either, it's fresh and healthy the only non-raw ingredient is the vegan sour cream I mix with my salsa and the tortilla chips I put around the salad. It's oh so tasty!

For dinner I plan on making Eggplant Parmesan. I've been wanting to cook eggplant for weeks now, and I'm going to follow Rachael Ray's recipe (with a few of my own additions/subtractions) and veganize it by using Smart Balance instead of butter, and Follow Your Heart mozzarella cheese instead of dairy cheese =) OH! Also, I say no to frying. This will be baked and then put under the broiler for a few to melt the cheese and heat the sauce =) I hope everyone has a fabulous Monday, and wonderful Columbus Day! That's what inspired me to cook Italiano tonight . . . I'll leave you with this mouthwatering up close shot of my ridiculously flavorful breakfast, try not to drool all over your keyboard ;-)

From the Freezer, Straight to the Oven Kind of Meal!

Who doesn't love casseroles? More specifically, who doesn't love a casserole topped with mashed potatoes and cheese? I know I sure do! This is super simple to make; if you'd like you can put it into the oven straight away, or freeze it after it cools and leave it for a busier day during the week. If that's what you plan on doing, just wait for all of your ingredients to cool, place in an 8x8 casserole dish (or any oven safe dish it will fit into) and freeze for later. The cook time in the oven will be longer if you freeze it first, but I think it's much easier to leave something cooking in the oven and get on with your life rather than try to multitask boiling water, laundry, chopping veggies, kids homework (if you have children), sauteing veggies, hungry pets, and a hungry husband! Phew! Sounds like a lot to me, which is why meals like these can be perfect for those busy nights, they'll also save you a phone call to your local pizza or burger joint.

Tofu Jambalaya

One of my favorite websites, FatFree Vegan Kitchen, has the most amazing recipes that are healthy and usually pretty easy to make! Some require more skill and ingredients than others, but yesterday (at a loss for what to make that night) browsing the recipes I found one for Tofu Jambalaya. What drew me in, besides the picture and name of the recipe were the simple ingredients and instructions.

Spring Rolls

These are really simple and easy to make, and you can use almost any veggies (preferably whatever you have around the house that needs to be used up). For these rolls I used carrots, onion, and zucchini then topped with sesame seeds and fresh mint. To be honest, this was definitely not my favorite combo. The mint made them a little gritty and the veggies didn't taste all that great together. My favorite combo so far is red bell pepper and carrots and cilantro, instead of mint. I also used lemon juice because I thought I was out of lime, then realized I had a fresh lime in the fridge I could have cut up. Whoops! Also, I usually use the Asian Veggie Patties by Morning Star Farms, but I didn't have any so I used the regular veggie patties and it just wasn't the same! Those Asian patties taste so good!

Homemade BBQ Sauce

Usually when I have a block of extra firm water packed tofu in the fridge it either gets turned into tofu scramble, chopped up and thrown into something random, or cut into strips that I heavily season and place on top of a salad or whatever else needs flavor. Now, since this post is about barbecue sauce, I'll tell you my true feelings. I've never really liked BBQ sauce, at all. The stuff that comes on Arby's sandwiches that I remember eating as a kid, gross. The BBQ flavored potato chips, extra gross. The kind of BBQ sauce that comes in a bottle? You guess it, gross. All of those flavors remind me of poor little piggies being turned into sandwiches. However, what I do like is brown sugar and ketchup. I know, I know . . . those are pretty big ingredients in BBQ sauce, so why don't I like it? Probably because I like stuff better when I make it. So I decided to make some!

Potato & Pepper Stoup

I've been sick the past couple of days and things have been pretty lazy around here. No working out, no going out, lots of movies, naps, and most importantly hot tea! Although it isn't cold or rainy outside, that's how it feels to me which makes me crave my favorite rainy weather food: soup!

Ooodles of Noodles

This completes the sixth day of eating nothing but noodles for lunch, and sometimes dinner. I tend to follow recipe measurements pretty closely, or I half them. This particular recipe calls for a pound of spaghetti pasta, and without thinking I went ahead and cooked the whole pound =/ Obviously, a whole pound of noodles for two people is a wee bit excessive . . . With that, we've been doing some hardcore noodle eating around here! This recipe was adapted from Everyday Dish TV (an awesome vegan recipe website).

Tofu Scramble

Hello and welcome to my blog! I love food and whether I'm cooking or eating it, it's one of my favorite past times. I've been cooking more lately and my husband inspired me to start a blog about my cooking after he started one about finances (Future Think Dollars). We are both very passionate people, and I want to inspire others to take their health into their own hands. Being healthy and active are the two best forms of health insurance. Everything we put into our bodies will effect us in one way or another, so why not spend your time eating delicious and healthy meals?