Meet Monique
Girl behind the blog. Ambitious by nature. Passionate about pancakes, life, and laughter. Here to inspire you.
Food Photography
Popular Posts
Crunchy Cashew Thai Quinoa Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing {vegan & gluten-free} 
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies {flourless, no butter} 
Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter + Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies {my favorite cookie ever} 
Healthy Chicken Chickpea Chopped Salad 
Flourless Chocolate Chip Chickpea Blondies with Sea Salt {vegan, gluten-free & healthy} 
Brown Butter Snickerdoodle Cookies 
Kale, Edamame, and Quinoa Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette 
Best Ever Vegan Avocado Chocolate Birthday Cake with Vegan Chocolate Ganache 
Vegan Detox Green Monster Smoothie {with kale, strawberry, cucumber, & banana} 
Strawberry Coconut Chia Seed Banana Bread
Flourless Chocolate Chip Chickpea Blondies with Sea Salt {vegan, gluten-free & healthy}
Have you ever spent so much time or energy on something, only to realize it wasn’t even worth it?
It’s kind of like when you bake a cake and absolutely hate the end result. Or when you date someone for too long only to end up being disappointed or hurt. Sometimes it can even be when you listen to entire Taylor Swift songs.
Anyway, the point is, even though you’ve had to live through things that seemed pointless and time-consuming, you learned from them. You realize that sometimes you can’t trust those Martha Stewart recipes, and that the person you dated actually taught you a lot about what you want in a future relationship. Oh and that Taylor Swift song? Absolutely change the station and never purchase another one of her songs off iTunes again. Harsh Monday realities coming at you.
Oh but these blondies? Amazing bites of peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bliss. No regrets. They’re just SO worth it!
Now don’t think I’ve gone all weird on you because I put chickpeas in a blondie without any flour or butter.
Nevermind, clearly I’m a little bit weird. After all I am obsessed with Zac Efron.
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies {flourless, no butter}
Oh hey. I noticed that it’s been a while since I’ve given you a cookie recipe. Please forgive me as I made you these ridiculously good-looking, chewy, thick, fat peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Without flour or butter.
Wait… WHAT? I swear this isn’t a joke.
First I need to confess that I LOVE LOVE LOVE peanut butter. In fact, I think if I was allergic I’d probably still eat it. I’m definitely one of those people who feels like it completes me in some way. Some of you may feel this way about Nutella and I totally get it; nut butters are creamy, addictive and awesome spread on just about anything. I usually do it animal-style aka straight out of the jar with a spoon.
Hmmmm I think I’m displaying signs of an addict. Are there any nut butter support groups out there?
Melt-in-Your-Mouth Brown Butter Pumpkin Coffee Cake with Pecan Gingersnap Cookie Streusel
Why is it that I feel like pumpkin recipes are only okay to post from October-December? It’s as though January is a big reset button, where we all go on juice cleanses seen on Dr. Oz.
Whatever! I’m a huge fan of pumpkin year round. So yes it’s January, but baking this pumpkin coffee cake won’t disappoint.
This cake! Oh did it fill my home with a wonderful aroma that I’ve never experienced before. I wanted the inviting warmth of it to linger until someone special showed up and wondered what cozy concoction was in the oven. To which of course I would reply, “A melt-in-your-mouth brown butter pumpkin coffee cake… with a pecan gingersnap cookie streusel!”
Sounds dreamy… and I can assure you, it is.
Brown Butter Brown Sugar Toasted Almond Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt
I’m turning the big 24 this Saturday. Do you think it’s normal to celebrate by eating cookies for the ENTIRE WEEK?
Of course… because you know the world is supposed to end Friday or whatever. So I’m suggesting we all eat cookies this week (good excuse, right?).
But seriously, these cookies are essentially a mini, delicious birthday present to myself.
It occurred to me that this really couldn’t be just ANY cookie though; it had to be incredible. Kinda like those Nutella-stuffed cookies. Wait, what about the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies? Or those sensational Brown Butter Snickerdoodles? Clearly if a man wants to know the way to my heart, it’s through cookies made with brown butter.
What? Baking your way to love is TOTALLY a thing you know.
Okay, enough about brown butter and man bait and such. Let’s talk cookies because that’s why you are really here.
Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache, Toasted Hazelnuts, & Sea Salt
Hi! I’m so excited to FINALLY publish this recipe!
This past week has been completely crazy! I flew to New York to meet and cook with Bobby Flay at his restaurant! Whattt?! I know! My dessert was selected by Fage Total Greek Yogurt to be served at their event. They transformed Bobby’s restaurant Mesa Grill into a beautiful Pop-up Plain Kitchen restaurant.
I’m so happy that I was able to be apart of it! I can’t express how blessed I feel. I met some fabulous food editors, Fage’s PR team (Mullen!), and of course, Bobby. He was incredibly sweet and complimented me on how delicious this cheesecake was. We also made a spice-crusted lamb, which was by far my favorite entree of the evening!
BUT THE CHEESECAKE?! Can we just talk about it? It’s a dense, smooth, chocolate-wasted cheesecake that I want to live in for the rest of my life. I’m SERIOUS. Oh and not to mention that it has a creamy, rich chocolate hazelnut butter (Nutella) ganache, toasted hazelnuts, and sea salt.
Please prepare yourself to drool.
Easy 5-Ingredient Fudgy Nutella Cookies with Sea Salt
Oh yessssssss. Yes I did.
I made you more cookies made with nutella. Because isn’t it obvious I love that chocolate hazelnut spread in, on, and stuffed in just about everything?
It’s evident that I really love baking you things to make your weekends happy, inspiring, and fun. Heaven knows that trashing the kitchen up on a Saturday afternoon is sort of a necessity at Ambitious Kitchen headquarters (aka my house). But before we discuss all the fudgy love packed into these cookies, I wanted to share with you a couple of my favorite things lately.
Ready?
1. I’m in love with colored pants aka fancy pants. I recently bought really cute wine colored jeans; they were cheap and fit perfectly! Now I’m on the search for a cranberry or wine colored coat, but can’t seem to find any I really like, so I guess painting my nails and wearing wine colored lipstick is doable in the meantime.
2. I was watching the Food Network (what else?) and Giada came on. She was making some gorgeous delicious Italian dish which made me realize that I can’t even remember the last time I had pasta. And then OMG I thought about how much I love melty lasagna and stuffed mushroom ravioli. Oh… and all that bread and cheese! Obviously that needed to fixed so I made this simple fast rotini dish with butternut sage sauce. I may or may not have ascended to heaven afterwards. Seriously, it was THAT good.
3. I went to this restaurant in Minneapolis, and I cannot tell you how impressed I was. It’s my new favorite; so if you ever venture up to the Tundra that is definitely where you should go. Order the scallops… or the meatballs! To die for.
4. I’ve realized how important it is to never give up. On life. On happiness. On love. Or… on eating Halloween Oreos. What? It’s just not possible. Especially when they’re covered in chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt. Best halloween treat ever?
5. WAIT and here’s some SUPER EXCITING NEWS: I’m going to meet Bobby Flay in New York City! Yes, it’s true and I’ll have more details to share with you soon!!! I’ve been walking around with this ridiculous grin on my face for the past week. I need a good slap in the face. Maybe even with these cookies? Or just shove them in my mouth.
Brown Butter Snickerdoodle Cookies
Oh hey there. It’s finally Friday and I couldn’t be happier!
Why? Um, because it’s the weekend which means I can cook the five butternut squashes sitting on my counter, drink wine, definitely bake a cake or something, YouTube Joe Biden’s laugh during the debates, catch up on Dexter, go to the apple orchard and make pie, get a pedicure, run until my legs fall off because my best friend just told me we’re running a race in TWO WEEKS, eat a kale salad because I’m trying to be healthy, and do the obvious stalking of Trader Joe’s for a good two hours. No biggie.
One more thing that needs to be added to my giant to-do list? ABSOLUTELY making more of these cookies. Seriously, snickerdoodles… with brown butter! We need to have a conversation about these babies.
These are extraordinary snickerdoodles. And when I mean extraordinary, I mean that they taste like no other snickerdoodle in the world.
IN THE FREAKING WORLD.
Okay… I apologize for that writing in caps, I just drank a shot of espresso and watched the political debates so I’m a little hyped up and I don’t even follow politics. I usually just make cookies for political watching parties and pretend like I know what’s going on. But I don’t know was it just me, or was that debate seriously entertaining?