Tag Archives: recipe[appetizer]

Sweet Potato & Mushroom Soup

by Katie | Leave a comment

Potato was our ingredient of the season in 2018. We’re fudging it a bit and group sweet potatoes with their distantly related cousins. You can find our full archive of potato(ish) posts here.

I recently made another pot of this soup, and it has held up well to the test of time. The combination of simple ingredient list with a rich finish make this the perfect soup for chilly winter evenings.

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Seeing as how the east coast is shoveling out from another storm, we’re bringing you a delicious, nutritious, and simple sweet potato and mushroom soup.

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As we mentioned above, sweet potatoes are not within the same taxonomic family as potatoes. Potatoes are in the nightshade family while sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family. If you’ve ever grown a decorative sweet potato vine that bloomed, you would immediately see the resemblance. But for our purposes, this season we’re grouping all of these tubers together.

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Sweet and Spicy Mixed Nuts

by Katie | Leave a comment

{This post was originally published in 2015. We’re reposting it now because you should whip up a batch for Thanksgiving. Whether you’re hosting or visiting, these will be a welcome snack.}
Nuts are our ingredient of the season. We’ve been using them for sweets, drinks, snack bars and savory condiments!

With summer approaching I began fantasizing about the hiking, camping, and other outside fun that we’re going to have. I also started thinking about snack ideas for those adventures, and having nuts on hand are a great, healthy option, but to keep things interesting, I like to swap out basic roasted nuts for this sweet and spicy option. A bag of roasted or spiced nuts holds up much better than our favorite fruit and nut snack bars, when stuffed into a pack, but those snack bars do make a great fast breakfast when you’re running out the door to get an early start on that hike!

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Pollinator Power Salad

by Katie | Leave a comment

We originally published this salad recipe four years ago. We’re republishing it today as this is the start of Pollinator Week 2019!

There are many ways to celebrate and show our appreciation for the hard-working pollinators that help to keep nature in balance and play a key role in providing 75% of the food we eat.

  • plant a pollinator garden
  • stop using pesticides on your lawn
  • buy organic produce (to reduce large-scale pesticide and herbicide use)
  • encourage your neighborhood to become Pollinator/Bee Safe

If you’d like to learn more fun-facts about pollinators (and see an awesome video of a nectar-drinking bee-fly!), click here.

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Today we have a recipe for a salad that is jam-packed with good ingredients, and every single one, from the mustard in the dressing to the pumpkin seeds, required pollination to help them grow and reproduce. As you’ll see, the salad looks absolutely beautiful and represents everything that is good about summer. But before you dig in, say thanks to every pollinator that played a role in bringing this food to your table.

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As we mentioned on Monday, about 75% of the food we eat required pollinators to grow and produce seeds. That seems like a lot, but when you look at this salad, it’s so easy to see how that’s possible. In making this salad, I used information from this USDA document to determine which foods required pollination. As you’ll see, I got a bit creative with this salad, but if you have a family of cautious eaters, you can look at Table 1 in that document and find ingredients that suit your household. For example, I didn’t even put tomatoes, which are such a common salad ingredient, in this dish, but they are on the list!

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Mummy Jalapeno Poppers

by Sarah | 1 Comment

live seasoned jalapeno poppers

First, homemade Jalapeno Poppers, hells yeah! Second, little mummy lookin’ cuties?! YES! Threaten me with food that follows a holiday theme and I’m in, especially when cooking with friends, it just makes everything so much more enjoyable. Kimi and I cook together on the regular, but usually it’s some type of main meal, not cute, perfect for a halloween party, Mummy Jalapeno Poppers. This is exactly how it went down.. Continue reading …

Carrot Hummus

by Sarah | Leave a comment

This week, I’m sharing half a dozen recipes from the Crafting Ritual and Cultivating Mindfulness retreat.  Our personal chef, Jami, prepared all our delicious meals from basic, whole ingredients. Jami demonstrated how little preparation some of these yummy veggie dishes take. Food-13 Food-12 Food-11

Carrot hummus, is the easiest way to add color to your spreads, and the quickest way to impress your guests. This bright carrot hummus goes great with a vegetable platter or pita chips. You can see we used it as a topping for our open faced sandwiches at brunch, along with beets, micro greens, mushrooms, avocado, and egg. Wholesome.

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Cheese + Ginger

by Katie | Leave a comment

Ginger is our ingredient of the season. You can find a variety of drink, main dish, and dessert ginger recipes here. This is the second ginger spread pairing that we’re sharing.

Today we’re coming at you with a suggestion to spice up your holiday cheese plate.

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If you don’t know it already, putting out a good cheese plate, or taking one to your next party is a sure-fire way to gain admirers. Our trick is to pair your cheeses with the right condiment.

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Independence Day Eats & Treats

by Sarah | Leave a comment

Happy Fourth Y’all! This post was originally published in 2015, but we think it’s still relevant 😉 Now I gotta go blast a Bruce Springsteen album while I consume and entire watermelon and light a bunch of sparklers.

JULY

As shown from top to bottom, left to right:

Watermelon Mint Salad     Mint Agua Fresca     Homemade Pizza Four Ways

Mint Simple Syrup Mojito     Cashew Fruit Dip

Watermelon Gazpacho     Mint Ice Cream     Rosemary Infused Bloody Marys

 

Chive Blossom Fritters

by Katie | 2 Comments

It’s Pollinator Week, and we’re sharing pics of bees and one of their favorite early summer treats in our yard. Coincidence? Possibly.

Chive fritters, because it’s fair season, and just like pickles, cheese, and ice cream, even flowers can be fried. Classy? No. Maybe. Delicious? Definitely.

Our house came with large patches of chives that produce an overabundance of beautiful edible blossoms every spring. I love the chives, but they also drive me slightly crazy because I feel bad when I’m not making use of the bunch. One of the easiest things to do is sending Alex out to pick chive and dandelion blossoms for our salads. He loves the independence that comes with being sent to do a job like this. I’ve also experimented with chive-infused vinegar. Remember the dressing in our pollinator salad? These fritters are yet another good use for the blossoms. chive_fritters1

But as it often happens happens, when I’m outside picking the blossoms, the bees are buzzing. They’re gently collecting pollen as they move from one flower to the next, and it’s then that I’m reminded that it’s perfectly fine to take a handful or two and just let the rest be. {Look at that bee bum!}

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