Cauliflower Rice n' Greens Black Bean Bowls

I really, really love rice and beans. Really. Sometimes I think I should have been born in Brazil because I'm just crazy about it. When I was in college, one of my roommates introduced me to her family's favorite recipe for rice and beans and I was immediately hooked. It called for rice, beans (duh), lime juice, salt and pepper, avocado, and green onions. It was simple, tasty, and really easy on my college budget. I may even admit to eating it EVERY DAY for a week or so. (Poor college student, remember?)

I still LOVE to make up this black beans and rice recipe, but nowadays I have to scale back a bit on the rice consumption. This particular recipe was born when I came home after a particularly long day to a particularly empty fridge. All I could think to make was rice and beans, then it dawned on my that cauliflower rice would be a much better alternative. After Claire posted her excellent tutorial on making cauliflower rice, I started making up a really simple cauliflower rice and greens dish and I knew it would complement the dish well. Fortunately I had a package of cauliflower rice squirreled away in the freezer and a few handfuls of leftover greens. Thank heavens for hoarding tendencies.

The recipe is really simple and perfect if you are cooking single servings. I live alone and it can be really tricky to find recipes that don't leave you sitting with gallons of leftover chili (or whatever). I don't know about you, but there are only so many days I can gag down leftovers before throwing in the towel and ordering pizza.

Veggies 101: Roasted Broccoli

I've had a thing for roasted veggies since I can remember. Something about roasting vegetables takes their flavor up a notch- more than just steaming- and I absolutely prefer most vegetables roasted (there are obviously exceptions here). Being completely honest here, one of my favorite snacks is a big plate of roasted broccoli. It's filling, nutritious and SUPER low in calories. I literally eat the stuff like candy, but without feeling regretful and guilty after like candy would.

Riced Cauliflower + How to make prepped and frozen riced cauliflower

As I talked about last week, I did Whole 30 last month (yesterday was my last day!). One of my favorite hacks was discovered when I was shopping at Trader Joe's and found prepped and frozen cauliflower rice. I grabbed a few bags, and as I was checking out the cashier noted "It's a good thing you grabbed a few of these things. They are like gold around here!" And so it held true, I couldn't ever really find them again when I went, as they were always selling out a few hours after they were out on the shelf.  So I decided I would have to just make my own frozen version, and it has done wonders!

Avocado BLT Egg Salad

Hello there! It's been a while since I have posted. The holidays kept us busy around these parts. The holidays also left us feeling also heavy. Oh goodness, I always forget how much delicious food I end up consuming between the months of October-December. Between the dinners, holiday parties, goodie-baking for friends, the list just goes on and on and the scale just went up and up and so did the head aches.

When January came around I was so ready to start feeling good again, and after a lot of contemplation I decided to give Whole 30 a whirl. While I don't feel like eating this way is sustainable, nor healthy for long periods of time (too much meat, and I think grains are a healthy part of any food table, in moderation) , I have found it to be incredibly cleansing as well as powerful when it came to defining my relationship with food.

"BRC" Burrito Bowls

Today I have another budget friendly meal for you on the table.  Growing up my mom’s go-to fast food was usually on the way home from soccer practice, stopping by El Pollo Loco and getting about 15 “BRC’s” (Bean, Rice, and Cheese burritos) to feed the family. She has obviously come far since the fast BRC runs for the family, but the BRC will always hold a nostalgic place in my heart.

The premise of the dish is very simple, just layering beans, rice and cheese (and salsa!) in a bowl. But its delicious, cheap, AND filling (an important part in my household for my manly man).

Pomegranate Super Salad + Thanksgiving Side Dish Ideas

Over here at Everyday Veggies we're pretty crazy about Thanksgiving. I don't think it's a stretch to say it is our favorite holiday. So this month we're giving you two different simple Thanksgiving side dishes. It's really easy to go crazy overboard on preparing food for Thanksgiving. I've found that it is really helpful to have at least one simple dish that is easy to prepare or even make ahead. It seems to make meal preparations that much easier.

Lots of Thanksgiving side dish ideas from our archives:

• Roasted herbed spaghetti squash
• Simple garlic green beans
• Sweet potato hummus
• Smashed potatoes and leeks
• Maple-glazed carrots
• Spinach-pesto pull apart bread
• Homemade pumpkin puree
• Creamy zucchini rice 
• Tips on making a side salad 
• Veggie-stuffed twice baked potatoes
• Spinach artichoke dip

Today I've got a really, really easy (almost embarrasingly easy) side salad for you. This recipe uses a mix of spinach and kale, but if you find kale too bitter, use all kale. I also have a recipe for a really delicious yogurt and tahini dressing that I basically lifted from the cookbook It's All Good by Gwyenth Paltrow and Julia Turshen. If you have no interest in making your own, my favorite dressing from Trader Joe's and this poppy seed dressing from Briana's would both be a great substitute.

I get two generous servings or four small servings out of this salad, so if you're expecting a crowd make sure to double this recipe. As is often the case with salads, the measurements below are more "guidelines" and it's pretty easy to eyeball this and make adjustments as you see fit.

On to the salad!

Savory Apple Cheddar Cobbler

Several years ago I ran across this recipe for apple cheddar soup. It sounded a little weird, but I thought it was worth a try. It became a fall staple and I look forward to making it every autumn.

I've been really interested in making a savory cobbler for the past few months but hadn't gotten around to it. This year I was buying the ingredients for my favorite apple cheddar soup and wondered if it might make a tasty cobbler.

Well folks, I'm pleased to tell you that the answer is yes. I've been toying around with this recipe for the past month (and eaten A LOT of cobbler as leftovers), but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Shredded Veggie Rainbow Salad

I recently returned from a week-long trip to Israel with some family members. One of my key takeaways was to never visit Israel in August. It was blazing hot! We kept hearing "heat wave, heat wave, blah blah", but man we roasted. Second, and far more exciting to me, Israel has AMAZING produce. I'd heard that Israeli farmers do some impressive things, but it wasn't until I visited that I realized how impressive it is. We saw all different types of farms and orchards and fields and the produce in the markets was always fresh and gorgeous.


One of my favorite meals we had (and we had some really great meals) was at a lovely restaurant in a small town in upper Galilee. We sat, sweating, on a lovely veranda overlooking the valley and gushed over the amazing food. I absolutely flipped over one of the salads we were served. It was a combination of simply-dressed shredded raw vegetables topped with candied walnuts and Parmesan cheese. The light flavors of the raw vegetables balanced out the rich nuts and cheese and dressing just perfectly and it was so lovely in the heat. (Technically it wasn't actually my salad, but I'm confident the rightful owner didn't mind that I ate most of it.)

In all of of its grainy glory, here is The Salad. So delicious we're making it a proper non.  

My sister and I went back and forth trying to break down the ingredients. She was convinced it was dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, but I just couldn't believe it was that simple. We finally asked the waiter in what turned into an embarrassingly long ramble about "how much we loved the salad and how we wanted to make at home and could he please oh please tell us what was in it because we couldn't quite figure it out, and would he be so kind as to tell us, please and thank you." He stared at us for what seemed like way too long and then, with what I'm sure was a heroic effort at suppressing an eye roll, confirmed that the salad was dressed simply with lemon juice and local olive oil. Bam.

Of course, I knew immediately I had to recreate this salad. Dear readers, these are the lengths we go to for this blog: embarrassing ourselves in front of Israeli waiters and a healthy lack of self respect. Dedication, folks. Dedication.

Simple Lime & Paprika Salmon

My husband is away for a time doing some Navy training, so that left me some time with my almost-one-year-old sidekick to do some traveling. A few weeks back I went up to Idaho to visit my sister Natalie. My mom was there visiting, and Natalie's mother-in-law was coming over for dinner. My mom was making pineapple shrimp salad (delicious!) and then we remembered last minute that there was a salmon filet that needed to be used up that night.

All three of us use the famous family marinade for salmon about 98% of the time, which requires actual time to marinade. Nat and I just looked at each other, and both said something along the lines of "don't people usually slather a bunch of mayo on their salmon and call it good?". As we ran around the kitchen trying to find a way to make a delicious, simple, quick salmon, this recipe was born. Boy, the outcome was DELICIOUS. My little goober gobbled it up, and we were all wishing there was more salmon by the end of the dinner.

Let me just tell you again. This is SUPER easy and quick. No real preparation ahead, and it's perfect if you have some fish in the freezer if you need to use it up (I usually keep at least one fillet of fish in the freezer at all times for things like this).

Veggie Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes

I have a shameless love affair with most anything that is potato based. Add in a bit of cheese (my favorite food and word), and I'm done for. I blame it on my Idaho roots. Having said that, I rarely enjoy twice-baked potatoes. It's sad, really. I always want to like them, but I can't get past the gloopy, fatty mess of a filling that typically bears little resemblance to an actual potato.

A few years ago my mother passed along a recipe for twice-baked potatoes, but ones that actually looked pretty good. The recipe included lots of vegetables and I liked the idea of combining a vegetable-herb sauce with the potato flesh (that word just sounds so gross to me every time I type it). However, something about the recipe just wasn't quite right. It did not have quite enough veggies and there was a shocking lack of dairy.

After a lot of tinkering I hit on a combination of vegetables and mushrooms that was just perfect. I also mixed sour cream with the potato innards (is that word better?) because sour cream is everyone's favorite part of a baked potato, right? I added a dusting of paprika - 'cause it's pretty - and of course, I had to top it off with cheese. Potatoes and cheese - I think it's the law or something.

Potato and Quinoa Stew

This is the last entry for soup month! We hope you've enjoyed making and eating these soups as much as we've enjoyed creating them for you. We're finishing things off with one of my absolute favorite soups (for making and eating!): Quinoa and Potato Stew.

A few years ago I checked out Love Soup by Anna Thomas from the library. I love soup and I'm vegetarian, so I was intrigued by this cookbook: 160 vegetarian soup recipes (hooray) plus it boasted a James Beard Foundation award winner sticker (extra bonus). Boy was I ever happy I took that book home. I cooked my way through it for weeks. Friends and family members started complaining of "soup fatigue", but I was undaunted. The recipes were outstanding! I kept that library book an embarrassingly long time. I exhausted all of my renewals and returned it to the library, only to check it out and exhaust all of my renewals again. I think I repeated this process 3 or 4 times. A family member caught wind of this ridiculousness and finally bought the book for me, likely out of pity and a bit of disbelief.

In my defense, this recipes in this book really are outstanding. There are several recipes for different types of broth and they are really delicious. I particularly liked the dark vegetable broth (it makes an amazing, if time consuming, French onion soup!). The recipes are grouped by season, which I really like, and all of the recipes I made (which was an awful lot!) were really terrific with loads and loads of flavor. My only bad experience was with the persimmon soup, but I probably should have seen that one coming. :)

One of my absolute favorites is the Quinoa Stew with Potatoes, Spinach, and Chard recipe. The quinoa and potatoes make for a really hearty, stew-like consistency and the flavors are really lovely. I've made this so many times that I've lost count, and it is always a crowd pleaser. Even people who normally give quinoa and hearty greens the side eye end up loving this soup. Over the years I've played around with it a bit. My version barely alters the original, mostly just reducing it to make a more manageable amount of soup (the original recipe makes A LOT of soup!) and adding zucchini to up the veggie count. I hope you love it as much as I do!

Spiced Cauliflower Soup with Spinach Pesto

About 8 years ago a friend of mine gave me a recipe to make a cauliflower spinach soup. I was hesitant, but it was delicious. It was bright green and loaded with flavor. Naturally I lost the recipe and have tried to re-create this creamy and flavor-rich soup with a bit of a re-mix. After much trial and error - I had only made the original soup one time after all - I created a version that had even more flavor and some elevated twists.

Spinach and Mushroom Greek Penne

I was never going to be the mom with picky eaters for kids (you know, the one whose kids order chicken strips at an ethnic restaurant...). That was never going to be me. And yet, here I am with a 12 year old and 9 year old that are PICKY eaters!

I am always on the look out for healthy meals that will incorporate veggies into my growing boys' bodies. I love to cook, but am at a point in my life that during the week if it takes more than a half hour, or I can't throw it in a crock pot before I leave for work, breakfast for dinner it is!
My weeknight recipes have to be picky eater friendly also need to be quick and easy so I can throw a meal together in between homework and all of the boys' activities. And, most importantly, nutritious.  This pasta with a Greek twist (adapted from an Our Best Bites recipe) has become one of my family's favorite weeknight meals and I am sure will become one of yours as well.

Veggie "Sloppy Joes" - Rock Your World Sloppy Joes

First, I have to admit, I've never actually eaten a  "real" sloppy joe. I think my only exposure to them was in the movies (think It Takes Two with the Olsen twins circa 1995, or Billy Madison). I have always loved anything barbeque-esq, but was terrified of unidentifiable substances in my food. So this is my ode to a dish I have never actually had.

I hope you enjoy this as much as my family does. I sometimes need to double this just to keep up with the demand. To say this is a delicious family favorite...is the understatement of 2014. 

Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese

Butternut squash. I have a slight obsession. A few years ago my husband and I went out to Boston to visit Collette, and we had butternut squash at close to every meal. My sister has a husband who doesn't necessarily love vegetables, so she has gotten pretty clever at how to disguise vegetables into things like Macaroni and Cheese! While we were there she made us Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese and I loved it. The pureed squash adds a depth of flavor to the classic dish, but also makes the dish extra creamy without adding whole milk or extra cheese (but you could if you wanted to).

Butternut Squash Curry

Starting in about mid July, you will quickly see if you even take a glance at Pinterest, that Fall is just about everyone and their mom's favorite season. Pumpkin. Changing leaves. Sweaters.Boots. Yes, we have heard a million and one reasons why Fall is the best time of the year. I enjoy fall, but I am not oddly obsessed with it. I do, however enjoy Fall harvest vegetables, especially butternut squash. Hands down my favorite squash on planet earth. I have a few butternut squash recipes for you, but today I am starting out with Butternut Squash Curry, because who doesn't love a good curry?

Free Spirit Navajo Tacos ( Indian Fry Bread with Veggie toppings)

 Navajo Tacos are delicious. Really, nothing beats ditching the tortilla and piling your favorite taco toppings on a nice piece of warm Indian fry read.The best part is they aren't deep fried and you can pile them with loads of veggies! I have created a delicious taco filling that is loaded with veggies and is easy on the pocket book ( and your heart) by eliminating pricey beef.