Best Recipes from First Year of This Runner’s Recipes

Acorn Squash Pancakes

Happy Friday, everyone! What are your weekend plans? Is anyone racing? 

On Tuesday, This Runner’s Recipes turns one year old! Over the past year, I’ve developed several recipes (and, as you will see, experienced the steep learning curve of food photography—an art which I’m still learning). So, instead of sharing a new recipe today, I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate my blogiversary a few days early with a round up of some of my favorite recipes from the first year of the blog!

Readers’ Favorites

Roasted Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash (vegan, gluten free) is one of my post popular posts, overall, and stands out as my most popular recipe. This iron-rich side dish is simple to prepare and full of delicious fall flavors. This recipe was made after a butternut squash lasagna epically failed and I needed a quick and easy recipe to post. I’m still surprised how popular it is!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Butternut Squash

Cheesy Acorn Squash Pasta was one of the first recipes I posted and one of my first recipes to appear on FoodGawker. This autumnal meal is a healthy twist on traditional mac and cheese, with just a touch of decadence from the bacon. It’s easy to make vegetarian (just leave off the bacon)—although I will always include the bacon!

Cheesy Acorn Squash Pasta

Acorn Squash Pancakes (vegetarian) is one of my favorite recipes and my third most viewed recipe on the blog. Can you tell I love winter squash? These pancakes use mostly oat flour and can easily be modified to be gluten free. Seriously, you must make these. They put anything pumpkin to shame. 

Acorn Squash Pancakes

Oatmeal Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins (vegetarian) are a fluffy muffin bursting with fresh blueberries and dark chocolate chips and topped with a streusel crumble. The oats give them a hearty texture and make them healthier and more satisfying than your standard muffin, but it’s the flavor that truly elevates these muffins from good to remarkable.

Healthy Oatmeal Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

Chicken Tortilla Soup (gluten free) is a spicy soup packed to the brim with vegetables. This recipe makes me so excited for soup season! I love to make this soup the day after I’ve roasted a chicken, because I can use the remaining meat in the soup and boil the bones for fresh broth.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

 

Personal Favorites

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake (vegetarian) is my favorite dessert recipe I’ve made for This Runner’s Recipes. This lightened-up cheesecake tastes as decadent as the real thing, but it lower in fat, sugar, and calories thanks to the inclusion of Greek yogurt. The graham crackers I made for the crust were delicious on their own and phenomenal in the crust. 

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake

Baked Falafel with Garlic Tahini Drizzle (vegetarian) is a healthy alternative to fried falafel. Who else absolutely loves Mediterranean food? When Ryan lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, there are a tiny little Mediterranean restaurant down the street from his apartment that was the best Mediterranean food I’d had this side of the Atlantic. After German food, it’s probably my favorite cuisine.

Baked Falafel

 

Vanilla Cinnamon Swirl Bread (vegetarian) is a homemade, whole wheat version of cinnamon swirl bread. This sweet yeast bread is perfect for French toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or simple snacking. The post includes a photo how-to of making the bread. It would also be delicious with pumpkin pie spice for fall!

Vanilla Cinnamon Swirl Bread

 

Green Goodness Chia Oatmeal (gluten free, vegetarian) is a current favorite of mine. You know I love my oatmeal, and this recipe is so healthy, so tasty, so satisfying. As excited as I am for fall produce, I’ll be holding onto to zucchini as long as I can, in part to be able to make this oatmeal each morning.

Green Goodness Chia Oatmeal Gluten Free

Ryan’s Favorites

Best Pumpkin Pie (vegetarian) is Ryan’s favorite dessert on the blog. He loves pumpkin pie—it was his groom’s cake at our wedding! A slice of this pumpkin pie will take you straight to Thanksgiving, no matter the time of year. Also, someday I will learn how to keep the tops of pies from cracking.

Best Pumpkin Pie

Fudgy Chocolate Beer Cake (vegetarian) gives you a brief insight into how my mind works on a daily basis. Namely, how can I have my cake and eat it too, with chocolate and beer? I used a pumpkin beer in this cake, but anything you have on hand would be good, except IPA, which may be too bitter.

Fudgy Chocolate Beer Cake

Mediterranean Spiced Chicken with Brown Rice (gluten free) puts a flavorful twist on the staple meal of many runners. No more boring chicken and brown rice! The tahini adds some healthy fat, which rounds out this delicious dish as an excellent recovery meal. 

Mediterranean Spiced Chicken with Brown Rice

Cocoa Dusted Sugar Cookies (vegetarian) were one of the first recipes I made after poring over the stack of cooking books Ryan gifted me for Christmas. These large, fluffy cookies are melt-in-your-mouth good. Did you know that cocoa powder is good for the bacteria in your gut? All the more reason to eat these cookies!

Cocoa Dusted Sugar Cookies | This Runner's Recipes

Asparagus, Turkey, and Bacon Pizza is a protein-packed pizza that will delight your taste buds! The shaved asparagus is surprisingly delicious on pizza, and of course the bacon just makes everything extra wonderful. This is my favorite pizza I’ve shared on the blog, although I must say there are a few recipes in my e-cookbook that rival this one for my all-time favorite.

Asparagus, Turkey, and Bacon Pizza

Charlie’s Favorite

Simple Roasted Chicken and Spring Vegetables (gluten free) of course holds the spot as Charlie’s favorite. That greedy puggle would devour an entire chicken in ten seconds if we permitted such gluttony.

Simple Roasted Chicken and Spring Vegetables | This Runner's Recipes

 

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Questions of the Day:
When is your blogiversary?
What are your weekend plans?
Who else is hungry after reading this post?

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18 Responses

  1. It’s only a year old?!?! I had no idea! You seem like such an experienced blogger. Your website is perfect, your photos are perfect, your writing is on point. Nicely done, and happy bloggerversary! I started mine up in mid-December of last year (2014).

    1. Awww, thank you so much, Suzy! All of those mean so much to me! I have been blogging at other sites for over a year now, which did help me when I started this one. And can’t believe your blog isn’t even a year old – you’re such a fantastic writer and a pro at it!

  2. I love the idea of asparagus on pizza! I don’t know why I haven’t tried that before, but I absolutely need to now. And I have 100% printed your acorn squash pancake recipe… need to get on that ASAP! I’m totally hungry after this post… it’s only 9:54 and I think I need a snack 🙂

    1. Thank you! The asparagus on pizza was so surprisingly good! I hope you enjoy the acorn squash pancakes – re-discovering the recipe made me want them again so I asked for them for my birthday breakfast because they were so good! Have a wonderful weekend!

  3. Happy almost blogiversary! I’ve had my eye on those muffins for awhile now. Once I get moved and can cook again, I’m baking them!

    Gus would also eat an entire chicken if I let him. I caught him munching on these little green balls that fell off a tree in our backyard this morning :-/

    1. Thank you! I hope you enjoy the muffins when you make them! And Gus and Charlie have a lot in common. I think one of the most repeated phrases I say is, “Charlie, what’s in your mouth?”

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