Marissa's Lentil Loaf

This recipe comes from food.com and can be found here. I just had to change the name of it from "vegetarian meatloaf" to "lentil loaf", because you have to love this dish for what it is. Love it because it's an awesome way to eat lentils & oats, not because lentils and oats are fake meat. Lentils and oats will never be meat. And that is okay. They are lentils and oats, not meat. Ok, down from the soap box...

Alina's Veggie Loaded Pizza on a Butternut Squash Crust

Now that's what I call veggie loaded!

A few weeks ago I made a walnut pesto and mushroom pizza on a butternut squash crust. I also made a veggie loaded version on the same crust. Adam and I thought this was a flavor packed way to get lots of veggies into our diet. We most definitely would make this again!

Check out this post to learn how to make the delicious butternut squash crust.

Marissa's Avocado Soup

Avocados are a staple in our home. My 9-month-old eats some avocado just about every day. And who doesn't love some delicious guac?

I found this book at the library called The 10 Things You Need to Eat, and I decided to make the soup on page 32 called "Avocado Soup with Cilantro, Coriander, Cumin, and Lime." I already had just about all the ingredients for it, which made it even easier.

Alina's Delightful Lentil Salad

My mom sent me a recipe for lentil salad that looked good. I usually meal plan a little, but this week I've been extra busy trying to get things wrapped up at work and home before I leave for two weeks of vacation (yes, you heard that right... TWO WHOLE WEEKS!), so I just needed to whip something together. I liked the idea of a lentil salad, so this is what I came up with based on the ingredients I had on hand.

Marissa's Vegetarian Bean Chili

I was feeling a crock pot recipe, so I decided to go with this bean chili recipe from the Food Network website. I'm typically not one to follow a recipe for chili, but I thought I would give this one a shot, and I was not disappointed.

Alina's Mashy Beans with Wilty Spinach

If you're like me, the idea of mashing up white beans and serving them like mashed potatoes might be a little foreign.

Really? Like mashed potatoes? Intriguing.

Really. Like mashed potatoes. And it's delicious.

Alina's Creamy Pumpkin Soup with Garlic Rosemary Pumpkin Seeds

This creamy pumpkin soup is a favorite of my dad's and so he encouraged me to try it. I love pumpkin dishes, so I was game. He told me that the more creamy you make this soup the better, but since I was shooting for healthy I tried to moderate the creamy factor. If you make this and aren't as concerned about it being super healthy, my dad strongly recommends adding as much cream as possible. I must admit, that would have been a delicious twist. I changed the recipe based on what I had on hand, but it's pretty close to the original recipe from my dad. This was easy to make and would be especially great as a fall dish.

Marissa's Parkey Stew

I found this recipe in the Penzey's catalog and have now made it twice, at the request of my husband. He likes to call it "butter stew" because "Parkey" reminds him of "Parkay". It's no doubt that he likes it, since it has kielbasa and he's 1/2 Polish. Our baby is 50% Italian and 25% Polish. That's pretty sweet. But I digress...