The Smoothie Vegetarians

Even if you can't be on vacation every day, you will be able to feel like it with this indulgent dessert! Hi Everyone, I was fortunate enough to be able to get away for a few days to St. Maarten. Although I was thrilled to get away from the cold, I must admit that I had a bit of anxiety about this trip since I heard there were a lot of stray dogs on the island. Since some of you may know, I am a huge animal lover and advocate and it would have broke my heart to see this and not do anything about it. Before I even left on the plane I was plotting how I would be able to bring one or more animals back home with me. The good news is that the few dogs I saw seemed to well taken care of and just out on a stroll. They were not fearful, skinny or appear to be homeless which definitely eased my mind. The people there were wonderful, so friendly and helpful. Even though the island had suffered such devastation from Hurricane Irma, it did not dampen the enthusiasm o...

Hi All, Hope everyone had a good weekend! I want to talk about breakfast this week. Personally I am not a big breakfast person and I tend to eat more of the breakfast foods for brunch,  lunch, dinner or even a snack. That being said, one of my absolute favorites is porridge of any kind whether it be oatmeal, farina, cream of wheat or grits to name a few.  However, when I visited the Dominican Republic last year I had a fantastic porridge (I believe that is what the sign on the buffet said) which was made from oat flakes and called avena. I have never had such a creamy, smooth oatmeal in my life. When I came home, the search was on, I found it in the ethnic section of one of my local supermarkets. This is a wonderful, inexpensive way to feed a family. So this week, I am going to share my recipe with you! On the actual package it gives directions to make it as a cold drink or a hot dish. Many of the recipes I saw focused on using this to make beverages. In experimenting...

Did you ever just not know what to make for dinner? Sometimes one ingredient can spark an idea for a whole dish and this week that ingredient was a can of black beans. As some of you may know, I love simple, easy recipes and typically will use whatever I have home. This week, my Fiesta Black Bean recipe consists of the following (BTW I just made up the name) 1 can of black beans (reserve the liquid and chill it) 1 red pepper 1 onion 2 stalks of celery Handful of chopped cilantro (I always have a big bunch in the refrigerator) You can add a can of corn if you want to expand the dish garlic powder salt and pepper Saute the diced celery, peppers and onions in a bit of olive oil . Once veggies are fork tender, add the garlic powder, salt, pepper and black beans. Continue to cook until desired tenderness.  Remove from heat and toss with cilantro. You have a great side dish, main course, filling for tacos or wraps or even a sweet plantain. The p...

This week's post is for all the broke vegans, busy moms and dads and for anyone who is too tired to cook when they get home. All you need to do is get a good meal starter and the rest is easy. This week I used potatoes. They pair with just about anything. You can use them with peppers, onions, mushrooms or whatever vegetables you may have on hand. You can also use different spices to change the flavor profile. They are wonderful in soups, stews and are versatile enough to use in any ethnic dish! The main ingredients that I started with today were a bunch of red skinned potatoes (that honestly had seen better days) and a few heads of garlic. I scrubbed the potatoes and cut them in half, cut the tops off the garlic and lightly oiled a sheet pan. I then placed the potatoes face down along with the garlic and put the oven on 350 degrees. The house smelled amazing! I am going to show you three great inexpensive meals thrown together with stuff I had in the house. I encourag...

Hi All, Happy Monday! The topic of my discussion today focuses around words. What I mean by that is, depending on the words you use to describe something, someone will automatically get the impression whether it is good, bad, cheap, expensive, old or new just to name a few things. First let's talk about food. Meal kits, meal starters, one skillet meals have a nice ring to them but when you look up the word leftovers there is nothing appealing about. If you look up synonyms for the word leftovers you can find words like scraps, remnants and crumbs so who would want to eat that? Maybe we need to change the way we think of leftovers. Personally I love it when I have food leftover because that automatically becomes my "meal kit" that I can use as the basis for a new dish. Yes. you can just reheat your original meal but that can be boring. However if you add some ingredients and change the flavor profile by adding some spices, you have not only saved money but c...