Roasted Butternut Squash and Bacon Soup

I’m totally hoarding pumpkins at the moment — I buy a butternut every time I go to the shops.
Yet not a single one of them will become a Jack-o’-Lantern (I’m so bad at carving pumpkin — no matter how hard I try they always come out lousy) nor they will be used for making pumpkin pie (I know that’s almost blasphemous to say but I’m not a big fan of pumpkin pie — the texture is just way too gloppy for me.)

Italian Seasoning

A quick post today on something I recently just made out of necessity: Italian seasoning.
I know all too well that Italian seasoning is the kind of thing that chefs and sophisticated cooks “never” use.
But as far as I’m concerned, I use it all the time — and I’m not afraid to say it.
Whenever I need to season a chicken breast for dinner, Italian seasoning is there to make it more savory.
I’m whipping up some cauliflower crust cheese pizza? Italian seasoning.
Need to add some extra flavor to my soup? Italian seasoning.

20-Minute Creamy Vegan Carrot Soup

Because I am, in all likelihood, about 10 years old on the inside but old enough on the outside to know that it’s better not to fool yourself or others, I’m going to admit from the start that carrot soup may not be one of the most fashionable soup there is.
Take a New England clam chowder or a French onion soup for instance: They’re classy, sophisticated, and elegant. The kind of soups that would own the runway.
But carrot soup? Carrot soup is synonym for mundane, ordinary, maybe even banal. There’s nothing fashionable about it.
Yet, in all its mundanity this particular 20-Minute Creamy Vegan Carrot Soup is hearty, satisfying, heartwarming, and incredibly delicious.

Wolfpack-Style Meatballs

I’d be lying if I were to say that I’m familiar with baby showers.
I mean, I know what a baby shower is: A party usually thrown by a friend or family member for the first child so that the mom-to-be can feel supported by her friends and family and obtain a few of the essentials.
There’s food, there’s tittle-tattle, there’s a lot of “Oh my God this is the cutest thing ever!”, there are usually party games organized by the host, and so on.
But traditionally baby showers are just women (though more and more are starting to have a mix of men and women) and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve never been invited to one.

Spicy Vegan Chinese Eggplant

I feel you guys should know that I sometimes endure physical pain in order create the recipes for this blog.
For instance, the other day I was chopping serrano peppers and accidentally wiped my eyes.
You.Have.No.Idea.
It started burning like hell, so I jumped in the shower and hosed my eyeball off for 10 minutes straight.
Those of you who have tried to soothe a salsa-scorched mouth with water know that this does not work at all. It helps for a second, and then the burn returns with a vengeance.
In fact I'm pretty sure I made it worse because when I got out of the shower my eye was still burning, and was now bright red and swollen.
The heat and pain from spicy foods is caused by capsaicin, which isn't soluble in water — so it just washes over it and spreads it around without removing it.

20-Minute Skillet Chicken Fajitas

Fortunately, for like healthy eating, nutritional balance, and all that boring stuff I do, I did not entirely subsist on this amazing chocolate chip banana bread for the past few weeks. 

I’ve also been making a lot of these Skillet Chicken Fajitas. 

(Paleo) Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

As Gary Jules sang, it’s a mad, mad world.
Everyone seems to be on the move. They are either coming or going. It’s easy to get caught up in the rush and it’s tempting to pile more on your plate than you can handle.
It’s become the norm to juggle an extra volunteering gig or job when you don’t even have the time to catch your breath.
I personally pride myself in being able to be occupied on a regular basis: work, blog, training, social life, helping sis with the kids, etc.

Easy Pumpkin Masala

My favorite Indian cookbook is “Step-By-Step Indian Cooking” by Sharda Gopal.
Why am I telling you that?
I dunno, I guess I just needed to get it out there.
I guess I just needed someone else to know.
Just like I want you to know that I find this song annoying, that I would like to kill the Geico gecko, and that I’m not digging The Big Bang Theory anymore.
There, I said it. Now sue me. Or do whatever you deem is right.

Creamy Crock-Pot Chicken Arrabbiata

You guys, this is awesome. Really awesome.
Awesome like a mug of warm mint chocolate on a chilly autumn day, like a day at the Spa, like a sink without dirty dishes, like running 10k under 35 minutes — that kind of awesome.

Provencal Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

I am sometimes certain that I wait all year for the Giants to get back on the field, you know, the same way a kid waits for Christmas to arrive, niece C prepares for Halloween (are you going to be Elsa for the third year in a row?), and a “normal” person eagerly anticipates whatever sleek trinket Apple has coming this fall.

So you have to excuse my lack of focus — over the last four weeks all I could think about has been football and my fantasy football team.
But even in this ‘football state of mind’ the other night I was able to drag myself to the farmers' market at, like, 6pm and discovered that they had a ton of discounts.
I scored two pounds of organic heirloom cherry tomatoes for about 4 bucks and a bunch of other stuff for like $10 all together. I was super stoked about it.