Lemon Balsamic Pear and Tahini Pasta

No recipe for this dinner. I was in the mood to make a lemon balsamic dish and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients:
1/2 onion chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pear sliced
1 cup mixed green lettuce
2 tbsp Lemon Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 pound whole wheat pasta
2 tbsp tahini
juice from 1 lemon
pecans optional

Heat your olive oil in large saute pan. Put onion, pair and garlic in the oil for 5 minutes. Then add in your lemon balsamic vinegar and keep cooking until you start to see everything start to caramelize. Boil your pasta while the mixture is caramelizing. Add 1 tbsp tahini to your mixture and your mixed green lettuce. When pasta is done, strain and add to the saute pan. Add the lemon juice and rest of tahini. Depending on how nutty you want it, you can add more tahini to your pasta. Add pecans if you'd like.

Enjoy!

Beet and Date Muffins with a Tahini Glaze

Came across this interesting recipe one night and thought to myself, how can that be good? BUT, I tried it last night and I have to say they are quite tasty! They are vegan and gluten free (the original recipe is, because I ran out of a few things and had to replace them.

The hardest part by far was shredding the beets. They were messy for sure!

Check out the recipe from Kitchen to Nirvana.
I did a couple things differently from the original recipe:

• Didn't buy enough of each flour, so used a cup of each flour and 1/2 cup of white flour
• Didn't have enough honey left, so only added in 1 cup of honey and 1/4 cup sugar
• Didn't have non-dairy milk for the icing, so just used regular cow's milk

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

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Easy Cannoli Cups

I really wanted to make cannolis for our Super Bowl party, but I couldn't figure out how to fry the dough into a circle, so I decided to make these pretty cute mini cannoli cups. They were quite a hit :)

For the crust:

Refrigerated store-bought pie crusts (2)

Sprinkle of sugar

Sprinkle of cinnamon

Flour for dusting

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle your pie crusts with sugar, cinnamon, and flour. Take a rolling pin and roll the sugar and cinnamon into the crust. Take your cookie cutter about 2 1/2 inches. Place in your mini cupcake pan. Keep rolling out until all dough is used. After placing into your pan, gently poke the bottom of the cups with a fork to avoid rising in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

For filling:
1 15oz. container of whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

In a hand mixer, mix all ingredients minus the chocolate chips for about 10-15 minutes until filling is soft and not grainy. Place in a zip lock or pastry bag and place in refrigerator. When pie crusts have been taken out of pan and cooled, fill them with your filling (cut a small opening from the end of your bag and pipe into cup), sprinkle your chocolates on top as well as some more powdered sugar. Make sure to keep refrigerated after filling.

Recipe adapted from Mini Canoli Cups from Lexbake