15-Minute Pumpkin Butter

November 5, 2014 by Britt 1 Comment

I have always been a big fan of pumpkin butter. Its silky smooth spiciness just sings of fall. So I can’t say why exactly, until about a month ago, it had been years since I’d had any.

Thankfully, my dad’s fiancée put pumpkin butter back on my radar again. When we were visiting, she pulled a jar from the fridge at breakfast. I stirred a little into my oatmeal and fell in love all over again. As I was enjoying the familiar, warmly-spiced spread, I did something that I typically do. I started thinking, Hey I could make this. In fact, I’m going to make this when we get home. No, you know what? I’m going to make a healthier version of this when we get home.

And so I did.

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Buffalo Chickpea Dip

November 3, 2014 by Britt 13 Comments

The Sports Center alerts constantly buzzing on my husband’s phone, followed by groans of disappointment over the status of his “fantasy team”, tell me that it’s football season. The holidays and the food-filled gatherings that accompany them are also fast approaching. Both of these make for good excuses to throw together the recipe that I’m about to share with you, but, truth be told, you don’t need an excuse. For the love of everything that is right and good, just make this recipe.

Buffalo Chickpea Dip, guys.

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Moroccan Chickpea Stew

October 16, 2014 by Britt Leave a Comment

The first time I made this stew was one of those days where I looked up and realized that it was somehow, impossibly five-o-clock and I didn’t have anything planned for dinner. I began to panic and texted Chris to see if he might be able to bring something home. No response. He was probably in a meeting.

With dinnertime looming, I couldn’t just wait around and do nothing. The frantic fridge and pantry raid began. Almost immediately the three cans of chickpeas in our cupboard jogged something in my memory. I’d once made a Moroccan chickpea soup that was pretty decent and had called for three cans of chickpeas. Did I have everything else on hand? I found the recipe and confirmed that I did.

But….

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Pumpkin Spice Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

October 14, 2014 by Britt 1 Comment

Many exciting things of the nuptial variety have been happening in our families over the past few months: one of my cousins got married, two of my other cousins got engaged, and we finally received the call from my sister-in-law Amy telling us that her boyfriend had proposed! (Sorry for using the word “finally”, Jeff, but we knew you were the dude since, like, the day we met you, so we’ve all been waiting. 😉 ) Their wedding planning is well underway, and Chris and I are excited and honored to have been asked to be members of the wedding party.

I was also incredibly honored when my mother-in-law asked me to make a cake for Amy and Jeff’s engagement party. Chris’ aunt, a seasoned baker, would be making a regular cake already. We have a fairly significant list of dietary restrictions in our group, though, so I was tasked with producing a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free cake as well.

No problemo!

(Hindsight being 20/20, this cake should and could have been nut-free also, but I made it using homemade cashew milk. Apologies to the nut-free cousins!)

After a few inquiries as to what the guests of honor might enjoy, I decided on a season-appropriate pumpkin spice cake with a hint of cardamom and a vanilla buttercream frosting. Sound good? It really was. But before I get into how good this cake is, let me first tell you that this is apparently (thankfully) a forgiving recipe.

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Maple Green Chile Cornbread

September 26, 2014 by Britt 3 Comments

It’s officially fall. I can say that now without simply meaning that it’s “official” because I’ve had to put a sweater on before going outside for more than a week, my skin is getting a little dry, and we put our heat on the other day for the first time in months. Though maybe somehow those things count more than what the calendar says? Either way. It’s official.

I can also tell that fall has arrived because my mood in the kitchen has shifted. I’ve moved away from spiralizing zucchini into piles of raw pasta and more toward big pots of chili and smoky baked beans. Chris always teases me that I cook according to the weather. It’s true.

And why not? It feels good. A plateful of crisp, raw veggies is a light and refreshing foil to the heat of summer (I flirt hard with raw foodism in those dog days). Conversely, who doesn’t like to come in on crisp fall day, shake off the chill, and sit down to a bowl of something hearty and hot?

So it would stand to reason that I’d be serving up a hearty pot of goodness fit for fall, right? Nope! Instead I’m going to give you a sweet and savory sidekick for your own big pot of something.

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Homemade Almond Butter

September 18, 2014 by Britt 1 Comment

I may not be reinventing the wheel with this one, but it’s a staple around here and a method that merits mentioning—even though I’m decidedly not the first to do so. If you haven’t seen this party trick yet (or just haven’t gotten around to trying it out), get ready to save some money and impress all your friends, all while barely lifting a finger.

Homemade almond butter, people. Toss some almonds into a food processor, turn it on, let it run until you have almond butter. End of story. Goodnight!

It really is that simple, but let’s talk a little more about why you might want to make your own and all the wonderful ways that you can use this pantry staple.

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Green Smoothie of the Moment

September 12, 2014 by Britt 12 Comments

In April of this year, Chris and I bought our first home. We weren’t super well-acquainted with the neighborhood before we moved, but we were very excited that we would be living just one block away from a big park. We were even more excited when we learned that there is a greenmarket in the park every weekend and that the neighborhood CSA program’s pickup location is right next to that market.

Veggie-lovin’ jackpot! Before we even started packing boxes, I made sure we were signed up for the CSA.

We’d participated in our old neighborhood’s CSA a few times, and we loved the spirit of it as well as receiving a huge haul of organic produce every week, but our relationship with that CSA was a bit love/hate. The pick up location was more than a mile and half away without convenient subway access. While a 35-minute walk may not be such a huge deal, the 35-minute walk home loaded down with pounds upon pounds of produce in the middle of August was another story. It also didn’t help that the route passed through a pretty sketchy industrial area. Our solution to this problem was to rent a Zipcar each week to retrieve our share, which felt indulgent and totally negated the financial benefits of CSA participation.

A five-minute walk through the park to snag our veggies alongside a greenmarket sounded like heaven.

And it has been great! Those Saturday morning strolls feel sweet. We cruise through the greenmarket, stopping for a moment so that Roman can listen to the guitarist near the entrance and show everyone his awesome dance moves. Sometimes we grab lunch from Body and Soul, the vegan bakery stand with a nice gluten-free selection. Then we pop over and pick up our CSA share.

As anyone who’s ever participated in a CSA knows, the amount of produce you receive can be somewhat overwhelming. It took me a while to get back into the swing of using up all of our goodies (I totally forgot about freezing by the way! Next year I will definitely be freezing the things I know I can’t get around to.) but we’ve gotten into a good rhythm with the vegetables. I even used up all of our zucchini last week! The fruit has been a little trickier, though.

We usually receive two different kinds of fruit and will often get a lot of one of them. Early on we’d get quarts of blueberries. This was never a problem since they were sweet and wonderful; I’d eat a heaping cupful with breakfast every day and was sad when they stopped coming. Then, for a few weeks, we were getting dozens of little yellow plums. I dutifully ate as many of them as I could stomach before I’d had enough of wincing through the bitterness of their skins. Lately, we’ve been getting tons of little donut peaches….