Of all meals, brunch may be my favorite – if for no reason other than the huge selection of acceptable brunch foods. There’s the sweet, the savory, the simple and the outrageously decadent. Brunch every weekend is a little too much to ask for, though (but I can dream, right?), which is when waffles become the perfect Sunday treat. These come together quickly and don’t have that weird, tough, ultra-dense texture. But the star of the show is the blackberry maple syrup with a hit of lemon – it’s sweet, rich and bright all at the same time. Ideally served in a big stack on fresh white plates, with a pot of coffee nearby.

Sour Cream Waffles
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup milk or buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients. Beak egg yolks, sour cream and milk. Stir into flour mixture a third at a time, alternating with the cooled melted butter and oil until smooth. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into batter. Bake in a waffle iron, using about 1/2 cup (a few large spoonfuls) of batter. Makes 6-8 waffles, depending on how generous you are with the batter.

Blackberry Lemon Maple Syrup
1 12 oz. package of frozen blackberries
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp lemon juice

Cook blackberries and maple syrup together in a small saucepan until blackberries are thawed and maple syrup is hot. Mash the blackberries. Add lemon zest and juice right before serving.

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Do you ever have those days when you’re craving hot soup? For me, that’s pretty much my constant state of being. This weekend, I felt a serious need to make something new and deliciously savory, and I was aimlessly browsing Thug Kitchen’s website when I came across this recipe – and I knew what I was having for dinner before I even read the ingredients list.

Luckily, it came together pretty easily. Like most vegan food, there is a lot of chopping and vegetable washing to do, but once you do that, it all cooks up in one pot. And the end product is well worth the knife work – the broth is intensely flavorful with just the right amounts of spiciness and acid, and the vegetables cook just enough. (I served it with some vegetable spring rolls to round it out.) It’s definitely going to be one of my go-to comforting dinners this season.

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I’m not a big lunch person. Mostly I blame the fact that I don’t really know what to eat for lunch, so I stick to yogurt or leftovers most days. But a while ago I saw this post on Design Love Fest and was instantly inspired (and excited). That looks healthy! I thought. I can do that! So I did, and I changed it around, and I’ve eaten it about four times already – and it takes a little less than 15 minutes to make. It’s simple, fresh food at its finest.

For rice, I used a Minute Ready to Serve brown rice cup which is the perfect serving size (I have them stockpiled in my pantry). You microwave it for a minute and it’s perfect. I don’t even want to know why that works. I fill half of a giant bowl with rice (leftovers of any kind of rice would work well here), the other half with mixed salad greens, and throw about a third of a can of black beans on top (the other 2/3 means you can have this for lunch two more times!). Then I drizzle it with olive oil, throw on some sea salt, garlic powder (about 1/2 teaspoon), red pepper flakes, and chopped green onions, just because I had them on hand. Then top it with a poached egg (just gently plop an egg in a shallow pan of boiling water, then push it around for about 5 minutes – voilà! A perfectly poached egg) and enjoy!

Doesn’t that look like a party in a bowl?!

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I think writing this post got me thinking about Swedish things, like the traditional delicious pastries and cookies my family always makes at Christmas time. I was craving something similarly warm and sweet for breakfast this weekend, and remembered that I got a cookbook from IKEA a while back, so I found a recipe for cinnamon buns that sounded like just what I wanted. I mixed up the dough and filling the night before, and assembled them the next morning, which worked out perfectly and left the house smelling heavenly.

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