Butternut Squash and Black Bean Tostadas

I recently discovered Naturally Ella's blog via my friends over at A Couple Cooks. So many tasty things!

I bought a butternut squash at the farmers market last weekend and had been looking for some new ways to use it, so when I saw this recipe, it looked just about perfect! The only thing I would change is to add more squash and increase the recipe a bit, it didn't make quite as much as I had hoped. Only enough for three tostadas, however, they were pretty hardy, so it worked out.

They turned out delicious! We'll be making this again for sure!



Butternut Squash and Black Bean Tostadas
Adapted from Naturally Ella

roughly 2 cups butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 yellow onion diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup diced bell pepper 
juice of one lime
olive oil
salt
.5 - 1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 TBS honey
tortillas (we used whole wheat)
goat cheese

Toss squash, onion and jalapeno with a TBS or two of olive oil, a bit of salt, and crushed red pepper to taste. Spread on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 425 for about 30 minutes until starting to brown.

Once the squash mixture has baked, mix in a bowl with black beans, lime juice, another TBS of olive oil, and 1 TBS of honey.

Place tortillas on a cookie sheet, top with squash bean mixture, diced bell pepper, and goat cheese. Bake another 5-8 minutes, until cheese is melty and tortillas get crispy.

Enjoy!

Fall Leaves!

Happy Fall!

I needed to take a quick break from editing yesterday and decided to grab my camera and take a walk around the neighborhood. I'm trying to be better about taking photos for me, so hopefully more fun photo posts to come.

This past week or even in the past day or so the fall colors in Vermont have absolutely exploded. It's amazing. Today I took the train down to the city for a wedding and just stared out the window for a good hour just marveling at how gorgeous everything looked.

I'm hoping to head on a bigger hike this weekend weather permitting, so hopefully lots more photos on the way.












Yes, this river view is in downtown Montpelier, this is just looking away from town. Vermont is a pretty fabulous place to live. :-)











Hope you're enjoying the season!

Vermont! The New Place!

The post you all have been waiting for I'm sure! :-) I've been crazy busy with the photo stuff, but figured I'd take a little break today to give you a peek into our new space up in the north country! We finally have mostly settled in and gotten most of the art up on the walls and such. There's still a few things left and the back bedroom still needs to be settled, but for the most part, it's pretty set up!

First off, I knew I was missing having space in Brooklyn, but holy moly I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to just have ROOM again. To have THREE closets! To not be a cluttered mess even when everything is clean is awesome. Also, since I'm working from home now most of the time, it's been wonderful to have such a sunny apartment to be in!



We're living on a nice little street just two blocks from downtown. It's been great as Alex takes the car most days, but I can still easily walk anywhere I need to go. The coop, grocery store, gym, library, stores, post office, whatever. They're all about a 10 minute walk at most.

Alex said one day that Montpelier is kind of like a cute little hippy Brooklyn neighborhood that got dropped in the middle of the forest. And I think that's about the best description ever.  The stores are all independent, lots of thrift shops and little boutiques, the restaurants are amazingly delicious, and there's a wonderful farmer's market on the weekends! All surrounded by amazing mountain scenery. It's seriously idyllic. Are you coming to visit yet?? :-)

Bedroom:



I LOVE how sunny our bedroom is. It's so great to work in during the day.


Seriously ginormous compared to our bedroom in Brooklyn.





Living Room:



I'd like a little coffee table, but Alex has been anti the idea for the time being. So for now, we have storage ottomans from amazon that have actually been pretty nice. 



I want to print some canvases to hang behind the couch!



Kitchen:


Sorry, the light is funky.


Electric stove, boo. But I'm making it work!



Bathroom:



Our bathroom is kind of silly big, but has the tiniest pedestal sink. I don't really get it, but whatever. I'm happy for the room!

Second Bedroom!!



Still not finished as you can see, and it's teeny. But hopefully maybe we can squeeze an air mattress or something in here if anyone stops over. For now it's mainly for drying laundry and storage. But it's great to have.



Next up I promise to have more recipes and a tour of the neighborhood and pretty photos. For now, stop over at the photo blog for views of my latest hike up a mountain!


 

Fun Times in The City!

So as our time in NYC is winding down, I have been on a quest to get as much city fun as I can before we head out to the Vermont countryside. We actually made a list of things to do in NYC before we moved here, and I have to say, we've done a very good job at knocking off most of them.

This past June in particular was pretty amazing in terms of awesome NYC things. I got to eat at two absolutely amazing restaurants, Momofuku Ko AND Brooklyn Fare. Seriously, these were two of the most awesome culinary experiences ever. If you have the chance, GO. Now.

Additionally, we had loads of fun with some sailing and trapezing! For Alex's birthday this year, I was at a loss for what to do. Then I saw a post on Cup of Jo on sailing, one of my favorite NY blogs, and knew I had found the event! Alex and I don't often exchange gifts, especially for birthdays, we're more "do cool things" over "get more stuff" sort of folks, so a sunset sail on the Hudson was perfect.



I had gone on a Circle Line boat cruise before around the harbor, but this was SO much cooler. I'm fairly certain it's one of my favorite things we've done in the city. I met Alex on 22nd street and 10th as a surprise and then we walked out to Chelsea piers. You can bring along a picnic, which I highly recommend doing. I stopped at Num Pang in Union Square (best sandwiches in NYC, no question) and also picked up dessert at Chelsea Market.



For the cruise they take you out on a gorgeous sail boat, one of the old school beautiful schooners. Our group was fairly small, maybe 12-15 of us on the boat, and our evening was perfect! It was a clear night, there was lots of wind for sailing, and there were even points where we were nearly at a 45 degree angle going around a curve. Super fun! Along with the picnic, they also serve unlimited drinks on board. Wine, champagne, and beers. While they say it's not meant to be a booze cruise, we never had an empty glass the whole 2 hours. :-)



I didn't bring my DSLR, but did manage to snap a few photos with my cell phone and with our little point and shoot camera. The views were gorgeous!






I love this one. The boat in this photo is just like the one we were on. 

Our second fun adventure was trapeze! Again at the suggestion of Cup of Jo, as soon as I saw it, I knew this was something I needed to do. SO MUCH FUN! I pretty much wanted to immediately join the circus. It was a deathly hot day when we went, but being on the water there was a decent breeze. And when you're flying through the air, we barely noticed it.









We learned a basic knee hang, a flip off the bar to dismount, and got to try a few catches. The instructors here were fantastic teachers and incredibly friendly. I would completely recommend this place to anyone coming to the city! I know I'll be back!

 



So hard to believe we only have about 3 weeks left! Get ready for loads of post from green mountains, as I'm hoping my free time will actually start to exist! Hurray! :-) 

Tempeh Sloppy Joes

Oh HEY blog. How's it going?

So when we were in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, ( yes, I know, I'm awful at giving you travel photos. I will do it sometime this year. PROMISE.) Alex and I went to this really cool cafe by our hotel for lunch and Alex had this fantastic sandwich. Afterwards I promised to give it a shot at home, and here's what I came up with! Alex devoured two of them, and the one I had was mighty tasty, so I'd say that was a success! Take that making up recipes!

Tempeh Sloppy Joes!

Ingredients:
 1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
approximately 1/4 cup grated carrot (I didn't actually measure, this is a guess)
5 garlic cloves chopped
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 TBS red wine vinegar (plus an extra splash)
1 TBS soy sauce (plus an extra splash or so)
1 TBS Worcestershire 
dash of red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp oregano
dash of paprika (a bit less then 1/4 tsp)
dash of cayene pepper
1 tsp brown sugar 
sea salt and a few grinds black pepper
1 tempeh cake
olive oil
Burger buns for serving, toasted
avocado and bell pepper, shredded cheese for topping

Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic to a frying pan with a bit of olive oil. Saute until softened. Add in the tomato sauce, vinegar and sauces and spices and sugar. Stir until well mixed. Cover and simmer over low heat 5-10 minutes.

While this sauce is cooking, chop up the tempeh and fry with a bit of olive oil in a separate pan about 5 minutes or until browned. Let cool until you can handle it. Then crumble into small pieces. Add the tempeh to the sauce mixture. Let simmer about 5 minutes.

Serve over toasted bread with toppings as desired. Enjoy!

Channa Masala

So, blog? How's it going?

I have been up to my ears this spring in photo editing and such, so this blog has sadly fallen by the wayside. However, soon enough, especially later this summer, I have high hopes to get on the more regular blog train! (This may or may not have to do with exciting announcements that involve states called Vermont.)

On to the food. Alex and I have pretty much given up cooking meat for most meals during the week. A. We've decided we're only consuming sustainably raised stuff. and B. it's turned out quite a bit cheaper to eat mostly veggie, which is lovely. and C. These veggie dishes are super quick and easy, and flavorful, which is awesome for a weeknight meal.


As if to prove how lazy I was feeling last night. I didn't want to grab my actual camera. Sorry for the cell phone photo!

I was in the mood for something Indian flavored last night, and remembered starring Smitten Kitchen's recipe awhile ago, so figured I'd give it a try.

I made this in like 25 minutes, which is great for any night of the week I think! It was fairly spicy, but pretty tasty! I'm betting on it tasting even better as leftovers, as I don't think it had quite enough to cook and let the flavors meld as we were mighty hungry! I was tempted to add some potato as well, which I might do next time.

Chana Masala
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

A bit of olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 hot green chili pepper, minced (we used jalapeno, as that's what we had)
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (I used more a heaping 1/4)
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes, (smaller diced is better)
1 bell pepper, diced
2/3 cup water
4 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon salt
juice of 1 lemon

Add onion, garlic, ginger and pepper and sauté over medium heat with oil until browned, about 5 minutes. Turn heat down to medium-low and add the coriander, cumin, cayenne, turmeric, paprika and garam masala. Cook with spices for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes with their juice and the bell pepper. Add the water and chickpeas. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, then stir in salt and lemon juice.

Enjoy!


We had ours over a bed of quinoa, but rice would be tasty as well!

Gado Gado

Remember when I had a blog? Sorry for the hiatus! Things were little crazy over here in December, and then we went to Argentina! Hurray! Photos and stories to come soon, I promise.

I haven't cooked a new recipe in awhile, a fault of the crazy schedule the end of the year held for us. However, this weekend I finally got to the library and picked up some fun new cookbooks. Alex has the tradition of often picking the strangest sounding thing possible from any menu (unless something has the word chiptole in it) and thus he instantly was drawn to this recipe for Gado Gado from a Moosewood cookbook. It's apparently Indonesian specialty and turned out really tasty!

It was pretty easy to make, you could totally alter it to suit whatever veggies you have in the house, and, most importantly, it was delicious. Clearly evidenced by Alex having THREE full plates. (Ah, the joys of keeping a hungry husband full. Someday I'll have leftovers again. :-) )

Gado Gado
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special

I halved the recipe that was originally in the book for the sauce, and mixed up the veggie portion a bit to suit our tastes and what we had in stock. The original recipe also calls for 2 TBS of lime juice in the sauce, which I completely forgot!

The recipe calls for this to be served on a bed of spinach or rice, we went for quinoa. I think cous cous would also be good!

Sauce:

Canola Oil (a few tsp)
1 onion, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/2 jalepeno or other chile, finely chopped
1 TBS ginger root, peeled and grated
1 cup natural peanut butter (the stuff that JUST has peanuts!)
1.5 cups water or veggie stock (I used half and half)
1/8 cup cider vinegar
1.5 tsp soy sauce
pinch salt
1.5 tsp brown sugar

Saute up the onions and garlic in a sauce pan with a bit of oil until softened. Add in the spicy pepper and cayenne and ginger. Cook for a few more minutes.

In a bowl, combine the peanut butter with about .5 cup of stock until blended, then slowly add the rest of the liquid. Once it's smoothly combined, add to the onion mixture. Stir in the vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and brown sugar. Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring now and then for about 10-15 minutes. If your sauce gets too thick, add a bit more stock until it's the consistency you'd like.

Veggies

2 small sweet potatoes, peeled, cut in small slices
1 small red potato, cut in small slices
1/3 cup diced carrots
1 cup bite size broccoli florets
1/2 cup cauliflower, bite size pieces
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
handful snap peas

I steamed all the vegetables in one big pot over a metal steamer. First, add the potatoes, steam about 7 minutes. Add the carrots on top and steam about 3 minutes more. Then add the broccoli and cauliflower and steam another 5 minutes. Add the pepper and snap peas and steam for a final 3 minutes or so.

Serve the veggies over a plate of quinoa, then top with the peanut sauce!

Enjoy!


(It's not the prettiest dish, but it's TASTY! I promise!)