Pasta

Cauliflower Cashew Alfredo

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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Vegan Pink Pasta

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Vegan Pink Pasta made with gluten-free pasta and a homemade tomato-cashew sauce. Served with fresh basil and vegan parm!

This is a recipe I made for Valentine’s Day and never shared.

As per usual, M and I didn’t make a big fuss over the whole Valentine’s Day thing.

In fact, after a gift heavy holiday season and new year, we decided to put a moratorium on gift giving, too.

This year, we’ve decided to stay in and cook a nice plant based dinner together at home with Flora.

We planned to complete the meal with one of the “better” bottles of red.

You know, the bottle with a more expensive price tag that you feel a little weird about opening on a random Thursday.

I *really* like cooking with M, so the act of making dinner becomes an activity in itself.

Lately, it usually becomes dog training, too, so the whole family gets involved.

Flora, now 7 months old, is a huge counter-surfer, meaning, she loves to jump on all of the kitchen counters and steal anything within her reach.

So we reward the sh** out of the sits and stays and (try to) patiently correct the pursuit of chopped bell pepper, the kitchen dishcloth, and my rubber gloves.

Dinner might take twice as long, but we love giving Flora more freedom to roam, explore, and learn.

While she isn’t allowed upstairs yet, our downstairs is her kingdom to conquer!

What say you to conquering upcoming celebrations or just dinner plans with this Vegan Pink Pasta?

This Vegan Pink Pasta is made with gluten-free pasta and a homemade tomato-cashew sauce.

It’s perfect for a weeknight dinner for the family but can be gussied up for a date night-in experience, too!

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Butternut Squash Mac ‘N’ Cheese

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Butternut Squash Mac ‘N’ Cheese made with your favorite pasta and a creamy cashew sauce. Serve solo as a side and with protein for a main!

Last fall, we spent Friday and Saturday at an Air B&B in Virginia with friends to celebrate a birthday.

It was our first time traveling with Flora!

I think I can speak for both M and me when I saw we were more than a little nervous about how it would all turn out.

Pottying, sleeping, and eating were all big question marks, because our pup has never spent a night somewhere else.

As it turns out, she did *very* well.

She picked up on the pottying after a few hours and settled in for sleep like a champ.

In fact, I think she might travel better than her mama, who is always in a state of anxiety upon arrival.

As usual, I packed most of my food for the weekend, including this Butternut Squash Mac ‘N’ Cheese that I shared with my friends’ 1 year old son.

He didn’t eat much, but I think that’s more because we were babysitting and less because of the recipe.

This Butternut Squash Mac ‘N’ Cheese is cozy, flavorful, and packed with veggies.

It’s made with your favorite pasta and a creamy cheesy cashew sauce.

Serve it solo as a side or add protein to make it more of a main!

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Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff

By Flora & Vino 3 Comments

Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff made with your favorite pasta and dried mushrooms in a creamy cashew based sauce. Serve with fresh herbs!

The days are flying by!

Each morning I change the advent calendar number in disbelief, truly baffled by where the time goes.

It goes to unhurried dog training, hurried walks before early sunset, teaching yoga class prep, and hand writing Christmas cards.

And it goes to baking Christmas cookies, dreaming of 2025, applying buckets of moisturizer, and bundling and unbundling myself in layers of clothes.

It also goes to holiday parties, cups of light roast coffee on the couch, watching Christmas Hallmark movies, and playing Christmas music on a loop until it annoys me.

The time goes to making too many social plans and then cancelling them, returning Amazon packages, replacing dead car batteries, and drinking ruby red wine.

Some also goes to reading my Kindle, moving my body every day, watering dehydrated plant babies, and rewatching all 8 seasons of House with M.

One thing is certain: the time goes.

With not many days left in 2024, I’m committing to eating cozy comforting meals for the remainder of the year.

Are you in?

Sure, I love a good holiday cookie as much as the rest, but I wanted to leave you with something hearty, cozy, and satisfying.

Something that will curb your appetite until 2025, so to speak.

This is our last recipe of 2024, and it’s Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff.

This Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff is made with your favorite pasta and dried mushrooms in a creamy cashew based sauce.

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Green Pesto Pasta Casserole

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Green Pesto Pasta Casserole with chickpea noodles, homemade pesto sauce, and green veggies baked to perfection. The best workweek dinner!

As a kid, my favorite colors were pink and purple.

If I ever had a choice between colors of backpacks and pens and school notebooks, pink or purple was my favorite shade.

As a teenager, I begin to. gravitate towards blue because it felt safe, cool, and inconspicuous.

As a twenties something, I loved teal and coral.

The pairing together made my heart happy and I made it the theme of my outfits and my wedding colors.

Now that I’m in my 30’s, I am in love with the color green.

From the sage of my yoga mat to the mint of my planner to the evergreen of my favorite cozy sweatshirt.

Sometimes when my cell phone case and Kindle cover color and blouse are all matching it feels like a problem, but, hey, I like what I like!

Which is why I *love* the dozens of plants scattered around the perimeter of our main level.

The color green transforms the space from empty and generic and stale to something alive: a living room.

I always look for green on my plates, too.

(Sometimes, I even heat up some steamed broccoli to serve with a monotone takeout meal for a little color…

Which I do realize defeats the purpose and gift of takeout, haha.)

Which is why I loved the idea of this Green Pesto Pasta Casserole from first glance.

It’s made in a casserole dish with chickpea noodles, homemade pesto sauce, and green veggies baked to perfection.

This is the best workweek dinner for colder weather no matter what your favorite color is!

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Creamy Vegan 1-Pot Pasta

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Creamy Vegan 1-Pot Pasta made with chickpea pasta with almond milk, marinara sauce, and nutritional yeast for an easy dinner.

Do you ever feel like making dinner is the hardest thing you do all day?

Sometimes it feels like that for me, and friends, I create food content for a living.

Really I think the “hard factor” comes from the decision fatigue of food options as opposed to the actual cook time, you know?

After a long day, the last thing you want to is learn a new recipe, test new ingredients, or dirty every pot you own.

So lately I’ve been focusing on getting back to classic recipes that allow me to think less about food, if that makes sense.

The shorter the ingredient list, the better!

I’ve been keeping a 1-pot pasta from you for several years now, and I think it’s the perfect opportunity to share.

This Creamy Vegan 1-Pot Pasta is made with chickpea pasta, almond milk, marinara, and nutritional yeast for an easy dinner.

You can make it as elevated or basic as you’d like by adding or subtracting garnishes and sides.

Either way, you’re guaranteed a healthy meal that’s ready in 1-pot in 10 minutes.

Think how much of your precious brain space that frees up!

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SunButter Ramen Noodle Bowls

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Cozy SunButter Ramen Noodle Bowls made with rice noodles and stir-fried vegetables in a delicious SunButter sauce. Serve with optional tofu!

Hi friends!

Amidst all of the holiday sides and festive cookies and cakes, I’d like to share with you a cozy dinner to break up the sameness.

I think it’s important to have a few easy cozy dishes on repeat during this season when things can be so joyous yet so hectic.

This recipe was born on a Friday evening; the best time to get a party started.

Usually on Friday nights we have either A. pizza, or B. something new and elevated that we make together.

This recipe is obviously not pizza, so it fell in the later category of Friday night dinners.

We didn’t have a lot to work with that evening, but we managed to turn that ancient package of Ramen from the cupboard into something amazing.

These SunButter Ramen Noodle Bowls are made with rice noodles and stir-fried vegetables in a delicious SunButter sauce.

Serve them with optional tofu and enjoy this meal any time you’re craving noodles.

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No-Boil Spaghetti Bake

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

No-Boil Spaghetti Bake made in the oven with chickpea pasta, your favorite marinara sauce, and simple seasonings. Perfect for a hands free dinner.

I just got a shiny new casserole dish this season because my former one was so loved that it showed it’s age in chipped and cracked edges.

So I’m currently baking all things in 9×13 and 8×8 sizes (the two sizes I got).

M groans when he sees the casserole dishes when he’s on dish duty for the evening.

It’s true, they’re not the easiest to clean, but it’s OH so easy to throw everything into them for a 1-pan dinner.

And that’s exactly what this recipe is; a dinner recipe that you can dump into a casserole dish and forget while it bakes.

With most pasta dishes, I feel like I’m scurrying around the kitchen without much time to relax from dinner beginning to end.

When I make this No-Boil Baked Spaghetti, I can actually sit down and drink my entire kombucha before the oven beep reminds me that dinner is ready.

Or when the smell of baking pasta and tomato sauce hits your nose.

This No-Boil Spaghetti Bake is made entirely in the oven with spaghetti noodles, your favorite marinara sauce, and Italian seasonings.

Grab a casserole dish and let’s fill it with delicious spaghetti without pots or boiling!

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Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

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Roasted Red Pepper Pasta made with legume pasta in a creamy roasted red pepper sauce served with broccoli. Perfect to use a jar of roasted red peppers!

If this year is the year of buckling down and getting s***, last year was the year on the road.

We flew to Germany twice, spent a day in New York City, visited family in North Carolina and Virginia, drove to Kentucky and Indiana, and flew to Chicago.

That’s a lot of traveling for someone who whole-heartedly identifies as someone who “doesn’t travel well”.

With traveling there is this horrible juxtaposition of excitement and unknown.

And the great unknown is a scary place for planners like me.

Although it takes a lot more time, I always take the time to plan ahead when traveling, if possible.

When we drove to Kentucky and Indiana, for example, we had the unique opportunity to have constant access to a fridge, so I packed a cooler full of meal-prepped food.

This Roasted Red Pepper Pasta was one of the meals that I packed for the week.

Right before the trip, we had a lonely jar of roasted red bell pepper, so I used it as the base to this creamy red pepper sauce over pasta with cooked frozen veggies.

I was so grateful for to have it, because it took the pressure off family to serve me something vegan, and eased my vegan dilemma of being plant-less and protein-less!

Ever since then, this Roasted Red Pepper Pasta has been on rotation in our house.

It’s made with legume pasta in a creamy roasted red pepper sauce served with vegetables.

And it happens to be the perfect way to use up a leftover jar of roasted red peppers!

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Sesame Tahini Soba Noodles

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Soba noodle bowl with sesame, tahini, broccolini, and edamame. Ready in under 30 minutes for a cozy better-than-takeout plant-based meal.

It feels like M and I have been away more this fall than we’ve been home!

I can’t complain, because it’s all good things filling up our calendar.

This past weekend we were near Charlottesville, VA, exploring the outdoors and celebrating one of my friends’ birthdays.

We hiked Humpback Rocks and visited some local breweries and good eats all while staying at a beautiful B&B.

We arrived home last night and stuffed our suitcases up in the attic storage until next year.

As much as I loved all of our travels from this past year, I’m equally excited to cozy up at home until 2023.

That’s not to say that we don’t have things planned– there’s holiday parties and game nights and social engagements on the horizon, for sure.

But they’re all day trips and events that will find us sleeping in our own bed at the end of the day.

The temperature also dropped about 20 degrees this weekend, from the mild 60’s to the much chillier 40’s.

So I’m ready to make all of the cozy comforting food until it’s time to bring out the holiday menu.

This Sesame Tahini Soba Noodles is the quickest, most comforting meal I’ve made in a while.

It’s ready in under 30 minutes for a cozy better-than-takeout plant-based meal!

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