New Recipes

Over the last couple of weeks, I've concocted a couple of quality recipes that I thought would be worth sharing. We'll use the term 'recipes' lightly. These are by no means Julia Child style recipes. They're simple ingredients with simple steps, but the flavors work well together.

Sweet Potato Hash with Maple Sausage and Onion
Ingredients:
-two large sweet potatoes
-one large yellow onion
-one pound ground maple sausage (any sausage would work, but the sweet salty combination is divine)

Instructions:
-Chop sweet potatoes into bit size pieces (admittedly, I HATE chopping sweet potatoes - they are so tough!) and boil in a big pot of salted water for approximately 5 minutes, or until a fork is able to pass through a piece
-While sweet potatoes are boiling, chop onion and saute in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft
-Once onion is soft, add boiled sweet potatoes into pan and saute together for about seven minutes, or until sweet potatoes are slightly brown and crisp
-While sweet potatoes and onion are browning, cook sausage in a separate pan until cooked through
-Combine all ingredients once cooked to one's liking and eat up! (feel free to drench it in ketchup like I did, too)



Pasta with Broccoli and Turkey Meatballs
Ingredients:
-1 box pasta (I used rotini, but really anything would work)
-about ten turkey meatballs (used the TJ's frozen ones - love them!!!)
-a head of broccoli
-locatelli or pecorino romano cheese (about a handful grated)

Instructions:
-cook turkey meatballs (in this case, baked them from frozen)
-steam broccoli and boil pasta
-grate cheese

Once everything is cooked on it's own, combine ingredients and drizzle with olive oil. Bon appetit!

Breakfasts

Although I love Starbucks, the baristas there have seen me wayyy too many times this fall ordering the turkey bacon egg white sandwich (I'm still brewing Ree's iced coffee at home and continue to get the quizzical look when I only order the sandwich without coffee). I will love that sandwich until the day I die, but after burning a hole in my wallet after a few weeks, it was time to rethink breakfasts. So, in an effort to save some money, I was on the hunt for some new ideas that I could prep over the weekend and eat on the go.

I've been on a flourless baking kick in general recently and have fallen in love with these two muffin recipes:

Eating Bird Food's flourless pumpkin chocolate muffins

Detoxinista's banana peanut butter muffins

I've enjoyed the mini-muffin version of both, which are perfect as I'm heading out the door. Why flourless? Well there's the nutritional aspect, in that flour is highly caloric and most muffins call for a ton of flour. Now that I've made a few flourless recipes though, I like these baked goods more than your typical kind because they're super dense and moist (sorry for those of you that hate that word).

Another perfect on the go breakfast has been Trader Joe's frozen multigrain waffles with sunflower butter. I just toast two of them and smear on the sunflower butter to make a waffle sandwich. I think I could even add in some turkey bacon to get that salty sweet combination going. I also whipped up a batch of these whole wheat pumpkin pecan pancakes last night (and added chocolate chips)....suffice it to say, even though I made ten pancakes there were only nine by the end of the evening.

What about you all? What's been in your breakfast rotation recently?


A little cover by Birdy to get your week off on the right foot....

BACON + Wrap it Up Friday

The sixth grade teachers served breakfast to our staff today, and I decided to step up my game this year. Last year's banana baked oatmeal was a hit, but I knew that I could take it up a notch. What makes anything better? BACON.

I decided on these two recipes:

Ree's Bacon Onion Cheddar Bisciuts

Maple Bacon Brown Sugar Scones

Um....YUMMMMMMMM. The maple bacon was my favorite, and it took all my will (and then some) not to eat them all last night. You'll find me on the treadmill tonight.....

Have a relaxing weekend as you come off of the Halloween sugar high. Sadly, we only got four (FOUR!) trick-or-treaters. What's with that!?  Saturday, I'm off to Charlottesville for a little Chesterbrook reunion with some friends that have sadly left us (we miss you, Sarah and Lauren!) and then I'm hoping to make this delicious soup on Sunday.

Love those Hullabahoos! Miss you, college.

Art

I feel like I'm constantly on the hunt for fun and affordable wall art for our place. As I mentioned the other day, I'm really committed to make our place homey - last year with all of the wedding planning, things were essentially strewn all over the place at all times.  I really want to tackle a gallery wall like Mere's, but I have a feeling I may have to wait until she visits in February to make it look anywhere as good as hers! In the meantime I'd like to pick up some fun prints and while I scour Etsy frequently, it tends to be a bit overwhelming.  I'm excited for 20x200 to relaunch soon and I'm hoping that they have some great new stuff, but in the meantime I've also randomly stumbled across prints by Minted. I've loved minted cards for quite some time, but had no clue that they sell art as well!

Here are some of my favorites:
Staccato
The Peace Van on the Road
I Love San Francisco (would love to get this since we honeymooned there!)
Fly Away with Me

The Minted prints seem super affordable and come in all different sizes.  I just discovered that I hadn't even looked at the typography prints, which are also fantastic. Here's my favorite from those:

source

 

And I also love this one....

source

 

 

What do you think? Do any strike your fancy? Any other suggestions for where to browse for affordable art?

PS. I wrote this the other day, and between then and this morning, look what my mom got us! Speaking of amazing art:) It's a canvas print from our first day with Sloan. I know, I know, I'm obsessed.

 

A Culinary Weekend

This weekend was crazy busy! We had a guest staying with us (saving that for another post this week), and on top of that, CP and I were out and about on our own for various activities. Fortunately, one of us was always around for dog duty:)

Friday night, though, I surprised CP with dinner at 2941, which is where we've gone each year for our dating anniversary.  Even though the restaurant came under different management last year, it's still just as yummy and the space is beautiful.  We sort of dropped the ball on making a reservation this year since Sloan has taken over our lives, so it was fun to have a belated, spontaneous date night with the hubs. We enjoyed: calamari, mushroom tartine, a fall harvest salad, potato crusted rockfish, and a veal/lobster dish. It was delicious, and the company was even better!

Saturday, CP was out fishing at Solomons Island all day with co-workers, so I spent the day lazing around. It was glorious. That night, my dad and I had a night out on the town at the Mosaic District. If you live in the area and haven't been over there yet, I highly recommend it (fun fact, they are owned by the same group that runs Union Market in DC).  We ventured over to Four Sisters for dinner, where we scarfed down some awesome Vietnamese food. They service there is impeccable, and I'm always impressed by how friendly and accommodating they are despite how popular they've become these days. After dinner, we grabbed some gelato and then made our way over to the movie theatre to see Enough Said, which was pretty good, albeit a bit predictable. As someone who grew up on The Sopranos, though, it was meaningful to see James Gandolfini's last work.  The man has some talent.

Other fun eats this weekend: a Mt. Fuji grilled cheese from big cheese at Clarendon Day, Trader Joe's pumpkin bread (made from mix....a bit dry, but nothing a slab of butter couldn't fix), dinner at Legal Sea Foods last night with the rents, and then last night I made this for breakfast this week. I added a spoonful of peanut butter, warmed it up this morning, and then proceeded to woof it down in ten seconds. It was good!


And lastly, while I was baking last night I heard noises coming from the living room and this is what I walked in on....

 

 

Never a dull moment in the Pike household!