The blueberry muffin Larabars are my favorite. Therefore, they can’t be found at any grocery store within a 5 mile radius. We saw some in LA last time we were there and I contemplated buying another suitcase to get them home. But then I bought a pair of shoes and a cake stand. So, I have priorities.

So I set out to make my own Larabars. And I have to say, with a few tweaks to the ingredient list, they are not bad at all. I’m calling them Mollybars since they are just different enough from the original. Now, if I could just find dried blueberries on the cheap, I’d be all set… Better stick my favorite deal-finder Erica on the case.

Blueberry Larabars Mollybars, makes 10 bars

-2 cups raw cashews
-1 cup dried blueberries
-1 1/4 cup medjool dates
-1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
-zest of one lemon
-1 vanilla bean (pretty sure the extract won’t work in this case)

Start removing the pit from your dates, zesting your lemon and taking the vanilla seeds out of your vanilla bean.

Next add the cashews to a food processor and give them a whirl.

You want a few chunks in there.

Add the cashews to a bowl and put the blueberries into the food processor. Process for about 30 seconds. They won’t really do much, but I was telling myself they got softer. Who knows.

Add the dates to the blueberries and proces for about 20-30 seconds, until a large ball forms.

Add the date/blueberry mixture to the bowl with the cashews.

Add the coconut, vanilla, and lemon zest. Mash with your hands for a while. Really use the old elbow grease.

At some point, you will be thinking that there are too many cashews and they are not going to mix in. Have patience little grasshopper; it will work. Tah-dah!

Line a baking dish (I used 8×8) with parchment paper and press the mixture into the dish. Cut into bars or squares.

Enjoy!

All the snow in Chicago has me in the mood for some comfort food. My girl Stacy gave me this idea: lentil meatballs and spaghetti squash. Gwyneth beat me to it, so I used a variation of her recipe. But beware – these taste nasty if served in regular dish ware. You need these. Obvs.

Lentil Meatballs, adapted from goop, makes about 24 “meatballs”

-1 spaghetti squash
-2 T + 1/4 cup olive oil
-1 onion
-2 cloves garlic
-1/2 t dried rosemary
-1/2 t dried thyme
-3-4 basil leaves, roughly chopped
-2 cup cooked lentils (you can buy the refrigerated ones at the grocery store)
-3 T tomato paste
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup fresh ricotta
-1/4 cup shredded parmesan + more for topping
-1 cup panko (I used gluten free because I had it on hand)
-1 cup marinara sauce
-salt & pepper

Let’s do this:

Preheat oven to 375. Slice spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds.

Cook the spaghetti squash cut-side down for about 30-35 minutes, depending on how big it is. Mine took about 30 mins. It’s ready when you can easily pierce the skin with a fork.

Chop up your onion and garlic.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. I make sure the oil is nice and hot before adding my onion, so it sizzles when I add it. Ruby hates this. Onion sizzles make her tail go between her legs.

Saute until the onion is translucent. Add the herbs and stir for about a minute. Remove from heat.

Add the lentils to a food processor with the tomato paste and add the remaining olive oil (about 1/4 cup) to get everything moving. You’ll have to stop and scrape the sides a few times. Annoying.

Crack your two eggs in a big bowl and beat lightly with a whisk.

Add the ricotta and stir.

Add the lentil mixture and stir to combine.

Add the onion/garlic/herbs, parmesan, and panko. Season generously with salt and pepper. Stir.

Form “meatballs”: I used my cookie scoop, which is about 2 tablespoons, to scoop the mixture, then rolled them into balls.

At this point, my spaghetti squash was done. I removed it and let it cool for a bit, the scraped the flesh out with a fork.

Place the meatballs on a parchment-lined (or greased) cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes.

Warm up your marinara sauce in a saucepan. Once the 12 minutes is up, turn the oven to broil and cook for about 2-3 mins longer, just to brown the meatballs a bit.

Top your spaghetti squash with the meatballs and marinara and a bit of parmesan.

Check this out – I crumbled the leftover meatballs and topped a pizza the next night. Winning!

Enjoy your lentil meatballs curled up under your $900 ivory cashmere throw. Ah, the simple things.

It’s Super Bowl time, folks! Why do I feel the need to root for the Ravens because that guy from the Blind Side is on the team? I didn’t even really like that movie. Chances you’ll find me crying like Ray Lewis if they win: 100%.

Aside from the fact that I’m a complete sucker, I don’t care who wins. It’s all about the food. Before we get started, here’s a tip: Don’t make this recipe while wearing a white sweatshirt. Trust.

Vegan and gluten-free buffalo cauliflower bites, serves 6-8 as an appetizer. Adapted from Tasty Kitchen

-1 head cauliflower
-1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened coconut milk)
-1/2 cup brown rice flour
-1 T garlic powder
-1/2 t salt
-1 1/2 T Earth Balance butter
-1 cup hot sauce (I used Frank’s)
-celery for serving
-ranch dressing for serving (see my vegan recipe below)

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Chop up your cauliflower into bite-sized pieces.

Combine the milk, flour, salt, and garlic powder in a bowl and stir until combined.

Coat each piece of cauliflower in the milk/flour mixture and shake off the excess. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat.

Cook for about 20-25 minutes. You want to make sure the cauliflower is cooked through but not burned. Mine were perfectly toasty after 22 minutes. While the cauliflower is cooking, melt the butter.

Mix the melted butter and the hot sauce.

Let the cauliflower cool for about 2-3 minutes.

Toss with the butter/hot sauce mixture and serve!

Vegan Ranch Dressing, makes about 2.5 cups. Adapted from Nutiva.

-1 cup water
-juice from one lemon
-3/4 cup hemp seeds
-1 cup raw cashews
-2 cloves garlic
-2 t Herbamare or salt
-1/2 t pepper
-1/4 cup olive oil
-Fresh herbs: I used 1 T parsley, 4 leaves basil, and about 3 fresh chives. I think just about any variation of these will work.

Add all ingredients to the blender or food processor and blend on high for about 2 minutes or until smooth. Add herbs and pulse to combine. Note this makes a pretty thick recipe – better for dipping. If you want to use this as a salad dressing, I recommend thinning it out with a little water.

Here’s the amazing thing about this recipe: You don’t have to cook the quinoa beforehand. In fact, it falls to the bottom and makes a crust. Oh, quinoa: What will that sassy little minx think of next? Cleaning it’s own dishes!?!

Before we get to the recipe, though, I have to thank Mia for giving me a Liebster award nomination! A Liebster award is given to blogs with less than 300 followers as a way of making them more well-known. The rules for the acceptance are:

1) Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you
2) Acknowledge that blogger on your blog and link back
3) Answer the 10 questions posed by the blogger who nominated you
4 ) Select 3 – 5 bloggers for the award
5) Pose 10 new questions to the new nominees
6) Post the award on your blog

Here are my questions and answers from Mia:

1) Why did you start blogging?
I took a few photography classes as a graduation gift to myself when I finished grad school. I was following a few food blogs and started taking pictures of my own recipes as a way to keep practicing my photography when it was too cold to shoot outside. Nothing keeps you honest like a little public humiliation, I decided to post the pictures on the internet.
2) What is the most important thing you have gotten out of your blog?
Meeting other bloggers!
3) Favorite memory from childhood?
One summer night my family was coming back from dinner and we passed an office building that had the sprinklers on watering the lawn. We stopped the car and all ran through the sprinklers in the dark. Fun times.
4) Favorite song?
Hard one! My ipod says that Flight Test by The Flaming Lips is the most played, so that must be my favorite song!
5) Favorite thing to do in your free time, if you have any.
Take Ruby to the dog park and watch her get mad at dogs that try to hump her.
6) What book could you read over and over?
This is a hard question. I hate reading books or watching movies more than once (exception: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) because the list of things I want to read/watch is too long. But I would re-read any of Michael Pollan’s books again, especially Omnivore’s Dilemma.
7) Worst subject in school?
I feel like I had to try way harder than everyone else in Biology.
8) What was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up?
Cliché alert! Veterinarian.
9) First thing you would buy or do if you won the lottery?
Pay off the mortgage? That’s boring, so I’d pay to have Avon Barksdale brought back to life.
10) If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be?
Elvis. Obviously.

Let’s do this:

Add the cheese.

Bake uncovered for 10 more minutes. Leave the casserole in the oven but turn the oven to broil. Broil for 3 minutes to brown the cheese and remove from oven.

Some people find it hard to believe that I don’t like rice. I just think it’s boring and a total waste of my time calories. If I’m gonna eat empty calories, it’s gonna be cake and not rice, ya hear? So when I started seeing recipes for cauliflower “fried rice” I was all over it. Genius: fried rice with nutrients!

Cauliflower “fried rice”, makes about 3 servings

-2 T sesame oil
-1 small onion
-1 cup sliced mushrooms
-1 large head cauliflower
-1 knob fresh ginger (we’ll grate this to be about 1 T ginger)
-2 cups mixed frozen vegetables
-1 cup frozen kale
-1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts (optional, for crunch)
-1/4 cup raw cashews
-salt & pepper
-2 eggs
-2-3 T soy sauce (or aminos to make it gluten-free)

Let’s do this:

Dice your onion.

Get the oil heating in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion.

In the meantime, chop the cauliflower florets into roughly bite size pieces.

Add the cauliflower in batches to the food processor.

Process for about 10 seconds – until “riced”. You don’t want to process for too long or it will get mushy.

Empty the riced cauliflower to a large bowl and move to the next batch.

Once the onions are soft, add the mushrooms.

Peel your ginger and grate it. I use a microplane.

Once the mushrooms are soft, add the ginger and stir to combine. Add the cauliflower and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook for about 5 minutes. You want the cauliflower to soften but not get mushy.

Remove cover and add the frozen vegetables, kale, water chestnuts, and cashews. Stir to warm up the veggies.

Crack the two eggs in a small bowl and whisk. We need to cook the egg. You have a choice: you can scramble the egg in a separate pan, or you can make a hole in the middle of the veggies and add the eggs like I did. Either way, let the egg cook through and then stir in with the rest of the cauliflower. Add the soy sauce and stir to combine.

Serve!

Coconut delights, aka “Coconut crack”, makes about 3 1/2 dozen (depending on how big you make them)

-1/2 cup butter, softened
-2 cups powdered sugar
-1 package (5 1/3 cups) sweetened shredded coconut
-1 cup chocolate chips (I use milk, but semi-sweet will work too)

Let’s do this:

Combine the powdered sugar and coconut in a large bowl.

Add your softened butter and combine with a fork (if you double the recipe, you might break out the hand mixer to save your biceps).

Form the coconut/sugar/butter mixture into small balls (about a tablespoon, but it doesn’t really matter since these are no-bake!) and place on parchment paper. Make an indent at the top to hold your chocolate:

Now time to melt the chocolate. You can melt the chips in the microwave, but I make a DIY double boiler like this:

Add your chips once the water heats up.

Stir constantly until the chips are melted.

Use a teaspoon to add a dollop of chocolate to the top of each cookie.

Let the chocolate harden for about an hour.

Serve with a side of coffee: 

When I’m planning a party, a predictable sequence of events ensues. It goes something like this:

3 weeks until party: “This will be easy; I’ll just do A and call it a day.”
2 weeks until party: “You know what would be cute… A, B, and C. Definitely doing A, B, and C.”
1 week until party: “Ooooh, D and E would be so perfect. There’s really no point in doing A, B and C if I don’t do D and E too… That’s it; I’m doing D and E.”
4 days until party: “Just saw F and G on pinterest. HAVE to do F and G. So cute; I die!”
1 day until party: Huz sees the insanity of A through G unfolding:  ”I thought you were just doing A?!” Me: “I know, but I just saw H, and it. is. beyond. I have to do it.”

Well, I’m at it again! This time I’m hosting a brunch, and I’m in the throws of menu planning. Let’s just call this recipe “A”, otherwise known as the beginning of the snowball.

Spicy salmon and sweet potato cakes, makes 12 small cakes

-2 medium sweet potatoes or yams (makes about 1 1/2 cups mashed sweet potato)
-5 scallions
-2 T cilantro
-2 T butter (I used earth balance)
-2 6 oz cans salmon
-1 jalapeno pepper
-3/4 c frozen corn kernels
-2 eggs
-1 lemon
-2 t cumin
-salt & pepper
-cooking spray

Let’s do this:
First thing’s first. Ya gotta cook the sweet potatoes. You can microwave them, but I made extra baked potatoes the night before so mine were baked (I usually bake mine for about 35-40 minutes at 375).

If you microwaved your potatoes, then preheat the oven to 350. At this point, I put my butter in a ramekin and stuck it in the oven to soften it. You can also microwave for about 20-30 seconds to soften. Either way, be careful not to burn it!

Chop your onions and cilantro. (remove the butter if you haven’t already – place in on top of the stove to keep it warm!)

Zest your lemon and dice the jalapeno, removing the seeds.

Drain the salmon and add to a large bowl.  Add in the scallions, cilantro, and corn.

Peel the skin off your sweet potato and then mash with a fork.

Add to the salmon mixture, along with the lemon zest, jalapeno, eggs, and butter. Stir gently to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray if necessary. Divide the mixture evenly into the 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 25-30 minutes.

I served mine with a small salad; but at the party they will be served with a frittata, yogurt parfaits, fruit salad, cranberry cocktails, coffee, and lots of cookies. Of course.

Happy Holidays!

For DR-Dad’s birthday, we went a silent retreat. Luckily, he wasn’t offended that I volunteered to spend time with him as long as he didn’t talk. (Kidding!)

We really did go on a silent retreat though. It was only one day, thankfully, because DR-Dad doesn’t exactly have a career as a monk ahead of him. At one point, he ran around the room shouting “I just LOVE these socks!!!” Yep, that happened. At a silent retreat. Anyone who hadn’t grown up with this man might have been embarrassed.

One great thing came out of the retreat though (besides quality time, of course). This stew. It was served at lunch, and the woman who ran the retreat was kind enough to give me the recipe. It is the perfect fall sunday dinner. I’m packing up the leftovers now for lunch.

Weekend Vegetable Stew, adapted from Veggiyana Cookbook

-8 cups vegetable broth
-2 cups water
-1/2 cup pearled barley
-1/2 yellow split peas
-1/4 cup white beans (I used baby lima beans)
-1/2 cup dried mushrooms (I used shitake, but any will work!)
-1 T thyme
-1 t cumin
-1/2 t coriander
-1 t marjoram
-2 t salt, divided
-1 T celery seeds
-1 bay leaf
-3 medium carrots
-1 onion
-2 roma tomatoes
-1 cup frozen corn kernels
-1 cup frozen peas
-6 kale and/or swiss chard leaves (I used a combination)
-1/2 cup canned pumpkin
-1/4 t paprika
-1/2 t pepper

Bulk aisle goodies:

Dry goods:

Veggies:

In a big ol’ pot, add your water and broth, split peas, barley, beans, mushrooms, thyme, cumin, coriander, marjoram, 1 t salt, celery seeds, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook for an hour.

While you wait, slice your carrots and dice the onion and tomato:

Add the carrots, onion and tomato to the pot. Cover and cook  for another 10 minutes.

Remove the stems of the kale/chard and tear into pieces.

Add the corn, peas, kale/chard, pumpkin, paprika and 1 t salt. Cover and cook  for another 10 minutes.

Serve with some crusty bread! Pray that your dad doesn’t have any more antics up his sleeve.

Get out there, kids!

The first time I made this recipe, I kept it simple and made plain sweet potato scones. On subsequent attempts, I added in chopped apple, cranberries, and white chocolate chips. All are really good, but the plain one is not very sweet, so if you are like me and prefer your scones coated in sugar (as far as I can tell, Starbucks invented this with their pumpkin scone) you might add in apples or something to sweeten ‘em up a bit.

Next time you make sweet potatoes for dinner, make one extra and save it for this recipe! (I bet this would work with canned sweet potato or pumpkin too)

Sweet Potato Scones, makes 8 scones, adapted from this recipe
-2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour (I found a new sprouted whole wheat flour at Whole Foods and it’s true love)
-1 t baking powder
-1 t baking soda
-1/2 t salt
-1 t cinnamon
-1 c mashed, cooked sweet potato (a little less than one medium sweet potato)
-1/2 c coconut oil, plus 1 T for brushing over the tops of the scones
-1 t vanilla
-1/4 cup maple syrup
-optional: 1/2 cup add-ins (apple, cranberries, white choc chips, or some combination of the three!)

Preheat oven to 350. Add your dry ingredients to a large bowl (surprise benefit: this is a one bowl recipe!): flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.

Combine with a whisk.

Add your wet ingredients: sweet potato, coconut oil, vanilla, maple syrup.

Form a big ol’ dough ball.

Knead in your add-ins (cranberries and white chocolate chips shown here).

Form a circle that is about the size of my outstretched hand. Just kidding, make a circle about 7 inches in diameter (yes, I have tiny, useless, can’t-even-reach-a-full-octave hands, it was the bane of my piano-playing career).

Cut into 8 pieces and add to a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper.

Brush the tops with a little coconut oil.

Bake for about 18 minutes (when I added apples, it took longer – more like 21 mins!). Enjoy with a latte <squeals>!!