Guest post at Missing Lovebirds!

Hello all! It was a busy weekend and I have a busy week ahead (a writing workshop and a friend's film premiere, among other things) but I wanted to make sure that you didn't miss out on the guest post I did for Elanor's lovely blog while she's on vacation. I decided to share a recipe that I like to call the "chatwich." It's delicious, and even better, it's really simple. Click on the image above to see it!

Also coming very soon (hopefully, hopefully): the long-awaited redesign of the blog. The header is finished and I can't wait to share it with you all!

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your week. Do you have anything fun planned?

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Dressipes: Holy Pizzamole!

Happy Saturday, everyone! It's kind of a gloomy and rainy one here; the perfect sort of day for curling up with a good book and a cup of tea. Today's book of choice: the Hunger Games! I know, I know everyone's obsessed with it - but the premise really intrigues me, and I can't wait to start it.

But before I get to my little date with the book and some pomegranate green tea, I'm beyond delighted to share this recipe with you all! I must say that I can't take the credit for the original idea; my mom came up with it on a whim one day when she needed to come up with a dinner with what we had on hand. The end result has become a family classic. The best thing about it (well, besides the fact that it tastes awesome) is that you probably already have many of these ingredients in your cupboard already - and even if you don't, it's endlessly customizable.

I give you: Holy Pizzamole! 

Ingredients

Basic:

- 1 pizza crust

- 1 can of refried beans (my favorite are the refried black beans - I just used regular this time around, though)

- 2 avocados OR 2 packs of guacamole

- 1-2 tomatoes, chopped

Optional:

- cheese (I used Daiya vegan cheese)

- mushrooms

- onions

- spinach

- black beans

- spices (pepper, basil, cilantro, prepackaged guacamole spices, etc.)

- whatever else you like on pizza!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Open the pizza crust and put it on a baking sheet.

2. Open the can of refried beans and spread it across the crust. To ensure more even heating, you may want to heat up the beans before spreading them, either in the microwave or on a saucepan.

3. If you're using pre-made guacamole, spread that on top of the refried beans now. If you're using avocados, remove the pits, scoop the insides into a bowl, and mash them. Mix in some spices or herbs if you like (I recommend cilantro!) Then, spread the mixture on top of the refried beans.

4. Now you can add your toppings! You can really add as many as you like - just keep in mind that you will probably need to adjust the bake time accordingly. For this pizza, I added tomatoes, black beans, and Daiya vegan cheese. I recently tried spreading baby spinach leaves on top of the avocado before adding the rest of the toppings, and it was incredible!

5. Once your oven is preheated, pop in the pizza and wait! I left this version in for 20 minutes, since it was a thin crust. If you're using a thicker crust or have a lot of toppings, you may want to leave it in for longer.

 The finished result:

6. Once it has cooled down for a few minutes, slice it up and enjoy!

Here's the outfit I came up with to coordinate with the pizza - the "dress" part of "Dressipes"! I never thought I would open my closet and say "I wonder how I can dress more like a guacamole pizza"...but such is the life of a style blogger.

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Dressipes: Orange Cream Vegan Dream

dress, collar, belt, underskirt: vintage | shoes: Charlotte Russe

I've been looking forward to this post for a very long time! Welcome to a new feature on The Joyful Fox: Dressipes.

This idea came to me while I was writing this post. I had discovered that I had a tendency to dress in the colors of some of my favorite foods, or I would find that I started to crave a food that corresponded to my outfit (like blueberry pie). Eventually I realized that I might as well start embracing it - and Dressipes was born! Each Dressipe post is going to have an outfit, but it's also going to have a little bonus: a recipe that coordinates to the outfit. It combines two of my favorite things - food and style. It's a fun challenge, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

   

This edition of Dressipes was kind of spur of the moment. (It's more fun that way, don't you think?) I bought a juicer a while back, and hadn't been using it nearly enough, so I bought a huge bag of oranges. My original plan was to make plain orange juice, but Chris and I kept throwing in more things, and...well, I'll just get to the recipe, shall I?

Orange Cream Vegan Dream

Ingredients:

- 4 oranges

- 3 apples

- 2 carrots

- 1 banana

- almond milk

Equipment:

- juicer (or blender, strainer, and cheesecloth)

1. Peel the oranges and break them into fourths (it doesn't need to be exact). Juice them.

2. Remove the cores from the apples, slice, and juice them.

3. Juice the carrots, and then peel and juice the banana.

4. When all the fruits have been juiced, stir the juice to evenly distribute the flavors. Then, take the almond milk and stir it in until the juice achieves desired creaminess.

That's it!

Variations:

- I know that not everyone has a juicer. If you don't, then of course I think you should get one (mine was cheap - only $35 at Aldi!) so you can enjoy fresh juice often - there's nothing like it. However, you should still be able to make this recipe in a normal blender. Just blend all the fruits together and then strain the pulp out (you may want to use layers of cheesecloth and squeeze to get the most out of it).

- You can play with the fruit ratio to get your desired flavor. 4:3:2:1 is delicious and easy to remember, but if you're missing one ingredient, it shouldn't be a big deal!

- This recipe would probably work with a different milk substitute, but I think the creaminess of the almond milk makes it a perfect fit. I used the Silk vanilla almond milk.

- I haven't tried this yet, but when it gets hot out again, I plan to freeze this to make creamsicles. Mmmm...

So there you have it - the first edition of Dressipes! If you try this out, I'd love to know how it works out for you. I hope you enjoy it! Do any of you out there have juicers? What's your favorite juice recipe?

photos by Chris

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