Big news friends! My husband and I finally closed on our new place and last weekend, we made the move into the new house. I feel like we’re slightly nuts to have bought a new house after just having gone through what turned out to be a very stressful process of selling our last house and making a transcontinental move, but here we are… homeowners again! I love owning a home, but I think all homeowners can agree that with homeownership comes responsibility that you’d sometimes rather not have. After stopping over to drop things off nearly every day last week with the heat working just fine, we arrived at the house with all of our stuff over the weekend to find the house to be 55 degrees and the heat not working properly. Buying a new home and something breaking the day you move ... [Read More]
soup
Easy Tomato, Pasta & Zucchini Soup {vegan}
I find March to be a sort of in between strange time of the year. We've sprung ahead an hour and the official spring season starts in a couple days, but in most places in America, it's still wintery. I know that you northeasterners just had a snow storm, and it's looking like there's a good chance for more snow this week. Meanwhile in the San Diego area, last weekend we had a rainy Saturday - and not even just a drizzle here and there. It was a full-blown rainy day like the rest of the country often gets. We've also had some daytime temperatures in the 50s lately, which is pretty much as cold as it gets here (no complaints here). So, even though it's about to be springtime, I find myself craving soup throughout March and sometimes well into the season. I love having soup for dinner, and ... [Read More]
The Three Plant-Based Soup Recipes I’ve Had on Repeat
Soup is one of my favorite things to whip up on a chilly day. I know, I know... I live in an area where "winter" is in the 60s and 70s, but we do have mild seasonal changes that make me crave soup. It dips into the 40s at night and carries over into the mornings, so my house gets nice & cool. And occasionally we even get rain in the winter months! When that happens, the news can't stop reporting on it, everyone gets scared to drive as if a blizzard is happening, & it's all very exciting. It's mostly amusing for everyone not spoiled by San Diego weather their whole lives like myself, though last year we did get a few weeks in a row of serious rain that ended the drought we'd had going on for several years. But I'm not going to lie, most of the time it's sunny and ... [Read More]
Spicy Vegetable Wonton Soup {vegan}
A couple of weeks ago, I awoke to a rare sound in Southern California that had me confused about where I was for a moment... pouring rain. I don't mind a rainy day here and there - especially when the area is in a serious drought that has caused the water company to restrict the days that I can water my plants - and I find it especially nice to wake up to the sound of rain. I didn't want to get out of bed, but my mind was immediately awakened to thoughts of food (surprise, surprise!), more specifically the idea of soup. The rain stopped about 10 minutes later and the sun was shining the rest of the day, but I had made up my mind that I was in the mood for soup for dinner. Around 11 hours later, I was in the kitchen chopping broccoli and folding wonton wraps with a very attentive ... [Read More]
Red Swiss Chard, Chickpea & Leek Soup {vegan}
When I was younger, I wasn't quite as into health as I am now. Luckily, I grew up in a health-conscious family with parents who exercised often and ate well. Our dinners almost always include nutritious vegetables. I remember feeling embarrassed as a kid when my friends came over and we didn't have an abundance of Oreos and Doritos in our pantry to nosh on like most of their houses did. I used to roll my eyes at my mom when she would take a bite of something super healthy and say, "Mmmm delicious! And it's so good for you!" I was convinced that she sabotaged herself into loving vegetables because of their nutrition content. Keep in mind, I became a vegetarian at age 10, and while I ate veggies and had a decently healthy diet for a kid, I wasn't exactly in love with broccoli and ... [Read More]
Sweet Potato, Kale & Pasta Soup {vegan}
This fall and winter more than any others in the past, I've been a soup eating machine. When eating out, I keep going for the soup on the menu. At home, there have been countless lentil, tomato & spinach soup dinners, and then there have been some soup experimentations, like zucchini puree and tonight's recipe: sweet potato, kale and pasta soup. This soup has so much goodness in it - including antioxidants, iron, fiber, Vitamin K, B6, A, C and D, calcium, magnesium, potassium... and the list goes on. Let's just say that it's nutritious! This recipe came about because I had a bag of tuscan kale about to be past its prime in my fridge. I decided that it would pair well with sweet potato and pasta in a soup. Celery, onion and basil came into the picture because they're soup staples to ... [Read More]