Super Easy Vegan Falafel Pie

Geez Louise has it been an insanely long time since we posted a recipe! Yikes! We've been cooking and eating yummy, healthy, meals all winter. But with the shorter days and lack of sunshine by the time the dinner hours rolled around, it prevented us from taking photos in the natural lighting that we prefer. So now that the days are longer we hope to share lots more recipes here. In Jersey the month of March is never predictable. We'll get a day that feels like Spring, and then wake up to super freezing temps. Which reminds me…tomorrow we are expecting 3-6 inches of snow!! ughhhh. 

Ok, back to the food…we just had to share this super tasty, super easy, recipe with you guys. Even though we really enjoy meals with lots of totally homemade sauces, batters, and dressings…this one just seemed so simple, quick, and perfect that we had to give it a try on one of our busier days. This Vegan Falafel Pie  comes from an adorable food blog called The Vegan Stoner. 

And the other day was suuuuper busy. We were working on so many projects at once...cutting out our diecuts, sanding, painting, walking to the post office, cleaning, yep...one of those days. The perfect day to make a dinner that takes barely any time and almost zero effort. 

This recipe starts with a package of falafel mix, which you can find in the International aisle of your grocery store. Sure, it's super easy to make your own...and we have…but again, we loved this recipe for it's shortcuts. 

This recipe couldn't be easier…

You'll need:

Falafel Mix

Your favorite hummus (we went with Sabra roasted red pepper)

plain soy yogurt 

tomatoes

1 cucumber

And any other topping you would like! We added diced red onion. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a pie dish (we misted ours with olive oil).

Mix a cup of falafel mix with a half cup of water. You can add a bit more water if necessary. Spoon the mixture into your prepared baking dish, and bake for 15 mins. 

While your falafel bakes, slice your tomatoes and cucumber, and dice your onions and any other toppings you will be adding. 

In a blender, or cusinart, combine 1 cup of yogurt, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and half of a cucumber.  We also added some fresh minced garlic. Blend until you have a smooth dressing.

Once your falafel is baked, top with a layer of hummus (as much as you'd like), followed by a layer of sliced cucumbers, and tomatoes, and diced onions. 

It was ready in under 20 mins! And it was SO SO tasty!  We actually killed the entire pie in a sitting. Don't judge us! wink. 

And even though we cheated a bit with the store-bought falafel mix...we still made a bright fresh super tasty dressing from scratch. It was a great meal! We will be making it again soon! It's so simple that the recipe is already committed to memory. You really just have to grab very few things at the grocery store, and then throw it together in a pinch. 

Whether you're vegan, vegetarian, or a meat eater…this is a super tasty dish! 

Hope you'll give it a shot! And if easy meals like this are up your alley… Definitely check out The Vegan Stoner.  You'll love their hand painted illustrations!

Thanks so much again for reading! Happy cooking and eating!

xo, Jenny & Aaron

Italian Bean Balls & Spaghetti Squash

We have been meaning to share this recipe with you guys for a while. We've made them a bunch of times and we kinda feel stingy for keeping the yumminess to ourselves for so long. Honestly, we love these bean balls! And we think the recipe is perfect just the way it is. Many times we'll come across a recipe, or a few similar recipes, and we'll use them as just a loose point of reference. But this one is right on the money. It's from one of our absolute favorite food blogs, Oh She Glows. 

Aaron's childhood favorite was good ol' classic Spaghetti & Meatballs. This dish is kinda like the responsible adult version. And when I say "responsible adult",  being vegetarian or vegan has nothing to do with it…I'm referring to the idea of sneakily replacing red meat and pasta with wall-to-wall vegetables…and you still get your protein, by way of kidney beans and walnuts. But the health benefits of this meal seriously take a back seat to how deeeelish it is. So many layers of great flavor!

Every time we had this dish we made it just like you see in the pic above…with spaghetti squash and spaghetti sauce…but the awesome Italian Bean Balls are the focus of this post. We are big fans of spaghetti squash, but you can certainly use pasta…or heck, you can even make an Italian Bean Ball Hero!

When we prepared ours, the first thing we did was roast our spaghetti squash. We blogged a quick how-to here. Once it was ready we kept it warm, covered in foil, on top of the oven.

And as far as sauce, just go with your favorite homemade or jarred variety.

Here is what you'll need for the bean balls:

3/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped and toasted

3/4 cup rolled oats, processed into a coarse flour

1 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/3 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped

2-3 tablespoons finely chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes (about 2 large)

3 large garlic cloves, minced

1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons ground flax + 3 tbsp water, mixed

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and toast your walnuts for 7-9 minutes, until fragrant and golden.

Meanwhile, add the oats into the food processor and process until finely chopped. You want the texture to be like a coarse flour.

Now add your oat flour, grated carrot, chopped parsley, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, walnuts, into a large bowl. Stir to combine.

Add the drained and rinsed beans into the food processor and process until finely chopped. You want the mixture to be a coarse paste with some beans still intact, but don't completely puree the mixture. 

Stir the processed beans into the bowl with the vegetables and oat flour.

Now you can make your flax "egg". You can buy flax that is already ground, but we usually have seeds that we pulse in the food processor until ground. 

Just whisk together the ground flax and water in a small bowl. Let it sit for only 15-20 seconds, any longer, and it will get too thick. Then stir it into your bean mixture until fully combined. 

Next, stir the oil, oregano, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes (if using) into the bowl, adjusting amounts to taste if necessary.

Shape the mixture into 18-20 balls (the size of golf-balls), packing each ball tightly between your hands so it holds together well. Place each ball onto the prepared baking sheet an inch or two apart.

Bake for 20 minutes, then gently flip the balls and and bake for another 15-20 minutes until golden on both sides.

While ours baked in the oven we made one of our fave sauces. It's called "Spicy Slurpy Spaghetti Sauce", and it's from one of our favorite cookbooks, Isa Does It. 

All of the ingredients are right there in the pic. Crushed tomatoes, a chopped onion, minced garlic, brown sugar, a little salt, a handful of herbs & spices, including a generous dose of red pepper flakes. It is so delicious!

After baking, place balls on a cooling rack for 10 minutes to cool slightly.

Ready to serve…just sprinkle some ribbons of fresh basil on top, and you are set! We have made this exact meal many times. The bean balls really have so much depth of flavor…and the texture is perfect. They are delicious, and I think it would be hard to find tastebuds who would disagree. 

We hope you love them, and we'd love to hear about your experiences in making them…any things that you changed…or if you do in fact serve them as an Italian Bean Ball Sub. We'd love to see pics too!

Happy Eating!

xo, Jenny & Aaron

Recipe Review: Roasted Sweet Potato, Wild Rice, and Arugula Salad

Easter Sunday was quiet for us, and this was a welcome change of pace. Its very very rare for us to take a day off. And even when we say we're taking a day off, a little bit of work will sneak into the day...like packing some orders, or priming boards for the next day. But this Easter was an actual day off. And being that it was a sunny day we decided to go for a walk. All of the boardwalks and amusements parks up and down the Jersey Shore open up on Easter Sunday, including our very own right here in town. So the two of us walked up there to check out the festivities. It was very crowded, which is great. All of the boardwalks are still in the rebuilding phase after hurricane Sandy, so the more business the better. But at the risk of sounding like a downer, it was sad to see that so much of the old charm was gone. Everything is rebuilt and new, so the kitsch value is lost. The owners of the stands definitely did their best to add some fun with bright paint colors, but for me, so much of what I love about these sea shore fun spots is their vintage appeal. But I'm confident that with time it will all be restored to its former glory. A couple things did not change at all. The signature smells. The pizza stand smelled exactly the same...and so did the French Fry stand. But as great as those smelled to us, we weren't going to be stopping for a bite. Why? you may ask...

Well, because we really couldn't wait to get home to make our dinner. Which was Roasted Sweet Potato, Wild Rice, And Arugula Salad from Pinch of Yum. 

Now make sure that you don't take the word salad at face value. I guess the underlying bed of greens makes it a salad...but this dish is real hearty and bursting with flavor! It is so bright and fresh and comforting. And it was perfect for the day! When you get glimpses of sunny Spring weather you instantly start thinking of fresh, healthy meals. This was a great dinner but would also make a fantastic lunch. I know this because we had it for lunch the following day! The star of this recipe is the homemade lemon dressing. It is just plain magical. The big dose of lemon zest is wonderful.

Ok, first...can we pause to acknowledge the awesome size of this organic sweet potato. Aaron instantly was striking Heisman trophy poses with it. You could totally round up the kids to play a game of Easter touch football with this. 

So the recipe started off with peeling this beast.

And then after you dice it up you get it coated with some olive oil and the spices. Roasted sweet potatoes are just sweet and buttery and work great as the foundation of a meal.

And once the potato is seasoned and oiled it goes for a ride in the oven to roast until it's tender and the edges brown a bit. Would you believe that a single potato filled this entire cookie sheet?! 

And while the potato was roasting we whipped up the awesome dressing in the food processor. I don't know about you...but I get absolutely invigorated when I zest some lemons. That's probably the element in this dressing that makes it far superior to any dressing you can buy already bottled. The fresh lemon zest! It's all about the Zest!

And while I was doing the dressing Aaron was getting the wild rice made. We added some classic spices like sage, thyme, pepper, etc...And once it was ready we added some of the dressing to it in order to marry the flavors.

When everything comes together it lays atop a bed of Arugula and other favorite Spring greens. The warm wild rice and roasted sweet potatoes make the dish so comforting...and by gosh, it's topped with a handful of cashews. The cashews are the perfect finishing topper...and then you drizzle the whole bowl with the dressing.

Oh my goodness! I can't get over how good the dressing was. Our mouths were so so happy! It was the perfect meal for our Easter day. It was just us two, a nice walk in the sunshine, a quiet calm day, and the punctuation of this fab meal to cap the afternoon and bring us into a relaxing evening. We wouldn't change a thing!

If this recipe seems even a tiny bit your style, you just have to try it!

So, bolstered with this fab meal we finished our night with a few episodes of True Blood...yep...we are late to that party. We just never got around to watching it. The two of us aren't the hugest vampire fans. We definitely consider ourselves zombie people. ha! So we honestly weren't sure if True Blood would be for us. But after 2 episodes we were hooked. Its really entertaining. We also thought we were watching a show that was over and done with. So when we saw a commercial this weekend for a new season we were shocked. We have a whole lot to watch in order to be brought up to speed so that we can watch the final season in real time with everyone else.

But yes...to stay on topic. Huge thumbs up for this recipe. Make sure to go and check out all the details on Pinch of Yum!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Happy Spring! 

xo Jenny & Aaron 

Around here...

For us weekends are still workdays, but we try to at least work on some other projects in tandem with whatever work we've got going on. The side projects act as pseudo-breaks in our day...but our real deal break time is when we stop to prepare and eat an awesome meal. I posted pics of today's dinner on Instagram earlier today and on another occasion when we made this same exact meal. A lot of people have been asking for the recipe so I figured I would share it here...well, I'm sharing a link to where we got the recipe from. We gave the dish a little bit of our own personal touches, but it's pretty faithful to the site where we got it from. So if you're interested in a delicious and healthy recipe then check down at the bottom of this post and be sure to follow the link. 

Everything else you'll see in this post is pretty much a glimpse of our weekend projects and recent bits of interest from around our home.

I'd love to tell you that one of this weekend's projects had to do with baking a cherry pie...but alas, the pic above of that perfect looking pie is sheer illusion. It happens to be made of paper mache! And old paper mache. It's one of my favorite vintage finds in a long time. I found it on ebay! And for $5.00! I have no idea how old it is...not that it really matters...I just love the idea of it. I'm normally a cake girl, but nothing says home sweet home like a classic cherry pie. And this one lasts forever. 

Oh, and while we are still in the kitchen, I wanted show you this update I gave to a little home project. Recently I shared a tutorial for these vintage inspired crates, and just the other day I ended up adding some vintage wallpaper to them. I really like the way the wallpaper softens their appearance. And I love little vintage vignettes like this. Vignettes put together with a variety of vintage, new, decorative, and practical items remind me of the good ol days of Anthropologie. I'm referring to the big location on West Broadway in NYC. Way back when Soho still had a bunch of vintage shops and cool independent decor stores. Anthropologie used to go all out with their in store displays. I still love shopping Anthro today, but it's much more streamlined. I loved how many vintage one-of-a-kinds you could find...and the displays were so darn artful and unique. But I can understand them doing away with those displays...I think I did way more gawking back then, and way less shopping.

As I said, this weekend was a typical Jenny & Aaron weekend. All sorts of projects happening at once. Lot's of paper, paint, glue...and yes...wood. You know what they say: "the couple that sands together..."

ha! but seriously, we are so thankful for all of our collectors/customers who make all of this work possible. We get so many return customers adding to their collections and that feels great. Presently, the wooden plaques are a hit. We've got lots going out in the mail this coming week. 

And it seems our Instagram inspired pieces must have been on a few wish lists lately. Lots of those are going out this week too!

This is a glimpse of one of the aforementioned side projects which will be part of a super cute blog tutorial. We have a few tutorials lined up and we cannot wait to share them with you! 

This was a little scene from this afternoon. Lots of circle punching going on. A fun project that we wanted to play around with...also for one of those future tutorials.

And here its the fab meal I mentioned earlier. Seriously delicious...light, and yet super satisfying and filling. So fresh and flavorful. They're called Deconstructed Falafel bowls and the name sums them up perfectly...but me and Aaron refer to it as "A party in a bowl"!

No pita bread here. In place of the pita bread just insert the grain of your choice. Tonight we used quinoa, which we love. It's protein packed and really pairs well with the tahini dressing. Also in this bowl: spiced roasted chick peas, hummus, tahini, fresh veggies, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh parsley...and tonight we included a broccoli slaw mix. And for an extra kick we topped it with a little sriracha. 

If you are into these flavors and are looking for a great lunch or lighter yet filling dinner then look no further.

You can find the original recipe over at Vegan Yack Attack. And like I said, we really haven't changed much at all. In place of the pickled turnips we went with the broccoli slaw mix, and though we have made this using tabbouleh, tonight we went with quinoa being that we were out of tabbouleh. 

So...dinner was YUM, and now we are counting down the minutes till the season premier of Game of Thrones! Ahhh! Cannot wait! Anyone else psyched?

Happy Sunday friends! Thanks for popping in! Don't be shy, say hi in the comments!

xo Jenny...and Aaron 

Recipe Review: Naughty & Nice (almost) Vegan Enchilada Casserole

This is our second time reviewing a recipe from Oh She Glows, and once again, we were truly impressed on multiple levels. The first recipe we had tried from Oh She Glows was her Green Powerhouse Pesto Plate. We were bowled over by that one. It was so tasty, and it was one of those healthy meals that makes you feel like you can conquer the world after you stand up from the dinner table. 

Well this recipe, the Naughty & Nice Vegan Enchilada Casserole, might not make you feel like you can conquer the world after you stand up from the dinner table...but it'll probably make you stand up and march into the kitchen for seconds. It definitely lives up to the 'Naughty & Nice' in it's name. It's loaded with veggies and is very low in fat, but the pasta and the delicious enchilada sauce are 100% comfort food. It's not hot & spicy...it's just very flavorful. Seeding the jalapeno definitely reduces the heat of it, which is a good thing. We like spicy food, but since my brother might be having a serving of this, we wanted to keep it mild. Kicking it up for ourselves was easy, just a drizzle of Sriracha did the trick.

There is definitely some psychological magic at play when it comes to color and food. Whenever we get our little mise en place going, and we see our multiple bowls filled with bright colors, it certainly boosts our spirits.

Notice the protective covering on the hand. You should never ever handle the insides of a jalapeño. If you touch the seeds even for a brief moment, you will be in pain all night long. And Angela from Oh She Glows was thoughtful enough to offer this caution in her recipe.

We love making enchilada sauce. It's one of those kitchen basics that becomes second nature to you, and after a while you'll develop "your very own" enchilada sauce. Oh She Glows provides a great simple recipe for this dish, which we basically followed but we then added the ratio of spices that are tried and true for us. It's all about your personal preference. As you can see in this pic, you add a bit of flour to thicken it up.

And here you can see that you can adjust the thickness whenever you want by just whisking in a bit of water. At this final stage of making the sauce, take the time to adjust the spices to your liking.

This tastes even more tomatoey and deeeelish than it looks!

We were excited that the recipe called for Fusilli. We are big fans of Fusilli or Rotini. The coils hold pockets of sauce and flavor perfectly. We went with whole wheat pasta. And yeah, you make sure to cook the pasta firm so that when you bake it in the casserole later it won't overcook and get mushy.

Again, just get a load of that color!

Ya know...sometimes, the above pic is what life is all about. 

And then life just gets better. mmmmmmm. Right here, this is the step when our recipe went from vegan to "almost" vegan. Oh She Glows adds vegan cheese at this point, but we didn't have any in, so we added shredded sharp cheddar.

And then we topped it off with the cheddar as well. We didn't go with real cheese for any taste reasons...we're actually fans of vegan cheese...but like I said, we didn't have any at the moment.

For serving, just top with chopped cilantro, crumbled tortilla chips, some cubes of avocado, a little salsa, a dollop of sour cream (regular or vegan), and maybe a squirt or two of Sriracha. 

We both went back for seconds. We loved it! I mean, what's not to love? This is certainly a crowd pleaser of a meal. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who is rubbed the wrong way by a dish like this. It's loaded with so many perennial favorites. We highly recommend this one for a night when you just want darn good classic food.

We hope you love it as much as we did. Thanks for reading...and a Big thanks to Oh She Glows for providing us with yet another awesome recipe!

xo, Jenny & Aaron 

Recipe Review: Green Powerhouse Pesto Plate

By now, if you've been keeping score, you know that we love to cook...and eat. And we love sharing our recipes with you guys. We've been cooking together for years, but got way more serious about having fun in the kitchen about a year or so ago. We were so busy writing our book, and by the end of the day we just wanted to put away the art supplies and focus on something else entirely. The late afternoon hunger pangs convinced us that cooking might just be the thing we should be focusing on. 

In the kitchen we could remain creative...but the gears were shifted. And plus...we truly wanted to improve our diet. It's not like we ate Bad before...but it's not like we ate really Good either. At present we don't have a label for the way we eat. But it's definitely cleaner, less processed, less artificial, fresher, more organic...and super duper delicious! We're not really into short cuts. We prefer meals that we build from scratch...adding layers, textures, flavors...More health conscious. And we'd love for each ingredient to actually be beneficial. After a year or so of cooking this way...we can say that it isn't hard to do at all. Like not one bit. We've both lost some extra pounds, definitely have more energy, way better mental health...and we love the time we spend together in the kitchen. 

We are huge Pinterest fans! And even though we kind of follow our natural instincts in the kitchen, we often are inspired by a recipe we see on Pinterest, and we love every aspect of it. In cases like this we use the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" approach. There are lots of really talented home cooks out there that share their own adventures in the kitchen on their own blogs. And from now on, when we come across one of them, with a recipe that really strikes us, we're going to make it for ourselves and share it with you here. Maybe we'll make minor changes...and tell you exactly what the changes are of course. But for the most part, if you see a Recipe Review with Jenny & Aaron...it means that we like it very much...and that we'd love for you to check out the primary source for that specific recipe. We're here to spread love and tips for good cooking and eating.

We'll share some photos of how we went about it, and try to illustrate our experience working with the recipe. And like I said...these all get our 100% stamp of approval. So if you've liked our recipes in the past...you can trust that these are right on target. 

In this particular case, the fabulous recipe comes from Angela over at Oh She Glows. We love her story and really look forward to her book, which should be out soon! Seeing her daily dishes on Instagram is absolutely mouth watering. It feels like everything she puts on a plate is right up our alley. Tonight's meal was our first after a big grocery shopping trip. We came home from the store, laid all of our produce on the counter, looked outside at the ice and snow that has been there for weeks...and probably to spite that snow we said: "Let's eat something very green tonight."

And green it is! But also warm...anyway...Without any further ado...the Green Powerhouse Pesto Plate.

And oh yeah, this may be green...but a salad it is not. The zucchini and the three big handfuls of spinach spend a few minutes in the skillet with some olive oil. So this meal was green while being warm and hearty.

The "warm and hearty" is thanks to Lentils and Millet. A cup of each.

Lentils are a fave of ours. They're so simple to prepare and bring such great flavor and texture to a dish. Just rinse, boil, and simmer until it's tender. Easy Peasey. And Millet...to be honest, we've never prepared Millet all on it's own. We've eaten it...in fruit & nut bars and things like that. And we bought it plenty of times...for our bird! But never made it to be the main part of a dish. Well, it was just as easy to prepare as the Lentils. Again...rinse, boil, simmer until tender and fluffy...and done. Sorta creamy...something you'd want on a cold day. And the health benefits of Millet are great!

And on top of this fantastic dish is an avocado pesto dressing...and it's delicious! Yes, those seven simple ingredients above spell heaven for your tastebuds.

Just give them all a spin in the food processor until blended smooth.

voila!

So...it's really an easy few steps to make this awesomely healthy meal. Cook your Lentils and Millet at the same time. And when done, mix them both together. Plate those first, then layer on your lightly sauteed zucchini and spinach, and then top with the avocado pesto dressing. So Good!

Fresh, bright, tasty, energizing. And we would definitely use this exact pesto recipe in future recipes of our own. We totally recommend this dish for anyone looking for those four bold adjectives listed above. Again, be sure to visit Oh She Glows for all of the particulars...and many more great looking recipes.

We have a whole bunch more cooking that we'll be sharing here...so be sure to check back soon and often. We're so excited about doing more recipe reviews like this!

xo Jenny & Aaron