vegan

Classic Gazpacho

August 26, 2013 by Erica

Classic Gazpacho from Coffee & Quinoa

Can we all take a moment to celebrate tomato season?

There’s not much that can top a fresh-picked tomato. If I didn’t kill everything I ever tried to grow, tomatoes would be on my short list for a garden – tomatoes and basil! As it is, I don’t seem to have any sort of green thumb, so I’ll let someone else grow them for me. I think everyone’s happier that way, especially my would-be tomato plants.

Classic Gazpacho from Coffee & Quinoa

The tomatoes we’ve been getting recently have been amazing, and I love dishes that really highlight them. Caprese salad is always a favorite, and when I’m in the mood for a hydrating tomato-y dish, I looove gazpacho.

There are a lot of gazpacho recipes out there, it’s true – everything from strawberry peach to yellow tomato and corn (yum!). But this here isn’t as fancy as all that. It’s just the classic gazpacho recipe I’ve been making for the past few summers.

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Peach Guacamole

August 21, 2013 by Erica

Peach Guacamole

Well friends, it’s peach season, and that means I, like every other food blogger, am adding peaches to everything.

But this peach guacamole is not just my attempt to be a bandwagon peach lover; I’ve actually been saving this recipe on my “to-cook” (well… to-mash) list for quite some time. And when the first little Utah peaches appeared in my farm box last week, I knew the time had come.

Peach Guacamole

A few months ago at work, we got on the topic of my friend’s ex-girlfriend. Or maybe we were talking about food (we usually are). In any case, he mentioned that he didn’t like this ex-girlfriend much, but that she made this awesome peach guacamole – just regular guacamole with chunks of peach mixed in.

I had one of those culinary moments (they happen so often) where my mind just explodes. Whaaaat, peaches in guacamole?! I didn’t know you could dooooo that.

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Quinoa Crunch Granola (Vegan)

August 19, 2013 by Erica

Quinoa Crunch Granola (Vegan)

So Nate and I did something a little crazy last week.

And no, we didn’t eat half a batch of granola in the course of 24 hours. (That was the weekend before.) But we did sign a lease on a new apartment!

Eek.

Quinoa Crunch Granola (Vegan)

We were planning on staying in our current apartment for another year, partly because it’s pretty nice and partly because we’re lazy, when our lease is up at the end of this week. I’ve been meaning to email our landlords to tell them so for months, but somehow I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And then out of nowhere we found ourselves at an open house one night last week, falling in love with a gorgeous remodeled apartment in a big old Victorian house in our neighborhood. You guys… it is so pretty. High ceilings, beautiful crown molding, subway tile, two bathrooms… and the kitchen? I would think I was in heaven if I hadn’t just written a check for the security deposit.

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Orzo with Zucchini and Sweet Corn

August 14, 2013 by Erica

Orzo with Zucchini and Sweet Corn

I’m just going to say it: I am nowhere near ready for fall.

You might think it’s jumping the gun to start thinking about cooler temperatures when it’s still August (and I couldn’t agree with you more). But if you live in Utah, you know that anticipation for ski season – forget fall altogether – is already mounting by August. (This I will never understand.) And even the non-ski bums around me are starting to mention looking forward to fall boots, colorful leaves, etc.

Stop it! It’s just wrong.

Orzo with Zucchini and Sweet Corn

Though I’ve never been a fan of the very hot weather, I do love all the things that come with summer – most notably sundresses, summer produce, walking out of the house without bundling up, and the lack of impending winter doom. I intend to cling to all of those things for as long as possible and hope I don’t get hypothermia.

So let’s embrace that summer produce while we still can with this orzo recipe: a warm pasta salad-y dish with lots of yummy texture from zucchini matchsticks and corn kernels, not to mention the orzo. It’s all just barely heated up together, so it’s full of bright, fresh flavor in addition to all those great textures.

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Chili-Infused Pomegranate Sorbet

August 9, 2013 by Erica

Chili-Infused Pomegranate Sorbet

So I guess I never got around to posting my vacation pictures for you this week, did I?

Oops. Maybe this weekend.

I was catapulted head-first into the week when my flights home on Sunday got messed up due to weather delays. We boarded the plane, we sat, then we got off the plane, we sat, my connection from New York took off while I was still on the ground in Boston, and then I went back home to my parents’ house for the night.

Chili-Infused Pomegranate Sorbet

It was a very weird feeling to start the day in my childhood home outside of Boston and end up at my office in Salt Lake, having been up since 2:30 AM Mountain Time. Ugh. Direct flights only from now on!

And that is my long-winded excuse for why I haven’t posted vacation photos.

But I doubt that what you wanted out of this post was a bunch of bitching about vacation travel. How rude of me! You wanted sorbet.

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