Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the two most amazing fathers I know... My Dad and my husband. I love you both!!!

Roasted Vegetables

Roasting is one of my favorite ways to prepare vegetables. There is something very comforting to me about them. Yes, roasting is usually thought of as more of a winter thing, but I enjoy it year round. Traditional roasting involves using a higher temperature and shorter durations, I actually prefer the opposite... I like lower temps and longer times. To me this yields a more tender bite with more caramelizing. Mmmm...

Picking out your vegetables is the fun part. In the winter, we use a lot of squash because it is in season. In the summer I go for asparagus or brussel sprouts. (Thanks Roxie! I've never done roasted brussel sprouts until your recent post!) Use a variety of oils as well (olive oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil).

I'm not going to post an exact recipe but just some ideas to try.

Brussel sprouts and garlic

Asparagus and rosemary, thyme, and sea salt

Cajun cauliflower

Curried squash (Rory HATES curry... much to my dismay)

sweet potatoes with cinnamon and coconut oil

Just me and my baby!

Rory is off again for more training so that leaves just me and my baby. Positive #1- Lots of Mommy-daughter time! Negative #2 (#1 is obvious)- not a lot of creativity in the kitchen because cooking for myself is not nearly as fun as cooking for Rory.

Tonight I threw together a really simple soup. Soups are hard to get wrong when you keep your ingredient list simple.

1lb ground beef

2 tbsp butter or oil

1 can diced tomatoes

1 onion, diced

1/2 green pepper, diced

5 carrots, diced

3 stalks celery, diced

1 cup green beans

4 cups water or stock

dash of salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

2 bay leaves

1. Cook beef.

2. In a large pot, melt butter and then cook onion, pepper, carrots and celery for 5 minutes.

3. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boil.

4. Simmer for 30+ minutes until vegetables are tender.

5. Remove bay leaves.

Simple hamburger vegetable soup. Enjoy!

Faux Rice... AKA caulirice

There were a few questions about the faux rice that I make using cauliflower. I thought I would post a picture of what mine looks like before I cook it...