My food processor has changed my life.

I really wanted to make this brussels Caesar style salad last night. Pre food processor, this would’ve taken me a million years. Grating the cheese, shaving the brussels sprouts, etc.

Post food processor, a grand total of 15 minutes.

I’m not exaggerating. This includes making the dressing. Accompanied by a sandwich with some leftover roast chicken from the weekend (recipe for that coming soon), it was the perfect, quick weeknight meal.

Faux Caesar brussels sprouts salad:
As many brussels sprouts as you want, shaved. You can do this with a mandolin, but I used an attachment on my food processor to slice this thinly in about 5 minutes. I know raw brussels sprouts sounds kind of weird at first, but trust me, they’re delicious.

1/2 red onion, chopped finely

Shaved parmesan

Faux Caesar dressing:
1/4 cup greek yogurt, 1 crushed garlic clove, a sprinkle of Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, juice from one lemon, olive oil, a tablespoon of parmesan

Combine all of the ingredients until the brussels sprouts are coated well with dressing. That’s it! Really. And it’s delicious/healthy.

I love the way people write about food.
Especially in recipes.

The word choice in recipes is so perfectly descriptive — maybe because food captures so many of our 5 senses. It makes it a bit easier to find just the right way to say something. I’ve collected a few of my favorites from several food blogs I love. Bon appétit!

twist the peel to express its oils

scrape the fond from the bottom

slice whisper thin

sauté until tender

fold in the vegetables

zest and supreme oranges

followed by a generous heap

drizzle half the cream

save some of the plumped up blossoms

bake until very deeply golden

until you get a touch of browning

sprinkle with scallions

spike with a bit of lemon juice

most will be little nubs

it should hiss and sputter

dollop each with cumin yogurt

Last Friday, the weather was gross. It was that unfortunate type of drizzle that never fully develops into rain. And it was bitterly cold, too.

Not too much fun to be outdoors in that, so for me, it was the perfect excuse to stay in. Kelly and I put National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on (an all time favorite) and I whipped up a pumpkin black bean soup that I’ve been wanting to make. 

It was surprisingly easy, and unsurprisingly delicious. 

Ingredients are simple: 1 can pumpkin, 1 can of black beans, 1 can of tomatoes, vegetable broth (I used my homemade broth for extra flavor), 1 yellow onion, 3 cloves garlic, red pepper flakes, cumin and chili powder. 

Chop up the onion and the garlic, and sauteé them in olive oil til golden brown. I add the red pepper flakes here too. 

In the meantime, coarsely blend the black beans and tomatoes in a food processor. Pour the mixture into the pot, and add 2 to 3 cups (depending on how soupy you like your soup!) of broth, the full can of pumpkin, 2 tsp cumin, and 2 tsp chili powder (to taste — I ended up adding more later on). 

It should end up a little bit like this. Bring it to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Then add salt to taste, and half a cup of vinegar (either red wine or apple cider) to cut the sweetness a bit (trust me, this step makes a huge difference). 

I had some pumpkin seeds on hand (I love them in salads), so I toasted some to top the soup. 

I suggest adding avocado, feta and Tapatío too! 

xo

A while ago, I made a quick note at the end of a post about a brilliant idea I read in a comment online. The article was about composting — how everyone wants to do it and knows they should do it, but it’s hard to actually make it happen. I have a composting bin in my kitchen that was provided to me for free by the wonderful city of San Francisco, but I hardly use it because it’s a pain to deal with. It stinks up my tiny kitchen, is impossible to find a decent bag for, and emptying it is the worst. 

But this commenter had a brilliant solution: Every week, she saves all of her vegetable scraps, and freezes them. Everything: spinach stems, onion skins, garlic shavings, ends of carrots and potato peels. Then, when she has a free afternoon, she dumps it all in a pot of water, flavors accordingly, and boils it for a few hours to make vegetable broth. Genius, no? 

So I did it. 

It worked out great (as you can see above — this is only half, I froze the rest), and I’m totally going to keep doing this. There is a caveat — I have a small freezer, so I can’t do this with all my vegetable scraps otherwise I’d have no room in there. But it is really easy (I love that I can keep this in the freezer until I have the time to make the broth), it makes me feel like I’m throwing less away, and the homemade stock is a delicious bonus. This is a mix of chard, onion, carrots, garlic, potatoes, and Lord knows what else. I put it all in my biggest pot of water, flavored it with rosemary, parsley and peppercorn, and let it boil for 3 hours. At the very end I decided to put in a big tablespoon of miso for that extra umami, but I think it would’ve been fine without it anyways. 

With this sudden gloomy weather in California, I fully intend on making some extra-delicious soup tomorrow night. 

xo

The best part about my Halloween decorations this year? They’re edible! One of the kabocha squashes sounded particularly good the other night, so I chopped some up and roasted them for about 20 minutes with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. A perfect squash doesn’t need much else.

My favorite squash is my mom’s acorn squash — roasted with just a little bit of brown sugar and butter. But kabocha squash is already pretty sweet so I went the savory route. After they were soft and carmelized on the bottom, I cut up the pieces and tossed them in a salad with kale, dried cranberries, feta, red onion and pepitas. 

By the way — you need a good knife when cutting your kabocha. I’m learning the hard way that I am in desperate need of a new knife set.

xo

It’s been freakishly warm this week in SF, but I want it to feel like fall dang it! So I decided to make chili in order to hurry the weather along.

My chili recipes are always slightly different (that’s why I love this stuff, stick to a few key things and it’ll always taste good), but bear the same things in common: Lots of vegetables, lots of chunk and lots of spice. Nothing like that mushy, canned stuff. This time I opted to mix in some red pepper, zucchini and corn.

I chop up my vegetables pretty thickly, so they’re still nice and chunky after they’ve been simmering for a while.

(Chunky is kind of a gross word, but you know what I mean).

Half a white/yellow onion goes into a pot of hot olive oil. I mix in plenty of red pepper flakes at this stage and a healthy pinch of salt. After a minute or so, I add a couple cloves of minced garlic, and sauteé until golden.

Next, I add in some canned tomatoes, and two cans of beans (liquid and all!), bringing it to a healthy simmer. Now, it’s spice time. I eyeball this part, but I add a lot of spice because I love it. Big dashes of chili powder, paprika and cumin.

I like my vegetables to have a subtle char, so I broiled the zucchini and pepper for 10 minutes or so with some salt, pepper and olive oil.

Hopefully by now, the chili is simmering beautifully. That’s when I mix all the veggies in (I used frozen corn because they don’t have fresh ears at Whole Foods anymore), and let it cook for a couple more minutes.

Yum! Delicious, chunky (yup, I’m going to keep saying it) veggie chili. If you like cheese as much as I do, top with a sprinkle (or a handful…) of cheddar cheese, a few slices of avocado and a few splashes of Tapatío.

PS: Fall — hurry up!

xo