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As you can see from the fact that I’ve missed literally every holiday since I started my blog, I don’t really create cutesy foods for holidays.  I have foods I like eating near certain holidays (like egg salad after Easter) and I enjoy finding recipes on other blogs to bring to parties.  I’ve rounded up some of my favorite recipes to bring to cook-outs from my blog and then a few recipes that would be perfect for the holiday from around the interwebs. I think I gave you plenty to drool over!  Everyone have a happy holiday (or just a nice weekend if you’re not from the US) and I’ll see you on Monday 🙂

[First things first, head on over and check out the current giveaway on last week’s post!]  Fridays have become my baking experiment days.  My work schedule allows me to have every other Friday off, so I take advantage of having the house all to myself to watch trashy TV shows and try baking everything I’ve been afraid of.  First on the list: bagels.  Why did I think bagels would be so hard? True, there’s a lot of steps, but every step is an easy one.  Plus, I actually find working with yeast dough to be relaxing.  Do a little work, sit around for an hour.   Do a little more work, sit around a while longer.  It’s basically giving me an excuse to give my Netflix subscription a workout while still...

Apparently I have lasagna on the brain lately!  Between the spaghetti squash casserole and this pizza, I’ve been dancing around lasagna all week.  There’s just something so delicious about the flavors of lasagna that the noodles are totally optional.  This pizza actually came into focus because Udi’s sent me a big box of gluten free goodies, one of which was their pizza crust.  Don’t you worry your pretty little faces, there will be an Udi’s giveaway coming up once I’ve had a chance to sample everything.  They sent so much stuff that I’m not even half way through everything yet, but I’m definitely enjoying every minute of this hard work!  Plus, you can pop on over to Wednesday’s post to get your giveaway fix.  I can’t spoil you guys too much,...

Are you sick of giveaways yet? I really hope not, because I have a few more coming your way.  I normally talk about food here, but while looking to put good stuff into my body I realized I should care more about what I put on my body, as well.  I did the no-shampoo thing for about a year (baking soda “shampoo” with a vinegar “conditioner”) and found that it just wasn’t working for me.  I (and everyone else in my family) also have small red bumps on our upper arms – my dermatologist told me it may be a sensitivity to sodium laurel sulfate (or other sulfates) – so I started watching out for sulfates more closely, too.  All of this comes to a head with today’s giveaway, and...

After all the sweet stuff I posted last week, I felt a little like I had to prove I eat real food.  If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the HUGE box of stuff Udi’s Gluten Free sent to me last week.  I was so excited to start trying stuff out that we just had to have a gluten-free dinner 🙂  I’ve been having probably a little too much fun trying out the fourteen products they sent over, so expect a review (and a giveaway) coming up soon! I have another giveaway in the next week or so, too… I think I’m spoiling you guys.  Let me know when you’re sick of winning free stuff! I’ve tried a wide variety of gluten-free noodles because I know several...

Happy Friday! We made it! This Friday is especially happy because this is the last full week I’ll work for a while.  My next three weeks, I have at least one day off (and one week I have TWO! Living the dream right there).  I’m going to go ahead and apologize in advance for all of the exclamation points I’m using today, just in that kind of mood! 🙂 !!!!! I’ve been crazy forgetful this week.  Just look at Wednesday’s post! Oh. Right. There isn’t one. I have no excuse other than, oopsies! Today’s post is coming late and almost didn’t come at all.  I received a huge box of gluten free goodness from Udi’s yesterday and I may have been too excited to focus!  I know, a box of...

Mondays. It’s always pretty brutal waking up after a few days of sleeping in, but this one is particularly brutal because I had Friday off, as well.  Three days of sleeping and doing whatever I wanted abruptly ended and it’s back to the real world.  At least I had a great weekend, some fun with my family, and a pile of sweet treats from a local Greek festival.  Good thing I made up this Nutella striped banana bread to enjoy for breakfast or I wouldn’t stand a chance against the workweek. I make banana bread allll the time, but for some reason have never posted about it.  Unless you count banana bread cookies. Which you totally should, because they’re amazing.  I brought them to work and had no fewer than...

Only a few more days left to enter the Bob’s Red Mill giveaway!  This is the last item, date sugar, that they sent over and I’m pretty much in love with it.  I’ve included the Rafflecopter at the bottom — get in on the action to win! I’ve been throwing date sugar into pretty much everything since it arrived.  I love the caramelly flavor that dates have, and it carries through into the sugar.  It doesn’t “melt” like normal sugar does, so when I used it to make cinnamon rolls, for example, the cinnamon and sugar mixture didn’t get ooey gooey.  They were still delicious and amazing, especially with that caramel flavor, but they didn’t have the texture I crave in a cinnamon roll.  I’ve also added it to icing and...

When I went to Chicago in March, I had a amazing polenta experience at Heaven on Seven.  When I saw the organic polenta on the Bob’s Red Mill site, I knew that I needed it so I could recreate this magical food experience.  The restaurant actually posts the recipe, but it was way too indulgent for me to be able to justify making it at home.  So I made some healthy swaps and veganed up the recipe so I could eat a huge pile of it!  Be sure to enter the giveaway that’s been running (I’ve included the Rafflecopter again, just in case :)) to win the polenta I used today, along with hazelnut flour, TVP, and date sugar (recipe coming Friday!). Normally, I can’t condone carb on carb action...

Have you entered the Bob’s Red Mill giveaway yet?  If not, don’t worry – I’ve included the Rafflecopter below.  Don’t forget you can tweet about the giveaway everyday for an additional entry!  On Friday, I reviewed the hazelnut flour and today I have textured vegetable protein.  It’s a little unfair to review something I already know I love, but I feel like TVP tends to get a bad reputation and I wanted to tell you all how great it can be. As far as meat substitutes go, this one is the most versatile.  Beans and lentils will always taste like beans and lentils, but TVP tastes like whatever you want it to.  You can hydrate it in vegetable, no-beef, or no-chicken broth and have a great meat-substitute in minutes.  I...