Sprout & Pea

Recently, my friend Caitlin asked me if I would give her a lit­tle cook­ing les­son, and since there’s noth­ing that I love more than cook­ing with friends and watch­ing their eyes widen as ingre­di­ents fuse together, I jumped at the oppor­tu­nity. We had just received our lat­est CSA box and it was filled with sum­mer squash that I was itch­ing to cook with. I wanted to keep this meal sim­ple so after some search­ing, I decided on a Martha Stew­art recipe that I came across for roasted sum­mer veg­eta­bles and basil over pasta. Read more:

Admit­tedly, I made this recipe quite a few weeks ago. I took a lit­tle break from the ol’ blog to travel to a place that I am now very much in love with, Italy. More on the mag­i­cal city of Rome and a beau­ti­ful island called Ponza in a post to fol­low. Before head­ing over to Europe, I received my next CSA box from Lan­caster and amongst a box of beau­ti­ful greens and veg­gies all famil­iar to me, were a bunch of gar­lic scapes. I love this CSA for the new plants that it con­sis­tently intro­duces me to. Read more:

The weather has been all over the place lately and with that, so have my eat­ing habits. It seems that this warm one day, freez­ing the next pat­tern also seems to send me into a pat­tern of home-​​cooked healthy meal one day, mac and cheese at my favorite local spot the next. On one such recent warm day, my body had had enough of eat­ing out, so when I awoke to the sun shin­ing, I imme­di­ately jumped from my bed and headed to the mar­ket for some break­fast inspi­ra­tion. Low and behold I cam across a veg­etable that I have been itch­ing to play with. 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:

For my last day at my old job my amaz­ing intern Eli gave me one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen — a mini le creuset! It even matches the color of my large one. I had been think­ing of pur­chas­ing some ramekins to make some baked eggs in, but this spe­cial lit­tle gift was oing to work even bet­ter. My down­time for cook­ing has been a bit lim­ited recently with friends in town and start­ing a new job and lots of other excit­ing events and trips hap­pen­ing, but each day this adorable mini le creuset has been start­ing me in the face, wait­ing for me to cook with it. Finally, I had an evening to myself and so I stopped at the mar­ket on my way home from work, got all of the ingre­di­ents that I had been sali­vat­ing over for the past month and got to work. Read more:

There’s a first time for every­thing, and last week­end just so hap­pened to be my first time in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia. I spent my Fourth of July explor­ing a new city and relax­ing in a nearby rural sub­urb with good com­pany, deli­cious food, sun­shine, cats, dogs and yes, even the Amish. I even had my first intro­duc­tion to Johnny Cakes (also known as corn­meal pan­cakes) and I can’t wait to get the recipe for this new favorite tasty break­fast treat. Before the fire­works set off and after a lit­tle game of bad­minton, we stuffed our­selves full with burg­ers and hot dogs topped with grilled kale, along­side lentil salad, green beans and an array of other good­ies. Read more: