I've been trying to eat a little less dairy lately and I wanted to see if I could recreate one of my all time favorite cheesy dishes without real cheese. Okay, so I'll admit it, it's not the same as the original dish that Italian grandmothers have been whipping up in Rome for years. But it's GOOD! It's just missing that sharp sharp taste that pecorino romano cheese gives off. Also, butter isn't a typical ingredient of cacio e pepe but since this is a vegan version, the (vegan) butter helps to add more of that silky texture that melting real cheese into the pasta water creates in the traditional non-vegan version.

Originally, I wanted to use this vegan parmesan cheese I've had in my fridge for a while (Follow Your Heart brand) but at the last second I realized that there are chickpeas on the ingredient list so I had to abandon ship and just use nutritional yeast. If you can eat chickpeas, I might try half nutritional yeast and half the vegan parm - it might taste more cacio e pepe-ish and cheesy that way.

I actually call this one Marcy's bolognese because the mom of a family that I used to babysit for would ALWAYS make this and it was always soooo different and good.

It makes a pretty decent portion, I would say enough for a family of 4-6 but you can freeze the leftovers and reheat in a pot anytime!

Just like the rest of the world, I'm in love with Trader Joe's cauliflower gnocchi. I love carbs, but if it's possible to eat a little healthier without noticing that carbs are missing, I'm game. I know there's a handful of you that don't have access to a Trader Joes or if you do, you live in an area where it's constantly sold out so I wanted to try and make a copycat recipe from scratch at home!

So the ingredients on the back of the TJ's package say cauliflower, cassava flour, potato starch, olive oil and salt. I actually had everything I needed at home to get started on recipe testing! Pamela's Products sent me a box full of goods so I had their cassava flour which is 100% yucca root so gluten free, paleo, non-GMO and vegan. I also have a lot of tapioca starch at home because I use it to make steamed rice noodle rolls so I subbed that for the potato starch that's in the TJ's recipe - Bob's Red Mill has tapioca starch so it isn't too hard to find in stores, unlike the Asian brand I have and use at home.

I decided to boil the cauliflower vs use it raw. I just felt like the moisture from boiling it (even though I removed most of it) was needed in order to create a softer texture gnocchi.

DON'T SKIP READING THIS PART!!
Every cauliflower head is a different size. The one I used was fairly large so keep that in mind. (I would say that once riced, the head I used produced somewhere between 2-3 cups of cauliflower and it make like 3 batches of 20 gnocchi pieces.) The best way to figure out if you have the right ratio of flour/starch to cauliflower would be to make one little gnocchi and sear it on both sides in a skillet with oil and then taste-test it and adjust the ratio from there. I found that adding in more flour or starch makes the gnocchi more firm so if your results are soggy - add more of the flour/starch in small equal amounts and taste test again.

A few cauli gnocchi life hacks:
If you don't have a food processor or want to save time, you could probably purchase pre riced cauliflower and use that - just make sure if it's frozen, you try and get most of the liquid out of the cauliflower so that it's easier to combine with the flour and mold into pieces.

Also, for more flavor, you could add parmesan cheese or (vegan) nutritional yeast. I would say a a couple of tablespoons. Also not against the idea of seasoning the cauliflower with garlic powder or herbs like oregano, parsley and basil.

You can either fry or bake them. I fried them in a skillet with olive oil and fresh sage but the trick to frying and keeping the shape in tact would be popping them in the freezer for 15 minutes before adding them to the skillet! No need to freeze with baking since they sit still on the baking sheet the whole time. I also bet you could air fry them but I don't own an air fryer so I would check other bloggers recommendations for temperatures and settings.

I grew up eating these delicious little dough pockets every single year on Christmas Eve! They're a family staple from my dad's side. My Grandma learned how to make them from her mom (who I was lucky enough to have around for a lot longer than most people can say about their great grandparents!) This recipe has been passed down for generations from Polish roots so it's v authentic and v special to lots of people in my family. 

My Grandma's recipe makes about 30-50 pierogies depending on how big you make them and how much of the dough you repurpose as you go along. (The key to making the most out of the dough scraps is covering them so that nothing dries out!) I really love how there's milk, butter and sour cream in the dough recipe  - it makes it so much more stretchy and playable compared to a basic flour/water/egg dough mixture.

What you need:
(Dough)

• 5 cups flour
• 1/4 cup melted butter (1/2 stick)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 pint sour cream

(Potato filling)

• 5 lbs yukon gold or russet  potatoes
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 tsp salt

This totally looks like a normal fried chicken sandwich but what you can't tell from the photo is that it's not just any old fried chicken sandwich - it's a buttery, garlicky fried chicken sandwich. That's right. I roasted garlic and then mashed and combined that with melted butter in order to create the best non-buffalo tasting fried-chicken sauce I've ever had.

I didn't do it for the gram. But it ended up there anyways!! One of my favorite healthy recipes is now pretty for once!! I typically don't share what I'm eating behind the scenes but this one is too good to not show off.

If you don't eat meat, I found this amazing quinoa and cauliflower meatball recipe on Dishing Out Health's website that I have used a few times and I love it! I also love to make this recipe with mushrooms as the main part - I usually cook them in olive oil, garlic powder and a touch of soy sauce before adding them to the cauliflower mash.

I really wanted to make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies the day I invented these pancakes but I was out of brown sugar and v low on chocolate chips so I decided to make pancakes instead. I used cinnamon to give it an extra sweet taste since I originally was craving chocolate. 

I know everything is supposed to taste better when it's made from scratch but I love Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix. It's just so good and always turns out so fluffy - plus, I use the kind where you have to add eggs and oil so it's not as big of a shortcut as the kind of pancake mixes where you just add water.

What you need:
For the pancakes

• Aunt Jemima Original Pancake Mix (I doubled the directions for 1 batch)
• 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats (I used Bob's Red Mill)
• 1 tsp cinnamon

For the syrup

• 1/4 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup of your favorite maple syrup
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup milk + more to even out the texture

I'm sure you guys get it by now. I'm in love with fried chicken. Pretty sure I feel the same way about pasta. There's just soooo many different styles and flavors to choose from but the main ingredient stays the same. Versatile - that's the word I was looking for!! 

Anyways, I spent a couple of days frying up different kinds of chicken in my kitchen and I would have to say that my favorite part of chicken fried "Nashville hot chicken" style would be the chicken thigh. You just can't beat that juicy dark meat especially once you've put the time and effort into soaking it in buttermilk for 24 hours.

Let me know if you have any questions below! And as always, the serving size for this recipe is for around 2-4 people. (Two starving people, three normal people, or four people who feel like snacking together.)

Poutine is something that I'll never stop dying over. French fries, gravy and cheese curds. Hot damn.

There's a restaurant in Cleveland called the Greenhouse Tavern and they make a dish real similar to poutine but it has juicy pork belly bits, a fried egg and whole grain mustard on it - it's so good and my version of poutine is totally inspired by it.

I'm REALLY obsessed with tacos al pastor right now. Seeing that I don't have any devices at home that can cook meat on a spit for hours on end, I decided to not try and do that, lol. I seasoned a pork shoulder with the same flavors as tacos al pastor and cooked the meat in a crockpot so that the pork turned into soft and juicy shredded meat. 

Also, this is very much a long recipe. The best way to make it not feel like that is to start marinating the pork around dinner time and wake up and get it going in the crockpot in the morning so that it'll be ready by the next day's dinner time. It makes a lot of pork, I'd say to buy enough taco shells for around 6 people. You can refrigerate the leftover meat and it'll stay good for a few days.

What if I told you you didn't have to go to your favorite local chicken wing joint to eat the best boneless wings of your life?? I've tried hundreds of times to make them at home and they've never turned out like how they taste from a restaurant. UNTIL NOW, and guess what? It happened on accident, lol.

“It ain’t easy bein’ cheesy” is a straight up lie because you can achieve the ultimate cheesiness in under 10 minutes with this recipe. #foolproof

Also, if you want to make this into a baked mac and cheese situation with bread crumbs, just use an additional 1/2 cup of heavy cream in the recipe. Once it's finished, top with a handful of breadcrumbs and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of melted butter and cook in an oven-safe dish for 15-20 minutes at 400 F. (I like to add more cream to ensure that the pasta doesn't dry out while baking.)

Pretty sure pho is famous for it's slow simmered broth but I loooove picking out all of the noodles and spicy jalapeños whenever I'm eating it. A few people replied to my IG story saying it's not pho since I used soy sauce, but I'm allergic to hoisin sauce since there's peanuts in it so I had to improvise. It still has the flavors of pho with the beef broth, lime and ginger that I used and that's good enough for me. Ps, this recipe will serve two people or one VERY hungry person.

So it's not traditional pho, but it's still really phoking good, okay?!

The trip to your local Chinese grocery store is so worth it for these chow mein noodles. Don't try to skimp and use spaghetti - that's just wrongggg. 

Also, yes I am allergic to sesame seeds, but the person I was cooking dinner for isn't so I put them on her dish! :)

Fact: adding cabbage to dumplings makes the filling a whole lot softer. It's less like a dry meatball inside of there and more like a juicy piece of meatloaf. I always get questions about what kind of dumpling wrappers I use and since I'm too lazy to make homemade dumpling dough, I buy gyoza wrappers from a local Asian grocery store in Cleveland.

Ps - if you prefer a slippery dumpling texture instead of the pan fried crisp, you can boil them for about 8 minutes (they should float when they are done.)

I legit never think to buy buttermilk when I'm grocery shopping but I saw it the other day and decided I wanted to try and make some seriously good buttermilk fried chicken. I typically use a salt water and garlic brine but this was SO MUCH BETTER!

I was trying to stop myself from eating the chicken all on it's own after it came out of the hot oil. The seasoned salt is such a clutch ingredient in turning the chicken that really pretty golden color and it smells amazing.

I love fried balls of any sort. Lol. 

But for real, goat cheese is the GOAT - and I love arancini so this is sort of like a weird version of that. Also, how good is goat cheese with honey?? The best combo since pb & j. 

I used to beg my mom to take me to Cracker Barrel so that I could eat their chicken and dumplings and this is so much god damn better than that. LOL.

It's actually so easy to make dumplings, I was shocked when I started googling to find out how. I used dark meat because I think there's way more flavor and it's way juicer. #teamdarkmeat

I love this recipe, the combination of that extra virgin olive oil + the zesty lemon flavor gives me all the light and crisp flavor feels. Adding more of the olive oil into the bread crumbs and then topping with more lemon zest at the end is what takes this one to another level.

It's no secret that I love making fried chicken of all sorts. I think it might be the only other food that I consistently post about besides pasta, noodles and/or dumplings. I don't own a deep frier so I just use a large pasta pot for frying the wings. (If you're in the same boat, be sure to use a tall enough pot so that the hot oil doesn't splash out.)

I don't have a thermometer to check to see if the oil is hot enough for frying different types of food. I just run my finger tips under the sink faucet and then flick a little tiny bit of water into the pot of oil as it's heating. Once the water reacts and makes a crackling sound, it's hot enough to fry stuff.

This recipe isn't the same without Cleveland's famous Bertman Original Ballpark Mustard. Just sayin'. Go Tribe. For real though, I put this stuff on everything - as I am writing this I'm squirting some out onto crackers that I'm snacking on, lol. The obsession is real. ​If you're going to use other stuff, dijon is the next best thing.

Fresh lemon juice, wine, garlic, butter, pasta and parmesan. These are a few of my favorite things. You've probably noticed by now that I have a couple different lemon recipes. This one is meant to be a bit lighter than the creamy lemon pasta, there's no cheese in the actual sauce so it's more silky and doesn't get melty or stick together as much.

You don't have to use tagliatelle pasta. You can use whatever shape you like, but I think a longer flat noodle tastes the best because that's the way I ate this dish for the first time in Italy. Make sure you remember to add a little of the starchy pasta water into the sauce. That + butter makes for the ultimate silky pasta.

I'm obsessed with honey butter fried chicken. That is all. 

Like I said in my IG post, I would probably eat dirt if there was fresh lemon juice squeezed all over it. This recipe is slightly different from my lemon butter pasta recipe, because there's parmesan cheese all up in this sauce.

You can use any kind of noodle, I was in the mood for bowtie on the day I created this recipe. I've been using garlic powder instead of fresh garlic in some of my sauces lately because I feel like you just can't beat the flavor concentration. It's so strong and I don't think that I get the same flavor when I use fresh garlic? Which doesn't seem right, but my tastebuds don't lie. 

I've always wanted to try wonton soup with actual noodles in it, but the traditional way it's served involves a few things I can't eat. cc: shrimp, sesame oil. About a month ago I went out to eat at Saigon on East 4th Street in Downtown Cleveland and had to watch my friend slurp it down from across the table - talk about FOMO. I decided to make my own version, a version that wouldn't kill me. ​

You'll want to use fresh wonton egg noodles. You can read more about them + see a photo if you click here and check out @thewoksoflife's blog. (If you scroll past the wonton noodles on that page, you'll also see the yellow square wonton wrappers that you'll need!) Both can be found at Asian grocery stores - if you're from CLE, I do all my noodle/dumpling shopping at Tink Holl Market in Asia Town.

For the portion sizes, I would say that 1 bundle of wonton noodles + 4-6 wontons and 2 cups of broth equals one serving. That said, this recipe makes enough for two eaters!

What you need:
(Broth)

• 4 cups wonton soup broth - I didn't have any so I used chicken broth and seasoned it with other flavors to make it taste a bit like wonton soup. If you're going that route - follow below.
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 5 garlic cloves sliced in half
• 5 pieces of peeled ginger - same size as garlic cloves cut in half
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 2 tbsp soy sauce

(Wontons)

• Yellow (thin & square) wonton wrappers
• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 cup chopped scallions
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp chinese black vinegar
• 1 tbsp shoaxing wine
• 2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp salt

(Noodles)

• 2 small bundles (about 2 handfulls) of fresh wonton noodles - see below for how to identify them at the store

What to do:​​
(Broth)

1. Heat the pre-made wonton soup broth - if you're going to use the chicken broth method, heat that up in a pot until it's at a low boil.
2. Add in all of the parts listed in the ingredients and let simmer for 20 minutes. 
3. Remove the garlic and ginger chunks from the broth, cover with a lid and keep it at a low simmer until serving. 
4. Once the noodles and wontons are cooked, they go into the broth. Top everything with fresh scallions and blanched baby bok choy. (Blanched means placing the bok choy into boiling water for 20 seconds and then rinsing under freezing water to halt the cooking process.) 

(Wonton)

1. Mix together all of the wonton filling ingredients.
2. Place a teaspoon of the filling mixture into the center of the square wonton wrapper.
3. Wet the parts of the wonton surrounding the filling with your finger after dipping it in water.
4. Fold each corner upwards around the meat so that they connect above the meat, press together to seal. It should look like a little purse or money bag when you're done. Make sense? If not, click here to see photos of it on @souperdiaries website - scroll down to "pouch wontons." 
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you run out of fillings or wonton wrappers. You can freeze whatever's leftover for up to 3 months.
6. Boil the wontons in water for 6 minutes, do this step when you're ready to put them into the soup.

(Noodles)

1. Boil the noodles for 2-3 minutes right before adding them into the broth, time it up so that the wontons and noodles are done right around the same time. While cooking the noodles, stir them constantly - they like to stick together since they are so thin and chewy.

Brielieve it or not, brie is probably the easiest kind of cheese to use for mac and cheese since it's so melty. If you're having trouble scooping it out of the wheel, you can stick it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds to loosen up the insides!

What to do:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the macaroni noodles according to package directions.
2. Using a sharp cheese knife, cut a circle about halfway down around the top layer of the wheel of brie. Be careful not to go too far down and puncture the bottom layer.
3. Scrape off the top layer of the brie rind (the hard white part.) When you're done, you should have a brie bowl - it's sort of like carving a pumpkin, but way better.
4. Scoop out all of the creamy brie and put it into a small pot.
5. Add the milk or cream to the brie in the pot and heat it on the stove (low/medium heat) until it's all melted.
6. Pour the melted brie sauce over the cooked macaroni noodles and mix well. 
7. Fill the brie bowl with the pasta and top with salt and pepper