Category: Recipes

When I think of lasagna, a few memories rush to mind…

I remember visiting my grandparents on winter breaks and opening their freezer to boxes of Stouffer’s Lasagna. In between breaks from playing Barbies and Briarberry bears (did anyone else play with these?!) I would tear open a red cardboard box and pop that plastic try of noodles, cheese, and marinara sauce in the microwave. A few minutes later, BAM, piping hot lasagna waiting for me to eat before blissfully going back to playing make believe.

I also remember Mike picking me up in the first few months of us dating for dinner in North Beach, the Italian district in San Francisco. We went to a cozy little restaurant and sat at a table for two by the window. I ordered the lasagna and probably broke some dating “rule” by finishing every last bite. Who can resist melty cheese and carbohydrates? Not this girl.

Lastly, I distinctly remember the first time I made my own lasagna and packed it with as many veggies as I could. Carrots in the sauce! Spinach in the ricotta! (Arguably healthier than the Stouffer’s and North Beach variety.) Bless Mike for eating my cooking without complaint!

My point is, I love me some good layered lasagna! But it’s a dish that screams WINTER. I wanted to lighten it up for the warmer months and knew replacing the noddles with lighter zucchini would do the trick!

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Summer Style Zucchini Lasagna

Prep time: 20 minutes – Cook time: 40 minutes – Servings: 2

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 3 – 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 – 7 small zucchini sliced in long thin pieces*
• 4 – 5 small ripe JUICY tomatoes (if you can’t find any, a strained can of fire-roasted tomatoes will do
• 1/2 cup of sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup roughly chopped spinach
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

* Important step: after you slice the zucchini, place the stripes on paper towels for ~20 minutes to absorb some of the water *

Directions:

• Sauté the minced garlic in olive oil until fragrant
•  Add mushrooms and tomatoes (getting all of the seeds and juice in there to give it more of a sauce consistency)
• While your sauce is cooking, add chopped spinach to ricotta and mix well
• After mushrooms and tomatoes are cooked, spread a thin layer on the bottom of a pan (I used a small enough one for two but the size will depend on how much you’re making)
• Layer zucchini slices on top of sauce and then the spinach and ricotta cheese mixture
• Top with mushrooms and tomatoes
• Repeat 3/4 times, depending on how many zucchini you have
• Top with parmesan cheese
• Bake at 350 for 40 minutes

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#vegvibes

When Mike and I celebrated our anniversary in Coronado earlier this year (you can read more here and here), we had these can insanely delicious California Stone Fired Quesadilla that I’ve been wanting to recreate.

They are lighter than a normal quesadilla because the cheese isn’t in the leading role. The addition of hummus and veggies give this recipe a lot of volume without all of the fat of a fully cheese stuffed quesadilla.

Plus, any dish that takes me back to a vacation-mode is a win in my book!

Note: there aren’t any real measurements for this recipe – just pile on as many ingredients as will fit! Also, get creative and sub things you have on hand 🙂

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Cali Quesadillas

Prep time: 10 minutes – Cook time: 15 minutes – Servings: 2

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of lavish bread (feel free to make the whole pack and freeze for later!)
• hummus
• sliced mushrooms
• handful of arugula
• shredded cheese
• sliced black olives (optional)
• salsa verde (to dip)

Directions:

• Spread a thin layer of hummus on lavish bread while a pan is heating up on medium heat
• Lightly grease pan and place lavish bread on pan, top with ingredients, fold over
• I find using another pan or pot as some weight works well to melt the cheese quickly without burning the lavish
• Flip after 3-4 minutes and cook the other side
• Serve with various dips (and an optional side of chips)

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe.**

There was a period in my life when I considered going gluten free… All of that wheat. Inflaming my organs and intestines.

It must go.

This mindset lasted about a half day.

Turns out, I don’t have celiac.

Anyways, during my short stint in (thinking about) eliminating wheat from my diet, I learned about polenta.

Polenta is cornmeal that you boil. Plain and simple.

 After boiling, you can either serve it like porridge or let it solidify. To solidify it, you just boil it according to the package and place in a glass container, cover, and let sit for about 20 minutes. 

Once solidified, you can bake it, fry it, grill it, flop it, bop it.

Or simply make an easy, nom No Jar tomato sauce to pour over it and dig in.

A quick note that you actually can buy polenta in two forms; already solidified or still in grain form. I’ve cooked with both. I prefer the grain form because I get more bang for my buck. However, the solidified version (packaged in a tube-like shape; pictured below) is nice to have on hand for a super speedy dinner.

Although polenta is versatile and cheap, it’s pretty bland. The real show-stopper here has to be the sauce.

Tomato sauce in a jar is a reasonable option if you want to save on time. And there are some great organic versions out there; if that’s your flavor. However, I find that most jarred tomato sauces are either made with soybean oil or have added sugar in them.

My solution? A super simple, 4-5 ingredient sauce (depending if you like mushrooms or not) that you can make while your polenta is solidifying.

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No Jar Tomato Sauce 

Prep time: 10 minutes – Cook time: 25 minutes – Servings: 4 *freezes well*

Ingredients:

• 4 cloves of garlic – minced
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
• Full bag of a leafy green (it reduces so don’t be shy – put in the whole bag.)
• 1 c. mushrooms – sliced
• 2 Tbs olive oil

Directions:

• Heat your olive oil and sauté garlic until translucent
• Add mushrooms and continue sautéing for about 1 minute
• Add leafy greens and can of fire roasted tomatoes
• Stir until greens are well incorporated
• Cover and let simmer for ~20 minutes
• Note: it might look like you don’t have enough liquid at first but by covering the sauce, the trapped steam will thin it out
• Spoon onto your favorite Italian carbohydrate (polenta, pasta, etc.) and enjoy! 

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe.**

This recipe is quick because I chopped all of the veg for it earlier in the week. Highly recommend for days you know will be busy.

Pro tip: sesame seed oil is a total game changer. I used to make fried rice without it and it never turned out as good as I wanted it to be.

Sauté your veg in some oil, add rice (again, you can make ahead to save time), and a dash of soy sauce and you have dinner.

Garnish with seaseem seeds and scarf it down. You’ve got things to do. 😉

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe.**

I am a huge advocate for bringing your lunch to the office. It will generally be healthier, save you money, and you can use the time spent driving around town to get food to take a walk around the parking lot instead! (Which legitimately is what I do on days that I’m in the office.)

Mike used to eat out every day (talk about a pricey habit!) but decided to bring a lunch from home 2 days a week instead; which has saved him money and has likely given him better health.

**Note when Mike started bringing lunches to work, he would make them himself but I quickly took over having a self-proclaimed OCD state of needing to know exactly what and how much food we have in our house at any given moment. (Seriously, it’s a bit weird how well I know the contents of our cabinets and refrigerator.)***

Most weeks I make Mike some variation of a hummus sandwich. When we did our No Sugar Cleanse, we learned that sourdough is the best bread to eat (if you’re trying to avoid sugar). I start off with four slices of Trader Joe’s sourdough bread and spread hummus on all pieces. Then I top with whatever veggies we have on hand – which usually includes cucumbers, carrots, and tomato. Sometimes, on a “good week” (we joke), I use sprouts too.  I will also pack a piece of fruit, maybe some chips, and Mike has lunch!

Occasionally I will pack him leftovers or just make one sammy and pair it with soup but basically hummus sandwiches are all the guy gets. (Side note, I should be mixing up his lunches with homemade burritos now, since I have so many frozen.)

This week I decided to spice up Mike’s lunches with a whole.new.menu. Can you even handle it? Instead of relying on my go-to hummus sandwich, I got a tad more creative and made him vegetable farro. (Farro is basically quinoa’s cousin – but is made from wheat – so far less trendy.)

Aside from being a believer in bringing your own lunches to work, I am also a big fan of frozen vegetables. I usually have peas and corn on hand and vary between broccoli, green beans, and a few other good ones! (Who am I kidding?! They are all good;)

This week we have frozen peas, (corn – not included in this recipe) and broccoli. I also had fresh carrots and onions. While my farro was boiling in the broth, I sauteed my veggies…

…Then added the cooked farro right on top…

…Mixed it all together and stored in glass containers for Mike’s lunch this week.

This veg packed meal – paired with more vegetables red peppers and cucumbers to dip in hummus (can’t get away from the stuff!) – is a healthy, cheap lunch for Mike that should leave him full and satisfied.

Stay tuned and eat your greens.

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** Note this blog went through a rebrand and is now veg vibes; which aligns better with the direction I organically gravitated towards. It’s all about your vibe **