VARIATIONS ON THIS BREAD
Obviously we prefer this in its original, perfect form, but if you’re looking to make some changes, there are always OPTIONS.

How to make it gluten-free: We tried this flour and the results were great. A hard crust formed on the outside and the inside was soft, airy, and a teeny bit spongy – close to the real thing. Some downsides: the bread didn’t rise as much as the regular version and, of course, it didn’t have quite the same flavor.
How to make it whole wheat: This is very similar to the original version. The texture of the dough was the same, it rose the same, and it looked the same coming out of the oven with its hard crust. The inside texture was denser with not as many air pockets. The flavor was a little bitter and texture was a bit gritty, but to be expected with whole wheat flour.
How to add some flavor: Use whatever herbs that sound delicious to you! Mix them in the beginning to avoid kneading later.
How to make it CHEESY: We’ve got a recipe for that! Check out our No Knead Cheese Bread.

AVOCADO BREAD RECIPE
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/4 cup butter at room temp
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup mashed avocado*
1 teaspoon lime juice
Notes: The lime juice keeps the loaf a green color, you can skip out on it if you don’t have any on hand, just know that your loaf won’t be as verdant.

If you have a food processor or blender, blend your avocado – it needs to be completely smooth for this.

Preheat the oven to 325°F and line a small loaf pan with parchment paper.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla throughly and then the mashed avocado and lime juice. Gently fold in the flour mix, being careful not to over mix.

Spoon the batter (it is very thick) into the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes or until an inserted wooden skewer is clean with a few crumbs clinging. Cool completely, slice and enjoy.
Essentially, I substituted avocado in a slightly adapted version of my second favorite banana bread recipe. I ended up with a pleasantly green, slightly sweet, tender loaf. I topped a still warm slice with a scoop of ice cream and even Mike, who was a skeptic at first, thought it was a winner.

Let me just intro this by saying: I love this recipe.

I love all our recipes, but this is one that just fits perfectly into my real life, again, and again, and again.

Veggie burgers can be hit or miss, I know. I’m not a fan of bean-heavy burgers, so please hear me right off the bat: I am not going to over-bean you with this quinoa burger.

Instead, I’m going to give you a stupidly easy burger that is heavy and solid but not too dense (seriously, pinky promise, the beans are under control!), crispy but not crumbly, and nicely meaty-looking… with all of the smoky good flavor, all of the yumminess, and none of the meat.
HOW THESE QUINOA BURGERS COME TOGETHER
We are working with primarily three things:

Quinoa – the star
Black beans – just enough to help it hold
Savory, smoky chipotle flavor – the thing that keeps you coming back for more.
Once you add something crunchy / binding (like panko or oats), and something wet / binding (egg or flax egg), and a few pinches of spices, you are certifiably in chipotle quinoa burger business.

These quinoa burgs can be made in minutes with just five-ish ingredients, and honestly, considering the minimal effort plus the excellent, versatile, and healthyish results, it’s a real weeknight unicorn.

For me, it’s totally a stress and anxiety thing, I think. Teaching the workshops in our studio these last few months – it seriously made me come alive in a new way. But when that part of me came alive, my food brain shrunk back. And now the stress and chaos and anxiety of the workshops has faded a little bit, and life has slowed down, and Bjork went out of town for a few days (not that I WANTED him to be gone, but sometimes just cooking whatever you want for your very own self helps get things back in the groove, love u bb) and now I’m feeling like I have my finger back on the pulse of my familiar old cooking heart. Which is still, in fact, beating.

Yours probably is, too. I’m sure of it. And if you’re not sure, I’ll tell you what will make you sure:

It starts with sweet potato noodles and ends with chipotle dressing and cilantro and roasted corn and pepitas.
You know those times when you are so excited about food that you just HAVE to eat dinner at 5pm? Me either, barely, because most night we eat dinner at 8pm.

I have never loved a salad as much as I do in this moment – a salad whose flavor profile (chipotle meets roasted corn meets cilantro) is at absolute the center of my food happy place and whose entire texture and form just mimics a big ol’ plate of pasta. WHAAAT. Now we’re talking, kids. THIS is my kind of salad.

Can I just tell you something right now? Cooking has made me so happy lately. I was kind of having a moment back a while ago where I didn’t love cooking and I DID love takeout and it was kind of weird when it was happening because I have a food blog. It’s my job to keep writing about how much I love food, and of course I would never share recipes with you that I didn’t love or actually make or actually eat for real in my true day to day life, but it was sort of hard to find the soul of the whole cooking gig for a second there. But it’s all good. Because honestly, I think the change of pace (last week we order pizza, and now this week we make fresh sweet potato noodle salads with chipotle dressing and have a slice of homemade orange cake for dessert) is healthy in that sort of greasy-pizza-is-good-for-your-soul-sometimes healthy way. You know what I mean, right? I lost it, I defaulted to sushi and Thai curry and pizza for a few weeks, and then I found it again.

SWEET POTATO NOODLE:
I’m currently using and loving the Inspiralizer. Of all the spiralizers I’ve tried (and I’ve tried many), this one is the best in size, versatility, and quality.
Need to prep in advance? You can save your sweet potato noodles for a day in the fridge! SWEET.
There is, in fact, so much love for spiralized veggies in my heart that I wrote this post: 8 LIFE-CHANGING WAYS TO USE A SPIRALIZER.
Last night I got a slice of that Must Eat Dinner Now feeling when I got home a little early from the studio and only had myself to cook for. THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES, friends. Out came the wine and cheese because apparently #SoloHappyHour is a thing? I highly recommend. And just like that, with a big ol plate of Chipotle Sweet Potato Noodle Salad, heavy on the cilantro, I became that person who eats dinner right at the stroke of 5pm.

Now that I think of it, I guess it’s fitting since I’m turning 30 tomorrow like ohmygosh I’m fine tho. So this is old age? Dinner at 5pm? I guess I can deal.

SUPER good real food salad with a short ingredient list! Cilantro, sweet potato, roasted corn, pepitas, and a homemade chipotle garlic dressing. vegan / vegetarian.
INGREDIENTS
for the sweet potato noodle salad:
olive oil
2 sweet potatoes, spiralized!
4 ears sweet corn (kernels cut off the cob)
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup chopped fresh greens – spinach, micro greens, arugula, whatever
1/2 cup pepitas
for the chipotle dressing:
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons water
2 individual chipotle peppers, canned in adobo sauce
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon agave or honey
juice of one orange
juice of one lemon or lime
generous pinch of salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat a little bit of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sweet potato noodles and toss for a minute or two until softened. See notes.
Wipe the skillet out so it’s dry. Add the corn kernels and turn the heat to medium high. Toss around in the pan every few minutes until roasted-looking. See notes.
Toss the noodles, corn, cilantro, and pepitas together. Save a little of each ingredient for topping the salad if you want it to be extra pretty.
Pulse the dressing ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Taste and adjust to your liking.
Toss with the salad ingredients and you’re good to go!

Found it as in SWEET POTATO NOODLE SALAD found it. Ohhh my spicy stars, this is so yummy.

HOW TO MAKE OUR SWEET POTATO NOODLE SALAD (50 SEC):
Sometimes you just need to get out of your routine and change things up in order to sort of kick-start the system back into Thrive Mode, right? I’m not the only one?

You know in your heart of hearts that you really want and love food and cooking and/or whatever it might be for the rest of you people in the world who don’t love food and cooking (I mean, I can’t even think of any examples because what do people love if not food?) and then the crazy-busy-stress-go-go-go of life happens and you find yourself sort of dreading making meals and dragging your heels when you feel the pull of the kitchen at 6pm. Or maybe you don’t feel the pull of the kitchen at all. Which is alarming for someone who has always identified as loving food and cooking, but also okay. A temporary break-up is okay.

For me, it’s totally a stress and anxiety thing, I think. Teaching the workshops in our studio these last few months – it seriously made me come alive in a new way. But when that part of me came alive, my food brain shrunk back. And now the stress and chaos and anxiety of the workshops has faded a little bit, and life has slowed down, and Bjork went out of town for a few days (not that I WANTED him to be gone, but sometimes just cooking whatever you want for your very own self helps get things back in the groove, love u bb) and now I’m feeling like I have my finger back on the pulse of my familiar old cooking heart. Which is still, in fact, beating. ♡

Yours probably is, too. I’m sure of it. And if you’re not sure, I’ll tell you what will make you sure:

It starts with sweet potato noodles and ends with chipotle dressing and cilantro and roasted corn and pepitas.
You know those times when you are so excited about food that you just HAVE to eat dinner at 5pm? Me either, barely, because most night we eat dinner at 8pm.

If going sugar free is important to you, you can sub in chili powder to taste for the chipotle peppers.

For cooking the sweet potato noodles: you’ll notice a visible texture change when they’re ready – they just sort of relax into the pan instead of being so stiff. You don’t want them to be overly mushy but you also don’t want them to be rock hard and crunchy. Somewhere in between is perfect. For me, 5-ish minutes was about right.

For cooking the corn: this can do a number on your skillet, so make sure you’re using a high quality pan – either nonstick or a really well seasoned cast iron. The idea is to DRY roast them without oil or butter. They don’t get as browned and roasty if you have to put butter or oil in the pan. Also, the less frequently you stir, the more browned they’ll get. I used a nonstick and the bottom of the pan got a little brown but washed out very easily.
I so badly wanted this salad with Cotija cheese, but alas, we didn’t have any and I was too lazy to drive out and get some. Please, someone, PLEASE add a fat handful of that crumbly, salty Cotija to this and report back. I might cry little tears of jealousy but I’ll be so happy for you.

Let me just intro this by saying: I love this recipe.

I love all our recipes, but this is one that just fits perfectly into my real life, again, and again, and again.

Veggie burgers can be hit or miss, I know. I’m not a fan of bean-heavy burgers, so please hear me right off the bat: I am not going to over-bean you with this quinoa burger.

Instead, I’m going to give you a stupidly easy burger that is heavy and solid but not too dense (seriously, pinky promise, the beans are under control!), crispy but not crumbly, and nicely meaty-looking… with all of the smoky good flavor, all of the yumminess, and none of the meat.
HOW THESE QUINOA BURGERS COME TOGETHER
We are working with primarily three things:

Quinoa – the star
Black beans – just enough to help it hold
Savory, smoky chipotle flavor – the thing that keeps you coming back for more.
Once you add something crunchy / binding (like panko or oats), and something wet / binding (egg or flax egg), and a few pinches of spices, you are certifiably in chipotle quinoa burger business.

These quinoa burgs can be made in minutes with just five-ish ingredients, and honestly, considering the minimal effort plus the excellent, versatile, and healthyish results, it’s a real weeknight unicorn.

If going sugar free is important to you, you can sub in chili powder to taste for the chipotle peppers.

For cooking the sweet potato noodles: you’ll notice a visible texture change when they’re ready – they just sort of relax into the pan instead of being so stiff. You don’t want them to be overly mushy but you also don’t want them to be rock hard and crunchy. Somewhere in between is perfect. For me, 5-ish minutes was about right.

For cooking the corn: this can do a number on your skillet, so make sure you’re using a high quality pan – either nonstick or a really well seasoned cast iron. The idea is to DRY roast them without oil or butter. They don’t get as browned and roasty if you have to put butter or oil in the pan. Also, the less frequently you stir, the more browned they’ll get. I used a nonstick and the bottom of the pan got a little brown but washed out very easily.
I so badly wanted this salad with Cotija cheese, but alas, we didn’t have any and I was too lazy to drive out and get some. Please, someone, PLEASE add a fat handful of that crumbly, salty Cotija to this and report back. I might cry little tears of jealousy but I’ll be so happy for you.

ALL THE TOPPINGS, OF COURSE
Toppings – I mean, toppings are your business. They are pretty much limitless and you can be as wild and free as you want here.

But my favorite toppings, personally, are smashed avocado, spicy mayo, thick slices of tomato, crunchy lettuce, and a crown of pickled red onion.

Pop it on a brioche bun and you have juicy, saucy, crispy quinoa burger perfection. Yay meatless!
Add egg and panko: Transfer mixture to a bowl. Using a spoon or your hands, mix with egg and panko. Form into 4 thick burgers.
Fry burgers: Heat a generous swish of olive oil over medium high heat (nonstick pan works best here). Add burgers to the pan and fry for a few minutes on each side, flipping carefully to keep them intact, until they are golden brown and crispy on the outside.

Serve: Serve on buns with spicy mayo, avocado, lettuce, tomato, pickled red onion, whatever suits your fancy!

SUPER good real food salad with a short ingredient list! Cilantro, sweet potato, roasted corn, pepitas, and a homemade chipotle garlic dressing. vegan / vegetarian.
INGREDIENTS
for the sweet potato noodle salad:
olive oil
2 sweet potatoes, spiralized!
4 ears sweet corn (kernels cut off the cob)
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup chopped fresh greens – spinach, micro greens, arugula, whatever
1/2 cup pepitas
for the chipotle dressing:
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons water
2 individual chipotle peppers, canned in adobo sauce
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon agave or honey
juice of one orange
juice of one lemon or lime
generous pinch of salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat a little bit of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sweet potato noodles and toss for a minute or two until softened. See notes.
Wipe the skillet out so it’s dry. Add the corn kernels and turn the heat to medium high. Toss around in the pan every few minutes until roasted-looking. See notes.
Toss the noodles, corn, cilantro, and pepitas together. Save a little of each ingredient for topping the salad if you want it to be extra pretty.
Pulse the dressing ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Taste and adjust to your liking.
Toss with the salad ingredients and you’re good to go!

Let me just intro this by saying: I love this recipe.

I love all our recipes, but this is one that just fits perfectly into my real life, again, and again, and again.

Veggie burgers can be hit or miss, I know. I’m not a fan of bean-heavy burgers, so please hear me right off the bat: I am not going to over-bean you with this quinoa burger.

Instead, I’m going to give you a stupidly easy burger that is heavy and solid but not too dense (seriously, pinky promise, the beans are under control!), crispy but not crumbly, and nicely meaty-looking… with all of the smoky good flavor, all of the yumminess, and none of the meat.
HOW THESE QUINOA BURGERS COME TOGETHER
We are working with primarily three things:

Quinoa – the star
Black beans – just enough to help it hold
Savory, smoky chipotle flavor – the thing that keeps you coming back for more.
Once you add something crunchy / binding (like panko or oats), and something wet / binding (egg or flax egg), and a few pinches of spices, you are certifiably in chipotle quinoa burger business.

These quinoa burgs can be made in minutes with just five-ish ingredients, and honestly, considering the minimal effort plus the excellent, versatile, and healthyish results, it’s a real weeknight unicorn.

For me, it’s totally a stress and anxiety thing, I think. Teaching the workshops in our studio these last few months – it seriously made me come alive in a new way. But when that part of me came alive, my food brain shrunk back. And now the stress and chaos and anxiety of the workshops has faded a little bit, and life has slowed down, and Bjork went out of town for a few days (not that I WANTED him to be gone, but sometimes just cooking whatever you want for your very own self helps get things back in the groove, love u bb) and now I’m feeling like I have my finger back on the pulse of my familiar old cooking heart. Which is still, in fact, beating. ♡

Yours probably is, too. I’m sure of it. And if you’re not sure, I’ll tell you what will make you sure:

It starts with sweet potato noodles and ends with chipotle dressing and cilantro and roasted corn and pepitas.
You know those times when you are so excited about food that you just HAVE to eat dinner at 5pm? Me either, barely, because most night we eat dinner at 8pm.

Found it as in SWEET POTATO NOODLE SALAD found it. Ohhh my spicy stars, this is so yummy.

HOW TO MAKE OUR SWEET POTATO NOODLE SALAD (50 SEC):
Sometimes you just need to get out of your routine and change things up in order to sort of kick-start the system back into Thrive Mode, right? I’m not the only one?

You know in your heart of hearts that you really want and love food and cooking and/or whatever it might be for the rest of you people in the world who don’t love food and cooking (I mean, I can’t even think of any examples because what do people love if not food?) and then the crazy-busy-stress-go-go-go of life happens and you find yourself sort of dreading making meals and dragging your heels when you feel the pull of the kitchen at 6pm. Or maybe you don’t feel the pull of the kitchen at all. Which is alarming for someone who has always identified as loving food and cooking, but also okay. A temporary break-up is okay.

SWEET POTATO NOODLE :
I’m currently using and loving the Inspiralizer. Of all the spiralizers I’ve tried (and I’ve tried many), this one is the best in size, versatility, and quality.
Need to prep in advance? You can save your sweet potato noodles for a day in the fridge! SWEET.
There is, in fact, so much love for spiralized veggies in my heart that I wrote this post: 8 LIFE-CHANGING WAYS TO USE A SPIRALIZER.
Last night I got a slice of that Must Eat Dinner Now feeling when I got home a little early from the studio and only had myself to cook for. THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES, friends. Out came the wine and cheese because apparently #SoloHappyHour is a thing? I highly recommend. And just like that, with a big ol plate of Chipotle Sweet Potato Noodle Salad, heavy on the cilantro, I became that person who eats dinner right at the stroke of 5pm.

Now that I think of it, I guess it’s fitting since I’m turning 30 tomorrow like ohmygosh I’m fine tho. So this is old age? Dinner at 5pm? I guess I can deal.

I have never loved a salad as much as I do in this moment – a salad whose flavor profile (chipotle meets roasted corn meets cilantro) is at absolute the center of my food happy place and whose entire texture and form just mimics a big ol’ plate of pasta. WHAAAT. Now we’re talking, kids. THIS is my kind of salad.

Can I just tell you something right now? Cooking has made me so happy lately. I was kind of having a moment back a while ago where I didn’t love cooking and I DID love takeout and it was kind of weird when it was happening because I have a food blog. It’s my job to keep writing about how much I love food, and of course I would never share recipes with you that I didn’t love or actually make or actually eat for real in my true day to day life, but it was sort of hard to find the soul of the whole cooking gig for a second there. But it’s all good. Because honestly, I think the change of pace (last week we order pizza, and now this week we make fresh sweet potato noodle salads with chipotle dressing and have a slice of homemade orange cake for dessert) is healthy in that sort of greasy-pizza-is-good-for-your-soul-sometimes healthy way. You know what I mean, right? I lost it, I defaulted to sushi and Thai curry and pizza for a few weeks, and then I found it again.