Summer and Fall Flavors

To me, nothing beats the summer flavors of tomato and basil. A simple caprese salad (tomato, basil, mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil) is one of the most satisfyingly delicious meals you can eat. And after purchasing an additional 20 pounds of tomatoes from our CSA, Brendan and I had our fill of the tomato-basil combo. But just as satisfying as those summer flavors is the warm taste and smell of fall vegetables being roasted in the oven, with just a hint of olive oil, salt, and pepper. This post is a tribute to the best of summer and best of fall flavors.  

Best of Summer: Tomato-Basil Quinoa
Serves 4
Ingredients:
-1 cup quinoa
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
-1 tablespoon tomato paste
-3 small tomatoes, diced
-1 bunch of swiss chard, chopped
-1/4 cup basil, chopped
-1 15oz. can low-sodium navy beans, drained & rinsed
-Parmesan cheese
-salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:
1. Cook quinoa according to package
2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and stir for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and stir for another 1 minute. 
3. Add the diced tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes
4. Add chopped swiss chard and cook until wilted (3-5 minutes)
5. Toss in the basil, beans, and cooked quinoa. Mix well to make sure everything is heated through (particularly the beans).
6. Serve with Parmesan cheese grated on top. 

Best of Fall: Roasted Harvest Vegetables 
Modified from: Fight Back With Food, by Editors of Reader's Digest
Serves: 6

Ingredients: 
-1 pound brussels sprouts, halved
-1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
-1 head of cauliflower, chopped into bite-size pieces
-2 apples, chopped into large chunks
-1 onion, quartered (skin still on)
-3 tablespoons olive oil (remember, 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon)
-1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
-2 green onions, sliced
-1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
-1 tablespoon dried rosemary
-2 teaspoons garlic powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix brussels sprouts with 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Mix well.
3. Spread sprouts on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, until browned and crispy. 
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for squash, cauliflower, and apple. Spread onion quarters with remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil and roast on the corners of one of the baking sheets.
*My oven fits two baking sheets, so I was able to do two rounds of roasting veggies.
5. When onions are done, peel off the skin and chop the roasted onion into bite size pieces. 
6. Combine all roasted veggies (and apple!) in a large bowl. 
7. Add remaining ingredients to the bowl (sun-dried tomatoes through pepper) and mix well. 
8. Serve hot or at room temperature. 

Best of Summer & Fall: Roasted Beet Salad with Basil Dressing
Modified from Cooking Light
Serves 6

Ingredients for salad
-4 beets, roasted and sliced 
-1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
-fronds from fennel bulb, chopped
-1 small head of endive, sliced
-1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
-6 cups baby spinach, or any other type of salad greens
-3 tablespoons crumbled goat cheese (or whatever type of cheese you prefer)
-salt & pepper, to taste

Ingredients for salad dressing
**The salad dressing is out of this world, crazy-good. Be prepared to fall in love. 
-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
-1 tablespoon honey
-1 teaspoon grated orange rind
-orange juice from 1/2 an orange (should be about 2 tablespoons)
-2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
-2 teaspoons olive oil
-2 teaspoons dijon mustard
-1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
You can follow the exact directions from Cooking Light, but I recommend my way of roasting the beets. And you can add the cheese at the very end.
To roast beets: 
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Place whole beets (with skin) in an oven-proof container, with just a bit of water in the bottom, covered with aluminum foil. 
3. Roast for 50 minutes. 
4. When you can easily pierce the beets with a fork, the beets are cooked. 
5. Let the beets cool. 
6. Once you can handle the beets, use your hands to peel off the skin--it should slide right off. 
7. Cut the beets into slices for the salad.

The Rest of Summer

One more MIA post and then on to more exciting things. All I can say about the remainder of summer is that it flew by way too fast. I had SO much fun, ate so much delicious food, and made a ton of fantastic memories. July consisted of two particularly special events: a reunion with friends in Portland, ME and one of my best friend's weddings (in Franconia, NH). 

I cannot say much about the food that we made during our reunion weekend, because the food we ate out was just so superior to anything we made ourselves. We ate delectable lobstah rolls at the Portland Lobster Co, gorged ourselves with delicacies from Nosh, and of course, drank lots of wonderful Maine beers. 

Enjoying our Saturday night lobster roll dinner 

Then there was the wedding. A weekend of laughing, dancing, drinking, eating, and being in the presence of so much love it almost makes you cry. Admittedly I was not expecting the wedding food to be anything out of the ordinary--my previous experiences with wedding food consisted of really bad or too much to handle. But I was shocked by how delicious all of the wedding food was, particularly the cake. Kate and Kevin have set a VERY HIGH bar for all future weddings, and not just because their food was so damn good. The only word to describe their wedding: epic.

The newlyweds cut their cake

The first weekend of August was special (as always) because of Brendan's birthday. This year we spent the weekend on Cape Cod and celebrated with a New England style feast: homemade lobster rolls, corn on the cob, cucumber salad, potato salad, and Brendan's favorite birthday dessert combo: chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting, and mint chocolate chip ice cream (only Breyer's will do). A very delicious and successful 25th birthday.

Brendan's 25th Birthday Meal

For the rest of the summer we spent basically every weekend on the Cape, where we ate endless amounts of food prepared by my dad, mom, uncles, aunts, and the occasional meal out. Delicious food, but unfortunately I don't have any photos. However, I do have photos from two wonderful meals that Brendan and I made together, toward the end of August. The first was our end-of-summer grill meal: salmon (nothing on it except some black pepper and salt), shrimp (marinated in olive oil, pepper, salt, and lots of garlic), sweet potato fries, and cucumber salad. The second meal was a super quick dinner that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a low-hassle recipe--it's a quinoa salad that highlights some of summer's best produce, but can easily be modified to include fruits and veggies from whatever season we're in. 

Grilled salmon, grilled shrimp, grilled sweet potatoes

Quinoa Salad with Peaches, Arugula, and Quick-Pickled Onions

I was really terrible about documenting the meals I made this summer, just as I was awful at writing blog posts. But I promise to be better! I just started a graduate program in nutrition, which means cheap, healthy, and quick recipes are on their way...look out, because Brunch for Bitches is back in action!

One-Bowl-Wonders

Making a meal with various side dishes can be fun and enjoyable (albeit, time intensive). And sometimes making a meal that is a one-bowl-wonder is just as satisfying. A one-bowl meal is nothing to feel ashamed or embarrassed by; and making this type of meal is not a sign of laziness, nor is it due to lack of creativity. Some meals just taste better in a bowl! Plus...these types of meals are usually quick to make and require far less clean-up than a multi-dish meal. 

The reason I am even writing this post is because over the past couple of days I found myself cooking one-bowl meals, for no real rhyme or reason. The recipes were incredibly delicious, easy to make, and perfect meals for those looking for relatively simple cooking. So I figured, why not share these recipes with you all? Try 'em out and let me know your thoughts!

Do you ever make one-bowl-wonder meals? If so, what are they? 

Spaghetti Squash Scampi
Serves 2
*this recipes only uses half of the spaghetti squash, but I recommend cooking the whole thing and using the remaining half for another dish!

Ingredients:
-1 spaghetti squash, cut in half (lengthwise) and seeds discarded 
-1 leek (or onion), chopped - be sure to clean the leeks
-1 tablespoon butter
-1 tablespoon olive oil

-4 garlic cloves, minced
-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

-2 tablespoons capers
-6 black cured olives or kalamata olives
-1/2 cup white wine
-2 cups frozen shrimp, scallops, and/or squid, thawed (I used the frozen seafood mix from Trader Joe's which consists of all three: scallops, shrimp, and squid)
-dash of ground black pepper
-handful of parsley, chopped
-Parmesan cheese, as topping

Directions: 
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Place squash (cut side down) in a 9x13 baking dish and add 1 cup of water. Bake for 35 minutes or until a fork can easily pierce through the squash skin. Wait for squash to cool, then scrape out insides of one half of squash into a bowl (it looks like spaghetti...hence the name of the squash). 
2. Heat oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add leeks and cook for 5-7 minutes, until translucent & just beginning to becoming a golden color.
3. Add garlic and red pepper flakes to skillet; stir for another 1 minute. 
4. Add the capers, olives, and white wine. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add seafood to skillet and simmer for additional 5-8 minutes, until shrimp starts to curl & become pink, and/or other seafood is cooked through (goes from translucent color to solid white). Add ground black pepper. 
5. Stir in parsley and mix well. Serve in a bowl and top with cheese.

Quinoa, Sweet Potato, & Kale Bowl
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooking For Health cookbook
Serves 4

Ingredients:
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 red onion, chopped
-1 hot pepper (like jalapeno or chile) or 2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 sweet potato, diced
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed & drained according to package
-1 1/2 cup water
-1 bunch kale, leaves thinly sliced, and stems separated & chopped
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
-3 tablespoons dried currants, raisins, or dried cranberries
-2 scallions, minced
-1/2 lemon, juiced
-ground black pepper
-3 tablespoons crumbled cheese (such as gorgonzola, feta, or goat cheese)

Directions:
1. Warm 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the red onion and hot pepper (or garlic), and sauté for 5 minutes until translucent. 
2. Add sweet potato, salt, and a dash of ground black pepper to saucepan; stir for 2 minutes.
3. Add quinoa and water to saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until water is absorbed and sweet potato is tender.
4. As saucepan simmers, heat a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, chopped kale stems, and red pepper flakes. Cook for 2 minutes, until kale stems start to soften. 
5. Add kale leaves to skillet and sauté until leaves are wilted, but still bright green. You may need to add 1/4 cup of water to help steam the leaves a bit. 
6. In a large bowl combine quinoa mixture with kale. Add the dried currants, scallions, and lemon juice. Mix well. 
7. Serve in a bowl and top with crumbled cheese.

Cookies For Breakfast?!

Thanks to one of my favorite bitches I now receive Bon Appetit magazine - this means I have even more recipes and ideas from which to choose. Yay! I'll admit, some of the magazine's recipes can be a bit too high-tech and fancy for me (aka they require rather expensive ingredients and/or equipment...I don't own an ice cream maker, nor do I have walnut, truffle, and hazelnut oil...sorry). However, the majority of recipes look simple enough that I'll give 'em a try, delicious enough that I'm 99% sure I'll enjoy 'em, and interesting enough that I think "I've gotta give this a go". 


After skimming the first magazine that arrived in the mail, I knew immediately which recipe I'd be trying to make ASAP because it was entitled "Hallelujah: Cookies for Breakfast". Excuse me? Did you say cookies for breakfast? The recipe looked fairly simple, all the ingredients were fortuitously in my pantry, and I was fairly certain the result would be nothing short of yummy...how can you go wrong with a cookie? So I decided to try out the recipe. To my delight, the cookies fell nothing short of fantastic. 


Like I said, the recipe - Almond-Cranberry Quinoa Cookies - is pretty basic to follow. The cookies are made with white whole wheat flour (c'mon, it's a cookie for breakfast, so obviously you can't use regular all-purpose-stripped-of-important-nutrients flour), old-fashioned rolled oats, cooked quinoa, dried cranberries, and almonds, in addition to some regular baking ingredients - sugars, butter, eggs, etc. If you're not a quinoa fan, you may not like these cookies, as they definitely have a quinoa taste. In this case, try substituting brown rice, barley, or even doubling the amount of rolled oats, for the cooked quinoa. And if you don't have some of the baking ingredients required (baking powder, vanilla extract, brown sugar, to name a few), bite the bullet and purchase them - guaranteed I'll have more baking recipes and it never hurts to keep your pantry well stocked with baking supplies!


Below I've listed the adjustments that I made to the recipe, but I'm sure if you follow the recipe "as written" it will come out just as good. On Sunday I ate one of the cookies for breakfast, along with some scrambled eggs; but mostly I've been eating one or two of the cookies as my mid-morning snack (you know that time of day to which I am referring - it's around 11am, when you start to get hungry again after breakfast, but you are not quite ready for lunch). Not quite a muffin, but definitely not a dessert, these cookies are perfect for breakfast and/or as a snack if you want something quick to grab that is healthy and satisfying to eat. Who would've guessed? Cookies, for breakfast!

Almond-Cranberry Quinoa Cookies

1. I used 1/2 cup of Smart Balance instead of butter - either one works.

2. I only used 2 tablespoons of honey, because there's already 1/2 cup of sugar (white & brown combined). Next time I may use less white sugar and 1/4 cup of honey, because I like the flavor of honey better.

3. I used 1/2 cup whole almonds (unsalted) that I then chopped, using a food processor

4. I used 1/2 cup dried cranberries, 1/2 cup dried cherries, because that's what I had in my pantry.

5. My batch of cookies yielded 32, even though the recipe says it only makes about 24.

What do you think of cookies for breakfast?