Mardi Gras Y'all

We weren't able to actually make it to Mardi Gras, but we surely have had Mardi Gras style food on our brains and in our bellies! 

Po Boys are one of our favorite southern treats. In the past we've made shrimp po boys, but this time we changed things up and added oysters. Rich was in charge of the frying and I stopped by the bakery to get fresh baguettes. We dressed our po boys with lettuce, tomato, pickles, vegan mayo, & ketchup.

Shrimp and grits are another of my favorite southern goodies. Something about it is so comforting to me. The great thing about the version I made, is that its low carb! I made the cheesy grits using almond flour, water, salt, and cheese. Yep, that simple. And, it tastes so so good. For the shrimp part, I cooked a few strips of bacon, then diced them up. 1 green pepper, half of an onion & 1 clove of garlic were sautéed in the bacon fat along w/ the shrimp. I seasoned the shrimp with some Slap Yo Mama seasoning, salt, & pepper. I topped it all off with some fresh green onion & BOOM. Time to eat! 

Hope you enjoyed your Mardi Gras!

Sometimes I just get a craving for nachos, but then I think about how horrible they are for me. Fake liquid cheese, ewwww. No THANK YOU. Quinoa Nachos to the rescue!! Now I can feed my craving without feeling really guilty afterwards. You can find the awesome VegNews recipe here.

I haven't tried the cheese recipe to accompany the nachos, but if you do, please let me know how it goes! Instead, I just melted some shredded cheese over the quinoa mixture.

Hope you're having a happy weekend!

I'm marking April 17th down in my calendar because my beloved Domino magazine is coming out with a special edition! My heart sank when they suddenly shut down production, and I ran to the bookstore when the Domino book came out, but now my stomach is all a flutter again.

Are you as excited as me?

Seeing RED

 Heart Shaped Apple Pillow by WinterPetals

Classic Red Toms

Heart Plate via Target

I confess, I bought these last year. They were much too cute to pass up.

Heart Pillow by 645 Workshop

Mixed Berry Muffins

Recently I heard about almond flour and immediately was intrigued. So lately I've been an eager beaver wanting to get my hands on some and experiment. I found my bag at the local Trader Joes in the nut section for a reasonable $3.99. 

We had some fresh raspberries and blackberries in the fridge, so I thought berry muffins would be nice for breakfast or an afternoon snack. Now, I've heard almond flour makes whatever you bake less fluffy, so I was a bit hesitant as to how the results would come out. I got Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook My Father's Daughter for my birthday back in December, and still hadn't tried anything from it. So I decided to use her Blueberry Muffin recipe. The recipe calls for 2 cups of unbleached flour, so I decided to substitute half organic wheat flour and half almond flour. Good choice because, these bad boys came out tasty!

Getting started

Folding the berries in

Ready to bake...