I know, I’m a bit late on the post, but I promise, today, the wait is over! And we have a great recipe for you. Bonus! Continue reading
Tag: recipe
Mountains of Memories
While the Finger Lakes has become a dream destination for Mike and I, there is another place that has called me home (and continues to call me home) since I first crossed its borders. Continue reading
Playing with the Queen of Tarts
I’ve lamented here before about my “black thumb.” I have an inability to grow most things (with the exception of a few hardy herbs). Miss A, however, inherited a green thumb from someone, somewhere along the line. She can grow most things, and more importantly keep them alive! Continue reading
Warming Up to a New Year and An Invitation
Happy New Year! We hope you all enjoyed the holiday season and are enjoying a fabulous start to the New Year. Since our area is under an uncharacteristic deep freeze, we thought it fitting to bring you this warming stew recipe to enjoy during these colder months. We also have some fun planned for a future post, so make sure to keep reading to find out how you can play along!
Now this particular recipe is also for our dear friend Sally at Bewitching Kitchen who mentioned she loves chickpeas. Sally has followed our blog for nearly three years now and was our first non-family/friend commenter. So since she holds a special place in our hearts, I’m going to do a little bragging on her behalf. Check out this post to get a glimpse into why we love Sally and why her blog is on our list of faves. Congrats Sally!
Someone spied a bird out the window!
Now, this recipe for Amazon Bean and Squash Stew (adapted from Eating Well) is also one of our faves because it’s very filling, flavorful and it’s vegan. I haven’t shared this on the blog yet, but last September, Mike and I undertook a three-week vegan cleanse. The results were fabulous – we slept better, felt better and found a ton of ways to get creative with beans, lentils, nuts, spices and all sorts of foods that were relatively new to us. As a result, we’ve completely altered our eating habits and lifestyle (in fact Mike has lost 45 pounds and is the healthiest he’s been since I’ve known him!). While we’re not vegan 100% of the time, we do eat vegan more often than not. Now that’s not to say we would turn down a fabulous seafood dinner, bacon jam, a good piece of meat, or a delicious dessert, but on an average day we’re choosing plants. In other words, there’s no hardcore rules and the blog will still feature a mixture of international recipes of all types, but this particular stew is one we can enjoy any day of the week.
So the stew starts out simple enough – roast the squash with a bit of olive oil and sea salt. We’ve used an assortment of winter squash including buttercup and acorn, and they’ve all worked well. We also typically roast the squash on the weekend, store it and whip the stew up on a weeknight. When you’re ready to make the stew, heat the olive oil, drop in some garlic (Sally – you can omit the garlic), carrots and diced onion, and saute until the veggies are tender.
Next we add a bit of veggie stock and water, the roasted squash, a tomato and a boat load of seasonings including salt, pepper, red pepper, turmeric, oregano and cumin. We bring the stew to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes. Next we transfer batches of the stew to the blender to puree and then return it to the pot.
Finally we add cooked wild rice, fresh spinach and chickpeas to the pot, mix it together and cook it for another 10 minutes, or until the spinach wilts and the beans are heated through.
We serve the stew with tortilla chips and lime wedges. It makes enough for dinner for four with leftovers (or two servings each if like Mr. N you want seconds). The stew is hearty and flavorful.
It’s a 4 spoon dish for Mr. N and I, 3 spoons for Mike and 2 spoons for Miss A. It isn’t her favorite dish in the world, but she will eat her share – especially if the chips are involved. In fact, we’ll all eat our share and have on several occasions now.
Print this recipe: Amazon Squash and Bean Stew
Okay, now for a little fun. This month is our three-year blogging anniversary. While we don’t post as often as we did in year one or two, we’re still making many new international dishes and exploring different cultures. It’s an adventure we all love for the food we get to try, the time together in the kitchen and for all the friends we’ve made. So, like last year, we’re going to have our annual Chopped Challenge to celebrate. For those of you that aren’t familiar with our Chopped Challenge, you can find year one here and two here. We’ve had several successful recipes – some have even stuck around. You can see all the results on our recipes page.
So how does this work? Well, we ask for mystery basket ingredients from twelve readers which are then put up to vote in a blog poll. Our readers vote on a basket for three categories – appetizer, main course and dessert. The baskets with the most votes in each category will be our mystery ingredients. Then on Super Bowl Sunday (February 2, 2014), Mike and I go head-to-head in an all day cooking challenge. The kids serve as both sous chefs and judges, a task they take very seriously.
This year we’ve asked our top six commenters and five new commenters to provide us with basket ingredients. Now,that leaves one opening and we’d like to make this open by special invitation. We know there are many silent blog readers and occasional commenters out there, and we want to make sure you’re included as well. So, if you would like to name ingredients for an appetizer basket we’d love to include your choices in the poll. Just shoot us an email at eatplayloveblog@gmail.com or leave a comment with four ingredients to include in our appetizer basket poll. They can be as wild or as traditional as you want to be, as long as they can be relatively easy to source. All ingredients received by 1/15/14 will be put into a draw and one participant will be selected.
We look forward to your submissions and are excited for a new challenge. Albeit not so excited about the mess that always results. 😉 
Happy New Year all! Stay tuned for the upcoming interactive blogging fun. We’ll put our ingredient baskets up to vote sometime after the 17th of this month, after which our challenge lies in your hands! Until then, enjoy the stew and stay warm. Cheers!
Happy Endings
Well, is it just me or did this past summer just fly by? Every year they get faster and faster. Well, as you know we ended our summer with a little country getaway. We rented a farm-house in Michigan for a week with the kids and just spent some quality time with absolutely no distractions (except for a few bee stings – poor Mike!). 
Thankfully Mike is not allergic to bees and recovered just fine; albeit rather annoyed. Aside from those two little incidents, the trip was utterly blissful. The kids were happy the whole time (no meltdowns or plate turnings) and they were inseparable. From morning until night, they were attached at the hip, playing and laughing. 
We did lots of cooking, ate every meal outside, read books, made crafts and even got to pick our own peaches. 
I’m not joking when I say that Miss A ate at least five peaches while we were in the orchard. 
Somehow we still ended up taking home one whole bucket of fresh Michigan peaches. So as you can imagine, our next few recipes will be down right peachy. 
The farm house was exactly what we needed. It was peaceful and felt like home the second we walked through the doors. 
It wasn’t extravagant by any means, but it was homey, clean, private and surrounded by grape vines. 
And it was only a short 30-minute drive to sunsets on the beach. 
As simple as it was, we all agreed that it was one of our best family vacations. We all felt happy, connected and most of all rested. 
There’s not a whole lot to report back other than we spent a lot of quiet mornings in our upstairs sitting room overlooking the countryside. Then we’d make our way down to the kitchen area where the kids and Mike would read and craft while I cooked something up. I don’t think we were ever dressed or out of the house before noon! 
Our days were lazy and spontaneous and then we’d head for some quiet nights either on the beach…
or back at the farm. 
One evening, we sat around the campfire. Mr. N and Miss A were roasting marshmallows and Mike and I were sipping wine. The discussion turned to what a great trip it had been and that we should definitely visit the farm again. Then Miss A, usually not one for serious conversations, sighed and said, “Yes. This was like a happy ending for summer.”
Indeed it was. It was then just a few days later that I was snapping the first day of school pictures. 
It’s always the first day of school pictures that reflect back to me how much they are growing up and changing. 
While the end of summer is always bittersweet for the kids, it was especially so for us parents too. Miss A is now a kindergartener, which means a full day of school five days a week. In other words, our house is suddenly very, very quiet. Since this was the first day of “real” school for Miss A, we weren’t sure how she would handle the separation. She had cried a few days beforehand, but otherwise was staying her tough little self. As the bus approached, we said our goodbyes and gave out our hugs. I was using every ounce of self-control to keep those tears locked away behind my sunglasses. I was standing behind Miss A, when she looked at Mike slightly panicked and said, “Where’s mommy?”
Just then, Mr. N walked up alongside of his little sister, took her by the hand and happily said, “Come on, Miss A.” 
She looked up at her big brother and smiled. They boarded the bus and didn’t look back until they were in their seats, smiling and waving. As the bus turned away, the dam burst and my tears were flowing. Fortunately, I’m in good company and several of us moms were able to cry, laugh and hug our way through the walk home.
Miss A was right – that vacation was definitely a happy ending, but I also think that this is a new happy beginning. It’s definitely a new stage of life for us. For the past nine years, Mike and I have juggled our schedules both working from home and our offices. We’ve managed through the chaos and the stress to be stay-at-home parents as much as possible. Mike would stay home some days, I would stay home others, we’d work nights and sometimes weekends, trading off work and at home time, while trying to find a balance for quality family time when we could all be together. It wasn’t easy. And it’s the strangest feeling to look up, nine years later and think that those days are behind us. 
While I very much miss my little buddies, I can’t help but think about all the possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead for all of us – and I’m excited. Even with only one week of this new life under our belts, I can already see that this next stage, might be just as fun as the last – particularly if this vacation was any indication. 
So since I’m feeling all happy and sunny, I figured we’d kick off our Michigan recipe series with some bright and sunny foods. This first recipe, is hardly a recipe at all. We obviously had a lot of peaches on-hand, so we used what we had in our little kitchen to whip up a fresh Peach Salsa. 
We used peaches, tomatoes, jalapeno, onion, honey, cherry balsamic vinegar and salt for seasoning. We first served our salsa as a side with tortilla chips. Miss A was not a big fan of the salsa due to the jalapeno. This was only a 2 spooner for her. Mike enjoyed the fresh peaches with his chips. It was a good blend of salty and sweet. 
Mr. N and I enjoyed our peach salsa with the chips, but our favorite way to serve it was with a sunny side up egg on toast. 
Mike, Mr. N and I all gave the salsa 3 spoons. It was fast, fresh and was a simple balance of sweet and spicy. Print this recipe: Peach Salsa
Thank you all for your wonderful comments. We read them while we were away and always enjoy them. We read many of them to the kids and they enjoy following along as well. They know many of you by name, and will often ask which one of you provided the new recipe at our table (as many of your recipes are served at various meals). I promise I’ll get back to commenting soon, I just have a few projects that I’ve been sitting on for quite some time that I’m ready to move forward on; and of course, we’re still working out our new school time routines. Please know that I’m hovering in the background printing many of your recipes and that I’ll be popping in and out as I can as we try to find our new balance.
We’ll be back soon with a few bread recipes. Yes – I’ve actually made some bread! And the best part, it’s edible! Until then, here’s a flashback that happens to be another great use for peaches. We made this in Michigan too, and needless to say, Miss A devoured this one. 🙂
A Devil of a Good Time
Hi everyone! As we mentioned in our last post we were preparing for some fun. Well, this week we are off to our neighbor to the North to meet some new friends and enjoy some family time. Yep, it’s another road trip; although not quite as epic as the one a few years ago that took us to many of the same places. 
So while we are away, you’ll forgive us for not checking in on many of your wonderful blogs. We’re going to unplug for a short time and recharge. We’ll be back next week with another French recipe and hopefully some great vacation stories to share. 
Until then, we thought we’d share this little non-recipe of a recipe with you. It was a HUGE hit in our house and it just happens to involve lobster which is reminiscent of that trip a few years back. Just search “lobster” on our site and you’ll see what we mean. 
We took a basic deviled egg recipe – hard-boiled eggs, add the yolks to a bowl, and mix them with Dijon and mayo. This time we then added a bit of dill, some Champagne vinegar, diced shallots, and of course some chopped up lobster. (We had claws on-hand after a tasty special at Costco.) The measurements on today’s recipes are approximates. You can easily adapt this to your own taste preferences. 
Once the mixture was added back into the egg whites, we topped them with a pinch of truffle salt, some chives and a sprinkling of paprika (regular, not smoked, as we didn’t want to diminish the taste of the lobster). Now you can see why these were such a hit. 
Mike and I both gave them 4 spoons. Hands-down. No questions. Miss A gave them 100 spoons. I have never seen her eat so much of a non-dessert food in my life. I’m not kidding. She put these little devils (pun intended) away! But Mr. N, he insists on saying they were 3-1/2 spoons….despite also devouring them and fighting with his sister over the last one. Hmmm. I’ve determined his vote is due to either not wanting to appear as a conformist, or that it wasn’t dessert and therefore doesn’t deserve a 4 spoon vote. 
What I’m trying to say, is that you may as well consider this one of the rare 4-spoon all-a-rounders. Now do you think I should add it to our index page for four spoon dishes. Hmm…
I’ll ponder that while we’re away. Enjoy your week everyone! Print this recipe: Lobster Deviled Eggs
Eat, Play, Love 