Recipe of the week: Pesto & Vegetable Stuffed Portobellas

I really like mushrooms, portobellas and baby portobellas in particular.  I found some that were larger than I normally see and I thought they would be great stuffed, and they were.  If your mushrooms are smaller, you'll be able to fill more than six mushrooms, if you have left over filling you can always use it on a sandwich or in an omelette.  I used prepared pesto, canned artichoke hearts (in water), and fresh spinach for mine.  You could use frozen spinach and artichoke hearts, you would just need to thaw and drain them.  Let me know what you think.  A Votre Sante!


6 large mushrooms, cleaned, dried, and stems set aside
2 cups spinach leaves, torn into small pieces
2 Tbsp pesto
3 artichoke hearts quartered and chopped
2 Tbsp sun dried tomatoes chopped
Parmesan cheese
Fresh basil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Remove the stems of the mushrooms and set aside.  Rinse the tops and dry, then bake on a baking sheet for 5 minutes.  Chop stems of mushrooms and set aside.  In a bowl add spinach, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, mushroom stems, add pesto and toss until the vegetables are lightly coated.  Remove mushrooms from oven and add filling.  Bake for an additional 10-12 minutes (until the mushrooms are tender).  Remove from oven and add a sprinkle of Parmesan and a little fresh basil, bake for 2 more minutes.  Remove from oven and serve, enjoy!

My Oscar Fashion Favorites

I LOVE the awards show season, mostly because of the fashion.  I love princess dresses and all things feminine.  These were my favorite from this years Academy Awards (in no particular order, except that Jennifer Lawrence was my very favorite).

Recipe of the week: Blood Orange and Beet Salad

I've seen a couple of beet and orange salad recipes lately so I decided to come up with my own.  I'm not a big fan of raw onions but if you are, red onions might be nice in this.  I blanched my beets but you could also roast them like I did here.  If you can't find blood oranges you can always use regular ones or tangerines.  I made my own dressing but you can easily use any prepared dressing you like.  This salad had a hearty feeling to it but was also light and refreshing if that makes sense.  Let me know what you think.  A Votre Sante!

Blood Orange and Beet Salad

1 medium to large bowl of spinach and mixed greens

1 beets, blanched and sliced

2-3 blood oranges, depending on the size

2-3 sprigs of fresh parsley

1 Tbsp honey mustard

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

freshly ground pepper

In a pan with a steamer basket, steam beets for 4-5 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water (that will stop them from continuing to cook).  While the beets are cooking, remove the stems from the spinach leaves,   peel and section the oranges, set aside.  Slice the beets.  In a small bowl add your honey mustard, olive oil, and vinegar, whisk together, add freshly ground pepper to taste.  Add oranges, beets, and parsley to your greens and toss.  Drizzle with dressing and serve.  If you're not serving it right away, wait on the dressing, no one likes soggy salad.  Enjoy.  

First Love

On Wednesday night's, I'm going to a Beth Moore (via video) Bible study called 'Beloved Disciple'.  It's a study based on the life of the Apostle John.  Last night at the end of the video Beth was talking about how at the end of his life the elderly man preached almost exclusively about love.

In Revelation 2, John writes to the church in Ephesus, and in verse 4-5 says this:  "4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.".  Again, I am no Bible scholar but I know Beth Moore has done her homework and I wanted to share this with you.  According to Beth the word forsaken in the Greek is the same word as forgive in Matthew 6:12  "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."  I, for one, found this very interesting.  The word in both places is afihmi, which means “to let go of or release".  She went on to make the point that if you are holding on to unforgiveness you don't have any room for love.  I don't know about you, but I think that's true.

I once heard that unforgiveness is a prison and the prisoner is you.  I've worked hard in my life to forgive people that have hurt me and move on but it's not always easy.  I think it might be easier if we knew on the other side we'd have more room to love, at least that's what I'm hoping.  So, I'm asking myself these questions "what am I holding onto?  Am I holding onto my First Love (Christ) or am I holding onto unforgiveness?"

I want to love more, I want to be someone known for showing the love of Christ.  Today (Valentine's Day) of all days is about love....so here's hoping that today finds you showered with love, the love of Christ and the love of those around you.

Until next time.

Ciao.

Recipe of the week: Buttermilk Pancakes

It's hard to believe it's been 2 weeks since I posted here....it's been a very long two weeks.  First, it was my daughter's 21st birthday and we celebrated a few times.  Then, we had tragedy strike in our community and no one has really wanted do anything or go anywhere.  So, just like that it's Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tueday/Mardi Gras.  I decided to make pancakes tonight to try to make everything right with the world...I'm sure nothing has changed but at least we were comforted for a bit.  You can easily make this gluten free by using coconut or almond flour and dairy free by using coconut or almond milk.  I doubled this batched and made half with chocolate chips and half with blueberries and a smashed banana.  Both were amazing!  Let me know what you think.  (I used about 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips for the first one and one banana and 3/4 cup blueberries for the other.)
A Vorte Sante!


1 1/2 cups flour (of choice)
2 Tbsp sugar (of choice)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg slightly beaten
1/2 tsp pure vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 Tbsp oil of choice

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients.  In another bowl stir together wet ingredients, whisk together until just slightly lumpy.  Cook about 1/4 cup of batter on medium heat until golden brown, flip and repeat until all the batter is gone.  Enjoy!

*Add fruit or chocolate chips once the batter is mixed.  If you don't have buttermilk add 1Tbsp of vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar) to the milk, let sit for 10 minutes and voila, you've got buttermilk!