Hey friends! Whose in the mood for some Mexican food? Due to my love for beans, avocado, cheese, tomato (salsa!!), rice, and tortillas, I am definitely a Mexican food fan. Cheese & veggie quesadillas are one of my go-to easy dinner ideas when I want to get something on the table fast, and I could eat guacamole probably every day and be a happy camper. In the past, I haven't been a big enchilada fan though. I never could pinpoint why I wasn't crazy about them until somewhat recently, when my hubby and I had dinner at our friends' house, and they made us some authentic Mexican grub. I really liked the ones that they made, and I realized it was because they weren't greasy and soggy as they are in restaurants sometimes. Since then I've been to a few healthy restaurants and ... [Read More]
black beans
Meatless Monday Recipe Idea: Black Bean Veggie Tacos with Cashew Cream [Gluten Free]
Hi friends! Another weekend has flown by, and it was a good one for me. I kicked off my weekend with a much needed massage at the student massage school near me, San Jose National Holistic Institute. The students perform whatever massage they've been working on in school, and this time it was a Swedish massage. The masseuse did a good job of working on all of my achy muscles for an hour -- for $20. Needless to say, it was awesome! Afterwards I headed over to the mall to spoil myself a little, and I picked up a new Athleta workout top and some beauty loot from LUSH and Benefit Cosmetics. I'm kind of in love with LUSH. I spent some time in there playing around with things and wound up nabbing a facial cleanser and seaweed mask that I tested out and loved this weekend. I don't go shopping ... [Read More]
Chef Del’s Better Than Vegan: Smoky Black Bean Bisque & Cookbook Giveaway
"When we eat the wrong foods, they fuel our cells inefficiently, stress our organs, leach minerals from our bones, clog our arteries, fog our brains, bring on disease, make us fat, addict us to nutritionally vacant substances, and provide no protective health benefits." Today I'm taking part in my very first book blog tour! Basically it's just like a traditional book tour, only it's happening around the Web today. Bloggers like myself who are participating in the tour are all talking about Chef Del's Better than Vegan cookbook. You may also recognize Del Sroufe from his bestselling book Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook. What I find to be most interesting about Del and the book is his personal story about gaining - and then losing - over 200 pounds all while being a vegan. He ... [Read More]
[Secret Ingredient] Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffin Bites
A couple of days ago, I was on a mission to come up with a mini-something recipe that could serve as a baby snack or dessert. An I'm-waiting-for-dinner-to-cook-and-need-to-eat-a-little-something-ASAP recipe. Also an I-just-ate-dinner-and-am-not-really-hungry-but-want-a-bite-of-something-sweet snack. Since pumpkin eats are constantly on my brain these days, I naturally incorporated some into the recipe - in more than one way. I think that including chocolate in a sweet recipe is always a good idea, so this recipe quickly became a combo of chocolate + pumpkin yumminess. And then there was the mini muffin tin I happened to see peering from my cabinet just waiting to be used, all of which resulted in these babies... Then comes the *secret ingredient* part... I wanted to omit use of any oil ... [Read More]