Grilled Eggplant Parmesan

Back up, Dudes. This girl totally learned how to grill this summer!  That’s right, I made fire. I made the charcoal glow. I totally put stuff over it and let it get all warm and crispy. I flexed my inner stud-muffin and grilled the heck out of  meats and veggies alike!  Did I almost light my hair on fire? Maybe. But you know… there’s always a learning curve. Me + Fire + General Clumsiness = Could have been worse. I think I might make my husband nervous. Even though I told him to back off, and in his attempt to not tell me what to do (because, really…who likes that?)  I can see him peeking at me from the other side of our sliding glass doors. Probably best. It’s always good to have a teammate when you set your hair on fire. One person to scream (me) one person to extinguish (him).

So… we all have vegetarian friends, right? I know I do. For some reason most of my really close friends are of the non-meat eating varietal. This used to stress me out. Am I allowed to say that? I know, I know, weird right? This coming from the girl who doesn’t eat gluten. Look at that big fat double standard, eh? I’m sure my gluten eating friends totally talk about how frustrating it is to feed me. It’s cool. We make due. I respect you. Let’s all just have a glass of wine. That’s vegetarian. I think it’s even vegan. If we found a bottle of wine in a back alley, that would technically be freegan. Beautiful. I like where this is going. It’s most likely going to end with a lot of exuberant dancing and a headache.  […]

Fig & Dark Chocolate Scones {Gluten Free & Paleo}

For most of my life, I thought Figs were a mythical kind of fruit. You know, like the fruit equivalent to a Pegasus or a Griffin.
To be fair, I never actually saw a whole fig in the flesh until my adult life. I had two fig references in my wheelhouse:
1) Fig Newtons: A delightful snacking cookie. I thought the person who made these cookies was named Mr. Fig Newton. I once asked my Grandfather what the filling was inside these cookies, to which he replied “something prunes.” As you can imagine, this threw me off the scent. As far as I was concerned Mr. Fig Newton was sitting in his house baking cookies filled with “something prunes.” I asked no questions.
2) Christmas Caroling: You know those lyrics in We Wish You A Merry Christmas? There is a whole verse where we demand something called “figgy pudding.” In my mind this sounded totally gross, and I didn’t ask questions. I assumed this so-called pudding was probably mushy, stinky, and something from tales of yore. I had visions of people clad in bonnets and bodices scooping chunks of wobbly pudding out into the hands of Christmas carolers. Whatever this stuff was, it was for sure old timey, as I’d never heard of it in my modern world. What ancient sorcery was this?  I don’t know. Maybe it was “something prunes.” Probably “something prunes.” […]