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
Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce with Zucchini {the only tomato sauce you’ll ever need}
Confession of the day: I’m an absolute lover of mini meals because I consider them real treats! For example, my go-to snacks are bananas rolled in toasted almonds, rice cakes with cottage cheese and honey, or cereal with ice cold almond milk. Oh and margaritas! Because those can be considered snacks, right?
Anyway I’m getting back to the point here… I eat a lot of carbs, and that’s a problem. But you guys, I just ADORE nooks-and-crannies english muffins and basically every flavor or Cheerios to ever hit the market (minus Dulce de Leche).
Raise your hand if I just described you, too.
Surprisingly I’ve managed to stop buying both bread and cereal so now the only carb-like food lurking in my cupboards is a pack of rice cakes, low-carb tortillas, and apparently marshmallow creme, which I ate from the jar last night while watching old episodes of Felicity.
I don’t know if you know this but teen drama from the 90s is extremely stressful.
So this whole low-carb thing means that I am forced to give up pasta and opt for something else to pair tomato sauce with. That’s where spaghetti squash comes in handy; it’s gluten-free, low-carb, and freaking delicious! Did you know that one cup of spaghetti squash only has 42 calories and 8 net carbs? I can literally eat platefuls of it!
The real star today isn’t the spaghetti squash though; it’s my homemade arrabbiata sauce — a spicy tomato marinara sauce with garlic and herbs. I was reading somewhere that arrabbiato means angry in Italian, which for me just translates into one mean, spicy marinara! It is sensational, especially when paired with garden veggies.
I enjoy making homemade tomato sauce because I love knowing what ingredients are being used plus the flavors are always bold and fresh. I thought it would be fun to show you how I make my favorite sauce without canned ingredients so that you can enjoy it too! Trust me, once you try this you won’t go back. Continue reading
Pinto Bean Chicken Chili
Every now and then I love a little real-talk blogging. Today is one of those days.
The past year has been full of life-altering changes for me. I’ve shed many layers from my life…. and can I just admit that it’s all been incredibly difficult?! I’ve started my own business, traveled at least a week out of every month, lived in three states, and have literally been pulling my hair out trying to figure out where this is all leading to!
So what does this translate into? Basically working insane hours and jeopardizing A LOT. Honestly it’s been a complete struggle. I’m sure it’s something you might be able to relate to: failure, disappointments, and well… whatever life throws at you. Of course, I’m a huge believer that everything happens for a reason. My passion for success and a career in food pushes me every single day to keep pursuing my dream no matter how many times I fail. And trust me, I fail more than you know! My list of unsuccessful ventures will always be longer anything I accomplish; it will be for all of us. However, these failures push you to become better and to learn.
In a sense, I feel as though I’m in the middle of a transformation. I’m trusting my intuition and regardless of how difficult it becomes or what disappointments I find myself in, I’m both blessed and thankful to be on this journey.
So my question to you, is what pushes you to be the best you can be? What drives you to be better than you were yesterday?
I’m just a twenty-four year old girl who is literally obsessed with food, styling, photography and the inspiration I find in every day life. I’m not here to pretend I’m perfect in any way, because I’m not. I’m just explicitly in love with sharing my passion with you.
Oh sorry, that’s a bit obvious and this is getting preachy. Excuse me, let’s get to the FOOD!
Chili Rubbed-Pollo Soup with Bell Pepper + Hominy
I was just thinking about how much has changed this past year. I mean isn’t it a bit exhilarating how fast life happens? We’re learning tough truths, letting go of the things that are out of our control, and heck, we’re growing and changing!
Last year I was working on the east coast. I barely had any time to blog and was struggling with what I wanted to do with my life. I referred to it as my early quarter life crisis. It was like when Felicity had to choose Ben or Noah, and decided to become an artist (seriously, go buy all the seasons of Felicity). Anyway, it wasn’t until I was completely lost did I discover my passion that I absolutely had to pursue. It was so obvious at that point: food is the recipe to my heart and happiness! I love creating it, photographing it, and eating it.
I know I talk a lot about following your dreams and living your passion, but that’s because I completely believe in it! Helping you, whether it’s in your kitchen or in your life is essentially apart of my success.
Today’s success comes in the form of soup. A soup that I’m completely in love with. Of course, I’m in love with a lot of things, but simple soup fills me up with contentment. Adding crispy lime and salt studded corn tortilla chips on top just makes it that much better.
Spicy Black Bean Chicken Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sour Cream Sauce
Hi! It’s been a while and I apologize for not blogging as frequent. My site has been having issues lately, but just know that we’re working hard to get all of the kinks fixed, so hopefully it will be running faster soon!
Besides that I think we should catch up. You know, just chat about life and such.
Lately I’ve been trying to get back into eating oatmeal for breakfast (I act like it takes effort to eat healthy?), working up to a faster mile, teaching myself new cooking techniques, baking fall goodies, and of course, organizing my life. I’ve been really wanting to get better at blogging more and I have a million recipes written down; it’s just that writing and editing tends to always take up more time then I expect it to.
Anyway this recipe has been just waiting for you, begging to be cooked. Like for an entire week! I mean, now that it’s October, I feel like I can really break out the pumpkin recipes, comfort food, and oh my goodness… all of the delicious treats involving brown butter just scribbled on my chocolate-stained notebook.
Last week I was craving comfort; warm; ooey-gooey goodness that would make me sink into a food coma in a very good way. But what was it going to be?
I searched around the kitchen. There was a roasted chicken in the fridge, canned pumpkin that was begging to be used, and those million dollar mexican spices (garlic, cumin, chili powder, etc).
It’s a bit obvious what happened, right?
I shredded the chicken to bits and pieces.
Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Basil Sauce with Burrata
I have a little confession…
I don’t eat a lot of Italian food.
I know, crazy right? I think it’s because I’m a tiny bit obsessed with all things Mexican (enchiladas, chips, guac, tacos… etc)! It’s just too good to refuse.
This past week though I just had a craving for ravioli, lasagna, garlic bread or basically ANYTHING ITALIAN. Unfortunately all I had in my cupboard was tomato sauce, but man, did that sauce look good. Like I sort of wanted to eat it out of the jar and call it dinner.
Is that weird?
Yep.
I thought to myself for a very long time about what I could do with the tomato sauce. I mean, besides spooning it into my mouth or just warming it up and pretending it was tomato soup. At one point I considered ordering breadsticks from Pizza Hut just so I could dip them in the sauce, but decided I wasn’t that desperate.
I ended up searching the freezer and found lean ground turkey. Obviously cute little meatballs came straight to mind!
Just look at that steamy goodness!
I especially love this recipe because it only takes about 30 minutes to throw together. The ground turkey is combined with an egg and the following spices: cumin, garlic salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, a pinch of cayenne, basil, oregano, plus a bit of dijon mustard. Now that may seem like a lot of spices, but it results are drop dead delicious!