Category Archives: recipes

German Apple Cake

by Katie | Leave a comment

Apples are our ingredient of the season. We started with a healthy juice, and today we’re indulging in a simple and delicious cake that comes together in minutes – perfect for a dose of mid-week baking!

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Nothing makes my day more than a request for a baked good from Calder and A.Max. This weekend they discovered the big apple tree that’s a few doors down from our house and heavy with ripe apples. The request: turn these apples into something, anything… Calder and I got to picking while Alex sampled.

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Fresh Apple, Carrot, Ginger Juice

by Sarah | 3 Comments

Apples are our ingredient of the season. Before falling down the rabbit trap of indulgent baked goods, we’re kicking of this series with a wholesome, homemade juice.  liveseasoned_fall14_applecarrotjuice-8

Now that apple season has arrived, I find myself juicing those little gems on the daily.  We have a whole host of apple beverages in store for you this season, but we thought we would start out with some fresh cold juice while the weather is still warm.  I never feel better than when I wake up and immediately make myself a big jar of juice and a cup of coffee.  It’s 1 part routine, 1 part you’re doing yourself a favor-if you know what I mean.  I’m also not a big breakfast eater, so juicing allows me to fuel my bod without munching too early, which I almost never have the appetite for.

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Ridiculously Easy Fish Tacos

by Katie | Leave a comment

The title says it all. These are so easy, it’s almost like you didn’t cook, except you do make the slaw, so that counts for something. While everyone will love these, I immediately thought of them as the perfect dish for busy families, because they are relatively healthy, can easily feed a crowd, and again, are so. darn. easy. But beyond that, their simplicity  would make them a great party food, especially for an end-of-summer shindig. I’d serve these with some agua fresca and mojitos followed by toasted coconut and avocado lime popsicles for dessert. BAM.

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Serious Mocktails

by Katie | Leave a comment

Mint is our ingredient of the season. We’ve used it in salads, drinks, and other potions. You can find our complete archive of mint posts here.
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You know that the Seasoned sisters love to kick back with a good alcoholic beverage, but we can also appreciate a nicely mixed mocktail or two. Who doesn’t have fond memories of being served their first Shirley Temple? And while we still wouldn’t pass one up,  today we’re talking about mocktails that are a bit more creative in both their list of ingredients and combination of flavors. With the right ingredients on hand these mocktails take seconds to mix, making them a perfect alternative to offer up at your Labor Day bbq this weekend.

I’m not a huge fan of mocktails that imitate alcoholic drinks. If I’m going to skip the alcohol, I want my drink to be full of creative flavors. That said, once I come up with a winning mocktail, it often doubles as the perfect base for my next cocktail. With a splash of gin or SAGE, both of today’s drinks can become the spirited life of the party! (Excuse us, we couldn’t pass up the pun.)

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Ginger Cuke Cocktail

by Sarah | 1 Comment

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Happy Tuesday! I know it’s a bit early in the week for a cocktail recipe, but I promise this Ginger Cuke Cocktail is mild, well in alcohol, not in flavor.  You can drink a few of these and still have the energy to cook dinner or work on whatever project you have going on at the moment.  I’m in the middle of a macrame wall hanging that I started months (!!) ago and kind of just walked away from.  These Ginger Cuke Cocktails are the encouragement I need to plow ahead!  The spicy ginger beer (a nonalcoholic ginger ale, but oh so different from standard american ginger ale) is absolutely essential to this drink.  If you make it with regular ginger ale you will be sorely disappointed and I’ll feel really bad about it so PLEASE use ginger beer. You’ll want to make me one in gratitude after you finish your first, second, third drink.  You can find the best and cheapest ginger beer in Jamaica, but if you’re in the states like me then head to your grocery store and look in the international aisle or where mixers are sold like tonic and seltzer water.  Ginger beer is really yummy on its own too if you like a soda once in awhile.  It’s not spicy, not sugary, which is why I’m a big fan.  Enough about ginger beer (the essential ingredient!) on to the story of why I created this cocktail.

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A couple weeks ago, I had a birthday – whoop whoop! I talked about my celebration here, but in short, I had a couple delicious mule variations at Venable.  I couldn’t stop thinking about those spicy sage, yet fresh and limey drinks so I decided to mix one up! It took some tweaking, but I came up with the refreshing afternoon, afterdinner, afterdessert drink that I was craving.

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Ingredients:

  • .5-1.5 oz vodka (depending on preference)
  • 1 oz fresh cucumber juice
  • 2.5 oz spicy ginger beer
  • 2 tsp fresh lime juice
  • 4 sage leaves

Recipe:

  • Wash, peel and juice one cucumber.  If you don’t have a juicer, simply blend the cucumber and strain out the juice through a mesh colander.
  • Add the vodka, cucumber juice, freshly squeezed lime juice, 2 sage leaves and a few ice cubes to a shaker.
  • Shake forcefully for about ten seconds to break up some of the cubes, crush the sage leaves and mix the juices together.
  • Fill you glass half full with ice cubes and pour the mixture in.  Top it off with ginger beer and garnish with a few sage leaves.
  • Enjoy and refill as necessary 😉

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I hope these photos have you running out the door for ginger beer! Let me know how much you love this ginger cuke coctail @liveseasoned . XO

Creamy Coconut Banana Popsicles

by Sarah | Leave a comment

It has really been a summer of popsicles hasn’t it?  I’m currently in Atlanta, Georgia and it is SO HOT. Unbelievably hot.  While I’m outside working, I’m thinking of these creamy coconut and banana popsicles.  While they have similar ingredients to the toasted coconut pops we made a few weeks ago, they’re much healthier and have a stronger banana taste.  Of course, your pops will range in sweetness depending on how ripe your bananas are.  I let mine turn brown before I made these yummy, creamy, coconut and banana pops!

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Ingredients:

  • 1.5 cups coconut milk
  • 5 very ripe bananas
  • 1 TBSP shredded coconut

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The how:

  • Simply throw all of the ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.  I added a sprinkle of cinnamon too. Crazy, I know.
  • Fill your popsicle molds and put them in the freezer for about five hours.

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I hope you love these basic, but tasty banana pops!  Personally I think they’re best when eaten for breakfast.

Spring Rolls {Vegetarian & Vegan}

by Katie | 5 Comments

Mint is our ingredient of the season. Our archive of mint posts is rich with ideas for drinks, salads, main dishes, and cosmetic uses!

Before last week I had eaten my fair share of spring rolls, yet never made them, but with mint as our ingredient of the season, this was one of those recipes that I was excited to stretch my muscles and try making at home. I was totally intimidated before my first wrapper hit the water, but I’m happy to report that these were surprisingly easy to prepare!

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Making spring rolls at home is so much fun because you can personalize them to your tastes, choosing your favorite protein (tofu, shrimp) and vegetables (sky’s the limit!). On this particular night, we opted for veg rolls with tofu as our protein and nappa cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers as our vegetables. I did the rolling while Calder and A.Max were out on a bike ride, but while doing it, I thought about how this would be even more fun to do with a group of friends ~ setting up a big spring roll bar and letting everyone roll their own. If you try that, let us know how it goes!

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Vegetarian Pesto Pasta Salad

by Sarah | Leave a comment

Summer is in full swing, which means everyone needs a picnic pasta salad recipe, including you!  Cold salads are great for lunches, beach coolers and midday hikes so mix this up, throw it in a jar and eat it in the sunshine!

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Ingredients:

  • 1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 large cucumber peeled, deseeded and chopped
  • 2 carrots peeled and chopped
  • 1 yellow or red sweet pepper chopped
  • 1 cup chopped broccoli
  • 1 box of your favorite penne or rotini (I’m a big fan of this veggie pasta)
  • 2 heaping cups fresh basil
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts (or walnuts if pine nuts aren’t available)
  • 2/3 cup good olive oil
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
  • salt and pepper to taste

The how:

  • Put a pot of water on to boil and add a tsp of salt to it.  Once the water boils, cook the pasta according to the box.  Drain and set aside to cool.
  • Clean the basil and add it to the blender along with the peeled garlic, nuts, 1/3 cup olive oil and the parmesan.  Add more olive oil until it reaches the desired consistency.  Add a few shakes of salt and pepper to taste.  Set the pesto aside.
  • Chop up the pepper and broccoli and add them to a large serving bowl. Peel and cut the carrots.  Peel the cucumber, cut it in half long ways and scoop out the seeds. Chop up the cucumber and add it to the bowl.  Rinse off the peas.  If you’re using frozen peas, defrost them in a bowl of hot water for five minutes then drain and add them to the other veggies.
  • Add the pasta to the serving bowl and mix in half of the pesto.  Add more pesto spoonful by spoonful until desired coverage is reached.  (Save the remaining pesto to hydrate the pasta salad in the future.)  Sprinkle some parmesan on the salad if you wish.
  • Keep covered in the fridge for up to a week.

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I promise this pesto pasta salad will rival the classic mix of meat, cheese and pasta that your mother used to make.  Enjoy!

Fresh Mint Ice Cream

by Katie | Leave a comment

Mint is our ingredient of the season. In the kitchen we’ve made a few alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, salads, and meatballs. For the bathroom we made a refreshing foot scrub and some non-toxic deodorant.

You know the mint ice cream in your grocer’s freezer section? This is nothing like that. This ice cream gets all of its minty flavor from fresh mint, and with that comes a deep, green, earthy flavor from the plant. That description may sound crazy for ice cream, but when you eat fresh mint you taste so much more than the isolated mint flavor that’s added to commercial ice cream. By infusing the milk and cream with fresh mint, you’re adding those layers of complexity to this very simple dessert.

As I was sharing a cone with A. Max this afternoon, I was trying to think of another way to convey the flavor of this ice cream. At our house growing up, there was so much mint growing around the edge of the garden that it would get cut with the lawn mower. Have you ever experienced that? Mint getting cut with the green grass on a hot summer day? That’s this ice cream.

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Six Summer Spice Blends

by Sarah | 1 Comment

What’s better than barbecuing in the summer? I argue nothing. Absolutely nothing. Oh and what is worse than smelling your neighbors delicious barbecue and knowing that you have nothing to grill in the house? Don’t you hate that?  Well hopefully you have some type of meat, seafood or veggie protein in the house because today we’re talkin’ spice rubs.  Sometimes I get caught in flavor ruts where I end up putting salt, pepper, onion and garlic on everything.  I don’t know how it happens. I have an entire cupboard of spices, but my hands gravitate to the usual suspects.  I’m proud to report that that is not the case this summer! I started mixing up a few spice blends and keeping them in jars so that I have the perfect concoction in a pinch.  Today I’m sharing some of my summer favorites.

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