Tag Archives: fall

early thanksgiving

We won’t be cooking our own Thanksgiving meal this year, but I wanted to tinker in the kitchen with holiday food. Last week, Melissa (I’m just going to pretend we’re friends as I work through her cookbook) posted a handful of Well Fed 2 holiday recipes on her website.

First up is Turkey & Cranberry Meatballs. Well Fed 2 has a whole section on meatballs, burgers, and bangers – definitely looking forward to making my way through all the variations. These were pretty good. It’s not my typical go-to flavor combination but Greg loved them. I liked them well enough to eat them for dinner and lunch the next day, so I’d say success. Next time I make a meatball recipe from the book I think I’ll make 12 or so larger meatballs, unlike the 20 – 30 the recipe calls for. The smaller balls would be perfect for a party with toothpicks. Superbowl party with a meatball bar?
With the meatballs we ate Sweet Potato Soup with Bacon. I’m having leftovers right now as I type this. I also happen to be home alone. Not gonna lie, I just licked the bowl. This soup was awesome. I’ve been eating it for breakfast every day with two hard boiled eggs. Sometimes it’s nice to switch things up – I finally ate my breakfast casserole one too many weeks in a row. And an added bonus – this was soup three of five from my Fall bucket list.

Project Life: Weeks 40 & 41

the week in food: fall edition

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With the start of fall* this week, I’m craving routine. I thought I would bring back my weekly menus after taking a break from even creating them this summer. This week’s menu has two key components:

It’s Whole30 compliant. I’ve found that I really struggle with getting back in my groove after travel. Since we tend to be away from home often, this is becoming a problem. I’m going to try to eat extremely clean (Whole30 guidelines) for three to five days post travel and hope that helps me transition from vacation to everyday eating.
90% of the menu was made before we left for San Francisco. It never fails that when we get home we continue eating out because there’s no food in the house and nothing is defrosted. With a little planning the week before, and a little extra effort, I have all the meals for the week waiting for us in the freezer.

This is a short week because we’ll be traveling Saturday and Sunday. Also, because it’s all make ahead, there’s very little variety. For breakfast and lunch I picked meals I know I love so I won’t get tired of them on the fourth and fifth days. For dinner, I am trying something new so fingers crossed we like it.

I have a quick shopping list on my phone for the fresh produce I need; in a perfect world we’ll stop at the store on the way home from the airport. There is also a (very) short to do list waiting for me in the kitchen with a list of the remaining prep work. Yes, I’m a freak. But I’m determined to lose my post-wedding weight and need to be this organized to keep myself on track!

Breakfast: southwest frittata or chorizo casserole. Bake, cool, slice (six-ish servings per), wrap each individually in foil, and store in the freezer. I’ll add a few slices of avocado and a mug of tea.

Lunch: chocolate chili. This freezes so well it’s always my go to when I want a few meals in the freezer. I store individual servings so I don’t have an excuse if I forget to defrost before leaving for work. I eat it over baby spinach (pour the hot chili over the spinach to wilt it just a bit – so good!) and with a small side salad.

Dinner: pizza soup + pumpkin and butternut squash stew (not together). Pizza soup is easy, delicious, and uses freezer and cupboard staples so can always be thrown together. I’m trying a new stew this week because I wanted to find a clean freezer to crockpot meal. I’m hoping this is a good one. It took me maybe 15 minutes to throw together and now it’s sitting in my freezer waiting to be dumped into the crockpot on Tuesday morning. I’l add a side of sautéed spinach to the stew; pizza soup is a stand alone meal. I have high hopes for this new-to-me method of meal prep. If it turns out, I’m going to be paleo-fying pretty much every freezer crockpot meal I can find.

Tip of the week: I made a butternut squash soup once years ago. Cubing the squash was a mess and took forever. I’m not exactly sure where I went wrong, but I’ve avoided it since. Before prepping the stew I googled tips; I followed these instructions and it was a breeze.

*While she was visiting recently, I converted my sister to believing that fall starts the day after Labor Day. Now to convert the rest of the six billion people on earth that an arbitrary day in late September is silly. However, I still get to be giddy over the fact that our anniversary is the ~~official~~ globally-recognized first day of fall.

hello, fall

Fall 2013 Bucket List

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While I write this it is a balmy 80 degree Sunday afternoon and I’m sipping on a white wine spritzer with fresh peach. Earlier this week, it felt like fall. I even brought out the boots for work one day. I’m sad to say goodbye to summer, but if I don’t think about impending winter, I’m really excited for fall.

1. Try five new soup recipes. What’s not to love about soup? I have go-to chili and quick week night pizza soup recipes, but I want to add a few more to the rotation.

2. Celebrate our anniversary. Our first anniversary is in late September, and am looking forward to celebrating with a night away and a dinner on the ocean. Instead of gifts, we’re focusing on ways to spend more time together and make that time quality.

3. Enjoy trick-or-treaters. I have never really enjoyed Halloween, but I have to admit I’m a little excited to live in a house this year. I’ve not lived in a house since 2001, the last college summer I spent at my parents’ home. We are looking forward to having a slue of neighborhood kids swing by for candy. Alfred will spend the evening downstairs.

4. Decorate for fall. Last year, we were in flux during both fall and the holidays. We hardly decorated for either as we were recovering from planning a wedding and in middle of moving from the condo to our house. I’d like to at least decorate our dining room table.

5. Make sauerkraut. This has been on my to-do list for years. The spicy kraut I used to eat with breakfast every morning costs a small fortune to ship from San Francisco, so I gave up on it when I moved. A little probiotic is a good thing though, so it’s finally making the list.

6. Learn to sew. I’m taking a sewing class with a girlfriend from work. I’ve promised Greg I will take the entire series and wait to buy a sewing machine until I determine I both enjoy sewing and will make use of the machine.

7. Make the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls. These are a heart attack in a tin pan. They have sounded amazing for years, so I’m going to make a half batch for Greg and I to enjoy on Thanksgiving morning as a treat. Since a half batch makes three tins, some lucky friends will receive Thanksgiving treats.

8. Do yoga once a week. Recently, I hurt my back doing deadlifts at the gym. I don’t spend nearly enough time doing mobility work as I should for as heavy as I like to lift. This isn’t anything fancy and most weeks probably won’t even be done in a studio. It will just be me and my favorite DVD in the living room. Simple works.

9. Clean out my closet. Holy mess, Batman. This thing is a disaster. I have spent many frantic weekday morning throwing things out of the closet, cartoon style, looking for a missing shoe. My dresser, jewelry, and closet are all getting an organization makeover this fall.

10. Bake a pumpkin pie. Last year I made a grain-free, refined sugar-free pumpkin pie. And it was crap. This year I will make one pie and it will be full of refined sugar and gluten. It will taste delicious, we will enjoy it, and then look forward to another one in 2014. Recipe suggestions welcome.

Fall is by far my favorite. I can’t wait to get started on this list. For the record, I consider fall to be Labor Day through Thanksgiving. I’m still working on pictures from my summer bucket list, but there will definitely be a wrap-up post soon.

Date Night, Edition: Fall

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Since I was home all week bored out of my mind because I’m incapable of getting things done when I don’t have a timeframe in which to get them done, I did a few totally unnecessary tasks. Like watch the entire first season of Revenge. (It’s good.) And not write a single thank you note. And plan a fall themed date night for Saturday night.

Being the good sport he is, Greg agreed to drive 50 minutes northeast (okay, I might have told him it was 26 miles, which was true, but neglected the 48 minute estimated time) to go to a farm on a Saturday night. We both have been dealing with nagging colds that aren’t bad enough to keep us down but won’t really go away. But I really wanted to do something fall-ish and this is the last weekend we have, so off we went to Snohomish and Bob’s Corn Maze.

We got there around dinner time and decided to have a snack – I had roasted corn and Greg had a corn dog. First off, it was not this pastoral, romantic farm vision I had. There were a lot of screaming kids and well, it was a farm at the beginning of PNW rainy season. After picking up coffee (because it was colder than I anticipated) and some confusion over where to get a ticket, we were finally on the hay ride on our way to the corn maze.

Exhibit One: My wellies before the maze.

Given the mix up in where to get tickets, we lost valuable light. At first I was excited, I thought doing the corn maze by tiki light would be even more romantic. As the sky went from dusk to darkness, it became increasingly clear that it just made it more difficult.

Can you spot the husband?

As I mentioned, we’re now into rainy season. And a corn maze is made of dirt, which turns to mud during rainy season. We’re not talking about a little mud, but enough mud that they give you instructions for how to pull your feet out if you get stuck. It turns out that you actually need those instructions because if you stand stationary for more than a few seconds, your feet will sink into the mud and you’ll have to twist to get them out before you can continue walking (likely in the wrong direction, in a circle, down a path you’ve already gone, or some combination of the three).

Made it to the half-way bonfires!

It wasn’t terrible, there were some funny moments. But after about an hour we were hungry, tired, cold, lugging around an extra few pounds in mud, and really ready to be done. We made it out fifteen minutes later, having spent about twenty minutes circling the same area and not being able to figure out which path we hadn’t taken. We each got an apple cider donut (SO good!) before heading out of there.

We made our way to a local Mexican place for dinner. However, we got out of the car, realized how covered in mud we were, and were too embarrassed to go in and dirty up the restaurant. We picked up take-out and spent thirty minutes cleaning up the hallway, our shoes, and the bathroom. Sounds more like the end to a gruesome crime than date night.

Exhibit Two: My wellies after the corn maze.

Happy one month anniversary, love! Thank you for always being willing to go along with my ideas.

West Coast Martins

our adventures, documented.