It’s a Taga

September 22, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

Since yesterday was Zero Emissions Day and today is World Carfree Day, I wanted to sing my praises to our Taga. What is a Taga? This is a question I used to answer every day last year!

The Taga is a bike that easily folds up into a stroller and has a variety of attachments to let it grow with you and your kids. In my opinion, it is the ultimate cruising-around-town bike if you have kids, a bike-friendly neighborhood, and don’t want to travel by car. My mom bought one for us when Alex was born. We brought it to Boulder with us, and it was my dominant form of transportation during our first year here when we lived in town.

I have such fond memories of my first days in Boulder. Everything in the city was new to me, and I couldn’t wait to explore. Alex and I would hop on the Taga, I would pick a bike route and a final destination, and off we would go. As anyone who walks or bikes to explore a new place knows, you feel so much more connected and see more details than if you were in the car.

For us, having the Taga was a godsend because Alex hated (with a capital HATE) the car, so being able to do almost every errand by bike was amazing. I was so proud of myself on the weeks when we would get to Friday and I would realize that we hadn’t used the car once!

As you can see from the image at the top of the post, the Taga comes with a variety of options, the primary one being the kid’s seat that allows you to use it as a bike or stroller. This is what we had, and we always kept it in bike mode. The only downside is that there’s not a lot of storage space for lugging home groceries. To remedy that, we added a seat post mounted bike rack and a basket. That gave me plenty of room to bring home a few day’s worth of groceries at a time.

Of course, sometimes Alex would go for rides with Calder in a kid’s seat mounted to the back of a regular bike, but for everyday transport, the Taga was our favorite. When we decided to move into the mountains, I was so sad to say goodbye to those every-day trips. In fact, I really wanted to buy the double wooden seat for the two boys if we bought a house in town, because I had high hopes to keep our driving lifestyle to a minimum.

But alas, we’ve put our daily bike rides on hold in exchange for daily hikes up our backyard mountain. Not a bade trade, but I do have high hopes of the boys and I hopping on bikes again once they are a touch older. We can drive down the mountain with bikes, park the car and do all of our errands by bike (a girl can dream!).

In the meantime, looking through these photos brought back so many memories. Like trips to buy new shoes!

Going to vote.

Bundling up and driving a little bear cub around town on chilly days.

If you live in a town with bike paths and/or nice bike lanes, I can’t recommend the Taga enough. I mainly stuck to the paths because in Boulder we were lucky enough to have them running right by our house and to all of our favorite parks and shops. I took it on the street a few times, but always felt more comfortable with a little more distance between us and the cars.

By last spring, Alex was an old pro at hopping on and off of the bike. As you can see, he always made himself comfortable, often with his feet up on the handlebar. And eventually he learned that he could just reach his hand through the little sunroof whenever he wanted a snack or the drink bottle. What a kid!

The Taga worked so well for us, and whenever we were out on a ride, we would always get at least one compliment. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more in the US, particularly in such a bike-friendly town like Boulder, so with that in mind, we wanted to share our love on the blog today.

I know it can be hard to go car-free with kids, but we are such big fans that we want to encourage everyone to give it a try. If you can make it work, it can lead to even more adventures and moments of exploration for your little ones. We were always stopping the bike to watch construction sites, trains go by, and prairie dogs popping up from their burrows! Seriously great memories from our first year in our new hometown.

Butternut Squash Pasta

September 22, 2015January 18, 2016 by Katie | 1 Comment

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. Today I went crazy and threw out the pumpkin for a butternut squash. Hope you don’t mind!

Today’s recipe for butternut squash pasta is absurdly easy, and it’s something that I find myself making every fall to usher in the season of squash. Come fall, I always have at least one butternut squash on the counter, so that’s what I used today, but this dish would be just as delicious if made with a sugar pumpkin. If you currently have a few squash on the counter, roast two squash today, eat one with your pasta, and use the other for our roasted root and squash soup.

It’s been years since I’ve lived with roommates, and while sharing space has plenty of downsides, one thing I always loved was sharing the kitchen during meal times. I didn’t live in many situations where we actually shared meals (we were all on different schedules and often had different diets), but being in the kitchen while roommates were cooking often exposed me to new ideas, flavors, dishes, and stories. We all know it, time spent in the kitchen together is special, and it’s no surprise that guests/roommates/family will often congregate in the kitchen. This dish came from one of those random roommate moments in the kitchen.

It was my first year living in Boston, there was a fall chill in the air, and my roommate had just roasted a squash. He didn’t have a particular dish in mind, but while the squash was roasting, he was also boiling pasta. The squash came out of the oven, a lightbulb went off in his head, and he combined the two. I don’t remember what else was in his dish, but I remember taking a bite and loving the combination of perfectly cooked pasta caked in the sweet squash with a dash of salt.

Over the years, I’ve made some version of this dish every fall, and I’ve started to fall into a routine. I always slowly sauté the onions in some butter and olive oil until they are translucent, super soft, and amazingly sweet. After the roasted squash is added to the onions, I season it with a bit of dried thyme and garlic powder, and I use water from the cooking pasta to get a sauce consistency that is thin enough to easily mix with the pasta, but thick enough to stick in every nook and cranny.

Once the sauce is ready, I stir in the cooked pasta and season it with salt. Before serving, there’s one more, absolutely crucial step : add a bit of freshly grated parmesan. The nutty and salty flavor of the parmesan does something amazing to the squash and pasta combination. It adds a deeper flavor (maybe it’s a touch of umami?) that rounds out each bite, and will have everyone at the table finishing their plate.

And speaking of finishing plates, now that one of my roommates is a toddler and the other just got his first teeth, I love making healthy food that they devour. As all moms know, you can’t go wrong with pasta, but you don’t necessarily love giving them plain noodles. This, my fellow moms, is a winning vegetable main course with my boys (granted, baby Luc can only eat the squash).

We don’t have a formal recipe today, that would just ruin the experience of the casual weeknight meal shared by roommates hanging out in the kitchen after too many hours in the library.

Lemon & Herb Salt

September 17, 2015September 16, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

This past summer lemon was our ingredient of the season. We’ve created a dandy of an archive of lemon posts, and we’re still not done!

As September’s weather is straddling the line between summer and fall, we found that the combination of flavors in this bright and savory lemon & herb salt do the same!

While doing some canning at the beach, I noticed this recipe in a copy of Preserving by the Pint and was immediately excited to try it. I love fresh herbs and am always looking for new ways to preserve their flavors as the plants fade in our late-summer garden. On the other hand, it’s taken me quite a while to appreciate lemon flavor in my savory dishes. Thank goodness I’ve come around, because this chicken dish is something I would not have made a few years ago, but we had it again last night for dinner (it’s just that good!). What I’m getting at is that a few years ago, I would have turned my nose up at this simple seasoning recipe, and what a shame it would have been. This seasoning is simple to make and adds a flavorful punch to a variety of savory dishes, making creative weeknight cooking a breeze.

Preparing the seasoning requires just a bit of chopping and time. I did my chopping on a day when people were constantly coming in and out of the beach house, and every single person asked what was cooking and remarked that the kitchen smelled great. The chopping releases an amazing blend of aromas from the herbs, lemon zest, and garlic.

Once chopped, the mixture is spread out on a plate and left to dry for a couple of days. Since we were making this on the humid east coast in the middle of August, I put my plate in front of a fan to help with the drying process. If I were to make this at home in Colorado, the fan would be completely unnecessary because the air’s so dry. So use your discretion and help the drying process with a fan or warm oven if you’re in a high humidity environment.

Lemon & Herb Salt

Ingredients

zest from 4 lemons
small bunch parsley
3-4 sprigs of rosemary
3 garlic cloves
2 Tbsp coarse sea salt

Instructions

Wash the parsley and rosemary and remove the leaves from the stems. This can be tedious with the parsley, but do the best you can, and a few stems are fine.
Roughly chop the herbs. Add the zest and chop together with the herbs until well combined. Add the garlic and continue chopping. Add the salt, and... continue chopping until all ingredients are finely chopped.
Spread the mixture on a plate and allow it to dry for at least 48 hours. It should be completely dry, with no sign of moisture.
Store in a jar and use anywhere you would like to add a bit of flavored salt.

https://liveseasoned.com/lemon-herb-salt/

After the seasoning has dried, you can use it on any variety of dishes. One night we tried it on our roasted summer veggies, which were a combination of summer squash, onions, potatoes, and corn. They were delicious, but I didn’t *love* the flavor of lemon on the vegetables (can’t win them all!). The next night we sprinkled the seasoning on and in some fish freshly caught by our pop. I included a pat of butter inside each fish because they were on the leaner side. Our mom loved the fish so much that she made sure to confirm that I “took a picture for the blog”. Everyone loved the fish, and it couldn’t have been easier to make.

I have to admit that I never buy seasoned salt or herb mixes from the spice section. Instead, I sprinkle on the combination of individual herbs I want for any particular dish. That said, this seasoned salt was so easy to make, and it’s motivated me to experiment with the rest of the fresh herbs in our garden to develop a number of custom salts that will let me preserve those flavors and use them all winter long.

Alex’s Bedroom

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 by Katie | 1 Comment

Hey there! If you’ve been following along, you may know that Calder and I bought a house in March and moved in a week or so before little Luc was born. It could have been a crazy and hectic time, but all in all, it wasn’t that bad (really!). We were lucky that our new house was in great shape did not require any major work. In fact, the only thing I want to change about the house are the colors of the walls. The walls are painted shades of beige. It’s nice enough that we can live with them for a while, but eventually I would love to brighten everything up and paint most rooms white.

To give you an idea of where I’m going: between the mountain views outside our windows, the wooden trim and furniture, and eventual white walls, I’m feeling inspired my many of the elements common to Scandinavian design. I want to add pops of color with the artwork on the walls, the furniture and other elements that can easily be changed within the rooms. That said, we took a big risk and added a huge mural across one wall in Alex’s room. Luckily it turned out great! Today I’m going to share snapshots from his room and in a follow-up post I’ll provide a more detailed tutorial and tips about how we painted the mural.

Pumpkin Butter

September 15, 2015September 16, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

Pumpkins are our ingredient of the season. In the past we’ve sampled pumpkin brews, used them to make mini pumpkin pies, and have added the seeds to not one, but two, salads.

After seeing Sarah’s request, I couldn’t help but make pumpkin butter as the first recipe for our new ingredient of the season. I have made apple butter many times, this was my first attempt at pumpkin, and rather than use the crockpot, I decided to try an oven-based recipe. I’ve since learned that while they are both butters and methods equally easy and produce delicious results, pumpkin butter cooks up much faster than its apple counterpart! I used this recipe for guidance, but made a few modifications as discussed below.

For this recipe we’re skipping the canned variety and starting with a raw pumpkin. If you’ve never bought a pumpkin for baking, you want to pick up one of the smaller “sugar pumpkins” and not the big pumpkins used for carving jack-o’-lanterns.

Lemon Lemon Gin Fizz

September 2, 2015January 18, 2016 by Katie | Leave a comment

Lemon is our ingredient of the season. You still have time to make some of lemon popsicles for the weekend!

With hot and humid days in the forecast, this Lemon Lemon Gin Fizz is the perfect refreshing drink for your holiday weekend. Trust us!

Why “lemon lemon”? Because the recipe contains lemongrass infused simple syrup in addition to the lemon juice typically found in a gin fizz.

Species Spotlight : Argiope aurantia

September 1, 2015March 24, 2016 by Katie | Leave a comment

If you’ve been following along with our Instagram feed, then you’ve seen a few photos of the spider living at the beach house. We’ve all become a bit enamored with her and wanted to share more information. First a formal introduction, meet Argiope aurantia, common referred to as the black and yellow garden spider.

Even we can admit that she looks equal parts mesmerizing and scary, fortunately, she’s relatively harmless. She has no interest in biting humans, and would only do so if grabbed (although she would rather drop down from her web and hide). If she does bite, the result is said to be no worse than a bee sting. Did you get that? If you come across a garden spider in your yard, don’t worry, don’t scare her away, and definitely don’t kill her!

Two Bits

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 by Katie | Leave a comment

We want to break down these internet barriers and invite you into our lives and we’re hoping you’ll do the same. You are welcome to share a bit of your week or day in the comments, or if they’re better represented by a photo, tag us on instagram @liveseasoned.

Sarah here :

65 more hours until I leave for Nepal! Don’t worry, I’m not that neurotic, I only counted the hours for you guys. It seemed more exciting than saying three days. Thoughts on leaving? I look around and start to miss the littlest things from my everyday life like shrub drinks, grocery stores and really hot showers. Of course, I’ll miss the big things like my roommates a.k.a. my boyfriend and Catahoula_Cash, but overall I’m ecstatic and excited to begin this new journey. I have a couple of busy days ahead of me (I’m photographing a wedding tomorrow!), but come Monday at 5 a.m. and I’m off to the east. Can’t wait to share my adventures with you.

Katie here :

Beach!!!! The highs and lows of our past week in no particular order : sun, sand, water, mosquitos, creme-filled donuts, touch-tank at the visitor’s center, horseflies, 6:30am wake-ups, paddle boards, water sprinklers, teething, afternoon naps. Everything a good beach vacation should be.

We hope you’re soaking up this last weekend of August, and we’ll be back on Monday with one more week of summer fun before we turn our sights (and posts) to fall. xo

Species Spotlight : Bark Beetles

August 27, 2015March 24, 2016 by Katie | 4 Comments

Mother Nature : she can be so predictable, and its her reliable rhythms that we’ve come to depend upon and even appreciate. Organisms living and working together in ecosystems, cycling energy, recycling nutrients, cleaning the air and water, keeping things moving at the right pace so that there’s no build-up of waste. When these systems are working seamlessly and in sync, we simply notice is the beauty of nature, but when some thing throws the systems out of balance, that’s when we sit up and take notice. All too often, humans are the “thing” that threw mother nature out of balance, and it’s not until the damage is widespread do we realize the impacts of our actions. Today’s post is about just that sort of situation.

Bark beetles encompass a number of different beetle species that share similar life cycle characteristics, mainly that they all lay their eggs under the bark of different coniferous trees. As I’ll explain below, beetle activity can damage and kill trees. This often happens at a slow rate and is actually beneficial to forests: weak trees are killed, making space for healthy, young trees to grow. The “problem” occurs when bark beetle activity is happening so fast and so intensely that wide swaths of relatively healthy trees are also killed.

Roasted Lamb Shank with Fruit and Herbs

August 25, 2015October 16, 2017 by Katie | 2 Comments

Lemon is our ingredient of the season! Today we’re cooking up a savory dish, and if you like this, you may want to check out our lemon pasta and chicken with preserved lemons.

The night before leaving for our big trip east, I roasted lamb shanks as a going away dinner. We were going to be away from Calder for about two weeks, and in just a few more days, Sarah’s off to Nepal! So something special was definitely in order.

Since we loved the creativity and flavor of the chicken with preserved lemons, Calder said we should just make that again (it was that good!). Instead, I decided to test another recipe from the Tagines & Couscous cookbook, and I’m so happy to report that we hit another home run!

A nature-inspired lifestyle blog.

Author Archives: Katie

It’s a Taga

Butternut Squash Pasta

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. Today I went crazy and threw out the pumpkin for a butternut squash. Hope you don’t mind!

Lemon & Herb Salt

This past summer lemon was our ingredient of the season. We’ve created a dandy of an archive of lemon posts, and we’re still not done!

Alex’s Bedroom

Pumpkin Butter

Pumpkins are our ingredient of the season. In the past we’ve sampled pumpkin brews, used them to make mini pumpkin pies, and have added the seeds to not one, but two, salads.

Lemon Lemon Gin Fizz

Lemon is our ingredient of the season. You still have time to make some of lemon popsicles for the weekend!

Species Spotlight : Argiope aurantia

Two Bits

We want to break down these internet barriers and invite you into our lives and we’re hoping you’ll do the same. You are welcome to share a bit of your week or day in the comments, or if they’re better represented by a photo, tag us on instagram @liveseasoned.

Sarah here :

Katie here :

Species Spotlight : Bark Beetles

Roasted Lamb Shank with Fruit and Herbs

Lemon is our ingredient of the season! Today we’re cooking up a savory dish, and if you like this, you may want to check out our lemon pasta and chicken with preserved lemons.