Cleaning Day

Today was a cleaning day. A deep cleaning day. I spent 3 hours

dusting my living room (perhaps an over exageration, but it was a while).

Lately I've been feeling lackluster about our tiny 3 room (plus a closet sized bathroom) apartment. It's a charming little place, and I am thankful for it. I need to be more thankful though. So I cleaned, I straightend, I renewed my appreciation for this little place.

It may still be a little low on the spacious side, and I have a few more rooms to go, but

I realize that I need to make the most of where I am now instead of wasting my life

wishing for better days.

I really do love this little place, it's been good to us.

Recipe For Fall

Fall is here! The air is chilly and crisp, my pantry is full of winter squash of all types, and my first pumpkin of the season is baking away in the oven, and the smells of a pumpkin caramel candle is wafting through the house. Layering up and going for a walk with some hot apple cider sounds really lovely right now. Fall is bittersweet for me as we creep nearer to the icy winter months, but this season is my favorite.

One of my new favorite recipes this fall is butternut squash pizza. I had not heard of this delicious treat before, but am very glad I tried this one. You can find it here at this link. The only thing I did different, was I omitted the tofu in the cheese sauce, and I found that it was an unnecessary ingredient as the sauce was delicious.

Here is some photo play by play of the recipe. I made the dough first so it could rise, but forgot to take pictures. The dough in the pictures is made with a spelt crust which turned out really good. The first time I made the recipe I used organic unbleached white flour and it turned out great as well. For those with gluten allergies, just substitute a gluten free pizza crust, and when making the cheese sauce, use a gluten free flour to thicken. I would say try a sweet rice flour, and avoid a bean based flour as the taste might overpower the sauce.

Now here we go with the photos. First slice up some butternut squash and onion.

And in case you love vintage dishes as much as I do, here is my very first vintage Pyrex bowl. I only payed $1.60 for it!

Toss the onion and squash with olive oil and salt and bake.

Mix up some dried rosemary, salt, and red pepper flakes with some olive oil. Brush this on your pizza crust after you have rolled it out.

Spread on some "cheesy" sauce.

Evenly distribute the roasted squash and onion. I also added some pepper to the roasted vegetables before I put them on the pizza. I would recommend it as it really enhanced the flavors. Another suggestion I would have is to sprinkle some salt on the edge of the crust after you have brushed on the olive oil mixture. It makes the crust so good!

Add a bit more "cheesy" sauce before you pop it in the oven.

Here it is all baked and ready to devour! Drizzle on some of the leftover olive oil mixture before you serve.

Yum! I am really in love with this recipe. The flavor combination of the rosemary, roasted vegetables, and sauce is really very surprising! Let me know how you like this if you give it a try.

What do you love about fall? I would love to hear any extra love about my favorite season!

Healthy Snack of the Week

Today's post is short and sweet, and focuses on one of my favorite times to eat. Snack time! I will graze throughout the day sometimes, and usually eat something before bed or else I will lay there with a gnawing stomach. I know this isn't the healthiest practice - eating at night, but don't foresee myself giving it up anytime soon. So, I try to motivate myself to eat healthy snacks. If there is no motivation, please pass on over that bag of chips, or some cookies. Or if there is not anything to instantly gratify my snacking rampage, that bag of chocolate chips.

One of my old favorites is this light lemon pudding. Monday night I motivated myself to pull out the blender and whip up this quick satisfying snack. All that is needed is a banana, half of an avocado, and some lemon juice. Easy!

Here is the recipe.

Light lemon pudding

1 banana, roughly chopped (or 1 and 1/2 depending on how small your bananas are)

1/2 avocado, peeled and roughly chopped

juice of half a lemon

1/2 banana, sliced for garnish

1 Tbs or more unsweetened shredded coconut (optional for garnish)

Toss the banana, avocado, and lemon juice into a blender and blend until smooth adding water as necessary to help the blending process ( just be careful not to add to much water, therefore making it to runny). Pour into a bowl and top with banana slices and coconut. Enjoy!

variation: Use lime juice instead of lemon for a key lime like flavor.

Chicago Vacation

Wow, it has been over a week since I last posted. It's not that I haven't wanted to, life and busyness have just been getting in the way. Things are calming down now, so hopefully I can get into more of a rhythm with this blog.

Anyway, as was mentioned in my last post we had a mini vacation in Chicago. It was so wonderful to get away and just be with each other. It was pretty relaxing, but there are some things that we have learned that need to be implemented into the next trip. Firstly, get a hotel that is a bit closer to the subway line that we are going to be using the majority of the time. Secondly, be sure to have shoes that can hold up to the extra walking that will be done. I think those were the major lessons :). All in all it was a great trip, and in true food blogging fashion, I will share how we spent our days through the food we chose to eat.

We got off the train Thursday afternoon and headed to our hotel. Since we had not eaten lunch, we stopped by the Trader Joe's near our hotel and picked up some things to munch on. We relaxed a bit, ate, and checked out the cable channels that were available. We don't have cable at home, so the TV channels we get when staying in hotels is always a highlight. After some downtime we headed out to P.O.S.H. (a gorgeous store by the way, full of dishes and antique things) and then went in search of Indian food, and found a restaurant called Indian Garden I think. So delicious! Yum Yum Yum. Indian food makes my life all the more exciting. We had the complementary poppadoms and dipping sauces.

I choose my favorite Aloo Gobi, a potato and cauliflower dish cooked in spices served with rice and naan. Aloo Gobi is what I typically order at every Indian restaurant that I go to. Try as I must to branch out and try something new, I just can't resist it's charms.

Matt choose his favorite Malai Kafta which is usually vegetable dumpling type things in a creamy tomato sauce, but this time it was more of a cottage cheese based dumpling sans the usual vegetables. Not his favorite, but still delicious none the less. On exciting cooking news, I found a vegan recipe for Malai Kafta the other day and am thinking of trying it this Friday night.
The rest of the evening was spent chilling in our room. Friday we headed out to the Wicker Park area (one of our favorites) and went to The Wormhole coffee shop and to my great delight, they had vegan doughnuts! Of course we each got one with some coffee. Check out the Latte art. I must learn that skill someday! This coffee shop was great. It had old movie posters all over the walls and a model of the car from Back to the Future, as well as old video games all over. Even a TV to play them on.

Earwax cafe was the next stop for lunch before we walked the streets in search of good thrift store finds. This was my least favorite meal, due to my pickiness about the quality of lettuce I am eating. I know I overreacted, so the meal wasn't to pleasant for the both of us, but all in all, wilting lettuce aside, it was a good meal.

I had a veggie sandwich and a salad with raspberry vinaigrette. The dressing was amazing as was the sun dried tomato spread on the sandwich.

Matt had some crazy stuffed French toast. So he had mainly eaten sweets that day :). But we are on vacation, so no rules!

We did some shopping and I found a cute shirt. We then headed over to The Chicago Diner in the Belmont area. It is our favorite in Chicago. Always amazing food and desserts. I don't know what happened to these pictures Matt took, but I think the camera was on a different setting. Oh well. I had the black bean and quinoa tostadas with a green salsa. So so so good! I am wanting to make this at home sometime.

Matt had a black bean burger and sweet potato fries.

Dessert was carried back to our room, and I am still salivating thinking about it, and also must recreate this recipe. It was a peanut butter cookie cup filled with peanut butter mousse, and topped with chocolate ganache. Amazing! I'm thinking of trying to recreate it into a pie at home.

Saturday we headed back to Wicker park for the Renegade craft fair. It was raining that morning, so we walked a ways to get to the blue line (seemed so much farther in the rain and with my aching feet - the reason for good shoes next time we go). We stopped in at the Wormhole again for more coffee and doughnuts and then trekked the 15 minutes it took to get to the fair spot. Passing a subway stop that we could have got off at that would have put us right around the corner. Oh the irony, especially since we were miserable and wet. But as I stated later to Matt, if we had gotten off there, we wouldn't have had more doughnuts, so I guess it was a win win.

The craft fair was really fun, and it soon stopped raining, so it turned out to be a great day. We bought a couple things for ourselves, but mostly we picked up some Christmas presents for this year. We saw so many amazing things that people are making. It inspired me to want to start creating more.

Here is a beautiful hand powered music box. So pretty. I would love one in our home.

As for treats at the fair I had a chocolate chip cookie, and a spinach pie that was so good. We went back to the hotel for a little breather and then headed out to the French Market so I could order dinner at Raw. So delicious and I was so disappointed that I had forgotten my camera. I had an "egg salad" sandwich which was dehydrated sprouted wheat bread slathered in a coconut meat based "egg salad" with sprouts and grated carrots. It was quite good and the "egg salad" was quite convincing in my opinion. Matt and I also shared some coconut macaroons and this amazing tiramisu dessert. It wasn't at all like traditional tiramisu, as it was more like a pie. but oh was it delicious. It had a coconut cream on the top that was my favorite part, and espresso grounds in the cake part of it.

That same night we met up with Matt's family for dinner. They ate Italian and I ate my raw meal. It was good to visit with them but it was only for a few hours. We walked to Michigan Avenue and went to the Ghirardelli Chocolate cafe for some ice cream for Matt's sisters and then went with them to the American Girl store. I was so sad to find out that my favorite Samantha has been discontinued. So sad.

After they left to go back home we walked back to our room and hit up the hot tub for a bit, and just relaxed. Sunday we hurried out to catch the train home, and found out it was delayed, so we walked down a few blocks in search of this Thai restaurant we had been to previously. On our way we stopped by a sushi place that looked so good we ate there. Much to our surprise we think it was the same building as the Thai place, as it looked exactly like it. It was a great meal that truly softened the blow of our train delay.

Matt had some crab rangoon which he said was the best he had ever had.

I chose a vegetable maki roll that had sweet potato and broccoli tempura and avocado, and oh do I want some more. So good.

Matt had the sweet potato tempura maki as well.

Then we stopped by a coffee house to wait some more for our train, and then finally headed out for the long ride home. We left wishing that we could take some more days off and stay longer, but work was calling as Matt had to be in that evening.

So there you have it, our mini vacation. Hopefully it didn't bore you to much. Here is a photo of one of our purchases. A pretty silk screened pillow. I'll leave you with that.

Look at this pretty little apron. I absolutely adore aprons, and on Labor day Matt bought me this one to add to my vintage collection. What a sweetie! I am growing quite a little collection. My only sadness is that my kitchen is tiny and there is not much room to display the beauties. I have some ideas that I need to try, so perhaps I will be hanging them up soon.

Today is a good day. Vacation day! Soon we will be heading out to the train station to transport ourselves to the lovely city of Chicago. It will only be for a couple days, but we are looking forward to the break from normal life. These breaks are of upmost importance in my mind - a bit of refreshment. We do not have much planned, except for the enjoyment of relaxation. One thing that is on the schedule is the Renegade Craft Fair, which I am so thrilled about. More to come on our mini vacation!

Now for a little recipe.

Stuffed Cornbread

1 onion, diced

1 or 2 Tbs olive oil for sauteing

corn off of 2 ears of fresh corn or 1 and 1/2 cups of frozen

2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup whole spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

a couple shakes of salt

1 egg replacer egg

2 Tbs oil of choice

1 cup of milk substitute of choice, plus more as needed to make a nice batter

1 cup of cheese substitute of choice, grated

Saute onion in skillet with a bit of oil until translucent. Add in corn and jalapenos. Saute for a couple minutes more. Mix up dry ingredients. Mix up egg replacer in a measuring cup. Stir together wet ingredients in that same measuring cup and add to dry ingredients. Add more milk as needed. Stir in sauted onion mixture and 3/4 cup of the cheese. Pour into a greased 8 inch square pan and top with remaining cheese. Bake in a oven preheated to 350 degrees F, for about 30 - 40 minutes. Enjoy!

This recipe is an adaptation of this recipe from the blog Feasting on Art.

Good day

A good day equals ...

walks to the park for an hour of reading....

a simple meal with Diary of a Foodie.....

wearing an apron and baking chocolate chip banana bread....

finding exactly what you were looking for while antiquing.

I love days off!

On another note, we are loving fresh salsa as well these days, so it is sad that this lovely fruit is soon to be out of season. Here is the recipe I like to use.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

3 good sized tomatoes, or a bunch of little ones

1/8 cup of diced onion (or more or less depending on your taste)

1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped

olive oil

chili powder

cumin

salt and pepper to taste

cilantro, chopped

Chop of tomatoes and toss with onion and jalapeno. Drain off some of the juice if you want, I found mine to be quite runny. Drizzle on a little olive oil (not to much or the olive flavor will over power the salsa). Season with spices to your taste. I say heavy on the chili powder and lighter on the cumin. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on the cilantro and you are ready to eat. Enjoy!