Friday Foodie Favorites: May 29, 2015

It’s Friday!  Finally!

Remember when I said that the week was going by quickly thanks to the three-day weekend?  Yeah, I take that back.  I think the cumulative of a long Wednesday and Thursday made up for the extra day off on Monday.  This week did not feel any shorter to me, so I am more than excited that Friday is here.  Let’s just hope this weekend is nice and slow.  I have a girls dinner planned for tomorrow and lots of blog work to do.  Other than that, I am hoping to do plenty of relaxing.

Oh, and cooking and eating of course!  What can I say?  I love food.  In celebration of Friday and my love of food, I am sharing four recipes from other bloggers that I have recently tried and loved.  All four of these are so delicious and more than worth trying out for yourself!

Friday Foodie Favorites: May 29, 2015

I know I say this a lot, but I promise you that this is a must-make!  Alexis’s Chickpea Flour Breakfast Pizza has been all over my Instagram feed, and I also used it as inspiration for my Grain-Free Pizza Crust.  In other words, I love it.  Since going gluten-free, I have had to be a bit more creative in the kitchen.  Luckily, Alexis did all of the thinking on this one.  I followed her recipe for the crust exactly, but did not have any avocado on hand.  Instead, I slathered a bunch of guacamole on the bottom and topped ‘er all off with some fresh tomatoes and cilantro.  It totally worked, and I have been enjoying it that way ever since!  By the way… I have only actually eaten this for breakfast once or twice.  It generally winds up on my dinner menu for brinner.  You can never go wrong with brinner.

For a long time I thought that making homemade ranch dressing was daunting, difficult, and just not something that I had any interest in doing.  The Whole Sisters’ recipe for Dump Ranch completely proved me wrong.  If you follow any paleo or Whole 30 accounts on Instagram, you have almost surely come across the #dumpranch hashtag.  It is everywhere.  That is exactly how I discovered this recipe, and I am so glad that I did.  While the name may not sound like the most appealing thing, it is actually a good thing that it is called “dump” ranch.  You see, this dressing is so easy because all you do is dump all of the ingredients into a jar, blend it up with an immersion blender, and you are good to go.  No slow drizzling of the oil required.  I would even go as far as saying that this is pretty fool-proof.  I also highly recommend throwing in a few splashes of hot sauce for a spicier version.  It is my favorite thing right now, and has made me crave something I have not craved in a long while: salads!

Remember when I posted about this a couple of weeks back and told you that while it does not look very good, it tastes out of this world?  Yeah, I was not joking.  This Almost 5 Ingredient Pizza Spaghetti Pie from Juli has most definitely earned its place as one of the most popular paleo recipes I have seen over the past couple of months.  Here is why I love it: it’s easy as pie (pun intended) to make; it requires minimal ingredients; it knocks it out of the park in the flavor department; and with a little food prep on the weekend, it comes together super easily so that all you need to do is bake it!  I promise you will not miss the cheese that you are used to with traditional pizza.  The eggs give is a bit of a “cheesy” taste that I thought was just perfect.  For the heads up, it is totally delicious with guac on top.  Weird?  Maybe.  But it just works.  This recipe is on my meal plan for the coming week.  You know it is good when you make it again and again.

You have been seeing a lot more meat here on the blog lately, but that does not mean that I have not still been loving on one of my favorite vegan standbys: chickpea salads!  I made Lauren’s Healthy Chickpea “Chicken” Salad during Sunday food prep a couple of weeks back to get myself ready for a few of my at-work lunches.  Since rice cakes are gone from my pantry, I served the salad in red cabbage shells, similar to my Cabbage Shell Tacos.  Lettuce wraps are great, but I really enjoy cabbage shells/wraps.  I loved Lauren’s version of chickpea salad since it was both spicy (from the peppers) and sweet (from the grapes).  That sweet, spicy, and savory combo is one of my favorites!

Something for breakfast, something for your salad, something for lunch, and something for dinner.  I’d say I pretty much have you covered this Friday!  I highly recommend adding all four of these to your meal plan for the coming week… or at least one or two!

What recipes have you tried lately and loved?  Please share the links in comments!