Baking Season is Back!

This may or may not be a good thing. I do love baking but I actually think I may have a problem... sometimes I end up baking just to bake! My recent obsession with foodgawker has led to finding several new recipes, so this weekend I picked two to try out: White Spice Walnut Orange Cupcakes and Brie and Pear Tarts.

It's not often that I follow a recipe exactly, especially when it includes a seasoning that I don't think I like (such as cardamom) but I decided to give it a shot with these cupcakes. I don't often bake with eggs either, but I thought I'd really try to hold true to the recipe. To be honest? They were ok, but not fantastic. Sometimes I feel like I must be missing out on something great by not eating eggs in baked goods (i.e. typically eating vegan baked goods) but whenever I step outside of those restrictions I usually feel let down. Truthfully - I think eggless baking is just as good, and it creeps me out so much less!

The absolute best part of this recipe is the frosting though - it is absolutely delicious! Although I do recommend cutting the frosting recipe in half - I have no idea who would need so much frosting! I think I was pretty generous and I still had a bunch left with only half of the recipe! Next time I think I will just make vanilla cupcakes and use this frosting.

This Brie and Pear Tart was one of the first recipes I added to my favorites on foodgawker and I have been itching to make it ever since then. I don't have a real tart pan, so I decided to make two individual tarts with these ceramic dishes I have instead. I pretty much followed this recipe exactly too (other than changing the dimensions of the tart)! I used a basic butter pie dough (minus the sugar) for the crust, Willamette Valley Brie, and two different kinds of pears. I couldn't get mine to look as pretty as the picture in the recipe, but I think it turned out pretty well in the end! Next time I'd use a little less sugar (I skimped a little already with this recipe) and definitely more brie - the piece we bought was really kind of small for this recipe.

Hope I'm not alone in my baking inspiration now that the weather is colder! If you're in need of new recipe ideas I highly recommend foodgawker - such a fantastic way to browse!

-C

Officially Autumn

The changing of the seasons is my favorite time - it all seems so new and exciting again! I've had a bit of a cold for the past few days, but that hasn't stopped me from jumping into Autumn food mode (and hey - colds are kind of part of the season too, aren't they?).

Here's a few photos from the weekend. Stuffed delicata squash on Saturday - this time the filling consisted of a vegan Italian sausage, onions, wheat berries, kale, and hazelnuts.

 More stuffed squash! <3

Sunday breakfast was round two of the tri-colored quinoa - this time combined with wild pears, dried cherries, and pecans.

Speaking of wild pears - Jonathan has gotten really into searching out edibles around where we live. This weekend he make himself a fruit picker (basically a pole with a hook and basket on the end) and came back with this bowl full of pears, apples, and plums! The pears are amazing.

Sunday Night Dinner: One of my favorite soups - Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Apple Soup (recipe below), with homemade French bread, spinach salad, and apple cider.

 

 By the way - the apple cider was totally homemade too! Jonathan's coworker has an apple press and a bunch of apple trees and was kind enough to let us try it out. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the process because Jonathan though that 9:30pm was a really good time to try this out, so we gathered apples and pressed all of the cider by the light of a headlamp. :)  The cider is amazing though - we only got about 2/3 of a gallon but I really hope we can go back (preferably in the daylight) and try it again!

Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Apple Soup

(Adapted from here)

2 Tbs Butter

2 Tbs Olive Oil

3 medium Sweet Potatoes, peeled and diced

3 large Carrots, peeled and diced

1 large Onion, diced

1 (or 2!) Apples, peeled, cored, and diced

1/2 cup Red Lentils

4 cups Vegetable Broth

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp: ginger, cinnamon, chili powder, black pepper, cumin

1/4tsp cayenne 

1. In a large pot, combine butter and olive oil - saute sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and apples until onions are translucent.

2. Add lentils, spices, and vegetable broth. Simmer until potatoes are tender - about 30 minutes.

3. At this point you can either leave the soup chunky, blend a little of it using an immersion blender, or blend the whole thing in batches for a smooth soup.

Tastes like Autumn! Enjoy!

-C

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

San Diego - Pt 2

 Now that I'm a bit more rested I thought I would finish sharing about my San Diego trip with you!

On Friday we discovered that there was a farmer's market in Rancho Bernardo, which is not too far from where Sara lives, so we headed to that in the morning. At first it looked like we were just driving through a neighborhood - actually a retirement community! - and then out of nowhere we ended up at this small little village with a winery, tasting room, cafe, a few shops, and the farmer's market! I absolutely love our market here, but it was so neat to see all the different things they grow in California that we just can't quite grow here due to the cold and rain. Tons of citrus, avocados, almonds... even their berries were out already! We ended up buying stuff to make guacamole for lunch (4 avocados for $2!? It was crazy!) and I got a few tangelos because I couldn't resist their color, they were so beautiful!

We made the guacamole for lunch and stuffed ourselves silly before deciding to go on a mini winery tour before I left to spend the weekend with Jonathan. The first place we stopped was a little family run winery - Ferrara Winery. This was another place that seemed like we were going to the wrong spot since it was right in the middle of a neighborhood practically. We were the only ones there and the wine maker himself greeted us as we got out of the car - he was headed out to run some errands but told us that someone would be with us in the tasting room shortly. We headed in and soon after a woman entered and greeted us - she is the grand-daughter of the man who originally started the winery, it is her brother who now makes the wines and runs the place. She immediately started pouring us wines and telling us about each of them as well as telling us some of the history of the winery. They actually had several very sweet wines that I enjoyed, and I am not usually a sweet wine fan. Sara bought a bottle of the Demi Sec Muscat Alexandria and we headed off to our next stop - Orfila Vineyards and Winery.

This winery had a much different feel to it - for one it was huge. It looked very obviously like a company as opposed to the small family operated winery we had just come from. I was actually a little put off by it at first - it seemed cold and not very inviting, but in the end it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. They charge $10 for a set of six tastings and you get to keep your wineglass at the end. Not too bad of a deal really - especially since their taste sizes are fairly generous. I think we each ended up with an extra taste and a half too because one of the wines we asked about was actually not one that the server recommended he gave us a taste of it without it counting towards our total and another one we wanted they ran out of after pouring for only one of us, so we just split that one.

We ended up spending so much time here that Jonathan was finished with work and had to come meet us. That actually worked out really nicely because we bought some cheese and bread and took our last taste of wine outside to sit on the patio overlooking the vineyard. I can't believe I didn't think to take a picture of this because it was gorgeous with the sun starting to go down!

We said goodbye to Sara and then headed back towards downtown San Diego. We stopped in Old Town for dinner and spent a little bit of time walking around there - it was a pretty neat area but quite touristy. We ate at a Mexican place - not the most vegetarian friendly (lard everywhere) so I wasn't super thrilled, but the margarita was good! Once we got back to the hotel and dropped my things off we decided to head over to a dessert place I had read about nearby - Extraordinary Dessert. I did not anticipate the wait being almost 45 minutes for some dessert and coffee, but I convinced Jonathan to wait it out anyway! The place was very cute and their desserts were huge so one was enough for us to share. We had the Blackberry Cheesecake and some coffees.
I was really excited for Saturday morning because the Little Italy Farmer's Market was literally right outside of our hotel. We spent some time wandering through that - the market was gorgeous with a view of the ocean at the end of the street as you walked along. They had crafts and tons of food vendors along with the typical farmer's market fare - the things I was most excited about were sundried tomatoes and apricots and a red walnut that I had never seen before. Apparently there are only 5 acres of them grown anywhere! We hurried a little bit through the market so we could head to the San Diego Zoo before the crowds got too large.

I was going to wrap up the rest of the trip in this post, but since I'm being kind of wordy today I think I'll save the rest for another time!

-C