what jen does

Life, home, and a little travel

Tag: meat-free

  • vegetarian bolognese
    recipes

    vegetarian bolognese

      To be clear, I still love bacon and eat meat – but I’m trying to improve my diet. Normally I would have made a traditional bolognese like this one but was inspired to make a vegetarian version. And that is the reason why I bought tofu for the first time in my life. I…

  • taco lentil soup
    recipes

    taco lentil soup

    I haven’t stopped talking about how good this chili / soup is. It is so good that I even bought more lentils at Whole Foods yesterday. That should be a clear testament to the gold star status. Each year for Christmas my sister and I make new recipes for my grandfather as presents. In the…

  • pumpkin brown butter mac and cheese
    recipes

    pumpkin brown butter mac and cheese

    Here is another dish to sneak some veggies into your diet… also who doesn’t love mac and cheese? I was hosting a small gathering for Halloween. Halloween is a big holiday in my neighborhood. Houses don’t go crazy with decorations but there are endless amounts of kids running around. I buy my candy in bulk…

  • veggie baked ziti
    recipes

    veggie baked ziti

    I am 100% over eating caprese salads with burrata. I go real hard on them in July and August… so when tomato season really kicks into gear I’m just tired. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of buying more burrata at Trader Joe’s one day. I was feeling ambitious and also like “I still have so…

  • summer salad
    recipes

    summer salad

    Good news. You can make healthy food even better with two small tricks. One? Cut the vegetables into adorable shapes like half moons. Two? Make this super easy dressing and pour it all on. Last weekend I stayed at The Gilded in Newport. The food was so amazing that since checking out I have asked…

  • eggplant parm
    recipes

    eggplant parm

    Woah. I had no idea that these little bitty eggplants could be so delicious. I think I have always turned away from eggplant parmesan because of the eggplant. In hindsight that is truly ridiculous because nothing can be terrible when you cover it in cheese. When I was planning my garden this year, I really…

  • lemony green bean salad
    recipes

    lemony green bean salad

    I’m going to make this quick… because green bean salad is pretty straight forward. I almost wouldn’t write it up but when I was menu planning for this years 4th of July… I realized I never wrote down what I made last year. Devastating. My formula for the 4th of July menu is always the…

  • peperonata pasta salad
    recipes

    peperonata pasta salad

    I will continue to stand by the principle that I only make things I wouldn’t mind eating for several days. That will be the case 1000% with this pasta salad. Turns out I didn’t need to double it… one batch would have been just fine. Thankfully, this super easy pasta salad is light enough that…

  • Roasted Garlic Potato Salad
    recipes

    Roasted Garlic Potato Salad

    I love a good potato salad. It can be so many things… extra creamy, extra savory, extra just about anything. There was this amazing potato salad we grew up with that had peas and bacon in it. I’m sure there were other things but I flipping love that stuff. It came as a side whenever…

  • corn chowder
    recipes

    corn chowder

    It’s been awhile since I’ve made a soup. At one point it felt like it was the only thing I whipped up in my kitchen. There are 45 soup recipes on this website but, they started to all feel like the same thing. Chop carrots. Chop onion. Chop celery. It has been enough time that…