End of Summer Food Photos

I'm excited that we've officially move on to Autumn now - I can't wait for cider doughnuts, stuffed squash, corn mazes, carving pumpkins, HALLOWEEN! But before we get to all of that I still have some photos from the summer that I was meaning to share!

Roasted Tomato Pesto Pasta (recipe) 

 Corn Salad w/ Avocado plus my standby - Kale salad

 Peach Cake - one of my favorite childhood desserts (recipe to come someday perhaps)

 Tomato, Corn, and Cheddar Biscuits

 Roma Tomato Bruschetta

 Pixel got a fancy new feeder (which didn't work right away - hence all of his food is in this giant bowl), I think he was in heaven for those few minutes.

 Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta

 Butternut Squash Chili (recipe adapted) - I skipped the jalapenos, used more chipotle peppers, subbed black beans for red kidney beans, and used 3 ears of corn (recipe mentions corn but doesn't list it as an ingredient). I also threw in a little molasses at the end.  :)

 Technically this is an Autumn photo because it was from breakfast this morning - Tri-Colored Quinoa Breakfast Porridge (recipe adapted). We used apples, dried apricots, pistachios, and pecans.

 Breakfast in Portland - Vegan Fried Chicken (tofu) and Waffles.

 Labor Day BBQ at our friends Patrick & Carrie's house - grilled corn and lots of salads!

 

Ok - not a food picture, but Pix looked pretty cute. 

 

 One of our weekend projects involved organizing all of our bulk foods that had been thrown into the pantry in the bags we bought them in. We put these mason jars to good use and printed out some cute labels to keep them organized!

 Here's the pantry now that we've organized a bit - it's still not perfect, but I think it's about the best we can do with the space we have!

Hope everyone is enjoying the first week of Autumn! I have lots of squash recipes waiting for me this weekend!

-C

Food Obsessions

The last couple of years have really opened my eyes to the world of food. I mean, I cooked in college - but it was kind of the same couple of recipes over and over... not that exciting. I was also a super picky child so there were tons of different foods I had never even tried until the last few years. Many of my new favorite foods are things I never would have dreamed I would love!

1. Kale - Who would have thought? Kale is definitely something I never even would have dreamed of eating when I was younger, now I absolutely love it. Kale salads were probably my favorite thing to eat this summer, and it's just as delicious in the fall and winter sauteed with caramelized onions and mixed with pasta, or creamed into mashed potatoes!

2. Sweet Potatoes - My only childhood experience with sweet potatoes was at Thanksgiving dinners when they were served with brown sugar and covered in marshmallows. That's not even entirely true because nothing in the world could have tricked me into eating  something that looked that disgusting, so I'd never actually had sweet potatoes but the association was bad. Now I wish I could eat them all the time - sweet potato enchiladas, sweet potato salads, sweet potato fries! Yum!

3. Squash - Again, the only way I was ever presented with squash as a child was when it was covered in brown sugar. I think I have an issue with people trying to trick you into vegetables by making them seem like some sort of candy. Gross. Also, I hated the texture of plain squash - it was so stringy! I still don't think I would like to eating plain spoonfuls of roasted acorn squash, but I have learned so many new ways to use squash! Butternut squash lasagna, roasted delicata squash, squash stuffed with wild rice and vegan sausage!?

4. Tomatoes - I know, that seems like a weird thing to hate, but I did. I mean I liked pasta sauce and salsa and what not, but I always hated fresh tomatoes. It's the one thing I really remember my mom growing and I loved going out to pick them - I would even try eating one every now and again to see if I liked them, but I never did. I don't know what changed, but now I think tomatoes are great!

5. Mushrooms - I had an unfair hatred towards mushrooms when I was younger. I never actually tried one - they just seemed kind of gross and creepy. To be honest, I still kind of think mushrooms are creepy, but I also think they are delicious. There are still many kinds I've never tried but it's fine to experiment with the different varieties you can get at the farmer's market and a plain old grilled portobella or stuffed crimini is always delicious!

There are still some foods that I just can't stand even now though - beets for one. Who wants to eat something that tastes like dirt? Maybe one day I'll learn to love even those though, we'll see!

-C

Blackberry Love

I'm a little late on this, but I figured I'd share nonetheless. One of my favorite things about the end of Summer is blackberries. A ripe blackberry may just be the best thing in the world. On the other hand - an unripe blackberry? Terrible! I was actually really disappointed with the blackberries that we received in our CSA box this year - they looked really nice, but truthfully they tasted awful.

I couldn't take the lack of delicious blackberries anymore, so Jonathan and I headed out to pick some of our own. Sometimes I really appreciate giant weeds taking over everything - at least when those weeds are blackberry bushes! We spent an hour or so picking out at a local wildlife reserve a few miles from here and ended up with a giant bowl.

Now I'm not the world's best pie maker - pies actually intimidate me a bit and it doesn't help that both my mom and grandma make some of the best pie crust ever. That's a lot to live up to. But I would do just about anything for a blackberry pie, so I gave it a shot anyway and it actually turned out pretty close to perfect if I do say so myself! I went with an all-butter crust (although I'd like to try a coconut oil crust sometime, I've heard good things) so that might have had something to do with the delicious factor. The only thing I would do differently next time is use more blackberries for the filling, but I can't really complain since it left me with plenty to make jam!

The pie wasn't actually runny either, even though this photo may make it look otherwise - I think that's just because I took the first piece out when it was still warm. The filling actually held its shape really well which made cutting pieces nice and easy!

Here is the recipe I used if you'd like to try a blackberry pie of your own!

Blackberry Pie
Crust:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
~1/4 cup cold water
Filling:
~6 cups rinsed blackberries (I think you could go for closer to 7, maybe 8)
1/2 cup sugar
Squeeze of fresh lemon
3 Tbs flour

To make the crust:
1. Pulse 2 cups of flour, the sugar, and salt in a food processor with the cold butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.
2. Add the remaining half cup of flour and pulse another couple of times.
3. Dump the flour/butter mixture into a large bowl and sprinkle with the cold water - use a spoon or clean hands to combine this into a dough that holds its shape.
4. Divide the dough into two equal halves.
5. Place one half on a sheet of parchment paper with a very small amount of flour - roll out carefully into a circle a few inches larger than your pan (this is where I usually get frustrated and decide I never want to make pie again - but stick with it, plus it doesn't have to look perfect anyway!).
6. Using the parchment paper to transport the crust, place it in the pan and carefully press the dough into the corners of the pan leaving the edges hanging over.
7. Repeat the rolling process with the second half of the dough.
8. Make the pie filling by combining all of the filling ingredients together - pour the filling into the prepared crust mounding it up in the center if it's a little too full (it will cook down).
9. Place the second crust over the top , trim off the edges, and then pinch the two crusts together making a decorative edge. Brush the top of the pie with butter and sprinkle with sugar - cut a decorative design in the top or just make a few slits to vent the steam.
10. Preheat oven to 425 - bake the pie for ~30 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 375, cover the pie with foil and continue to bake for another ~30 minutes.

Note: Make sure to keep a pan with a rim on the rack underneath the pie to catch drips - because it will drip and you don't want to set your oven on fire! Not that I've ever done that.... no really, I always catch it at the smoke detector alarm!  :)

**Crust recipe adapted from here, filling recipe adapted from here.**

Enjoy!!

Farmer's Market Dinner

Apparently Summer isn't the time that I'm best at keeping up with the whole blogging thing! We've been busy these past few weeks enjoying the end of summer, and to be honest I'm definitely ready for autumn to be here! I'm not much of a hot weather fan, and even though it was a relatively cool summer for us I still don't enjoy the 80+ degree days (and certainly not that one that nearly reached 100!).

This past weekend we headed up to Portland for a Harvest Dinner at the Montavilla Farmer's Market which supported Everybody Eats, a program that helps bring high quality, locally grown food to families who might not otherwise have access to it.

Our first stop of the trip was at a food cart that I fell in love with a few years ago and haven't had a chance to get back to since - Homegrown Smoker BBQ is an all vegan BBQ and southern comfort food food cart and it is delicious! I'd like to have taken photos of it, but for many reasons that was difficult to do. Let me just tell you that whoever thought of putting mac and cheese, bbq soy curls, baked beans, grilled peppers and onions all in a burrito had a pretty good idea!


After lunch we headed over to the Saturday farmer's market held on the PSU campus. It's one of my favorite markets - it's absolutely huge and there is so much to see and taste! It was pretty crowded around there though with the college students moving into the dorms plus it started to rain a bit so we didn't stay long (but long enough to buy some delicious peaches!). We filled up the afternoon looking at a few bike shops (details on what that's all about another time perhaps) and going to the Humane Society to look at all the animals! The Portland Humane Society is huge, but to be honest I like the one here in Corvallis better - I feel like you get to be a lot more personal with the animals here.


Ok - now about this dinner. It was wonderful! There was a vegan option as well as a meat option which was great for the two of us, the wine was supplied by a company that imports from small-scale sustainable farms in Italy and was delicious, and we even had nice company to chat with. I won't go into too much detail about all of the food, but I will share some of the photos with you of the different courses. Hope you enjoy them!


-C