Quarantine silver lining: getting to cook and bake a LOT.
The kitchen is my happy place – always has been, always will be! It’s honestly been super nice to have a little extra time (and motivation) to make recipes I’ve had saved, experiment a little bit on my own, and take some extra time to cook/bake/enjoy it together.
I kicked off this shelter-in-place business with the rainbow-sprinkled cookies up there (Rachel Mansfield’s gf/vegan Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies) and have been living it up with the eats ever since. While I love making my own recipes, I do think there’s SO much out there on the internet that I need to taste, so I like to take ones that already exist and tweak them just a bit with the ingredients I have!
Not all of these are real “recipes” though, just a bunch of the food and treats we’ve been enjoying the past month or so that I think you might like, too!
No-Bake PB Cheesecake Cups – Vegan & GF! I looooove these and how they’re single serve!!
Taco Bowls with Orange and Lime Vinaigrette – I posted the “recipe” for on Instagram a couple weeks back, but we’ve since had them a couple more times!! We’ve been getting our ground beef from Butcher Box (seriously on backorder) and we just put that in a bowl with greens, veggies, the TJ’s Corn Dippers (HEAVEN), avo and the vinaigrette. It’s simply juice from 1 small orange, 1 lime, a touch of olive oil, and sea salt!
Cookie Dough Chickpea Blondies – If there’s one thing you make this quarantine (or ever), make it THESE. They were so good, even Alex loved them and he resists any treat that is remotely healthy. They’re gooey, the perfect amount of sweet, and surprisingly nutritious. They were also gone within 48 hours…
Purely Elizabeth Grain Free Protein Pancakes – These are quickly becoming a weekend tradition in our house!! We made them two days in a row a couple of weekends ago and now Alex is obsessed with them? I love them too, though! The texture is perfect, they’re super easy to make and they actually keep you full until lunch.
Spring Pantry-Friendly Pasta – Another “recipe” I shared earlier in quarantine and have been having a lot for lunch lately! It’s super cheap and simple: I use Banza chickpea pasta as my base, add in cherry tomatoes, chopped green beans, zucchini, frozen peas, a touch of pesto olive oil (regular is great too, though!) and parmesan + sea salt. Serve it hot or cold!
Tender Crockpot Roast – We made this for dinner last night and it was delicious!! It’s of course a bit of work on the front end chopping and prepping the meat, but then you just let the crockpot do it’s thing for 8 hours and BAM. You’ll get at least 4 meals out of it!
Eat Banza Vegan/GF Mac N’Cheese – So I made this for the first time back when we were in Colorado, but I made it again in quarantine and added a few things to spruce it up like nutritional yeast (an awesome vegan cheese substitute), mustard, garlic powder, paprika and sea salt, and it was FANTASTIC.
And those are the eats!! What have you been cooking lately? I’m going to put together a list of my pantry/fridge/freezer must-haves in case people are running out of ideas or feeling stuck with their usual meals! Stay tuned for that later this week.
xo Jordan