We’ve been living in a winter wonderland lately. We’ve gotten so much snow that my dog, Cookie, can barely keep her head above it when we go outside (she’s smaller than you think). I’m thankful to have electricity and gearing up for more winter weather this weekend.

This hearty soup is exactly what I need. It’s brimming with fresh veggies and warms me right up. Soup to the rescue!

This homemade vegetable soup with quinoa is light but filling and packs great for lunch. Like most soups, it tastes even better the next day. Bonus? It freezes well, too. I love keeping my freezer stocked with hearty soups and defrosting one whenever I need a quick but nutritious meal.

This soup is vegan unless you want to top it with Parmesan cheese, which isn’t a bad idea if you ask me. The ingredients list, while a little on the long side, includes mostly pantry items. Every single one of them is nutritious!

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Is this stuffed acorn squash pretty or what? I’m really excited to share this recipe with you. Roasted acorn squash halves topped with herbed quinoa make a delicious holiday-worthy main dish. It’s the perfect option if you’re serving vegetarian and gluten-free eaters.

This recipe is simple enough to put together on a relaxed weeknight, too. Pour yourself a glass of wine and let’s make some stuffed squash!

This recipe requires a few steps, but none of them are difficult. You can make the quinoa mixture while the squash is in the oven. Then, stuff the squash and bake until the quinoa turns golden and develops delicious little crispy bits on top.

The filling steals the show in this recipe. It features cranberry-studded quinoa and two kinds of cheese, one creamy and one melty. Chopped parsley and green onion offer lots of irresistible fresh flavor, and toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) contribute some savory crunch.

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As promised! Here’s the first salad made with my new salad dressing obsession. It’s colorful, nutrient-rich and full of fresh flavor. The creamy yogurt-based honey-mustard dressing straddles the line between creamy and vinegar-based slaws, and quinoa mediates the crunch.

This slaw is refreshing and unique, and I can’t keep going back for more. It’s the perfect recipe for making with your leftover vegetables, since you can use any combination you’d like.

This recipe is helping me meet my resolution to eat more cruciferous veggies this year (think cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc.), since they’re exceptionally nutritious.

Before you get started, I have some recipe notes for you. If you want to save some prep time, you can use store-bought slaw mix instead of shredding your own vegetables.

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Introducing my favorite quinoa salad! I’ve published more than a few quinoa salads over the years and I genuinely love all of them, but this recipe is officially my favorite.

This quinoa salad is refreshing, crisp and delicious. It’s made simply with fresh cucumber, red bell pepper, red onion, chickpeas, fresh parsley and a garlicky olive oil and lemon dressing. The salad sort of reminds me of tabouleh, an herbed Lebanese salad with tomatoes and bulgur.

The Best Quinoa Salad

Three reasons to love this recipe: 

1. This quinoa salad recipe is also very easy to toss together, especially if you use leftover quinoa (see recipe note). The recipe uses my preferred quinoa cooking method, which yields fluffy quinoa every time.
2. This salad packs great for lunch, picnics, road trips and plane rides.
3. Bring this allergy-friendly salad along to your next potluck—it’s vegan/dairy free, gluten free, and nut free, for all to enjoy.

This recipe doesn’t taste “basic,” but it has a lot of merits that make it a staple recipe in my kitchen. I hope it becomes your go-to quinoa salad recipe, too! Please let me know how it turns out for you in the comments.

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I tend to keep to myself, especially in yoga class. It’s not a very social form of exercise, you know? Last year, when I walked into my usual Tuesday evening yoga class and my instructor shouted, “COOKIE AND KATE,” I froze. Kim, a regular in the class, had learned about my blog through her co-worker, and she said, “I know her! I go to yoga with her!”

Then Kim told Kristina, the teacher, and then everyone found out. Including Amie, one of my favorite instructors, who is great friends with Kate Kasbee of Well Vegan. Kate lives in Chicago and was working on a cookbook called Frugal Vegan at the time.

Through the Amie-Kate connection, I got a sneak peek at Frugal Vegan and wrote a blurb for the back cover. “Frugal Vegan offers an incredible array of fresh and simple vegan recipes. Every single one of them manages to be easy to make, affordable and accessible, too.”

Kate came to town for Amie’s birthday party, so I met her for drinks, and a giant green bug landed in her herbed green cocktail. Are you still following? I can’t make this stuff up.

Kate and I bonded over the trials and tribulations of cookbook-making, our love for our funny-looking pups (meet Rex), and the green bug experience. We practiced our half-moon poses at Amie’s backyard birthday party the next day. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shy about my work, since it opens so many fun doors.

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Confession: I wanted to include this tangy broccoli slaw recipe in my epic salads roundup (it deserves to be in it), but the photos were so green and unappetizing that I couldn’t do it. All I could think when I looked at the post was, “Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!”

Today, I’m re-sharing it with better photos and pushing it to the top of the blog in case you have overlooked it the past couple of years. Ribbit!

Even with a pop of complementary color (the coral napkin), the slaw is undeniably very green as written. I’ve heard from some commenters who have added some color with dried cranberries or chopped apple, which sound like delicious additions to me.

This broccoli slaw was roughly inspired by an awesome mayo-free broccoli and potato salad that my friend Sarah brought to a spring potluck two years ago. It’s not too far off from my Greek broccoli salad and colorful beet and quinoa salad, but it was just too good to keep to myself.

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Have you ever tried roasting your mushrooms? I discovered during the making of my cookbook that roasting not-so-fancy mushrooms condenses their flavors into gourmet territory. They transform from spongy raw fungi into tender, richly flavored umami bombs along the way.

I understand that mushrooms aren’t for everyone (sometimes, they’re not even for me), but I’m into these roasted mushrooms. For those of you who are on the fence when it comes to mushrooms, I hope this recipe brings you over to my side.

This recipe is a great side dish or light meal. First, I roasted up some cremini mushrooms, also known as baby bella mushrooms (they’re young portobellos—get it?). Then I served the roasted mushrooms, with all of their delicious mushroom juices, on a bed of herbed quinoa. A squeeze of lemon juice and sprinkle of pepitas rounds out the flavors and textures.

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Sometimes I get really excited about a recipe because it sounds delicious, but it almost seems too easy—do you know what I mean? Like, am I about to get duped here? Am I going to end up with a so-so meal? Maybe I’m too skeptical, but I’ve been let down before.

This soup sounded both delicious and easy, and it proved to be even better than that—it’s amazing! And so easy! The recipe comes from my friend Megan’s brand-new cookbook called No Excuses Detox: 100 Recipes to Help You Eat Healthy Every Day. All of the recipes are vegetarian (mostly vegan) and gluten free, with short ingredients lists and prep times.

I love Megan’s approach to detoxing—the term often makes me think of scary juice fasts and extreme measures, but there’s nothing extreme about this book other than the ease of the recipes. She shares simple recipes made from whole foods that support your body’s natural detox mechanisms.

Plus, she shares tons of real-world tips on how to eat well when you’re short on time, money and energy. Megan manages to run a blog, write cookbooks, work as a greeting card designer, and raise two adorable kids all at the same time. She definitely has a few tricks up her sleeves and doesn’t let excuses get in the way. I’m the queen of making excuses and overthinking, so I’m taking notes.

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This recipe’s photo shoot was going swimmingly until the very end. Ingredients, sunlight, dog not on table—check, check, check. Then I told myself to quit being lazy and pull out the tripod to be sure I got some crystal-clear photos of the final dish.

I tripped over Cookie, the tripod arm bumped the foam board reflector, the reflector knocked over the mini milk pitcher and then both bowls. It was like watching a stack of dominoes fall.

It was Cookie’s lucky day. She helped clean up the spilled milk and I gladly called it a day. I’m excited to share this recipe today. I mean, if that recipe title didn’t do it for you, I don’t know what will. Cinnamon toast! This breakfast quinoa really tastes like cinnamon toast.

I haven’t even been terribly excited about quinoa for breakfast, but this recipe is a definite game changer. Cooking it with freshly toasted pecans (you’ll toast them in the saucepan before adding the rest), coconut oil, cinnamon, and a few dashes of salt makes it legitimately crave-worthy. Do try it and let me know if you agree.

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Finishing a cookbook, or any massive project, really, is terrifying. A few nights ago, after I stayed up too late looking for any remaining last-minute issues, I tossed and turned while Oxford commas and the names of various ground spices bounced around in my head.

I finally woke up from a dream that I skateboarded, belly down, all the way to my parent’s house. I arrived to find that my family had eaten all of the chocolate cake. Dad!

Last night, I reviewed the book for the final time—truly, the last time—to make sure all of my requests had been implemented. I sent it back, fully apprehensive, with my mind full of second-guesses and self-doubt. Did I overdo it on the dog pictures? Are people going to take this book seriously? It’s very colorful. Are the recipes in the order that they should be?

That margarita photo that I was so proud of last year—I want to redo it because the ice cube is out of focus. It’s too late. And the little clock icon isn’t in quite the right place on page 197. Surely they can fix that part. (Update: they fixed it.) Send help, or wine. I’m losing it over here.

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