Garden freshness for lunch

Before.

After.

Yum.

Other goodies.

And good friends too. :)

broccoli rabe

This was fun. We'd never made them before. We grew them in the garden, so we were pretty excited to finally have a taste.

We lightly sautéed them and ate them just like any other traditional leafy green. :)

veggies for dinner

Baked sweet potato fries?

Artichokes?

Roasted acorn squash?

Carrot juice?

May sound interesting...but it was devine.

panini

oh yes. while leslie was here we also ate yummy things. in particular, we made these paninis with sweet potato fries.

cinnamon buns

a had a baking adventure and made these from scratch. and oh my they were delicious! 

i adapted this recipe.

We like root beer

World Market had a root beer sampler pacl a few weeks back. We decided the Americana and Bull Dog had the best flavor. Yummmm.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup (kinda)

Yum. I've recently found my new favorite (and go-to) food blog - 101 cookbooks. The author has won numerous awards and has a focus on wholesome, good-for-you foods. Plus, it's mostly vegetarian.

Last week Jonathan made this split pea soup and it was so good we made it again the next night. Today, my office mate Ashlea shared her experience making this broccoli soup (pictured above), so we tried it tonight. We modified the recipe a little - we swapped out the potatoes and used butternut squash instead. Also, we used extra sharp Vermont white cheddar, and only as a garnish.

I even took my own pictures, but I quickly realized that the lighting in our kitchen/dining room is not very condusive for pretty food pictures. At least not at this time of day. And lets be honest, I was too busy enjoying the soup to set up my lighting kit. :) Anyway, thought I would share. It's quite delicious and we can't wait to eat it for lunch tomorrow.

Get the recipe here.

Have a happy week!

:D

Peaches

Peaches are so good this time of year in the East. We bought about 25 pounds worth at a really good price. We blanched (to make peeling easier) and froze many then enjoyed the rest. 

Here, Audrey and I make peach crisp via a Williams Sanoma recipe. Delish!

Isn't she cute?

Peanut Sauce Bento Bowl

Yum!

Tonight we felt inspired to make something delicious.

I found this website, sproutedkitchen.com, and the entire site is beautiful. The lady who puts it together is married to a photog, so he takes all the pictures for the blog. I think I would eat almost anything on that site, just because it looks so beautiful. Ours turned out really pretty too. We'll make it again for sure, maybe next time for guests.

I think it's the best peanut sauce I've ever made. Sweet, a little spicy, and extremely creamy.

Click here to try the recipe yourself.

[photo by monika]

breaded zucchini

We planted zucchini from seed, and one month later we had these monsters (up to 18 inches in length)! Needless to say, I needed to find a way to cook these and fast. The next day happened to be the World Cup, so I made breaded zucchini for the masses. We invited friends over and piled into the tv room. We ate to our hearts content. Add ketchup and presto. Yum!

sunny days and life recap

I'm learning that warmer weather has changed all sorts of things me. For one, I have a hard time being inside when it's warm. Thankfully I now have a pretty window at work so I can gaze out at the sunshine or open the window to let some fresh air in. So here's the average day for me.

6 am: Alarm goes off, but I hit snooze because it's too dark (dang daylight savings time) to get up and exercise.
7 am: Hit snooze again, because my sleep was interrupted at 6, and I know that if I hurry, I'll still make it to work on time if I sleep for 15 minutes longer.
7:15 am: Roll out of bed and I become angry at myself for not waking up at 6 to exercise, and then again not at 7 because now I have to hurry. Ugh.
8:30 am: Arrive at work.
12:30 pm: Lunch time. I usually go sit outside in the park with friends.
5:15 pm: Decide not to go belly dancing because it's so beautiful outside. Convince myself that I can make it up by going to class another day.
5:30 pm: Head for home, roll down windows, and play music loudly as I rock out (via belly dance moves) to hip hop or country music in my car until I get home.
6:15 pm: Arrive at home.
6:16 pm: Jonathan and I go play outside until the sun goes down. Bikes, gardening (more on that soon!), rollerblading, walking, reading, etc.
7:45 pm: Sun sets and we head inside to make dinner.
8:45 pm: Finally eat. By this time we are usually starving, so we eat too fast and then collapse because we're so full. I realize this isn't the best idea, but at this point, I'm craving every ounce of sun possible and I don't even care. The winter was really rough guys. I'm SO glad it's warm again.
10 pm: We head for bed and end up talking and planning our adventures until about midnight. (We've recently realized that we have tend to have our best chats way after bed time on work nights. Silly us.)

So here's the problem with my chosen schedule. I'm not sure when to exercise because my body wants to sleep when its dark, and it wants to be outside when the weather is sunny and beautiful. I guess I'll have to save my exercise for rainy days. Haha.

However, even if the daily exercise hasn't really been working out, we've picked up another activity. Mountain biking! We've been mountain biking every weekend for the past month. Thankfully my friend Shannon, who's teaching English in Taiwan right now, has lent me her sweet bike. Who knew I'd enjoy such a thrilling sport? It tends to freak me out, but somehow I love it. Makes me feel alive. :)

Anyway, we've also been making some amazing food. We've been cooking every night and it's been delicious. (I'm telling you Spring is fantastic). Recently we made calzones from scratch. Ooooh yum. Here are some photos:

I highly encourage making calzones from scratch. We put spinach, feta, garlic, onions, and mushrooms in ours. The crust was from a bread recipe I'll attach in another post next time Jonathan makes some. It's a piece of cake and he has become the master bread maker. It's pretty fantastic. 

Anyway, happy Spring everyone! Go out and play in the sun a little!

caludron tofu

I ♥ Tofu. I really do.

Today I was looking around at beautifully designed packages and I come across this. BAM. Tofu and intentional design. Cauldron also makes a variety of other things like falafel mixes, mushroom burgers, sausages and more.

Of course it's a UK product, however they have tons of recipes on their website and lots of tips and tricks to cooking tofu. Check it out here. And now I'm really hungry.

pear & goat cheese salad

Yum. Just looking at this salad makes my mouth water. Does lettuce do that to anyone else? 
I'll think we'll have this for dinner tonight.


To make it:

Pear & Goat Cheese Salad [serves 4]

Greens
2 pears, sliced
1 cup crumbled goat cheese
Salt
Pepper

Dressing

6 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon mustard

Place the greens on plates and add pear slices and goat cheese.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Whisk together oil, honey and mustard and pour over the salad and serve.

[image and recipe found via my new favorite blog Sweet Paul]

chocolate giveaway

Who wouldn't want to enter a giveaway for some yummy free chocolate? Visit the fabulous Love and Olive Oil to enter. Husband and I may have to stop by Olive and Sinclair Chocolate in Nashville next time we're in town.

Happy Monday!

[Image via Love and Olive Oil]