Sprout & Pea

I had a pretty ridicu­lous amount of goat cheese left over from a recent sup­per club din­ner. Some­times I over esti­mate to be safe. This time, I really over­es­ti­mated. So, when some friends invited me to brunch on Sat­ur­day, I decided (know­ing brunch was also in the cards for Sun­day) that I would save some money, take advan­tage of the copi­ous amounts of my favorite cheese in the refrig­er­a­tor, and make myself an impromptu break­fast. Read more:

It may be a lit­tle bit early for Thanks­giv­ing, but tonight I decided to get into the spirit of the hol­i­day and make some stuff­ing. I was inspired by a new favorite drink that I’ve been enjoy­ing recently at a local restau­rant — a car­damom honey cap­puc­cino. I thought about mak­ing my own car­damom honey cap­puc­cino this morn­ing, but set­tled on tea instead and after that, the thought of car­damom was in the back of my mind and taste buds all day. When night­time came around, I had the sud­den idea to try mak­ing car­damom and honey stuff­ing. Read more:

Wel­come to the start of my twelve plus weeks of one handed meals. Turns out, my lit­tle bike acci­dent resulted in me in a hand splint and the pos­si­bil­ity of surgery. Cross­ing fin­gers that the lat­ter is not nec­es­sary. When I heard this news, my first thought was– I’m not going to let this hold me back in the kitchen. Then, I tried to open a can of can­nellini beans. I was only par­tially defeated, get­ting the can halfway open with the use of a can opener, a knife, a spoon and my armpit. But after a good twenty min­utes, I got those beans into the food proces­sor and made myself some deli­cious bean purée. That was when I decided to take this lit­tle set back as an oppor­tu­nity to get cre­ative, and to invest in an elec­tric can opener. And so I present to you, my first install­ment of one handed meals. Read more:

There’s a first time for every­thing and this week was both my first bike acci­dent and my first time mak­ing lentils. My week­end started off great with friends and fam­ily in town– birth­day cel­e­bra­tions, brunches, din­ners, a whole lot of cake and a whole lot of love. On Sun­day, we decided to make the most of my guests’ last day in town and also take advan­tage of the fleet­ing 80 degree weather. So, my friends rented some bikes and we set out for the tour de Brook­lyn (not to be con­fused with the Tour de Taco- an actual annual and awe­some event). Things started out great and it was shap­ing up to be a beau­ti­ful after­noon. Then it hap­pened– my tire and the side­walk got into a lit­tle quar­rel that resulted in my face meet­ing the ground. Read more:

While think­ing up cre­ative ideas for new $5 meals, my mind started to wan­der across the archives of my blog and it sud­denly hit me that I have, over he course of the past few years, made quite a few meals that cost me $5 or less. So, I’ve decided to com­pile them here as a lit­tle inspi­ra­tion to those tak­ing on the chal­lenge. I’m not doing a break­down for each, but if there are any ques­tions or debates, feel free to shout them out, and keep your recipes com­ing! Here are a few of my favorites… Read more:

I’ve come across avo­cado pasta in my inter­net food scour­ing sev­eral times over the past few years and I’ve always been tempted to make it, but I’ve also always been a bit weary of the idea. Some­thing about the thought of a warm avo­cado sauce left an uneasy feel­ing in my stom­ach, although as a lover of baked avo­ca­dos and of gua­camole, I’m not so sure why. Read more: