This autumn casserole is a hearty, warming, deep-dish meal from a local chef (otherwise known as my husband). It's brilliant for breakfast with fresh pressed coffee, or satisfying for supper with a loaf of crusty bread and a brimming mug of apple cider. Our apologies for the lack of photography--we keep eating our recipes before we have time to capture them on film.If you love fall flavors, check out my one-week seasonal fall meal plan HERE, and add this recipe to the menu!Autumn Spaghetti Squash Casserole This autumn casserole is a hearty and warming deep-dish meal that's perfect for fall! Enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, or ... Continue Reading
Foraging 101
Last week Eric and I went foraging for wild apples. I'd scoped out the tree previously, sampled its bounty, and couldn't wait to return. A friend and I were walking on a trail when we spotted the tree a few yards off in the underbrush. The apples were bumpy and lumpy and speckled with green and brown and many had tiny holes drilled in them by earlier (non-human) foragers. Unappealing peels. But a tentative bite proved that the inner flesh was firm and tart-sweet; the only thing I spit out was the core.As an added bonus, my friend and I had also found a crabapple tree that day, the fruit of which was gorgeous, but the taste rather strong. ... Continue Reading
Blueberry Breakfast Pie
End of September approaching. Food supplies running low. Overspending food budget imminent, or....not?I made a list of meals we could make with food we still had. A bit of a challenge, with no milk or butter left, minimal cheese and fresh produce, and not many eggs. But I came up with quite a few things that will be tasty as well as nourishing, like rice and beans, potato soup, pork curry, hamburgers (I'm trying out a new bun recipe!), cozy lentils, and oatmeal.Obviously, we have more food than I thought. I even made coconut pie the other day, subbing watered-down yogurt for the milk! As I considered these things, an interesting ... Continue Reading
Curried Salmon Pasta
Pink. The colour factor alone gives you strong reason to eat salmon.Plus, this fish seems to be swimming all over health media, with terms like "Omega 3," and "heart-healthy" in its wake, while people with a lot of initials in their wake try to fillet these terms so that we can understand them.But to cut the crabapples and get to the good stuff (i.e. the recipe in this post), I'm just going to do a very brief summary of why one should eat salmon. (For the primary reason, please refer to the first sentence.) According to an article on WHFoods, which has an extensive list of references and sources, there are several standout benefits of ... Continue Reading
Manifesto, or A Developing Approach to Healthy Eating
It takes time to develop your personal approach to real food! Here's my manifesto for healthy eating, plus how I'm progressing on my real food journey.When I was little I had a great appreciation for food, but never worried much about what I ate. Multiple reasons for this: Mom was a good cook and created colorful meals, "worrying" about food was for adults, and the doctor never, ever told me to lose weight (yes, the italics imply the opposite). But as I've increasingly selected and bought my own food, I realized there was more to consider about food than weight and diets, and that I could benefit from a little more research on how to ... Continue Reading
Vodka Pasta and Spinach with Goat Cheese
Here's an easy meal to use for a weeknight...but it tastes gourmet enough for a special dinner, too! Get recipes for Vodka Pasta and for Spinach with Goat Cheese.According to tradition, when a Marshall's birthday rolls around, that individual gets the pleasure of coming up with a birthday menu for the day (or at least one meal). I'm not exactly a Marshall any more, but thankfully this is a tradition that only expands with marriage (i.e. new husbands get the benefits too).I've had many years to dream up the most delectable and decadent menus, and sometimes even insisted on cooking all the meals myself. Bacon cream cheese chicken bake ... Continue Reading
Stuffed Yellow Squash
Is your garden overflowing with summer produce? This stuffed yellow squash makes a good summer side dish or frugal vegetarian meal! It's super easy to make.Recently, we were given a plethora of garden-fresh squash, and Eric came up with this delicious recipe to use some of them. This would be a great main for your next vegetarian meal. We had a cucumber-tomato-vinegar salad on the side. Even without having free produce to work with, this is a very frugal meal, and is quite filling.P.S. Get a printable summer produce guide here, to help you eat seasonally!Stuffed Yellow Squash This stuffed yellow squash makes a good summer ... Continue Reading
Fruit Feature: Blueberries! (part 2)
Ready for more blueberry recipes? The following three blueberry recipes can be made with fresh or frozen blueberries, and involve simmering the berries into a hot concentrated form as a first step. Blueberry Cordial The raspberry cordial incident in Anne of Green Gables is quite memorable, and although Anne and Dianna did not actually drink the real thing on that occasion, the name always lingered in my mind as something that would be positively delicious to sip on a hot summer afternoon. One of the first things that came to mind when I was picking blueberries was to make a "cordial" out of them. So here's what I came up with.About 4 ... Continue Reading
Fruit Feature: Blueberries! (part 1)
Occasionally, I have been pleasantly plagued by the question of what my all-time favourite berry is. Anyone with me on that? Well, after dipping into a handful of freshly-picked blueberries last week and experiencing their familiar pop of sweetness I realized that they are, and always have been, my favourite berry.Sadly, we haven't had the easy and unhindered access to them that we've enjoyed in years past. The blueberry bushes in our backyard are still growing up, and don't provide the steady supply that those at Kent Drive did, much less the bounty of Marshall's Farm.Mercifully, I was tipped off by a few customers that ... Continue Reading
Fresh Homemade Chickpea Hummus
The little store-bought tubs of hummus cost...way too much! Make your own frugal homemade blender hummus with this easy recipe! This easy homemade hummus uses chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, and garlic for a delicious dip or sandwich spread.An odd smell was coming from the kitchen of the old brick Victorian that I shared with 25 other study abroad students. I investigated and discovered a gigantic pot of mashed goo simmering on the stove. Apparently, a group of my colleagues were making hummus.Wow, I thought, when do they have time to write essays?I was impressed, though. I'd never seen hummus made from scratch! I ... Continue Reading
