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...

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.

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...

Marissa's Eggplant-Artichoke-Lemon Lasagna

I randomly found this recipe online from The Veggie Table for a vegan lasagna (this vegan recipe goes out to you, Ro!). I wanted to find something creative because Alina's dishes are always so creative and so she's pushed me to higher standards. :)

This recipe was by far the most labor intensive to make out of everything I've made so far. The amount of prep it took is enough to make me not want to make it again.

Marissa's Thai Tofu Lettuce Wraps

So naturally, as I was making this recipe, I was in a big hurry cooking because we were going to be late to whatever we had planned that night after dinner. So, my pix and process here leave a little something to be desired...

I decided to make tofu lettuce wraps because they are yummy. However, I just glanced at the recipe again and realized they are not all that healthy. 43g fat in one serving? Yikes. I'm going to give them 2 stars for health. I'm guessing it's because of the pb & mayo, mostly. I followed the recipe to a T, except I omitted the chili sauce and used cabbage because I couldn't find the other kind of lettuce. Here are some pics of my process:

Marissa's Turkey Minestrone Soup

Last Saturday was Thanksgiving in February at our house. In other words, my husband's parents were visiting so we went all out and made a Turkey dinner. So for this week, I needed a creative way to use some leftover Turkey. I searched "Turkey" on Allrecipes.com and found a recipe for minestrone. I used the soup base from this recipe, but I ended up changing the rest of the ingredients around, based on what we had in our fridge/at the store. Did I mention that Alina LOVES minestrone? Win.

Marissa's Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Hello again. For this week, I decided to make homemade black bean veggie burgers to have on my husband's (delicious) homemade sourdough bread. He is both the bread-winner and the bread-maker in our home. What a catch! :)

I started with a recipe from allrecipes.com. Below is a picture of the ingredients that I used. I omitted the hot sauce that the recipe calls for because I felt that with the cumin & chili powder they would be spicy enough for our preference. Instead of breadcrumbs, I followed one reviewer's advice and crumbled Ritz crackers instead. I also added some whole kernels of before forming them into patties to give them some extra color & texture.

Marissa's Tofu-Vegetable Stir Fry

I've tried to do stir-frys before, but they seem to turn out mushy, or without much flavor. I was actually pretty impressed with this one. I definitely had to make a grocery list for this recipe because I didn't have a lot of the Asian ingredients (sesame oil, hoisin sauce, etc.) But there is a lot leftover which means next time I make this (or something else that uses them), I won't need to go out and buy more! Just one upfront cost.

I also love that this recipe uses tofu. I love tofu for what it is. I don't think you can think if it as a meat substitute, because even though it's loaded with protein, it will never be chicken. Or, it will never be beef. And that's not a bad thing! OK, enough food philosophy. On to the making of it...

Marissa's Honey Beans and Spinach

As you might soon notice, I love crock pot cooking. So naturally, I searched Google for "crock pot recipes." Here's one that I found. I followed this one exactly, so I won't write out the recipe and instructions again. The original does a great job.

Here are my ingredients. In the future I'd buy organic spinach & sweet pots)

Here's everything in the crock pot. I scooted the spinach over so you could see the stuff below.

Cooking away. Once the spinach wilted a little I stirred it all up.

Dinner is served over white jasmine rice.

In terms of health, this one is pretty great. The only unhealthy ingredients are honey and cream cheese (optional). Knowing that Alina would be eating this, I couldn't omit the cheese. I thought about not adding the honey (so that my little one could eat it (babies can't have honey), but I wanted to try it according to the way it was written, at the least the first time.


After about 4.5 hours in the crock pot on low, it was plenty done (6 hours was recommended). I'd definitely make it again, but I'd like to try it vegan (without the honey and cream cheese).

Adam’s taste rating: 3 ladles

Brad’s taste rating: 4 ladles

Healthy rating: 4 ladles

Ease of prep rating: 4 ladles

Overall average: 3.75 ladles

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