Sprout & Pea

A few weeks ago, I returned from one of the best vaca­tions of my life. I trav­eled to Italy for my friend’s wed­ding. Not just any friend, but my very first friend. Nicole and I have known each other since we were babies and she is also the per­son who kick­started my love for healthy eat­ing and cook­ing. In fact, she is the rea­son this blog is called Sprout & Pea. When I began this blog, I thought it would be fun to col­lab­o­rate with Nicole and so the two of us came up with the name Sprout & Pea in honor of know­ing each other since we were sprouts and peas. Nicole’s fash­ion career since took off and her time did not per­mit for blog­ging, so I con­tin­ued with Sprout & Pea on my own, but Nicole’s influ­ence has been with me every step of the way. It was mag­i­cal to see my very first friend get mar­ried to such a won­der­ful man on the most beau­ti­ful island in Italy. 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:

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:

When I trav­eled to Israel last April, I expe­ri­enced my own lit­tle food heaven, which included, amongst other tasty delights, a plethora of humus dishes, an intro­duc­tion to Lab­neh and one of my favorite break­fasts, Shak­shuka, or eggs baked with a tomato sauce. Upon my return to the states, I had long for­got­ten about this incred­i­ble break­fast dish, that is until some very spe­cial eggs were gifted to me. My friend and co-​​worker Corey just so hap­pens to raise (along with bees) some beau­ti­ful chick­ens in his back­yard in Brook­lyn. I’ve been beg­ging him for some fresh eggs for over a year now, and the other day, a beau­ti­ful lit­tle box of them arrived on my desk. Read more:

After a long relax­ing week­end (spe­cial related shout out below), I wanted to start my Mon­day off right, so I chal­lenged myself to make a dish that I had once failed at prepar­ing prop­erly: white bean burg­ers. The first time around, I was con­vinced that I could make these with­out any kind of starchy bind­ing, and that an egg would be enough to hold the ingre­di­ents together– but alas, as the nicely formed pat­ties broke apart in my pan, I knew I had to give this another go. Enter one of my favorite ingre­di­ents for cookie mak­ing, quinoa flakes.
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My room­mate was nice enough to meet me after work to run some errands this week. Not so sur­pris­ingly, after a cold walk home, we were both crav­ing warm Mex­i­can food. Instead of shelling out money at our favorite local spot, I decided to make a big steam­ing bowl of impro­vi­sa­tional layer dip.  We had some Can­nellini beans and extra sharp ched­dar cheese at home, so we just picked up some ingre­di­ents to make some gua­camole and I tossed it all into a Pyrex layer by layer and baked it in the oven.

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