Adorable.

We checked out the Puppy Bowl lineup earlier this week, and were excited to see several Baxter-types on the roster.   Check out Joni:

…and tell me she isn’t Baxter’s twin:

Also, tell me that isn’t the cutest dog-in-a-pumpkin pic you’ve ever seen.  Can’t do it, can you?

Of course, given the choice, Baxter would rather nap than play football any day.  Throughout my pregnancy, we’ve become great sleeping pals:

This is a dog who is ready to be displaced by a baby.  Clearly.

This is all to say that after a lonnnnng nap this afternoon in front of the Puppy Bowl, Baxter and I headed into the kitchen to whip up some soup.  Soup, naps, and Puppy Bowl—does it get much better than that for a Sunday in February?

This soup is ridiculously easy…and ridiculously delicious.  Perfect for when you’re still feeling a little hazy from your mid-afternoon nap.

Creamy Cauliflower and Garlic Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 large onion, chopped

8-10 cloves garlic, minced

1 head cauliflower, chopped

5-6 cups chicken or veggie broth

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat olive oil over low heat.  Add onion and cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes, careful not to brown.  If the onions brown, you’ll lose the nice cream color of the soup!  Add garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add cauliflower and broth.  Broth should cover veggies completely—you can add more if needed.  Add beans. 

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 30-45 minutes, until cauliflower is soft.  With a submerging blender, or working in batches with a standing blender, blend soup until creamy and smooth.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  Garnish with fresh parsley.

This soup on its own is delicious…but we decided to kick it up a notch with some paprika sourdough croutons:

To make the croutons, I simply cubed some day-old sourdough bread, tossed the cubes with olive oil, paprika, and garlic salt, then baked for about 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  They crisp up quickly, so watch them carefully.

…And now, time for a nap.  Hope you had a great weekend!

Don’t worry, Lila…I’m sure we’ll *never* use that kind of language with you.

A few weeks ago Ryan and I headed up to campus to get some work done and found the sweetest gift waiting for us in his office:

…a beautiful blanket, home-knit by our friend (and fellow English professor) Holly:

Isn’t it beautiful?  I’m SO impressed by people who can knit like this.

The little pompoms are my favorite:

To thank Holly for her sweet gift, I got baking in the kitchen this morning and whipped up some butterscotch oat squares:

Butterscotch Oat Squares

Ingredients:

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

1 egg

1 cup butterscotch chips, divided

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

In a mixing bowl, cream together brown sugar and butter until creamy.  Add egg and beat until smooth.  In a microwave safe bowl, heat 1/2 cup butterscotch chips until melted.  Add to butter mix.

In a separate bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add to butter slowly until all of the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the mix.  Fold in the remaining half up of chips.

Pour batter into a greased 8×8 inch pan and smooth with a spatula until even.  Bake 20-25 minutes, until top is firm and golden.  Allow to cool in pan for 20 minutes before cutting into squares.

An hour of baking is nothing compared to the time it must have taken Holly to make the blanket, but it will have to do.  And these *are* very tasty…sweet, salty, and moist. 

Hope you’re having a great start to your weekend!  

See? I haven’t abandoned my Newlywed, Newly Veg roots entirely.  Although I will say, the hamburgers were pretty tasty.   But there will be more on that in Ryan’s post…right now: tabouleh!

When I worked at a vegetarian restaurant during the summer in high school and college, I was given a t-shirt that read “Tabouleh or not tabouleh: that is the question.”  You gotta love vegetarian humor. 

Tabouleh is typically made with bulgar, but this recipe uses quinoa instead for an extra kick of protein.  This is a great side-dish as is, or you could top it with shrimp, chicken, or chickpeas for an easy main dish salad.  It would also be a great take-along for a picnic…you know, because we’re all going on so many picnics right now.  Whatever—summer will be here before we know it!

Actually, by the time summer rolls around, I should have a two-month old baby in the house…and that’s just scary.  So summer is far away.  Very, very far away.

Let’s just focus on the tabouleh.

Quinoa Tabouleh

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water or broth

2 cups flat-leaf parsley

1 cup fresh mint

1 cup chopped cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped cucumber

1/4 cup minced red onion

juice from 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

garlic salt to taste

Directions:

In a pot, combine quinoa and liquid.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for about 15 minutes, until all liquid has been absorbed. 

While quinoa is cooking, chop herbs until finely minced.  Combine herbs with tomatoes, cucumber and red onion.  Once quinoa has cooked, add to herbs and veggies.  Top with lemon juice and olive oil, and mix well.  Season to taste with garlic salt.

This recipe really couldn’t be easier!

All together now…

Yum!

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Pshhaw!

TRUE pumpkin lovers will dig deep into their pumpkin stash far beyond the autumn months.  I’ve been known to eat pumpkin oats in July—what of it?  That’s the beauty of being pumpkin-obsessed.  When you stock up on 20 cans a year:

…you can use those cans ANY time—not just in the fall months.

Last night, I used one of the cans from my stash to make this easy pumpkin tofu curry.  It wasn’t the prettiest dish…but it sure was tasty. 

Pumpkin Tofu Curry

Ingredients:

brown rice, cooked

6 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups fresh spinach

1 can lite coconut milk

1/2 can pumpkin puree 

1 package firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cubed

1/4 cup red curry paste

1/2 tsp. salt

cayenne pepper for heat (optional)

Ingredients:

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, heat olive oil.  Add garlic and spinach and sautee for 1-2 minutes; careful not to burn the garlic!  Add coconut milk, pumpkin, curry paste and salt and cook over low heat.  Stir until combined and continue to cook over low heat, careful not to bring to a boil.  Cook for 10-15 minutes, then add tofu.  Continue to cook over low-medium heat until tofu is heated through. 

Serve over brown rice.

Mmmmm…coconut milk + pumpkin = a delicious combination.  And a great wintery use of pumpkin, if I do say so myself.

Have a great Tuesday! Ryan is on tap for dinner tonight!

It’s Girl Scout Cookie time. 

This time of year always has me singing the “Cookie Time” song from Troop Beverly Hills:

I know, I know—they were “Wilderness Girls,” not Girl Scouts.  But really—does it get much better than the “Cookie Time” song? 

I peddled  my fair share of thin mints, samoas, and tag-alongs back in the day.  I never made it to Girl Scout status, but even as a lowly Brownie, I understood the powerful allure of those colorful little boxes. 

And when I say little, I mean LITTLE.  As in, I-can-go-through-10-boxes-in-2-days, little.  When are they going to start super-sizing those bad boys? 

Samoas were always, and still are, my personal favorite.  Shortbread, chocolate, caramel—what’s not to love? 

Hello, lover.

When we were invited to our friends’ house for dinner on Saturday night, I was browsing Pinterest and found a few recipes for homemade Samoas.  Girl Scout cookies won’t be for sale in our area for another couple of weeks, so I figured—what better time to experiment with a little homemade Samoa action, right in my own kitchen?

And I’m soooooo glad I did.  Here’s the recipe for Samoa knockoffs…although I have to say, these might even be BETTER than the original.  I know, I know—blasphemy. 

Homemade Samoas:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 cups coconut

1 bag (about 14 oz) chewy caramel squares (Brach’s, etc.), unwrapped

1/4 tsp. salt

3 tbsp. milk (I used almond milk and it worked great)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350

To make the shortbread base, cream together the butter and sugar in a standing mixer.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt, and add it to the butter mix slowly.  Add vanilla.  A soft dough should form.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface, flouring the dough ball and rolling pin as well (dough will be kind of sticky).  I worked in about three batches, rolling it out to 1/4 inch thick each time.  You can make the cookie shake in a traditional Samoa shape using round cutters, or use any other shaped cookie cutter you’d like (I used hearts, as a symbol of my love for Samoas ).

Place cut-out cookies on a lightly-greased or non-stick cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes—they should be firm but not yet browning.

Remove baked cookies from oven and place on cooling racks.

While cookies are baking and cooling, toast the coconut in a skillet.  This will only take about 2-3 minutes—watch carefully so that it doesn’t burn!  You can see in the pictures that mine burnt just a bit—but it still tasted great.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine caramel squares, salt and milk.  Heat in microwave for 3-4 minutes in 1-minute intervals, stirring in between intervals.  Stir until smooth and combined.  Add coconut to caramel mix and stir until combined.

Once cookies are fairly cool, drop caramel mixture on top of the shortbread, using your hands to press the mixture down.  This step is fairly messy—the caramel/coconut mix can be a bit unmanageable—just keep working with it! I found that spraying my fingertips with a bit of non-stick cooking spray helped me to wrangle the caramel.

Once caramel/coconut mix has been placed on all of the cookies, melt the chocolate chips.  Using a piping bag or ziplock bag with the end snipped off, pipe a chocolate drizzle over each cookie.

Voila!! Homemade Samoas! Here are some pictures from the process:

It was a pretty involved cookie-making process…but totally worth it.  These cookies were awesome.  Plus, come on—how cute are these?!?

I might set up a competing table selling my own cookies when the Girl Scouts roll into town this year.   Run those girls right out of business, Red Feather-style. 

Have a great Monday!

Dogs aren’t usually allowed at the gardens, but during January and February, they celebrate the “Dog Days of Winter,” and allow them to roam through the gardens! They even have a “no leash” field that functions basically as a dog park.  So fun! Our dogs definitely enjoyed their time at the gardens:

…although Baxter tried to take on a new owner when he discovered that another dog owner had treats in her purse.  He has no loyalty at all.

31 weeks and counting:

Dinners this weekend were healthy:

…but I promise, I have one of the best cookie recipes I’ve made in a lonnng time (and definitely NOT healthy) coming your way this week. 

Hope you had a great weekend!

But I digress.

The point is, as I much as I hate to disagree with my pregnant wife, it’s not true that I never cook without a recipe. I’m perfectly capable of scrounging together a meal from the ingredients sitting around the fridge and pantry. In fact, before Anna and I started dating, the most complicated recipe I ever followed came on a mac and cheese box (even there, room exists for improv. My college roommates once substituted ranch dressing in our mac and cheese  when we were out of milk. Not bad).

However, when I’m preparing an “On Ryan’s Plate” blog post, I try to bring something special to the occasion. My wife sets a pretty high bar, so I have to really up my game in order to even hope to compete. Unlike Anna, I can’t just improvise a great meal. I need to steal from Martha Stewart. It’s like Anna is John Coltrane, tearing up scales, and I’m Kenny G, rigidly churning out the same old rendition of the Breathless CD 20 years later (standout track: “By the Time This Night is Over”, featuring Peabo Bryson on lyrics).

So my slavish adherence to recipes is all for you, dear reader.

But the other night, I decided to throw caution to the wind and just wing it. I knew I wanted some enchiladas, which I love but hadn’t made in years ever. So I went to the grocery store WITHOUT A LIST! and just perused the aisles to see what looked good. I even had a conversation with the butcher about what meat might taste best (Me: “Is this sausage flavored?” Butcher: “Yes, with lots of things. Sage. Um, and sage. It’s mostly sage.”) Then I came home and improvized this recipe, Wayne Brady-style. Feel free to follow it. Or not:

Pork Enchiladas

Ingredients

1/2 pound ground pork

3 small peppers, chopped

1 half red onion, chopped

1 cup spinach

6 scallions, chopped

1 lime

1/2 cup black olives, sliced

4-6 wheat tortillas

1 can, enchilada sauce

1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Taco seasoning

Instructions

1) Season pork with taco seasoning. Saute pork in well-oiled skillet until it starts to brown.

2) Add peppers, onion, scallions, and spinach to skillet. Squeeze juice of whole lime into skillet. Cook ingredients until spinach wilts.

3) Grease 9×11 glass baking pan. Fill wheat tortillas evenly with pork and vegetable mixture (add some enchilada sauce if desired). Roll tortillas tightly and place side by in pan.

4) Pour enchilada sauce over all the tortillas. Cover with grated cheese and olives.

5) Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

The dish came out pretty well:

So I’ve proven that I can go without a recipe. That doesn’t mean that I will never use a recipe again. Sometimes you just want a little Kenny G. Case in point:

Omega-3’s…and fiber…and protein…you know, all that good stuff.  These cookies are chock full of healthy ingredients:

…so you don’t have to feel bad about eating three…or four…or, er, seven.  In one day.

Of course, they also have a few less than healthy ingredients too—chocolate…butter…sugar.  You know, so that it doesn’t taste like you’re gnawing on a brick of sod. 

Healthy Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup spelt flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup ground flax

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

4 tbsp. softened butter

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Ingredients:

Pre-heat oven to 350

In a standing mixer, beat eggs, sugar, butter, and applesauce together until combined.  In a separate bowl, mix flours, flax, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.  Add flour mix to wet mix in batches, until just combined.  Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on cookie size. 

Did you know that Omega 3’s are especially important during pregnancy?  I think Lila’s intelligence grew by 100 points with each cookie I ate.  Look out, Mensa.

Have a great Tuesday!

When last I saw you, we were headed out the door to Chattanooga for an overnight birthday celebration.  Chattanooga was great—we got massages and ate some delicious food.  When we rolled into town around lunchtime, Yelp helped us find Sluggo’s Vegetarian Cafe…and I’m so glad we did! Our lunch was awesome!

Ryan got a black bean burger:

…which was delicious and huge.  But the real star was my veggie bowl, filled with breaded tofu, veggies, and tons of peanut sauce:

SO.  GOOD.  So good I was still full about six hours later! Luckily I managed to make room for our dinner at St. John’s.  Unluckily, the restaurant was pretty small and our waiters were very attentive, so I didn’t feel comfortable whipping out the ol’ Nikon during dinner.  But if you’re ever in Chattanooga and looking for a nice meal, St. John’s hit it out of the park.  Local, seasonal, and delicious food all around.

On Saturday, we’d planned to explore Chattanooga…but the weather gods had other plans.  Unfortunately, it was POURING down rain, so we just headed home.  No biggie—Chattanooga is less than two hours away from us, so I know we’ll be back soon!

We spent Saturday running errands and crossing things off our to-do list…and some of them had to do with the nursery! It’s not ready for the big reveal just yet, but here’s a little preview:

…it’s really coming along!

Last night, for dinner, we whipped up an easy frittata with some simple ingredients and leftovers that we already had in the fridge.

Into a skillet went six eggs, some milk, parmesan cheese, leftover roasted potatoes, and spinach:

…baked for about 15 minutes, and voila! Frittata!

Hope you had a great weekend.  I need to get to work on my to-do list…I think it’s going to be a busy day!

See ya!

Witness: last night’s dinner, as compared to Ryan’s meal on Tuesday night.  Ryan neatly picked out his Cooking Light recipe (with a few nudges in the right direction from yours truly), bought the ingredients, and followed the recipe Staci Keanan-style (that would be step-by-step, for you non TGIF-ers out there) with only one substitution: salmon for chicken.  Wild man!!

Yesterday afternoon, I thought about finding a recipe in a cookbook…for about five seconds.  Then I decided to do what I do best: pantry cooking.  Pantry cooking is great because you don’t have to follow a recipe, you generally find cooking items that you’d completely forgotten existed in the back of your pantry (we still have wheatberries?!?), and, most importantly, you don’t have to leave the house. 

I scrounged up lentils:

tomatoes:

and a sweet potato that was on its last leg:

plus some soy sausage that we had in the fridge.  Threw it all together with some garlic salt and water, and voila:

Pantry dining at its finest!

Today is actually my birthday, and Ryan has surprised me with an overnight trip to…Chattanooga!  I’ll see you from Tennessee!