Here’s the truth. I have never been one to eat just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eating three times a day just seems like cruel punishment. Instead, I prefer to eat 5 meals per day! Breakfast, “second” breakfast (as the hobbits call it), lunch, afternoon crash meal, pre-dinner crazy meal, and lastly, supper. I do this because a) I think about food 24 hours a day, so stretches of even an hour without eating are torturous and b) because, why not?

Ok, ok… so no, I do not eat five monstrous meals because I tend to be pretty active (thank goodness or I would probably be a giant beached porpoise) and I hate feeling weighed down on a run. In compensation, I eat little meals that satisfy the entire palate and hold me over until the next food celebration! This is an extremely easy recipe I use for “second” breakfast or lunch and just so you know… this pesto? It goes on anything. I think you will find many uses for it.

For the Recipe, click here:

Soft Boiled Egg Salad with Fresh Herb and Tomato Pesto

I get so excited for road trips. My parents will probably find this funny since every time we took one as a family, something disastrous happened. Take, for example, the time we drove all the way to NYC with our French exchange student only to turn around right at the border because our trusty family van decided to start making odd and threatening noises. So instead of stopping to check it out, my dad though it wise to drive the entire way home… at 40 miles per hour. After 12 hours of road trip fun, let’s just say Gregoire got to see our shining colors.

Since moving to Vegas however, I have grown to love the long hours Ivan and I spend in the car heading to Arizona, Utah, or California. There’s something tickling about packing a cooler full of food and zooming through the desert, big sky ahead. So we are off to Mt. Zion National Park this weekend and I’m itching to get on the road!

But right now, I’m making lasagna in June in Vegas. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s chilly, windy and rainy so I took the one last opportunity and ran with it. Plus, the extra carbs will fuel us for our hike up Angel’s Landing!

For the Recipe, click here:

Eggplant and Corn Lasagna

I would like to give Mario Batali a huge bear hug. Every Thursday, Chef Batali asks local farms and organic vendors to set up shop in the warehouse that stores dry goods for his Vegas restaurants and gives us Vegas desert dwellers a chance to buy some really amazing produce.

I don’t think if you live in the suburban side of the Northeast that you will quite understand what a pleasure and gift this is, but maybe you can just imagine life without grass and full of dirt and rocks! Pleasant.

In my visit this week, I got purple carrots with Bugs-Bunny greens shooting out of them, beautiful cream potatoes, a cherimoya (more on that later), rainbow swiss chard (that was hiding a little snail I discovered when I washed it), huge heirloom tomatoes, and some especially fragrant pea shoots. I brought it all home, plopped it on the counter and just stared at the colors for a good 5 minutes, smiling.

This turkey burger is simple. I wanted to really focus on the tomatoes and pea shoots and let them shine. Hopefully you can find something similar to make your own!

For the Recipe, click here:

Curried Turkey Burgers with Grilled Tomatoes and Honey Mustard

I don’t really have a lot to say about tomato soup except for the fact that I like it. A lot. But when I have it, I have to have something to dunk into it, or to me, it’s just not the full experience. So when I made the Honey Oat Quickbread yesterday and felt its texture, I immediately wanted to dunk it in something and couldn’t think of a better idea than tomato soup.

I really love a creamy, thick soup, but I didn’t want to add a ton of cream, so I grabbed a can of cannellini beans, dumped them in the Cuisinart and pureed like mad. You can’t taste the beans, but you definitely get that creamy goodness with a bonus of added protein and fiber. I definitely recommend swirling in a little crumbled goat cheese before serving. The extra pop is the cherry on top.

For the Recipe, click here:

Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup