Squash & Black Bean Wraps with Chile-Lime Sauce

Fall means apples (which are the BEST), but fall also means squash, which is pretty good too. Especially because squash are flavorful and good sources of vitamins and minerals (especially vitamins A & C, potassium, and manganese). So I took inspiration from this recipe and made it my own, roasting chunks of butternut squash with cumin and olive oil, then tossing them in a zesty chili-lime sauce with black beans, and wrapping it all up for an easy, delicious and nutritious meal.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1" cubes (~2 lbs)

1 1/2 cups black beans, cooked (1 14 oz can, drained & rinsed)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1-2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 recipe chili-lime sauce (see below)

6 large whole wheat tortillas

fresh cilantro or arugula, for garnish

Chile-Lime Sauce:

1/3 cup lime juice

1 small serrano chile, seeded and finely diced

2 Tbsp fresh cilantro

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper

pinch salt

1/4 cup low fat plain greek yogurt

Directions:

1. Spread squash on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with cumin and salt, then toss to coat.

2. Roast squash in a 400 degree F oven until tender and slightly browned (35-40 min), flipping pieces about halfway through.

3. Meanwhile, combine ingredients for chili-lime sauce, except for yogurt, in a blender. Puree, then heat in a small saucepan just until boiling. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Once cool, stir chili-lime mixture into yogurt.

4. Combine squash in a bowl with black beans. Drizzle chili-lime sauce over all, and toss to coat. Scoop mixture into tortillas, then top with cilantro or arugula.

Serves 6

Note: these wraps can be enjoyed warm or cold! I made up the mixture, then stored it in an airtight container in the fridge, and have been scooping out some to make up a fresh wrap each day for my lunch.

Apple & Goat Cheese Mini Calzones with Cider Mustard

This past Saturday I woke up to a chilly breeze coming through my bedroom window. The farmer's market was brimming with acorn squash, pumpkins, and apples. I don't care that it's early September, I have declared the arrival of fall (my favorite season). So of course I made a trek to the apple orchard. In spite of a rough season, with a spring freeze and brutal drought, I was still able to come home with 4 brimming pecks of fresh apples and a gallon of cider. I wait the entire year for this time to come around again; I love most fruits, but nothing compares to apple season. I could probably go all Bubba Blue with apples, listing off the many apple concoctions I've made (or my mom made while I was growing up) and love...and no doubt you'll see some of my favorites in the coming weeks. 

For now, we'll start with something a little different - a savory apple dish. After all, why should we limit the delicious apple to only sweet dishes? The combination of the sweet-tart apple with mildly tangy goat cheese and a judicious sprinkling of herbs in a hearty whole wheat crust is perfect, and when you dip it into a little cider mustard, it's the way that fall should be. The mini calzones come together really quickly, so your gratification need not be delayed (to be particularly efficient, you can slice the onions with a mandoline - I did - and prepare the other ingredients while the onions cook). If you choose to make the homemade mustard, I would recommend doing that a couple of days in advance, since fresh mustard is really potent. You can also cheat and mix brown sugar and cider into quality store-bought Dijon mustard if you don't have the patience. Another bonus is that the calzones freeze well, so you can pop them out of the freezer and enjoy a little apple-y deliciousness long after apple season is over.

Apple & Goat Cheese Mini Calzones

recipe adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

1 recipe whole wheat pizza dough (pick your favorite)

1/2 Tbsp butter

1 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced

1 large crisp apple

6 oz chevre goat cheese

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 

2 tsp dried thyme (or 2 Tbsp fresh)

1 tsp dried rosemary (or 1 tsp fresh)

olive oil and sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

2. If making your own dough, make it first and allow to rise.

3. While dough rises, combine butter and onion in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onions have "carmelized" (are mostly browned). This will take 15-20 min.

4. Peel and dice apple. Combine goat cheese, Parmesan cheese, thyme, and rosemary in a bowl.

5. Roll dough out into a rectangle, and cut into 12 3x3" squares.

6. Top squares successively with onion slices, apple, and a dollop of cheese mixture.

7. Fold top over filling mixture, and tuck in edges to seal. Brush tops with olive oil and a light sprinkling of sea salt.

8. Place calzones on a pizza stone or baking sheet generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Bake at 500 degrees F until tops are golden and crispy. Cool for a few minutes before serving (or, cool completely and store in airtight bags in the freezer for up to 3 months). Dip in cider mustard or your preferred dipping sauce.
Serves 3-4 as a main dish, or 6 as an appetizer

Cider Mustard

recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

1/2 cup mustard seeds, mixture of yellow and brown

1/3 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup fresh apple cider

3 Tbsp dark brown sugar

1 tsp salt, heaping

Directions:

1. Place mustard seeds in a glass pint jar or medium mixing bowl, and add enough water to cover seeds by 3 inches. Allow to soak at room temperature for ~12 h or overnight.

2. Drain excess water from seeds. Add to a blender with the remaining ingredients, and blend until smooth.

3. Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving, or store in a non-reactive container in the fridge for 2 months (will probably last longer than that, use your judgement). Mustard will be quite spicy to begin with, but will mellow within a few days.
Makes ~1 1/2 cups mustard

Slow Cooker Market Vegetarian Chili

OK, so it's early September, it's 80 degrees out, and probably the last thing on your mind is curling up with a hot bowl of chili. However, both cross-country (important to me) and American football (important to other people) started their seasons this past weekend, so I take that as justification for thinking about autumn. What's more, there's all sorts of delicious produce in season right now (tomatoes and peppers galore) that's just asking to be mixed up into a delicious chili. I took a mixture of heirloom and juicy red tomatoes, a rainbow of peppers (bell peppers, poblanos, and hot peppers), fresh corn, and a hearty mixture of beans for a filling, flavorful, and delicious vegan chili. The best part is that once you've peeled and chopped your veggies, you can throw everything in the slow cooker and forget about it until you're ready to devour.

I don't have a cornbread recipe to go with this post, but chili and cornbread are two things that should definitely go together, so I highly recommend whipping up your favorite version of cornbread (I really like this cornmeal, by the way, which is GMO-free, economically priced, and locally produced in Indiana - and you can get it naturally blue!).

Also, if you want to take advantage of the abundance of produce in your garden or local farmer's market but can't bring yourself to eat a bowl of chili in the late summer heat, this chili freezes well in airtight containers, so it'll be waiting for you on that first nippy day in late fall.

Ingredients

1 cup dry black beans (or 14 oz can)

1 cup dry pinto beans (or 14 oz can)

1 cup dry great northern beans (or 14 oz can)

3-4 lbs tomatoes, peeled, seeded & chopped (I used the tomatoes shown & supplemented with a 28 oz can of organic diced tomatoes)

2 green/purple bell peppers, diced

4 poblano peppers, diced

2 small jalepeno peppers, diced (or more if you like your chili hot!)

3-4 ears of corn (~2 cups kernels)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp ground cumin

1/2-1 tsp dried chipotle pepper

salt, to taste

Directions

1. If using dry beans: rinse beans, then mix together, cover with water, and allow to soak in a 6 quart slow cooker at room temperature overnight (no heat!). First thing in the morning, turn on the slow cooker to high, and allow beans to cook for ~1 hour. Pour off water before adding other ingredients.

2. If using canned beans, add them now. Stir in chopped tomatoes, peppers, corn, and garlic. Add in a little tomato sauce if there doesn't seem to be enough liquid (I added ~1/2 cup). Cook chili on high (~3 hours) or low (~6 hours), or until beans are tender.

3. At end of cooking, add in cumin and chipotle pepper, and salt, if using (since I used canned tomatoes and like to keep the sodium low, I didn't add any additional salt). Allow to cook on low for another 10-20 min, and adjust seasonings to taste.

Turkey Burgers with Cherry Catsup & Goat Cheese

My mom recently gifted me with a copy of an old-time Midwestern cookbook from 1877. As a bit of a history nerd, I find it fascinating to see how cooking, and food tastes, have (and haven't) changed over the years. Some recipes are probably best left to the past (umm, fried cow tongue? no thanks), and others I've added to my ever-growing list of recipes I'd love to give a try when I have the time (sigh). One that seemed particularly intriguing, and surprisingly easy, was one for "cherry catsup". Knowing that I had to make this, I thought of uses for it. Well, of course catsup goes with burgers, and what else? Goat cheese - of course! Add some farm-fresh spinach and tomato, and you've got yourself a burger you're not going to forget. I seasoned the ground turkey with a few basil leaves that I plucked from my kitchen plant, and I really think I'm going to do that from now on, cherry catsup or not, because the flavor was out of this world.

A note on the cherry juice: I just want to save you the shock of searching out cherry juice at the grocery store, only to find that a pint of juice is at least $8.50. Completely outside of my price range, to say the least! For a more economical option, pick up a bag of cherries (the tart kind, not sweet cherries); fresh, if you can get them in season, or frozen, like I did. It's really easy to get the juice out of them yourself, so it's worth the effort.

Ingredients

4 hamburger buns, split*

1 lb ground turkey

~1/4 cup basil leaves, torn

pinch of salt

goat cheese

several spinach leaves

4 slices tomato

For Cherry Catsup:

2 cups tart cherries (or 1 cup tart, unsweetened cherry juice)

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cloves

large pinch cayenne pepper

2 tsp corn starch (in 2 Tbsp water)

Directions:

1. Mash cherries with a fork, then pour through a fine mesh colander, collecting the juice into a small pot, and gently pressing on the cherries to extract as much of the juice as you can (this will be easiest if the cherries are at room temperature).

2. Add sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne pepper, then bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and allow juice to cook down.

3. Once mixture has cooked down to about half volume, add in corn starch mixture, stirring well.  You can omit the cornstarch if you wish, but I didn't have the patience to wait two hours for the juice to cook down to the appropriate consistency.

4. Continue to heat until mixture has a catsup-like consistency. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Extra catsup can be stored in the fridge or freezer.

To Assemble:

1. Mix together turkey, basil leaves, and salt (& pepper, if desired). Gently form into 4 balls, then flatten. Grill or broil until heated through.

2. Spread goat cheese over top half of hamburger buns. Pile turkey burger, tomato, and spinach on bottom half, spoon cherry catsup over, then sandwich two halves together.

*make these hamburger buns (the recipe is super easy, and they're cheaper and better than the foamy buns you'd get at the grocery store - plus you can freeze the extras for 3-4 months in a sealed bag)

Pasta Bowls

Credit for this recipe goes 100% to my creative husband. He was looking at a flier in our mail for a local pizza place, saw the pasta bowls and thought, "hey, I can make that!" And make it he did. I'm not going to pretend that this is the healthiest thing you've ever eaten, but there's definitely plenty of potential variety here, and I'm willing to bet it's more delicious and still healthier than you'd get at a restaurant. You can fill it with whatever pasta and sauce combination you want, and if I didn't have a picky husband, I'd make the pizza dough with whole wheat. Instead of butter, you could always use olive oil to baste. In the end, of course, it's the taste that counts, and my husband really made a winner here. :)

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (or 3/4 cup whole wheat + 1/2 cup all-purpose)

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or one envelope)

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup warm water

6 oz pasta (rotini or penne), cooked

1/2 cup pasta sauce (pick your favorite - I like Newman's Own tomato & basil)

shredded mozzarella cheese

grated parmesan cheese

4 Tbsp butter

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2-1 tsp italian seasoning (basil & oregano)

Directions:

1. Add flour, yeast, salt, and water to a medium mixing bowl. Mix ingredients until well-combined.

2. Stir in additional flour in small portions, adding in as much as you can.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, kneading in additional flour as necessary.

4. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turning once. Cover and let rise until double (~20 min).

5. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide in half.

6. Shape each half into a ball and place on a pizza stone or baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal (the cornmeal keeps the bottom from sticking or burning).

7. Bake at 400 degrees F for 35 minutes, or until lightly golden.

8. Cut an angled circle out of the top of the bowls, and scoop out bread from the middle (you can use the extra to make bread crumbs or croutons later!).

9. Toss pasta with sauce and spoon into bowls.

10. Sprinkle generously with cheese; if you want it extra cheesy, add cheese in layers with the pasta.

11. Place top back on, then baste bowls with garlic butter mixture using a pastry brush. (To make garlic butter: add butter, garlic, and italian seasoning to a glass measuring cup, then microwave and stir - baste while still hot).

12. Return bowls to oven, and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, baste a second time, then bake for 5-10 minutes more.

13. Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes, and enjoy!

Makes 2 pasta bowls

Rainbow Pepper Hamburgers with Oven-Baked Fries

I'm usually not a fan of beef, but every once in a while, a hamburger is a delicious thing. If I'm going to eat a hamburger, though, I'm not going to settle for McDonald's or Burger King - I really want to have it my way. There's nothing more satisfying than preparing a meal that is usually highly processed and contains goodness-knows-what additives, completely from scratch, knowing exactly what's going into your food.

My husband and I recently got around to buying a food processor, and it hasn't taken long at all to see that it was a good decision! There really is nothing better than grinding meat for hamburgers yourself, and it takes almost no time (you can also slice up the peppers that way, too, although I'd do that before the grinding the meat). This meal was a special weekday treat, but it did take a little teamwork to save time. My husband is a bread-baking fiend, so he created some delicious hamburger buns, and when I got home from lab, I ground up the hamburger patties. I found some sweet bell peppers on sale, so I took the opportunity to make a colorful and unique burger. You really can create any sort of meat burgers you want, or you can forget about the meat altogether and opt for black bean burgers (which I'd like to try myself sometime). And, of course, what burger is complete without fries?

Serves 4

Hamburgers 
(makes 4 burgers)

1 lb chuck roast, excess fat trimmed

1/4 tsp chili powder

1 clove garlic, minced

dash salt

dash pepper

2 sweet bell peppers, sliced in thin rings

 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

4 slices gouda or provolone cheese

spinach or romaine leaves

condiments

Buns 
(makes 8 buns - freeze half for later!)

~3 cups bread flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 package active yeast

4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter

1 1/4 cup low-fat milk

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg, slightly beaten

Oven-baked fries 
(makes 4 servings)

2 large Russet potatoes, washed

extra-virgin olive oil

salt & seasonings

Fresh Hamburger Buns:

1. Sift together 2 cups of flour and yeast in a medium mixing bowl.

2. Heat milk, sugar, salt, and butter in a small saucepan on low heat, just until butter is melted.

3. Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients; add egg and mix well.

4. Beat in as much flour as you can.

5. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface; knead for roughly 5 minutes, adding flour until dough is stiff but elastic.

6. Grease a bowl with olive oil, then put dough into bowl and cover. Let rise for 1 hour in a warm place, or until double.

7. Punch dough down. Let rest for 10 minutes, then divide dough into 8 equal pieces.

8. Let pieces rest for 10 minutes.

9. Fold dough inward to form tight, round buns.

10. Lightly sprinkle a pizza stone with cornmeal; arrange buns on stone (if you don't have a pizza stone, you can arrange the buns on a lightly greased baking sheet).

11. Bake in a 400 degree F oven for 20-30 min, or until buns are golden brown.
12. Allow buns to cool on a wire rack. After cooling completely, extra buns can be stored in an airtight container in a freezer for 1-2 months.

Oven-baked Fries:
1. Cut potatoes into squared strips (you may want to cut the potato in half first if it's big enough).
2. Place fries on a lightly greased baking sheet. Drizzle lightly with olive oil, salt, and desired herbs or seasonings.
3. Bake fries at 375 degrees F until crisp and slightly browned (20-30 min). Be sure to turn fries about 15 min into baking to ensure even cooking.

Home-ground Hamburgers:

1. While chuck roast is still cold, roughly cut into 1 inch pieces.

2. Dividing into two batches, place chunks in food processor, and pulse until roughly ground. Put both batches back into food processor, then add garlic, chili powder, salt, and pepper, and pulse until meat is ground to the right consistency. Note: watch carefully while processing, otherwise you'll end up with meat puree!

3. Divide and gently shape meat into 4 patties.

4. Cook burgers on grill or broil to desired doneness.

5. Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a small saucepan on medium heat. Add peppers, and sauté until crisp-tender (about 3-4 min).
6. Slice hamburger buns; top with burger, cheese, peppers, spinach, and desired condiments.