Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

For some crazy reason on Friday afternoon, after a morning of editing lots of photos, I decided that I wanted to make something fun for dinner that evening. I had gotten a new cookbook a month or two ago with a random giftcard I had, and I'd been meaning to make something from it. This cookbook is quite the hefty tome, so while I'd paged through it and read good reviews before I made the purchase, I hadn't really gotten into any of the recipes.

Over lunch I decided pasta sounded good, and this recipe looked perfect. I've been wanting to make my own pasta since forever, but have never gotten around to it, so I figured what the heck?

You guys. OMG. This was THE. BEST. DINNER. I have made ever. in my life. Both Alex and I agreed this was fantastic. I was thoroughly proud of myself after making all the pasta from scratch as well! Other then Christmas Ostrich, and I suppose orchestrating an entire Thanksgiving feast in a square foot Brooklyn kitchen, it's certainly one of fanciest dinners I've crafted. This is not an easy weeknight meal, but if you're looking to impress, or just spend some loving time in the kitchen, this dish is for you. It took me a good couple hours to pull this off, but the reward was well worth it. :-)



Butternut Squash Ravioli with Pecans  and Sage Brown Butter Sauce
Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison 
(Serves 2-3, about 14 large raviolis. However, I had lots of leftover filling. If you made more pasta and this could go way farther) 

Filling:
1 butternut squash
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbs butter, softened 
salt/pepper

Pasta:
2 cups flour
2 eggs
pinch salt
2 tsp olive oil 

Sauce:
6-8 TBS butter (I went for the full stick. Butter makes everything better. :-) )
2 TBS freshly chopped parsley
3 TBS freshly chopped sage leaves
1 TBS chopped fresh thyme 
1 shallot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced 
1/3 cup roughly chopped pecans (you can toast them if you like, I didn't)

Start by roasting the squash. Slice it half, scoop out the seeds, brush with olive oil, then roast cut side down on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 375 until tender, about 45 minutes.

While the squash is roasting, prep the pasta. I don't own a pasta maker, or a large enough food processor, so I made this stuff the old fashioned way, completely by hand with lots of muscle. :-) If you have the technology, go for it. But, if you're like me... On a clean counter or cutting board, place flour in a mound and then make a bowl in the center. Add the eggs and olive oil and a pinch of salt. Then using a fork and then gradually hands, gently fold things together and work in the flour. Keep kneading until all the flour is combined. Work the dough into a ball and then place in a plastic bag to rest in the fridge 10-15 minutes at least. After the dough has rested, roll it out as thin as you can get it. I did mine in sections so it would stay cool. Once it's rolled out, I used a small juice glass to cut out the ravioli circles.

 To make the filling:
Once the squash is roasted and cooled, scoop out two cups worth of squash. Beat together ( I used an immersion blender to get it nice and smooth) with 2 TBS butter and season with salt and pepper, then add in the cheese and bread crumbs.

To fill the ravioli, add a spoonful to a pasta circle, top with another, then seal with your fingers and a bit of water.

Cooking:

Sauce: Add the butter, herbs, and shallot and garlic to a deep sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, continuously stirring while the butter cooks. Continue to heat until it lightly browns. Once the butter browns, add the pecans and continue to cook another minute or two.

While the sauce cooks up, cook the raviolis in a pot of gently boiling salted water about 4-5 minutes. Drain carefully.

Add the raviolis to the sauce, cook another 30 seconds or two. Serve topped with freshly chopped parsley, a few extra pecans, and fresh grated cheese.

Enjoy with some tasty wine! Happy dining! :-)

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I thought I'd get a new recipe up here and have some other ones coming soon as well!

These enchiladas are from my friends Alex and Sonja, who if you don't follow their blog, really kids, you need to get on that!

This recipe makes a TON. We got a few lunches and two dinners for both Alex and myself out of these, which is hard to do in this house. And, it's super easy, cheap and extra healthy. WIN!




Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas
Adapted from A Couple Cooks

2 Sweet Potatoes, peeled and finely diced
1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 yellow onion, finely diced
8 ounces diced canned green chilies
1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 TBS cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
Jar of salsa verde or tomatillo salsa of your liking
Shredded cheese (some sort of mexican blend or cheddar works great)
whole wheat flour tortillas
sour cream for serving

Heat your oven to 350.
Cook your sweet potato... Place in a sauce pan covered with water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. 10ish minutes or so.
Cook the quinoa, 1/4 cup quinoa to 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer until the water is cooked away.
In a bowl combine the black beans, spices, onion, green chiles. Mix to combine. Once the quinoa and sweet potatoes are done, add those to the mix and stir everything together.
In a 13x9 baking dish, add about 3/4 cup of salsa on the bottom. Now add your filling, a spoonful of salsa and a bit of cheese to a tortilla, and roll it up. Place it seam side down in the baking dish. Continue filling tortillas until the dish is full. (I got two full pans out of this, 12-14 enchilladas). Add a bit more salsa over the top and sprinkle with cheese.
Bake in the oven about 20 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream!




Enjoy!

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!