Fall kitchen: baked apples

One of the easiest (and almost-healthy) desserts you can make this Fall is a baked apple. And if you've never had one, get in your kitchen right now. You'll need:

4 apples, cored
1 cup rolled oats
4 large marshmallows
1/2 cup brown sugar
teaspoon cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
(you'll divide up these ingredients among the four apples)


Once your apples have been cored, place them in a grease-free baking dish and stick half of a marshmallow in each apple as a sort of cork. Then put a spoonful of brown sugar in each.

Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg into your apples, following with a spoonful of rolled oats. Top with the other half of your marshmallow. Optional addition: A drizzle of honey (or maple syrup) adds an extra sweet touch. Bake about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven and serve alongside your favorite pork dish.

Do you have any family-favorite apple recipes that make their way out in the Fall year after year? I'd love to hear about them!

white fish en papillote

While I am trying to be a better, more adventurous cook, there is little chance I would have attempted this recipe on my own. Waaay too complicated, right? When this Blue Apron box of ingredients arrived, I was pleasantly surprised - the box included literally everything you need for the meal (aside from the oven and cookie sheet). It was actually easy to cook this dish, probably because I had a nice little cheat sheet of step-by-step instructions with pictures of what everything was supposed to look like.

This might be the best way to really learn how to cook if you are a visual learner. Because who really wants to go to the grocery store and hunt through the store to find out what freekeh is? Not this girl. (Sidenote: It's a grain. And it's good!) 

Blue Apron provided me with a complimentary package of recipe and ingredients. All opinions expressed are my own.

homemade pizza: tomato, basil, mozzarella

Occasionally, I make something and then try it and think, "My goodness, I am a good cook". This was one of those times.

Ingredients:

• pizza dough, found in the refrigerated section of your grocery store
• 3 Roma tomatoes, sliced thinly
• fresh mozzarella
• basil leaves from a plant, washed and dried (I purchased one at the grocery store and keep it in my kitchen)
• olive oil

If you are using a pizza stone, heat it up in the oven at 350 for 5 minutes. Remove it and spread olive oil onto the stone (so that the pizza doesn't stick to the stone). Stretch out your pizza dough onto the stone, and spread olive oil on top of the dough. Cover with basil leaves, approximately an inch apart, leaving space for the crust edges. Top with tomato slices. Cover with mozzarella slices from your fresh mozzarella. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, until edges are browned. Then you can email me and tell me how amazing it was!

food drive & pet food drive

It's been an incredibly busy few weeks, but some very good things have happened. A coworker and I coordinated a company-wide food drive to benefit two big charities in the area- the Greater Boston Food Bank and the Northeast Animal Shelter. We ended up collecting about 7,000 lbs of food, plus 2,000 lbs of pet food and other items.

This is what one team's collection area looked like.

We had some help (let's be honest, we work in marketing and are not that strong) getting everything to the loading dock for the food bank to pick up. Here's some of the pile, waiting for pickup.

And the next day we had a group of coworkers help us move everything to the loading dock to take to the animal shelter. We weren't expecting as much as we got, so we were responsible for hauling it there, 30 minutes from the office.

Luckily, a coworker's friend owns New England Country Rentals (rental items for weddings and events) and graciously sent one of their box trucks and 2 men to help us out. In half an hour we had everything packed up in the truck and on its way. Once we got to the animal shelter, this was the scene as volunteers ran out to help us unload in the rain, ecstatic about the "Christmas miracle".

We spent some time with the animals, learning about how the shelter works and seeing the facility. It is by far the cleanest, most well-organized facility I've seen. The dogs are taken out for a walk about every two hours on an average day by the many volunteers who work there. 

This little girl is a lab mix but 100% thinks she's a lap dog and just wanted to be scratched, which I happily took on while her friends bounced around her.

This 3 month old named Haas has the biggest paws I have ever seen on a little guy. He and I spent some quality time together inside his little area, and he was so sweet (aside from wanting to eat my leather boots).

And little Andy here, a 1 year old Schnauzer mix, had his picture taken quite a few times by yours truly. I then sent these photos to T and asked if he could be Sprout's little brother, but we ultimately decided that we won't be getting a second dog anytime soon. That said, Andy had quite a few families checking him out that day. Hopefully all of these guys, and the others at the shelter, will make their way to their forever homes soon.

At the end of the day, I came home to my little Sprout and we snuggled up on the couch together. 

I'm thankful for the generosity of my coworkers and the ability to help families and pets in need during the holiday season. Animals have a special place in my heart, and I'm so glad that we were able to help NEAS, which is one of the largest no-kill animal shelters in New England. Definitely check them out if you are thinking about adopting, or even if you can foster a dog for a weekend to help them get to know the animal better!

Holiday Gift Guide 2012: For the Foodie

Cranberry favorites from Stonewall Kitchen, $60

German Rock Sugar from Teavana (1 lb for $8.50)

6-piece olive oil set from Crate and Barrel, $40

Windowsill Rosemary plant from Sur La Table, $30

Best Slow cooker cookbook from Barnes and Noble, $14

Monogrammed apron from Williams-Sonoma, $20

Plus a gift certificate to your favorite local restaurant, artisanal salts for their kitchen, rustic place card holders, or a bottle of your favorite wine.

soup from scratch: pumpkin & squash soup

Fall is finally making its way to New England, so I made my first-ever soup to celebrate, and I won't lie - it was great. 

I consulted quite a few different recipes and then decided to make up my own based on what I had in the house (aside from the pumpkin and squash, which I had to buy - I don't typically have those just laying around in the kitchen). Let me know if you decide to try my recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 small sugar pumpkin
1 small butternut squash
3 carrots
1 apple
4 cloves fresh garlic
4 stalks celery
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
dash of all spice
1/2 cup brown sugar

Serves 8

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut the pumpkin and squash into small chunks (about 1-2"), scooping out all of the insides. (You can keep the skin on for the chunks or cut it off- I kept it on because it's easier to take off later.) Peel carrots and chop into small chunks. 

Place pumpkin, squash, and carrot chunks on a cookie sheet. Roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until you can easily stick a fork in them.

Note: I had to put the carrot chunks on another cookie sheet, so they aren't pictured here.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a soup pan with garlic gloves and chopped celery until celery is translucent. Skin, core, and chop an apple into small chunks. Add apple chunks to the soup pan. Add 5 cups water and simmer.

Skin the pumpkin and squash chunks when they are ready, and add to soup pan. Add carrots. Add black pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a dash of all spice, as well as brown sugar. (Add less black pepper if you don't want it to be spicy. My soup came out with a little kick to it.) Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Using a hand blender, puree the mixture. Continue to simmer. Add more salt, pepper, or nutmeg to taste.

Top with 1 tablespoon cream and serve.

specialty pizza, made at home

I'm a huge fan of specialty pizzas, so for dinner tonight I decided to try my own at home.   After a small mishap (sorry, singed bangs. Note to self: Don't stand over the grill when lighting it...), I thought it looked great! And then I realized it was missing something...

Of course - goat cheese!

Note: These are "before" images.

Ingredients:
1 small bunch fresh asparagus
1 small red onion
Ken's Balsamic with Honey dressing (to drizzle)
pizza dough from the refrigerated section
1 can pizza sauce
2 oz. crumbled goat cheese

Cooked on a pizza stone (thanks, Dad!) on the grill on medium heat for 30 minutes. I highly suggest investing in a pizza stone - it's a great item to have in the kitchen, no matter what season it is.