Roasted Beet & Pistachio Salad with Citrus Poppyseed Vinaigrette

June 10, 2017 Amanda Plott

Can we just take a moment to enjoy and revel in the natural beauty of this salad? Just take on all the glorious colors that are straight from nature's bounty! Reds, yellows, greens, oh my! This salad is truly one of the most bright and vibrant things you could put on a plate. Naturally. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been collecting a montage of beets from my local produce box and for the first time ever... I got my hands on some golden beets!

Don't worry though, I also have a plethora of traditional red beets too for those traditionalists out there. I love beets. All the beets. Red. Yellow. It doesn't matter. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is roasted; cooked in the oven in their own yummy juices and then tossed into a salad. For me, there's no better pairing than beets and feta...

Crockpot Carrot Soup with Basil Herb Oil

June 7, 2017 Amanda Plott

I'm barely a week into summer break over here and I already seem to have lost track of what day it is. Is it still the weekend? Almost the weekend again? Where am I? What am I doing? One of the only things that's managing to keep me somewhat grounded, is cooking. For the past few weeks, I've been getting loads and loads of carrots in my local box of produce. I've been trying to use them up as quickly as I could, but... the bag of them only continued to expand.

I've got to be honest, raw carrots are definitely not one of my favorite vegetables. So, thinking of a way to use up over 2 pounds of carrots was a rather daunting task for me. Especially considering that I wanted to be sure to use them all up before any went bad. Waste not, want not...

Naked Summer Burger Bowls

June 5, 2017 Amanda Plott

This post was sponsored by Eat Smart as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

Y'all! It's been so busy around here ever since my daughter got out for summer. I mean... yikes! The day after my little one got out of school, we took a quick overnight trip a couple of hours away to see my mom and hang out at the drive in movie theater there near her place. It was so much fun and a great way to kick off summer vacation! Today though? It's back to reality and the real world.

I don't know about you, but when I think of summer, I think of burgers and grilling! However, a lot of us are also working on maintaining (or achieving) our best summer bodies. And what does that mean? It's naked burger time! I haven't done a naked burger in a long time, so I thought it would be super fun to infuse one with all the flavors of summer and make it into one fun power bowl...

Summer Breakfast Scramble

June 1, 2017 Amanda Plott

Today is bittersweet! It's the last day of my daughter being in the first grade. Eek! Where does the time go? Somewhere in between rushing her around to school this morning and dealing with a bit of a family emergency, I had to find time to get some food in my system. Since we're on the verge of summer, I thought it would be a great time to make myself a fun summer inspired breakfast scramble!

I'm calling this a Summer Breakfast Scramble, mostly because I'm making use of some summer greens, light feta cheese, and some tomatoes to boot. I've been on a bit of a breakfast kick lately, can you tell? It's just been eggs on top of eggs on top of eggs around here for the whole week. You can't blame me! The farm fresh eggs got me like 'whoa'...

Herbed Ricotta Cheese Omelette

May 29, 2017 Amanda Plott

Over the last couple of weeks, I've become quite addicted to farm fresh local eggs. Once I tried them, I fell instantly in love. It was amazing to me to see how differently the eggs looked and also tasted. My journey among farmer's markets lately has been an experience that's proving to teach me a lot more than I had thought it would. I've always felt the desire to support local businesses, and farms especially.

There's a lot of chatter out there about how eating local can effect not only the economy, but also (and most importantly) your health. Yes, eating local can be more spendy. It's definitely not cheap when you compare the prices to grocery stores. I've found though, that I have a lot less waste now. I'm much more careful about how I use and cook my food. Portions are everything. This Herbed Ricotta Cheese Omelette is a prime example...

Protein Packed Migas

May 5, 2017 Amanda Plott

Happy Cinco De Mayo! As per the usual, I'm more than excited about Cinco De Mayo. Why? Because Mexican food and Tex-Mex are my all time favorites. I could seriously eat Mexican all day every day for the rest of my days and be completely fine and happy with it. Honestly though, I've never really ordered Migas from anywhere before. So, this was definitely a journey for me today.

I've heard a lot about Migas and how good it is, and I'm not really sure why I never got it. I guess because my visits to Mexican style restaurants is reserved for dinner time usually. Either way, I got my hot little hands on some local organic eggs, cheese, and tortilla chips this week. What could be more perfect to make Migas with that all that?...