I've been trying to find the best way to make a healthier banana bread without gluten or dairy and after tons of awful, grainy and tasteless test runs, I finally did it! The best part is that you only need 2 bananas - that's usually the amount we have leftover and over-ripening in our house anyways so it always works out perfectly. It makes enough for a smaller size loaf, but if you want a big loaf and maybe a few muffins on the side you can double the recipe!

The recipe below is just for basic banana bread. When I'm feeing fancy I like to add in a few tablespoons of oatmeal and or a few tablespoons of chocolate chips.

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.