Sprout & Pea

After a week­end of eat­ing out, fol­lowed by a Mon­day morn­ing bagel and cream cheese spread at work, my body was hat­ing on me for the gluten, meat and dairy over­load. So, this week I am giv­ing myself a gluten-​​free vegan cleanse in antic­i­pa­tion of indulging again this week­end dur­ing my thir­ti­eth birth­day fes­tiv­i­ties. I was crav­ing greens yes­ter­day and when I went to the mar­ket to pur­chase my favorite veg­etable, an arti­choke, there were none left. So, I browsed the boun­ti­ful aisle of green veg­gies and landed on napa cab­bage. Read more:

Another unfa­mil­iar item arrived in my CSA box last week. When I opened our box of excit­ing new dis­cov­er­ies, I was greeted with a green that looked some­thing like cilantro meets arugula. I took a bite of a leaf and was met with a fla­vor sim­i­lar to arugula but much milder. Our accom­pa­ny­ing list of items told me that I was chew­ing on some­thing called mizuna. Read more:

After a glute­nous Passover Seder a few weeks ago, my body needed to reboot with some­thing light and refresh­ing, but of course I had plans to attend another giant feast the fol­low­ing day at my friend’s Easter Brunch. So I took it upon myself to bring along a dish that was a bit on the health­ier side– car­rot, gin­ger and scal­lion salad. I had never made this before but it’s a snack that I often pick up from the Whole Foods salad bar (for entirely too much money). Rather than look­ing up a recipe, I grabbed the main ingre­di­ents and impro­vised on a dress­ing. Read more:

Thai food is my weak­ness in the win­ter. I say weak­ness because when I’m crav­ing it, I always order in from my favorite spot down the street and enjoy an ultra veg night on my couch with a good movie and a glass of wine. This isn’t nec­es­sar­ily a bad thing, but after order­ing thai food a few too many nights in one week, I decided it was time to take this crav­ing and turn it into some­thing pro­duc­tive– and a bit health­ier. Read more:

When we’re not hav­ing fleet­ing days of sum­mer weather, it cer­tainly feels like fall has arrived, and I’m enjoy­ing every minute of it. The cozy sweaters, the nights snug­gled up with your loved ones enjoy­ing a glass of wine, the din­ner par­ties galor. The one thing that most sig­ni­fies fall to me is food. That tran­si­tion into hol­i­day spices and warm meals is one that com­forts me to no end. After mak­ing an impro­vi­sa­tional stuff­ing with car­damom, orange zest, gin­ger and honey, I found myself days later still crav­ing the taste and aroma of car­damom. Read more:

It may be a lit­tle bit early for Thanks­giv­ing, but tonight I decided to get into the spirit of the hol­i­day and make some stuff­ing. I was inspired by a new favorite drink that I’ve been enjoy­ing recently at a local restau­rant — a car­damom honey cap­puc­cino. I thought about mak­ing my own car­damom honey cap­puc­cino this morn­ing, but set­tled on tea instead and after that, the thought of car­damom was in the back of my mind and taste buds all day. When night­time came around, I had the sud­den idea to try mak­ing car­damom and honey stuff­ing. Read more: