The Main Meal

Black Sesame Noodle Bowl

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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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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Cold SunButter Soba Noodles

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Cold SunButter Soba Noodles served with raw crunchy vegetables in an easy SunButter Sauce. Perfect for a light summer meal!

For context, I don’t sweat a lot.

I don’t have the kind of body that slips and slides on their yoga mat in a hot vinyasa class.

Or the kind of body that drips sweat from a low impact home workout with weights.

I’m not telling you this to brag about how I don’t sweat, I glisten.

I’m telling you this so you’ll understand how humid it is when I say I start sweating *immediately* when Flora and I left the house for our morning walk today.

By the time we got home around 7:55 AM, my face was slick with moisture and my freshly washed and dried hair was in need of re-washing.

And poor Flora didn’t look much better, panting like she’d run miles instead of leisurely walking for…one.

There’s been a fair share of memes on the Internet lately comparing he DMV to a bath tub, or, my personal favorite, a swamp.

And they’re very accurate.

So, the muse of my food recipes lately is a temperature…cold.

Anything chilled, no-bake, and not heated is at the top of my TO EAT list right now in mid July.

These Cold SunButter Soba Noodles are served with raw crunchy vegetables in an easy SunButter Sauce.

This noodle bowl is perfect for a light summer meal!

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Swiss Chard Pasta

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Swiss Chard Pasta Sauce made with swiss chard, basil, cashews, and nutritional yeast on top of your favorite noodles.

This past weekend Flora spent her first night away from us since we brought her home nearly 9 months ago.

Because we were spending the evening at a concert in Virginia, we wanted to make sure that she was well taken care of in our absence.

While I’m not a new parent, I can imagine that the feeling I had is similar when venturing out without your babes.

I kept seeing my watch during the live music and thinking, I hope Flora is OK!

We didn’t know what to expect when we picked her up bright and early the following morning from doggie daycare.

But I *know* we didn’t expect her to want to go back inside with the providers instead of back in the car with us!

So we drove home convinced that she had the time of her life and with pictures as proof to suggest that she made some new pals.

I have a new pal too, and its name is Swiss Chard Pasta.

This Swiss Chard Pasta Sauce is made with swiss chard, basil, cashews, and nutritional yeast on top of your favorite noodles.

Think pesto, but not.

Think green goddess salad, but with noodles.

Think green!

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Avocado & Cucumber Rolls with SunButter Sauce

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Avocado & Cucumber Rolls wrapped in toasted sushi nori sheets with a creamy SunButter Sauce. Perfect for a date night meal!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I never really got back to “normal” after the pandemic.

I didn’t really need to, because my normal can be working in pajamas in the comfort of my own home.

Outside of teaching yoga once a week, climbing, and heading to our favorite coffee shop every Saturday, I otherwise don’t *need* to venture out.

During the pandemic, my house became my safe space, my place of work, and my workout studio.

I stopped attending hot yoga at the local studio (something at the time I couldn’t imagine living without), and started practicing exclusively at home.

So it was rather magical this weekend, when I attended my first hot yoga class in over 5 years during my 300 hr YTT program.

Sitting in an easy seat chanting with a chorus of of “OM” vibrating around me, tears prickled behind my closed eyelids.

THIS, I thought, is what yoga is about.

It’s nothing short of magical and it’s about me but it’s also about embodiment inside of community.

While I’m grateful for my strong personal practice at home, I’m remembering what drew me to yoga classes in the first place.

I’m so glad that I ventured outside of my comfort zone to learn, grow, and connect again; it’s been a while.

It’s also been a while since I’ve made sushi at home.

It’s interesting because sushi is both so simple and so complex at the same time.

It has a few parts that take some foresight, but if you take the time to plan, you’ll be very grateful that you did.

These Avocado & Cucumber Rolls are wrapped in toasted sushi nori sheets with a creamy SunButter Sauce.

It’s the perfect meal to make with others so dinner is a shared experience.

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Easy Vegan Pasta Salad

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Easy Vegan Pasta Salad made with your favorite noodles and raw vegetables in a simple red wine vinaigrette. Perfect for summer meal prep!

This coming weekend is the second meeting of my 300 hr yoga teacher training, which also is technically my *first* weekend because I missed the first due to sickness.

I’ve found myself planning, replanning, and agonizing over the details of work, life, and yoga this week, wanting everything to be *just so* for a successful weekend.

I’m nitpicking at my clothing, my accessories, my gear; the small things that I bring that I feel are in my sphere of control.

The training is forcing me out of my routine, out of the state of Maryland, out of my comfort zone.

In a sense, it feels very much so out of my control.

But I try to keep reminding myself that there is no perfect yoga pants, morning routine, or notebook that will make this weekend EASY.

And it’s good to do HARD things frequently in life, right?

The one thing I know that I’ll need is a quick healthy lunch that doesn’t need reheating, assembly, or fussing.

And contrary to what I said about doing hard things, I like my food choices and recipes to be without a doubt easy!

This Easy Pasta Salad is made with your favorite noodles and raw vegetables in a simple red wine vinaigrette.

It’s perfect for summer meal prep, camping trips, weekends away, and anytime you’re craving something simple and fresh.

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Vegan Refried Bean Tacos

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Vegan Refried Bean Tacos with pinto beans and seasonings in 1-pan on the stovetop. Serve in hard shell tacos with your favorite toppings!

Last weekend I taught yoga outside at one of my favorite local gluten-free breweries.

Between you and me, I was grateful to finish class without a coughing fit or a sneeze attack.

Yes, this time of year I have special kind of jealousy reserved for all of the people I see outside, enjoying the beautiful weather, and doing it allergy free.

Sure, they could all be heavily medicated, but I have at least a few friends who claim that the thick yellow dust that coats my car every day doesn’t bother them.

Blasphemy, right?!

So I’ve been hiding indoors in self pity and self preservation, until I realized that Flora is bringing the outdoors indoors via her double coated fur.

One shake from her is all it takes to make my throat scratchy, my eyes watering, and my nose stuffy.

There’s only so much cleaning I can do, and let me tell you, my robot vacuum is heavily employed right now.

It’s an all hands on deck situation as I fight a never ending battle against nature.

This past week was also cinco de mayo, and whenever I think of cinco de mayo I remember a trip I took with my sister at the beginning of May to New York.

Now, I think my allergies are bad here, but they’re *nothing* compared to what I experienced in NYC 5+ years ago.

I remember walking through Times Square, the wind whipping between the sky scrapers, bringing with it lots of…whatever it is I’m heavily allergic too (I think oaks!)

My respiratory system was NOT happy.

I sneezed through every crosswalk, tears streaming down my face, my pockets full of soggy used tissues.

My sister looked over and asked repeatedly, “Are you OK?!” to which of course I responded, “Yes, I’m fine, it’s just allergies.”

I hadn’t thought to pack allergy meds and was too stubborn to buy them, so I suffered through the trip half-seeing and half-crying all the time we were outdoors.

Telling this story always makes me feel better, because whatever Flora is dragging inside, it’s nowhere near what NYC on the 5th of May has to offer.

So here’s what I have to offer this first week of May.

My favorite Vegan Refried Bean Tacos that we’ve been eating on repeat here for taco Tuesday.

I wanted to get this recipe out before Cinco de Mayo, but, it’s always a good day to eat tacos, right?

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Cauliflower Cashew Alfredo

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Cauliflower Cashew Alfredo made with fresh or frozen cauliflower, raw cashews, and Eden Foods Organic Unsweetened EdenSoy.

Hello, friends!

Since we last chatted I had a birthday spent with M and Flora doing my favorite things.

We completed a 3.7 mile hike at Seneca Creek State Park, which happens to be the longest hike Flora has ever completed with us!

She had the *best* tongue-hanging-out-of-the-side-of-her-mouth time, even though she was afraid of the geese around the pond trail loop.

When we got home, she passed in the entry way (her favorite sleeping spot) for most of the rest of the day.

That’s when we realized that in order to have a calm puppy, we *just* need to hike her for four miles every day.

Easy, right?

On my birthday evening, we ordered a new vegan + gluten free pizza place near us that might be the best I’ve had since going vegan.

So it was a great day!

After that, it feels like the month of April was put on fast forward.

It’s been a whirlwind of appointments, commitments, and chaotic spring energy.

Do you feel this too, in the springtime, where everything seems to start at once and your energetically pulled in 100 directions?

A lot of my time and energy has also gone into trying to learn to use a new cooktop for work and reschedule all oven recipes for a later date.

The oven-less saga continues, however, we did receive an induction cooktop in the meantime so I can continue creating recipes while we wait for new oven parts.

Luckily, it’s spring time, and most of us are craving fresh and lighter recipes for incoming warmer weather.

However, we’re back down to the 30’s overnight here in Maryland this week, so I’m still craving warm dinners for the chilly spring eves.

I’m waiting to plant my seeds outside, but I’m not waiting to make this pasta.

This Cauliflower Cashew Alfredo is easy to make on the stovetop with a homemade alfredo sauce and spring vegetables.

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Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto made with miso paste, shiitake mushrooms, and arborio rice. Perfect for a spring meal with umami flavor!

It took me 36 years to try making my own risotto.

Almost 37, considering that next week is my birthday.

I saw a recipe on social media for a risotto with spring vegetables, and the possible pairing infiltrated my subconscious and refused to retreat.

So, I made risotto.

My first surprise was that you need a special kind of rice for risotto, and not just the leftover rice in my pantry.

I bought some arborio rice and read the instructions and prepped my space.

The second surprise came in how much liquid you need to use…almost 5 cups per one cup of rice!

(I didn’t follow this on my first recipe test and that’s why the recipe came out my fried than anything else. M shrugged and loyally ate it so I didn’t have to.)

The third and final surprise was how much you need to stir risotto.

I believe the word on the instructions was “constantly”.

Or maybe it was “consistently”.

But either c-word requires a level of attention that I’ve never devoted to rice in my life.

I watched my dream of hiding upstairs to read and sip kombucha while the rice cooked disappear a little more every time I swirled the spatula over the steam.

But the smell of the rice cooking encouraged me to forgive it for being so maintenance.

It smells HEAVENLY.

“Look, it looks like risotto!” I shouted at M when he entered the kitchen to see what smelled so good.

After stirring in the mushroom and asparagus, I was 10/10 excited to try this recipe.

After the first bite, I forgot how much effort risotto takes to make and vowed to have this Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto every day!

Put aside your risotto-fears and make this creamy Mushroom & Asparagus risotto made with spring veggies and arborio rice!

It’s bound to be your new favorite “splurge” meal this spring.

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The Main Meal

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