Alina's Simple Chicken Caprese Sandwiches

This recipe is quick, simple, and foolproof. It's been a super busy week for me, so a recipe this easy was a lifesaver!

It's a classic recipe, and if you whip up some of these sandwiches you'll find that you can't go wrong.

Alina's Avocado Curry

I'm excited to announce that this post is our 50th, and a delicious one at that! 

My inspiration from this recipe comes from a recent visit to our favorite take-out Thai restaurant, Curry In a Box. I had their avocado curry and was pleasantly surprised. Instantly I knew that it was time to start searching for my own recipe so that I could make this again, and again, and again, and... You get the idea.

I found a great recipe from the Our Veggie Kitchen blog, which I only altered a little. The result was a creamy, delicious curry. Yum!!

Alina's Healthy Lentil "Coneys"



A "coney" is a Cincinnati-favorite. It's a hot dog piled high with heart-stopping chili, breath-mangling onions, and enough cheddar cheese that it only sort of melts. Check out this coney glamour shot from serious eats (and check out the link if you're curious to learn more-- such as what the differences between the Cincinnati and the Detroit brands of coney are):

This week my mission is to create a healthy dish that takes its influence from the iconic Cincinnati coney.

I know, I know. Two words that should never go together in a sentence include "coney" and "healthy." After all, the quintessential Cincinnati junk food is about as far from health food as you can get. When I was in college at Miami University (OH), I ate a disgusting amount of this Cincinnati favorite. I am fully aware that I might be putting my reputation as a foodie on the line here.... but I love them.

Today I was thinking about chili (a favorite in our house) and had a moment of inspiration. Why not make a healthy dish that pulls inspiration from the uber-unhealthy coney dog? Thus, the lentil "coney" was born.

Alina's Colorful Beet Hummus "Pizza"

I'm not a huge fan of beets, but I'm a sucker for color. When I saw this beet hummus recipe, I couldn't resist whipping some up because it looked so pretty! I wanted it to be substantial enough for a meal, so I concocted a "pizza" of sorts.
As it turns out, the hummus flavor mellows out the beet flavor for a delicious and satisfying way to ingest such a super healthy (and beautiful) vegetable.

The beet hummus recipe comes from Simply Recipes and the inspiration for the hummus pizza comes from the Sabra website.

Alina's Pineapple Overload Stir Fry

In college I ate at Miami's stir fry bar twice a week. I had my choice of about 30 toppings and so I tried all kinds of different combinations. Eventually I realized that my perfect stir fry always has pineapple in it. It's just consistently mouthwateringly delicious.

My meal this week takes it one step further and uses the pineapple juice as the base for the stir fry sauce. The result is succulent, sweet, and secretly healthy.

Baked Falafel and Hummus

When I studied abroad in Luxembourg every food joint cost way too much except for the falafel restaurant down the street. My roommates and I ate a lot of falafel sandwiches that semester, and I grew kind of fond of their not-so-healthy goodness. When I stumbled upon this healthier baked version on The Picky Eater trying my own hand at it was a no-brainer. The result was delicious and also managed to be truly healthy! Score!

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.

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...

Alina's Tempeh Gyros with Tofu Tzatziki

I lived in Chicago one summer, and during that time I consumed an unimaginable amount of gyros. In my mind, gyros equate to summertime which is my favorite season by a landslide. As the snow falls outside (why do I live in Wisconsin again?) I've started to crave this summertime treat. Of course, traditional gyros have a tendency to make your hips expand and your heart chug harder, so my challenge this week was to concoct a healthier version that was equally delicious.

Traditionally gyros are stuffed with lamb meat. I've been wanting to make something with tempeh as of late, and realized that tempeh would be the perfect filling for a gyro. I also wanted a simple and healthy tzatziki sauce, and a quick search yielded a jackpot find from the blogger Vegan Dad. Most tzatziki sauce is yogurt based, which is fine, but I thought this guy's recipe was interesting because he used silken tofu instead. I don't actually like yogurt that much, so I was happy to sub it out. I omitted the parsley because I forgot to pick some up at the store. He also uses tempeh, but he turns the tempeh into patties, so his recipe is more complex. I think my straightforward way is delicious and requires much less effort, but his recipe would be interesting to try sometime too.

The final judgement? It was DELICIOUS! And oh-so-easy too. This is something easy, quick, and cheap enough to make regularly aaaaaand it's healthy, which is a nice diversion from traditional gyros. Score!

Marissa's Lentil Soup

Alina gets an A+ for her posts. She's very detailed, creative, fun, etc. We'll see how I do.

I decided to make lentil soup for my first meal. Why? I love lentils. Or "lentejas" as my Spanish host-mom would call them. They are healthy, inexpensive, and I adore the taste. I found this recipe on my favorite recipe site, allrecipes.com.

The downside of blogging a week after you make it is that you forget exactly what you did. I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe as it was written, though I may have followed one reviewers suggestion and used broth instead of water. I've been doing quite a bit of cooking lately, so I can't exactly remember. I know for a fact that I didn't do the spinach & vinegar that the recipe suggests, but that's mainly because I forgot about it.


I loved this recipe because it was so healthy and yummy. According to Wikipedia, Health magazine said lentils are one of the five healthiest foods. They are just so rich in protein and dietary fiber.


I made the recipe in my trusty red dutch oven and it was very easy to make. It needed to simmer for an hour, which means that at that point all I needed to do was check on it every so often and stir it (read: low maintenance is wonderful when you are caring for a baby simultaneously). You could probably also do a variation in a crock pot. I bought the lentils from the local co-op, too, and only $1.72 for the whole bag that I used. I used brown, but you could use any color.

Adam’s taste rating: 3 ladles

Brad’s taste rating: 4 ladles

Healthy rating: 5 ladles

Ease of prep rating: 4 ladles

Overall average: 4 ladles