All Food Recipes

Rainbow Roasted Carrots with SunButter Sauce

Rainbow Roasted Carrots meet a creamy SunButter Sauce in this easy vegan recipe. Perfect for weeknight dinners or healthy holiday sides.

As the days get shorter and the air turns crisp, I find myself slipping into full-on hibernation mode.

In mid-November.

Tell me, is it ever too soon for cozy sweaters, warm drinks, and anything roasted or comforting on our plates?

Speaking of soon, I do see a lot of people on social media already putting up Christmas trees, mistletoe, and stockings.

I’m not quite there yet.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I like to celebrate each holiday at a time.

After Halloween, I like to focus on Thanksgiving before we get to the Christmas decor!

But there’s something about this season that makes me crave simple, nourishing meals that feel like a hug from the inside out.

Rainbow roasted carrots feel equal parts cozy and celebratory.

You can bet that the day after Thanksgiving I’ll be rocking green and red, but until then, I’ll be roasting carrots.

Now that the weather is chilly, I love tossing a rainbow of carrots on a baking sheet and watching them caramelize to perfection in the oven.

Each hue, golden yellow, deep purple, and vibrant orange has its own natural sweetness and charm.

Drizzle them with a creamy Organic SunButter sauce, and suddenly your everyday side becomes something special.

These Rainbow Roasted Carrots with SunButter Sauce is simple enough for weeknights but beautiful enough for your holiday table!

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Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwich

By Flora & Vino 1 Comment

Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches made with cranberries, walnuts, and sliced celery. Add to sourdough bread with toppings!

The end of the year always feels like a strange mix of gratitude and burnout, doesn’t it?

Between yoga teacher training weekends, future wedding and family planning, and wrapping up business for the year, it’s been….full.

I’m feeling both super thankful and a little stuck in the messy in-between-ness.

Yoga has taught me that that both can be true; to feel joy and exhaustion at the same time.

I have to remind myself that balance doesn’t always come from doing more, but from pausing and nourishing myself in small, intentional ways.

Something M is constantly reminding me is that when life serves us chaos, I don’t need to serve us a five course meal.

So on weeks when life feels full and I’m craving simplicity, I turn to recipes like these Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches.

It’s easy, protein-packed, and ready in minutes.

A simple sammy can be a gentle reminder that feeding yourself well doesn’t have to be complicated, even when everything else feels like it is.

So if you’re feeling that same end-of-year overwhelm; that delicate pull between slowing down and showing up, I see you.

Let this simple sandwich be a moment of reprieve from the holiday happy and haggard.

Take a deep breath, step into your kitchen, and make something that nourishes you without asking for much in return.

Let’s make Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches!

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Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal

By Flora & Vino 3 Comments

Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal for a breakfast that tastes like the classic cookie. Meal prep a pan and reheat for an easy breakfast!

This is the story of my engagement.

On Halloween last week M and I hiked into Great Falls National Park where he got down on one knee and presented me with a diamond ring and a question.

“Would you like to marry me?” he asked, the midday sun creating fiery colors in the pear shaped diamond in yellow gold.

“Yes!” I said immediately, wondering if I had responded too quickly.

We kissed and M slid the diamond onto my ring finger as people I didn’t know were there gave their congratulations.

So, friends, I am engaged.

The funny thing is that I almost didn’t want to go on this hike that I realize now M was carefully planning.

There was really high winds forecast for the day and that felt like reason enough to curl up at home and read under blankets.

I’m forever grateful that we ended up going and I braved the discomfort.

Great Falls has always been a special place for us in our relationship.

It’s the first place M taught me to climb outdoors in the height of the pandemic, and a place we kept coming back to for hiking, climbing, and nature.

Standing on top of Sandbox Overlook with my new fiancé, my best friend, this man who has chosen me forever, I didn’t feel the windchill a bit.

The last week has been a bit of a blur with engagement announcements, living in our own “honeymoon” bubble, and making tentative plans for the future.

Being newly engaged, I’ll admit, I haven’t been the most creative with food.

However, I did come up with a new baked oats recipe for you that’s essentially a cookie in baked oats form.

Can you tell that I was craving cookies when I created this Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal?!

Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal that tastes like the classic cookie for breakfast.

It’s easy to meal prep a pan and reheat for an easy breakfast all week long!

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Black Sesame Noodle Bowl

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Cozy Black Sesame Noodle Bowl made with soba noodles and oven-baked vegetables in a delicious Black Sesame Butter Sauce.

Happy Halloween week, friends!

It’s funny, we’ve lived in our condo for about 4 years now and we’ve never seen a solitary trick or treater.

It’s not for lack of trying!

The first year I thought it might be a fluke because we’re at the dead end of the street with our lights off.

After that year, I made sure to leave the porch light on and the carved pumpkins street facing with a fresh tea light candle in the center.

Still, no trick or treaters.

There are *definitely* kids in our neighborhood, but, for whatever reason, they don’t stop at our house.

Maybe it’s haunted and we don’t know it.

That doesn’t stop me from buying a small bag of candy each year…just in case.

This week we had M’s friend over for pumpkin carving and fall food.

Every year I romanticize pumpkin carving…until I’m up to my elbows with pumpkin guts and the living room floor is littered with seeds and orange goop.

It takes two to carve a pumpkin, right?

Or, at least, it does in my house.

I usually delegate all of the knife work to M (who is less concerned about stabbing himself with pointy objects) and I take over the scraping.

The scraping is not for the faint of heart, though, because it takes stamina and arm muscle and a high tolerance to handling slime.

But the end result is always idyllic, right?

All those orange jacks grinning and glowing from within on the patio.

These Black Sesame Noodle Bowl will make YOU glow from within this fall season!

These cozy Black Sesame Noodle Bowl are made with soba noodles and oven-baked vegetables in a delicious Black Sesame Butter Sauce.

I made mine for a dramatic dinner to celebrate Halloween week!

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Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with SunButter Frosting

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with a gluten-free oat crust, dairy-free coconut cashew cream cheese filling, and a SunButter frosting.

These past few weeks have been different settling into a routine with M home from work due to the government shut down.

Flora and I have loved having him home more, despite the circumstances at hand.

This means I have a built in taste tester, and, of course, Flora thinks she has a 24/7 playmate.

When friends ask how M is spending the time off, I respond, “Oh, doing a lot of training (read: PLAY) with Flora…”

“What do you need?” M asks Flora with her piercing blue gaze, and she immediately runs to grab her most beloved toy, Frisbee.

Frisbee, a yellow silicone disc that has survived over a year of tugging, throwing, dirt, and dog slobber, is an adored member of the fam.

Round and round main level they run, Frisbee flying and narrowly missing lights, furniture, and, my face until I scold that someone (read: ME) is going to get hurt.

It’s times like this that I wonder exactly what I was thinking putting an Australian Shepherd in a two level condominium.

But aside from the play sessions with our energizer bunny Aussie, I decided that it was a great time to make a cheesecake.

Cheesecake is M’s favorite dessert, and I realized that I don’t have a pumpkin pie version on the blog yet.

This Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake is made with a gluten-free oat crust, dairy-free coconut cashew cream cheese filling, and a SunButter frosting.

It’s a beautiful tribute to Fall in a fun dessert that’s worth sharing!

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Single Serving Fried Rice

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Single Serving Fried Rice made with leftover rice, chopped vegetables, and seasonings for an easy way to make fried rice for one!

This past spring, our oven and stove cooktop burnt out in a single firework that went “POP!” inside the oven doors.

Being a recipe creator, I was immediately concerned about how to keep the recipe creation going without an oven.

Our landlord proactively supplied us with a portable cooktop so that we could still do a little cooking.

That week sans workable oven, we had fried rice almost every single night.

(Excluding that one one night where we tried to boil pasta and it came out a little crunchy. M still ate it anyway.)

While our cooktop couldn’t successfully keep a roiling boil, it made a mean fried rice, friends.

When the new oven rolled in the front doors, I was a little sad to let the induction cooktop that heated a pan to temp on command go.

That’s OK, because I’m sharing with you the secret of Single Serving Fried Rice with you, today.

Why single serving, Lauren, you might ask?

Well, on the small induction cooktop, the burners were tiny so M and I made our fried rice in his and hers skillets to maximize our cooking.

So while this was savvy for our temporary cooking situation, it also dovetails nicely in the real world.

Like those instances that you have a small amount of rice left with no plans for.

Or the night you’re cooking for yours truly and no one else and just want one serving only.

Hello, Single Serving Fried Rice, the easiest way to make fried rice for one with leftover rice, chopped vegetables, and seasonings!

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Vegan Bratwurst with Sauerkraut

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

Vegan Bratwurst with Sauerkraut made with oats, legumes, and spices pan-fried and served with Eden Foods Organic Sauerkraut and fried apples.

Everywhere around me there are fall festivals, pop up markets, and Oktoberfests happening.

Life has been such a blur lately (summer, where did you go?!), that I haven’t had the chance to attend to any community fall events.

If you’re in a busy season, too, I see you!

And there’s no need to leave all of that fall flair for outside the house.

I decided we could bring Oktoberfest to your house, and make it vegan and gluten free (a feat in itself, if you know traditional German food!).

While I can’t pretend that my version of Bratwurst is authentic, it is delicious and looks enough like the real thing to be a charming stand in.

Most of you know that my boyfriend, M, is originally from Germany so he keeps me honest when it comes to my German inspired recipes.

He also happens to be my chief taste tester and F&V HQ.

And while he did remark that these Vegan Brats, and I quote, “aren’t real bratwurst”, he did say they were quite tasty and scarfed down a couple.

So, I give you, an Oktoberfest meal for your next busy weekend that you don’t need to leave the house to make.

This Vegan Bratwurst with Sauerkraut is made with oats, legumes, and spices pan-fried and served with Eden Foods Organic Sauerkraut and fried apples.

It’s delicious for an Oktoberfest at home that’s both vegan and gluten free!

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Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles made with oats, pumpkin purée, and Navitas Organics Turmeric Powder. Serve with melted cacao for breakfast!

Two weekends ago I had to miss my yoga teacher training because I was sick with the first cold of the season.

It’s been an ongoing goal of mine to connect with more local yoga studios in the area.

The hope being that I find a place that I can practice regularly and perhaps even one day teach at.

Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been all too comfortable practicing yoga from the room I fondly refer to as…the yoga room.

I am so fortunate that I have a space to work out at home, but, as my teacher said when encouraging me to connect locally, the energy just feels different in the studio.

So I’ve been pushing myself to get outside of my comfort zone and take classes with the public.

After the third class, I started to feel a connection to the community and myself I hadn’t felt in years.

It was like realizing a version of myself that I’d forgotten; a Lauren that went out for evening yoga regularly because it lit me up.

However, with the public yoga comes the public germs.

I remember looking askance during my third class at the girl next to me, sniffling heavily in downward facing dog.

She sounds unwell, I thought to myself, and then went on with my practice because what else can you do when you’re flowing next to a germ monster?!

So now I’m on the upswing of a bad cold, sitting with the irony that a public yoga class potentially caused me to miss my yoga training weekend.

However, I have to believe that that striving for connection, community, and movement outside of my house is worth the risk.

Being sick, I’ll admit, I haven’t been the most creative with food.

However, I did come up with a new waffle recipe for you that’s perfect for upcoming “spooky” season.

These Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles made with oats, pumpkin purée, and Navitas Organics Turmeric Powder.

Serve them with melted cacao drizzle for an elevated breakfast!

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Coconut Curry Rice Bowl

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Coconut Curry Rice Bowl made with curried coconut Jasmine rice topped with charred vegetables and seared tofu in a chili garlic sauce.

This week we checked out a new coffee house in our area on a weekday morning before work.

It felt like a bit of a hassle at the time, because we (read:I), get into these routines that feel nonnegotiable.

Like, how am I supposed to brave the Maryland traffic without a coffee at 7 AM?!

The horror.

To be fair, I do have a successful morning routine at home which involves coffee, meditation, gratitude, movement, and planning my day.

Oh, and of course getting to at least level “Amazing” on the NY Times App Spelling Bee game, because Genius is just too much work.

Next I walk with M and Flora and then we eat breakfast and I set up for my day, either a photoshoot, recipe testing, or computer day.

It’s true, we have fine-toned our mornings to achieve the intersection of maximum productivity and enjoyment.

However, I think it’s important to remember that we’re actively *choosing* this routine, or otherwise everything just becomes a chore.

That’s why breaking the routine for something like a coffee date felt so disruptive, rebellious, and in the end, fun.

So, your assignment for the week from your friend Lauren is to disrupt your routine a little.

Because you create your routine, your routine doesn’t create you.

And you always have the authority to change it.

For example, perhaps this week we turn our rice a vibrant yellow.

You rebel, you!

This Coconut Curry Rice Bowl is made with curried coconut Jasmine rice topped with charred vegetables and seared tofu in a chili garlic sauce.

It’s delicious for a cozy dinner as the weather transitions from summer to fall!

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Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

Super fluffy Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes with buckwheat flour and apple pie compote. Perfect for a weekend breakfast topped with SunButter!

This season has been all about healing for me.

Right now, I’m attending physical therapy two times a week to work on healing my chronic back pain.

It’s a commitment, right? In time, energy, and physicality.

Two days a week in my very adept physical therapist’s office releasing tension, increasing mobility, and building strength.

Not to mention the homework exercises that I do religiously (because I’m a good student, y’all!).

It was humbling to realize after my the first evaluation that despite being highly active, I have areas that are *extremely* weak.

And of course that imbalance and weakness is a contributing factor to the pain I experience on a daily basis.

The other cause most likely being the strange and incorrect form I use to capture all of the delicious food that I share with you all.

Yes, food photography is probably ground zero for the back problems that started a few years back.

I ignored it for so long, thinking, “Eh, it’ll just get better on it’s own, it’s just from holding the camera in a weird way.”

Spoiler alert: it did not get better and in fact, got more and more pervasive to the point that day to day activities became painful and challenging to perform.

A lot of my healing has been self-awareness of certain body patterns and motions that I’m doing that will trigger the pain.

As a yoga teacher, I know how important balance and harmony are in the bodies, so it’s kind of ironic that I couldn’t see that dissonance in myself.

So, consider this your PSA, friends: if anything is bothering you, take the time, the energy, and the resources to get it looked at.

Our bodies are our one amazing vessel to carry us through this life, so let’s take care of them as such.

Which is part of the reason as to why I love a plant-based lifestyle, because it’s good for us and the planet.

No one can argue that these Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes that I’m sharing today aren’t healing from the inside out.

These super fluffy Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes are made with gluten-free flour and apple pie compote.

They’re perfect for a fall weekend breakfast topped with SunButter!

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