Sweet Potato Sheperd's Pie

Sorry for the long delay - hope you all had a wonderful holiday and happy (almost) new year!

This is from quite a while ago, but here goes:

 Cast of characters:
-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and steamed
-3 T coconut milk 
-6 carrots, peeled and sliced
-1 onion, chopped 
-1 can hominy
-1 cup corn
-1 cup peas
-1/2 can of low sodium mushroom soup
-1/2 cup milk

1. Roast carrots and onion at 400 for 20 minutes.
2. Combine carrots and onion, hominy, and other veggies. Pour combined soup/milk mixture.
3. Mash sweet potato with coconut milk. 
3. Pour vegetables into pie plate, and top with mashed sweet potato.
4. Bake at 350 until bubbling. If you are patient, using the broiler to try to brown the sweet potatoes a bit wouldn't hurt ;).

 It's not the most beautiful meal I have ever made, but it made a LOT, and it was perfect for a cold day.

Hope you have a wonderful time ringing in the new year! 

Cranberry Muffins

Cranberries have always been one of my favorite things in baked goods. This may be thanks to my mother's cranberry cake, which has held my #1 favorite fall/winter dessert ever since I can remember. Either way, cranberries are good by me. So I couldn't resist when cranberries went on sale after Thanksgiving, and I made these muffins:

Cast of characters:
Muffins
-2 c. flour
-2/3 c. sugar
-1.5 tsp. baking powder
-2/3 c. milk
-4 T. butter, melted
-1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 egg
-2 c. fresh cranberries
-Spices - i added 1/2 tsp cinnamon, some cloves, and some nutmeg


Streusel

1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 T. butter
2 T. light brown sugar

1. Mix dry ingredients together. Add in butter, vanilla, and eggs. Fold in cranberries.
2. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way, top with streusel topping (blended together, of course).
3. Bake at 350 for 17-19 minutes.

Hope you have a lovely weekend! 

Chicken Enchilada Soup

Cast of characters:
-2 cans no salt added tomatoes
-1 can green chiles
-1 can enchilada sauce
-2 cups low sodium chicken broth 
-1/2 pound black beans, cooked
-1 cup frozen corn
-1 pound chicken breast 

-4 T Neufchatel
-1 potato, steamed

To garnish: 
-cheddar cheese
-cilantro
-corn tortillas
-avocado


1. Spray the chicken with a bit of olive oil, and some chili powder. Bake in a 400 degree oven until cooked through, then shred with forks.
2. Add black beans, tomato, enchilada sauce, corn, and green chiles, along with the chicken. Simmer for a bit, then take a bit of broth and blend the neufchatel and potato with it, then add back to the soup.
3. Add chili powder, salt, and pepper to taste.
4. Chop cilantro, slice avocado and tortillas. Shred cheese. Eat! 

And a shot of Gertie's birthday celery for good measure.  One of these days I will hopefully get a good video of her, but her eating celery makes both Robin and I laugh out loud. Every time.

Gertie is 2!

It is nearing finals. At least that's my excuse for not posting. I will work on a post about Chicken Enchilada soup, but now  I give you a snoozing Gertie:

Today our sweet girl is 2. Hard to believe we've had her for a year and a half. It seems simultaneously like it can't possibly have been that long, and like I can't imagine our house without her. So today, here's to a puppy who I find to be one of the coolest pups around. Happy Birthday, G!

P.S. I can't seem to keep up with anything lately. Today, I am mostly grateful for a sweet puppy. Thirty days aren't going to happy, but today I am also grateful for: 
-Sixty degree days for running with our puppy
-Good coffee in the morning
-Delicious Indian food (thanks parents!)
-Bedtime

A Simple Soup

I normally like to make spicy soups, blended soups, or creamy soups. But this soup reminds me about how delicious simple can be. I had a friend from my program who had her gall bladder removed, and consequently needs to be on a low-fat diet for a while. Spicy also seemed like a bad way to go, so here's what Robin thought I should title "gall bladder soup". I made a ton - 2 meals for us and several for them.

 Cast of characters:
-Cauliflower, cut into florets
-4 sweet potatoes
-A dozen or so carrots
-Onion
-Black beans
-3 cans no-salt added tomatoes
-4 cups vegetable broth (or four cups water and a tiny amount of vegetable bouillon, as I did)
-Garlic powder and black pepper, to taste


1. Roast the cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, and onion. Keep in mind I made a LOT of soup, so adjust accordingly if you'd like a normal amount of soup.
2. Cook black beans (I got sufficiently motivated to use dried beans this time!) Once I cooked the vegetables and the beans, I chopped the veggies up and put everything in a pot to cook the following day.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, and boil for a bit.

So there you have it: gall bladder soup. We really need to work on our creative process to concoct some better names over here ;).

Gratuitous Gertie shot for good measure:

Hope you have a lovely week! 

Butternut Squash Lasagna

Otherwise known as "Cheesagna" if you are Mr. C. This may have had something to do with my emphasis of cheese in getting him to eat it, as opposed to the butternut squash and spinach.

Regardless, this is not a health food. But here goes:

Cast of characters:
-1 box of lasagna noodles (I used the no-bake kind, because anything with too many steps scares me)
-1 butternut squash
-1/2 bag frozen spinach
-Mozzarella cheese
-Low-fat cottage cheese
-Basil, garlic, etc. 

For white sauce:
-3 T flour
-3 T butter
-1 cup milk

1. Roast the butternut squash. Apparently you can do this whole? I never have, but let me know if it works. because my life would be a little bit better if I never had to hack through a butternut squash again.
2. Make the white sauce (bechamel if you're fancy): cook butter and flour as a roux, add milk. Thanks Dad for teaching me that so many years ago: I finally succeed at white sauce.
3. Scrape out the butternut squash when it is cool enough to touch. Mash with 1/2 bag of frozen spinach. 
4. Mix cottage cheese with basil, garlic, and whatever other spices you might want.
5. Assemble the lasagna, adding mozzarella as you see fit. Finish with the end of the white sauce and some mozzarella.
6. Bake covered at 350 until for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and cook another 15ish.

As a toddler, I take Mr. C. as an authority on taste, and he asked for more. As you can tell from the ingredients, it is dairy heavy. And just generally heavy. But pretty good nonetheless.  

Sorry for only one picture, but hey. Hope your week is going well!

Apple Cake

I love pretty much all apple-based desserts. However, this recipe had a couple of key attributes that made me extra excited: no slicing the apples in any sort of pretty fashion (as I have to for a decent looking tart), and I got to use my "tube pan" (previously known as "angel food cake pan" as I had never made anything else in it). I used this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Smitten Kitchen.

From Smitten Kitchen:
6(ish) apples
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 T baking powder
Dash of salt (or 1 tsp if you are following her recipe)

1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs


1. Chop apples, mix with the cinnamon and 5 T sugar (I used less, but it probably should depend on how sweet your apples are?)
2. Combine sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla, and orange juice.
3. Add combined mixture of flour, baking powder, salt.
4. Add eggs, one at a time.
5. Pour half of batter into greased pan. Top with half of apple mixture. Add remaining batter, then top with the rest of the apples.

 6. Bake at 350 for approximately 90 minutes, or until tester comes out clean (mine took longer...)

It takes a while to cook, because it is quite thick. Mine could have used a couple less minutes in the oven, but it was still good. And unlike a lot of cakes, even better the next day.


8. Sunshine.

9. Apple cider.

10. Promises of holidays. Especially in my current academic world, I look forward to a bit of a break at Thanksgiving and a real break at Christmas!

Now back to proposal writing. Hope you all have lovely weekends!

Roasted Vegetable Soup with Dumplings

It's no secret that I love soup. And I love roasted vegetables. So of course I love them together. I saw this recipe a few weeks ago. I modified several things, mostly because I didn't have all the ingredients.


Cast of characters:
-Carrots
-2 colored peppers
-Sweet potato
-Onion
-Vegetable broth
-Large can of tomatoes

For dumplings:
-1 cup flour
-2 tsp. baking powder
-2 T butter
-1 egg
-milk (I used a bit less than half a cup)
-Fresh rosemary
-Dried basil


I roasted the vegetables at 400, then added them to a large can of tomatoes and blended it all together. I added vegetable broth until it was about the thickness we wanted (thinner to accommodate some dumplings).

For the dumplings, I just cut the butter into the flour/baking powder mixture, along with the herbs. Then I added an egg (based on a helpful commenter from the Kitchn as a suggestion for better holding the dumplings together), and milk until it's a stiff dough. Drop spoonfuls into the soup,
simmer until cooked through (how one knows this eludes me, because even cutting one open doesn't really answer it, but we simmered for about 15 minutes and they tasted done).

What I am most excited about with this recipe is that I can make it with just about any roast-able vegetable. And Robin and I both love dumplings, which doesn't hurt. It didn't photograph the best, but trust me. It was good. I think it might even be my favorite I've made, mostly because it was a little different than my usual soup variations. 




5. I am thankful for a cute little house, in a neighborhood I love living in.

6. Green space. This city does an impressive job of it, and walking almost every day in my favorite park is my favorite.

7. Free speech. Though I struggle sometimes, at the end of the day, I am grateful that I got to cast a ballot yesterday, and that we are all entitled to say what we think. Most days anyway ;)

Warm Quinoa and Beet Salad

A simple weeknight meal for us - more exciting things coming soon I promise.

I love this because you can use leftovers, and adapt with whatever you have. I roasted  some yellow beets and brussel sprouts - the beets I just wrapped in foil, and the brussel sprouts I added a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I added the tomatoes to the oven for just a few minutes at the end. Everything tossed with a little more vinegar, a teaspoon of honey, and some garlic aioli.

We ate it warm the day I made it, and cold as leftovers the next day.

4. I am grateful for a partner who makes me laugh. Who eats what I cook and says thank you. Who takes care of our puppers and me. Who cleans and tinkers. Who is up for new adventures and new activities. For all of that and so much more, I am thankful.

A Few Not-Really Recipes

Graduate school became real again this week, hence the cooking but not the posting. But I promise I have a couple of recipes coming up. We were sort of slackers, since last weekend we had our friend Steve in town, resulting in some meals out rather than in.

Still, last week we had a couple of great meals, but they weren't really recipes. First up: my very first experience roasting a whole chicken.
We bought a whole (small) chicken at the Farmer's Market. It took a couple of days to thaw in the refrigerator, but then I just rubbed it with a bit of canola oil mixed with pepper, diced rosemary, and a little salt. Then we baked it at 450 for about half an hour, and 375 for another hour or so.

So simple, but so delicious. It gave me faith that one of these years, I will be capable of a celebratory bird for company. 

A couple of days later, I used the leftovers for some chicken soup:
Carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, orzo. And chicken. 

Finally, with Steve we made some chard and red pepper omelets. Onion, a bit of chipotle pepper, and sharp cheddar cheese. Num!



And finally, some pictures of a weekend with Steven:



So there you have it: three things I made last week, that don't really count as recipes. Next time, I will have some real recipes, I promise.

Finally, in honor of November, I am aiming for a second-annual month of thankful. Because focusing on the positive can't be a bad thing. Today, I am thankful for:

1. Long-lasting friendship. Having friends who take the time to come visit us, and are up for anything, makes me feel so lucky.

2. A crazy puppy who, while she drives me crazy sometimes, makes our little house even more a home.

3. Fall in St. Louis. It is pretty impressive, and other than the homework (which will not exist last year), it makes me happy to live in St. Louis.

Sweet Potato Patties

My love of sweet potatoes is nearly boundless. Any time I can try sweet potatoes in a new way I am usually excited. This was a new take on veggie burgers, though as you can see I ended up making them more like falafe. I based it off of this recipe. Some days I am inventive and actually make things up, but my skill level isn't high enough for novel ideas myself.

Cast of characters:
-2 to 3 sweet potatoes
-1 onion, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, diced
-1 cup beans (I used garbanzos)
-2 Tablespoons tahini
-2 Tablespoons maple syrup 
-Curry powder and cayenne, to taste
-1/4 cup flour
-Panko breadcrumbs 

1. Peel and chunk sweet potatoes, and roast in a 400 degree oven until soft.
2. Combine sweet potatoes, beans, onion, and spices.
3. Add tahini, maple syrup, and flour until the mixture is relatively thick. It will be pretty sloppy for burgers, but it worked out ok. If it's really too mushy, add some more flour and some breadcrumbs to the batter.
4. Flatten into patties (we did small like falafel and larger like burgers), and roll in breadcrumbs.

The other blog pan-fried them, but I opted to bake - 400 degrees and they took about 15 minutes. We waited for some hint of brown on the breadcrumbs.

We ate these with avocado on our favorite homemade pita recipe.

Hope you are having a lovely fall week where you are!

Sweet Potato Chorizo Chili

It is embarrassing how long it has been since I have posted anything. Consistency apparently escapes me. But last weekend we had a lovely time with family, and have a few fun meals we've made. First up: Sweet Potato Chorizo Chili.

I tend to like any meal I can cook in the crock pot, particularly on weeknights. So this was no exception: prepped the day before, turned the crock pot on low before I headed to work, and it was done by the time I got home!

Cast of characters:
-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
-1 large can diced tomatoes
-Pinto and Black beans (I used canned this time)
-1 large white onion, diced
-4 cups vegetable broth
-1 pound chorizo, cooked
-1 green pepper, diced 
-Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt and pepper to taste - I added 1.5 tsp. of cinnamon, and just a dash of nutmeg.

-Cilantro, yogurt, and cheese for serving 

All of the ingredients ended up in the crock pot all day, except for the chorizo, which we added right at the end.

And I didn't take photos like I should have of the chili, but here's a few other photos from the weekend:

Cake for Robin and Jeff's birthdays

A lovely walk in the park

Hope you all are enjoying this lovely fall weekend!

Carrot Soup and Homemade Pita

Get ready for soup - lots and lots of soup. Fall has officially arrived in St. Louis: leaves, sweater-worthy temperatures, and soup. First up, with carrots, since we got a bunch of free carrots from an event when my parents were here.



Cast of characters:
-Lots of carrots (approx 2 lbs), peeled and diced
-6 cups vegetable broth (or cheater substitute)
-1 large onion, diced
-1/3 cup coconut milk (or more to taste) 
-Cilantro, chopped
-2 cloves garlic
-Salt, pepper, and cayenne


1. Saute the onion in the pan, until brown.
2. Add the broth and carrots, simmer until reasonably soft.
3. Add garlic, cilantro, and spices.
4. Blend to desired consistency (I left some pieces to avoid feeling like baby food).
5. Add coconut milk, warm until heated through.

Note: I don't really have any idea how much liquid I want at the end to make the consistency right (since I don't really know what I'm doing ;) ), so when I'm using the immersion blender I always take some liquid off first and add it back in at the end if I need it.

We ate this with homemade pita bread from this recipe. Game changer. It is so amazing and SO EASY! Here it is:

1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons yeast (I used instant yeast, but supposedly active dry works in the same quantity?)
2 1/2 - 3 cups all-purpose flour
Salt (calls for 2 tsp., I have used little if any)
1-2 teaspoons olive oil ("optional", but most savory things are better with olive oil)

1. Add yeast to warm water, dissolve (~5 minutes)
2. Add 2.5 cups flour, salt, and olive oil. Mix until it resembles dough.
3. Knead 5-7 minutes, until it is "smooth and elastic", adding flour as you need.
4. Coat ball with a little olive oil, place it back in the bowl, and cover with saran wrap until doubled in size. It says 1-2 hours, but I have stopped it 30 minutes and had it doubled already. Maybe with the instant yeast?
5. Deflate, and roll out pieces to desired thickness. I have made about 9 with this recipe, but that is for really little ones.

For cooking, you have two options. We've done both.

1. Cook on a hot cast iron skillet sprayed with a bit of olive oil. Let cook about 30 seconds one side, flip, cook 2 minutes, flip again. It's done when there are some brown spots and it (hopefully) puffs.
OR
2. Preheat oven to 450 with pizza stone (or cookie sheet) inside. Cook pitas for about 3 minutes, or until they puff a little.

Ours have rarely gotten super puffy, regardless of which way we make them. But the dough is not super dense, so they aren't like the previous wood-like discs I have made. Just light and delicious. You can save the dough in the refrigerator too! If anyone has any recommendations for better puffing, let me know. Even with marginal puffing, these were amazing.

Hope you have a lovely fall day where you are!

Mr. C Turns 3!

I meant to post earlier, but the week got away from me. Last weekend Mr. C turned three (gasp!). We had a beautiful weekend, complete with pizza in the park, a lovely walk, a dinner outside, and of course some Ted Drewes. The only food of note I made is a cupcake train for Mr. C's birthday. I will copy the recipes later, but I made apple cupcakes from here, this recipe cut in thirds and made into chocolate cupcakes, and this caramel buttercream for frosting.

Looking forward to another lovely fall weekend! Just a bit more homework between now and then...

A Red Meal, and Apple Mango Crisp

This isn't really a recipe. But I love lentils. And it seems obvious, but lentils cooked in veggie broth are a whole different experience.
We at them with beets sauteed on the stove, and tomatoes and corn.

Num. But does anyone successfully cook red lentils without them getting a bit mushy? I can successfully cook other lentils, but red lentils not so much.

And since that's not really a recipe, how about some Apple Mango Crisp?

Ok so this is not rocket science. But next time you are making apple crisp, add some mango. Num!

Cast of characters:
-3 granny smith apples, peeled and sliced
-1/2 cup frozen mango (mine was from Trader Joe's), defrosted. I'm sure it would be even better with great fresh mango but I live in St. Louis and it's September.
-1 T lemon juice
-1 T sugar 
 
-1/2 cup white sugar
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1 cup flour
-1 stick butter, diced
-dash of cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients together. Blend in butter with a pastry blender. Set aside. Grease pan, and add apples, mango (diced into smallish pieces), lemon juice, and sugar. Top with crumb topping, and bake at 350 until brown.

I'm sure everyone has a favorite crisp topping, but this is thus far my favorite. Mostly (ok exclusively) because I don't need a recipe to make it. And if you're only making an 8x8 pan, you can halve the recipe!

Caramelized Apple Grilled Cheese

I love fall saturdays. I love them even more when they involve a trip to the farmer's market, the dog park, and coffee on our porch. There's a grilled cheese stand at the farmer's market, and last weekend they had a grilled cheese made with caramelized apples and goat cheese. Num!

We have now tried it out with two cheese options - first with goat cheese:

 and then with cream cheese:

On a fresh Companion bâtard, of course.

To make them, I just caramelized apples in a saucepan with a little butter and sugar, plus a little lemon juice. Then I lightly buttered the outside of the bread, and put cream cheese/goat cheese on each side, along with caramelized apples. Certainly not a health food, but a pretty great Saturday brunch, along with a muffin from one of our new favorite places, Pint Size Bakery:

 
Gertie likes September saturdays too:

Hope you have a lovely weekend! 

Relatively Ordinary Mac and Cheese

This Mac and Cheese was titled "revolutionary" here, and with a few tweaks it might be, but not this time. The "revolutionary" piece comes in it's preparation: the noodles are cooked in the milk, which becomes part of sauce.

Start with 2 cups of dried noodles (I used medium shells). Bring to a simmer in ~4 cups of milk. Cook 20-25 minutes, or until noodles are cooked as you'd like. Remove from heat, and add 1 cup cheddar cheese, and a bit of mustard (this part they were spot on about). I also added garlic powder and cayenne, along with some Tony's.

I think the key to actually making this revolutionary would be a greater amount of patience (shocker, I don't possess it ;) ). More routine stirring to prevent sticking at the bottom of the pan, and adding the cheese after the pasta is completely removed from the heat for a couple of minutes. I had turned the burner off but not moved it, and as you can see from the photos, my sauce broke. From my preliminary google search, it seems that happens when it's too hot...anyone else have any great tips how to avoid this blunder? (Dad?)



A very exciting post I know...a fairly flopped recipe. But that is what's cooking around here, and if you are one of the 5 people who read my blog, you've probably come to terms with that.

Hope your week is lovelier than this mac and cheese!

Southwest Squash Soup

It feels like fall. In the best way. This weekend, that meant jeans. And tea. And roasted squash soup. I based it off of this recipe.

Cast of characters: 

-2 butternut squash

-4 cups vegetable broth

-1 large can whole, peeled tomatoes 

-1.5 cups frozen corn

-1 bunch kale, washed and torn into pieces

-Cream cheese (I used approximately 1/3 of an 8 oz. brick of Neufchatel) 

-2 cloves garlic (or in my case, cheater frozen cubes from TJ's) 

-Cumin seeds, cumin, cayenne, Tony's, extra garlic powder 

-Quinoa, to serve it with (if desired) 

 1. Roast the squash. I halved them, scooped the seeds out, and roasted them face down on a cookie sheet for 50 minutes at 350. I read somewhere that you can actually roast them whole, so I may have to try that sometime! Also, if I didn't have a homework-full Sunday where I was home, I would have probably boiled them in the broth for time's sake.
 2. Toast the cumin seed in a bit of olive oil, then scoop roasted squash into pot. Add can of tomatoes with juice and the 4 cups of broth.
3. Bring to boil, then blend together (yay immersion blender). If I had been thinking, I would have taken out about a half cup of the blended material at this point.
4. Add kale, frozen corn, garlic, black beans, and seasonings.
5. Blend together the cream cheese with the removed blended soup. (Again, yay immersion blender).
6. Add cream cheese mixture to soup, mix together.

If you are healthier than me, you could probably do no cream cheese. That was my original plan, but it seemed to be missing something. Also, this made a LOT of soup. So if you aren't obsessed with a desire for leftovers like I am, you could halve this.

Robin approves. Not so much of me taking his picture, but of the soup anyway.  But I had to show off his fall-worthy attire:

And a couple of Gertie shots for good measure:

 Loving some scritches:

Hope you had a lovely fall weekend as well!

P.S. Have you seen the recipes tab at the top? If I ever actually make anything exciting, you could get to it!