Vegetable Barley Soup

What do you cook for a crowd of friends who are vegetarians and allergic to garlic?  Lol.  I wish that was a joke.  Let me tell you, I had to search very long and hard to find a recipe that I thought was tasty enough to serve to this crowd. How about Italian food?  Love it, but almost every Italian dish contains garlic.  Shocker, I know.  I’m half Italian and it would be a sin to remove garlic from an Italian dish.      😉 How about vegetarian chili?  I find most vegetarian chilies tend to be bland.  Meat is an essential source of …

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Classic Banana Bread

I had a couple of bananas that were on their way out the door and I didn’t want to throw them away.  So I decided to make my favorite banana bread with them.  I could have slathered it with a tasty icing of some sort or used some sweet chocolate chips in it.  Trust me, with my sweet tooth I was ready to do just that but I decided to keep it simple and classic today.     🙂 Classic and easy are two great words to describe this banana bread recipe.  There are few ingredients in this recipe and …

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Honey Cinnamon Roasted Chickpeas

I’ve got the munchies and I need a snack!  I would love a chocolate chip cookie (or two) right about now and even my husband has been nudging me to make a batch.   I’ll make cookies some other time and share them with you then, but for now the healthy snack wins.  For now, what I need is something I can nosh on that won’t blow my calorie intake.  Oh and of course it HAS to be delicious too. I cook with chickpeas for dinner a lot but I never thought to roast them.   These golden brown nuggets are a …

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Honey Cinnamon Roasted Chickpeas

I’ve got the munchies and I need a snack!  I would love a chocolate chip cookie (or two) right about now and even my husband has been nudging me to make a batch.   I’ll make cookies some other time and share them with you then, but for now the healthy snack wins.  For now, what I need is something I can nosh on that won’t blow my calorie intake.  Oh and of course it HAS to be delicious too. I cook with chickpeas for dinner a lot but I never thought to roast them.   These golden brown nuggets are a …

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Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Early last week it started to feel like springtime because we had warmer temperatures and sunny weather but now the temperatures have dipped back down to feel like winter again.  What happened?  Perhaps it’s the perfect last chance to make soup for the season, since I don’t tend to crave hearty soups in the warmer weather. I’m not really into using a slow cooker and by that I mean that I have literally used my slow cooker for one recipe, this one.  I’m not against using them but I guess I prefer cooking a meal. Okay so the term “cooking” is …

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