We're all about this pasta dish right now. I hope our friends don't read this. Next time we invite you to dinner, this is probably what we're making. At least you'll know what type of wine to bring!

I love this so much, because it's simple and super impressive. It takes very little time to make. Serve with olive oil-drizzled crostini and you have a meal to impress anyone. Fresh basil, garlic and toasted walnuts make your kitchen smell so good.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb Pasta
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 bunches fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/3 cup walnuts, toasted
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook pasta: Boil pasta water. Once boiling, salt the water. Add pasta. Cook until al dente. Don't rinse the pasta after. The starches on the pasta will help the pesto adhere to the pasta.
2. Toast the walnuts: Set oven to 350. Spread walnuts on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350. Set a timer, because it's easy to forget about these toasty ones in the oven.
3. In a food processor or blender, whizz together the olive oil and garlic cloves.
4. Stop the processor, add in 2 bunches of fresh washed basil and process until you have tiny flecks of basil.
5. Add in toasted walnuts and pulse away! The walnuts will give the pesto-to-be great texture. Avoid leaving any large clumps of walnut, as the ingredients should come together.
6. Add in the nutritional yeast and continue pulsing the food processor a few times. You can find nutritional yeast (or as we call it, nooch) in the bulk section of any health food store. It's an inactive yeast, complete protein and fortified with vitamin B12. It smells like cheese and is a great substitute for things like parmesan. The nutritional yeast gives the pesto a creamy cheesy flavor and mellows out the garlic.
7. Taste and add salt or pepper if needed.
8. With tongs, mix the pesto into the pasta.
9. Serve with crostini! (Crostini How To: Slice baguette and spread slices on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.)

On Nov 6, Chris & I got married.

We had an all vegan budget wedding on a rooftop lounge called Malverde (downtown Austin on W. 2nd street). The interior design and architect duo who worked on this space are pretty incredible and this saved us from decorating and paying for decorations! We had a private ceremony at 5pm and the reception was from 6-9 (at the same place). The lounge is overlooking downtown, behind us is the W hotel. On the day of the wedding, we discovered that the street was shut down for a dog festival! Chris and I LOVE dogs. After the ceremony, we stepped out on a private back patio for a quiet moment and celebratory drinks. We could hear so many dogs barking up and down the street! It was like hearing a million "best wishes" from our canine friends. The lounge was a great way to save $$. It isn't a "wedding venue" - instead of imposing a huge hourly fee and deposit, we simply set up a drink minimum! We bought everyone drinks, brought in our own vegan cake rom Mr. Natural and vegan (homemade) Mexican Pan de Polvo, too. The chef made us 3 different salsas to go with their house made chips. We thought we couldn't afford our dream vegan wedding, and almost gave up on the idea of a celebration so many times. We eventually realized that we didn't want a typical frilly wedding. We wanted a party. This realization helped us cut so many unnecessary corners like chair covers, sashes, table cloths, centerpieces, etc. We kept the food light, the drinks flowing and music playing. Our entire wedding was around 1,300.00. We achieved our dream wedding and still had enough to put towards our business (which was our #1 priority during planning). I have several tips on how to have an awesome budget wedding and can't wait to share those with you in a future post.

The night before the wedding, my mom, chris's mom and chris and I stayed up all night making boutonnieres, bridesmaid bouquets, my bouquet and other arrangements.

The wedding: (It might be easier to just check these out on FB)

ALBUM PT 1:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28412&id=100001030148385

ALBUM PT 2:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28415&id=100001030148385

The flowers:

boutonnieres (eryngium thistle, sage that smelled amazing and twine)

bridesmaids bouquets

This place makes the best drinks in town! Everything was vegan, top shelf best of the best. They made us our own sangria even! Since most of my older family members had a few drinks and called it a night early; we and our guests were left to reach the bar minimum! we drank A LOT! Oh, we danced our butts off, too.

Our favors? Heart glasses! They make every point of light (candles & street lights) turn into hearts! At the end of the night, everyone was wearing their glasses and checking out the city from up above.

We just launched our website. You can now order jars and cases at food-for-lovers.com!

How presale works: Order now through July 9th. On July 12th, we're shipping them all out!

Right now, presale is only open to US residents. I'll update once international shipping is open.

Hi everyone!

Long time no talk. I have lots to tell you and very little time.

First, Chris and I are having a blast wedding planning and getting ready for our big party. In the midst of all this, we launched Food for Lovers. You might be thinking "what's that about?"

Food for Lovers is the name of our vegan food company. Remember our vegan queso? We had a meeting with Whole Foods and in July we'll be on the shelves in 2 Austin Whole Foods stores! This is extremely exciting for us. We found an amazing manufacturer who is as picky as we are about our vegan queso, and it's mass produced not even 5 miles from our tiny apartment.

We named our company Food for Lovers for a few reasons. We're animal lovers. We're food and health lovers. We love our planet, too. Since we're getting hitched here shortly, you can safely bet we love all these things as deeply as we love eachother.

We have beautiful labels lovingly designed by Chris and we received our nutrition facts a few weeks ago! Check them out:

We're starting with 2 whole foods Austin stores, but we aren't content to stay put in one spot. We will do everything it takes to get our vegan queso in your town. We're bringing you creamy spicy vegan queso that's soy free, nut free, fat free, cholestrol free, has over 50% less sodium than regular queso.

Speaking of which, our website food-for-lovers.com will have a presale starting this week. We'll let you know as soon as pre-sale kicks off. You'll be able to order jars of our very first official batch (not counting the several test batches).

I know it's been forever since I've posted, but it isn't because I don't appreciate all of the support. I have a really great opportunity to bring you a piece of what we're about (delicious food, family, friends and our absolute love for animals). We're moving fast with every resource that we have, scraping up everything we can and risking it all to make this happen.

We're excited for you to taste how far my little recipe has evolved.

This is one of those meals I make when we haven't been shopping in a week. I always have beans and rotel in stock.

It's simple, really:

Blackbeans + Tomatoes + Green Chilles + Spices = Delicious!

I thought I hated blackbeans for so long, but you know what it is? Some restaurants just don't cook them long enough (or properly) so they're hard.

With this recipe, I can put a big can of black beans on the stove to simmer while I walk away. It gives me a chance to make some rice, fix some veggies or make some tortillas. Once the beans are soft, I add in the rest of the ingredients and it's pretty much done.

I use the following as a guideline but deviate from it often. Sometimes, I add more comino or want to use up some onion and peppers. I just toss them in to saute before I start. Definitely use fresh garlic if you have it on hand. Saute whatever you can before adding the beans and you really can't go wrong. We ate this over rice, covered in hot sauce with some of our vegan flour tortillas.

Did you notice the mountain of fresh tortillas? I changed my flour tortilla recipe completely and it's so much better than the original I posted. Fluffier, bigger, more authentic flour tortillas. You definitely want to make these. They're really easy to roll out too.

Even better than rice, add these blackbeans to your salad!

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5 lb can Black Beans
• 1 1/2 cup Water
• 1 can Original Rotel (or any kind of canned or fresh tomatoes & green chilles)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Comino
• 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar (optional)

(Also optional: garlic, onions, bell peppers for sauteing)

DIRECTIONS

*If you want to saute garlic, onions, any other aromatic veggies do that before adding the beans to the pan*

1. Pour blackbeans + water into pan on MED heat.
2. Cook for 20 minutes (stirring once or twice)
3. Test 1 or 2 beans. Are the still hard or soft? If soft proceed. If hard, keep cooking.
4. When beans are very soft lower heat to LOW.
5. Add rotel in (or other tomato/green chilli substitute). Drain it unless you want spicier beans.
6. Add in salt, comino, garlic and stir. Taste often and adjust it as you like. Sometimes I like garlicy sometimes we add more cumin. Consider adding your favorite hot sauce as well.
7. Add in the red wine vinegar if you have it on hand.
8. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve.

I'll just reiterate how amazing this is with corn or flour tortillas with veggies or on top of your favorite salad. A squeeze of lime, your favorite hot sauce or a dallop of vegan sour cream would taste amazing with this.