About Gina Marie

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So far Gina Marie has created 328 blog entries.

Tomato Braised Moroccan Lamb Meatballs and Sweet Potatoes

Over a week ago I walked into a natural pharmacy and walked out with about eighty dollars worth of cold and flu prevention. Yes, I gawked at my bill, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Hear me out.

My husband had recently gone to a business conference followed by a bachelor party, and somewhere in between shaking hands and guzzling beers with his bros, managed to acquire the kind of deep cough which sounds like one’s harboring an elephant seal in their chest. I had lasted a week taking care of him without managing to show a single symptom. I made soup. I drew baths. I pumped him full of teas and elixirs. I rubbed essential oils into his chest. I made more soup. […]

Grain-Free Dark Chocolate Chunk and Blackberry Blondies

I’m not a baker. It’s not my thing. I don’t like to measure or follow instructions. When I’m not developing recipes, you won’t find me with a measuring cup in hand or a baking scale under foot (is that not how baking scales work? Weird). It’s cumbersome to have to be so meticulous. I come from a long line of people who write recipes with the precise measurements of “just put some soy sauce” or “use a few glugs of oil”. I was raised inside of a wild and free kitchen culture. So, as you can imagine,  I don’t like to feel the weight of science on my shoulders as we anticipate, with bated breath, to see if gluten-free brownies are going to rise. Baking is one thing, and gluten-free baking is a whole different more complicated (and sometimes frustrating) animal. You know what I’m talking about, right? Maybe you recently went gluten-free and you decided to google a recipe for bread. You are met with approximately five hundred different types of special order flours–there are many things on this list you didn’t know could even be made into a flour: Chestnuts. Sorghum. Teff. Eye of Newt. Xanthan Gum. Crickets. Unicorn Shoulder. In short, it ain’t always easy. I see you. I hear you. We are one.  […]

Creamy Mushroom, Bacon & Leek Soup

This morning I was startled awake by the heinous loud beeping of the carbon monoxide detector. My heart began pumping quicker, signaling to me that we probably needed to evacuate the house before submitting to a gas induced death. I jumped out of bed. I tried to think about where the cat carrier was. I found the dog sleeping on the couch, unimpressed by my antics. I put on shoes. I did not put on a bra. I grabbed my cell phone. These are the actions that I took in a very sleepy and very confusing emergency. I texted my husband, in a calm fashion. I was instructed to climb an it’s-too-early-for-this-$hiz-step-ladder and press a button that said “SILENCE”. As it turns out, the carbon monoxide detector was simply malfunctioning. Phew. In celebration that I would not be evacuating my home, and would in fact live to see the afternoon, I passed out into a deep sleep still wearing a questionable pair of crocks. I only know that I wore my crocks to bed because I woke up with them off and under the covers. It’s confusing to wake up with a rubber clog negotiating its way into your backside. […]

How To Make an Epic Gluten-Free Cheese Board

This post is sponsored by the lovely people at Crunchmaster. All opinions, and cheese plate-ery advice is my own!
This Valentine’s Day I’ve decided to do something a little different. Instead of the intense steak and lobster-fest my husband and I usually spring for, I’m keeping things simple by making us a big ol’ cheese board with all the fixings. It’s the ultimate in snack-dinner dining. You guys know about snack-dinner, right? It happens when it’s late, and you’re tired, and you end up eating a bowl of popcorn and an apple for dinner. Or, maybe you throw all caution to the wind and hunker down to eat a hunk of salami over the sink while gently sobbing about your life choices? We’ve all been there. This is the MUCH less sad version of that. This is fancy snack dinner. This is something to look forward to. This, my friends, is romantic.

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