Two Kitchens, One Passion

I was looking through my blog posts the other day and realized that it had been a full year since my last post for Valentine's Day 2016.  A whole lot has happened over the past year that pushed my cooking & blog posts to the side! Decided to move Applied for a new job many states away Interview process Sold a house Moved across the country Started a new (and awesome!) job Bought a house Began training for my first half Ironman! As you can see, life has been busy!  Now that things are starting to settle down a bit (except for the tri training), I am hoping to get back to cooking and blogging.  To get things started, I wanted to highlight a local gluten free baked goods company, since Colorado is great for foodies with all sorts of dietary restrictions! Outside the Breadbox , based in Colorado Springs, has the BEST gluten free, vegan oat bread that I have tried.  The texture is perfectly light, the bread holds well for any amount of sandwich filling...

Instead of trying to make a reservation at a nice restaurant for Valentine's Day, Dan and I decided to celebrate with a homemade Valentine's Day Brunch.  After all, brunch is always the best meal of the day!  Below are all of the recipe that I put together to make our meal complete - I even got creative with some heart-shaped breakfast sausages! Buckwheat-Oat Pancakes V.2 Yield: 8 small pancakes (2 servings) Gluten free, dairy free, vegan, soy free, egg free For our brunch, I decided to modify a buckwheat pancake recipe I have made in the past to make it entirely sugar and dairy free. It still resulted in perfectly textured and delicious pancakes - you'd never know they were gluten free! I've really come to the conclusion that buckwheat flour is the best substitute for making gluten free pancakes.   Ingredients 1/2 cup buckwheat flour - 1/2 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour - If you do not have oat flour, simply grind 1/2 cup of gluten free oats in ...

I am finally posting another recipe to wrap up 2015!  I think my New Year's Resolution should be to add recipes to the blog more often...I really fall off the wagon here when each new school year starts.  If you've been searching for a gluten-free waffle substitute that tastes like the real thing, then you have found the answer!  Even my husband, who can eat gluten, said if he didn't know they were gluten-free he would have guessed they were made with real flour.  The coconut fried bananas really tied everything together and made these waffles the perfect way to start out our last day before ringing in the New Year! AND to make them even better, these waffles offer a protein punch of almost 20 grams of protein per waffle. Pumpkin Protein Waffles & Coconut Fried Bananas Yield: 2 servings (2 waffles) Ingredients 1/4 cup vegan vanilla protein powder, I used Sunwarrior Warrior Blend Vanilla 1/4 cup almond meal 1/2 cup tapioca star...

Every once in a while I get in really creative and artsy moods, some of which end up with some interesting outcomes.  One example that has been extremely useful and fun for Dan and I is a Date Night Jar that I made as a gift for Dan last year.  I took an empty Ball jar, decorated it, and filled it with large popsicle sticks on which I had written ideas for date nights.  We have been trying to choose one stick every week or every other week and the result has made for some really fun dates! The stick that we chose this week read "Make a dessert together."  Dan immediately made a joke about how we were going to make a "desert" together, so I decided to turn his joke into a creative challenge by coming up with an idea to make a dessert that doubled as a desert!  These cupcakes were not only fun to make, but tasted absolutely amazing.  This is by far the best Paleo cupcake recipe I have baked.  If you are having a desert themed party I definitely recom...

I am so glad that it will finally be summer soon so that I can get back to posting recipes more regularly!  With the hustle and bustle of the school year and teaching I always get severely behind in my blog posts.  Over the rest of this month I plan to make up for my recent absence my blogger by posting many new and delicious recipes for you to try. Many of my posts this month will be related to a nutrition challenge that I am currently taking part in with my Crossfit gym.  We just started a 30 day Primal diet challenge based on Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint ( www.marksdailyapple.com ).  This diet is not much different than how I eat on a regular basis, but I am excited to use this month as a great time to focus on clean eating 100% and testing out new recipes again. I am going to start a string of new recipe posts with one that I made a while ago - Grilled Primal Bison Burgers on Cauliflower Buns.  The cauliflower buns worked even than I e...

If you have not watched the movie Chef , it is a comedy that follows the life of prominent chef from Los Angeles (played by Jon Favreau) after he quits his job and launches a food truck with his young son.  It is a light-hearted film that truly highlights the passion people can have for the food they cook.  Although I am not a culinary expert, I can relate to this film because it is my own passion for cooking that got me to start this blog in the first place.  I love being able to share my recipes and tips on following a healthy lifestyle with others. I get inspiration for my cooking from lots of different places, ranging from other food blogs to my personal cravings on any given day.  My inspiration for this meal came directly from the food truck "El Jefe" in this movie ,  which served up the signature Cubano sandwich.  I have never actually had a true Cuban sandwich, but my [almost] Paleo version was the best damn sandwich I have had in a long  tim...

After watching the movie Chef  last week, I was inspired to create a Paleo version of the traditional Cuban sandwich.  I am going to keep you waiting another day to see the final result, but for now I am revisiting my plantain sandwich bread recipe because it is just so good!  I revised my recipe slightly in an effort to help the bread rise more, which turned out to be a success. Plantain Sandwich Bread 2.0 Yield: 2 servings Ingredients 2 green plantains 1 cup lite coconut milk 1/4 cup flaxseed meal 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp sea salt 1 tsp apple cider vinegar Directions  Preheat your oven to 425° F. Peel your plantains.  You should only be using green plantains for this recipe (they are more starchy), so they will most likely be difficult to peel.  Just be patient! Add your plantains,  coconut milk,  flaxseed meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and apple cider vinegar to a food processor and p...