Shells with slow roasted cherry tomatoes

September 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »

I haven’t really been up to much these days. Lots of baking! But meal-wise I’ve been trying to keep it fairly simple. I think I’m in a bit of a rut. I just don’t know WHAT I want to eat these days. Alls I know is that I want something FRESH and I want something EASY. Something like this! Now you’re probably thinking that slow roasting tomatoes is far from easy. But it really was an easy meal to throw together. Sunday night I stayed up late playing Monopoly with the guys. I figured that would be the perfect time to throw my tomatoes, garlic and shallots in the oven. Monopoly games can last a few hours. By the time we were done playing my tomatoes were done. And the house smelled AMAZING! See? Perfect!

The next day all I had to do was cook the pasta and toss it with the slow roasted tomatoes. I didn’t have any fresh basil on hand so I used dried basil instead. I also didn’t add parmesan. I could have added vegan parmesan, but I really enjoyed the dish as is.

There are quite a few recipes I’ve tried from Good Life Eats. All of them turned out fantastic. Fresh, fairly simple yet so full of flavor! She has a vegetarian section in her recipe index. All of which can easily be veganized. In fact I made her Sundried Tomato and Spinach Lasagna Rolls last week. I ended up freezing a few for a lazy night. Seriously good stuff!

Snowballs… in September!

September 8, 2011 | 6 Comments »

No! I don’t mean THOSE kind of snowballs. I mean the delicious chocolate cakes filled with marshmallow creme, frosted in even more marshmallow creme and then coated in delicious coconut.

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for quite some time now. I’m not sure why, but yesterday out of all days I decided I just had to make them. Since I’m trying to stay away from sweets I only ate one and brought the rest to my mother-in-law. She’s living far out in the sticks now so she looks forward to any sweets I bring her way. You should have seen her face when she saw these bad boys.

I made a few changes to the cake recipe. For starters I used vegan butter in place of regular butter, 1 1/2 cups of sugar instead of 2 cups and unsweetened coconut milk. Also, am I the only one who really wants the glass displayed on their homepage hahaha? Anyway, then I used some Ricemellow to fill and frost the cupcakes and coated them in blue(ish) colored coconut. I ran out of red food coloring or I would have gone with pink.

They were nowhere near as difficult as they look. Frosting and filling the cupcakes were a bit messy, but otherwise it was pretty quick and painless. Afterward I popped them in an airtight container and allowed them to chill in the fridge overnight to firm up a bit. I swear they taste just like I remembered. Only BETTER! Good thing I got rid of them though. These guys would have caused me nothing but trouble.

Blueberry yogurt smoothie

August 13, 2011 | 4 Comments »

I still have lots of blueberries on hand even after whipping up several batches of those Fruity Blueberry Crumb Muffins. So when I saw Noelle’s latest blog post and saw that it featured blueberries, I knew exactly what I was going to do with the rest. Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie!

I don’t like to post about JUST smoothies because I’m not really a smoothie lover. I have been forcing myself to drink them every morning for breakfast. I have found a VERY small handful that I truly enjoy. This being one of them. Which is why I felt the need to share it with the world. So if you have any great smoothie recipes that you think I’d like, feel free to send them my way! I can use all the help I can get.