Macaroni and Green

Happy Olympics! Happy Summer! Although the summer is sort of ending, I refuse to believe that until my birthday comes. (13 days and counting...) I was casually stalking taste spotting as per my usual routine. I found this cute recipe of something tasty, healthy and super quick that I think is definitely worth sharing.
The recipe incorporates some healthy ingredients including spinach and pecans (you expected pine nuts didn't you...) but also something a little tasty such as parmesan cheese. The procedure is super simple, I promise it won't take you very long!
Ingredients:
Macaroni - about 1 box
Baby Spinach leaves-2 cups
Pecans-1/4 cup
Extra Virgin Olive Oil-1/3 cup
Grated Parmesan Cheese-1/3 cup
Salt and Pepper

Procedure:
In a pot, boil the macaroni and follow the box instructions, make sure to add some oil so the maraconi doesn't stick to each other and some salt just for taste. For the pesto, toast some pecans in a pan with some oil, low and slow is the way to go. Make sure you turn off the burner and remove the pan from the burner and place it aside to cool. In a processor, take the spinach and the pecans and begin to pulse them. Slowly ad the olive oil while the machine is running, watching the consistency of the pesto overall. Once you finish that, empty the pesto out into a bowl and add the grated cheese. Make sure to taste before you add the salt, you might not need any! But definitely consider adding the pepper, it'll add an extra bite to the parmesan cheese. Add in the macaroni and toss around to make sure everything is coated! enjoy :)  

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

This entire post is inspired by this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qTIGg3I5y8 and the amazing Cookie Monster himself. I realized that even though I am a vegetarian, I rarely to ever chose to use a vegan/vegetarian recipe - not really sure why... And since for the next month or so I will be blogging without a kitchen, I felt as though I should begin to expand the kinds of recipes I'm reading.
So upon my searching, I found this recipe that I thought was pretty cool!
In a lot of vegan recipes, you are asked to use ingredients that are expensive, usually never in your kitchen and annoying to find but I believe this recipe is actually worth it! This asks for ingredients you most likely have in your kitchen, and if not then ONE quick trip to the supermarket will have you ready to go.
The ingredients are... (for about 24 cookies)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup almond or soy milk (unsweetened)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 ounces chocolate chips

Preheat oven to  350°F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, white sugar, oil, and soy milk for several minutes until well incorporated. The resulting mixture will look like a smooth caramel sauce. Stir in the vanilla.
In a small mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, and salt. Gently add and mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients in the larger mixing bowl. If the dough is not stiff enough to hold its shape, add more flour one tablespoon at a time, be very careful with how much you're adding because you still want moist cookies. Begin to fold in your chocolate chips!

Your cookies will need to bake for approximately 9 minutes, or until you think they are golden brown along the edges.

I hope your end product looks a little like this...