Moving Time

Morning-

I finally made the switch over to wordpress last night so check out the site in its new home!

http://soundztastee.wordpress.com/

Still working out kinks but it should be fully functional by the end of the week.

xoxo,

Nicole

Baked polenta

Unfortunately not everyone made it out so well, my CSA farm was completely under water after the wrath of Irene.

Before:

Fortunately everyone made it through the storm unharmed as did a good amount of the harvest. Unfortunately, today the FDA ruled that any produce under flood waters could not be sold or consumed-so no more deliveries for the remainder of the summer/fall. Of course this is a major bummer, I love fall vegetables and was dreaming off new creations. However, that's the great thing about Community Share Agriculture and supporting our local family farmers. Despite this major set back which could have bankrupted any other farmer, we know that ours will be slightly better off thanks to our promised financial support.

On to tonight's dinner-baked butternut squash.

I think this one toped Sunday's dinner of baked butternut squash pasta.

Yield 2

Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• ~1/2 butternut squash puree
• 1/8 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• a dash of cream
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Heat oven to 350*

Bring broth to a boil, once boiling immediately add in cornmeal and vigorously mix with a whisk. Once boiling resumes, turn to a simmer and stir occasionally for about 10 minutes or until thick. Add in pureed squash, splash of cream, and parmesan cheese. Mix thoroughly and finally add baking powder. You can also leave out baking powder and enjoy as a creamy polenta.

Grease 2 ramekins and add polenta mix. Bake to desired consistency, for me about 10 minutes.

I allowed to cool, added vegetables, and an over easy egg-my go to lately.

Oh so good!!

Later,

Nicole

Baked Butternut Squash Pasta

In the end the storm didn't do too much damage to NYC. In my area there were a few branches down, some residual water, but otherwise, not so bad.

In Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs there was lots of flooding and a tornado watch. My grandmother is without electricity at her house as is my uncle and his family.

Last night I fell asleep around 1 am, too much energy thanks to all the news coverage. We also had a tornado warning until 5 am and I was debating if I should sleep in my room or in the hall. In the end I passed out in my bed after to speaking to Matt who is currently in sunny California. 5 short hours later I was abruptly woken up by the fire alarm in my building. My roommate rushed out of our apartment to see if neighbors were evacuating, no one. We debated going downstairs but given no notice on the intercom system we went back to bed. Just a short while later the alarm when off again, but no word from our apartment and it didn't seem so bad outside. Once more I tried to fall asleep but then my phone start buzzing like crazy with everyone checking up on me. I gave up on sleep and grabbed breakfast.

The rest of the morning and afternoon were spent reading, once I was able to pull myself away from my book I decided to walk around. There were so many people up and about. Apart from a bit of rain it was so refreshing outside. Clean, crisp air, and with only a few cars driving about it was pretty quiet.

With the cooler weather, and maybe ready for this dreary August to be over (17 inches of rain fell this month, that's a record breaking number!), I had fall on the mind. Fall to me means all things pumpkin or squash, hayrides, and apple picking. Mmm, maybe I'm not so ready for the last two, but I'm ready to bring on the winter vegetables!

Thanks to my resourcefulness :) -I have plenty of winter squash in the freezer. I pulled out some butternut squash and thawed in the microwave. 5 minutes on high, stirred, cooked for 1 more minute. Now what to do with it...

Tonight, it was a Baked Butternut Squash Pasta

Ingredients:

-6 oz of winter/butternut squash (mine was pureed from last summer, can also find frozen at the grocery store)

-serving of pasta (whatever kind you would like, I used linguine because it's what I had on hand-macaroni would do well with this dish)

-tablespoon olive oil

-1/4 cup of onion

-1 garlic clove

-1 tablespoon of cream

-vegetable stock

-1/8 cup of parmesan cheese (I think, sorry I didn't really measure)

-breadcrumbs to sprinkle before placing into the oven

Heat oven to 350*. Boil water and cook pasta according to package. Meanwhile, in a frying pan with medium heat add oil, once hot throw in garlic and onion and cook until tender.

Throw in the squash and cook for another minute stirring occasionally. Add cream (could also use plain greek yogurt), and vegetable stock until it reaches your desired consistency. I added a couple of tablespoons. I wanted to keep the sauce thick but spreadable-if that makes sense. Take away from heat and add cheese, stir thoroughly.

Drain pasta and add it to the frying pan. Again mix everything together. Grease a ramekin and transfer pasta and squash mixture. Sprinkle with a bit of seasoned breadcrumbs and a bit more cheese.

Place into 350* oven for 7-10 minutes, then switch to broiler for 1-2 minutes to get nice and crisp on top.

I will be making this dish lots this fall. An easy dish for 1 person and can easily be modified for a larger group. To me it also just screamed fall, just what I wanted. The only thing missing was a pumpkin ale. Note to self, keep an eye out for pumpkin beer!

Night,

Nicole

PS-Kinda wish I had cable tonight. Everyone on facebook switched from discussing the hurricane to talking about the MTV VMA's. My mom had to be the one to tell me that Beyonce is pregnant, now that's just sad.

PPS-My mom is watching because my teenage sister is watching and she's in the room.

Not Your Momma's Home Fries

Given a sweet potato I usually cut it up into wedges and pop under the broil for a quick "french fry." But with a bit more time on my hands and no where to go thanks to the weather, I decided to make home-fries but using a sweet potato to kick up the nutritional value.

Not Your Momma's home fries

Yield: 1 large serving, 2 small

1 sweet potato cut into small cubes

1 bell pepper (I used a lilac pepper)

1/2 of a small onion

clove of garlic

oliver oil to coat pan

-Heat oil in pan, add potatoes (they will take the longest to cook).

-Once potatoes begin to soften, stir occasionally, add the remaining ingredients.

-Cook until crisp.

-Transfer to plate and paper towel to drain excess oil.

Viola! I ate up my potatoes with an over easy egg, yum.

Time for some more reading-at the moment it's been mostly for pleasure. Currently reading Cutting for Stone, I highly recommend, it's very engaging and the writing is phenomenal

Catch ya later,

Nicole

The calm before the storm

Madison and 5th ave looked a bit different this morning:

As of 5:45 am yesterday morning I was packing my bag and preparing to leave the city fearing for the worst. More than 24 hours later I'm still in NYC. My gut told me to stay-and one should go with his/her gut feeling, right? Well I'm prepared for the worst-have my batteries, flashlight, water, dry food, etc.; but still hoping for the best!

I also plan to make use of a weekend stuck inside by reading lots and beginning grant/fellowship proposals. Sounds fun right!?!

I began the morning with a nice iced coffee and stretched my legs by taking a little walk/run to and through Central Park (yay my knee is finally on the road to recovery!!).

Came home did a little bodyrock and finished off with a brief pilates session for a nice stretch.

Had a nice simple lunch-burrito and asian coleslaw:

I had intended to also roast some vegetables for dinner but couldn't avoid my sweet tooth so instead of healthy vegetables (which I will still cook later) I wiped up a batch of cake batter blondies-but what else is a girl to do when stuck inside? Well I guess there is work...

Stay dry and safe,

Nicole

Fail

The plan this weekend was to catch up some blogging but then on the cab ride to the bus station to catch a ride to Philly I realized I left my laptop charger on my bed. So much for trying to get some much needed reading done this weekend. Then on top of it my camera's batteries died. Fail!!

Oh well, better late than never.

Thursday night I had dinner with Matt, the last for a month. He left for California on Saturday for another medical school rotation.

We made use of my CSA lime basal (this stuff is amazing, smells just like lime), peppers, and a few other ingredients picked up for the market and threw together a Thai inspired clams dish.

Ingredients:

-1 tablespoon olive oil

-2 cloves garlic, minced

-1 small onion (or in my case half of a very large onion)

-2 tablespoons minced ginger

-1 bell pepper

-crushed pepper, add to your liking

-1 16 oz can light coconut milk

-1 cup dry white wine

- 1-2 pounds of clams

-juice of 1 lime

-handful of basal

Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan. One oil is hot add garlic, onion, ginger, bell pepper, and crushed pepper. Cook until limp, about 3 minutes. Add in coconut milk and wine, stir, bring to a boil. Add clams and cook an additional 3-5 minutes (clams should be open at this point if not cook for 1-2 minutes longer). Add lime and basal and stir.

Serve on top of a bed of rice.

Later,

Nicole

Sunday Eats

I was dragging most of Sunday and the rain did not help at all.

I started off my morning with a filling bowl of oatmeal. It's been sometime since I've had oatmeal but the dreary weather had me craving a large bowl.

Lunch consisted of pizza and a salad

went back for the other half.

After some writing I was craving something sweet and decided to whip a batch of skinny cookies from Carrots'N'Cake.

I then finished cooking for the dinner I was suppose to be hosting at Ryan's house.

Again the menu was inspired by my CSA goodies for the week. Lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplant resulted in a Greek inspired dinner.

First corse-cheese plate, grapes, etc.

Main-Baba Ghanoush ,

Greek Salad,

and Roasted Seafood Orzo-inspired by this recipe.

For dessert I attempted this dimply plum cake with peach sorbet. Oddly my plums sunk to the bottom of the dish-weird.

I had very little appetite last night and was just overall exhausted. I ended up eating only a few grapes, a small portion of dinner along with a glass of wine, and skipped dessert all together. Maybe it was my larger lunch? And again my workouts have been pretty tame the last 3 weeks so I guess my appetite has really died. I'm pretty okay with that and am wondering if I want to go back to such intense workouts once my knee improves. I really like the idea of short intense workouts as inspired by BodyRock.tv with a couple of days of longer cardio thrown in the mix. Mmm, we shall see...

Later,

Nicole