What’s On the Menu: Week 1
Once I got my Conscious Muscle meal plan I immediately started dreaming up ways to put my own spin on it. The way the plan is structured, you choose an item from 1-5 columns for each meal ( or ‘feedings’ as I’ve dubbed them 😅), and those foods combined, in the specified amounts, will meet your caloric and macro goals for the meal. BUT, having the macro and caloric targets meant I could also use My FitnessPal to plan meals in advance and combine them to see where I’d be at the end of the day. Personally, I think of calories and now macros as a budget. I have to spend them…
Vegan Southwestern Crab Cake Salad
This quick and easy salad is packed with flavor, has great texture, and hits all the comfort food hot spots.
Easy Vegan Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies
This recipe was inspired by Ashley of Blissful Basil. See her original recipe here. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Sometimes, it is dormant or easily controlled and other times it is a raging dumpster fire of need. I’ve actively subbed dessert for ‘real food’ for dinner as an adult because I figure ‘why ingest the extra calories when all I really want is ice cream??’ Sounds legit, right? Fitness DVD coming soon. This recipe was born in the spirit of quelling sweet treat cravings everywhere. It’s easy, it’s quick and it’s vegan. It’ll also give you another thing to wedge mini chocolate chips into if you bought…
Easy Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Muffins
First off – shout out to Cherryvale Farms for making vegan baking so easy. Their mixes are plant-based and non-GMO. You just add fruit, oil and water then bake and enjoy. Now that that’s out of the way… I love baking. I mean, it helps that it usually results in something delicious, but I also find it fundamentally satisfying. When I first started thinking about veganism it was the desserts that I expected to suffer the most. How do you get creamy, fluffy, or moist out of plants?! In an effort to convince myself that dry, crumbly, naked baked goods were not my future I started experimenting with vegan baking…
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
A childhood fave made vegan-friendly
3-Ingredient Rose Spritzer – Salvation in a Spray Bottle
Aloe, rosewater and vegetable glycerin are about to solve 80% of your beauty woes.
Cashew Ricotta & Meatless Meatballs – Oh, My!
Lately, I’ve been having this craving for pasta. You know the kind – creamy, gooey, carb-loaded pasta smothered in marinara and cheese, plenty of basil and a little spice. Preferably, baked in an oven till it bubbles and the edges turn crispy. Prior to going vegan, I was suspended in low-carb purgatory with the occasional break for potatoes or bread but never, ever, EVER pasta. But this was a craving that had to be answered, so I hatched a plan (and a recipe) to put it to rest. Spinach and Chia Seed Fettuccine with Fire Roasted Tomatoes, Cashew Ricotta & Meatless Meatballs There are a few special items needed for this…
Vegan French Toast is a Thing, Y’all
At this point, I know I shouldn’t be surprised at some of the vegan options available. More and more I realize there’s nothing a determined vegan with a full pantry and a strong blender/food processor can’t replicate or improve. However, I had no idea this extended to a classic breakfast favorite like french toast. I knew about the vegan pancakes. I’ve MADE them even. But, in my mind, french toast was an entirely different beast because eggs were the foundation of the recipe. This example from Scramble here in Scottsdale proved otherwise. Concocted using a vegan vanilla custard and sturdy, French baguette, it was equal parts sweet and satisfying with a great texture.…
Pic Dump: Things I Ate on Vacation
Full warning: lazy post ahead. I fully intended to blog while on the road but then, I fully intended to attempt to style my hair every day and wear more than the same 3 T-shirt dress in a continual rotation, too – things happen. A key component of my transition to veganism has been my love of cooking. Finding alternatives and seeing the possibility in ingredients was easy for me because I was already used to looking at them that way. But on the road, a B ain’t got a kitchen and stress of near-constant travel will make it want to drown your sorrows deep in a family size bag…
Blueberry Bliss
I realize breakfast was hours ago, or, depending on the quality of your local brunching options, is currently headed blearily into a 3rd mimosa, but, BUT, I made these muffins for B and had to share these muffins.
