Sweet Potato Hash

January 28th, 2014 | Posted by Alison Spath in Lunch - (3 Comments)

Today we’re making sweet potato hash.

Sweet Potato hash

And by we I mean *I*, and by today I mean *yesterday*.

Whoever, whenever – sweet potatoes are cheap, healthy and delicious.  One of the best things about this series of affordable healthy foods is that it’s encouraging me to find new ways to prepare a bunch of my favorite foods so I don’t bore us all to tears with the same old, same old.

Well cry not my potato loving friends!  Sweet potato hash is new to me and was a welcome change from my default roasted sweet potatoes that I always make.  (If sweet potato hash is not new to you – then here, have a tissue.  And I guess I did still roast them, but still – THIS IS DIFFERENT!)  Read more...

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Turkey Sweet Potato Chili

December 3rd, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (2 Comments)

Maybe you’re turkey-ed out, or maybe Thanksgiving insanity threw off any sort of meal plan you had going and you ended up eating turkey four days in a row due to poor planning/holiday recovery. The pumpkin pie made me do it.

I’ve been making turkey marinara with spaghetti squash like it’s going out of style.  It’s easy and it’s good, and for these reasons I’ve been throwing a pound of ground turkey and a spaghetti squash into my shopping cart each week knowing it’s a (relatively) fast, go-to meal we enjoy.  Read more...

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Summer Garden Frittata (+ the Fastest Whipped Sweet Potatoes Ever)

August 27th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (5 Comments)

Are you sick of zucchini yet? Well hang tight, we’ve still got a few weeks of summer left.

With a frittata on the dinner menu, I gathered up the latest round of CSA zucchini (both yellow and green) for shredding and salting before I made it sit in the corner to think about what it did wrong.

Drained Shredded Zucchini

Oh Zucchini, you didn’t do anything wrong.  You’re just so… so… plenteous!  So abundant!  I’m at my wits end trying to come up with ideas for you.  Read more...

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Easy Crock Pot Bone-in Pork Roast

March 12th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (2 Comments)

Today’s greens were just the same-old same-old roasted Brussels sprouts (paired with roasted sweet potatoes, my winter vegetable obsession).  What I really want to tell you about is this shredded pork roast we’ve been enjoying.

Crockport Pork Roast with Brussels sprouts and sweet potato

It’s super easy – but more importantly, it’s super good.

I didn’t really learn to cook until after I was a vegetarian.  In fact, becoming a vegetarian is The Reason I learned how to cook. If we’re not eating meat, WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GONNA EAT?!  Read more...

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Day Three of Green

March 3rd, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Short or Sweet - (5 Comments)

It’s the end of Day 3 in this Month of Eating More Green Stuff challenge! Here’s a look at the greenery that showed up around here today.

The first green vegetable was spotted shortly after my (8 mile!) morning run. My favorite halved and roasted little green heads,

Brussels Sprouts Day 3

with some left over beef chili topped with a little shredded cheese and a few roasted sweet potatoes too.

Brussels Sprouts and Chili with Sweet Potato and Cheese

There was some unpictured, unexciting steamed broccoli consumed before running some errands this afternoon (“running errands” is code for “a trip to Wegmans”) and after a simple dinner of eggs and Ezekiel toast, I sipped on this green smoothie while putting together this post.  Read more...

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A Chili Morning (for a Not-So-Chilly Kitchen)

January 28th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Morning Craziness - (7 Comments)

It’s cold here.  (Like, really cold.)

It’s so cold that it’s possible some mornings I turn the oven on before I even turn the coffee maker on.

Just kidding.  (Let’s not get ridiculous.)

But it’s true that it’s cold, and it’s also true that cooking in the morning is a great way to warm up my chilly kitchen.

Chilly kitchen.  Chilly morning.  (Can see where I’m going with this?)  Read more...

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Slow Then Fast Food

August 28th, 2012 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (9 Comments)

As we were first settling into our new life as a family of five, there was a lot of snack food consumption going on around here. Pretzels, granola bars, tortilla chips, crackers… I loaded our cupboards with quick and easy foods because well, they were quick and easy. I stuck with foods that weren’t awful, but I wouldn’t classify them as The World’s Healthiest Foods either.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. We were fortunate to have friends and family bring us plenty of meals in those early weeks, but it’s possible there were afternoons where we had air popped popcorn and graham crackers smeared with almond butter for lunch.  Read more...

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Best Laid Plans

November 14th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (2 Comments)

Today, I had a plan.

That plan was to make dinner early, so that when we got home from an outing with friends late this afternoon, dinner would be mostly ready. All that would be left to do would be to make some guac to top it all off.

And that plan worked. For the most part.

I did indeed make Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili with quinoa this morning before setting off on the day’s adventure.  Read more...

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Black and Orange

October 31st, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (4 Comments)

A fast and color coordinated black bean burger and orange fries for dinner tonight!

Black Bean Burger

Too bad my black burger was obscured by a piece of provolone cheese.  The black and orange effect was lost. Good thing veggie burger love knows no color.

And a letter:

Dear Frozen Sweet Potato Fries from a Bag,

I didn’t forget how delicious you are, but I did forget how easy you are!  Easy like Sunday morning straight from my grocers freezer case delivered directly onto my plate. Stuff it mandolin!

I should totally start my own advertising business. I could be a hundredaire.  Read more...

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Old Man Dolin

October 17th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (5 Comments)

Dinner tonight was about ease and speed.  Mama’s got a 6:30 yoga class she wants to get to, gang!  Chop chop!

Or should I say “slice slice!”?

With fast cookin’ potatoes on my mind, a couple of orange spuds and I went head to head with the mandolin.

Sweet Potatoes Cut with Mandolin

A mandolin is a fancy schmancy slicer contraption that is supposed to make vegetable slicing easier. The last time I used this thing, the mandolin and I had words.  But tonight?  I grabbed this bull by the horns until it bucked me off.

Oneida Mandolin  Read more...

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