ringing in the new year

Let it be known that as we being 2012, I'm starting it with the very best of intentions. For instance, I just downed this fresh and bright smoothie, packed full of garden greens. The kale and baby spinach, lemon juice, and sweetness of the pear juice and banana blend together very well, but the celery is pronounced and quickly reminds you that you're drinking something healthy. It's a super fresh smoothie that will make you feel better just for looking at it.So let 2012 be the year I recommit to Sustainable Diet, bringing to it a freshness not unlike that of this delectable drink. Here's to renewal,...

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salsa verde

Here's what happens. I run home to visit my mom and wish her happy birthday, intending just to drop off her gift and talk for a while. She not only feeds me (well) with a wonderful pot of homemade, homegrown vegetarian minestrone, but also sends me home with bags and bags of vegetables. Among them: collards, chard, pattypan squash, eight-ball squash, cherry tomatoes, dill, and (best of all), about four pounds of tomatillos.... already husked, no less! Last night, those tomatillos got rinsed, roasted, and pureed into some fresh and spicy salsa verde. The pepper lineup was taken from our backyard...

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a second spring

Thanks to the unbelievably wonderful weather we've seen lately (let's just not mention the lack of rain, shall we?), the garden we have so lovingly revamped in the backyard is beginning to grow. In 56-90 days, we'll (hopefully) have produce from our own backyard on our own plates.Two weekends ago, we buckled down and cleaned up the backyard. After coming up with a general game plan for the gardens, we settled on a few things, wants and needs:• We want the garden to look good• We need to keep the cats out• We need a way to grow plants from seed, as well as places for transplants• We want to grow...

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the rise of the fro-ban

*Please note. I meant to post this, oh, a long, long time ago. But a phone call last week from a neighbor that opened with, "Hey Amber. We have a fro-ban question," reminded me to actually set it live. **Also. We are huge fans of fro-bans as they were meant to be. This is just another option.Once upon a time, I was struck by the simplicity of a blog post over at The Kitchn. "Make delicious, creamy ice cream with just one ingredient and no ice cream maker," it claimed. Ha-HA! Yeah right. Nay-sayers, step aside. Marvel at the Fro-Ban: the frozen banana, like you've never seen it before. I worried...

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homemade fig newtons

Figs are such delicate, delectable things. They seem so incredibly indulgent—so when my mom gave me the better part of 10 pounds this year, I longed to use them wisely. Their delicate nature means they're only good fresh for a week (at best), so I had to use them up quickly and didn't have any time to make preserves. Enter the hunt for a fig bar recipe. A good friend is a big fan of fig bars, and I thought a homemade version would be easy to find. Turns out, most recipes I turned to called for dried figs (since for most of the cooking public, those are so easy to come by). If you're in the market,...

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summer meals, part 2: fig, gorgonzola & arugula pizza

I couldn't leave you hanging on just part 1, now, could I?My mom gave us a bucketload of fresh figs from her tree. During the last two summers, I out-jammed myself and we still have jars sitting in the garage that I'm afraid to eat. With the heat this summer, I can't bear to do any canning in the kitchen anyway. So this year, I decided to take a different approach. This approach: Enjoy fresh figs in all of their fresh figgy glory. So we made pizza. With fresh figs. How fun!I've gotten in the habit of making double batches of pizza dough and freezing half. It's once the prep and twice the food—brilliant,...

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summer meals, part 1

Believe it or not, we've been having some amazing stuff from the garden and kitchen lately. I hope to share a few recipes soon, like homemade fig bars and fig-gorgonzola-arugula pizza. Oh, and mayo-free pimento cheese. And the plans for the fall garden (see the squash starts above? Let's hope they make it!). Sure, our garden is suffering mightily in the heat. . . And there's next to nothing to harvest most of the time. But we have managed to pluck delicious ripe tomatoes from the vines and have peppers, too. And with the frozen herbs I keep in my freezer, a quick summer meal is never too far away....

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garden squash & eggplant pizzas

Friday night, we had friends over for dinner. They swing vegetarian too, so cooking up a meatless meal was not an issue. And we had quite the harvest from the garden last week, making for a nice selection of veggies to choose from. They're kind, open-minded friends who would politely eat even my worst culinary creation . . . But they didn't have to feign interest because (spoiler alert) this dinner was awesome. After the pizza success earlier this month, I decided to go with something foolproof and serve garden-fresh pizzas to our guests. Let me tell you what made this a good game plan:• I planned...

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yum factor: goat cheese and zucchini pizza

I'll be the first to admit, it's been tough times in the kitchen lately. Not a lot going on, and when it does go on, there's a mess deal with and not a lot of "yum" to make the mess easier to handle. What you haven't seen here: a completely failed attempt at banana bread, some decidedly not delicious dinners, and preoccupation with other stuff. Bigger fish to fry, if you'll excuse the analogy. So part of me was getting pretty put out about it all. We started eating out more and more, until I felt like we were eating out at every meal, and the only thing I found myself cooking were iterations of...

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a riff on beans & rice

Let's pretend you live in Austin. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But have you ever gone to Mother's? It's a fabulous little cafe with one very important distinction: its menu is entirely vegetarian. So we've been there a lot in the last year and a half. A lot. A couple of visits ago, I decided it would probably behoove me to branch out, though I have some serious favorites, and work my way through everything on the menu. The garden salad with cashew-tamari dressing is a must on each visit, but since everything is me-friendly, I love the idea that I can try it all. No substitutions needed. About...

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a sneak peak at the backyard farm

Oh boy. A couple of weekends ago, we welcomed a new member to our garden family, along with the help of some awesome folks (more about that soon, promise!). We've added more gardening space to our backyard than I think anyone was really prepared for, and have had to come up with creative names for our raised beds just to keep them all straight. Above you can see our original bed, Fat Man, which Ryan built single-handedly. Don't tell the other beds, but this one's my favorite. It's 4 feet wide, 8 long, and almost 18 inches tall. It fed us salad and greens for four solid months, and we're still...

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newsworthy: Bittman, Oatmeal, and McDonald's

Soapbox alert: Fast food is NOT HEALTHY and it shouldn't be a part of anyone's daily diet. Can we agree?Before you tell me that your life is too busy to live without fast food, I want you to ponder the effects that most fast foods have on our health and our environment. Cheap calories, as Mark Bittman points out in this opinion article, are often the unhealthiest of the bunch. From corn-fed beef to chemical-laced breakfast options, there's nothing healthy that comes off a fast food menu. (To be fair, I do enjoy Chipotle and think they offer good options, including organic vegetarian black beans...

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honey, there's a food source in our backyard.

The mornings are usually a little hectic around our house. For me, at least: I tend to run around like a busy-body while Ryan knows how to keep it nice and relaxed. I start with the best of intentions—going for a jog, perhaps, or waking up a little early to make breakfast or even earlier to make it to sunrise yoga. The alarm goes off, I let myself fall back asleep for a little while, and then by the time my eyes open, it's 7:15 and I think of all the things I want to accomplish before going to work at 9. Today we were rolling along quite nicely, though; I took Fin for a walk around the 'hood while...

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comfort food from another place

After a long and surprisingly hectic day at work, I had one thing on my mind: comfort food. I wanted something warm, spicy, and rejuvenating. Dinner had to be easy, cheap, and use up some things I already had on hand: a tall order.Suddenly, a craving for Indian food hit. My previous experiences trying to cook Indian food didn't go over too well, but then I happened upon this recipe for chickpea and spinach curry. Easy! Healthy! Almost identical to what our friend's mom had made for us months ago! Exactly what I wanted! And I could cheat a little with a magical ingredient called Red Curry Paste....

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inspired: self-full.

Not a photo of food. GOAL, though.So I had this a-ha! moment today while reading one of my favorite blogs, A Practical Wedding. Yes, its' technically a wedding blog (but in reality, SO much more!), and yes, our wedding happened, oh . . . about four months ago, but it is so very inspiring to me. I flirted with other wedding sites for a few weeks after our wedding, but have pretty well nixed my penchant for scrolling at 60MPH through inspiring (or aspirational) wedding photos. But I've stuck with my smart, sassy blog friends over at APW.And while reading Tuesday's post, wherein author Meg encourages...

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on thinking, then acting

After plenty of prodding from plenty of people, I ordered the Desert Island Sampler from Rancho Gordo. My heirloom beans arrived in all their glory this week, and even I was shocked at my level of excitement for cooking dry beans when I got home Tuesday night.First up? The Rio Zape beans, which (according to their package) had hints of coffee and chocolate. While mulling over what to cook them with, I perused Rancho Gordo's bean-cooking instructions. "Cover with water, broth, or beer..." Wait—notes of coffee in the beans? Wouldn't you know, I had two Real Ale Coffee Porters in the fridge! (Best....

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a new lease on life

January started with so much promise. We began the year with a joyful evening spent with close friends; we made promises to ourselves and to each other to start fresh, eat right, exercise, and do the Earth a favor or two. And I'm pleased to say that January is delivering. My husband came home with great news yesterday, news that means his unbelievably strong willpower and unwavering efforts in all aspects of health are paying off. I couldn't be prouder of him! I have found a new passion—one that makes me feel alive and vibrant and want to share it with the world—in yoga. Together, we're making...

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and in this new decade....

Like most of the rest of the world, we sat with our friends just before the clock struck midnight to ring in the new year, and talked about what a year it had been.What a year, indeed. We started it engaged. We bought a house. We painted a wall for the first time in our lives. We planned a wedding. Then we had a wedding. We went to Mexico and swam in the ocean. I stuck with the vegetarian thing (it's been a whole year, can anyone believe it?!). We built a vegetable garden and planted our first seeds. We tried some new things, we had successes and failures. We shared our first holidays together...

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