I must confess...I'm a bit of a pasta addict. Really inconvenient when you can't have gluten, right? I try to balance the quinoa and rice pastas with spiralized veggie pastas and spaghetti squash so I don't binge on grains. When it's chilly out, all I want to do is curl up with a bowl of comfort food. I was dying for Cavallo Point's quinoa mac & cheese Monday night but didn't feel like going out, so I threw on some quinoa pasta to boil and in a small sauce pan combined shredded sharp cheddar cheese, shredded Parmesan, a couple spoonfuls of almond milk and a spoonful of ghee along with fresh chives, a pinch of nutmeg, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper over medium low heat to melt. Once the pasta was cooked al dente, I added the melted cheese mix to the pasta along with a little of the pasta water. Low and behold, I made the best last-minute mac n' cheese I've ever had and proceeded to eat all of it in one go. (For a similar recipe, try this.) Tuesday evening I was still jonesing for more pasta so I decided to make a side of it along with my favorite Parmesan chicken. I roasted a butternut squash (cut into cubes) with shallots and cooked up some GF spiral pasta and tossed it with a little Greek yogurt (a great healthy way to add creaminess to a dish), olive oil, ghee and a ton of parmesan along with the roasted butternut squash for the perfect autumnal side. Sometimes these thrown-together meals without a recipe are the ones that turn out best (and of course sometimes they are a total disaster, but it's always worth a shot!). You're not painstakingly reading every direction and fretting when you accidentally skip a step or realize you forgot to pick up one of the ingredients and trying to figure out what you can substitute for an egg yolk at the 11th hour so it's a much more relaxing and creative approach. I know that free-style cooking isn't for everyone however, so I've pulled together some delicious guilt-free comfort food recipes to keep you warm and cozy through fall and winter.

SWEET BREAKFAST POLENTA POTATO NOODLE BOWL WITH MANCHEGO, EGG & SERRANO HAM