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Banana Ice Cream Cake with Lemon Cheesecake Icing and Carrot Cake Crust {Raw, Paleo, Vegan, Gluten-Free}

You guys. I made a healthy ice cream cake!!

Okay, so this isn’t entirely true. I made a healthy ice cream + cheesecake + carrot cake. Yeah, I know, it got a little bonkers. But, I promise it got weird in the best way possible.

After finishing the Whole 30, my brain was swirling with desserts. Can you blame me? So when the folks from Paleo Parents sent me a very nice e-mail asking me to write a guest post for their blog, I decided to go big. My brain flipped the “LET THERE BE CAKE!!” switch. So here. Cake. All the cakes. Smashed together into one glorious no-bake cake. […]

On My Writing Process + Blog Tour

There’s a Blog Tour of sorts going on, and it’s all about writing! Did you just read that sentence and go “Uh, what the heck is a blog tour? Do I get to visit your house? I feel confused.” Don’t worry, I had no idea what it was either until I got a sweet email from my friend Ellen. Ellen writes the blog In My Red Kitchen. She’s Dutch. I married a Dutchman. We like to bond over our love of all things Dutch (see: eating CHOCOLATE sprinkles on TOAST — yes, that’s real).
Anyway, she explained to me that a blog tour was a way to connect readers to blogs they might have never found, all while learning a little bit about the blogger who is writing the post. At the end of your post, you pass the torch to another blogger. Does that make sense? I’m not sure it does. Are you guys onto me yet that I don’t really know what I’m doing. Shhh. Don’t tell Ellen. I’m going to answer a series of questions that she sent me and hope I’m doing this right. Ready. Set. GO! […]

Three Ingredient Watermelon & Mint Slushie

Back when I was a teenager, hot weather meant a couple of things.

Firstly, I was probably going to wear a top that showed my belly button and a suspicious amount of the ol’ chesticles. Secondly, as the weather turned hot, the classrooms would start to smell really strongly of CK One or other popular man-scents. It turns out that heat activates its pungency, allowing it to mix with stinky adolescent pits and creating what I’m sure to be a toxic death cloud — a cloud that was teeming with the scent of desperation and overly gelled hair. Thirdly, after school I was going to drive my sweaty-crop-top wearing self to 7-Eleven to dispense  a slushie into a BIG GULP cup. I would usually opt for cherry mixed with coca-cola. The ice would turn a murky brown. Sometimes they had a flavor that came in neon blue, which was fun because it would give you a smurf tongue. I can’t recall the exact flavor–but, I’m sure it tasted blue. These were the things of early summer. […]

Chocolate & Honey Avocado Shake

I am going to be up front with you…
Every time I see someone post a picture of a green smoothie that contains avocado, I squirm. Avocados are for guacamole. You put them on top of your toast and sprinkle it with sea salt. You can totally sub them in for mayonnaise and make a Green Egg Salad. But, smoothies? Really? Is it a guacamole smoothie? I’m not sold. Why is this happening? I just can’t hang. I’ve been mistrusting of any and all humans that have muttered the words “avocado pudding” or claimed to make a great “vegan avocado brownie”. Shudder.
Like most of my food aversions, I decided to just dive right in. Challenge accepted. Guacamole smoothie, I’m coming for you.
My first avocado smoothie was horrifying. No joke. It was pretty much all veggies with half of a frozen banana. It tasted bitter. I spat it out. I felt sad. This smoothie was supposed to prove me wrong. It was supposed to be life-changing and wonderful and simply everything. Perhaps I put too much pressure there? Probably. No matter. As I spat out the evil green goo I had foolishly concocted in my Vitamix and watched it slink down the drain, it started a fire inside of me. A metaphorical fire. A smoothie-revenge-fire. An I-will-totally-win-you-fire. Avocado smoothie, you will be mine. MUAHAHAHAHA! (Dastardly avocado whispering evil laugh) […]

Thanksgiving Meatballs with Easy Pan Gravy

Here we are again. It’s that time of year where I say predictable things like “What? How is the year almost over?” or “The holidays are chasing me down and I feel like I can’t breathe–can you pass me that paper bag to breathe into? Thank you.” Oh, was that second thing not as predictable? I dunno, it feels about right. The holidays are filled with a lot of joy, but they can also fuel a lot of stress and panic. For me, I’m pretty much always traveling on a holiday to get to family. So, a lot of the stress is logistical. I also get stressed out because my birthday is very near Thanksgiving and I’m getting old and I don’t want to feel my feelings–but that’s an entirely different post that isn’t centered around meatballs or topped with anything like gravy. […]

Grain-Free Lemon Apricot Yogurt Cake + How Social Media Makes Me Feel Like A Big Fat Failure

Hello. How are you? I made you cake.

In truth, I made you this cake months ago, but I didn’t share it with you then. Rude. I know.

More truth.

I have two speeds when I’m overwhelmed. The first speed is the high speed of my Kitchen Aid mixer making something superfluous, or the low and slow bubbling of something rich and comforting (read: this eggplant parm). Yeah, the first speed happens somewhere in my kitchen. The second speed isn’t really a speed at all. It looks more like a scared, paralyzed possum who’s instinctively playing dead.  Yes, this is perhaps the slowest speed. It’s a dead (er…playing dead) stop. This is one functional step above lying on the floor of your closet with the lights off and the door closed, foraging a bed out of your impressively large worn-out sweater collection. […]

Is Your Skincare and Makeup Routine Toxic? Mine Was. Here’s How I Changed That!

I’ve always loved beauty products. When I was a tweenager, I would go into a Victoria’s Secret, or a Bath and Body Works, and come out smelling like a very cheap, very young hooker. Rude, but true. I mean, what thirteen-year-old girl can resist rubbing something called “Amber Romance” into her skin and topping it off with a Strawberries and Champagne body spray? Not this one. My father spent years making it very well known that I smelled like an unbearable chemical hooker bomb. Every morning after my daily lotioning and spritzing routine, he would remark in a disgusted voice, “Oh, GOD, Have you been creaming again?” As a teenager, I thought he was being a real oversensitive Daddy Doofus, but as an adult, and as someone who’s struggled with chronic illness and chemical sensitivity (and, honestly, as someone who has inherited that same very sensitive Italian Dad Nose), I can tell you that stuff was simply no good. Have you ever tried to walk into one of those lotion-y, cream-y stores as a sensible Italian-nosed adult? Not to be dramatic, but it’s essentially like walking into chemical cupcake hell. Okay, that was dramatic — but, like, totally correct. […]

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. […]

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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